There seems to be enough scientific evidence, along with empirical evidence in the form of everyday experience, to address in a meaningful way this perhaps ultimate question:
What Does it Mean to be Human?
While this one is not exactly a question never, ever asked, it is seldom if ever asked in the context of how its answer relates to how we structure the political-economic organizing principles by which we will live. What it means to be human is a function of our deeper reality. Specifically, what is the nature of our deeper reality? There are two basic possibilities: it is random and chaotic, leading to the universe in which we find ourselves being just a matter of random chance. If this is the case, the reality in which we find ourselves is inherently chaotic, requiring top-down imposition of order by a select few, fortunately for we little people, in possession of special wisdom.
But if the reality in which we find ourselves is already finely tuned, then, golly-willikers, just maybe it could be the wiser path to simply proceed in harmony with this underlying order and wisdom. This dilemma is not a new question. It was thought out in early China and took the philosophical forms Daoism, Confucianism, and Legalism. At approximately the same time, in another part of the world, some guys with names like Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle where addressing the same lines of thought.
Now, this most foundational question has been answered. By modern science, not politicians. The answer is known. The reality in which we find ourselves is finely tuned. Exquisitely, impossibly finely tuned. There is such a thing as impossible. The degree of fine-tuning that has led to the reality in which we find ourselves is impossible, literally impossible, by random chance. Hmmm, some kind of force seems to have done this on purpose.
The implications of the answer to this fundamental question about underlying chaos or order hold fundamental meaning to the structuring of our organizing principles in ways seldom if ever thought about. For instance, addressing the key issue of whence proper order? Imposed from the top down, as leftist ideology insists, or proper order allowed to unfold, evolve, and develop from the bottom up, inspired by positive incentives, as the opposition to leftist ideology supposes, even though that opposition tends to not specifically articulate it in this way. This question, along with a reasonably brief description of the underlying scientific findings, is already developed in some hopefully sufficient detail in the little book that informs this little blog. This discussion takes place in chapter 4: The Politics of Deep Reality.
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