ChaunceyRiddle

1.   What is philosophy? It is the love of wisdom.

Wisdom is knowing how to solve problems. The study of how best to solve personal problems is called ethics. Before one can solve problems, one must understand them. In the seen world we study physics to understand. In the unseen world we study metaphysics to understand. Before we can do physics or metaphysics, we must know how to know, which is epistemology. The foundation of philosophy is epistemology. On that we build physics and metaphysics. On physics and metaphysics we build ethics. The best and the worst philosophies come from “vertical” epistemologies; the worldly ones from “horizontal” epistemology.

Styles of philosophizing all start from common sense: (a) Esoteric construction; (b) Withering deconstruction; (c) Reorganization of common sense.

Religion is a person’s pattern of life. A church is an institution which promotes a religion. Philosophy is answers to basic questions. Everyone has a religion and a philosophy, though few are conscious of what they are.

2.   What is metaphysics? Metaphysics is the study of the unseen universe. In science, it is called theory; in religion it is called theology; about the past it is called history; about the future it is called prophecy. Most of the really important questions humans have involve metaphysics: Who are we? Where did we come from? Where are we going? Is there a God? Do right and wrong exist? Is there purpose in life?

The problem in metaphysics is to get a suitable epistemology with which to answer the questions. Most metaphysics is the result of fabrication. Latter-day Saint metaphysics is based on personal revelation.

3.   To speak metaphysics is to try to paint word pictures. No words or pictures can capture reality. We come closest to reality when we are face to face with it, working with it daily. The following ideas are personal metaphysics in an LDS frame.

4.   The most important metaphysical idea is that of God. There are two senses in which Latter-day Saints use the word “God”: (a) A god is a person who is exalted. There are many such gods; (b) God is all gods in their priesthood organized missions (male and female). There is but one God. The absolute and perfect obedience of each god to both rightness and to superior authority creates the oneness of God.

• God is omnipotent (but cannot do things which cannot be done).
• God is perfectly righteous (no repentance is ever needed).
• God is omniscient (knows past, present, and future).
• God is love, and does nothing except to bless. (All “cursings” are really blessings).
• God is in total control. (There are no accidents. The universe is governed by law).
• God does not change (is eternal).

Evil exists in the world because God gives each person agency. No person could be exalted without the opportunity to do evil. Every human does evil, but some repent and can be exalted. Men know God only by communicating with Him (as opposed to merely knowing about Him).

5.   Human beings are literal children of the gods, and are agents, because they (a) are intelligent; (b) know good and evil; and (c) have power to act.

God’s foreknowledge does not abrogate man’s agency in any way. The Gospel of Jesus Christ invites all human beings to let Jesus Christ teach them how to repent, to become righteous, and to become gods.

Humans have four aspects: heart, mind, strength, and might. Heart and mind are of the spirit; strength is of the physical body; might is the effect we have on other things around us. Every human has a unique heart, might, mind and strength.

Salvation is to receive a new heart, might, mind, and strength through Christ. (We are saved from ourselves to become new creatures in Christ). We are not fully converted to Christ until we are new creatures in those four aspects.

6.   The universe includes God, and has always existed. Creation means reorganizing. Space is the possibility of existence. Time is the possibility of change. God does not change, and hence is eternal.

When men imagine the universe, they must invent it in broad categories. God knows and deals with the universe as particulars. Animals and plants and the dust of the earth are also creatures of God.

The earth is the globe on which we reside. The world is the kingdom of Satan on the earth. We know little about the creation of the earth except that it was done by God, but we have a blow by blow account of the creation of the world.

7.   Most philosophers have been idealists, and are so today. This means that they believe that reality is ultimately ideas, and ideas are represented by words. The mark of an idealist is that he will give you words about something to establish what it really is. Modern science is a good example of an idealist system.

LDS metaphysics, on the other hand, is materialist. Reality cannot be captured in words or ideas; rather, it must be cooperated with. Thus, deeds are much more important than words in an LDS frame. Our Father in Heaven, our Savior and the Holy Ghost are real to us only as we live with, communicate with and serve them and their children daily. The great communications with God are feelings, not words.

8.   Causation to most people is simple and linear. To Latter-day Saints causation is systemic and total. God is the greatest force in the system, but man and Satan and every particle that has intelligence affect the system. Humans often think that they have everything under control; that is a Satanic illusion. If one wants to affect things, the best way is to learn God’s will, then to work to implement His will.

January 1985

1.   Human beings have two parts or aspects:

• a.   Outer: The physical body, which deals with earth and nature, other humans, human artifacts.
• b.   Inner: Thoughts, feelings and desires; the good, the holy, the beautiful; the bad, the evil, the ugly.

Import: Each realm is very important: to neglect either is to fail as a human being.

2.   There are two kinds of human knowledge (belief) which correspond to the two aspects of man.

3.   When one has proved to be a responsible person and thinker in the everyday world, one is better prepared to make judgments in relation to the truth or falsity of religious hypotheses.

Problem: Are the Restored Gospel, Church and Priesthood of Jesus Christ true? Does the holy in my life assure me of the truthfulness of the Restored Gospel, and does the Holy Spirit guide and comfort me as I attempt to live it?

4.   I can gather two kinds of knowledge to test that possibility. Examples:

• Import: Public knowledge can never force one to believe the Restored Gospel. Example: Laman and Lemuel.
• Since the Restored Gospel is essentially about inner things, only inner knowledge can establish its truthfulness.
• Import: Inner knowledge comes only as I experiment with inner things. I experiment only as I desire to do so. Therefore I gain the evidence that makes a testimony possible only as I desire to do so.

5.   Question: Can I talk myself into a testimony? Answer: Can I talk myself into believing I have eaten when I have not? As I can test and prove things in physical knowledge, I can test and prove things in inner knowledge if I am willing to perform the necessary test and to make careful accounting of the results.

6.   Physical, public evidence can greatly strengthen inner, personal knowledge of the truth of the Restored Gospel. Inner, personal knowledge can be likened to the warp of woven cloth. Public knowledge becomes the woof which when tightly woven into a strong warp, adds strength and substance to a testimony.

7.   Qualities of testimony: Strong: Base for great faith and sacrifice. Weak: Cannot stand opposition. Sure: Sufficient evidence to surmount reasonable doubt: Daily contact with the enlarging and beneficent power of the Holy Spirit (Alma’s test). Unsure: Not enough experiments performed (faith) to be sure of the dependability of God. Present: Cooperation with the Holy Spirit today. Past: Memory of sure cooperation with the Holy Spirit, but no present cooperation.

8.   Summary and Conclusions:

• a.   The essence of testimony is present, inner experience with the Holy Spirit. Public, physical knowledge about the Restored Gospel is helpful but only when tightly woven into daily cooperation with the Holy Spirit.
• b.   Inner experience, evidence, comes only through faith (after initial witness of the Holy Spirit). Doing!
• c.   If a person hungers and thirsts after righteousness, he or she will perform the inner experiments necessary to gain a sure testimony of the Restored Gospel. Lacking that desire, no one can gain sure and lasting evidence.
• d.   A testimony is always an inner, personal, non-transferable thing, a selected summary of the inner experiments of the person. Witness may be born, but the evidence cannot be transferred.
• e.   Any person who has a sure testimony of the workings of the Holy Spirit through the laws and ordinances of the Restored Gospel can also endure to a sure knowledge of the Son and of the Father, if he or she so desires in faith.

April 1987

1.   If a right is not:

• a.   A natural process that would happen anyway.
  Example: Growing old.
• b.   A social requirement inflicted on someone no matter what his will.
  Example: Income taxes.

2.   Then perhaps a right is a freedom granted to a person by another person or group of persons.

3.   The people of the United States grant rights to individuals such as:

• a.   The right to or not to vote.
• b.   The right to or not to leave the country.
• c.   The right to or not to sue.
• d.   The right to or not to kill unborn babies.
• e.   The right to or not to have an attorney when charged with a crime.

4.   Parents sometimes grant rights to their children, such as:

• a.   The right to or not to take the family automobile.
• b.   The right to or not to attend church.
• c.   The right to or not to keep a messy room.

5.   God grants only one right to His children:

• a.   The right to label good and evil.
• b.   The ability to choose and to do good or evil is not a right. No one has a right to do evil before God.

6.   Observations about rights:

• a.   A right is worth only the power invested by the granting agency to guarantee that right.
  Example: If the government does not assure that you can vote when you get to the polls, your “right to vote” is worthless.
• b.   Rights may be withdrawn by the granting agency.
  Example: Martial law suspends many individual rights.
• c.   There is and can be no “right to life,” for no one can guarantee it. What government presently guarantees is freedom from government harassment if one aborts one’s child. But in a recent court case it was decided that mother’s do not have the right to abuse their unborn children with drugs and then give birth to them.
• d.   There is no right to health, for no one can guarantee it.
• e.   There is no right to education, for no one can guarantee it. But some societies guarantee a right to schooling.
• f.    There is no right to be free from racial discrimination, for no one can enforce it. But there is a right to sue and obtain damages for racial discrimination in specific contexts (e.g., hiring) if such can be proved in a court of law.
• g.   Who has rights to the public treasury? Only those who have legal entitlements. Do AIDS victims have a right to research money to find a cure for the disease quickly? Only if some government body passes a law to that effect.
• h.   God wills that men grant each other the rights to protection of life, freedom of conscience, and the right to control of property. Any society that grants its citizens these rights must be upheld by citizens if they are servants of God. Otherwise, God holds them blameless if, under His direction, they overthrow those governments.

“Grace and peace be multiplied unto you through the knowledge of God, and of Jesus our Lord. According as his divine power hath given unto us all things that pertain to life and godliness, through the knowledge of him that hath called us to knowledge and virtue: Whereby are given unto us exceedingly great and precious promises: that through these ye might be partakers of the divine nature, having escaped the corruption that is in the world through lust. And beside this, giving all diligence, add to your faith virtue; and to virtue knowledge; and to knowledge temperance; and to temperance patience; and to patience godliness; And to godliness brotherly kindness; and to brotherly kindness, charity. For if these things be in you, and abound, they make you that ye shall be neither barren nor unfruitful in the knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ. But he that lacketh these things is blind, and cannot see afar off, and hath forgotten that he was purged from his old sins. Wherefore the rather brethren, give diligence to make your calling and election sure; for if ye do these things, ye shall never fall:” (2 Peter 1: 2–10)

So we have this precious formula from Peter.

1. Faith. We must always begin with faith in our Savior. Before we can correctly put our trust in Him, we must receive the Holy Spirit which reveals His will to us, for faith comes by hearing the word of God. Having that precious seed or word, we must believe in it and act upon it, for faith without works is dead. So we begin to tread upon this bridge over the chasm of captivity to Satan by trusting in our Savior, being comforted and guided by His Holy Spirit.
2. Virtue. Having begun to be faithful, we must not falter or doubt. We must gather our strength and courage and do all that we know to do, to obey the commandments we have received. This is the meaning of virtue. The word derives from the Latin vir, meaning man, and by association virtue means strength. As muscle and mind grow in strength with use and decay under abuse, so with faith. The focus of our mind and thought should be to move correctly, with faith, and surely, with strength. We are not asked to go faster than we have strength.
3. Knowledge. Faith supported by virtue brings the need for further knowledge of the ways of the Lord in order to be more faithful. “Blessed are all they who do hunger and thirst after righteousness for they shall be filled with the Holy Ghost” (3 Nephi 12:6; emphasis added). Though the Lord’s ways are not our ways, He nevertheless delights in revealing His mysteries to those who serve Him in righteousness to the end. They learn of Him line upon line, precept upon precept, until their understanding reaches unto heaven. And because they know, they can become a great blessing to their fellow-beings if they act on that precious knowledge.
4. Temperance. To be temperate is to be even, to be steady. To be a faithful, strong, understanding servant means that we must add steadiness, to serve the Lord in season and out of season, in convenience and in inconvenience, in blessedness and in sacrifice. For to be faithful at only our own desire or in our convenience is not true faith; it is only playing with faith. To be faithful in difficulty is the only way we can show that the faith, strength, and understanding we have are our own heartfelt choices. To serve the Lord only when it is pleasant and convenient is to treat Him as a convenience. But to serve Him in sacrifice is our way of showing our selfless love for Him, for His work, and for all for which He stands.
5. Patience. With our personal stage now set to be much more effective in the work of righteousness (blessing others), we first turn to discern their needs. As we look to those around us, we see souls bound and afflicted with varying degrees of “natural man problems,” varying degrees of captivity to the adversary. We may be tempted to smite away their fetters and blindfolds. But knowledge and temperance tell us to be patient, to know that only the self can unlock the self. We must be patient, suffering with the ones we would bless until the key of faith is in their hands, and they can begin to unfetter themselves.
6. Godliness. But we will not just stand idly by, watching their suffering. We will share the burden with them, sacrificing our own strength to help them. Godliness follows upon patience because our heart, our concern for others, needs to grow until we cannot look upon any human being without feeling compassion for them. This compassion prepares us to serve and bless all, even as our Savior would were he in our shoes.
7. Brotherly Kindness. To have godly concern for all human beings is but a frustration unless there is a solid means of helping them. As one looks for a way to help, one obvious structure for delivering help is the kingdom, the Church. The essence of the Church is its priesthood organization. The strength of the priesthood organization of the Church is the men who are its embodiment. To learn to love them and to fulfill in faith a stewardship under them is the greatest way to help this world that one can have; to be a missionary, a president, a teacher, whatever. Is it not possible that the words we have as “brotherly kindness” really were intended to say “love of the brethren?”
8. Charity. Finally we come to the final stage of development when we possess the greatest spiritual gift, which is charity, or the pure love of Christ. It is pure, unselfish love for the Savior and from the Savior, reflected through us in patience, godly concern, love for the brethren, then delivery of blessings in our stewardship with all of our heart, might, mind, and strength. Of one who possesses this love, Peter says:

For if these things be in you, and abound, they make you that ye shall neither be barren nor unfruitful in the knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ. But he that lacketh these things is blind, and cannot see afar off, and hath forgotten that he was purged from his old sins. Wherefore the rather, brethren, give diligence to make your calling and election sure: for if ye do these things, ye shall never fall: (2 Peter 1:8–10)

Then shall we be even as our Savior is:

Beloved, now are we the sons of God, and it doth not yet appear what we shall be: but we know that, when he shall appear, we shall be like him; for we shall see him as he is. And every man that hath this hope in him purifieth himself, even as he is pure. (1 John 3:2–3)

The opportunity of patience, godliness, brotherly kindness and charity can be framed another way by asking the question; How shall I let my light so shine that others seeing it will be caused to glorify God? We might answer by positing three steps by which the light of the Savior can be fully manifest.

Step 1. Love. We can love purely. We can show the example of full, unselfish Christ-like love as the Holy Spirit radiates through us to others. Be we father, mother, sister, brother, president or member, we can all give unqualified love to those around us. We will not be critical, but supportive; not condemning, but sympathetic; not condescending but honoring each person as a child of God. We can let each person around us be fully assured that someone knows they exist and cares about what happens to them. The purity of our love will be the purity of the Holy Spirit; the strength of our love will be the strength of the Holy Priesthood. The fulness of our love will be the fulness of our Savior, who received a fulness of all things from our Heavenly Father.

As all of the truly spiritual people of the world know, the world’s greatest need is more of this love. The Savior has it to give, but he needs translators. We have the opportunity which the world does not. Will we translate?

Step 2. Example. We can show the example of a godly life. We can show how it is that a true servant of Jesus Christ eats and drinks, marries and gives in marriage, buys and sells, teaches and learns, governs and obeys, prays and worships. The example is important because the world needs hope, the hope that the commandments of Jesus can be lived. Many have the ideal, but do not understand how it is done. Only those who both know the truth and have the power of God can show the full example:

Seeing then that all these things shall be dissolved, what manner of persons ought ye to be in all holy conversation and godliness, Looking for and hasting unto the coming of the day of God, wherein the heavens being on fire shall be dissolved, and the elements shall melt with fervent heat? (2 Peter 3:11–12)

Step 3. Witness. We can teach the word of God in its simplicity and purity, as we receive it from the scriptures and the Holy Spirit. We bear testimony that the Savior lives, that His prophet is on earth, that this Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints is the only true and living Church. We teach the fundamental principles of faith and repentance, baptism and confirmation, of enduring to the end. Thus may others come to comprehend and understand the ways of the Lord.

Now a frank question: Would you like to have someone in your life who loves you purely, who is the example of all righteous action; who can teach you so that you understand the ways of our Savior? Could you better live the Gospel if you felt, saw and understood the truth manifest in the flesh? Surely we would all appreciate that.

Another frank question: Why don’t you and I who have testimonies and know something of the ways of the Lord go out and show love, live as an example, teach the truth to the best of our ability? Surely if we all lived in the physical presence of the Savior, we would have a surer testimony. But we don’t. Why not then take all the love, the example, the understanding that we have received and pass it on? Is not our opportunity to bless others greater because the Savior is not here?

Let us be about our Father’s business.

26 July 1979

Definition: Role. A recognizable pattern of valuations, actions, and communications which form a cohesive whole.

Examples:

Postulates:

1. Every normal human being is playing a role at any given time.
2. Roles are cultural artifacts.
3. Roles are principally learned through observation and only incidentally through words.
4. Agency is the choice of an implementation of a role by a responsible person.
5. Every normal adult chooses among several roles as to which one will be enacted at any given moment.

Gospel Applications:

1. Normal adults who know and live the Gospel of Jesus Christ are free to act as children of Jesus Christ.
2. Celestial spirits are those who, when they learn the Gospel of Jesus Christ, learn to reject every role except that of a child of Jesus Christ.
3. Sin is choosing and enacting any role but that of child of Jesus Christ.

February 1987

1.   History of universals:

Plato: There is a general ideal entity (the true) which is named. Materially instantiated particulars have their being in being like the general.

Aristotle: Recurring identities are noticed in the comparison of particulars, affirmed by the mind.

Locke: Selected identities (concepts) are built up out of comparison of empirical patterns.

Hume: Concepts are resemblances noticed in empirical observation.

Wittgenstein: There are ranges of overlapping family resemblances.

2.   Existence is particularity. (There must be opposition (difference) for something to be separate, and thus to exist.

3.   Language is universality. (Language always deals with patterns, with types. It is rule based.)

4.   Particularity is initially and ultimately revealed in sensation.

5.   Particularity as realized (revealed) in sensation is amorphous, irregular, anomalous. It can never be trusted or dealt with. It is an asymptote never grasped by human beings.

6.   Universality is always realized (created) in the mind.

7.   Universality is fictive convenience, at least as much bound by desire, the inside universe (mentality), as by the outside universe (supposed reality).

8.   Universality and particularity are both universals and relate only to universals.

9.   The mind considers and uses only universals.

10. All thinking is comparison of universals (pairing of patterns).

11. If two patterns are paired by a thinker, and that thinker chooses to emphasize their difference, one is called a particular vis-a-vis the other.

12. If two patterns are paired and the thinker chooses to emphasize their similarity, that similarity is called a universal.

13. But each pattern in the mind is already a universal. Where does the original universal come from? It is a hypothesis (guess) imposed upon phenomena by the thinker in self-defense, to simplify the unknowable welter of particularity in phenomena.

14. Knowledge consists of universals which are patterns used successfully in dealing with the universe. That success can be personal (heart, performative, satisfying), or mental (mind, coherence), or physical (strength, empirical), or enabling (might, pragmatic), or any combination of the above.

15. There are three main “enabling” realms:

• a.   Nature (technology)
• b.   Ideas (mathematics, logic, philosophy)
• c.   People (society, politics)

16. Particularity and universality are thus relational terms. Some universals when paired are seen as different, so one is called a particular. Some universals are seen to be alive, so they are united by the creation of a more general universal.

17. Thus is created a hierarchy of universals, culminating in The Universal. But The Universal has existence and significance only as a particular.

18. Language is of two types:

• a.   Ordinary: universality is family resemblance, which means that logic is not strictly usable. (Law of excluded middle does not hold.)
• b.   Technical: Universality is a common essence, which makes strict logical entailment possible, because the law of excluded middle does hold.

19. Law of Excluded Middle: Either A is true or not true. Logic can be used only when the terms are identical in each usage.

20. Questions:

• a.   Is ordinary language simply sloppy language?
• b.   Can “good” poetry be written in a technical language?
• c.   Can good thinking be done in ordinary language?
• d.   Can a person ever be saved if he knows only ordinary language?

March 1991

1. Communication: One thing affecting another. Two-way communication is conversation (action-reaction cycle). Some conversation is language facilitated. A language is a patterned and socially normed set of items used to converse. All language conversation is based in non-language conversation.

2. For humans there are four important kinds of conversation:

1. Conversation with other humans.
2. Conversation with nature.
3. Conversation with God (good).
4. Conversation with Satan (evil).

Each of these conversations is important because each is inescapable.

But humans vary greatly in their conversational (language) competence. Mastery of languages makes possible cooperative (mutually beneficial) conversation, which is competent conversation.

• Cooperative conversation with humans: E.g. exchange of goods and services.
• Cooperative conversation with nature: E.g. growing a garden which is very productive.
• Cooperative conversation with God: Hearkening to His guidance as to how to help His other children.
• Cooperative conversation with Satan: Impossible. Satan acts only to disadvantage those with whom he communicates. But he teaches those who say “yes” to him how to disadvantage other humans and nature to their own temporary advantage; so these persons think they are wise because of the temporary advantage. But it is necessary to master Satan’s Language (temptations) to be able to say “no” to him.

Humans who have not mastered the respective necessary languages are incompetent communicators. A person may be competent in one kind of conversation (e.g., with humans) and quite incompetent in another kind of conversation (e.g., with nature).

3. Ability to carry on a competent conversation is sanity. A person who should have become able to be language/conversation competent but has not is unsane/insane (unhealthy).

Insanity relative to humans: Inability to carry on a cooperative conversation.

Insanity relative to nature: Inability to get nature to give one what one needs without destroying it.

Insanity relative to God: Inability to recognize that conversation with Him leads to cooperative conversation with humans and nature, and to have that conversation.

Insanity relative to Satan: Inability to say “no” to him, to believe that the temporary self-     advantage he promotes are possible long run.

4. Reality consists of conversations. Be-ing is conversing. To be able to converse competently with humans, nature and God and to say “no” to Satan is to gain a firm grasp on reality and sanity.

5. The principal barrier to grasping reality and sanity is to learn to converse competently with God and to reject Satan. If one only recognizes the horizontal dimensions of human experience, neglecting the vertical, they cannot grasp reality and sanity.

God teaches and enables competent conversation (mutually beneficial conversation) with humans and nature, and how to reject Satan and evil.

Satan promotes evil, which is conversing to benefit self only by disadvantaging the partner in the conversation, which is how to reject God.

Why do not all humans immediately recognize the presence and difference between God and Satan (good and evil)? This is to ask, Why do not all humans immediately grasp reality and sanity? Some humans grasp reality and sanity immediately, and all will in the end. Meanwhile, some are blinded to reality and sanity because they simply don’t care about anyone but themselves.

What the long run will bring to them is that they will eventually recognize that as they destroy others, they are actually destroying themselves, for we all exist and prosper only in our conversations with and in the welfare of others. That realization will eventually bring them to reality and sanity.

1. It is impossible to make sense of reality and sanity without learning to converse correctly with God (good) and Satan (evil).

The purpose of mortality is not to see who is smart (able to grasp reality and sanity immediately), but rather who cares about others, who can and will carry on cooperative conversations. Those who do not care about others but only about themselves buy and practice Satan’s lies (insanity), that to do evil is advantageous. Thus they temporarily deny reality and revel in insanity.

September 1991

1.   What human beings do: They

• a.   Choose. They prefer one thing over another in order to fulfill their desires according to their understanding and ability.
• b.   Understand. They taxonomize a mental universe to represent the “real” universe.
• c.   Act. Using whatever skills and abilities they have, human beings do things. This is conversation with other beings.
• d.   Enjoy. The universe causes in human beings sensations and emotions which we call experience. These are sorrow and joy, pleasure and pain, satisfaction and dissatisfaction.

These four things constitute the bulk of what human beings do.

But there is one more important activity. Human beings also:

• e.   Argue. To argue is to present a case that:

•            1)   One choice is better than another (ethics), or that
•            2)   One taxonomizing is better than another (science, common sense, and metaphysics), or that
•            3)   One skill development or application is better than another (strategy and tactics, “how to”), or that
•            4)   One enjoyment is better than another (persuasion, advertising).

2.   Thinking is done by human beings in all of the things which they do. But thinking focuses in argument.

3.   Every argument has at least four elements:

• a.   A conclusion. What it is you are trying to assert, to establish, to prove. (A choice.)
• b.   A support structure. This is the evidence or basis for your thinking that the conclusion you foster is preferable to some other position. (A representation.)
• c.   A rhetoric. This is the delivery vehicle in which the argument is communicated to others. (A doing.)
• d.   An effect. This is what happens when your argument is communicated to some target. (An enjoyment.)

4.   An example of an argument.

• a.   Conclusion: You cannot make the world safe for human beings, but you can make human beings safe for the world.
• b.   Support structure: Evil is endemic in the world; it cannot be eradicated. Therefore, the world cannot be transformed into a safe place for human beings.
              Support structure: Human beings can be taught to defend themselves against the evils of the world. When they are taught and if they use what they are taught, they can defend themselves against the evils of this world, and therefore become safe for the world.
• c.   Rhetoric: (Not given here: this would be a paper, or a poem, or a play, or some other vehicle by which to communicate this thought structure.)
• d.   Effect: (Can only be hypothesized: If the target person(s) accept the argument you might enjoy that.)

5.   Factors which affect thinking:

• a.   Desires: If persons want to think, they will. If they want to think better, they will learn how to do so. If their thinking is good rather than evil, they will do prosper in thinking.
• b.   Knowledge: The greater conceptual development and the greater the knowledge of the person, the better they can think.
• c.   Skills: The more things a person can do well, the greater their ability to think about doing well.
• d.   Effort: Time and energy are essential to sustained production in thinking.
• e.   Wiring: Some persons are genetically constituted to be able to think faster and better than others.
• f.    Environment: Some environments are rich in stimulation to think, whereas others are not.

Premise: Human beings are primarily doers, not knowers.

Doing: Physical action to achieve a physical result.

Knowing: Mental representation of the universe created on the basis of the experiences of the individual, which are primarily physical experiences.

Conclusion: Knowing is a doing, but the primary doing is achieving physical results.

Premise: All doing is a function of the desires of a person.

Desire: A need to achieve something. For mortals, most desires are physical.

Premise: The desires of a person are either good or evil.

Good desires: A need to attain the physical satisfaction one craves (spiritual satisfaction through physical service to others, taking their desires into account.)

Evil desires: A need to attain the physical satisfaction one craves (spiritual satisfaction through attention only to one’s own desires, using others as needs be to fulfill those desires.)

Premises: Good desires find satisfaction only by taking into account the desires of God. Evil desires find satisfaction only by taking into account the desires of the self (Satan encourages and assists this selfishness by suggesting how others can be used to gain one’s own desire satisfactions.)

Premise: When a person sees (knows), how they see and know is a function of their desires.

The person of good desires sees other persons and things in terms of the potential for doing good which their existence affords: either as an instrument for doing good for others, or as others for whom good is to be done, to help others to attain pleasure, honor and power.

The person of evil desires sees other persons and things in terms of the potential they have for fulfilling his own desires for pleasure, honor and power.

Conclusion: Though physically in the same space and now able to affect each other, persons who desire good live in a different (effective) universe from those who desire evil. Though these two universes may have some points of contact, things are seen and acted upon in very different ways.

In the hereafter, the good persons of this world will live in so different a universe from evil persons that the evil persons have no power to contact or to affect the good persons.

Conclusion: Potentials are powers. Power is the key. Power does. Power knows. Good is power (in the long run). Evil is impotence (in the long run).