Faced with a problem, should we focus on symptoms or on the fundamentals that generate those symptoms?

What does your common sense tell you?  In practice, we know that it is often a difficult choice. 

THEE was developed with the belief that a scientific identification of fundamentals in personal life was possible.  It differed from the usual social science approach in making the focus of observation (and validation) people in the midst of committed action.  A person who is committed is an entirely different being from a subject in a psychology experiment or a random respondent in a social survey. More...

Are you and your brain essentially the same thing?  There is a materialistic fashion at present to answer: "Yes. Of course, how else could it be?"  But: It could be that transcendental ideas are relevant and some medical scientists would agree.

However, in recent years scientific fellow-travellers have fallen in love with a reductionistic neuroscience.  They have no trouble writing sentences like: 

When we are deprived of sensory input, we generate images using our memory and keep our consciousness agents busy by playing back memories.  

But do «we» generate those images?  Do «I» play back memories?  Or do such things happen to me/us?  Do you reach puberty or does puberty happen to you?  Do you grow old?  Or is aging happenstance?

There is an enormous difference More...

Perhaps creativity and intelligence exist in different universes. Although I have had kind words to say about AGI (Artificial General Intelligence), I sometimes despair.  A new free online service, LifeNaut, allows you to build "mindfiles" to preserve your essential unique qualities.  By this, they mean your videos, photos, documents, maps of your trips.  Can anyone really think that this is their "mind"?  Your exact physical location when reading this blog is unique, totally and absolutely—but does it capture your uniqueness?  This outfit has created a robot that acquires new experiences and knowledge by interacting with videocams and voice-recognition software. Frankly, I feel embarrassed on behalf of humanity.

The crucial issue for these AGI researchers and their brilliant leader, Ray Kurzweil, seems to lie in their perception of More...

Animal reality, the reality experienced by animals, is on my mind.  Look at Mali (spelled มะลิม, Thai for "jasmine", pronounced ma-LEE), my young golden labrador, the one with the snout and happy to be  close to Angie, our family เพื่อน (pronounced purr-un, meaning "friend").  I always wanted a dog, but the possibility only arose very recently.  She is immensely lovable and so forgiving, seemingly incapable of resentment.

It brought back to me the issue of how much of the THEE taxonomy is available to animals.  By available, I mean is 'animal reality' something that is experienced and used naturally and spontaneously by a dog (say) as we use our psychosocial reality.  Most people, but not TOP website members, are unaware that More...

No doctrine can deliver virtue or character.  So none can ensure that using power to apply the supposedly beneficial doctrine will be safe and wise.

Character flows from our humanity, the same source as the power that we use.  It is wonderful that this humanity and this power is irrepressible.

However, our humanity is a tricky thing and using power is even trickier.  We are not  dealing with good that is unproblematic.  Humanity is built on an endless conflict between one good and something else that is also good.  Of all these conflicts in relation to using power, and there are many, perhaps the most significant is that between what is good for our humanity and what is good for our society. 

As you know: evil is choice of the lesser good, and of these two, More...