REFER TO GREY: Contemplations by Robert Greigos © 2007-2024

Those of us who forever find ourselves pondering the meaning of things often wonder if we might in fact be quite alone in this endeavor, fooled by the possibility that reasoned truth is equally accessible to any and all who willingly put forth earnest effort exploring the possibilities of thought. But is it?

The answer, I think, is yes. Truth is universally accessible. That is not an illusion. Set a mind to working, that is teach it the basic ideas behind clear thinking and the truth it can discover on its own is the same truth you and I can discover on our own. Real truth maps directly to the phenomenal world and can be modeled, manipulated, derived, and discovered by the human brain as easily as human hands can shape clay into an engaging sculpture or useful tool. Mathematics is perhaps the best proof of that assertion.

Still, there is overwhelming evidence that the conclusions of thoughtful people do not always match each other. Why is that?

Consider the evidence. What we take for evidence is overt behavior. And we assume thought is the antecedent to behavior. Very likely that is for the most part true. But human thought has focus and it has scope. It does not look forward, backward, left, right, up, down, inside out, and upside down at the same time. And it does not project universally forward into everyone and every thing's future. It looks very specifically at something and projects very myopically forward as to consequence. Behavior that appears to be mindless, incomprehensible, foolish, or dangerous to an observer is nearly always the result of considered conviction by the perpetrator. That person's processes of thought may in fact be faulty for any number of reasons, but that possibility aside the focus and scope of their thoughts are more likely the locus of mismatch. The more expansive the scope of our thinking, the more universal the truth by which we operate.

Imagine a world where all humans with equal facility universally consider the consequence of each and every one of their behaviors. Now wouldn't that be a mindlessly boring world.