In my last post, I examined the age old command to "know thyself" and walked through a mutually exclusive, collectively exhaustive (MECE) outline of what it would take to actually accomplish this task. Anyone can go through these steps on their own (a process I highly encourage), but over the next few months, I'd like to take the time to go through them one by one and offer up ways you can know thyself through evolutionary philosophy. Let's start at the beginning. Concerning me, where did I come from?

For every individual, there are historical, national, ethnic, and family stories that put your life in context, stories that give life a sense of flow from the past to the present, stories that help you understand the influences that led to the outcomes you see around you today. There are an enormous number of possible combinations of these stories that could be created for any one person on our planet of 7 billion people. And while it is vitally important to learn your own story, for the purpose of evolutionary philosophy I'm interested in finding the one underlying story that we all share. This is the story of how humans came to be. In religious terms, it's our modern creation story, only there's nothing supernatural about this one because it wasn't written by ignorant ancients who had to make wild guesses to fill in the gaps of their knowledge.

I'll keep this post brief, like the actual text in my philosophy, because I think the best way to be awestruck by the grand sweep of history is to step back to a place where it can be glimpsed in a glance - rather like a panoramic viewpoint overlooking a grand canyon. Whole lives can be spent inspecting details in the picture, but it's important not to get lost in these details. It's important to have the big picture in mind at all times. In this case, the big picture starts at the big bang and spans roughly 14 billion years until the appearance of humans. That's a span that's 56,000 times larger than the 250,000 years that Homo sapiens have been on this earth. This big picture is the story of how simplicity led to complexity, how physics led to chemistry and then biology, and how evolution led from single-celled organisms to the diversity of life we see today. It's an amazing story. Truly the greatest story ever told.

Rather than try to re-tell it myself though, I'd prefer to point to someone who has already spent a lifetime working on it. Historian David Christian has founded the Big History Project to gather in all the facts we've discovered for the details of this modern creation story, and help introduce it to children in school all over the world. He's written a book called Maps of Time: An Introduction to Big History, to help disseminate this story to adults. And, perhaps easiest of all to digest, he's produced a 17-minute TED talk about this Big History. Take a break to watch it. I'm sure it will entertain you and inspire you to go learn more about...thyself.

It's the most famous command in philosophy. Some might say it's the only command philosophers have agreed upon. Know thyself. This ancient greek aphorism was used repeatedly by Socrates in the works of Plato - that's where it spread most widely into western culture - but it has similarly arisen in Egyptian, Hindu, Persian, and Chinese philosophies, among others. It has variously been used to imply a call to learning, a warning against hubris, and a protection against mob mentalities. But how does one do this exactly? Without any instructions, most of us look in the mirror every once in a while, contemplate our lives during the odd birthday or two, read a biography here or there for comparison, and consider this simple command simply handled. And yet, after thousands of years of hearing this command, we still suffer moments of panic over not really achieving a full self-knowledge. Take this passage from just one book I've recently finished:

"An inner life! That’s what Cass wanted! A self! Professor Klapper’s asides were often variations on the theme of “get thyself a self.” Cass had almost gotten through college, had all but wasted irretrievable years of his life, without having realized that he was about to take the next step having never embarked on the first. He had done nothing toward acquiring a unique and inviolable being."

This awakening by the main character in Rebecca Goldstein's fabulous novel 36 Arguments For The Existence Of God is memorable because so many of us can identify with it. Even Cass, a psychologist of religion, had spent years kind of going along with the crowd, doing what he had been brought up to do, acquiring new habits and friends, losing others along the way, almost all by accident, without ever really taking the time to understand himself and his life. He certainly never made a purposeful attempt to analyze and guide these developments toward some goal for his personality, toward some goal for his self. Sure, he had chosen a major in college, picked some hobbies to pursue, and hunted for the right partner to share his life with, but as to why he made these choices, he had no really good underlying reason behind them. They just sort of happened because they felt right. Unfortunately, this is all too common in today's world where you aren't given the tools and time to undergo the kind of self-reflection that is required to get to know thyself.

This is a big problem. How many people in the modern world are dissatisfied with their lives? In a World Values Survey in 2005, only 23% of people around the world reported being "very happy." In a 2010 Gallup Poll, only two countries out of 155 were able to say that less than 30% of their citizens were "struggling." The average of the top 20 countries showed that over 36% of citizens were "struggling." That's the top 20 countries! This is a massive poverty of happiness in the world and it goes far beyond the political and economic explanations that come from poor or poorly run countries. This poverty of happiness stretches right across the rich and developed countries as well.

The old saying from Henry Ford - if you always do what you've always done, you'll always get what you've always got - illustrates well how the forces of momentum can easily carry us along from year to year, from decade to decade, from one generation to the next, without making the kind of headway we could if you could only stop for a moment and look at what it is you are doing, why you are doing it, and what you might do differently. In other words, if you knew yourself, you might be able to change what you are doing, and change what it is you are getting. You might be able to understand what it means to thrive, what it means to stop struggling, and you could begin to do so.

So how exactly do you know thyself? How do you tackle such a complex issue? For this, I want to draw upon a method that the McKinsey consulting firm uses when it is called in to break down a complex problem for their clients. McKinsey consultants are drilled in the logical analysis of a problem using what is called the MECE Principle. Complex issues are broken down such that each subset of the issue is Mutually Exclusive (there are no overlaps in the issues), and together the issues are Collectively Exhaustive (there are no gaps in the subsets). If a complex problem is tackled in a MECE way, it becomes much more manageable to understand, and you are more assured of a comprehensive solution. Take the profit equation as an example. Profits = Revenue - Expenses. If a company is having trouble making money, you can break down the issue into sources of revenue, and types of expenses. List all of these, find out which individual elements you can improve upon, and you are guaranteed to arrive at a comprehensive solution to profitability difficulties. Some other more common examples to help grasp this MECE concept would be to break down an issue into its internal and external spatial components, or its past, present, and future time elements.

So how to do this for thyself?

This is the most ambitious undertaking of evolutionary philosophy. To know thyself, you must know everything you are and everything that influences you. You would conceivably like to undertake a mutually exclusive and collectively exhaustive examination of your human experience. This may be an impossible task to complete given the infinite variety of experiences that can occur in a life, but that does not mean we cannot begin to set up a structure for the task and set down some big guiding principles within each element of the structure based on what we know. This is what scientists do in all their branches of science. This is what we can do with the different elements of a life. This is how we create the structure of a philosophical belief system, by which we can begin to know ourselves. I know I haven't completed this task, but I want to introduce what I have done towards this and work with people over the years ahead to make it better. As always, I want this to evolve.

Let's start at the top. I first looked at the universe we live in to try to understand what kinds of things we can experience. If we can say that we live in a universe with a space-time continuum, matter, and living things that move and think, we can begin to break down our philosophical belief system along these lines:

1.0 Concerning Me
2.0 Concerning Others
3.0 Concerning Things
4.0 Concerning Places
5.0 Concerning Ideas

Among these five main branches, the items that require the most philosophical inquiry are certainly 1, 2, and 5 - Me, Others, and Ideas. They require sub-branches. Let's dive into some sub-branches for the first of these to see what I mean.

1.0 Concerning Me
   1.1 Where Did I Come From? (Past)
   1.2 Where Am I? (Present)
   1.3 What Am I? (Present)
   1.4 Where Am I Going? (Future)

You can see here that I've applied the temporal MECE principle of looking at the past, the present, and the future to break down the interrogations into Me. I split the present tense into inquiries into my location (Where Am I?) and my makeup (What Am I?). But my makeup is also rather complex. It required further breakdown to make it understandable so I created even more sub-categories there.

1.3 What Am I?
   1.3.1 Body
   1.3.2 Mind
   1.3.3 Body x Mind
      1.3.3.1 Emotion
      1.3.3.2 Needs and Desires
      1.3.3.3 Personality
      1.3.3.4 Soul?

Looking at these, I'm not trying to imply a dualistic view of man where the mind is something separate from the body, I'm merely separating them for purposes of discussion. It is quite accepted in the modern world that our body affects our thoughts and our thoughts affect our body. This crossover influence is captured in category 1.3.3 where I break down the Body x Mind effects we see in our lives into four further sub-categories: emotion, needs and desires, personality, and the question of a soul.

Next, let's go back to the main branch of Me, and look at the future, where we have both a path and a destination.

1.4 Where Am I Going?
   1.4.1 Life
   1.4.2 Death

Arriving at the end of Me, we can move on to an examination of Others. I've broken this examination down into how we treat other individuals (which are further listed out below) and how we think about all the individuals collectively (the aspects of a society).

2.0 Concerning Others
   2.1 Other Individuals
   2.2 Society

2.1 Other Individuals
   2.1.1 Family
   2.1.2 Friends
   2.1.3 Spouses
   2.1.4 Children
   2.1.5 Acquaintances
   2.1.6 Strangers

2.2 Society
   2.2.1 Culture
   2.2.2 Education
   2.2.3 Economics
   2.2.4 Government / Politics
   2.2.5 Justice

Finally, the last branch that needs further subdivision in order to be able to speak about it coherently, is that of our Ideas. Examining the traditional ideas discussed in philosophy, I created the following sub-branches here.

5.0 Concerning Ideas
   5.1 God and Religion
   5.2 Ethics / Morality
   5.3 Aesthetics
   5.4 Utopia

So this is what I am proposing as the structure of a philosophical belief system. Know these things, and you can know thyself. Elsewhere, I've laid out the basic tenets of evolutionary philosophy. Now, I can take those tenets and apply them to this structure to see evolutionary philosophy in action. I'll continue to explore those results in future posts, but for now I'd love to hear your thoughts on this prescription for knowing thyself. What do you think? What other topics need to be covered? What categories overlap or need further breakdown? How should this be changed for the next generation of evolutionary philosophy? What else do you know about thyself?

I've just returned from taking three weeks off to travel around Western Europe (my wife had a good research gig in Lyon so we took the opportunity to plan a full trip around it) and I decided I ought to post a few thoughts about this before I get back into the swing of introducing my Evolutionary Philosophy. I believe I tend to use my time off a little differently than most people and felt it would be a worthwhile discussion to bring up why that is. Plus, who doesn't love gratuitous travel pics?

As an American living in England, I've become attuned to the different terms we use for time off in these countries: Americans go on "vacation", while Brits take a "holiday." While I was contemplating this post though, I decided I didn't really find either of these terms satisfying. Vacation comes from the root of vacating, as in giving something up, relinquishing a position, annulling a judgment. To me it implies leaving your life for a while, turning your mind off, becoming vacant. That's not what I do. But holiday doesn't capture it either, coming from the root of "holy day," describing a time of godly observance and quiet introspection on the revealed teachings of a religion. That may have applied to a Sunday at home from the field in ancient times, but it doesn't get you very far today when the religions have failed to adapt and the gods have all been explained away or found wanting. I toyed with the term "walkabout" for a while from the Aboriginal custom of taking a journey on foot to live closer to the way of the ancestors. This was initially appealing, but in the end I decided I wasn't only after a glimpse of what the ancestors had done; I was looking for examples of what everyone does. Before I get to the term I finally settled on, I suppose I should say a few words about the reasons I travel.

And take a second to energize you with another beautiful scene.

As a philosopher, I've spent a lot of time over the years on thought experiments, moral evaluations, aesthetic judgments, analyses of bias, and searches for truths. Did I do all this just so I could call myself a "philosopher"? Of course not! I did it because I was searching for happiness in my daily life. Like all of us, I long to spend each day in a thoughtful, purposeful way that adds up to something meaningful over time. To do that, you have to find sustainable habits that bring immediate gratification but build lasting satisfaction as well. After 40 years on Earth, I'm getting better at that, but undoubtedly have work to do yet. (Ask my wife after one of my grumpy tirades or depressive sulks.) Still, this kind of daily life, once perfected, is not one that needs to be vacated. A philosopher doesn't need to go to a beach and turn their brain off so they can get back to the daily grind of burning themselves out.

What I look for when I take a break is more inspiration, more ideas, more examples of what it means to live the good life. To live the best lives we can, we must know how others live their lives, evaluate the options, and cobble together the life that fits us best. We must try it out, practice it, perfect it. And then go find something else to add to the mix. Science taught me to look for data and analyze it. Engineering taught me how to apply theory into practice. Management consulting calls this the study of best practices. In the world of travel, this is called touring. As I groped around for arcane words to describe what it is I do with my time off, I came upon this etymology for the sometimes tarnished act of tourism:

• "the word tour is derived from the Latin, 'tornare' and the Greek, 'tornos', meaning 'a lathe or circle; the movement around a central point or axis'. This meaning changed in modern English to represent 'one's turn'. When the word tour and the suffixes –ism and –ist are combined, they suggest the action of movement around a circle. One can argue that a circle represents a starting point, which ultimately returns back to its beginning. Therefore, like a circle, a tour represents a journey in that it is a round-trip, i.e., the act of leaving and then returning to the original starting point."
  

We all live our lives centered around our daily routines. We all take our turns constructing these lives and returning to our habits again and again. Sometimes, these daily experiences teach us something and we change. Hopefully for the better. Sometimes we read a book, watch a movie, talk to a friend or stranger, and have our lives changed by others' experience. But sometimes we need to break out of our daily routines to have our circles expanded. If our daily lives are truly building towards something that provides lasting satisfaction, any time that we take off from this task is precious. It should be spent wisely and in ways that enhance or inform either our daily lives or the goals we are striving for with those daily lives. Preferably both. This is why philosophers don't go on vacation or take a holiday. Philosophers go on tour. (Though not exactly like rock stars.)

When I go on tour, I want to see how people have spent their days. What do they do for work? Do they spend all day chopping and stacking wood to feel safe about the coming winter in the Alps?

Or did they build castles in Avignon to protect the wealth of their popes? Even though the Stoics taught that all we possess, we carry with us.

I want to see how other people design their homes. Is it in the art nouveau style, exhibited at the School of Nancy museum, that brought nature back to an industrialized class that was losing touch with it?

Or do they use modern minimalism, like Frank Gehry at the Vitra Design Museum, that emphasizes restraint, elegance, simplicity, and openness, but creates surprise in other whimsical ways.

I like to see how people get around their cities. Do they ride solar-powered busses with lots of windows through which they can enjoy a pretty city as they do in Maastricht?

Or do they ride bicycles that are free for 30 minutes, as they are in Lyon, through shady streets and protected bike lanes that leave one calm and energized?

I like to see what artists have captured to inspire and inform their contemporaries. Whether it was a handful of animals 13,000 years ago in the cave paintings in southwest France.

Or the first films taken by the inventors of the motion picture, the Lumiere brothers, who turned down offers of thousands of francs for their invention and instead sent the first film makers all over the world to capture cultural scenes of everyday life, which captivated the people of their day.

I like to see if artists inspired their patrons with grand plays on huge stages as the Romans did in Orange.

Or did they focus on children's minds with slapstick puppets as in Lyon?

I like to see what recreational activities people use to strengthen their bodies and rejuvenate their minds. Whether it be risky but enormously exhilarating paragliding.

Or torturous mountain climbs, like the Col du Tourmalet, ridden by cyclists who have put in hours and hours of fitness training just to gain a better appreciation of the dedication of their athletic heroes.

Or passionately competing with one another with the simplest of tools - a ball and a wall.

I like to see what kind of environment I prefer to live in. Whether the grand boulevards and squares of Bordeaux are too sterile and outsized.

Or do I prefer the cozy streets of Metz, that are pedestrian-sized and filled with congenial outdoor cafes and spaces for a friendly game of boules.

Or maybe I just need to sleep somewhere new to redefine what I really need for a bed, a kitchen, and a living room.

I like to see what people spend their money on. Is it better to use it for the showy wastefulness of gambling it away in a grand casino like they do in Monte Carlo?

Or is it any better to copy the latest fashions from America that have their roots in the glorification of criminals?

Or would we be better off using our resources to put us in touch with the sublime, with the feelings of awe and wonder that come from contemplating the size and age of mountains and the power of snow and ice? Whether that be in the Alps.

Or at the aptly named Point Sublime overlooking the Gorge du Verdon.

Of course, I like to see what people eat to nourish themselves and bring joy to the family and friends they share their meals with. Whether it's sampling one (or several) of the 300+ cheeses of France.

Or appreciating the straightforward marriage of perfected ingredients in a pesto focaccia bread in the Cinque Terra of Italy.

Or wondering at the luxurious decadence that can be poured into a hot chocolate with whipped cream in Bayonne, France.

And of course, as any philosopher can tell you: in vino veritas - in wine is the truth. (And in Belgian beer too, by the way.) Dutifully in search of the truth, I therefore make it a point to sample local wines wherever I go and stock up along the way when customs laws and luggage space allow. Fortunately for this trip, that allowed a lot.

These are just a few of the pictures and places and thoughts I had while spending three weeks on tour. I found time to relax in hot springs, or sit and finish one of the three books I brought with me, or have long slow conversations over dinner with my lovely traveling companion, but those respites served mainly to keep my strength up for the actual touring. And because of that, and many other tours throughout the years that have helped me learn this style of travel, I now return to my work inspired, informed, slightly changed for the better, and anxious to continue my daily life. Next week I'll be back with more results from that.