4. EVOLVING HUMAN VALUES
Part 1: As discussed in the last overview, we would expect that when any species evolves a value system, it will trend towards enhancing the qualities necessary for existence. In this section, we’ll take a brief look at how these same core qualities can jump off the page and explain values that have nothing to do with existence, acting as a lens to understand human emotions and drives, ranging from our highest ideals, to the role of our most sacred emotions such as love, to our most complex psychological motivations.
Survival alone doesn’t easily explain why we appreciate things like music, art, and spirituality, or why we pursue a life of meaning and purpose. It certainly has a very hard time explaining altruism, especially when it comes to explaining sacrificing oneself for unrelated people, or even other species, or for a cause or belief. But in each of these and other cases, it’s very easy to make a logical case that they all increase the core qualities necessary for existence.
First, The Big Answer (TBA) explains what I refer to as “higher-level” values. I call them that because they tend to override lower-level values when those lower-level values would decrease TCQs. For example, if someone likes speeding without a seatbelt while driving drunk, we would say it’s bad that they think that’s good. The same would apply to someone who enjoys destroying artifacts, which have nothing to do with survival at all, but those artifacts enhance TCQs for the people who appreciate and learn from them.
Many people think love is the ultimate goal and “all you need”. However, love binds family and tribal members together, helping them stay united and navigate through adversity. It also motivates parents to put themselves in danger to protect their kids. Therefore, it can be easily and clearly explained as an emotion that has evolved to serve a survival function and increase TCQs. TBA can go one further and explain why someone is “blinded by love” if they are being taken advantage of in a relationship. In such a relationship, TCQs are decreased for the person being taken advantage of.
TBA can also explain archetypes such as the starving artist, the celibate monk, the eternal wanderer, the reclusive genius, the hermit, or anyone pursuing endeavours that increase TCQs but decrease one’s chance of survival or procreation. Obviously, survival doesn’t explain why we do things that go directly against survival. However, it makes perfect sense that if we evolve an appreciation for TCQs, natural variation in the population would result in some people becoming highly focused on finding those in areas unrelated to survival or procreation.
What about people drawn to professions that involve going into situations where TCQs are low? Teachers, firefighters, police officers, soldiers, explorers, test pilots, janitors, and others are taking those situations and trying to increase TCQs, preserve them, or at least lessen the amount of their deterioration.
TBA explains that people who inherently possess TCQs are best suited for these roles, while those who lack TCQs and attempt to acquire them through the status and power of their position are a poor fit for those roles. For example, someone who possesses a high degree of order and stability would make a good police officer, whereas someone who lacks these qualities and thinks they can achieve them by wearing a badge and a gun would be a poor fit.
In fact, people who possess TCQs to a higher level will generally be more tolerant of, and effective in situations, jobs, relationships or societies etc. where TCQs are low, whereas people who lack TCQs inherently will often seek out situations, jobs, relationships, societies, etc. where TCQs are high, or they’ll try to exert more control over their external environment (including other people) to compensate for the lack of these qualities in their internal (mental) environment. As you can see, this model explains much more about humanity than survival alone can.
Part 2: Altruism/self-sacrifice has long been seen as the strongest and most blatant challenge to explaining human values using survival. Combining TCQs with the concept of “emergence”, which we’ll cover now, is the key to finally unlocking this long-standing evolutionary paradox. We actually touched on emergence when introducing the concept of Dynamics - dynamics is the process that, if taken to a high enough degree, results in emergence - smaller “parts” coming together in a way that produces a new, independent and distinct “whole”, with novel, emergent properties.
“Novel properties” means its properties are not simply a predictable, additive combination of the parts’ properties. For example, a 10kg pile of socks is not an emergent whole; its weight isn’t an emergent property, it’s just the predictable weight of a couple of hundred socks added together. Even a watch is not an emergent whole, because its properties are simply the predictable, linear addition of its parts’ properties.
Some examples of emergence include the formation of an atom from subatomic particles, the combination of atoms to form molecules, the assembly of molecules into cells, the development of cells into an animal, and the integration of animals into an ecosystem. Or when neurons work together, giving rise to a person’s consciousness, and people come together to form families, societies, religions, cultures, countries, businesses, etc.
The colour of a molecule can’t be predicted from the simple combination of the colours of the atoms that comprise it. A single neuron can’t have the principle 'likes ice cream.' Looking at an individual neuron, one wouldn’t even suspect this could be a possible emergent property. And yet, the emergent system of a brain can “like ice cream”.
These new, emergent principles of the whole add to the system's total Complexity. This new whole also has its own unique Distinctiveness, Stability, and Order. So the TCQs of the whole are “more than the sum of its parts.” And since an increase in TCQs are “good”, this explains the concept of the “greater good”.
This is why we are comfortable sacrificing parts for the whole they were a part of, as long as the whole can survive without them. We will amputate an infected limb to save a person, for example. It’s now not a leap to explain why we would sacrifice a person, or ourselves, for something we would see as a greater good, like our family, country, religion, ideology, etc..
That greater good doesn’t need to benefit the survival of our genes, it just needs to be a higher embodiment of TCQs than ourselves. We intuitively understand this, and now The Big Answer explains it.
These are some brief explanations of just a few examples of how TBA easily, beautifully, and precisely explains aspects of humanity that other approaches - from religion, philosophy, and science - have failed to do.
Part 3: Lastly, let’s explore how TBA can account for all moral judgments, including those of individuals who hold diametrically opposed moral positions on a single topic. This was actually the original epiphany that led to the creation of this entire model!
The epiphany was that all immoral or “bad” actions ultimately lead to living things experiencing deterioration or destruction. This doesn’t mean that all deterioration or destruction is bad. The deterioration of the sun powers all life on Earth. The destruction of a corrupt regime may be required to install a more just government. But in all these cases, the deterioration or destruction is never “good”. At best, it could only be “necessary” when it is, in fact, necessary to subsequently increase TCQs.
So while not all deterioration or destruction is bad, if you think about anything morally judged as “bad”, it always involves the deterioration or destruction of something - someone’s mind, body, possessions, freedom, autonomy, independence, safety, and so on. It could also be the deterioration or destruction of a system - a relationship, economy, business, civilization, ecosystem/biodiversity, etc.
Decreasing TCQs is the very definition of deterioration. TCQs disappearing defines when something has been destroyed. This is a completely context- and results-based explanation, rather than a prescriptive or rules-based model. This allows it to explain all moral systems across cultures and throughout time, and adapt to any situation.
Stealing decreases TCQs most of the time, but stealing a terrorist's bomb would help preserve TCQs. Hiding a fugitive and lying to police about it is usually bad, but if they’re a political refugee or being unfairly persecuted, then it’s a perfectly moral thing to do.
Answering the question “Honey, do I look fat in this?” with “Yes” could, in one relationship, increase TCQs, strengthening the relationship, while in another, it could decrease TCQs, causing deterioration or even destruction of the relationship. This shows that it’s not the action that's being judged, but the outcome. It doesn’t even matter if the answer was a lie or not! It’s only whether it increases or decreases TCQs that makes something good or bad.
When I explain to someone in person that it doesn’t matter if the answer is a lie, that as long as it increases TCQs, it’s good, they often counter that lying is still wrong. “The person who gets offended by the truth lacks stability if they can’t handle it.” Or, “If they find out later their partner was lying to them, that will undermine their dynamic of trust”, etc.
I get excited by these counterexamples because they don’t realize at first that they’re actually not arguing against the model; they’re arguing against the example. In fact, they’re actually using the model itself to make their argument, which is incredibly validating! It shows that people readily adopt using TCQs to explain or argue a particular moral position. For the first time, this could provide us with a universal language and metric for discussing moral issues.
This can be especially powerful with highly contentious issues where people have strong, opposing viewpoints. Pro-life supporters focus on the destruction of life, while pro-choice supporters focus on the deterioration of individual rights and bodily autonomy. We’re not settling that debate here, but rather highlighting that for both sides, the goal is to limit deterioration and destruction while maximizing TCQs overall. TBA reveals that we all share the same overarching goal while providing an objective vocabulary and understanding of the concepts to facilitate discussions on these topics.
Obviously, we’re barely grazing the surface in this overview. The goal was just to show a few key areas in which this model excels, where other attempts at explaining morality have fallen short.
In the next section, we'll look at how increasing TCQs is the goal for everything we do.
