Most religions can be seen as a social technology that enable cooperation, ultimately enabling a society to be able to better preserve and defend itself. First, we will analyze Christianity as a social technology that enables a more efficient economy. Second, we will make an association between deontological ethics and autonomic systems, and attempt to illustrate consequentialism as an awareness of autonomic functions. Third, we will attempt to create a comprehensive philosophy that contains both the deontological ethics of religious thinking and the consequentialism of scientific thinking, ultimately to present a modern social technology that could be a replacement for both types of thinking.
Christianity is pushing forward the image of a new type of person: Jesus Christ. What are the characteristics of Jesus that sets him apart from the old image? It is the belief that the dominant organizing force of a society can be compassion instead of fear (and the ability to instill it). From this view, Christianity can be seen as a wager that a stronger society can be formed through cooperation. Christianity can be seen as adopting a cooperative strategy in the prisoner's dilemma thought experiment by discouraging the act of retaliation.
Christianity is also making a wager that new understanding trumps old understanding. The story of Jesus Christ can be interpreted as the story of a man, representing the new paradigm of compassion, who is brutally executed by the followers of the old paradigm.
“Neither do men put new wine into old bottles: else the bottles break, and the wine runneth out, and the bottles perish: but they put new wine into new bottles, and both are preserved.”
— Matthew 9:17 (KJV)
Old wineskin is dry and stiff, and ultimately less flexible than new wineskin. New wine often continues fermenting, which produces gas. Therefore when new wine is put into old wineskin, the new wine expands and breaks the old wineskin. Symbolically, the new wine represents the new paradigm of compassion, and the old wineskin represents the old paradigm, which has become calcified.
“At that time Jesus answered and said, I thank thee, O Father, Lord of heaven and earth, because thou hast hid these things from the wise and prudent, and hast revealed them unto babes.”
— Matthew 11:25 (KJV)
Again, Jesus Christ makes an allusion to the new holding superior understanding than the old. He explicitly states that the "wise and prudent" are unable to understand his teachings while babies can. Symbolically, the "wise and prudent" can represent the old paradigm, and the babies can represent the new paradigm.
What is the old paradigm? It is the way of Moses, which is represented by his rules-based doctrine. The Ten Commandments can be seen as a distillation of his rules-based doctrine. The old paradigm can therefore be seen as a type of deontological ethics, where the hypothesis is that moral character beneficial to society can be developed by following rules. The Greek word deon means "duty" or "that which is binding", which aligns closely with the Old Testament theme of covenants binding a group of people. But there is an even deeper theme here, which is the breaking out of unconscious thoughts and behaviors. The old paradigm was considered a failure by Jesus Christ because the people became preoccupied with scripture, tradition, and customs without actually understanding the reality to which the scripture, traditions, or customs point. And the ultimate criticism could be that the followers of the old paradigm only used the old scripture and traditions as a way of cementing their power.
“The scribes and the Pharisees sit in Moses' seat.” — Matthew 23:2
Philosophically, deontological ethics are a means of creating memory. Expectations in behavior create norms, and norms are akin to memory in that they occupy the mind. A consequence of an action can only be derived in reference to something that does not change. The more things that are changing, the more variables there are, and the harder it is to understand the consequences of an action. The less things that are changing, the less variables there are, and the easier it is to understand the consequences of an action. The thing that does not change is acting as something similar to a control group in a scientific experiment. The thing that does not change is a stable normative reference frame.
autonomy (au·ton·o·my)
αὐτός (autos) = “self”
νόμος (nomos) = “law,” “custom,” or “rule”
From a biological perspective, deontological ethics are like autonomic systems. They work in the background to provide a baseline which can be referenced and depended on. They are rules that apply to the self. As an example, many functions on the body depend on blood pressure being within a certain range. The body regulates blood pressure to provide a foundation for other organs. The brain itself can be seen as acting upon a state of the body at all times. The unconscious changes to the state of the body can affect the quality of thought. We can apply the same analogy to society, where the rules-based philosophy of deontological ethics (the old paradigm) represents the autonomic foundation for society, precisely because the followers of the old paradigm lose awareness of why they are following their traditions. The meaning behind actions is slowly eroded each generation, such that the acts and rituals will no longer mean what they used to mean. It has become part of the unconscious, something that is done automatically. The rules-based philosophy of deontological ethics creates a looping stable reference point to which analysis of the loop itself can occur through the formation of memory.
“My people are destroyed for lack of knowledge.”
— Hosea 4:6
“For they shall eat of the fruit of their own way, and be filled with their own devices.”
— Proverbs 1:31
Another theme of the Bible is that cooperation is not the only prerequisite for survival. The Bible can be understood as a story of tribes of people rising and falling due to their successes and failures in interpreting reality. The Hebrew word for "knowledge" is דַּעַת (daʿath), from the root יָדַע (yadaʿ), “to know.” It has a broad meaning, and it can mean knowledge, awareness, understanding, or recognition. The claim here is that Israel has lost the understanding necessary to correctly orient itself toward reality. They have lost the living understanding that makes tradition meaningful.
“But now we are delivered from the law... that we should serve in newness of spirit, and not in the oldness of the letter.”
— Romans 7:6
The story of Jesus Christ can be seen as a transcendence over the autonomic and unconscious way of the old paradigm. It is the individual at the edge of human understanding. It is the self-aware memory that analyzes itself. It is the living word that breaks from the written scripture. Paul specifically states here that the new believers should be liberated from the Mosaic law, and that there should be a newness within them. The human (Jesus Christ) capable of understanding the new paradigm of compassion was the man that transcended the autonomic nature of the mind and society. But more broadly, the analogy can be applied to all types of knowledge and understanding. It is the way that one can more accurately perceive reality, and consequently accumulate useful knowledge. The useful knowledge in this case is the hypothesis that societies that operate by compassion can outcompete those that operate by force or fear, but it can be applied to all other knowledge of reality.
“Jesus saith unto him, I am the way, the truth, and the life: no man cometh unto the Father, but by me.”
— John 14:6 (KJV)
The remarkable thing about Jesus Christ was that he was aware of this situation, and he was aware that it is only the individual that breaks through the autonomic unconscious. He specifically states that he is "the way, the truth, and the life", and we can more broadly interpret it as meaning he is the person at the collective limit of human understanding or awareness. The autonomic unconscious is metaphorically very similar to Saṃsāra from Hinduism and Buddhism, which is the recurring cycle of birth, death, and rebirth. And the duty of deontological ethics is very similar to the concept of Dharma, which has the Sanskrit root dhr, meaning "to hold" or "to support" (e.g. to become the autonomic foundation of memory). Thus reincarnation or achieving Nirvāṇa is akin to becoming aware of the autonomic function (e.g. Saṃsāra) and transcending it. The Zen Buddhists also have the concept of Satori, which is an awakening or realization in which one directly sees or understands reality.
Therefore, Christianity can be seen as an early operating system for society that provides an autonomic function as well as a means of transcending the autonomic function. And it can be seen as a portrayal of a human seeing reality more clearly. But note that autonomic functions are necessary to create memory, so one cannot shed all autonomic functions, just as you cannot live without a heart beat. It is necessary then to always have some autonomic functions to provide a reference point which serves as an anchor for memory. Continuity of memory depends on the repeating structure of autonomic functions. From this perspective, consequentialism is therefore an awareness of the autonomic functions. It is the comparing of something to that which did not change. It is conscious thought that depends on the autonomic unconscious.
“Under what conditions did man invent for himself those value judgments good and evil? And what value do they themselves possess? Have they up to now hindered or fostered human prosperity? Are they a sign of distress, of impoverishment, of the degeneration of life? Or is there revealed in them, on the contrary, the plenitude, force, and will of life, its courage, its confidence, its future?”
— Friedrich Nietzsche, On the Genealogy of Morality
Nietzsche provides here a clear example of the self-awareness of one's own rules and value judgements. Deontological reasoning provides a stable normative reference frame, and consequentialist reasoning allows the consequences generated by that frame to become objects of evaluation. Without questioning the existing value judgements, one can live their entire life bound by the moral rules of society. A civilization that treats inherited moral rules as epistemically privileged may prevent itself from discovering the causal mechanisms underlying the behaviors those rules regulate. Finally we arrive at the question: should capability be servant to morality or should morality be servant to capability? In other words, does the judgement of good and evil create the ability to understand reality, or does the ability to understand reality create the judgement of good and evil?
Both are necessary. Without the judgement of good and evil (which create rules and governs behavior), one cannot have autonomic functions which allow memory. Without continuity of memory, there is no determinate basis for judgement. If we imagine allocating resources to either the unconscious or conscious, we can see that the more we allocate to the unconscious, the more stable the continuity of memory (e.g. a larger memory anchor), but the less depth of conscious thought. If we allocate more to the conscious, the less stable the continuity of memory (e.g. a smaller memory anchor), but the more depth of conscious thought. We need enough continuity such that value judgements can accurately depend on past judgements. But we also need enough depth of thought so that we can capture the causal and associative nature of reality, such that we can even form a value judgement.
A modern civilization needs to encourage cooperation to enable an efficient economy. A modern civilization needs to solve the epistemic optimization of "how accurately can we understand reality" while also solving the normative optimization of "how do we preserve the ability to understand reality". In other words a modern civilization creates a self-referential objective: maximize the preservation of epistemic capacity. Such an objective allows the continuity of not only knowledge, but also the means of acquiring it. A modern civilization must also believe that understanding reality creates the judgement of good and evil. The rules a society creates regulates behavior. It is the understanding of the causal mechanisms underlying those behaviors that is important, not the rules themselves. It is epistemic capacity that creates understanding, which creates capability, which allows the preservation of epistemic capacity.
As an example, consider sexual deviancy. A better understanding of sexual behavior can allow better sexual outcomes for more members of society. A deeper understanding of reality can allow positive outcomes for more members of society. I am specifically using the example of sexual deviancy because it is precisely the type of knowledge that would not be pursued by conservative rules-based morality (e.g. deontological ethics). However, a similar argument could be made for any type of human behavior and its associated knowledge. As another example, consider the degree to which we can live abundantly. The deeper our understanding of reality, the more effectively we can use and extract resources for comfortable living.
In conclusion, it is continuity that is sought after. The autonomic function of deontological ethics allows continuity of thought, which allows continuity of judgment through consequentialism. It is the civilizational optimization of continuity of epistemic capacity that allows the continuity of knowledge. And this continuity runs within languages, through the connotations and symbolism behind words to the particular fracturing points in conceptual space that allow the formation of words. A modern civilization is one that pursues continuity of knowledge by continuity of the meaning in language. How strange it would be if the word "knowledge" meant something completely different in the future.
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