Moral compass - Towards real democracy and better global governance

The menu topics below provide supporting information relating to linked sections of [The Case: Life choices]

'United we stand, divided we fall' ^[TC:LC1]

Choice, free will, and scientific materialism ^[TC:LC2]

I choose, therefore I am ^[TC:LC3]

The core theme of the website argues that the prevailing corporate legislature, based on a judicious interpretation of amorality, lies at the root of the major human-caused predicaments that we face. This legal mandate has been gradually established over hundreds of years by powerful élites, largely for their benefit. Unless, and until, this is changed to embed a mandatory moral compass, the existing global problems can only get worse.

Recognising that we live in a largely secular world, and that mainstream science is secular, it was considered essential to investigate the extent to which morality or altruism are supported by the natural sciences.

In the course of trying to better understand the justification for the prevailing stance of the status quo, an ideological split between mainstream (reductionist, deterministic, materialist) science and post-materialist science was discerned over what conscious awareness is believed to be. The materialist position on free will was also found to be confused. In order to establish a sound basis for a possible moral compass mandate this ideological split was explored to see how differences of view might be sufficiently reconciled. Mindful of this objective a two-stage approach was used to navigate the various aspects.

(1) To address the core of the issue - the so-called hard problem of consciousness; a term coined by David Chalmers (Chalmers, 1995). It is accepted that the 'I am' feeling of sentience is currently inexplicable by mainstream (materialist) science.

(2) To address the 'pragmatic problem' of individuals meeting needs and having to make life choices by the exercise of free will.

This is very relevant to the main theme of this website, which concerns the consequences for us all of dark governance decisions made by élite individuals. Philosophically, the notion of free will is controversial, as is the significance of collective human values.

Broadly speaking, discussion of the hard problem results in philosophical and technical points, and discussion of the pragmatic problem results in philosophical and practical points. An attempt has been made to draw together relevant aspects, viewing them from both materialist and post-materialist perspectives in turn, to facilitate a more open-minded review of the terrain.

Potential deal-breaker points on either side of the argument are flagged up where they arise. These are points which result in a fundamental non-meeting of the minds between the two schools of thought.

Unsurprisingly, strong differences of view were revealed when addressing philosophical issues such as:

A philosophical discussion appeared to offer the best hope for identifying where there might be some overlap of thinking between the factions. It was observed that, in general, (1) materialists prefer to get technical, but then dig their heels in if the topic of transcendence is mentioned, and (2) post-materialists feel more secure with a less mathematical metaphysics.

To minimise the risk of losing materialist readers, and because it is the most logical place to start, the hard problem is addressed first; and from a materialist perspective.

Having considered the issues listed above from both perspectives, aspects affecting ethical and moral responsibility (such as the altruism versus selfishness issue) were addressed, followed by some practical implications of being on doing ; and of doing and being.

The core website theme is that the major human-caused problems (MHCP)s are consequences of the predatorial doing without being, which results from the ethical deficit of 'amoral' dark governance. A summary of the reasons for moving towards the application of a moral compass mandate to corporate law was therefore provided.

This takes into account both materialist and post-materialist perspectives, and feeds into some proposals for a new type of economic process which is aimed at tackling MHCPs.

What is conscious Awareness?

One of the most pressing of the clichéd questions which prompted a personal quest in the first place was "Does a human life have a meaning or purpose?". However this was found to be the most straightforward to answer, at least at a superficial, pragmatic level, as discussed in the [Notes].

Notes: Every individual has a unique life journey.

What is life? was another such question, which was originally posed as an apparently necessary prequel to the meaning of life question. However, the pressure to specifically address it at the time was relieved by actual commitment to the quest. A few subsequent thoughts on the matter are included in the [Notes].

Notes: 'What is life?'

AI applications in the entertainment sector promise ever more realistic Virtual Reality experiences. The realism will depend upon the nature of the man-machine interface. A convincing physical sense of movement and/or vibration can be generated if the individual is strapped within a frame which is physically moved, as for example in an aircraft simulator. Other physically simulated sensory inputs can be imagined. Future developments might be envisaged where sensory illusions could be generated directly by more invasive man-machine interface technology. Some marketing of such products might seek to imply that AI technology was now able to 'generate consciousness', or a similar claim.

But this type of virtual experience would still be a simulation. The felt sense of 'I am there-ness' would still be totally dependent upon the brain. Until such time that this felt sentience can be directly generated, we cannot claim that we understand the hard problem.

American Professor Seth Lloyd has proposed a 'Turing test' for free will, which is discussed further below. Presumably an 'objective' verification of whether an AI system has conscious Awareness would require a Turing-type test to include 'subjectivity'. That would surely present some challenges to materialism!

Notes: Controversies about what conscious awareness is

The so-called hard problem of consciousness is at the core of the controversies between scientific materialism and post-materialism. By the mid 1990s, the general picture was that while mainstream science didn't yet have answers to felt sentience and 'I am'-ness, it would be unthinkable to invoke 'fancy quantum effects' or mystical explanations as the "extra ingredient" to resolve David Chalmer's hard problem (Scott, 1995).

Mainstream science is based upon the assumption that Matter is fundamental; the notion of transcendence is absolutely not supported.

Consciousness is regarded as an emergent property of the brain.

The (reductionist, deterministic) materialist perspective on free will can appear confusing. The determinism of reductive materialism (everything that happens has been caused by what happened before) has evolved towards a more nuanced view (taking into account insights from complexity theory, sociobiology, behaviourism, etc.).

Human morals and values are regarded as subjective, and only operative at an individual level; therefore they have no intrinsic rightness; and therefore have no objective-collective reality [or truth].

Potential deal-breaker: Needless to say, mainstream scientists regard the notion of transcendence, and post-materialist science by implication, as no better than a myth^swv or legend of old which has long since been discredited. Any experience or observation which might challenge the mainstream view is flatly dismissed. With some irony the current mainstream view can also be referred to as a myth - The Economic Myth.

Post-materialist science is based upon the assumption that Conscious Awareness is fundamental, and that matter is a manifestation within Consciousness.

The notion of free will is supported to the extent that an individual is engaged in mindful Awareness in the present moment. Life choices are constrained by what happened before, but inappropriate actions can be vetoed.

Human morals and values are regarded as subjective, and only operative at an individual level. However, to the extent that they are influenced by [a common] top-down Awareness they can have an intrinsic rightness; and therefore an objective-collective reality [or truth].

Architect/ philosopher Christopher Alexander discusses the "meaningless machine" implication of the scientific worldview for individuals, and how this has been accompanied by a kind of "hopelessness and despair". He discusses how the prevailing mechanistic worldview has affected his own work as an architect; how to arrange passive matter into buildings which are not merely functional but are perceived to be beautiful, and to have a degree of life?

"It is the nature of matter itself, which is at stake" (C.Alexander, 2004, Book 4 page 14)

His four volume masterwork The Nature of Order sets out his conception of the nature of matter. He believes, however, that adherents to the materialistic worldview will not be able to accept the revisions to building practice that he proposes. (C.Alexander, 2004, Book 4 pp.14-15).

C.Alexander (not E.Alexander or B.Alexander, who are also listed in the Bibliography) writes that the strengths of the present scientific worldview rely on a device/ mental trick invented by "Roger Bacon, Descartes, Newton, and others...". But this results in an inert, mechanistic, picture of space and matter which does not accord with our "daily experience of the world .... an immediate awareness of self".

He cites Alfred North Whitehead who wrote, back in around 1920, about this "bifurcation of nature" between the mechanistic scientific worldview and the world we actually experience.

Potential deal-breaker: [Alfred North] "Whitehead believed that we will not have a proper grasp of the universe, and our place in it, until the self which we experience in ourselves, and the machinelike character of matter we see outside ourselves, can be united in a single picture " (C.Alexander, 2004, Book 4 page 13).

The bifurcation problem is discussed further below, in the section "On the rightness of values".

It could be argued that the above title presupposes a materialist perspective of what consciousness is. Taking a post-materialist perspective that consciousness Is, a more appropriate title might be 'The evolution of human response to Consciousness'.

In the context of Aims 1 and 2 of this website, the aspect of consciousness evolution which is of particular relevance is the origin of morals, values and ethics - the basis of a 'moral compass'.

Aims 1 and 2 [General]

Karl Popper believes "It is more likely that contributions to morals and ethics will be made by branches of learning other than theology". Some contributions from the natural sciences towards ethics are discussed below.

Taking an amoral natural science perspective, which accepts that nature is not sacred, it is readily observed that "nature is red in tooth and claw" as a direct consequence of the need to survive. In the context of Maslow's heirarchy of needs theory it might be speculated that birds and animals also have a needs heirarchy. It might be imagined to correspond roughly to Maslow's basic human needs levels 1-2, and to some extent 3, but without being troubled by higher level free will issues.

Maslow's heirarchy of needs [Life choices]

Citing (Schrödinger, 1958) and (Sherrington, 1951)^mcdd Alwyn Scott discusses the struggles for existence in nature, and how the evolution of consciousness has affected the behaviour of organisms (Scott, 1995, pp.154-155). Sherrington refers to two types of strategy which have evolved to deal with the conflicts of life; one is the 'defensive community' in which groups which have a common interest cooperate for mutual benefit. A "zest-to-live" emerges and develops.

^mcdd The 1958 edition of Schrödinger's book incorporates both his 1943 What is Life? and 1956 Mind and Matter lectures. The 2019 edition in the website Bibliography includes these, together with autobiographical sketches, and a Foreword by Roger Penrose.

Sherrington's book is based on his 1937-8 Gifford lectures and was first published in 1940. The 2009 version in the Bibliography is a digital reprint.

The other type of strategy is a predatory mode of existence, in which the zest-to-live is combined with a "lust-to-kill".^ltk This mode has operated very successfully, albeit for generally non-community life.

^ltk If the lust-to-kill originated from a carnivorous diet, a systematic shift to vegetarian/ vegan types of diet might be a step in the right direction for world peace, besides the obvious benefits in terms of greenhouse gas reduction.

A scientific understanding of consciousness must embrace the evolution of culture, and the importance of forming human relationships. Social reality cannot be appreciated by genetic reductionism. As humans we may have freed ourselves from the 'religious myth' of belief in a God, but the price is that we have to take responsibility for each other if we are to survive as a species.

However this ethic, which derives from the defensive community mode of emergent materialism and the recognition that we live in a shared biosphere, is clearly at variance with Francis Bacon's stance of man's dominion over nature. Furthermore, it is absolutely at variance with the Corporate Person position of rights without (societal or) environmental responsibilities.

Arrogance towards nature [Power structue]

Peter Russell makes the very important point that "Since the majority of us in the First World already have most of the things we need for our physical well-being, the only way our economies can continue to grow is to turn to the satisfaction of our psychological needs"..."The fact that material goods can never really satiate these needs has to be kept quiet. Instead an artificial sense of scarcity must be created. We have to be convinced that we are not fulfilled as we are..." (Russell, 1992, p.79).

He says later: "However, before we blame the 'system' let us remember that for such persuasion to work, we first have to fall for it"..."We are perpetrators of the system as much as we are its victims" (Ibid., p.79).

Regarding the second of Peter Russell's points above, it was first thought that he was being too lenient on the 'system'. Élite vested interests have stitched up the corporate legislature so comprehensively that their money-making machine, with its immensely destructive cost-externalisations, is virtually impregnable. Dark governance has become so normalised that we have forgotten that things do not have to be this way.

Rogue operator behaviour [Power structure]

The destructive dominance of corporate grip - and what citizens might do about it is the main focus of this website. Nevertheless, since ultimately it is down to us all to wake up and do what is necessary for the survival of all life on the planet, will we continue to behave like boiled frogs (Anon., 2016b), and fail to find our own moral compasses in time?

Happiness cannot be financialised [Life choices]

Potential deal-breaker: It would appear that the expedient self-interested, exploitative vested interest stance of man's dominion over nature - the economic myth - is a choice by a powerful predatorial élite group, primarily in their interests. This shifts the ethics debate from morals and values per se to the controversy over free will. The materialist view over whether or not we have free will seems unclear, as it does not preclude more altruistic choices. This is discussed further below, in the section "A materialist perspective on free will".

The emergent materialist ethic discussed above was presented as though it did not require any involvement of a God. However questions could be asked about how a zest-to-live might relate to consciousness. These are discussed later, in the section "Towards separate-self transcendence". Two comprehensive post-materialist perspectives on how Consciousness relates to world history are listed below:

Ken Wilber presents a trans-personal view of the evolution of human consciousness in his book Up from Eden (Wilber, 1996b).

In his epic work The Fire and the Stones Nicholas Hagger presents a universalist theory about the impact of the Fire of God on the rise of the world's civilisations through history, its absence during their fall, with predictions about where this is headed (Hagger, 1991).

The ongoing cyclical nature of this theory does not address the possibility of the demise of human civilisation due to the loss of habitability of the earth in the foreseeable future, although the notion of human civilisation colonising other planets in the distant future is mentioned (Ibid., p.707).

Life choices, free will, and values

Common sense would suggest that making life choices equates to exercising free will, informed by the criteria of one's internal values. However, the notion of free will is contested by materialists, and so is the basis of human values. The section explores some of the arguments.

In order to remain focused on the identified core problem of dark governance, the role of choice and free will in exercising individual rights and responsibilities in the present moment was considered in the context of issues such as:

The present moment and lifestyle choices [Life choices]

The question of where values that guide life choices originate is addressed later, in the section "Influences on values". An individual's view of the nature of reality will affect her or his judgement about values; what the right thing means; what matters, and how all this affects her or his life choices. Individual human values must comprise some mixture of innate-nature and nurture influences, and of self-determination after due consideration. It should be evident that making life choices equates to exercising free will.

I cannot be held accountable for what others choose to do, but only I am responsible for my life choices.

However, this apparently common sense inference is contested on both philosophical and scientific grounds. The position adopted by mainstream materialism over whether or not we have free will lacks clarity, while post-materialism supports the notion of choice and free will.

Should my choices and actions be inhibited by a belief that my contribution is too small to make a difference, or inspired by the harder belief that if enough global citizens fully engage with reality, things will change?

"Preparation (doing) and waiting (being) are not necessarily chronological. What really happens before a creative insight is" ... many alternating ... "episodes of doing and being - do-be-do-be-do, like that Frank Sinatra jingle" (Goswami, 2011, p.93).

Referring to the two modes of existence described in the emergent materialist argument put forward by Scott (citing Schrödinger/ Sherrington):

Citing (Spinoza, 1667), who was criticising the Cartesian philosophical position on the will, Sherrington says that the will is just a manner of thinking, as is the understanding. Men think that they are free "because they are conscious of their volitions and of their desires", while oblivious to the causes of these (Sherrington, 2009 [original 1940], p.199).

"If natural law determines the future from the present, there seems to be no place for the freedom of choice that is perceived as an element of consciousness" (Scott, 1995, p.163).

For an individual to make an ethical life choice depends upon morals and values, but how can it be seen as a choice if the individual is informed by scientific materialism that his/her actions are entirely determined by a chain of prior causes?

A great deal of material has been written on the topic of free will. (Wikipedia, Free will) provides a very useful overview of a wide range of conceptions of the topic, and of their associated controversies. It is outside the scope of this website to discuss all of these. The aim of this website analysis is to work towards a generally representative overall view of whether or not a moral compass mandate is possible, necessary, and reasonable.

In an online publication Great Issues in Philosophy (Chapter 4: Free Will), which no longer seems to be available, an American philosopher provided another very useful overview of the issue. In the final section he suggested that if we cannot definitively prove whether or not we do have genuine free will, we ask ourselves whether it actually matters? One way or the other, we still get on each day and try to make the best choices we can. But he thinks that what does matter is that there is a tension in society between scientific value and humanistic value^tshv. He referred to the German philosopher Immanual Kant, who recognised that tension between free will and determinism is inevitable; tension arises between a scientific (deterministic) worldview and a humanistic worldview because these are independent reasoning processes, and free will is needed to explain human values.

^tshv Related topics The bifurcation problem, and "Maslow on mentalism and values" which is discussed below.

Seth Lloyd argues that it is the intrinsic unpredictability of the decision-making process, implied by quantum mechanics, and by the theory of computation, which gives rise to our impression that we possess free will. The "unpredictability of decisions stems from Turing's halting problem (Turing, 1937)"..."The halting problem implies that we can not even predict in general whether we will arrive at a decision, let alone what that decision will be". As discussed earlier, in the section "What is the nature of reality? ", Lloyd proposes a 'Turing test' for free will, such that "a decision-maker who passes this test will tend to believe that he, she, or it possesses free will, whether the world is deterministic or not" (Lloyd, 2012). The reference to 'it' concerns "man-made decider" devices. He gave a public lecture on the topic, which is now available on YouTube (Lloyd, 2019).

Neurophysiologist Benjamin Libet investigated the role of the self-conscious mind on volition (Popper, 1983) (Libet, 1999) (Libet, 2003). Libet's own summary, interpreting his experimental results, was that a volitional veto can be issued 0.1 seconds before it takes effect. On this phenomenon, philosopher Daniel Dennett cited a quote^qbyr by neuroscientist Vilayanur Ramachandran, who once remarked "This suggests that our conscious minds may not have free will, but rather free won't!" Dennett commented that he would "certainly want more free will than that". He went on to discuss Libet's work in some detail, considering aspects such as measured signal delay durations depending on what part of the brain the signal is coming from, and which part of the brain is being accessed by the volition. Overall he concludes that information processing by the brain takes a finite amount of time, and that an individual can access and interpret his/her decision-making process.

^qbyr (Dennett, 2003, pp.230-231) citing a quote by neuroscientist Vilayanur Ramachandran in (Holmes, 1998, p.35).

According to the Wikipedia article on free will cited above, Dennett is a 'compatibilist'. This is a philosophical position attributed to both Aristotle and Epictetus. Compatibilists hold that free will is compatible with determinism, with some arguing that choice involves preference for one course of action over another, requiring a sense of how choices will turn out. The concept fits well with scenario analysis, which is widely accepted as a useful tool for exploring options.

(Dennett, 2003, p.224 and p.253) agrees with scientific psychologist Daniel Wegner who says that conscious will is illusory; it is more an interpreter of one's thought processes during decision-making. But he takes issue over the title of Wegner's book The Illusion of Conscious Will (Wegner, 2002), which he thinks could be misinterpreted, given that Wegner also writes "Illusory or not, conscious will is the person's guide to his or her own moral responsibility for action" (Wegner, 2002, p.341). Wegner appreciatively acknowledges Dennetts critique of his book (Wegner, 2002, p.xi).

Moral responsibility for action is discussed later, in the section 'Moral responsibility and the amassment of power' .

It is easy to demonstrate, using only a simple recursive loop/ feedback deterministic algorithm, that basic chaos theory can generate apparently random/ chaotic/ complex/ non-deterministic behaviour by making only tiny differences in initial conditions.

Potential deal-breaker : This fact greatly complicates any verification of the impact of free will choices under controlled laboratory experimental conditions. How can subtle intentions of the mind be unambiguously measured and reliably correlated with measurable phenomena in the real world? Parapsychology experiments inevitably have to address these difficulties, and do not tend to be taken seriously by mainstream science.

The mainstream requirement for scientific 'objectivity' can introduce further controversy regarding experimental methodology. This is discussed later, in the sections "On the rightness of values" (on the topic of spiritual injunction), and "Meditation research must include subjective experience" .

Scientists have gone to extraordinary lengths to resolve experimental measurement problems. In particular are the John Bell-inspired experiments designed to resolve the so-called EPR paradox, named after its originators Alfred Einstein, Boris Podolsky, and Nathan Rosen. The paradox concerns an apparently impossible phenomenon, within quantum mechanics, which came to be known as quantum entanglement. The paradox started an ongoing debate between Einstein and the physicist Niels Bohr about which interpretation of quantum mechanics was correct. Bohr's interpretation implied what Einstein referred to as 'spooky action at a distance'. Einstein could not accept this, believing that "...God does not play dice. For him it was imperative that quantum mechanics be replaced by some hidden-variables theory in order to restore deterministic order in the world" (Goswami, 1995, p.115).

In 1964 the physicist John Bell (CERN) devised an experiment which, in principle, could resolve the matter. The ground-breaking significance of his paper (Bell, 1964) was not recognised until the experimental physicist John F.Clauser (University of California, Berkeley) came across it a few years later, and was amazed. He set about building the necessary apparatus to test so-called "Bell's inequality". The results of the 1972 experiment showed that Bohr's interpretation was correct. Further such experiments have been carried out since then, with increasing sophistication to address theoretical objections or identified loopholes.

In 2010 John Clauser, Alain Aspect, and Anton Zeilinger were winners of the prestigious Wolf Prize in Physics. This sets the record straight for John Clauser, who was one of the first to realise the full implications of John Bell's work, by acknowledging his seminal contribution.

An excellent, and very accessible, documentary on the topic titled Einstein's Quantum Riddle was broadcast on BBC4 television on January 16, 2020, and is now available on YouTube (Anon., 2020c). The documentary included a description of a remarkable experiment carried out in 2018 by Anton Zeilinger (University of Vienna) and his team. The technical aspects of the experiment are described in (Rauch, 2018), and (Chu, 2018) gives a news report of the event.

Clauser, Aspect, and Zeilinger, whose research laid the groundwork for quantum information science, won the 2022 Nobel Prize in Physics, each sharing a third of the prize (Castelvecchi & Gibney, 2022).

Sean Carroll (MIT), one of the documentary's presenters, said "it's a very strange thing that ever since the 1930s, the idea of sitting and thinking hard about the foundations of quantum mechanics has been disreputable among professional physicists. When people tried to do that, they were kicked out of physics departments". Fortunately John Bell got round this problem by doing his day job, and then working on the quantum entanglement problem in his own time.

While innovative technological applications using quantum computers are already being developed, the really important philosophical/ spiritual implications for our understanding of the fundamental nature of reality are not yet common knowledge.

Materialists rightly say that one wouldn't try to use quantum mechanics to solve a straighforward projectile problem. In the same way they do not consider it necessary to use quantum mechanics to explain consciousness when there is still mileage using classical theory. Complexity theory and emergence has demonstrated that classical theory is no longer limited to determinism (Scott, 1995, pp.163-4). However, following the confirmatory experimental results concerning quantum entanglement obtained in 2018 by the Zeilinger team, the philosophical significance surely can no longer be ignored? But news of John Clauser, Alain Aspect, and Anton Zeilinger's jointly shared 2022 Nobel Prize in Physics typically reported only about the potential technological applications which follow from their work, for example (Castelvecchi & Gibney, 2022).

Potential deal-breaker: While significant differences of view exist regarding what consciousness is, even between eminent materialists, there is a general materialist resistance to invoking 'extra ingredients', such as 'fancy quantum effects'. However, following the thought-provoking experimental results in 2018 concerning quantum entanglement, to continue to ignore the philosophical implications seems perverse.

Notes: The basic fabric of reality?

It seems that the topic itself is in a no-man's-land between materialism and post-materialism. For example Nietzsche "views all values as being based on human drives", which materialists would presumably not disagree agree with. Karl Popper is critical of the contributions of our religious legacy, which materialists would agree with. Maslow's contribution would appear to be a prime example of new "branches of learning" that Popper looks to, and provides some corroboration for Nietzsche's view on values. But materialism rejects Maslow's "mentalism"! These items are discussed below, with references. All the topic headings from Maslow on mentalism and values onwards take a post-materialist perspective.

Quoting from James Russell (Russell, 2015, page 80):

"[Nietzsche] views all values as being based on human drives, and mocks any attempt to base morality on truth, asking what truth is in any case, and why humans regard it as being so important"...

"Nietzsche's view that all truths are no more than interpretations was hugely influential on strands of twentieth century thought..".

In an excellent introduction to Karl Popper's Three Worlds in Laws of the Game (Eigen,1982, pp.257-258) the authors say

"Intellectual dialogue with the continually changing World 3 is the task of theology. But theology, to the extent that we can call it a science, limits itself primarily to the transmission and interpretation of our religious legacy. It is more likely that contributions to morals and ethics will be made by branches of learning other than theology".

While this may be so, the expedient self-interested, exploitative vested interest stance of man's dominion over nature - the economic myth - is a choice by a powerful predatorial élite group, primarily in their interests. The reductive determinist-materialist perspective that there is no free will would present a dire future prospect. In my view any meaningful discussion of morals and ethics requires more clarity on the materialist perspective about free will.

See also the section "Moral responsibility and the amassment of power", below.

Potential deal-breaker: Abraham Maslow's pioneering work on human values is an example of the contribution humanistic psychology can make, but he was very aware of a dismissive attitude by mainstream science towards "mentalism". Transpersonal psychology and non-dual spirituality are similarly dismissed.

It is understood that Maslow's use of the term "mentalism" is not to be confused with 'mental ill health'. His view on mentalism and values is discussed below.

"... To talk about values became 'unscientific' or even antiscientific, and so they were turned over to poets, philosophers, artists, religionists, and other softheaded though warmhearted people" (Maslow, 1993, p.145).

Maslow long recognised a dismissive attitude of mainstream science towards "mentalism". He discusses four papers which were presented at a 'Symposium of Human Values', which was held in California back in 1961! "There is no appeal in any of these papers to an extrahuman source...All the speakers agree that the values which are to guide human action must be found within the nature of human and natural reality itself...". They are to be "uncovered (or discovered) by human effort and by human cognition, by appealing to the experimental, clinical, and philosophical experiences of human beings. No powers are involved here that are not human powers."

"This acceptance of the psyche must of course destroy an exclusively objectivistic theory of science....the narrower science which tried to be purely objectivistic and impersonal could then find no place at all for values, goals, or ends and so had to define these out of existence. Either their factuality had to be denied, or else put forever beyond the reach of scientific cognition (which made them 'unimportant' and not worthy of serious examination)..." (Ibid.).

Notes: Reticence to discuss spirituality

Mainstream science holds rigidly to the basic premise that matter is fundamental. Conscious awareness is deemed to be an emergent property of matter, such as that indicated by complexity theory and hypercycles. It is acknowledged that reductionist materialism cannot yet account for the phenomenon of conscious awareness, but there is a strong reluctance to invoke non-material extra-ingredients (especially transcendence), or even quantum effects.

In The Farther Reaches of Human Nature (Maslow, 1993, p.118) Maslow discussed some behaviours and experiences which appear to be more spiritual in nature, such as B-cognition "...the perception of the Being, the otherness, or the intrinsic nature of the person or thing..", "peak-experiences" and "plateau experiences". He identified people who were particularly aware of the realm of Being as transcenders, and described some of their characteristics (Ibid., pp.270-286).

In his 'Theory Z' Maslow explored some characteristics of transcenders, and whether or not they were 'self-actualizing people' ^zns. He observed that such people "maybe more prone to a kind of cosmic-sadness or B-sadness over the stupidity of people, their self-defeat, their blindness, their cruelty to each other, their shortsightedness. Perhaps this comes from the contrast between what actually is and the ideal world that the transcenders can see and so vividly, and which is in principle so easily attainable.....No wonder he is sad or angry or impatient at the same time that he is also 'optimistic' in the long run" (Ibid., p.279).

It was found reassuring to discover that others have had such experiences, especially as they are of a kind which are not normally discussed, or maybe even thought about much.

Following on from the earlier discussion of the bifurcation problem, C.Alexander identifies ten tacit "ultra- mechanistic assumptions which control much of what we say and think" now, and which "go far beyond the strict discoveries of science". His ten assumptions highlight the meaninglessness which follows from the belief, or certainty, that matter is machinelike in its nature. C.Alexander's third tacit assumption:

"Modern conceptions of human liberty require that all values be viewed as subjective. The subjective nature of value gives the private striving of each individual person -- even when vacuous or image-inspired or greed-inspired -- the same weight. Attempts to put value on an objective feeling are to be viewed with suspicion. " (C.Alexander, 2004, Book 4 page 19).

In a footnote to this assumption he discusses how by the end of 20th century "many distinguishable groups" were "able to assert the dignity of their values", but that "it had become intellectually almost impossible to assert the rightness of any value - since to do so, would challenge, and possibly undermine again, the political freedoms which had been so hard won."

"Thus the idiosyncratic and private view of value, which began with the scientific revolution of the 17th century, has led to the assumption that value, valuation, and judgement and taste, are so deeply embedded in the realm of individual rights that they almost cannot be seen to be based on an objective reality" (C.Alexander, 2004, Book 4 page 25).

Mainstream science regards values as subjective, and therefore not objective and scientifically verifiable. In principle, this does not prevent scientific consensus views based upon verifiable experiments from being developed. It is possible to do verifiable experiments using humanistic and transpersonal psychology techniques, and non-dual spiritual injunction^si.

^si This is described in more detail later. In brief, Ken Wilber describes spiritual injunction as a valid form of knowledge....as G.Spencer Brown said, it's very like baking a pie: you follow the recipe (the injunctions), you bake the pie, and then you actually taste it. To the question "What does the pie taste like?", we can only give the recipe to those who inquire and let them bake it and taste it themselves..." (Wilber, 2001a, p.173) citing (Brown, 1972).

However the mainstream requirement for scientific objectivity can introduce further controversy regarding experimental methodology. For example, referring to meditation research, neuroscientist, and longtime meditator, Marjorie Woollacott says that the requirement of scientific objectivity attempts "to reduce a spiritual endeavour to the realm of the material, the merely physical". Describing how a neuroscientist colleague had admitted exploring psychotropic drugs as a shortcut to simulate meditation, she writes: "As a meditator, I know his supposition to be absurd. There is a level accessed in meditation that is beyond the neuron"... "This transcendent level of awareness is what most scientists do not acknowledge exists. If we are to explore it. I am absolutely certain that the only way we can is with subjective experience-we have to include the first-person perspective" (Woollacott, 2018, p.23).

Potential deal-breaker: Post-materialists are keen to develop scientifically rigorous verification procedures to explore certain as-yet unexplained phenomena. The openly dismissive stance of mainstream science to such efforts is unhelpful, and not in the spirit of an open-minded exploration of truth. In particular, the only way to conduct spiritual injunction/ research into meditation is by subjective experience. It must include the first-person perspective.

The points below refer to Watson's description of the problematic materialists' impasse of living with the duality that "we inhabit both a subjective world and an objective world" (Watson, 2014):

Notes: A problematic impasse...

The post-materialist resolves the impasse through recognising that everything is subjective - including 'objective' science. This non-dual spiritual view stems from the conviction that conscious Awareness is fundamental, and that the formation of matter arises within it.

Materialists are open-minded to a rational understanding of truth, but in general they seem to be closed-minded to the bigger experiential view of reality which can be discerned through spiritual injunction. Hence they choose to place this form of non-dual reconciliation 'outside their remit'.

In the following note Wilber explains how spiritual injunction transcends while including rationality.

Notes: The mind-body problem and spiritual injunction [Being].

This seems to be consistent with why Woollacott needed to make her point about the necessity of including subjective experience in meditation research, and also with C.Alexander's rueful observation that modern conceptions of human liberty require all values be viewed as subjective. The post-materialist view is that:

All experience is subjective; including that of 'objective' science

Nothing can be known that is not subjective.

There is only subjective experience, through Awareness.

Transcendence and non-duality

Potential deal-breaker: The real stumbling block is that materialism does not accept that consciousness equates to a transcendent Awareness^etm, which is accessible to all sentient beings. By the same token therefore, materialism would not accept the corresponding notion/ implication that top-down edification of subjective individual values could justify a common collective-objective reality^ecvm.

Alfred North Whitehead recognised the need for a post-materialist united single picture.

^etm On this website the term 'transcendent' refers to:

That which Is ; the ground of all being; the ultimate reality; the eternal source of the ever-present sense of conscious awareness, of I-amness, of 'presence', of sentience; of immanence; the Absolute; unity consciousness; the great Awareness; and Love.

This is the non-dual spiritual belief. But the belief of dualism takes the view that a nonmaterial God cannot interact with matter.

(Goswami, 2008b, pp.15-32) includes a chapter entitled The Scientific Rediscovery of God. He responds to the materialist charge that the non-dual spiritual belief is dualist, by stating that God is everything there is. (Woollacott, 2018, p.225) uses the term "panentheism" to describe this concept. Goswami refers to it as monistic idealism or perennial philosophy. He uses the term 'transcendent' to mean otherworldly/ outside this world but able to affect what is inside this world - immanent/ worldly. Non-dual reality integrates two sides of the coin, so to speak. Ken Wilber refers to this experience as One Taste (Wilber, 2000c).

Interestingly, dualism is also defined in the Longman Dictionary of the English Language (1991) as "a doctrine that the universe is ruled by two opposing principles, one of which is good and the other evil".

See (Huxley, 1970) for more on the perennial philosophy.

See my speculative link with Maslow's Being values in the section "Influences on values", below.

^ecvm A materialist perspective:

Materialism takes the view that human values are subjective, and therefore only applicable at an individual level, and so there is no basis for a universal set of human values. The status quo is materialist, and the legislation underpinning business as usual is 'amoral'; that is, devoid of human values.

In effect therefore, we do have a de facto set of 'global values'. But these are not human values, they are corporate values.

In contrast, if the ground of all Being is Love, then genuinely tapping into this is surely a basis for developing a universal set of human values.

Perhaps one of the reasons, why materialists were dismissive of Maslow's work, was because he showed that there was a hierarchy of needs which culminated in transcendent Being-Values.

Maslow on Being

Notes: Wilber on Unity Consciousness, and mapping to work of Maslow and other researchers

The Greeks first introduced the terms the Good, the True, and the Beautiful as a simple way to refer to the three value spheres of morals, science, and art respectively (Wilber, 2001a, p.49).

Notes: The Good, the True, and the Beautiful

That Nietzsche "views all values as being based on human drives", actually appears to fit quite well with Maslow's hierarchy of needs theory, but with a twist:

It might reasonably be speculated that the low level Maslow needs create low level drives^lldr which through free will life choices form habits, or low level values, which could be viewed as 'rules of thumb'/ criteria which affect subsequent life choices.

By the same logic, higher level needs create higher level drives which through life choices form higher level values/ criteria^vclc which affect subsequent life choices.

Maslow's transcendent^mtbv 'Being' values would inform the highest values and criteria for life choices.

^lldr It could be inferred that in the case of animals [Life choices], such drives would be instinctive.

^vclc For some reason I was strongly pacifist from a young age, which I do not recall was the case for any of my contemporaries at the time. Later I experienced a lack of goal congruence [Introduction] in the workplace. These examples beg the nature/ nurture question - from where did these internal-values originate? An effort was made to recall any early innate values-related experiences in order to find some clues as to the possible origin of the subsequent lack of goal-congruence. This exercise led only to general observations about post-WW2 suburban living in a pleasant part of Britain.

Flow diagram for my speculative interpretation:

Each stage of the cycle consolidates the pattern/ habit through cause and effect (materialism), which becomes an individual's criteria or values through habituation.

The post-materialist view is that at each stage, a free will choice can be made. This creates a different habit, which in turn will affect subsequent life choices. This can include a veto on decisions in the light of Awareness. This might arise if, for example, a proposed action clashed with an individual's 'conscience' or personal values.

The more an individual acts selfishly, the less effective his/her 'conscience' will become at resisting I want, now signals. And vice versa. It would seem that on a "use it, or lose it" basis, the capacity for selfless action could atrophy.

The post-materialist view is that the capacity for awareness, or consideration, of others ^gbg, which is the basis of morality, is innate in all sentient beings, and comes from the Great Awareness. Consciousness just Is .

^gbg In his book The Go-Between God (Taylor, 1972, p.12) John Taylor says that this awareness of the other results from the action of the Holy Spirit. John Taylor, citing (van Buren, 1968, p.169): "The mystical, as Wittgenstein put it ," ... "is not how the world is, but that it is" [Bold emphasis mine].

The notion of motive leading to the formation of a habit is discussed further below, in the context of teleological behaviourism, in the section "Atruism and selfishness".

Referring to C.Alexander's 'third tacit assumption' about value subjectivity, this seems to be a feature of post-modernism - 'my view is just as valid as yours'. Ken Wilber points out that this is all very well, but the very people who have reached this privileged societal perspective seem blind to the hierarchical evolutionary stages that they themselves would have had to pass through. Rather than regard their situation as a stage on an evolutionary journey, they behave as if they've arrived, and that's it (so-to-speak; my crude paraphrasing). This attitude denies the notion of hierarchy and transcendence. Wilber refers to it as "flatland holism" (Wilber, 2001a, p.57 and p.114-5).

While not having a problem with values being regarded as subjective and individual, it can be seen that the 'societal flatland' is a problem, with its underlying generic rejection of hierarchy and transcendence - which equates to (reductionist, deterministic) materialism.

Ken Wilber addresses this issue head-on in a provocative short book titled Trump and a Post-Truth World (Wilber, 2017). In the context of the rise of populism, and referring to some Trump voters he says: "Everywhere you are told that you are fully equal and deserve immediate and complete empowerment, yet everywhere are denied the means to actually achieve it. You suffocate, you suffer, and you get very, very mad".

Donald Trump clearly knows how to tap into the experience of many citizens. This is precisely the feeling of being overwhelmed [Introduction] that I experienced back in the late 1990s, when I first engaged with politics. But there the similarity ends. I deplore the way he goes about getting what he wants, and that he could possibly think that his 'solutions' are what the world desperately needs right now.

(Anon., 2018a) documented a very lively television debate involving people adopting a wide range of gender-identity positions. The inspiring conclusion was that what matters most is whether or not an individual is a good person.

Referring to C.Alexander's point, that to assert an intellectual assessment of the rightness of any value would now be seen by certain "distinguishable groups" as a challenge to their hard won human rights. But in fighting for these rights, are intellectual arguments about the rightness of individual values etc. being surpassed by something more important? An awakening sensitivity, in the face of overwhelming global crises, to the transcendent notion that we are all One?

More recently Pope Francis launched a consultation with the laity to invite their views on what reforms they would like to see within the Catholic Church (Anon., 2021e). During a television interview on the topic, the presenter asked the spokesperson for a small laity group (who very much welcomed the Pope's initiative) whether she thought the church authorities would be listening. The answer was that there was no mechanism in place for grass roots feedback; communication had always been top-down.

The psychology of life choices, moment to moment, is discussed in [Life choices]. The manner in which our consciousness interacts with our inherent I want drive critically affects our life choices, moment to moment. Genuine philosophical differences of view have been identified, which significantly affect the decisions individuals make. In very broad terms it might be said that the decisions depend on the extent to which we think it is okay to get what we want (or think we want) for ourselves, versus whether we think it is better to do what we genuinely believe to be the 'right thing' (however that is determined).

Influences on values

Throughout the personal quest which gave rise to this website, a general guiding principle has been:

Now that even the concept of truth is contested, some might think that the very idea of open-minded truth seeking is meaningless. Indeed, everyone is entitled to their opinion in post-modern flatland! We are all used to significant differences in 'expert opinion' on many important topics; for example in economic theories.

That there are such apparently significant differences in the belief systems of the major world religions also obscures 'truth'. John Taylor remarked on feeling the pain of an "absolute gulf" between his Christian view of God and that of a Zen Buddhist monk, with whom he had been conversing. The monk had observed that "Christians make much of the Will of God, and consequently human choices also are of ultimate significance". If therefore "some part of existence is within the Will of God while other things are outside it, such a God is less than the whole" (Taylor, 1972, p.187).

At first sight this suggests that Buddhism has a very different perception of good and evil. The classic good versus evil debate is a version of dualism. Non-duality demands an integration of these polarities. From a practical point of view it seems to me that if the Christian concept of evil is viewed as the Buddhist view of ignorance (and karma), and seeking to do the Will of God is equated with the choice to meditate, the gulf is not so large. Christian Abandonment to Divine Providence (de Caussade, 1921), and Buddhist 'letting go of the separate self' during non-dual meditation, are just different ways of opening up to the Transcendent.

Such opening up helps to transcend barriers.

Transcendence allows for a top-down edification of private values/ criteria, which can then affect life choices.

Mindful free will can veto actions which might be considered inappropriate in the light of Awareness.

Taking the perspective of choosing by free will to learn how to better inform one's higher values from top-down transcendent Awareness, one can give life meaning and purpose. This is discussed later, in the section "Finding, and choosing, a 'right path' ".

In A Brief Guide to Philosophical Classics (Russell, 2015, page 80) Nietzsche is quoted from (Nietzsche, 1886) as writing:

[it has].. "gradually become clear ... what every great philosophy has hitherto been: a confession on the part of its author and a kind of involuntary and unconscious memoir".

Notwithstanding Nietzsche's insightful criticism "demolishing almost every assumption of previous philosophers" (Russell, 2015), it does not now seem unreasonable - and is indeed perfectly natural - for a thinker to reflect on what, if anything, his/her life contribution and wisdom might amount to. To attempt to articulate the story for the benefit of others who might find it useful is surely one of the 'psychosocial tasks' described by Erikson in his 'maturity' and 'old age' developmental stages (Berger, 1991, pp.45-46) adapted from (Erikson, 1976).

In principle:

When observing the state of the world, why wouldn't anyone prefer a world in which humans learn how to live in love and peace? And furthermore, what is wrong with wanting to challenge the disruptive force of dark governance in favour of a more loving and peaceful, and sustainable world?

After decades of enquiry, albeit with only a limited knowledge of ideas from secular philosophy, non-dual spirituality has emerged as the right path for me; with the important caveat that a single-minded commitment to this type of methodology/ practice requires my personal conviction that it is substantiated by at least a plausible scientific model.

To this end, a more open-minded stance by mainstream science towards a bigger picture view of reality is very much to be hoped for, particularly in the first instance towards humanistic psychology and transpersonal psychology.

Few scientists are prepared to openly discuss post-materialist matters, and/or have explored meditation^flsc. To their credit, notable exceptions include: (Woollacott, 2018), (Blackmore, 2009), (Eagleman & Sadhguru, 2019), (Kastrup, 2014), (Kastrup, 2015), (Kastrup, 2018), and (Horgan & Kastrup, 2019). (Horgan, 2004) describes a set of very interesting interviews with some prominent researchers and spiritual teachers.

^flsc Notes: Reticence to discuss spirituality

A number of significant initiatives to develop a post-materialist science have appeared in recent years, for example the launching of the Galileo Commission Project by the Scientific and Medical Network. A copy of their report Beyond a Materialist WorldView - Towards an Expanded Science by Harald Walach, and the abridged version The Layman's Guide - Beyond a Materialist WorldView can be downloaded from (Website: Galileo Commission).

In my view it is important that post-materialist science is rooted in non-duality. To ensure this, those peer-reviewing the research should be vetted to be genuinely experienced non-dual practitioners. Some form of consensus on a code of spiritual injunction would be necessary to guard against the emergence of overly compromised transitional 'materialism-plus' schemes.

Notes: The mind-body problem and spiritual injunction [Being].

For example, philosophies such as panpsychism are sometimes categorised as non-dual because they are about 'consciousness', but in a bottom-up way rather than top-down non-dual conscious Awareness (Woollacott, 2018, p.224) citing (Kelly, 2015).

The importance of appropriate methodology has already been discussed.

This section is a round-up of points made earlier.

The major deal-breaker is that mainstream scientists regard the notion of transcendence, and post-materialist science by implication, as no better than the myth or legend of old which has long since been discredited. Any experience or observation which might challenge the mainstream view is flatly dismissed.

Materialism does not accept that consciousness equates to a transcendent Awareness^etm, which is accessible to all sentient beings. By the same token therefore, materialism would not accept the corresponding notion/ implication that top-down edification of subjective individual values could justify a common collective-objective reality^ecvm.

Explanations for the superscripts ^etm and ^ecvm are described above.

It would appear that the expedient self-interested, exploitative vested interest stance of man's dominion over nature - the economic myth - is a choice by a powerful predatorial élite group, primarily in their interests. This shifts the ethics debate from morals and values per se to the controversy over free will. The materialist view over whether or not we have free will seems unclear, as it does not preclude more altruistic choices.

Complexity theory shows that apparently random behaviour can be exhibited by deterministic systems. This fact greatly complicates any verification of the impact of free will choices under controlled laboratory experimental conditions. How can subtle intentions of the mind be unambiguously measured and reliably correlated with measurable phenomena in the real world? So-called parapsychology experiments therefore do not tend to be taken seriously by mainstream science.

Alfred North Whitehead expressed concern about the "bifurcation of nature" between the mechanistic scientific worldview and the world we actually experience. He recognised the need for a post-materialist united single picture.

While significant differences of view exist regarding what consciousness is, even between eminent materialists, there is a general materialist resistance to invoking 'extra ingredients', such as 'fancy quantum effects'. However, following the thought-provoking experimental results in 2018 concerning quantum entanglement, to continue to ignore the philosophical implications seems perverse.

Abraham Maslow's pioneering work on human values is an example of the contribution humanistic psychology can make, but he was very aware of a dismissive attitude by mainstream science towards "mentalism". Transpersonal psychology and non-dual spirituality are similarly dismissed.

Post-materialists are keen to develop scientifically rigorous verification procedures to explore certain as-yet unexplained phenomena. The openly dismissive stance of mainstream science to such efforts is unhelpful, and not in the spirit of an open-minded exploration of truth.

In particular, the only way to conduct spiritual injunction/ research into meditation is by subjective experience. It must include the first-person perspective.

A moral compass mandate

At the beginning of [The Case] the root of the business as usual (BAU) problem was attributed to the highly selective form of 'amorality' embedded within corporate legislature. It was noted that élites have honed corporate law over centuries to give themselves a mandate to plunder natural resources and exploit people primarily for their own benefit. It was noted that Nature is also amoral, and yet demonstrates that amorality does not have to lack altruism.

Having regard to the main materialist/ post-materialist controversies, the natural sciences were explored to look for any evidence for group altruism, which might therefore offer hope for a possible collective human morality. The aim was to try to reach a doable compromise which could be used as a basis for a moral compass mandate. As for any policy initiative which could threaten élite vested interests, any move towards a humanising change to corporate law can be expected to be strongly resisted (blocked) by the status quo.

This is not a topic which is ever highlighted in the media, for obvious reasons, but it is hoped that at least a conversation might be started.

The work of Sherrington on group altruism is discussed above in the context of a materialist's view of the evolution of human consciousness. He identified two successful strategies for resolving conflicts in life - an altruistic 'defensive community' mode, and a selfish predatory mode. At a Royal Institution lecture in London in 2002, Richard Dawkins said bluntly "If it were left to Darwinism alone, there would be no hope. Short term greed is bound to win." (Porritt, 2005, p.305) citing (Dawkins, 2002).

Later in his lecture, Dawkins said that if any species can break away from short term Darwinian selfishness, and plan for the long term future, it is our species; using the large brains which Darwinian natural selection has given us (Porritt, 2005, p.305) citing (Dawkins, 2002).

But according to (Wilson, 2007, p.328), Darwin also had the insight that:

"selfish individuals might out-compete altruists within groups, but internally altruistic groups out-compete selfish groups"

Wilson wrote "Darwin's insight would seem to provide an elegant theoretical foundation for sociobiology, but that is not what happened"..."Instead group selection was widely rejected in the 1960s and other theoretical frameworks were developed to explain the evolution of altruism and cooperation in more individualistic terms". Much has been written about altruism and group selection in the field of sociobiology. Wilson argued that such behaviour is better represented by multilevel selection theory than by inclusive fitness theory. Multilevel selection theory is based on the above insight (Ibid.).

Taking a cultural anthropology perspective on altruism in civil society (Yeung, 2006) cites examples of the diversity of twentieth century literature on the theme, which includes psychological and economic perspectives. She writes that the traditional view of humanity, taken by the natural and social sciences, puts extreme emphasis on selfishness, whereas the most recent research updates emphasise pro-social behaviour. However she notes that there is little agreement about what is meant by the term altruism, for example "economists have developed their own point of view". Her paper focuses on the brighter side of civil society.

Aim 1 of this website is to spotlight the dangers arising from the prevailing system of increasingly dark governance. This system is so deeply entrenched, and its modus operandi so normalised, that we are oblivious to these dangers.

Taking an anthropological perspective, and the idea of a cultural configuration possibly emerging as the collective consciousness of a people, Alwyn Scott commented on the ever-present danger of shortsightedness in considering one's own culture, and urged us to try to be more critical of our dominant traits (Scott, 1995, p.152). While this appeal for vigilance is very much to be welcomed, it is suspected that Scott was not then primarily referring to the consumerism which is relentlessly pushed by global corporations.

The way dark governance has reframed societies as economies has been previously discussed in Developed or underdeveloped? [Issues].

In trying to "judge our dominant traits", as Scott puts it, my concern is that our culture has been usurped by the 'amorality' of corporate law. Self-interested predatorial vested interests are in the driving seat, and not the more altruistic defensive community. This numerically small but immensely powerful group are presiding over the ruthless plundering and destruction of our planet in the name of economic growth.

Notes: Scholarly corporate muzzling

The idea of a cultural configuration possibly emerging as the collective consciousness of 'a people' was introduced in the previous section. This idea has obvious application to a nation-state, which has a defined boundary and legal jurisdiction.

This discussion presumes that where a person is born and lives normally falls within the above framework. This is irrespective of whatever connection to the place, or entitlements an individual might feel or actually legally have possession, of by virtue of his/her birthright.

Regarding the legal distinctions between ownership of land and the rights to control the usage of that land, my understanding is that:

To 'own' land, it has to be paid for.

To 'control territory' it has to have been conquered at some time in the past. This requires the submission of those previously deemed to be in control of that territory, which invariably involves an act of war. Thereafer those in control assume the authority to govern, and maintain the compliance of, citizens within their territory.

These observations say a great deal about the mentality of those who have assumed the right to run the world, but not the responsibility. It is very primal, and illustrates an inherently arrogant and exploitative stance on life.

If a nation-state is under military attack, or if it has a policy of mandatory conscription within a defined age-range, this can pose significant internal-values conflicts for some affected individuals, quite apart from the threat to life. There must be many people who would be prepared to die, trying to help their loved ones and/or fellow citizens, but who would not be prepared to kill another human being. The powerful film Hacksaw Ridge tells the true story of an immensely courageous and principled individual who engaged with military service whilst remaining true to his pacifist convictions (Sweeney, 2016).

Serving one's country as a pacifist [Power structure: Notes]

If the intentionality behind an individual's response to a military attack is considered, the situation is well described by the classic polarisation "terrorist or freedom fighter".

The case of Christian theologian Dietrich Bonhoeffer when faced with Hitler is deeply thought provoking (Wikipedia. "Life Together; book by Dietrich Bonhoeffer").

Is it the right thing to do? (Stokel-Walker & Milmo, 2022) provides a more recent example, in the context of the Russian invasion of Ukraine in February 2022. It describes how computer hackers joined forces to help the Ukrainian resistance (IT Army of Ukraine), for example by bombarding Russian state websites with Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS) attacks, in order to disable them. The article goes on to discuss some concerns of cybersecurity experts about this "volunteer army", for example the possibility that some participants could be 'bad seeds', and what they might do.

It seems likely that the collective consciousness of a people residing within a nation-state will be influenced by their national defence policy. Despite the formidable array of military hardware and very large forces, the courage and determination of the Ukrainian people to defend their freedom and their country against the Russian invasion is extremely impressive.

When such a war is instigated, fear of escalation understandably arises in those potentially affected. NATO is supposed to provide security for Europe in the event of war, but it is so big that it is perceived as a threat to nation-states outside its membership; in this case Russia. This is itself a global security risk.

Is NATO too big? [The Case: Power structure]

It would be extremely reassuring to ordinary citizens if statecraft was conducted within a co-operative global framework. There cannot be any meaningful global security if one nation-state in possession of weapons of mass destruction can threaten another.

Within the prevailing system of dark governance, the phrase 'in the national interest' is itself a semantic inversion; it does not mean what it appears to mean. It really means strategic power play by TwVI (those with vested interests), which is not for the benefit of the common good.

In my view, the concept of a nation-state needs to be conserved culturally, and not overwhelmed by global corporate marketing of consumerism, and especially not used as a political football. The notion of a nation-state being primarily 'an economy' needs to be restored to that of a nation-state being a society primarily having a national culture, as discussed earlier (Developed or underdeveloped?). As a species human beings need to learn to co-operate sufficiently to develop a fit-for-purpose system of global governance; a system which views nation-states as populations of fellow human-beings, and not as rival-economies separated by borders to be played by TwVI. This is discussed further in the section "Exercising rights and responsibilities in the world", below.

The right direction [Big 3 reform]

Until then, unfortunately, we all have to live with the ever-present threat posed by certain individuals who are in positions of great power, and who are prepared to instigate dreadful wars.

The theme of this section is that a duality can be seen as non-dual, if it can be viewed from an appropriate perspective.

As discussed earlier, a pattern of habitual selfishness is clearly not inevitable, as shown by the altruism demonstrated in the alternative strategy of the defensive-community. Some individuals are clearly exercising more caring and ethical choices, which accumulate by cause and effect to more permanently wire their brains to be less selfish people. This cumulative effect argument is consistent with the materialist logic of cause and effect

In a very interesting paper titled Altruism and Selfishness by Howard Rachlin (Rachlin, 2002) he discusses how these apparently polar opposite behaviours can be reconciled from a biological viewpoint by equating selfishness with survival value [Life choices]. In seeking to better understand possible mechanisms for altruism other than survival value and related inherited biological traits, behaviourism is interested in 'reinforcement'. For example perhaps altruistic behaviour could be learned, rather in the same way that an individual can learn self-control. Then patterns of behaviour which reinforce altruism become of more interest than internal mechanisms. Altruistic acts would not involve 'cost benefit analysis' on a case by case basis, but would be seen as an overall pattern. But if some deferred benefit was accrued, then this could not be viewed as altruistic.

The following definition of teleology is reproduced from the Notes:

The Longman Dictionary of the English Language (1991) defines Teleology as: (a doctrine) explaining phenomena (eg. evolution) by reference to goals or purposes.

Notes: A problematic impasse...

Teleological behaviourism can be framed around the final causes of particular 'altruistic' acts, and whether these can be explained by considering motives in terms of habits, rather than habits in terms of motives (Rachlin, 2002). This is rather reminiscent of the loop 'is something true because we believe it, or do we believe it because it is true?'

Rachlin refers to the polar opposites of free will versus determinism as another example of polar opposites (comparable with altruism vs determinism). But is this reasonable? To compare them could mask the materialist/ post-materialist controversy over free will. Reductive-determinist inclined materialists might prefer to believe that motives come from habits, thereby justifying the following of selfish desires. In contrast, post-materialists might choose to veto such desires from a motive of trying to live a good life. Forming better habits is therefore not so easy.

He concludes that altruism, like self-control, involves the organisation of behaviour in patterns, and the need to choose among patterns as wholes. "High degrees of altruism are infrequent, not because most people lack an altruism mechanism, not because they are selected by evolution to be egoists rather than altruists, but because of the highly abstract nature of the valuable patterns"...[Therefore] "to pattern our behaviour abstractly - to choose to be an altruistic (or a sober person)"..."we must forego making decisions on a case-by-case basis"...[then]... "there will come times in choosing between selfishness and altruism when we will be altruistic even at the risk of death" (Ibid., p.250).

This is very interesting, but it still begs the question about where the initial motive for trying to do the right thing comes from. For example is it biologically inherited, or is it learned at a very young age from parents/ guardians?

While either, or both, of these mechanisms might be partly applicable, the ongoing post-materialist mechanism I postulate in my Influences on values flow diagram is, in a sense, 'received wisdom'.

My assumed plausible mechanism is via the subjection of an individual's deliberations to the light of Awareness, resulting in an ongoing edification of values.

This flow diagram also assumes that habits follow from motives, with the choice to veto actions, and to implement remedial action at any time. My consolidation phase looks functionally similar to Rachlin's 'reinforcement'.

(Vlerick, 2020) discusses "the heated debate between advocates and critics of group selection" which he thinks "often suffers from a lack of conceptual clarity". He goes further to "argue that actual altruistic behaviour often goes beyond" what "humans have evolved to display". He thinks "conscious and voluntary reasoning processes" also "have an important role in altruistic behaviour" which "is often overlooked in the scientific literature on human altruism".

Rachlin refers to free will and determinism as being other apparent polar opposites. The lack of clarity in the materialist position on this issue has already been discussed. (Dennett, 2003) and (Wegner, 2002) conclude that although the conscious will is illusory; being more an interpreter of one's decision-making processes, it is nevertheless our guide to personal moral responsibility for action.

At the end of a comprehensive review of significant contributions to the understanding of what human consciousness is believed to be, Alwyn Scott concludes that a major collaboration from all branches of the natural sciences, and a willingness to learn from each other, will be required to approach an understanding of our awareness of consciousness (Scott, 1995, p.187). He expresses the hope that a "viable intermediate world" will eventually be found where "it will be possible for science to understand the nature of consciousness without denying or neglecting its more intangible aspects" (Ibid., p.175).

Considering that this overall perspective derives from an emergent hierarchical materialist standpoint, it comes surprisingly close to the three value spheres of morals, science, and art - which, as Ken Wilber explains - the Greeks first introduced (using the terms the Good, the True, and the Beautiful respectively). Left/ right brain considerations and Karl Popper's view that "It is more likely that contributions to morals and ethics will be made by branches of learning other than theology" also lead to similar territory.

Notes: Good, the True, and the Beautiful

Karl Popper's World 3 on morals and ethics

As noted earlier, in the section "All experience is subjective..." :

Materialists are open-minded to a rational understanding of truth, but in general they seem to be closed-minded to the bigger experiential view of reality which can be discerned through spiritual injunction. Hence they choose to place this form of non-dual reconciliation 'outside their remit'.

Referring again to (Watson, 2014)'s description of Thomas Nagel (and Bertrand Russell)'s problematic impasse of living with the duality that "we inhabit both a subjective world and an objective world". This impasse is referred to as the mind-body problem, or hard problem of consciousness. For any materialist, or atheist, living with this duality, if they were to give spiritual injunction a try, they might understand how their problematic impasse could be reconciled. They could regard the exercise as an experiential scientific experiment; there really isn't much to lose.

Notes: A problematic impasse...

Notes: The mind-body problem and spiritual injunction [Being].

Picking up on Dawkins' point, humans are capable of creating scenarios and plans for the future, but in a secular world what criteria are used to decide what is right and what is wrong, and who gets to choose them? Dennett says "What the future holds in store for our planet is up to all of us, reasoning together" (Ibid., p.308). Starting with our current values we can review, revise, and " - if we are lucky - mutually endorse a set of design principles for living in society". He acknowledges that "how to factor in politics, the art of the possible, is itself one of the most difficult design decisions we face" (Ibid., p.268).

This could be expressed differently, and with more polemic:

From a civilised rational perspective this is all very well, but it does not address the geopolitical reality of our predicament. There is no level playing field of rational argument, fairness, or reasonableness when dealing with rogue operator behaviour. It has no moral compass. Vested interests leave no stone unturned regarding any 'threats' [Notes] they perceive to their future business plans.

Blocking and scuppering [Issues] anything which might get in the way of short term financial gain for élites is routine.

Unfortunately, progress towards delivering theoretically rational and reasonable policies is fraught by the opposition of those with powerful vested interests (TwVI). TwVI determine which policies and projects will be allowed to proceed, albeit in such a way that many costs are externalised.

The status quo perpetuates deceits through memorable quotations with selective omissions, such as:

Such selective quotations create/ reinforce an impression of the rightness of the ideology of the status quo/ 'the authorities'. The first quotation omits Darwin's insight:

"selfish individuals might out-compete altruists within groups, but internally altruistic groups out-compete selfish groups".

which would be empowering for ordinary citizens. The second quotation, from economist Adam Smith's classic The Wealth of Nations, omits to mention the context of his thesis which was rooted in a different type of society from that which exists now [Big 3 reform]. With dark governance, "the biggest lie wins"; the message being that with enough PR the truth will not prevail. Another favourite is the soundbite "any publicity is good publicity".

The language used by those in power is riddled with semantic inversions [Power structure]. A classic example of effective deceit is the monetary system [Big 3 reform] itself. Although information about how it works is in the public domain, it is so counter-intuitive that few people appear to really understand it.

Referring to the two modes of existence described in the emergent materialist argument put forward by Scott (citing Schrödinger/ Sherrington), it is presumed that reductionist-deterministic materialist logic would require these to be viewed as alternative paths based on different decision trees. Such a rationale would sidestep whether or not individuals from the predatory group versus those from the defensive community had any choice at branch points where decisions were made about which group to belong to. In effect this implies that each involved individual was acting as an automaton, even if they weren't conscious of the fact.

In practical terms this could be interpreted as an abdication of personal responsibility.

Backing up his stance regarding the possibility of people misinterpreting Wegner's book title, (Dennett, 2015) points out that it is irresponsible to tell people that they do not have free will, and cites some experimental evidence that if individuals believe this then it adversely affects their moral behaviour:

"In two experiments, we found that weakening free will beliefs reliably increases cheating" (Vohs & Schooler, 2008, p.53).

It is very evident that rogue operator behaviour has no scruples about assuming rights without societal or environmental responsibilities. No doubt its advocates have acquired substantial addictions to power, wealth and control as the cumulative result of years of extremely selfish predatorial actions. The general acceptance of such behaviour, as status quo norms, tends to reinforce a creeping selfishness in society; especially as societies are viewed as economies [Issues] by élites.

Those with vested interests know this. Decades ago (Lunati, 1997) observed a trend in economic literature to, on one hand, increasingly incorporate altruism into formal analysis and into models, while on the other hand to 'discredit' altruism and promote the 'value' of selfishness. The validity of her observation is perfectly confirmed by the following paper:

(Kaufman, 2020) addresses the notion that not all selfishness is necessarily bad, and not all altruism is necessarily good. Kaufman and Jauk's investigation established new measures for comparing 'healthy' selfishness with 'pathological' altruism. Healthy selfishness was predicted to relate "to higher levels of personal well-being as well as prosocial motivations for helping others". Pathological altruism was predicted to relate "to selfish motivations for helping others and maladaptive psychosocial outcomes as well as helping behaviours that tend to be harmful to others". The results of their investigation largely supported these predictions.

Continuing with the theme of reconciling polar opposites, it is an indictment of our political situation that moral responsibility should be divorced from the seat of power. But as Einstein said, "we can't solve problems by using the same kind of thinking we used when we created them". In the present context, thinking outside the box would require individuals with vested interest to think of others, which they have legally absolved themselves from doing - while within the box of the Corporate Person - which they have judiciously created.

"The main reason why power is autocatalytic is that its disciples are subjectively convinced of the purity of their own motives, quite apart from whether these motives are objectively good or bad" (Eigen & Winkler, 1982, p.248). "A more serious problem than élites doing evil is they believe they're doing good. This belief insulates élites from self-examination" (Rickards, 2016, p.58). "Democratic laws have to protect the individual's freedom and latitude of action, but at the same time they cannot allow the spread of organised power" (Eigen & Winkler, 1982, p.248).

Spotlight on democracy [Big 3 reform]

This accretion of power is the basis of my primary Aim 1-related concern:

What ploy could conceivably challenge this massive power-grip,

which those with vested interests haven't already foreseen and scuppered?

Pragmatically, and putting aside all the materialist/ post-materialist controversies, if we wreck the planet we all go down, including the élites with vested interests. For their sakes as well, we (the big group of non-élites, especially those of us who can consume more than we strictly need) need to take responsibility to stop this madness. What other grounds are there for hope about how the (predatorial) élites with vested interests might be brought to their senses?

Given the inference that democratically elected politicians' hands may be tied [The Case: Power structure] while in office, and the evident corruption of voting systems, perhaps all that can be salvaged is that the appearance, at least, of democracy is accepted as legitimate by even the (western) élites with vested interests. Élites prefer order to disorder (Rickards, 2016, p.81).

Standing up for common sense...

Our survival as a species depends upon us collectively recognising the gravity of the current global situation, and challenging those who have driven us into it. If we continue to live in denial, we, and life on the planet as we know it, are headed for oblivion.

We need to awaken our inner moral compass, in the interests of the survival of all life on the planet, and to seek a global public response in a demonstrably democratic and non-violent manner.

The moral compass argument is fully compatible with Darwin's insight that "selfish individuals might out-compete altruists within groups, but internally altruistic groups out-compete selfish groups", and so should be acceptable to mainstream scientists.

If such a global public response/ recognition could be mustered, it would pose a legitimate challenge to the excessive power concentration which the vested interests have, but which is not currently being deployed in the best interests of the people or the planet.

An assessment of what is wrong with the prevailing system of dark governance, and about what is now urgently required to begin to halt the decline and to start to remedy the situation, is described in [The Case].

For anyone who is troubled about all this, but does not yet know what they can do about it, a good starting point is to explore learning how to meditate using a non-dual practice.

Insights from scientific materialism and from post-materialism about the nature of consciousness, and the associated implications of different views for free will and morality and ethics, have been considered. An attempt has been made to reconcile differences where these are necessary for the purpose of establishing whether or not a moral compass mandate is politically doable, in principle. The main points for which agreement is presumed are listed below:

On the basis of the above points, it seems fair to conclude that the necessity for at least a humanistic moral compass mandate is clearly evident, as a matter of survival. For this to translate into practical action the most pressing challenge is how widespread citizen disempowerment, system-justification [Citizen action], denial, and apathy can be overcome. Enlightened thinking on how more big-group altruism can be rapidly mustered, and effectively seeded, would be extremely welcome. A mass rekindling of inner moral compasses is urgently required.

The following case provides some insights as to how a transition from 'predatorial control' to 'defensive community' might be achieved:

Notes: Space shuttle Challenger accident investigation [Power structure].

While significant differences of view exist regarding what consciousness is, even between eminent materialists, the philosophical implications of the confirmatory experimental results obtained in 2018 concerning quantum entanglement should give pause for thought. A post-materialist insight which, although it would not be shared by materialists, could be politely tolerated as non deal-breaking is:

The following quote is from a Christian perspective, but it chimes with Oneness, non-duality, and the absence of separate selves:

"Virtue isn't simply avoiding misbehaviour, it is discovering the power of collective action and how to foster it; the choice isn't between noble ideals and cynical realities, it is between collective power and wasteful self-indulgence" (Wells, 2021a)

This quote dovetails well with Darwin's insight about group altruism. Just after COP26, in another of his apposite and inspirational podcasts, Sam Wells addresses the issue of denial, and how facing the truth can liberate the great energy necessary to begin the process of transformation and reparation (Wells, 2021b).

Denialism [Citizen action]

Drawing on the above insights, and the main website narrative, the following points are proposed as an enlightened, but politically doable, perspective which would be acceptable to both materialists and post-materialists:

We live in a biosphere

To use natural science terminology, organisms can cooperate as a 'defensive community' or in self-interested 'predator mode' (Scott, 1995, p.155) citing Sherrington (see above)

Rogue operator behaviour equates to self-interested 'predator mode'

It has no moral compass

It continues to drive the dire global predicaments we now face, through controlling and perpetuating dark governance/ BAU/ aggressive economic growth

"Selfish individuals might out-compete altruists within groups, but internally altruistic groups out-compete selfish groups" (Wilson, 2007, p.328) citing Darwin

Globally, there are vastly more pro-the-common-good citizens than there are élite individuals with vested interests

Each and every individual has free will, and therefore subject to personal circumstances, should take personal responsibility for his/her share of the dire predicaments

As a matter of long term survival, We (the big group/ global society at large) need to:

Given the dire global situation regarding major human-caused predicaments, and after due consideration of materialist and post-materialist perspectives, no just reason why a moral compass mandate should not be applied globally to corporate law could be found.

Some ideas have been set out for a new kind of moral economic process, which would be more fit-for-purpose to address the major global problems than the existing system.

Ideas for an economic system based on mandatory internalisation of all costs (MIAC)

Closing remarks [Being]

Notes

Notes: 'What is conscious Awareness?'

This is one of the clichéd questions originally posed as an apparently necessary prequel to the more pressing question, as perceived at the time, about the meaning and purpose of life. It can be seen to be closely related to the question about the nature of reality, which in turn depends on what conscious awareness is. Controversies over such questions reveal a broadly materialist/ post-materialist split in views.

Chapters 13-15 of (Langmuir, 2012) provide a planetary level materialist perspective. Chapter 13 considers "the origin of life as a planetary process". It outlines a possible five step process towards the first primitive cell, from which all subsequent life evolved. "There is clear evidence for the first three of these, and examples of emerging possibilities for the remaining steps". Step 2 involved the construction of complex molecules from simpler components.

The Miller-Urey experiment carried out in 1952 showed that atmospheric processes were capable of producing a large variety of organic molecules, including amino acids. The apparatus applied electrical discharges to a gas mixture comprising water vapour, methane, hydrogen, carbon dioxide, nitrogen and ammonia which underwent cycles of evaporation and precipitation. Subsequent experiments under varying conditions were able to produce the essential biochemical ingredients under simulated conditions which might have existed in certain environments on the early earth (Ibid., pp.410-411).

Using fossil evidence from the geological record Chapter 14 considers "the roles of evolution and extinction in creating the diversity of life". Chapter 15 considers the "coevolution of life and planet to create a planetary fuel cell".

Chapter 6 of (Goswami, 2008a, pp.85-105) describes various "materialist theories of life and its origin" .

Mindful of the materialist/ post-materialist split, and the sensitivities of biologists and of those with religious beliefs, Amit Goswami explains that "quantum physics views God as 'objectively defined cosmic consciousness' " (Goswami, 2008a, p.36). He goes on to present a post-materialist argument to arrive at the following definition of life (Ibid., p.129):

"A living being consists of tangled hierarchical quantum measurement apparatuses that are representations of the vital blueprints of biological functions including but not restricted to maintenance and reproduction. Such a being is capable of self-reference because in the process of quantum collapse involving it, consciousness identifies with the being."

A meeting of the minds between the materialist and post-materialist viewpoints would surely benefit from discussions between the factions about the phenomenon of quantum entanglement? Integrating post-materialist insights about the non-dual concept of Oneness, and the transcending of separate selves could usefully be combined with specialist knowledge and insights of quantum physicists.

Viewed from a system-science perspective, there is a big difference in complexity between organic chemistry and biology. But whether what we call 'life' can be fully explained by system complexity is a moot point. To reproduce the necessary conditions in a laboratory, to properly investigate this, might require an experimental set-up so sophisticated that it might be analagous to comparing a one-transistor radio to CERN. One might even need a universe, a big bang, and a duration of about 14 billion years.

With a systems problem like this, particularly where existential questions are involved, which are essentially unprovable, it was found to be helpful to break the problem down into logically plausible functional blocks to form a simple speculative model. The logical steps listed below do not presume any post-materialist assumptions; it is the nature of the activation process which would elicit a materialist/ post-materialist split:

Over the course of evolution to date within spacetime, humans have attained a level of organisational complexity and viability to manifest as intelligent sentient beings. Whatever the evolutionary mechanism of a lifeform actually turns out to be, functionally it might be viewed as some sort of activation process applied to biological matter.

This activation process requires the viability of a lifeform, which depends on the level of habitability in the vicinity of an organism; its adaptability to that habitat; and the healthy functioning of the organism.

An organism may be said to be 'born'/ begin to 'live' when it becomes viable, and to 'die' when it ceases to be viable.

At this point, if the nature of reality is assumed to follow the post-materialist premise that Conscious Awareness Is , and that matter is the manifestation of Consciousness in spacetime, then the post-materialist idea of filter theory [Being] could provide the necessary functionality for the activation process. In which case:

An organism could engage with Conscious Awareness at a level appropriate to its complexity, viability, and freedom from defects.

It could then be said that Life (in the world) can be seen as the real-time activity of the organism (which is that manifestation).

The idea of an ongoing activation process in spacetime between the physical birth and physical death of an organism fits well with the moment to moment phenomenon microgeny described by Ken Wilber, which is discussed in [Being].

It is part of the human condition that the nature of individual life choices moment-to-moment characterise a unique life journey. The cumulative effect of these choices could be imagined to provide coarse indicators of what this journey actually amounts to. Taking the time and space to review our inner journey should not be viewed as a waste of time. It can influence our life choices, and provide inspirational ideas, both of which could be good for us as individuals, and good for society.

In retrospect, the actual process of exploring my own inner journey resulted in a pragmatic solution to that clichéd question:

This was the most pressing existential question which prompted the personal quest in the first place, and the most straightforward to answer, at least at a superficial, pragmatic level. What is life? was another such question, originally posed as an apparently necessary prequel. However, the pressure to specifically address it at the time was relieved by actual commitment to the quest, which provided the personal goal congruence missing throughout my career. This has given purpose and meaning by virtue of providing an ongoing focus for reading, thought, contemplation, analysis, and creativity; which continues to inform my life choices, roles, and contributions. It has led to answers to the originally posed question about what I, and any citizen, can actually do about global problems.

So why did personal goal congruence matter so much? I think it was because its absence indicated that something about the way we are obliged to live 'did not compute'. We all have to live with reality, and commitment to an inner journey helped me to find my niche.

For example it can facilitate an acceptance that while one's best endeavours can only be a drop in the ocean, they can nevertheless be viewed as a purposeful and worthwhile contribution. If one believes in what one is doing, and can afford to pay the bills, unpaid voluntary, post-retirement activity associated with a personal quest can feel more worthwhile than pre-retirement paid employment without goal congruence.

Speculations on societal trends and some possible implications for the future of 'work' [Life choices].

One of the challenges posed by the 'information society' is how to filter out fake news. The paradox about whether we believe in something because it is true, or that something is true because we believe it, has to be faced. Is it more important to know who to trust, and therefore what to believe, or who to believe, and therefore what to trust? The 'old boy network' adage: "it's not what you know, it's who you know" can only have come from the privileged class. In a context of seeking metaphysical truth, one needs to understand the basis of core and relevant information. The process of digging for this, and discovering what is relevant, reveals a lot about the way things work. Each of us has to decide how far we need to dig in order to be satisfied that we are on a right path to the truth we seek.

The mainstream scientific worldview which underpins the status quo is materialist. At a common sense level, this scientific mechanistic worldview simply does not accord with our felt experience of who we are as human beings. Our felt (subjective) experience, and our values - which are conceptualisatons and beliefs superimposed on our raw experience of sense perceptions and bodily sensations - are of supreme importance to each individual.

There must be many people who believe (or want to believe?) that a deeply felt inner yearning for truth is somehow evidence of the existence of a bigger picture. We all want to be happy, but where is happiness to be found? In my case, in the end, after a great deal of reading, questioning and thought, there came a point where it became very unsatisfactory to sit on the fence with umpteen plausible scenarios, each with a specific list of as yet unanswered questions. Pragmatism took over. It seemed better to 'toss a coin', figuratively speaking, in relation to all the materialist versus post materialist arguments. It was decided to go with gut instinct, and commit to the post-materialist. This position assumes that:

- not that conscious Awareness exists within matter, as currently assumed in mainstream materialist science.

It is likely that many people will not even be aware of this concept, and even fewer understand it, or believe it. It would hardly be in the interests of the current main beneficiaries of dark governance if people en masse discovered a vastly bigger (and infinitely fascinating) context for their lives than overconsumption.

For those who are able to accept that more happiness, or more sustained happiness, depends more on being than on having, then it might be worth investigating how such a consciousness state might be attained. An issue central to the main theme of this website is to what extent the findings from such an inner journey might affect one's life choices. The extremely serious consequences of the prevailing dominance of belief in a limited interpretation ^lims of reductive-determinist materialist science lie at the core of the issues addressed in this website.

'Amoral' BAU, with its mandated profit maximisation in the corporate interest, and the robotic legal abomination of the Corporate Person, overrides human values. It legally permits the exploitation of human and natural resources, primarily for the benefit of a small élite group. The Corporate Person construct is a violation of basic common sense, and excuses the rogue operator behaviour which is the key driver of the major human-caused-problems.

^lims ...a problematic impasse in living with the duality that "we inhabit both a subjective world and an objective world" (Watson, 2014,Ibid., pp.517-521)...

See: Reticence to discuss spirituality

It has always been about economic growth [Introduction]

In the UK, having presided over Brexit, and the vaccination rollout during the Covid-19 pandemic, a manifestation of Americanisation/ the Anglo-Saxon business model/ the 'special relationship' during 2021 was for the then UK Prime Minister to conduct televised press briefings while standing at a podium between two furled UK flags. This pro-trade symbol of nation-state politics epitomises for me the great gulf between where we are, and where we need to be.

For example, the European business stance which recognises that it is not possible to quantify the unquantifiable (see The 'triple-bottom-line' (TBL or 3BL) [Power structure] ) is a step forward from the American business model which financialises everything, however untenable (Financialisation [Power structure]). The untenability of some financialisation assumptions epitomises the materialist/ post-materialist split which lies at the heart of the potentially deal-breaking being versus having issue. For those who may be unfamiliar with the notion of exploring Being, an introduction to the territory is given in the links associated with the artwork Reality check.

[Moral compass] is directed towards an attempt to reconcile various controversies in order to establish a sound basis for a moral compass mandate which could, in principle, be applied to corporate law. The materialist/ post-materialist split over issues such as free will is discussed. Perspectives from emergent materialism, sociobiology, and teleological behaviourism are contrasted with a profound post-materialist big picture view of reality.

The issue of whether or not nature, being amoral, precludes the notion of a moral compass mandate has been addressed. It was possible to conclude, using secular materialist science, that a moral compass mandate is not precluded. This conclusion was drawn without the need to invoke post-materialist science. Materialist science has evolved from its reductionist-determinist origins, and in particular an extremely important insight of Darwin, which has great relevance to tackling the looming global warming crisis, had come to light. That this hopeful insight has not been more widely publicised (whereas we have all heard about the "survival of the fittest") is discussed in It's a big ask [Citizen action].

It is concluded that there is no just reason, in principle, why a moral compass mandate should not be built into corporate law.

Expert comment and advice, including from convert-élite individuals [Citizen action], would be welcomed.

For the sake of all life on the planet, we have to hope that the life-priorities of enough capable individuals might be mustered to facilitate change in the right direction, before it is too late.

For those interested in taking the analysis further, see the section Altruism and selfishness.

Some key practical conclusions, which have relevance to the core theme of this website, are that:

Reality is non-dual; actions manifested in the world and the inner intentions behind them are two sides of the same coin

Being informs Doing

Doing without Being leads to wrong actions

Consciousness is thought by scientific materialism to be an emergent property of the brain; see for example (Scott, 1995) and (Greenfield, 1995).

"Once a fundamental link between information and experience is on the table, the door is opened to some grander metaphysical speculation concerning the nature of the world" (Chalmers, 1995, p.217). Developments in informational theories may yet hold the key to a new understanding (Currivan, 2017, p.3).

In contrast, the view of idealism/ non-duality is that the brain (and all matter) exist within conscious Awareness ; see for example (Wilber, 1996a), (Wilber, 2000a), (Wilber, 2001a).

Experimental verification presents a challenge for an emerging post-materialist science. Meditation research must include subjective experience and so ultimately findings need to be authenticated by genuinely enlightened and trusted spiritual Masters. Misunderstandings about concepts and terminology already cause some confusion. For example, the philosophy of panpsychism considers that some consciousness might be within all matter, but this is in effect 'materialism plus' rather than a genuinely non-dual post-materialist philosophy. For those new to the concept of non-duality, the following YouTube presentations (Kastrup, 2018), (Lucille, 2020) and (Spira, 2020) may be helpful.

Notes: 'Life choices, free will, and values'

Referring to God as quantum consciousness (Goswami, 2008b, p.108), Amit Goswami appends his provocatively titled book God is not dead with a short dedication to 'young-at-heart' Christians (Ibid., pp.277-287). Quoting from the Gospel According to Thomas (Guillaumont, 1959)^got, he selects particular sayings of Jesus for reconsideration from the perspective of quantum physics. The results are remarkable. Goswami concludes that "Jesus's God and the quantum consciousnress God are one and the same".

^got This document formed part of a chance discovery in 1945 of fragments written on papyrus, found near Nag Hamâdi in Upper Egypt.

Possible explanations for reticence could simply be a dislike of change, or the time and hassle associated with it; a genuine lack of interest in the issues; or just left-brain closed-mindedness. However, there still does seem to be a dismissive attitude of mainstream science towards such issues, or even to discuss them, as observed by Maslow years ago.

A materialist/ post-materialist science split has already been referred to. While significant differences of view exist, even between eminent materialists (Scott, 1995), there is a general resistance to invoking 'extra ingredients' at the more mystical end of the spectrum of possibilities, such as 'fancy quantum effects', as noted earlier.

Coming from a non-dual perspective computer scientist Bernardo Kastrup has written a number of very readable books on the post-materialist theme, for example (Kastrup, 2014), (Kastrup, 2015). His perceptual model of 'alters' was found to be extremely interesting (Kastrup, 2018). Although he openly challenged a well known mainstream physicist to debate the issue of materialism versus post-materialism, there was no response.

A problematic impasse...

Philosopher Thomas Nagel caused some controversy when he raised legitimate questions about "the reductive account of evolution" in his book Mind & Cosmos, as explained in (Watson, 2014, pp. 518-521). He (Nagel) concluded that "something is missing from Darwinism", and although carefully not invoking any "transcendent being" ^lsc, finds natural selection too reductionist, and not able to account for the enormous mental capacity with which humans are endowed. In his view a teleological argument is necessary. Agreeing with Bertrand Russell, Nagel identifies a problematic impasse in living with the duality that "we inhabit both a subjective world and an objective world" (Ibid., pp.517-521).

^lsc Rather like (Scott, 1995, pp.163-4), who argues that complexity theory and emergence has demonstrated that classical theory is no longer limited to determinism, and although carefully not invoking any "transcendent being", finds natural selection too reductionist, and not able to account for the enormous mental capacity with which humans are endowed.

The Longman Dictionary of the English Language (1991) defines Teleology as: (a doctrine) explaining phenomena (eg. evolution) by reference to goals or purposes.

Finding the explanation from current science to be wanting (Watson, 2014, p.517), and belief in a transcendent being not acceptable, Nagel identifies three "adjustments" which can be made in order to find some satisfaction while accepting that there is no way out of the predicament. He rejects contemplation as a high price to pay for spiritual harmony, and a waste of consciousness. The second is the opposite approach of a narcissist's perception of their self-importance, with sometimes "an unrealistic appreciation of their own abilities". The third adjustment is to just accept the predicament as how life is.

He then advocates living a moral life as a way of easing or escaping the predicament. Notwithstanding his avowed atheism, his position seems to be surprisingly close to non-dual spirituality: "It is better to be simultaneously engaged and detached, and therefore absurd, for this is the opposite of self-denial and the result of full awareness" (Ibid., p.522, quoted from another of his books View from Nowhere, p.223).

Watson, citing (Rorty, 1999), writes that Richard Rorty agrees with Nagel that "the aim of life is full awareness, but he was convinced that it can only be achieved via our relations with other people". Rorty dismisses any unconditional moral obligations, and thinks that being Darwinian means seeking less pain and more pleasure. He does not see truth as the goal of inquiry, which is rather to "achieve agreement among human beings about what to do"... "to make life better" (Ibid., p.523).

But in the short term or the long term, and for which people?

Wilber on Unity Consciousness,
and mapping to work of Maslow and other researchers

The view of idealism/ non-duality is that the brain (and all matter) exist within consciousness (Unity Consciousness); see for example (Wilber, 1996a), (Wilber, 2000a), (Wilber, 2001a).

The way Maslow's needs-levels correlate with the basic structures identified by Wilber and other researchers is tabulated in Chart 7 (Ibid., p.212) of Integral Psychology (Wilber, 2000b).

The Greeks first introduced the terms the Good, the True, and the Beautiful as a simple way to refer to the three value spheres of morals, science, and art respectively, or the 'we', the 'it', and the 'I' in Ken Wilber's integral spirituality model (Wilber, 2001a, p.49).

Adapting this values concept to scientific materialism, it is noted that:

Mainstream science, which has shaped our worldview, is amoral. Scientific materialism is unconcerned with the art or morals values spheres.

It regards values as individual, subjective, and not experimentally verifiable in the way that 'objective science' is.

The legislature underpinning ever-expedient BAU is amoral. As for mainstream science, it does not recognise the art or morals value spheres.

Its non-values are subsumed within the Corporate Person concept. In effect the 'I' and the 'we' are the power élite, and the 'it' is profit (mainly for 'us' - the power élite).

While at an individual level we may be ethical and caring, unfortunately these qualites are of no relevance to the BAU legislature which underpins the power structures which control our lives.

Notes: 'A moral compass mandate'

A dismissive attitude of mainstream science towards even discussing post-materialist issues was discussed earlier. Similarly, a general scholarly reticence to be critical of corporate behaviour has also been encountered. If challenged, the academic stance can be conveniently defended by replying that this would be politics, which is 'outside their remit' [Inference].

Noting Orwell's comment on the English education system [Power structure], it is as if the typical academic stance has been conditioned by the status quo view that the scope of questioning should be limited to what one was supposed to have learned at school. Anecdotally I probably first encountered this type of situation as a young adult when questioning the ethics of business [Introduction].

But many of our top scientists have shown a great interest in existential questions, for example Heisenberg, Schrödinger, Einstein, Planck, Pauli... (Wilber, 2001b). Despite this, there is apparently universal support for materialism by leading scientists. These physicists "rejected the notion that physics proves or even supports mysticism, and yet every one of them was an avowed mystic! "...They all realised that "physics deals with the world of form, and mysticism deals with the formless. Both are important, but they cannot be equated" .... "mysticism can only be learned by a profound change in consciousness" (Ibid., p.ix).

Wilber wrote this preface to his book in 2000. In the light of the remarkable experiment carried out in 2018 by Anton Zeilinger et. al (University of Vienna), it would be interesting to imagine a debate between Wilber and Goswami on the significance of this experiment for understanding consciousness.

Physicist Sean Carroll's observation about professional physicists researching into the foundations of quantum mechanics being sidelined raises some interesting questions (Anon., 2020c). It is not unusual for mainstream scientists to decline to comment on developments in post-materialist science; some to the point of appearing to be (left-brain) closed-minded. But perhaps this stance is more a reflection of tight control of research funding by élites, who no doubt have zero interest in post-materialist scientific research, which they are likely to perceive as a threat to their lucrative game. Citizens are hardly likely to know whether secret research funding for such topics is ever carried out.

Not that there is any shortage of funding for technological applications of quantum mechanics research, which has led to the development of atomic weapons, semiconductors, materials science, leading edge data encryption etc.. But it wouldn't do for the hoy poloy to understand the bigger implications about the true nature of reality. Those controlling the purse strings, understandably, want to keep it that way; far better to continue to persuade people that retail therapy is all they need, and to keep working to be able to afford it.

So perhaps scholarly reticence might be related to fear of 'losing career reputation', if one is suspected of not being 'solidly mainstream'? In a similar vein, it is also interesting to observe that ex-prime ministers sometimes speak out radically about what should happen politically; but only after they have left office. While this could just be linked to lucrative lecture opportunities, it might suggest that their 'hands were tied' [The Case: Power structure] while in office.