During April 1999 I was in the middle of a few chapters on "man the programmable animal model" when Columbine occurred. This is a bit wordy but it is a preamble to my current thoughts about who we are and how we need to choose who we want to be. We are aghast at the liberals "programming" our children and "brainwashing" the uneducated minorities. We need to wake up and understand that this programming is needed, it was traditionally done by our churches and families. Now our schools have taken over this process and perverted it. We do need to program ourselves and we better do it by active choice and not some perversion from the left.
Chapter 12: Littleton Colorado and other examples of certainty.
I have mixed emotions. I see my fellow man exercising his amazing ability to modify his behavior, and adopt models of behavior that are extraordinarily perverse. I see his certainty. I see his dedication. I sorrow for the crystal clarity in their minds, yet often with an absent of honest and truthful observations. I know of the malleable and magnificent capability given to us to alter and reconstruct our behavior and beliefs. I see our total ignorance of this process and cannot understand our failure to understand and observe who we are.
So this factor of programmability, which is our greatest ability, may be the tool of our own destruction. The ultimate ability to be who ever we choose brings the ultimate responsibility of truth, honest and accurate observations. The tendency to transform what we believe into crystal true knowledge and to defend it unto death and destruction accompanies us into our futures.
My emotions are mixed, because certainly there is an ultimate truth that is worth defending and dying for, certainly our ability and tendency to rise up to this ultimate sacrifice establishes us as a unique and extraordinary experiment. Yet our scientific mind seems to fail us too often. Our commitments are spurious; does our intellect lag too far behind our other attributes?
Are we merely lacking the ultimate facts? As we build and construct who we are, as we build the model of our behavior, are we ignorant of the process? Are we truly ignorant? Do we understand during the process that we are choosing who we are? We are modifying and changing, sorting and revising the model. And who is establishing the criteria, and influencing the program? If we reject the models that mainstream society is presenting, who is there to argue with us? Who is there to intellectualize these choices for us? Who is partaking in this debate? Who is in charge of our civilization?
If the examples we are given are confusing, if the choices are not consistent and overwhelming and correctly intellectualized, how do we choose? If we have a myriad of choices the selection process becomes random and confused. If we have a society that tells us to figure it out for ourselves we are abrogating a million years of experimentation.
If I were the President of the United States, could I choose to understand the need to present a model of behavior that was true and honest, that withstood honest and accurate observations and helped to program our society and create a ripple of philosophy that advanced the model? If I understood the need for all of us to make choices, and these choices were made by imperfect intellectual beings who might need simple and irrefutable evidence, would I more clearly understand the harm in presenting confusing and unconvincing and inconsistent models? If I were a teacher could I enter into an intellectual debate that brought us all together within this effort to advance the model of belief and behavior so that it could withstand truthful and honest observation? Could I control the opportunity within the process for perverse and abhorrent examples? If I were a manager, could I exert influence, by example, of a correct intellectual process of arriving at good choices through honest and accurate observations?
As we view history, can we see that the honest and accurate beliefs of a Thomas Jefferson and a John Adams have rippled throughout our generations and established a concept of individual values that have overtaken hundreds of nations within our world? Can we celebrate our ability to be different, yet still offer sound and irrefutable examples that defy rejection by even the most critical and skeptical observation?
The actions of all of us contribute, within our realm of influence, to a model of behavior that spreads from us throughout all eternity. The parent begins an influence throughout generations, throughout the rest of eternity. The ultimate judgment is not in the balance of positive versus negative influences. The ultimate judgment must be in a sum total of the negative. I do not believe in a scale that balances good against bad and absolves us from responsibility for the bad examples we provide. I believe the negatives stand by themselves; it is not acceptable to rationalize confusing and mixed models and challenge our fellow man to difficult and confusing choices. Each of us needs to present a clear and irrefutable model of behavior that contributes significantly to the advancement of this experiment we are part of.
I need not delve into the details of Columbine High School, Littleton Colorado where a small group of teenagers adopted, what is to us an abhorrent choice. A model of behavior they chose from Adolph Hitler. Need I say that this man’s responsibilities for his actions are still accumulating? Need I point out that the eternal influence is evident here? Perhaps judgment is reserved until some ultimate final moment. You cannot underestimate the importance of every action you take; only time can ultimately bring that understanding. Time is the mediator of truth.
There is an individual choice here. I choose to help mankind achieve a noble status; I choose to participate, within my influence, in spreading a model of behavior that relates to some real and truthful honest observations.
We need an example that can stand the test of intellectual and scientific examination, weak and muddled models will fall in the face of the inexorable judgment of time. Time is the mediator of truth. The strongest models in our society, our religious beliefs, have failed us because they haven’t withstood the passage of time, they have presented us an imperfect model mired as a dogmatic doctrine, often pitting their influence against scientific models and weakening their truths by choosing a moment in our existence rather than defining themselves as the true philosophers who would understand models are to be advanced, examined and improved. Could we place the same importance on truth in our religious beliefs that we put on our other efforts, such as space exploration, astronomy and other models that continue to advance?
Would I be amiss in asking my mother Catholic Church to devote their huge intellectual resources to advancing our beliefs into future millenniums? Could we, in fact, understand that our knowledge of all things is incomplete, and that this experiment we are part of requires that all of our beliefs be reexamined and reborn. We seem to accept this challenge in other areas. We do not claim to understand the essence of life, of cell structure of animal organisms, of the universe. We accept our ignorance and profess a strong dedication to build the best model we can, and to observe and reflect honestly and truthfully in order to advance the model.
Perhaps it is time for all of us to stand up and openly refute the imperfect models of the past, inquisition, slavery, and war. Can we understand these were imperfect models of behavior, flawed by some instinctive process of confusion between what we believe and what is true? Our confusion of a belief with truth is prevalent. We should not dedicate our destinies to a model that exists in a brief moment of time, waiting only for more observations to improve it, or disprove it. Only at some ultimate moment when time ends will the model be final.
So if we embrace each other with knowledge of our imperfect understanding perhaps we can all accept some ultimate partnership in our ignorance? With mutual acceptance of our confusion, perhaps individual confusion will be less important, easier to understand. Our inherent need to reject confusion as too frustrating and to embrace some belief as true knowledge causes us to desperately cling to imperfect systems of behavior.
Can we ever understand that we are embarked on a process of defining who and what we are? This is the ultimate awesome experiment in the myriad experiments of nature. So as we ask who and what we are, is the answer not truly, who we will be. Time is the mediator of truth. Our mission is contributing to that process of who we will be, individually and as a species. Is that noble enough to inspire us? Some of us choose to believe that at some moment in time we will transform and become more God like. Isn’t that God like enough? We are in the process of creating a species, influencing the future of perhaps universes, of billions of us. Who will we be? Is that worthy of debate? Does it deserve some of our time, our education, and our effort?
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