The essays for the Unenlightened Wisdom Project feature “Words of Wisdom” provided as a synopsis for each section. Over the ten years of the project this page will feature those words as they are made available to the public. The citations include the essay and section of origin.
FROM THE WHITE PAPER (freely available to subscribers of this website)
Section A. Hikers on Haystack
We navigate life through some combination of our own autonomy and/or guidance from authorities.
Section B. The Journey of Life
A way of life is like a journey.
A humanitarian journey seeks to: “Love kindness. Build community. Believe in humanity.”
Journeys pursue a purpose within a context.
Civilization adds the increased hierarchy, centralization, complexity, chaos and confusion of mass societies to the context of journeys
Section C. Virtues and Vices
Our society has health issues that compromise our life journeys.
Our life journey depends first and foremost upon our brains.
Practical virtues benefit both brain health and humanity.
Civilized abnormalities create vices bad for brain health and wrong for humanity.
Journeys with different destinations lie in different directions.
Enlightenment and humanitarian journeys cannot reach the same destination.
Section D. Enlightened Reasoning
Enlightenment philosophy reflects limited experiential knowledge regarding neuroscience and early nomads.
Small band societies have greater social and moral responsibility than civilized mass societies.
Our social natures lead us to live up or down to the self-fulfilling prophecy of our society.
Section E. Civilized Biases
Dialectic reasoning cannot arrive at truth when all sides share the same bias.
Scientific consensus uses a collective wisdom process to filter bias.
Scientific consensus determined the emotions and behaviors that benefit brain health.
Enlightenment bias about our original natures serves to justify material self-interest.
Historical bias indoctrinates the perspective of the winners of history.
The selection biases of centralized authorities creates groupthink that undermines scientific consensus, humanitarian virtues and moral principles.
Section F. Paternalism and Groupthink
The complexity, chaos and confusion of mass societies create dependence upon centralized authorities and conformity to groups.
We are paternally misinformed and misdirected only by the authorities we trust.
Political interest groups create paternal conformity known as groupthink.
Groupthink often deflects blame towards “the other” and away from authorities and systems.
Groupthink thwarts humanitarian virtues, moral principles, collective wisdom and democracy.
The alternative to blindly trusting authority is the autonomy to accept responsibility.
Section G. Autonomous Responsibility
Blind trust in authorities we trust reduces their accountability and empowers corruption.
Section H. Systemic Corruption
Social systems rely on information feedback to maintain balance.
A balanced system maintains an equilibrium with only mild fluctuations.
Social systemic corruption undermines brain health and humanity.
Section I. Human Flourishing
Aristotle considered the benefits of virtues for the soul as the key to human flourishing.
Enlightenment philosophers considered civilized progress as the key to human flourishing.
The wisdom of scientific consensus in neuroscience and ethnography aligns human flourishing more with Aristotle than Enlightenment and NeoEnlightenment philosophers.
A journey from brain health to democracy builds upon the wisdom of scientific consensus, rather than the dialectic reasoning of Enlightenment philosophers.
Human flourishing depends on the positive emotional states, moral principles and ethical behaviors unleashed by the virtuous living that benefits both brain health and humanity