SELF-LIBERATION
PHILOSOPHY AND STRATEGY
Asserting your right to be happy and successful forever!
Self-Creation + Self-Esteem + Self-Actualization = Self-Liberation
ESSAY 2.1. FOCUS ON THE HISTORY
OF SCIENCE AND SELF-LIBERATION
If you begin to take full responsibility for your goals and plans, without the need to defer to some greater power, you will be giving yourself legitimate pride in your natural bodily resources, which have evolved to near perfection during the past few hundred thousand years of biological evolution. More particularly, the past 30,000 years of civilized institutional living groups have given us a long track record with which to determine the best personal and civic values for making the future better for humans and the rest of nature on planet Earth. Some scientists now claim that there is evidence that our earliest prehistoric ancestors with truly "human" characteristics were living as long ago as 100,000 years.
To arrive at the present magnificent diversity of smaller animal and plant life forms (compared to the giant dinosaurs) that have survived until now on planet Earth, it has taken about 65 million years. That is the time when all the dinosaurs died out in their big profile form due to the collision of a giant asteroid with planet Earth. If the big dinosaurs had not all died off way back then, we humans may not have been able to survive and eventually develop as we have into the dominate life form on Earth.
After many millions of years of further evolution, the smaller mammals and reptiles that survived the devastating cataclysmic collision, including the birds which may have be the direct or indirect descendents of the big dinosaurs, eventually produced humans. It is estimated that as few as one-third or as many as one-half of all the other smaller animals and plants, which were alive before the great dinosaur extinction, survived the collision and continued to evolve.
Nevertheless, the dazzling diversity of animal and plant life which inhabit our unique little "blue planet" with us now, have changed or "evolved" over many millions of years with the help of the vast oceans that cover most of our Earth:
Book Source:
The Blue Planet --- Seas of Life
The different forms of life on Earth have been influenced by the different kinds of oceans or seas that make up our unique "water planet." After focusing on the different kinds of ocean life supported by the unique characteristics of the different kinds of oceans on our planet, you can realize that the diversity of animal and plant life on Earth is truly dazzling and awe-inspiring.
There are different animals and plants at the edges or borders of the oceans, different ones in tropical seas and different ones in temperate seas as well as different animals and plants in the frozen seas, the open seas, and the deepest seas. Your awareness of the spectacular diversity of the animals and plants in the oceans and on the land of planet Earth can be a pivotal fact in your awareness of having evolved --- with your amazing human brain.
The processes of evolution and natural selection make all life possible on planet Earth, including your amazing brain which includes your undivided "mindbody." And your brain makes your SELF possible. This is the starting point that makes everything else sensible.
The following four links provide a basis for the rational humanistic ethical ideas essential for exploring the "psycho-social" nature of your SELF:
Book Source:
The Self ---
Explorations in Personal Growth
Book Source:
The New View of Self ---
How Genes and Neurotransmitters Shape
Your Mind, Your Personality, and Your Mental Health
Book Source:
The Evolving Self ---
Problem and Process in Human Development
Book Source:
The Evolving Self ---
a Psychology for the Third Millennium
Book Source:
Self Completion ---
Keys to the Meaningful Life
Regardless of what your social class status is, you can achieve authentic happiness and true satisfaction by realizing that your success at achieving authentic happiness and lasting satisfaction depends on the way you think about your SELF and the amount of generosity that you have toward others. It is the same idea as that expressed in the Beatles' famous song lyrics: "The love you get is equal to the love you give."
By using sound thinking and memory skills, you will be able to evaluate your goals and your plans in a balanced way according to your own personal values. Your values determine your predictable motivational needs. This factual idea makes it possible for you to consciously create more meaning in your lifetime by taking successively bolder steps toward accomplishing your most important goals even when challenged by self-destructive culture-caused values.
You are challenged every day by the constant assault on your consciousness by advertisements that associate the idea of instant pleasure with shopping. The global economy entices you to choose instant gratification by purchasing products and services instead of basing your decisions on your core personal values and assumptions. Continuous education or lifelong learning is essential for your personal survival and economic success now and especially in the future.
Our "mass media-oriented consumerism culture" and the global economy attempt to both influence you to ignore your own true needs related to the development of your SELF and also to enhance it. Therefore, you need to identify the good influences of our global economy from the bad influences. With the new brain science facts of life, you can create the power to perform at your best against the global mass-media generated cultural forces that tempt you to ignore your own basic human needs and protection or our planet's natural resources.
When you consciously combine the three phenomenal potentials of your newly empowered SELF, you will experience new opportunities and possibilities. As long as some of your "unconscious brainpower" is used to make sure that your breathing is strong enough to provide rich new oxygen atoms to your blood and your heart beat is strong enough to pump fresh blood to your brain, your "mindbody" will be able to function optimally.
There is no need anymore for any "religious dualism" that has traditionally separated your mind from your body when you explain the great philosophical issues to yourself and your friends. Self-Esteem can be defined as having "good feelings" about your SELF.
Positive self-esteem means that you have high energy or spirit since you feel good about yourself. Even though Self-Esteem is the "subjective" measure of your own self-worth, it is essential for you to keep it positive, and realize that your positive attitude must be connected to the other essential components of being free to choose your own values, namely, your "self-creation" and your "self-actualization" potentials.
When your Self-Esteem is "high," then your positive attitude about yourself will give you the courage to learn and choose among competing alternative ethical values or behaviors depending upon the consequences you can expect from your perceptions of reality:
Book Source:
The Science of Good & Evil ---
Why People Cheat, Gossip, Care, Share, and Follow the Golden Rule
Simply stated, you need to use your new "brain vocabulary" and continuously develop your memory so you can think accurately and create your own personal unique identity and lifestyle. That can be your chief purpose in life, if you choose to make it so. Because you can think for yourself and change your feelings, you can reach your greatest human potential.
When you realize how important the ideas of "focusing" and "feedback" are to your feelings of happiness and your ability to achieve success, you will be able to understand how essential the role of language is to your ability to think clearly and do genuine "critical thinking" about your own brainpower potential:
Book Source:
Focusing
Book Source:
From Panic to Power ---
the Positive Use of Stress
The words "focusing" and "feedback" have special modern meanings informed by modern psychology and the other social sciences. Focusing is paying exclusive attention to an idea or pattern of ideas. Feedback is being sensative to the consequences of your ideas and actions. Knowing their specific meanings in the context of the new brain science facts of life can improve your self-awareness and your brainpower, which means you will have more self-control to make better choices.
HISTORY OF SCIENCE --- This essential brainpower knowledge involves learning the importance of the history of science and the supreme value of the scientific method. The scientific method should be revered above all other conceivable subjects since it is the single most reliable unifying factor available for studying your brain and brainpower and all other problems of human existence. We must use brainpower to solve the global environmental problems that are becoming catastrophic nightmares, which future generations of children will have to deal with and probably die prematurely from --- if we do not begin solving them now with our brainpower.
Book Source:
Man Masters Nature --- 25 Centuries of Science
Book Source:
The Future of Everything ---
the science of prediction
Book Source:
Introduction to Psychology
Gateways to mind and behavior
Before you explore the wonderful world of science from the perspective of the your own brainpower, it is important to discover your own "genius potential" so you won't lose track of your own significance in the vast complexity of the universe and scientific explanations of its meaning. The details of Einstein's life, as revealed in his personal letters, demonstrate the greatness of Einstein's rational humanistic ethical approach to the political and ethical issues raised by the impact of modern science on society.
Just as Einstein's famous equation --- "E = MC squared" --- symbolizes one of his main scientific accomplishments, the words in his letters to other people, including other scientists and political leaders and even children, reveal a compassionate ethical person who had the courage to speak out on the most important issues of life and death in the 20th century:
Book Source:
Einstein --- His Life and Universe
Just like Einstein, we need to focus on creating healthy responses to the cultural forces that influence us every day in the 21st century. You can develop your own "genius potential" based on your analysis of your own personal creativity by using the perspective and vantage point of the Brainpower Mindset as it is exemplified in the book summaries at the following links:
Book Source:
How to Think Like Einstein
Simple Ways to Break the Rules and Discover Your Hidden Genius
The following link highlights the SEVEN greatest scientific ideas that form the basis for all of the technological discoveries and inventions that we enjoy today:
Book Source:
Seven Ideas that Shook the Universe
THE SEVEN GREATEST SCIENTIFIC IDEAS
(1) The planet Earth is not the center of the universe --- Copernican astronomy
(2) The awesome universe is a mechanism that operates according to well-established rules --- Newtonian physics
(3) Energy drives the mechanism --- the energy concept
(4) The mechanism runs in a specific direction --- entropy and probability
(5) The facts are relative, but the law is absolute --- relativity!
(6) You can't predict or know everything --- qauantum theory and the limits of causality
(7) Fundamentally, things never change --- conservation principles and symmetries
Book Source:
Cosmic Landscape ---
String Theory and the Illusion of Intelligent Design
The main ideas of science can be encapsulated in "scientific slogans," which consist of a few words or phrases. If you can't think of the most important scientific advances in human history, then you have not grasped the essence of them, which frankly means that you are illiterate or ignorant of them scientifically speaking.
The following eight most important "encapsulating scientific slogans" derived from the past 500 years and proven beyond any doubt during the past 100 years of the history of science include the following great ideas that are in the book, Cosmic Landscape:
THE EIGHT MOST IMPORTANT SCIENTIFIC SLOGANS
(1) SPACE AND TIME ARE ABSOLUTE --- from Newtonian Mechanics
(2) SPACE AND TIME ARE RELATIVE --- from Einstein and Special Relativity
(3) THE SPEED OF LIGHT IS AN ABSOLUTE CONSTANT --- from Einstein and Special Relativity
(4) THE EQUIVALENCE PRINCIPLE = Gravity is indistinguishable from acceleration --- from Einstein and General Relativity
(5) THE HEISENBERG UNCERTAINTY PRINCIPLE = position and velocity cannot be simultaneously determined --- from Quantum Mechanics
(6) THE BIG BANG --- from cosmology
(7) SURVIVAL OF THE FITTEST, NATURAL SELECTION, THE SELFISH GENE --- from Darwin's Natural Selection and Evolutionary Theory
(8) A LANDSCAPE OF POSSIBILITIES POPULATED BY A MEGAVERSE OF ACTUALITIES --- This is the grand organizing principle of both biology and cosmology
Traces of human artifacts date back to more than 30,000 years of human evolution but the ones that can help us best explain our own uniqueness can be appreciated from a time span of about 15,000 years --- rather than the biblical time span of 2,000-4,000 years ago. Scientific knowledge from the past 300 to 400 years, and especially the last 150 years, has produced unprecedented scientific and technologic progress. The most important "brain secrets" have just been revealed and verified by brain scientists during the past two decades and especially the past five years.
Today's brain scientists are discovering phenomenal new facts about how our human brains work. They are following in the empirical footsteps of Galileo and Newton and Darwin and Einstein, and thousands of other researchers. Many of them will be identified and celebrated on this website. They all had the courage to contribute to the "scientific way" of thinking by overcoming ignorance as well as debunking many superstitious ideas.
Some of the scientists published and promoted the results of their scientific experimentation, even when their discoveries and inventions and conclusions were not in agreement with the political and religious values or orthodoxies of their times. Their willingness to risk their lives and reputations and legacies for the benefit of all mankind is the supreme gift they gave all of us.
But now we are all faced with the opportunity to view the tipping point of global warming as a turning point that could begin to improve our global environment by 2050. The new scientific injunction can point us in the right direction: the knowledge of our collective brainpower can save us from self-destructiveness and the total devastation of our planet Earth.
Otherwise, we may never be able to restore essential species and geological resources such as the rainforests and polar icecaps in time to prevent a massive environmental catastrophe and major dislocation of global populations. It will actaully be hell on earth caused by unrestrained rampant industrialization just because of economic interests at the expense of compassion for others.
The imminent drastic devastation of geographic conditions due to "global warming" can only be stopped and controlled if thousands of political leaders and millions of concerned citizens are willing to apply scientific principles to solve the interconnected environmental problems. All people, but especially children, need to be educated about the true way their brains work to create their consciousness and own unique awareness of life.
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Please send email to ---
denmartin@earthlink.net
Go to evolution essay #2.2: Focus on the Science
of Evolution, Genetics, and DNA
Go to brainpower index: Interactive Index of Factual Ideas
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