ChaunceyRiddle

16 November 2016

Definition of the word “agent”: Webster: 1. A power that acts; a moving force; as by some other than human agent. 2. One who acts or performs an act or who has power to act; as, a free moral agent.

To be an agent, one needs to have three things:

1. Be intelligent, having the power to believe and to choose.
2. Have a knowledge of alternatives among which one may choose in a given situation.
3. Have the power to carry out what one has chosen to do among the available alternatives.

We humans are agents in degree, and our agency is always situational. The degree depends upon how much knowledge we have of our alternatives and how much power we have to implement those alternatives. Our knowledge and power vary with each situation. Only God is fully free.

When Adam was placed in the Garden of Eden, he was given agency by God. But he had very little agency. His agency was limited to partaking of the fruit of the tree of knowledge of good and evil, or not. Adam used his agency to partake of the forbidden fruit, and by so doing greatly increased his knowledge of alternatives. This increase came because of his having followed Satan in partaking of the forbidden fruit, which gave Satan full access to tempt Adam in every choice, not just to partake of the forbidden fruit. Thus after the Fall, Adam had the opportunity to choose and follow either God or Satan in every matter in which he knew what God wanted him to do.

What kind of being is a human? We are given to understand that a human being is three in one:

1. Each human is an intelligence which has always existed.
2. Each human intelligence was clothed in a spirit body by our Heavenly Parents.
3. Each human spirit body was then clothed in a physical body by Jesus Christ.

What is the real person in each human? It seems to be the intelligence clothed in a spirit body. The physical body is but a temporary housing and facilitator. All humans will be resurrected, but only some are promised to have the same body in the resurrection.

How do human beings increase in knowledge and power, to gain more agency? Christ is the source and giver of all truth and power. Persons who are faithful to Christ gain more knowledge and power until they have a fulness of both. Satan’s role is to tempt humans to believe in falsehoods instead of truth, and to use the power each has from Christ to hurt others (to sin). Christ increases agency. Satan tempts people to misuse their agency, which misuse eventuates in the loss of agency. But the temptations of Satan supply the full value of faith in Christ, for without Satan’s opposition, faith in Christ would not be nearly as note-worthy or rewarding.

How do human beings gain knowledge? Most of what humans think they “know” is actually only belief. What one knows is limited to things one senses with the physical body and understands correctly. One can sense something and not understand it, so in that there is no knowledge. One can sense something and think they understand it, but can be wrong; so in that there is no knowledge. To sense something and understand it by the light of Christ is to have true knowledge.

How do human beings gain the power to act? All power to act comes from Christ. In Him we live and move and have our being. When any person sins, they do so by using the power Christ has given them to obey the prompting from Satan. That is one reason each must stand before Christ as judge and account for each sin. Having used God’s gift for evil, each must satisfy God’s demand for justice in accounting for each sin. Justice demands that the sinner suffer an amount of suffering equal to the amount caused by each instance of sinning.

So how do human beings use their agency? Every agent person has two choices in every act. A person may obey Christ or obey Satan. What makes each an agent is having these two choices. If a person does not have both choices available at a given moment, at that moment they are not an agent.

Do human beings affect each other’s agency? Yes. No human being of normal intelligence over eight years of age lacks the influence of Satan, so that is always in place. Humans can reinforce the temptations of Satan under the influence of Satan, which is a use of the reinforcer’s own agency. But what the person being tempted is responsible for is how he or she reacts to the direct temptation of Satan, not for what some other human entices them to do. Everyone is free to reject the evil influence of other persons if they have the influence of Christ within them. And if they do not have the influence of Christ, they are not agents.

But the most important influence one human can have on another is to help or hurt their opportunity to have the light of Christ within them. Parents who know of Christ and do not teach their children to have the influence of Christ are denying agency to those children. This is a sin for which the parents will have to answer. But if parents truly teach their children of Christ, so that those children actually come to enjoy the influence of Christ in their lives, those parents will have contributed greatly to the agency of those children. In Christ, and in Him only are we made free. Parents who teach their children about Christ and help them to gain His influence greatly affect their children’s agency by enlarging it.

Because God loves each of His children, each human being will eventually be taught the fullness of the Gospel of Jesus Christ and thus will have the full opportunity to gain full agency, whether or not their parents teach them so or not.

Thus it is that no person can control the eternal salvation of any other person. One human can help or hinder another person’s timing of coming to know of Christ, either hastening or slowing the time when the person is set free in attaining their own personal witness of the life and mission of Christ. But no person has the power, in the long run, to give or deny agency to any other person.

Thus every human is or will be an agent, and will choose his or her own eternal destiny, regardless of any environmental influence other than the influence of Christ and Satan.

Pertinent scriptures:

Wherefore, because that Satan rebelled against me, and sought to destroy the agency of man, which I, the Lord God, had given him, and also, that I should give unto him mine own power; by the power of mine Only Begotten, I caused that he should be cast down; And he became Satan, yea, even the devil, the father of all lies, to deceive and to blind men, and to lead them captive at his will, even as many as would not hearken unto my voice. (Pearl of Great Price 4:3–4)

And now, my sons, I would that ye should look to the great Mediator, and hearken unto his great commandments; and be faithful unto his words, and choose eternal life, according to the will of his Holy Spirit; And not choose eternal death, according to the will of the flesh and the evil which is therein, which giveth the spirit of the devil power to captivate, to bring you down to hell, that he may reign over you in his own kingdom. (2 Nephi 2:28–29)

March 1987

Definition of “language”: A language is the public patterned expressions of an individual which have been established and normed in and relative to a physical and social context. Thus:

Thinking is not a language, though it may use language.

Physical motions may be a language, if patterned and socially normed.

Parrot talk may use a language, but only in the same sense that a tape-recorder does.

To be “established and normed” in a physical context means that the definitions are shared in some community.

Postulates of this system of thinking about language:

1.   All meaning is personal. (Symbols or actions do not mean anything. Only people mean things through symbols or actions.)

Thus symbols have modal usages but no literal meaning.

2.   All meaning is total. (To elicit a total understanding of what any person means by a given symbolic usage, the entire contents of his mind would need to be understood.)

3.   No symbol usage should be considered to be self-referential. (To avoid Russell’s paradox.)

4.   All meaning is abstract. (Neither a part nor the total of phenomenal particularity is ever “meant” by a person. We think only in terms of universals. All so-called “particulars” of thought are actually a kind of universal, including proper names.)

5.   There are two basic kinds of languages:

• a.   In vernacular languages, words represent concept universals which have only a “family resemblance” meaning pattern in common.
• b.   In technical languages, words represent concepts which have a common essence. (Thus only technical languages can successfully and fully use logic, for there the problem of excluded middle is taken care of.)

6.   The general purpose of language is to assist the individual mind to become adequate to reality, to inform the mind so that the person can act more intelligently.

The unit of language is the assertion. An assertion is a patterned action by which an individual expresses itself agentively. Every assertion may be (must be) analyzed into four parts to be understood by a given observer:

1. A speaker intention must be hypothesized.
2. The patterned expression must be identified. (The actual words.)
3. A meaning pattern must be hypothesized. (Hearer supposes what the speaker intends his words to mean.)
4. A relevance or truth-function must be hypothesized.

This four-part meaning pattern is seen in watching an archer. To understand the archer one must put four pieces of information together:

1. one must decide what the intent of the archer is, to aim at a target, as in target practice, or to aim at people. Is he friend or foe?
2. one must have some sense of what the archer is shooting. Is he shooting wavering reeds or steel-tipped war arrows?
3. one must note at what the archer is aiming. If he is aiming at me, I need to get the message, the meaning.
4. I must have some sense of what will result if his arrow strikes me: serious wound and death?

Meaning is always the relating of universals (patterns). To say “this arrow is poison-tipped” is to overlay the target pattern (this arrow) with another pattern (poison-tipped) in an affirmative relationship. The logic of meaning is simple: it is simply either the overlay of a secondary pattern on target pattern (affirmation); or it is the blocking of overlay of secondary pattern on target pattern (denial: negation or subtraction).

In a modified Zemb frame this would mean that thema is the target pattern or universal, rhema is the secondary or overlay pattern, and the phema is the signaling of addition or non-addition of patterns (which includes both subtraction and simple blocking of addition).

Meaning does not exhaust the assertion, however. Meaning establishes only the possibility for concept formation which the speaker wishes to emphasize. How that asserted concept formation is to be related to the universe must next be described.

There are three kinds of assertions:

1. Disclosures: Revelation of personal thoughts and feelings by a speaker.
2. Directives: Attempts by a speaker to produce specific actions in a hearer.
3. Descriptions: Attempts by a speaker to enable the hearer to conceptualize a reality external to both the speaker and the hearer (either in the absence or the presence of the thing being talked about).

When a hearer attempts to understand a speaker, in addition to forming a meaning for the symbols used, the hearer must decide whether the speaker is using language in the disclosure mode, the directive mode or the descriptive mode. If the hearer selects the disclosure mode, he cannot look for a referent, but will look to see if the actions of the speaker are consistent with his professed disclosure. If the hearer selects the directive mode, he will act or not act, as he thinks appropriate, and then watch to see what the subsequent reaction of the speaker will be. If the hearer selects the description mode, then the hearer will look to the universe, to the referent if possible, to see if the speaker spoke truthfully.

In all interpretation, the hearer must judge the relevance of the speaker’s assertion to something in the context which the speaker and hearer have in common, which must include relevance in space and time. This establishment of the relevance of the meaning of the assertion is a fourth element. In terms of Zemb’s analysis, I would call this the schema, the hearer’s perception as to how the assertion relates to the universe.

The crux of the matter is the addition of schema to the thema-phema-rhema may remain constant while the schema varies. It may mean a disclosure of anger and impatience: I have told you a thousand times where the book is. It may be a directive: Don’t ask me; look it up for yourself in the book on the table. Or it may be description: The book is not in its normal place because I just put it on the table.

Thus there is a minimum of four things which must be established to complete an assertion: target class (thema), overlay class (rhema), addition or non-addition of the overlay class (phema), and the time, place and respect in which the thema-phema-rhema is to apply to the universe (schema).

I agree with Zemb that the logic of assertions is separate from the syntax of the language. Syntax is patterned expression which varies from culture to culture. Assertions are independent of cultural expression as relationships among speaker-hearer-universe.

March 1987

1.   There are two aspects to the logic of language:

• a.   The logic of micro-language, of kernel sentences, which are the units of meaning in language.
• b.   The logic of macro-language, of complex sentences, which are the units of truth-value in language.

2.   Micro-language functions to create meaning units by the addition and subtraction of meaning patterns in kernel sentences, which are semantically incomplete sentences of the language.

3.   There are four parts to a kernel sentence:

• a.   A designator, pointing to the particularity of the subject pattern (class).
• b.   A pattern name, designating the universality of the subject pattern (class).
• c.   A copula, asserting the relationship between the subject pattern (class) and the predicate pattern (class).
• d.   A pattern name, designating the universal aspect of the predicate class.

4.   In a kernel sentence, a designated particular instance (pointed to by the designator) of a class, the subject (which is the class being operated upon) has added to or subtracted from it (the operation performed by the copula) another class or pattern (the predicate, or that which is added to or subtracted from the subject).

Examples:

• a.   That ball is red.
• b.   That ball is not red. (For this to be a kernel sentence, the subject “ball” must already have as part of its meaning or pattern the pattern of being red. The “red” aspect of the pattern is then subtracted in that kernel sentence.)

Though these sample sentences are grammatically complete, they are not yet semantically complete. Every well-formed kernel sentence must be grammatically complete.

5.   A kernel sentence of the micro-language is changed into a sentence of the macro-language by the addition of three variables that make it semantically complete:

• a.   Designation of the truth or falsity of the meaning of the kernel sentence.
• b.   Designation of the spatial context in which the meaning of the kernel sentence is true or false.
• c.   Designation of the temporal context in which the meaning of the kernel sentence is true or false. (If we humans develop a useful space-time continuum in which everything can be given unique space-time coordinates, then b. and c. above would collapse into a single variable.

Examples

• a.   Kernel: This he is a liar.
• b.   Truth-value: Default position: assertion of truth.
• c.   Spatial limits: Here in this room.
• d.   Temporal limits: Last five minutes.
• e.   Translation: He just told a lie to me, and unless he repents, he will be and remain a liar henceforth, wherever he is.

6.   Most human logical systems such as logic, class logic, propositional logic, etc., are operations upon kernel units of meaning taken as lumps. Sentences that use such logic are thus macro-language operations. Macro-language transactions are truth transaction, whereas micro-language transactions are meaning transactions. Aristotelian logic is a primitive micro-logic, or logic of meaning.

March 1987

The following arguments are attempts to show that private language is impossible, as inspired by the Philosophical Investigations of Ludvig Wittgenstein.

Argument I.

1.   All language in use tends to drift (change meaning), because:

• a.   People apply old language in new contexts, therefore definitions change.
• b.   Cultures meet and meld (change, accommodate) at their intersections.
• c.   Atypicality is deliberately employed.

(Each of the above is a sufficient condition for change. The categories are not cleanly discrete.)

2.   Drift in language both enhances and limits its utility.

Drift enhances the utility of language in meeting new situations.

Drift limits ability to communicate with others: contemporaries, forebears, descendants.

3.   One of the devices which thwarts drift in language is to make them rule-based, establishing standards of correct and incorrect usage.

4.   A rule is a social norm, norms are socially defined. No one person can establish a social norm.

5.   Therefore, language cannot be based on the actions and judgments of a single individual. (There can be no private language.)

Argument II.

1.   Language is a rule-based system. The rules are social norms.

2.   In a rule-based system, I either abide the rule or I do not.

3.   Thinking that I abide the rule and abiding the rule are not the same thing. I do make mistakes.

4.   Only the testimony of others can assure me that I actually am keeping a given rule when I think I am doing so. (This is one reason why we have judges, umpires, etc.)

5.   If I think I am keeping a rule, and those around me say that I am not keeping that rule, there is no infallible internal evidence to which I can turn to prove either to myself of to others that I really did keep the rule. I must look for, find, and proffer external evidence (a photograph, circumstantial evidence, the testimony of additional persons, etc.) to assure that I kept the rule.

6.   The search for external evidence to prove that I kept the rule is done to prove to others that I really did what I think I did. Therefore, others are the basis for being sure I abide the rule.

7.   Therefore, there is no private language (no linguistic structure wherein I make up the rules, use the rules, judge that I use the rules, and have a right to be absolutely sure that all that is done correctly).

March 1987

One. Suppose that someone says, “I have and use successfully a private language.” We ask: “Is this language made up of rules? (Standard patterns of symbol usage).” He will probably reply, “Indeed it is.” And we say: “How are you sure that your language does not drift, that you use it consistently through time?” He might say, “It is a genuine language. It has regularity. It is not just my whim as to how I use it.” Then we come to the point: “What is the evidence that you use this private language you have consistently, other than your own testimony?” If intelligent, he will likely say, “My private language is a technical language. Every term is carefully defined according to the essence involved. When I use a term, I can check all the essential items to be sure that I am using the term consistently and correctly.” We counter: “Are there any undefined, primitive terms in your language?” Being an honest person he admits, “Yes there are, since every language must have undefined primitives.” We add: “So you cannot then be sure that the meaning of these primitives does not drift?” He retorts, carefully, “While it is true that I cannot be sure that the definitions of my primitive terms do not drift, I am sure that my private language system is sound and does not drift because I am able to do things with it in the real world. Nature responds to my formulae. I am justified in saying that I have a genuine private language because it works.” Then we reach for the clincher: “And how are you assured that it works?” He proudly responds, thinking he has won the argument, “Because nature produces for me exactly what I want when I use my fomulae on it. Thus my private language constitutes a genuine private language, because no other human being knows it and I can use it to accomplish just what I desire to accomplish.”

For all of his intelligence and good will, our friend does not see two things. First, he does not see that his desires may be shifting, and that nature gives him what he desires because he has come to desire what nature gives him. He cannot produce any evidence except his own word that his desires have not changed. Second, if nature does respond to his formulae and give him desired results, that means that he and nature have a successful communication going. He communicates to nature what he desires, and nature communicates back, filling those desires. That is not a private language; it is only private relative to other human beings, but public in relation to himself and nature, the two together seen as a community. So there is no private language as yet.

Suppose our friend pulls out his last resort and says, “But I do have a private language with God. I have made up my own terminology and syntax, and I write and speak to God in that language which is completely unknown to any other human being.” We need only inquire: “And does God then speak back to you in that language, and using that language does he enable you to foreknow the future and to accomplish that which you could not do by your own power?”

If he says, “No. God never speaks to me.” He has a problem. He then thinks he has “a language,” but cannot assure himself or anyone else that he is using it consistently. Thus no private language, only private mumblings. If he says, “Yes. All of those things happen and more,” then he has given his case away again. For if he speaks to God and God speaks back to him through that process, he learns things he did not before, knows and does things he could not before do, then his language is not private but public, defining the community to which this language is not private but public, defining the community to which this language is public to be himself and God. Only where there is a community that serves as a check and balance on our language can we know that what we are doing is using a language. Otherwise what we say or do is meaningless babble. Thus, there is no private language.

February 1987

1.   Meaning is a function of people, not of things such as signs, signals and symbols.

2.   People express themselves to “mean” through what they do and don’t do, often using signs, signals and symbols.

3.   There are four parameters of meaning when someone communicates with another:

• a.   Purpose or intent, reflecting the desires of the heart. Known to self only, hypothesized by all other humans.
• b.   Assertion, the idea content of a message, reflecting the mind. Known to self, must be hypothesized by others. Also, contains the support or backup elaboration of meaning reflected in clarification, verification, understanding, evaluation and application content of the message.
• c.   Physical action of the person in signing, signaling or symbolizing the message. This is the strength aspect of a message. These are normally the sentences uttered.
• d.   Relevance of the message. The effect it has or will have, including what will happen next if the message is reacted to and reflected in the actions of the hearer(s) or not. This is the might aspect of the message.

4.   Hypothesizing a person’s meaning (desire, assertion/support, and relevance) as attached to a signal structure (sentence), we may call “capture.” (Normal capture puts support in the place of the signal structure for convenience sake, but the original aspect of capture must be kept in mind, thus separating what a person “says” from what we hypothesized him to “mean.”)

5.   A capture is analysis of a time-slice of a person. We can capture an eternal existence, a mortal lifetime, a career, a term of office, a year, a month, a day, a minute, or an instant.

6.   A person who has integrity is easier to capture than one who doesn’t. For one who has integrity of heart, might, mind and strength, every capture is very much the same (same desires, typical message and support, typical relevance).

7.   But:

• a.   Few persons are integrated.
• b.   Some persons who are integrated become disintegrated.
• c.   Some persons who are disintegrated become integrated.
• d.   Most people are simply guessing when they capture, anyway.

So unless one has a sure-fire method of knowing the truth about metaphysical matters, every capture must remain a hypothesizing, a guess.

8.   Quality of capture improves as the following variables increase:

• a.   The integrity of the capturer.
• b.   The possession of an epistemology which delivers truth to the capturer.
• c.   The more truth the capturer already has in his or her mind about the universe.
• d.   The length of the time-slice of the person being captured being considered by the capturer.
• e.   The integrity of the person being captured.

Thus, the ultimate in capture is a god understanding God (seeing as we are seen, knowing as we are known).

God (Father and Mother) begat spirit children

            Who loved with and served under Father and Mother

                        And learned obedience unto righteousness

                                    That they might be proved in heart and clothed in flesh

                                                In a fallen and mortal existence.

                                                So Adam fell that men might be

                                    Able to choose good and evil and overcome the flesh

                        By denying selfishness and learning to love

            Yearning to return to be again with Father and Mother

To claim the inheritance due their noble birth.

20 April 1973

Much publicity has been given recently to an alleged “glut” in graduate education. Let us examine this situation for a moment by asking and answering some important questions.

Question: Why is graduate education valued so highly in our culture?

Answer: In part the answer is tradition. The ideal man in western civilization has been “a gentleman and a scholar.” To be a scholar enables one to be a “knower.” Knowledge is liberating and exhilarating. Many also seek to engage in intellectual pursuits because they give a person a station in life above the menial. Many persons in our culture think that it is degrading to earn a livelihood in a way that dirties one’s hands.

Another reason why graduate education is highly valued is that ofttimes it enables a person to achieve a technical competence that is needed by society. Engineers and scientists particularly, including both physical and social engineers and scientists, have been much sought after in recent times. Accountants and information specialists are in demand.

In sum: Graduate education has great social and often great vocational value.

Question: Why has there been such a marked increase in persons receiving higher degrees?

Answer: The reason for the increase is again twofold. Because of the great cultural value placed on graduate degrees, great masses of people see them as their personal key to joining the elite of our society. Every underprivileged (that is to say non-elite) parent would like to see his children join the higher ranks, to become elite. So in this age of social egalitarianism, education has come to be seen as an inherent political “right” by which minorities and repressed persons are to be given their fair share of the civilization’s glory. It is dimly recognized that if everyone had a Ph.D. then the Ph.D. would be of no value to anyone. But since relatively few persons do, there is still great advantage in being called “Doctor” even though the value is diminishing.

The second main reason for the increase in persons with higher degrees is money. The Federal Government, being persuaded of a national emergency, has poured billions of dollars into degree production.

In sum: The increase in graduate degrees is due to social and political pressures.

Question: Is there a real glut?

Answer: There is an oversupply in some fields. Fields that are directly oriented to vocational needs of society other than teaching are faring much better.

Question: Will the oversupply continue?

Answer: The desire for upward social movement with its attendant political pressure will assure continuing oversupply, supposing economic stability. Private universities have cut back but state institutions continue to increase in all fields. Only the lack of funds prevents increasing oversupply.

Question: What are the results of oversupply?

Answer: An oversupply creates a buyers’ market, which means that quality of product becomes very important. Business and industry will tend to profit from some oversupply in that they can pick and choose more. But the oversupply is least in the areas needed by business and industry.

Under the free market, universities would also profit from the oversupply, for it is in the fields that lead to university teaching that we have the greatest oversupply. But we do not have a free market. The system of tenure assures that year of being hired, not competence, is the criterion for continuing university employment. Able graduates in the humanities and social sciences may have to be jobless or under-hired and to be content with their increased social status.

Question: What is the best strategy for a person to pursue in a buyers’ market?

Answer: Be good. To be good in your field means mostly to be well-disciplined and hard-working. It is your continuing production, not your past laurels which count.

Question: Can a “good” person really break into the tight market?

Answer: The oversupply is strictly in “ordinary” graduates. Extraordinary people are always in demand.

Every day I see inquiries from search committees, ads in papers, requests from friends for extraordinary people.

Question: What are the characteristics of this extraordinary type of person?

Answer: The answer is three-fold:

1. It is to be good in your field, as mentioned before. Have you published? Have you done an outstanding piece of research? Do you know the frontiers of your field? Do you have a “magnificent obsession” that makes you work on even if you are not being paid for it?
2. Are you a good person? Are you steady, resilient, resourceful? Do you have your passions and appetites in control? Is your family life happy and stable? Are you cheerful, gracious, grateful?
3. Are you a good leader? Do you have a keen sense of right and wrong, and do you openly stand for what is right? Do you have vision, so that you are able to plan wisely and fulfill those plans? Are you able to enlist the support of others through persuasion and information? Do you help everyone on your team to achieve every satisfaction you achieve?

For all of our social and material glory, our great need today is for intelligent, righteous leadership. How sad to see men and women poorly trained, or self-indulgers, or unable to muster backbone, or blind to possibilities, or unable to change, or unwilling to follow, or unable to share; cynics, backbiters, given to lucre, faint of heart.

Question: Doesn’t all this begin to smack of religion?

Answer: Indeed it does. Religion is the ordering of life. No man can every rise above the personal religion he espouses. (A person’s personal religion and his church may be two different things.) Every personal and social problem can be shown to be a problem of religion. Poverty, ignorance, war, are all functions of religion as are plenty, intelligence, and peace. The real solution to the world’s problems is in religion. If men could and would repent, that is to say, to exchange their false beliefs for true ones and their evil desires and poor habits for good desires and good habits, then we could solve every problem, including all of yours and mine.

But how can the world repent? Most people don’t even believe that what we call repentance is possible. The only hope the world has is to see true repentance. Then they will know it is possible. This is where you come in.

You who graduate from Brigham Young University know of the true and restored Gospel of Jesus Christ. If you live that Gospel, you will come to exemplify every good thing I have mentioned today. Brigham Young University certifies to the world today that you have basic competence in your chosen field. But it is up to you to be and to demonstrate to the world that you are also a good person and a good leader.

The world has mistakenly thought that academic training was sufficient to provide the leadership the world needs. Operating on that principle has caused us to go round and round, from war to war, from tax to tax, from program to program with little real change in our human situation. What the world needs is not just you, but a repentant you made over in the image of our Lord and master, Jesus Christ.

In the midst of all else that transpires today, I hope you will remember that today is the occasion set aside annually to commemorate that greatest of all events of history, the atonement of our Savior. In that sacrifice on the cross, our Master fulfilled His perfect example to us. There is nothing fine which we could ever hope to attain wherein He has not set the example of perfection in that already. We say we believe in seeking after those things that are virtuous, lovely, of good report, or praiseworthy. Of all things or persons, Jesus Christ is the most virtuous, lovely, of good report and praiseworthy. We can do no better than to become exactly as He is.

We send you forth today as graduates, to do good among men. Our Savior sends us all forth as His children, to be the salt of the earth, to bring full and true salvation within the grasp of every nation, kindred, tongue and people. It is our hope that you go forth to serve, not to be served; to love purely, to sacrifice, to establish Zion. May you be giants of strength among fearful companions. May you be islands of righteousness in a sea of instability. May you desire and lay hold of every good thing. May we all honor our Master as He has honored us. This is my hope and prayer for you and for all of us.

August 1992 Commencement Remarks

As we celebrate the accomplishments today of those who have graduated it is appropriate that we also celebrate the greatness of ideas, for it is ideas that make a university a meaningful institution. For a moment I would like to draw our attention to a famous and momentous pair of ideas and dwell upon their significance. These ideas are fact and value.

First, the nature of facts. Facts relate to truth. They are concerned with states of affairs in the universe. States of affairs are things that exist and how they are related: as they were, as they are and as they are to come.

Some facts are easily obtained. We are not in doubt at this moment that we are in the Marriot Center, that the present season of the year is summer, that gasoline explodes, and that not all of our politicians can be telling the truth. The facts that are easily obtained are mostly items we can observe, here and now, and each man for himself.

But the large majority of facts are not thus easily accessible. The whole of the past, the whole of the future and well over 99% of the present are not available to our individual observation. But notwithstanding the difficulty of knowing this majority of facts, it is most important that we nevertheless gain true ideas about some things in the past, in the future and in the unseen present, and it is desirable and useful to know as much as possible.

The difficulty of our gaining most facts for ourselves plus the desirability of having many facts difficult to obtain have caused us human beings to create a division of labor. We commission historians to tell us about the past, scientists to tell us about the large and the small and the existence and processes of our physical surroundings. We hope for prophets to tell us of the future, and there are many candidates for the calling of prophet, but few who are found to speak truly.

This division of labor creates then what we call experts. Experts are persons of training and judgment who attempt to wrest the truth from the universe and who relay that truth for the benefit of non-experts. One of the reasons that each of you graduates are here today is because you have become an expert in some field. You know things the majority of us do not know, and more importantly, you have learned how to obtain and use this esoteric information. Thus armed you are prepared to make significant contributions to knowledge and understanding as you go out into the world. Though there are many kinds of experts in the world, experts in facts have a primary role because we cannot solve our problems effectively and efficiently unless we have a command of the facts of situations as they really are.

To say that we understand things “as they really are” reminds us that sometimes there is no human way to gain needed facts and that sometimes the experts are wrong. Notwithstanding these important limitations, it is satisfying to know that men are making impressive inroads into the unknown as our body of facts doubles now about every ten years.

Let us turn then to the realm of value. Whereas facts have an objectivity to them, values do not. Values are personal reactions of individuals to things. Values relate to desire. Whatever a man desires, that thing is valuable to him. Thus we choose and reject food according to one’s taste, which is part of our desire. We act politically according to that which we think will fulfill our desires. We plan for the future according to the desires we have for a thing to come to pass or not to come to pass.

Nothing has value in and of itself. Value, positive or negative, accrues to something only as an agent has feelings about it. When we use the words “good”, “beautiful”, “appropriate,” “boring”, etc., we are not saying anything factual, but rather are we speaking about our desires, about whether the thing in question pleases us or not.

Historically speaking, many persons have assumed that value is as objective as fact, that there is a “good” and a “beautiful” which is as objective as is the “true”. The obvious falsehood of that assumption is shown in that men have made significant progress in achieving progressive and more inclusive agreement as to facts or truths, but have made not a shred of progress in recorded history in agreeing on what is good or beautiful. Admittedly, some romantic souls yet cling to the idea of an objective “good” and “beauty”, but all they really assert is the desire that all men might have the same “noble” perceptions as they do. Such temerity and arrogance we can do nicely without.

One possible source of confusion that has led some to consider value to be objective is the failure to distinguish the good and the beautiful from that which is right or righteous. Righteous is the activity of blessing others. To make a long story short, righteousness relates to the fact side of the universe, not to the value side. It is objective, not subjective. This confusion of good with right has been natural since most men, I suppose, have desired that their desires be also righteous. The great honor and distinction accorded to the honest in heart is because of their rare ability to perceive and admit that their desires have not hitherto been righteous.

But now to come to the point of all this. Recognizing that value is subjective, as distinguished from fact, we can see immediately that there is no such thing as an expert in the realm of values. Each man, because he is an agent, is sovereign and supreme as to what is good and beautiful. Any person who pretends to say for others what is or should be good or beautiful for those others is strictly a charlatan or a monster. To pretend to expertise in the realm of value is absolute intellectual dishonesty, for there is no process other than tyranny which makes one man’s desires more desirable than another man’s desires.

Yet the world abounds in tyranny. In self-appointed experts who pretend to lead the masses to what is good and beautiful. This indeed out Herod’s Herod, and on every hand we see this intellectual knavery. Almost everywhere men say to others, “You should do this,” “X is beautiful,” “Y is desirable,” “We ought to believe Z”. This type of monstrosity is called by the scriptures, priestcraft. It is men setting themselves up before the world as a light unto the world for praise and for gain. It is the tyranny of Satan translated into this world. It is a temerity that even God himself cannot and will not partake of, for He, God, lets men choose for themselves their own good. If God Himself is content to honor each man with choice in relation to value, how much more ought men to respect and honor the personal desires of other men. But no: self-appointed Saviors abound in religion, politics, medicine, education, business, in every field of human endeavor. Thus we see that Satan’s plan, which was rejected in the council in heaven, is implemented far and wide here on earth.

But some of these self-appointed Saviors say, “We only speak that which is right. We have the absolute, the objective, so all men of intelligence will do our bidding and those who are not intelligent must be forced to do our bidding for their own good.” The pretension to be an expert in righteousness is of course worse than the pretension to be experts in the realm of the good and the beautiful. It can quickly be shown that only an omniscient being can have any hold on knowing what is righteous. Any man who claims to know what is right of himself is thus pretending to be God. And when he then enforces his opinion upon others, he is admitting to be an accomplice of Satan.

Oh, how great and glorious it is to live in a day when there are among us true prophets of God. For true prophets are never found practicing priestcraft. They are not self-appointed. The do not pretend to tell any man what is good for him, let alone enforce that supposed “good” on him. They do state to all men that which is right, but they do not pretend to say it of their own knowledge. Rather do they speak humbly for God, and they invite all men to inquire of God, directly, for attestation of the correctness of what they say.

We as mortals have a simple choice. We may follow the prophets of God in pursuing righteousness and heaven, or we will be subject to priestcraft and its varieties of hell. For God is the fountain of all righteousness. Only through acceptance of him and his prophets can we gain righteousness. But if men will not accept God as their leader, they are inevitably doomed to suffer under some man who thinks he knows what is good or right and is willing to use power to promote and enforce his ideas.

The application of all this is simple. As you go out into the world to be experts in facts, be wary of either practicing or being subject to priestcraft. Recognize that every man is honorable before God and esteem his desires for himself as being as valuable as yours are to you. Recognize that the only real expert in government is God, and that if we do not choose to be governed by God, the only other reasonable alternative is to do business by the voice of the people, for the majority of the people will seldom desire that which is evil. And above all, avoid giving power to any many or group of men whereby they can enforce on others what they think is “good” or “right”. Let us cherish persuasion, long-suffering, pure knowledge and love unfeigned so that we labor to assist and to honor one another.

If our education has done us some real service, may we ever cherish the distinction between fact and value, remembering that there are not and cannot be human experts in the realm of value. And perhaps that solemn realization will help us always to remember Him who is the fountain of all righteousness and through whom we may lay hold upon every good thing, even Jesus Christ, the Savior of Mankind. Of Him I bear witness, of His holiness and of the greatness of His holy prophets. I believe that the most intelligent thing any man, educated or not, can do, is to accept the true prophets of God and to be led by them to know the Master. With all my love and devotion I bear witness of them and especially of Him. In the name of Jesus Christ, Amen.

28 May 1971

There are more free people in the world today than ever before. There are also more slaves. Technology has given us historically unprecedented power. We as a race do not know how to use that power responsibly. Pollution threatens to engulf us. Yet never before have we been so little at the mercy of our natural environment. The world seems awfully full of people, especially in some places. But human happiness is bound up in being with and serving people. More people of more nations are educated than ever before. Yet magic, witchcraft, sorcery, priestcraft and astrology are exploding in popularity. We as a world are as materialistic as any previous age. But many grasp for something better.

It this a bad world? I say no. Is this a good world? I say no. For the world simply is. Whether the world is good or bad is not what matters. What does count is what you and I do about it. We can contribute to its woes or heal its wounds, or both. I believe that you and I think of the world as good or bad depending upon how we act. If we delight to assuage the suffering of others, life will be good. If we are conscious only of our own suffering, we will call it evil.

Our challenge and opportunity then is to enter into the processes of this world with zest, influencing it for good as much as we can.

But how shall we know to do good? It is obvious that many persons of sincere intent energetically strive to do good but succeed in making the world demonstrably worse. Can you and I do better?

Fortunately for us, the way to do good is simple, and it lies in a straight path before us. It is to serve the Lord Jesus Christ with all our heart, might, mind, and strength. But how do we do that? Again, the answer is simple: Follow the Brethren. Our greatest blessing is to have a God who lives and who hears and answers us. Our next greatest blessing is the priesthood authority on this earth which guides us to our God.

I submit to you my witness that the way to do good in this world is to follow the Brethren in every way. I believe that we should hang on every word they say, making their words our thoughts. What they are concerned about, we can be concerned about. What they like, we can like. We can dress and groom ourselves to be like them. We can serve as they serve, obey as they obey. This is not slavish imitation: it is rather the delighted response of an intelligent child who is grateful to have noble fathers. I know of no better way for us who have the covenants to come unto the Savior.

Our academic training has given all of us great power in this world. I pray that each of us will see this world as a great opportunity to do good, and that our good will not be self-righteousness, but rather the humble obedience of the servants of Christ. Then our academic training will not have been in vain.