~ The Line With Good And Evil ~
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Chapter 24 — Pre-Chapter Quiz:
Question 47: what does a line have to do with good and evil?
e.) Both t and &
t.) it can represent the spectrum of goodness
&.) It can separate the two if used properly
*.) There’s only a thin line between them
Question 48: why is defining good and bad so difficult?
t.) we don’t know whats the best or the worst
e.) because of a silly wittle squiggle
s.) not all people want to be good
t.) because of a Line on a graph
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Just a heads up: These chapters are short, but the whole section is important. This section is for teaching one whole process for overcoming emotion with logic. Each chapter is more or less a step in said process. It is its own chapter so you can see the most definable parts, and add them to any other logical processes of your own,
This chapter be about Good vs. Bad. In short, I'll be explaining why the concepts of "good", and the concepts of "bad" are not suitable - or practical - unit of measurement, even if they do exist, and I'm going to do it... mathematically.
I'm now going to take this one line and use it to explain the problems with believing in your own morality.
If you see here, the bottom and top points are at (5,3) and (5,7), and anyone who remembers high school math should be able to solve for the midpoint. In case you've forgotten, however, to find a midpoint (or the center of a line), you first add the X coordinates and Y coordinates together separately, and then divide by 2.
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So:
The X coordinates are 5 for one dot, and 5 for the other.
(5+5)/2 = 10/2 = 5
and
The Y coordinates are at 7 for one dot, and at 3 for the other.
(7+3)/2 = 10/2 = 5
In short, the midpoint of this line is at (5,5), but I'm sure you could have figured that out, just by counting one unit at a time from each end of the line segment, or just by splitting the line segment evenly into two equal parts. The midpoint is just the center of the line, after all.
Before we move on, look again.
Good, now let's try that, on the next line segment:
The end points of the bottom line segment do exist, but the line is so long that they are off the graph. This line
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segment is actually long enough that it does not fit within the view of this graph paper. Now, here's my question for you:
What is the midpoint of that second line segment?
Please try to solve it for absolutely certain, before moving ahead with this chapter.
You don't know, do you? This is a line segment. It's not infinite. The endpoints are simply off the graph, and out of view, but you can't be certain of the midpoint now that they're out of sight. I'll tell you what the end points and the midpoint are at the end, under the Desmos link, if you're interested.
But here's the kicker, if you don't know what the end points of a line segment are, then you cannot find the midpoint. "Author," you may ask "What THE HELL does this have to do with good and bad, likable or not likable, good and evil?"
I'm so happy you asked... even if you didn't!
Here, have a look:
You see, good and bad are just like this line. It's a spectrum, a ranking of sorts, from the best option you can make, to the worst. As we come up with some of the options, we can rank them as better, or worse, than the others,
buuuuuut...
What happens when you
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don't know all the options, or at least if you don't know what option is the best possible, or the worst possible? Well, as some people say, "There's always something better, and there's always something worse.", and even if you found the best item, you wouldn't be able to rank it properly without first finding out about all the other options, in order to compare them, which you CANNOT do for every single choice that you'll make in life. There simply isn't enough time.
This is how most people think they see the world. They pretend that they know what the best point on the spectrum is, or "the best choice" (The top point of the line), and they believe that they know what the worst point is (The bottom point of the line), and if they don't believe that, then they really have no foundation for believing that they could ever, possibly, know what's good, or what's bad. If they haven't even made a ranking from best to worst, and therefore have not ranked everything, how can they know, the ranks, of everything? How can you claim to know the ranking that an item has in your system, if you don't even have a system?
Even in the most simplistic world, what's considered "neutral" would just be the midpoint of the line, at the center of everything. As such, people who don't know what's neutral can't really know what's good (above neutral) or what's bad (below neutral). How could they? They can't know what's above neutral in the spectrum, or what's below it on the line, if they don't even know where neutral is. Good will always be better than neutral, and thus, be above it on the line, and bad things will always be worse than neutral. This puts them below it on the line. Hence the images that I've been showing. Even if we made this system just a liiiiiiiittle bit more complex, and said that neutrality, itself, was also a spectrum, even in a case like that, all that we'd have to do is box the midpoint.
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A boxed midpoint, graphed out mathematically, would look something like this:
The problem here is that this visual, isn't actually how we see the world. Our world, even in the most optimistic, and most simplistic of views, actually follows different rules, and looks like this:
We don't really know what the best option is for every choice that we make in life. There are just too many options to calculate from within our lifetimes (2+2 Metaphor, Pages 299-303, and The Cup Metaphor, Pages 55-60). Plus, there are always gaps within our knowledge. There's always more to learn, and always more that we haven't yet discovered, even in our listed ranking of options. So finding the midpoint, even in a situation as simple as a straight line, would be impossible because you won't have all the options needed to make the ranking in the first place. You don't know what's best, and you don't know what's worst, and so you
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can't know what's neutral. Therefore, you cannot know what's good or bad, what is above, or below, that neutrality. There are few people as foolhardy in this world, as the man who claims to know the best option, when he doesn't even know all of them.
And this is with the EASIEST display that I can make, while still making a somewhat logical comparison with reality. In truth, it has even become inaccurate by its simplicity. For instance, we shouldn't really assume that there is equality between the good things and the bad. The world might just be an unfair place, after all. Maybe there are more bad things than good, or more good things than bad. So, the "midpoint" idea is actually null and void, because that assumes that all good things and bad things are created equal. It assumes that "neutrality" is at the center, when it may very well not be. It assumes that if there are 2 good things, then there must also be 2 bad, but how do we know that there aren't certain decisions, still infinite with options, but with NONE OF THEM being good? Quantity is not always correlated with quality. The "midpoint" theory is just too easy to be an actual plan.
Second, with this display, we'd also need to have a universally agreed upon ranking system to list things in. Otherwise, an item that was ranked as "first place" or "the best option" by one person, can be seen as ranked in last place by another, and in a different ranking by a third person, and so on. This applies to all the other rankings within the line as well, not just first place. Second place may be disagreed on, as would third, and so on. So someone's "good" option, may be seen as "bad" by another. If we work on this without any agreed-upon metrics, there's no real way of telling who's right, and who's wrong
Thirdly, even in a system like this, who's to say that we should be using the same system of measurements for all choices? Metal bolts may be the best item you can have when you're using a wrench, but if you only had a hammer then bolts might be a pretty bad option. With such a fact in mind, we can hypothesize that a new line may need to be created for every new choice you make, and with a whole new set of rules, slopes, distances, and so on. Heck! They might not even be straight lines. This is
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simply too complex to keep track of every single time, especially with how quickly technology seems to be changing our world, every single day.
That does not mean that my chapter here is insignificant; what I'm saying is that life is complex. Good and bad, to like or to dislike, morality, IS complex! If we can't even solve a problem as simple, and one dimensional, as this straight line, how could we possibly claim the ability to do it, in a more complex form, such as in our true, 3D-reality? The answer here is that, at least as of now, we simply can't, and so we are basing our actions and our opinions on something that we cannot know for certain, such as if we are good, or if we are bad. YOU cannot be trusted; not unless you're trusting in your own opinions, or your feelings...
or your WHOs.
Uncertain decisions, made through uncertain means, will only lead to uncertain, and unreliable results.
But WHOs never change, and thoughts and feelings cannot be denied. Whether it is good, or whether it is bad, cannot be determined for certain, but how you feel about them will be known by you at the very instant that those feelings start to exist, so long as you're lucky enough to know WHO you are. As the famous philosophical quote goes, about the one thing that cannot be denied in life.
"I think. Therefore I am."
The world may be an illusion. Your body may not even exist. This all may be a simulation, or a dream, but the fact that you're doubting it remains absolute. How can you doubt, if you don't even exist? And how could you tell that you exist, if you could not think, doubt, or feel such a possibility? The very act of experiencing anything means that you at least exist enough, to be able to experience it. The matter of fact is, that
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whether or not What you're experiencing is a lie, or something much more real, it doesn't matter in search of this, singular, truth.
"You think. Therefore you are."
WHO you are, exists, even if What you are, or What you have, doesn't. Otherwise, "you" wouldn't be experiencing anything.
And that's all that you can know for certain.
So trust your feelings, your doubts, your thoughts... your WHOs, because they will always be here for you.
Always.
Things are never a matter of if you should feel something or not. When it comes to logic, it's all about "What is" and "What is not". What you are feeling is neither good nor bad. Neither is the thing that you're feeling those emotions about. Again, when it comes to being realistic and logical, what matters in life is not if you like something, or even if you dislike it. What matters in life is not if something is GOOD or whether it is BAD. What matters, is what it is. If you fall in love, and the person doesn't love you back, this does not mean that you need to stop loving them. You can still feel What you feel. The key is simply to understand what the real situation is. Your feelings of love are just that: feelings. Emotions and feelings are not all that it takes, to build and keep a happy relationship. What you have for feelings is love. What you have for a relationship is friendship or strangers. You cannot deny that, but you don't have to. Whatever terrible situations you find yourself in, just remember, that there is always a way, to make them, literally, the best.
Feel what you want, and think what you need, but never feel a need to match the two logically. It isn't necessary to rationalize about how a
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"logic" fits with an emotion. To become satisfied with yourself and your life, all that matters is that you have a mixture, of the right logics with the right emotions, in a way that makes you feel, "complete" and "fulfilled". You don't need to "make sense" of feeling good. You don't need to prove that you deserve happiness, so long as you are happy. For one thing, love, even self-love, is rarely ever logical. Don't try to make it be. Just trust that that's What you feel, and then decide What the right thing to do is, with that partially in mind.
And with hatred, what you feel may be a wish to act out, in unkind, or even violent ways. This can even happen with hatred towards yourself. Just keep in mind that What you do, also contains, and comes with, What consequences it fosters, and that the WHO behind your choice comes with its own emotional baggage, all by itself. Because nothing is truly good or bad, when someone hates What you've done, you cannot say that they are unjustified in feeling that way. Everyone believes in justice. The question is only what justice means to them. This entire book is only attempting to answer about WHO it is, that people are actually feeling anything towards, and oftentimes, the thing that you hate, or the thing that you can't love, isn't you. That's the problem that I'm here to solve. It is NOT a matter of judging how people feel. With me, you can feel however you like, so long as it is pointed in the right direction.
These situations are neither good nor bad, but feeling makes it so.
One of the times that Shakespeare was seriously wrong is when he said:
"There is nothing either good or bad, but thinking makes it so."
You are allowed to think that an option is good, just understand that all that you can do, is think it. In terms of reality, everything is gray.
If you're proud of a choice, that does not make it good
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If you regret a choice, that does not make it bad.
If you hate yourself, that does not mean that you are bad.
and if you love yourself, that does not mean that you are good.
Same for loving another, and another loving you.
WHO you are, WHO anyone is, is neither good nor bad, whether it is loved or not,
so why not love it, and make it good, to you?
Love WHO you are for your own sake, but be careful of What you are, for the sake of others.
Because, even if you are GOOD, What you do to others, can still be BAD.
I must caution you not to forget about Whats, while in search of your WHOs. After you think that you've found your very first WHO, and you think that you can see it clearly, the only way to prove that you are right, is to test it logically. Trying to measure your WHO with another item's WHO, all while questioning what that unit of measurement really means, is just.... lunacy. Using one unknown item to measure another is just stupid. What could you expect to gain by translating an encoded message into French, if you don't speak French either?
My friends, if you want to know if you've measured correctly, and without room for error, then you must use the unit of measurement that suits you best. You've been using Whats for your entire life so far. You're
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good at using them, so use them to be good at measuring what matters most. Use them to measure the connection between your concept of a WHO, and the reality. Use them to measure the connection between WHO you are, and WHO you're dealing with.
WHOs are not a logical substance, but by now we should all know that a What is. WHOs are about our abilities to comprehend and use the world. Whats are about what the world is outside of our subjective perceptions, and emotional needs. So get ready, because this menu is all about using Whats to prove, your sight of a WHO, and to see if what you envision is a matter of fact, or a matter of manipulation.
It’s time to compare your gut, and what you feel, with reality.
Now here we go.
Next Chapter!
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Link to Desmos's Website: https://www.desmos.com/
And for those of you still wondering, the endpoints of the second line were (5,17) and (5,-9.31) making the midpoint (5,3.845). If you guessed it, yes, you are extremely lucky, but that doesn't mean you can do it consistently, nor should you try to. Lol. Good luck in your future endeavors, if you can even call it that.
hehe. "good" luck. Sometimes... sometimes I just crack myself up.