​But if we stop analyzing these concepts through the lens of philosophy or morality and look strictly at the actual, physical mechanics of nature, we find something entirely different.

​In nature, there are no opposites.

​The Physical Reality vs. The Psychological Scale

​In the physical world, things simply exist in varying degrees of presence.

• ​Light is a physical reality—it is made of photons. Darkness is not a competing physical substance; it is merely the absence of light.

• ​Heat is thermal energy—the movement of atoms. Cold is not a separate freezing force; it is simply less atomic movement.

​The physical body has senses to navigate these factual gradients. If your skin registers cold, you move to warmth. This is a direct, immediate, unconditional movement. It requires no mental debate, no moral evaluation, and no psychological drama. You do not sit in the cold room judging yourself as "bad" or "lacking" because you feel chilly. You simply move.

​The distortion occurs when psychological insecurity hijacks this sensory system.

The Two Ends of the Ruler

​When we operate from the unconscious belief that we are not inherently "enough," we must create a system to measure and monitor our survival. We construct a scale of judgment.

​We label one end "Good" and the other end "Bad."

​We think we are doing something noble by trying to stay on the "good" end of the scale. We try to be "good" people, make "good" choices, and feel "good" emotions. But we fail to see the mechanics of the scale itself:

​You cannot have a ruler with only one end.

​The moment you validate "Good" as a psychological destination, you simultaneously manufacture "Bad" as a threat. The scale is a single, artificial unit of measurement born entirely out of psychological insecurity. We created morals, ethics, and rigid values to counterbalance the terrifying feeling of our own perceived inadequacy.

​We think the goal of life is to win the battle on the scale. But the true movement of freedom is to drop the scale entirely.

Returning to the Unconditional Act

​Animals do not compare their present state to a "better time" in the past; therefore, they do not psychologically suffer. They experience physical pain, they react, and they return to presence.

​Joy is not the opposite of sorrow. Joy is simply what is naturally present when the artificial scale of judgment is not blocking it. It is the natural baseline of life.

​When you realize you do not need to negotiate with life to prove your worth, the scale vanishes. You are no longer asking, "What should I do to be safe or correct?"

​Instead, you are free to take an unconditional act—to respond directly to your senses and your curiosity, moving through an open field of infinite directions, completely whole.

​But this entire model is upside down. It assumes emotions are an inherent part of the natural state.

​They aren’t. An emotion is a psychological reaction to a belief.

​The Anatomy of a Reaction

​The human brain cannot distinguish between an actual, physical threat in the room and a vivid mental narrative about the past or future. When we step out of the actual, factual moment and entertain a psychological distortion ("I am being rejected," "What if this fails," "They don't value me"), the body instantly produces the chemical and physiological reaction to match that story.

​That chemical surge is what we call an emotion.

​Therefore, emotions are actually a biological feedback loop. They are physical intelligence registering the friction of trying to survive a non-existent, imagined reality.

Two Different Zones of Operation

​•The Actual / Factual Moment: What is occurring right here, right now, in physical space and time. If a physical danger appears, the body moves instantly. There is no time for "emotion" or narrative; there is only immediate, intelligent movement.

​•Psychological Fear: A mental projection masquerading as real life. The body floods with stress because it is trying to fight a ghost.

Moving Past Management

​Trying to "regulate" an emotion without seeing that it is feedback for psychological fear is like putting tape over the oil light on your dashboard. It keeps you trapped in a loop of constant psychological maintenance.

​When you operate from a state of presence without distortion—our natural, unconditioned state of curiosity—you don't need regulation. You see the underlying narrative for what it is: just a mental construct, not reality. The moment presence returns, the psychological fear is revealed to have no physical substance. The feedback loop cuts off, the biological energy settles, and you return to the clean slate.

​Don't manage the smoke. Look at what is lighting the fire.

What we almost never examine is the only place we actually live: the present. Not where we came from or where we’re headed, but what is proper action, now? That question gets handed off to morality — to codes, commandments, rules, and values — and we rarely stop to ask whether morality is even looking in the right direction. I think it isn’t. And to see why, we have to talk about a word we use constantly and almost never define.

A word we pretend to share

We say love dozens of times a day. I love this song. I love my children. I love pizza. I’d love to see you. For a word that carries that much weight, you’d expect we’d agree on what it means. We don’t — not even close.

When a word is that slippery, there’s an old and useful trick: instead of grasping at what it is, start by clearing away what it is not. Subtract the impostors and see what survives.

Love is not threatening. It is not fearful, angry, jealous, or envious. It is not sex, though it can be present in it. It is not possessive. It is not judgment. It is not the reward you get for following a moral code. It is not intentional, not aimed at a specific outcome, not directional, not conditional. It is not something outside of you, and it is not something that can be false. It is not thought. It cannot be measured. It is not a reaction. It is not restricted to humans loving other humans. It is not a transaction. And it is not something you can hold onto.

Read that list slowly, because almost everything we call love lives somewhere on it. Most of what we carry around as love for another person turns out, on inspection, to be wanting, caring, desire, or need — the self’s attachment to something it doesn’t want to lose. That’s worth noticing without shame. It’s just not the thing.

A noun pretending to be a verb

Part of the confusion is grammatical. The concept of love is a noun — and like every concept, the word is only a thin, limited representation of the actual thing, the way the word “mountain” is not the mountain. But actual love isn’t a noun at all. It is only ever met in action. It is a verb.

The self blurs this. It treats “I love her” and “I hate him” as the same kind of statement — two actions issued by an “I.” So the brain sets to work trying to sort which of its actions count as love and which don’t, using analysis, pragmatism, and inherited tradition. But notice something strange: I can clearly add to hate. I can become more resentful, more bitter, build it over years. Can I add to love? Can I become more loving next Tuesday than I am today through planning and effort? The question sounds almost absurd, and that tells you something. Love isn’t an action the “I” derives from thought and initiates on a schedule.

We test it, too, in ways that reveal the confusion. I would die for you. I would sacrifice for you. I feel your pain. We offer these as evidence of love, but each is really a measurement — a transaction the self can point to. Real love doesn’t need the receipt.

What survives

When we truly see what love is, we realize that the moment we stop performing it and simply act without fear or separation, we become it.

Love is action taken wholly, with no division and no fear in it. It is always on — constant, moving, perpetually available, because it isn’t switched on by an object and switched off when the object leaves. It is orderly. It is unconditional and willing. It is whole, and in that sense unlimited. It points in every direction at once rather than at a chosen target. And it is always new — never a repeat, never prescribed. You cannot decide a loving action in advance; the moment you predetermine it, you’ve made it a strategy instead.

Fear reacts. Love interacts. That single line holds the whole distinction. Love is responsible in the literal sense — able to respond — because it isn’t braced against the moment the way fear is. And love has no opposite. We assume its opposite is hate, but hate is just a flavor of fear. The truer statement is this: love has no opposite, but when fear is present, love is not. They don’t fight. One simply isn’t there when the other is.

Life doesn’t ask whether it’s good

Step back from love for a moment and look at life itself, because we are a form of it. A plant, a cell, an animal — none of it pauses to ask whether its next move is morally right. Life doesn’t run on right and wrong. It moves through what works.

And “what works” isn’t a goal slipped in through the back door — not survival, not success, not anything life is straining toward. It’s simply what follows. If something is destructive, it destroys itself. If something is constructive, it thrives, or at least moves easily. That isn’t a standard imposed from outside; it’s a description of how things actually go. Fire doesn’t ask whether it ought to burn. It burns, and what it burns is consumed — and we don’t need a moral law laid on top of that to tell us what happened.

This is the part worth sitting with: life self-corrects through consequence, not through judgment. What undoes itself eventually stops. What sustains itself continues. No verdict required, and none added.

Willing, and the trouble with judgment

Underneath all of this is a simpler thing still. The act of willing — unconditioned, with no resistance, always happening now — is love. Not willing as in straining to want something, but the open, available movement of a living thing meeting its life. When that willing energy takes an action, that action is love.

And here is where morality comes apart in your hands. When life is willing in this way, there are no judgments — because judgment requires standing back, comparing, measuring this against that, ranking. And judgment is what morality is made of. The instant we look at our own lives through the lens of what good action should I take, we begin manufacturing rules, values, habits, codes, oughts. Every one of them is an act of judgment. And judgment, as we’ve seen across this whole inquiry, is the signature of the insecure self — the self that feels unworthy and afraid, and reaches for a standard to measure itself against.

This is not a small claim, so let me say it plainly: Nearly every conflict human beings have ever had with one another grows from this. Not from too little morality, but from the judgment that morality is built out of. We fight because we don’t understand what we are — and so we make up rules about how we should be, and then we punish each other, and ourselves, for falling short of inventions.

The cost of creating opposites

There is a hidden cost to all this judging that we rarely trace back to its source. The moment the self measures experience against the question, “Is this good for me?”, a verdict is returned—and that verdict becomes what we feel.

If the verdict is favorable—praised, desired, accepted—we call the reaction happiness. If it is unfavorable—criticized, denied, rejected—we call it sadness.

Though we treat these feelings as opposites, they are better understood as opposite ends of the same spectrum, generated by the same evaluative process. The mechanism is identical; only the outcome differs. Both are reactions. Both depend on judgment arriving in a particular way.

Which means happiness is not the antidote to sadness. It is its counterpart. To chase one is to accept the possibility of the other, because both arise from the same act of measurement.

This is why “there is no good or bad” isn’t relativism. Good and bad are two extremes on the judgement spectrum — what’s real is simply what works and what doesn’t, which is observed, not decreed. Love isn’t a point on that scale at all; it is on, or it isn’t. And when it’s off, judgment is on, and the reactions begin. So a feeling — any feeling — is really feedback: a signal that you’ve stepped out of the present-moment willing and into measuring. Reactions aren’t something to manage, fix, or “integrate,” they are the needle of your compass telling you where you are in relationship to the present. A reaction does not solve the disturbance it reports. It is the disturbance continuing itself.

But doesn’t something have to stop harm?

By now an objection is forming, and it’s the right one: if we drop judgment and throw out the rule book, what keeps us from harming each other? Doesn’t morality at least hold the worst of us in check?

The answer turns on a question we rarely flip around. We ask, “what rules do I need in order to think clearly?” Try asking the opposite: what would I have to add in order to think badly — to be biased, irrational, confused? You have to add something. A forced conclusion, a bias, a fear. Clear seeing is the default; distortion is the ingredient mixed in. The same holds for action. Harm is not the native state that judgment restrains — harm is what appears when fear and judgment are added to a moment, when the frightened, separated self injects its need to protect itself into a situation that never called for it. Take the addition away and you don’t get chaos. You get the clean default: someone seeing the consequence of an action as plainly as they see that fire burns.

Watch anyone who has truly mastered something. When a great player handles a ball, it moves like an extension of their own hand — no gap, no separation, just one unified movement. That seamless movement is understanding, and it is the exact opposite of the separation fear manufactures. A person acting from that place needs no rule against harm any more than they need a rule reminding them where their own hand is. And notice what this is: action taken wholly, without separation — the very thing we have been calling love. Understanding and love turn out to be the same motion seen from two sides.

So where did the rule book come from, if not from necessity? The values we mistake for morality are simply our reactions to whatever we were taught could hurt us — installed in childhood through reward and punishment, through being called good or bad, accepted or rejected. They are the program that answers “what am I?” And here is the tell: we only go searching for our worth after someone has made us doubt it. The worth was never in question until we were taught to question it.

What a newborn already knows

You can watch the alternative in any infant. We arrive equipped with two things: senses to move through the world, and curiosity to learn it. That’s it. No moral code, no commandments, no sense of sin.

And watch how curiosity moves. It doesn’t build permanent conditions. It doesn’t lay down expectations, assumptions, or fixed conclusions and then defend them to the death. It can hold an understanding temporarily — it grasps that the seed grew into a tree, that the tree was cut and shaped into a chair, that the chair will decay and return to the earth. Curiosity follows the movement without freezing it. It never makes the mistake of believing the chair is a chair forever.

The frightened self does the opposite. It freezes everything, especially itself. And if it has decided it is unworthy, it will go on manufacturing conclusions that prove it so. One of those manufactured conclusions is God — not the inquiry the old traditions began as, but the invention a fearful, separated mind reaches for when it doesn’t understand that it was never broken and never needed saving. Sin and morality come from the same place. They are what fear builds when it mistakes itself for the whole of who we are.

Proper action

So I’ll end where the old debate never starts: in the present, with the question of proper action.

Proper action is not obedience to a code. It isn’t earned, measured, or prescribed in advance. It is what flows from a life that understands it is a life — willing, undistorted, unafraid, not separated from the rest of the moving world. When action originates there, it needs no rules, because there is nothing in it to regulate. That is what the word love is pointing at, underneath everything we’ve piled on top of it.

This isn’t a verdict I’m handing down, this is what I found when I immersed myself as life to understand what I am. It’s an invitation to look. Try the subtraction yourself — clear away everything love is not and see what remains. Watch a child’s curiosity before anyone teaches it to be good. Notice, the next time you reach for a rule, whether you’re acting from understanding or from fear. If you have come along with me I suspect that you too can see that we were never meant to be good. We were meant to understand what we are — and that to understand the movement of unconditional love is to watch the entire machinery of belief, judgment, and morality quietly become unnecessary.

“Be nothing” does not mean becoming empty or detached. It means no psychological “me” — no attachments that create meaningful loss, no past carried forward, no future projections, no evaluations or beliefs defending a separate self.

I tested this in daily life. When a difficult conversation arose, instead of defending “my” position, I noticed the attachment and let the story fall. The interaction became simple, direct, and often resolved naturally.

When thought measures without bias and curiosity remains open, utility flows without self-centered distortion. Love moves without clinging. The present is met without choice or resistance.

Real-life application: Notice one attachment or evaluation today. See it as thought/memory overlay. Let it fall through direct seeing — no trying.

What remains is life — extraordinarily simple and beautiful.

This series is the map I’ve tested myself. It is not doctrine. It is an invitation to look for yourself.

The actual is already here. See it. Nothing more is needed.

This isn’t malice. It’s inherited conditioning. But it passes the same insecurity forward.

• “Be strong/resilient” → child internalizes “I’m inherently weak unless I prove otherwise.”

• Confidence taught as performance → arises from “I’m not enough naturally.”

• Teaching children to regulate feelings → they accept them as real and solid.

• Not allowing full questioning → creates rule-based values instead of curiosity.

• Thinking love can be increased or decreased → children never see unconditional, willing love in action.

When we parent from our own insecurity, children inherit separation from the present moment.

The shift is simple: See your own conditioning clearly. Drop the story of unworthiness. Live as willing presence in front of your child. They don’t need more rules or regulation — they need to see you free of insecurity.

That is the real inheritance.

What actually harms us is not the actions themselves, but the thoughts that create separation — judgment, labeling, and division.

These same thoughts are the ones that attach and cling out of fear or concern.

Real love does not judge people or actions. It moves freely — willing, nonresistant, unconditional — without separation or clinging.

I used to judge my own impatience as “bad.” That judgment created more tension and clinging to an ideal of “patient me.” When I saw the judgment as biased thought, not the actual, the impatience lost its charge. What remained was simple responsiveness.

Real-life application: Next time you judge an action (yours or someone else’s), pause and ask: “Is this clean measurement, or is bias in the ruler?” See the separation it creates. Let the story drop.

What remains is love — simple, present, whole.

In the next article we’ll look at how this conditioning passes to the next generation.

It is the verbing/movement of life itself: willing, nonresistant, unconditional action in this present moment. Omnidirectional, fresh, responsible (able to respond), without clinging or separation.

I used to think love was something I felt toward certain people. Then I noticed the conditions I placed on it — “If they act this way, then I love them.” That wasn’t love; it was attachment born from insecurity.

When those conditions dropped through seeing, what remained was love moving freely — with the person in front of me, with the traffic, with the difficult conversation. No judgment, no clinging, just willing presence.

Real-life example: Sitting with someone who was angry. My old pattern was to defend or fix. When I saw the insecurity in my own reaction and let the story fall, love moved as simple listening — no agenda, no resistance. The interaction shifted naturally.

Love has no opposite. When fear is present, love is simply obscured. Drop the fear through direct seeing, and love is already acting.

In the next article we’ll go beyond judgment, morality, and values.

The present moment is not something you enter or achieve. It is the raw actuality of life right now — willing, always-on, relational, non-directional, unconditional.

We miss it because thought creates psychological time: memories replaying old pain, projections inventing better futures. This fragments the whole into a separate “me” evaluating, hoping, fearing.

Choice itself is psychological insecurity in disguise. It assumes a separate “I” who must decide because the actual moment is never trusted to be enough.

I tested this while driving in traffic. My mind was full of “This shouldn’t be happening” and “I should have left earlier.” Psychological time was running. The moment I noticed the story as false — no chooser, no better route — the tension dropped. The car was still moving, but I was no longer separate from the movement.

Real-life application: Ask yourself the simple question: “If I’m not in the present moment, then where am I?” You’ll find you’re nowhere actual — lost in psychological time.

Drop the story. No trying, no accepting. Just see it as false. What remains is this moment — undivided, responsive, free.

In the next article we’ll look at love as the actual movement of life.

We only try to control things we believe are disorderly. We only regulate what we think isn’t working properly. We only adjust things we believe are off or inaccurate.

This acceptance is the trap.

Feelings are not human nature. They are the body signaling psychological insecurity — stories of separation, bias, comparison, unworthiness, or fear.

I used to believe anger was just “human.” Then I noticed it always came after a thought like “They shouldn’t have done that” or “I’m not being respected.” The anger wasn’t the actual event — it was insecurity replaying the judgement of right and wrong. When I saw the story as false, the anger lost its grip without any regulation technique.

Real-life example: A parent teaches a child “be strong” because they see weakness as dangerous. The child internalizes “I’m inherently weak unless I prove otherwise.” Years later that child struggles with anxiety, still trying to regulate feelings that were never the problem — the insecurity was.

When we stop accepting feelings as normal human nature, the need to manage them disappears. We simply notice: “Is this actual… or insecurity replaying?”

When we understand that we are life, then we understand the nature of life in a way that we don’t separate and create psychologically false thoughts that override the actual.

In the next article we’ll explore the present moment outside of choice and psychological time.

Thought is a tool — nothing more, nothing less.

It exists only in species with memory, because without stored impressions there is no material to measure, compare, or separate.

Its single function is measurement: it takes whatever is arising in the present and cuts it into pieces so it can be named, compared, evaluated, judged, or used.

Blue is only “blue” because thought measures it against red. Tall is only “tall” because it measures against short. “Mine” is only “mine” because it measures against “yours.”

For this tool to be useful — for survival, skills, communication, creation — the memory it draws from must be unbiased: pure sensory data without psychological distortion.

When memory is contaminated by bias — judgment, story, belief, insecurity, conclusions without understanding(evaluation) — the measurement becomes false. The tool no longer measures the actual; it measures the self’s needs and fears.

I saw this clearly one day while arguing with someone. My thoughts were measuring their words against my own stored insecurities (“They shouldn’t speak to me that way”). The argument wasn’t about the actual conversation — it was about protecting a fragile “me.”

When I noticed the bias in the ruler, the whole conflict lost its fuel. The measurement stopped serving fear and simply observed what was happening.

Real-life application: Next time you feel tension in a conversation, pause and ask: “Is thought measuring cleanly right now, or is bias already in the ruler?”

Clean memory = unbiased sensory accumulation. No judgment layered on top. No story attached. No belief superimposed.

Then thought serves life instead of defending an illusory self.

In the next article we’ll look at how this biased measurement creates what we call “human nature” and keeps us trapped in emotional management.

Each answer I found only led to more questions. Eventually I realized something simple: every question and every answer was still thought. Even the most skeptical or philosophical inquiry was still happening inside the same measuring tool — thought.

That was the moment the journey turned inward.

Self-discovery doesn’t begin with finding better answers. It begins with seeing how the tool works. Thought takes sensory input, stores it as memory, and then measures, compares, labels, and judges. When that memory is clean, thought is useful — it helps us build, communicate, navigate. When memory is layered with bias, psychological fear/insecurity, the same tool creates separation, suffering, and the illusion of a separate “me.”

I started noticing this in everyday moments. Watching a movie and feeling completely immersed — no thoughts, just pure attention. The second I began analyzing (“That actor was great,” “This scene was intense”), I left the actual moment and entered psychological time. The whole fragmented into parts.

That small noticing changed everything. I saw that most of my life was spent in those fragments — past regrets, future hopes, judgments about myself and others. I was rarely here, in the actual.

If you’re reading this and something in you is stirring, here’s the invitation: Don’t look for answers yet. Look at the question itself. Why are you asking? Is it curiosity, or is it insecurity looking for comfort?

When the asking comes from open curiosity instead of fear, thought can function cleanly. It measures without adding a story. It serves life instead of defending a self that feels unworthy or unsafe.

This is where the journey begins — not with belief, not with a new system, but with simple, honest observation of how thought actually operates in your own daily experience.

In the next article we’ll go deeper into what thought is and how it becomes biased or stays clean.

Until then, try this one small test today: Pick any recurring thought or feeling. Ask yourself: “Is this actual… or is it thought measuring life through insecurity?”

See what happens when you simply notice without trying to change it.

That noticing is the beginning of freedom.

​When we are overwhelmed by these questions, the first thing we must do is look at how we approach the search itself.

​The Foundation of the Search

​Does truth actually matter to us? If we are looking for a way to address a question, do we want the actual truth, or are we looking for a comfortable answer? If these questions are meaningful but we leave them unaddressed, we remain in a state of constant internal friction.

​Often, we get lost in the "what" of truth. We might wonder if the age of the universe or the number of cells in the body is the truth we need. But for most of us, the truth we are actually seeking is more intimate. It’s the difference between what is actually happening and what we think is happening. Is a belief good enough to live by, or is there an objective reality that exists beyond our personal opinions and subjective feelings?

​Where Do We Look?

​When we want to know if life has a purpose, where is the first place we turn?

​Do we look to external authorities like philosophers, scientists, or spiritual leaders?

​Do we try to bypass the mind through substances or deprivation?

​Do we shop for a belief system that feels the most comfortable?

​The real challenge isn’t just finding an answer; it’s addressing the bias we bring with us. Our past experiences color everything we see. To find what is actual, we have to ask if these questions are answered through more "experience," or if they require us to look at the mechanics of our own thinking.

​Can we know the answer for ourselves, or are we forever waiting for someone else—a researcher, a guru, or a data point—to confirm it for us?

​A Deep Dive into Discovery

​Self-discovery isn't about collecting more information; it’s about stripping away what is false to see what remains. This month at Access the Universe, we are dedicating our focus to this deep dive.

​If you are ready to move past belief and explore what is actually happening, join us as we navigate these questions together.

​Join the conversation on Discord: https://discord.gg/g5HAcQQQTt

Section 1 - Laws of Logic - Definition

You are probably familiar with the laws of logic and how they are normally discussed and presented. In short, there are 3 commonly stated ‘laws’,:

1. Law of Identity - P is P
2. Law of non-contradiction - P is not non-P
3. Law of excluded middle - Either P or non P

When we ask what are these laws, what are they describing, we see the following definitions and descriptions:

In summary, it is described as:

• valid or correct reasoning

• tools to help you reason

• how to test for valid arguments

• descriptions of reality.

ChatGPT provided an interesting statement here:

They’re meant to describe how truth, contradiction, and identity work in any coherent system of thought.

Do we understand what that statement is trying to say, and is it correct?

Section 2 - What Laws of Logic actually are / What is thought?

The laws of logic are not describing reality, at least not directly. What they are describing is the results or implications of an ‘unbiased’ thought process that is looking to describe ‘reality’. Essentially, they are the ‘rules’ of creating descriptions/labels/definitions such that they are consistent. These rules/implications are useful and therefore why we would go about describing them.

What do we mean by this?

How does the thought process work?

From a functional standpoint, the process of thought can be generally summarized as follows:

Here are some key points regarding each item:

Senses

Our senses are the doorway to interaction with our environment. Would we know that we are standing in front of a flowing river if we didn’t have any senses? A sense (or sensor) measures, that is it’s function.Take for an example a thermometer which measures the temperature. As the temperature changes, either a liquid, or some other substance, changes it’s physical properties in response. We can then either shape a tube with a scale calibrated to the liquids expansion, or we can attach electronic devices and measure the changes in electrical resistance within an electronic sensor. Either way, the environment’s changes make physical changes to the sensor, which then can be measured against a standard.

The senses within a living organism work in a like fashion. This sensory data forms the basis of the memory from which the organism can think. Senses get ‘imprinted’ with the changes in the physical environment.

Memory

What would be the purpose or function of sensing and measuring the environment? Quite simply, to be able to interact with it. The key ability in being able to utilize measurements, is to be able to sense the difference between measurements and record them for future uses. This ability leads to the capacity for pattern recognition and trend analysis.

When we walk out into the cold from a warm house, we sense the difference in the temperatures. If it was always the same temperature outside, we would not need to sense the difference. The more drastic the change, the quicker we notice.

Measurements are only useful if they can be accumulated over time for analysis.

Through memory, we are able to talk about one state relative to another.

A way to conceptualize memory is through thinking about a record on a record player.

A song is recorded onto the physical media, but when we look at it we don’t hear anything. However, when we put the record onto a record player, we can then play back the song.

This is similar to how the environment impacting sensory systems leads to changes in the body that the brain can then interpret (ie . The thought process can then read the changes and ‘play the song’ and understand what was written.

Measurement

Whenever we think about something, we are separating it, measuring it by comparing it to something else. We are trying to find its place, in other words, how it fits in with everything else. If we cannot sense a difference between it and another thing, then we see it as the same thing. If a chameleon was hiding in a tree and we couldn’t make out the difference, we would see only the tree and think that was all that was there. If it was always 72 degrees, we would not say it was always 72 degrees. There would be no measurement on a scale relative to other measurements.

At any one particular time, any one of us may have our senses impaired or they may not function properly. We would therefore either get no data or compromised data that would not be reliable. But just like temperature sensors, we have more than one of them to verify the operation of any one particular sensor.

Measurement in action
Imagine we are standing outside staring at the sky after it rains, and then we see a rainbow being to form. We can separate that rainbow from the rest of our view and gather information about that particular object. It is because something is different, or something has changed, that I am able to differentiate one physical item from another. Had that rainbow not formed in my field of view, I would not have known that it existed.

When we look out at the rainbow, we see bands of color. Our optical senses are able to visually see a difference in the color bands of the rainbow. So in that moment, we are not looking at the clouds, the sun, or the wet ground, but have focused specifically on this one ‘thing’.

These words are effectively synonyms when it comes to the process of measurement, as all of these occur at the same time:

• Separation

• Comparison

• Differentiate

These measurements become the named properties and attributes of the object (form). Measuring the objects movement then gives us the actions/movements associated with the object.

Label/Defining/Identity

The input of the measuring process is sensory data, while the output is data,information,knowledge. As we continue to take measurements on an object, we know more about it, we have now accumulated information. The thought process arrives at information by comparing the differences between things.

We give a label to the information. This label is specific based on the criteria for the separation.

In the case of the rainbow, we choose the top band of color until we see it looks different. We label that red. If we hold consistent to that measured criteria, then everytime we see that color, we call it red. If we see that color and call it blue, then we have created a non consistent system that will lead to contradiction and miscommunication.

We can describe this against a standard of colors once we understand how we can notate them. For example with a JPG image using RGB codes, we can describe red as (255,0,0). Therefore, every pixel in that image that has the attribute of (255,0,0) is red. We can label every slight difference with a code or name (249,0,0), (248,0,0), (255,1,0), etc

Therefore due to our defining and holding consistent every time we measure and label, this creates the foundation for the 3 laws of logic:

• Law of identity where we have specified what red is based on sensory information. If we can’t sense a difference between two things, then they are the same thing.

• Law of Non-Contradiction - it can’t be both red and not red at the same time as we have set the criteria of what ‘red’ is. If something were to have both blue and red, it would be called purple or magenta, which is not just blue or red.

• Law of Excluded Middle - Red can’t be blue as we have defined both red and blue, specifically, individually. Red = (255,0,0) Blue = (0,0,255)

Repackage

As we begin to formulate concepts, we take the different parts that we have labeled and put those together in ways that we have not specifically seen. I can take the head of a human, put it with the body of a horse, and then call that a centaur. When baking a cake, we are putting together separate ingredients in order to make a ‘new thing’, a cake. The cake doesn’t exist in nature by itself, it required the ability to gather the separate ingredients, and then bring them together in a combined systematic way that works (ie you have to cook it at the right temperature, mix the ingredients right,etc) then you get a specific result that is useful.

Concepts

When we put things together, we create concepts. Concepts serve as working models being a limited representation of the actual thing. Language and the words in a language are themselves the beginning concepts for communication.

• Act of conceptualization is to take the actual ‘one thing’ and create limited representation(s). In order to communicate it to another, we have developed standard protocols, ie languages, for this usage. These protocols themselves are concepts.

• Concepts vary in size and scope, but are all limited.

• Helpful in that they are used to create products, services, tools, skills

• Describe relationship between things

• Require that we use the labels consistently that we have defined

Concepts require that we observe things over time. Once we see and have a concept of a rainbow and colors, then we can watch and understand the interaction of the sun and water droplets to form the rainbow.

Through conceptualization, labeling, and language:

• The separated items are now objects with properties,

• Valid only for a certain period of time

  • The rainbow doesn’t exist forever. We may see a different rainbow, or other things that are red.

  • A chair was once a tree, which was once a seed, and before that it was just part of the environment

• Concepts are never actual (nor are they evaluated as true or false, they are understood to be limited based on definitions of the words used). Concepts are limited representations of what is actual.

  • If you know what top is then you can label the top yourself. Don’t need someone else to do it.

• Concepts, thoughts, beliefs are accumulations and must be stored somewhere. The interrelationships that the individual makes to these thought forms creates the structure in memory. You are defining how things relate to each other. (In beliefs you are defining how you relate to everything else)

• The words themselves describing the laws are done with sounds and drawn letters, all physical. We store them physically, say/write them physically, bring forth in our brains physically.

• Concepts work in memory, altering the structure creating the relationships.

Section 3 - Truth / False / Knowledge

Data (Datum)
A datum is a single data point, or measurement at a point in time. Measurement are taken via senses. We either see, hear, taste, touch, or smell and quantify or label those measurements. We have developed electronic devices to help take and record the measurements. Essentially, snapshots must be taken of a particular object/attribute at a particular point in time (time is the measurement of movement). If the temperature is 72 degrees, that is at a particular place and at that particular point in time.

Information
A collection of data regarding a specific object or form. If I gather data specific to an rainbow, than I am only focusing on the physical form and how it works.

Knowledge
A term to mean the accumulation of information on different subjects/objects. We make observations on how these different forms interact with each other in order to understand how things relate to one another.

If we read a book on George Washington, what is it that we actually ‘know’ about George Washington? In a strict sense, knowledge is definitionally derived from sensory measured information. So what I know is what someone wrote about George Washington. So how do we go ‘beyond’ that measured information?

Learning/Understanding/Immersion

Let’s say we are going to learn how to drive a car. We go and get the drivers manual, read it, and pass the written test with a 100% score. Do we ‘know’ how to drive? We can repeat the rules, all of the requirements and standards, tell us how to put a car in park and drive, etc. But if we haven’t actually driven a car yet, what is it that we actually know?

In order to learn about something and go beyond just knowledge, we must immerse ourselves into the thing we are learning about. In the case of driving, it means we go out and actually drive. When we are immersed and proficient in driving, we are not thinking, separating, “I push the gas...now I push the brake”. Once we understand how the brake and gas move and feel, we integrate the learned movement naturally without having to actively think about it. I am understanding the ‘nature’ of driving a car.

When we hit a baseball with a bat and hit it correctly, the bat is an extension of the hitter. When Steph Curry dribbles the ball and shoots, that ball is an extension of Steph’s natural movement. He has integrated the learning of the movement of the basketball with his own movements. In immersion, there isn’t a separation between the object and the person, there is a unified movement.

The learning process then leads to the understanding or comprehension of the nature of the object/subject that is being immersed into. The person then we would say has mastery over the skill.

In immersion, we learn more efficiently and completely than with just knowledge/information/instruction. Teaching about how to ride a bicycle versus doing it.
What words would we put in a guide to teach someone how to balance on a bicycle? Doing the actual activity goes beyond the words. Once we have done it and mastered it’s movement, we are then able to put into words a guide to help others.

Truth/False
What is truth? What kind of things are false?

Look around you right now.

1. Point out all things that are true

2. Point out all things that are false

There is nothing that we can point to that is either true or false. What is ‘true’ or ‘false’ is just our evaluation of how well we are describing that thing we are looking at and what it and we are doing.
The key to truth/logic statements is in the definitions of words or labels. If we agree on those, we will agree on the truth statements.

Beliefs

Beliefs aren’t a part of knowledge. They are about accepting something prior to understanding. The nature of a belief is doubt/insecurity as we feel the need to have a conclusion, whose purpose is comfort. When we hold a belief that is meaningful to us, we are always trying to define ‘What am I’ through our relationship to that belief.

To gain the insight ourselves, ask this question thinking about when you have actually done this yourself:

• When do we accept beliefs as opposed to holding to ‘I don’t know?’ and continuing to investigate. Or in other words:

  • When do we feel the need to conclude before understanding is had?

Is it true that?:

• If I understand the nature of something I do not have beliefs about it. Conversely

• If I have beliefs about something, then I do not understand the nature of it.

Earlier we said concepts aren’t true or false, but understood as limited representation of something. There are no guesses or conclusions that are accepted.
A belief is intentionally asking to be evaluated as true or false.

Section 4 -Concern about proper reasoning?

Importance of agreeing on labels and the relationship

We think of math as being highly consistent. This is due to the fact that we have come to a consensus and all agree on what each of the numbers represent.

• 1 = 1 and 2 = 2.

• 1 + 2 is always 3 and we all agree and can explain why.

• It’s not that sometimes 1 + 2 = 3 and 1 + 2 = 5 because sometime 2 is 2 and sometimes 2 means 4 depending on context or personal interpretation.

However in language we run into both context and definition issues (ie we don’t use words in the same way).

Labels are always related to other labels. This is because we have picked one piece out of the whole and are labeling it. It must fit in to the whole in an integrated way. We say p = p, or in a specific example, a book is a book. However, in order to describe what a book is, we must use other words. If the dictionary were to show:

This would not tell us anything. We define everything based on it’s relationship to everything else. In this relationship of one word to another, we must all agree on that definition and relationship. It is when we don’t agree on the definition is when issues arise.

Suppose one person had this definition of a book:
a book is a thing with pages and words
And another says a book is:
a book is a cat with 6 paws

Here we don’t agree on the label. So when we put this label into a larger concept, we will necessarily have disagreement over the broader concept.

Adding bias through meaning

The concern in the field of logic is adhering to proper reasoning, coherency, rational thought. Instead of asking what rules do we need to adhere to in order to have proper reasoning, lets ask:

What do I need to do in order to not have proper reasoning, to be irrational, to be biased? Is the default of a person’s reasoning rational, or irrational?

What does it take in order to be irrational? Don’t I need to add something to the evaluation? Such as bias, conclusions, fear?
Is ‘proper reasoning’ the default? Or is it that bias is something that has to be introduced? Thinking we need a conclusion (forcing a conclusion when understanding is not there) is the expression of the insecurity at play. That is when we force into a position, presuppose, and hold to beliefs.

Do we see the difference between:

• Accepting a belief as fact before understanding, versus

• Working with the best available information, where we don’t assume its correct if we don’t understand.

In the above example with the definition of a book, why would someone hold to a belief that it was a cat, particularly after discussing it with the other person? When we don’t agree on the definition of words, for example love, patriot, soul, God, purpose, etc. we then form opinions and beliefs. We add bias, by adding something in addition to just the sensory differences that we have experienced. With this bias, we add meaning through values as we are defining ourselves through our relationship with the other ‘labels we have personally defined’.

• Values are our reaction to things that we say can harm us if not upheld by ourselves or others.

• Values are enforced through conditioning as a child through reward/punishment.

  • We are told we are good or bad when performing certain actions or by having certain properties

  • We are accepted or rejected

  • And we are rewarded or punished.

• We search for meaning or purpose only after being devalued. Your value or worth is so inherent, that to question it, is the problem.

• Values are the programming of the identity. The thought answer to What am I?

Section 5 - Thought Diagram

Another view of what happens when we think without meaning/bias versus when we do.
The tool of thought. When used for utility (on the left) and when used out of fear (on the right)

Leave a comment

Subscribe now