CognitiveShadow

Easy answer - Demoux. Low stress role as a side character but you know you'll be brought back into action for the long haul!

Materialism is literally the only theory on consciousness that can be tested, has been tested, and has been used to make successful predictions. If my brain changes, the way 'I' am is going to change. That's just how things work. It's the only non-unfalsifiable option. Dualism is 100% unfalsifiable and untestable. Panpsychism is 100% unfalsifiable and untestable. Choosing to accept either of these as your default worldview can only be done by saying that it is what you hope or want to be true. In your movie example I still maintain continuity of consciousness. If I suddenly got total amnesia or a brain injury that altered my personality and behavior and preferences, then yes - you could say that the next time I watched the movie it was a completely different identity watching said movie, experiencing it completely different, and having absolutely no connection to the person or the memories of the prior 'me' who watched the movie. In your example, I forget details, but then recall them as I re-live the experience of watching the movie. Maybe I've changed a lot in the time since I last watched it, and I'm an evolved version of 'me', but the memories and continuity of consciousness that I still retain are part of what makes the new me who I am. So the memory connection is part of what shapes the future 'us' even if we are different, which means we are the same identity just at a different point in time. To make your analogy actually line up with the LDS theology I was referring to: You live a normal life until age 30, you watch a movie with friends at some point during those 30 years and have all these good feelings and memories tied up with it. You then get amnesia and forget who you are entirely. Then you watch the same movie with zero recollection of the previous time(s) you watched it. You watch this with friends, too - but these are friends you made in the amnesia ward and they all have the same circumstances. None of you remember who you were before entering the amnesia ward. You are in this amnesia ward for like 2 months. It's all you know, you never leave, it's all you (as the amnesiac) have ever experienced. You learn a couple games, maybe have a crush, whatever. You aren't allowed to interact with family or anyone from your previous existence and have no idea what your life was like before losing your memory. Then, one day, all of your memories return. You now have both sets of memories, but which version of you takes over? My bet is that you will fall back on being the version of yourself that has 30 years of memories. The version of you that was in the amnesia ward will be nothing more than a brief memory of a short period of time that the old/revived 'you' will think of as an interesting and unique part of their life. My argument is that the prior 'you' continues - they get the memories and can piece together the continuity of consciousness, but only through the perspective of being the older and more established version of the identity. You might pick up the game you learned in the hospital for fun, or maybe you decide it's dumb and it seems crazy to you that you liked it when you were a blank slate. But I think it's fair to say that you will not come out on the other side as the amnesiac who integrates the 30 years of memories into their worldview, viewing themselves primarily as the person who lived in the hospital. That identity and worldview dies. It lives on only as a memory. Just like (in LDS theology) the mortal 'you' no longer matters and is consumed by the premortal 'you'. (even though it is taught as the other way around very often). I'm highlighting the absurdity and incompatibility of the ideas.

I'm aware that the way we interact with reality, the way our brains are structured and function, etc. is all individual and unique. I would categorize these differences as part of the identity of the individual, though. Part of what makes you 'you' is that you don't see the images in your head. I have a friend with the same physical brain setup. I do see the images in my head, and that's just part of what makes me 'me'. I have done a lot of digging into consciousness and what we can/do and can't/don't know about it. It's a fun mystery to toy with, and my fascination with the topic is a large part of why I find the cognitive shadows bit in the cosmere so interesting. This, to me, is just further evidence of physicalism / emergentism as the most likely explanation for consciousness. That our conscious experience is an emergent property of the physical workings of our brain, collection of sensory input data, the extreme complexity of our physical make up. When physical changes occur, the 'self' is impacted significantly. I'm not too worried about the real life implications of all of this. I just view it all as par for the course as living organisms that are lucky enough to have gained sapience through hundreds of millions of years of evolution. But what I do find interesting is looking back at the religious ideology that I used to embrace, and then recognizing that the 'me' I am aware of would necessarily be completely different from the 'me' that would have existed prior to birth. That was the main point of my post. Our sense of self does tie in with our memories. The guy who only had 9 seconds of memory? Doesn't matter - that was part of his sense of self. However you are, whatever makes you tick, however you perceive reality... that's your reality. And if you die and then remember thousands of years of existence prior to your birth, those thousands of years will override the 90 or X years of mortal life that you experienced here. This is essentially the death of the 'you' that you know and identify as. It would be the same for your friends - the wife lost her sense of self and started acting completely different. She effectively transitioned into a new identity through the brain trauma. It all highlights the fragility (and almost arbitrary) nature of self and ego and conscious experience. Which in turn points me away from the idea of dualism, which would suggest that our consciousness is separate from our physical bodies, usually arguing for the existence of a soul or something else, maybe with the brain as a kind of antenna or something. Too many question marks and unfalsifiable claims for my taste.

So, to preface - I'm not trying to come at LDS beliefs in any way. I grew up very Mormon and did all the things through age 30, so I'm very familiar with the theology and it is something that I draw a lot of parallels to now even though my current worldview is very different. Now - we talk in the Cosmere about Cognitive Shadows and how the person is replaced by (potentially) a copy of the original made purely of investiture. There is no, and likely never will be any, consensus or confirmation about whether the copy should be considered as a continuation of the original or not. It's possible that when a cognitive shadow is made, the 'soul' of the person moves on to some afterlife or something, and that maybe the 'stretching to the beyond' is just the recycling of investiture as the cognitive shadow is absorbed back into the spiritual realm. We just don't know all the details with that stuff and Brandon has so far suggested he plans to keep the mystery alive there forever. One thing that many have pointed out on this topic is the continuity of consciousness - if the character 'feels' as though they are the continuation of the same person, with the same memories that the person had... maybe it just doesn't matter if they are an investiture copy. They are sapient, have all those memories, emotions, motivations, etc. That's enough to count them as 'same' in my book. Now, as my username suggests, I have always found this concept fascinating. And when I was Mormon, I found the Plan of Salvation fascinating as well. In that plan, it is proposed that we existed as spirit children, living with God for (likely) millennia before we were ready to come down to earth and live as mortals. But why don't we remember that? Well, because a veil of forgetfulness was placed over our minds, hiding those memories and therefore giving us the chance to be tested - to see whether we would obey all of God's commands or if we would choose to be separated from him. My recent realization: If we came down to earth and had our memories removed, would that not create two separate identities? There is the 'Premortal Me' (PM) who lived for centuries or millennia before coming down to earth. Then there is the 'Mortal Me' (MM) who will - at best - live up to like 90 years old or something. If you've seen Severance, you likely know where this is going. But ultimately, my existence as MM is completely separate to PM's existence. It's totally possible that MM and PM would not even get along as friends. And the ultimate goal for this plan was for me to prove that MM would follow all of the commandments, experience suffering and pain and hunger and all that fun stuff (along with, yes, joy and fun and taco Tuesday's)... just so that PM would be able to go on and live eternally - eventually even being exalted to become like God, too. But when those memories merge... would the 90 years of memories from mortal existence be given the driver's seat of the new 'merged' identity? Somehow, it seems to me that the ancient spirit child would simply absorb the memories and the reward, leaving behind nothing but a shadow of the Mortal Me. Anyway, super interesting topic, I think. And it comes with plenty of questions - is mortal death then, the 'end' of existence for the MM? It's kind of like how some have suggested there could be (a) a separate 'Beyond' for authentic souls vs cognitive shadows or (b) that both authentic souls and cognitive shadows could both be sent to the Beyond and could even exist together. Wouldn't that be neat? If we got to continue existing as ourselves when we died instead of being absorbed into the mind of an older being? But yeah, sorry for the rambles and let me know if you guys have any thoughts! I hope this is ok to post here - I don't have many Sanderson fan friends that I can talk about these ideas with lol

I initially interpreted it as something related to changing his Shardic Intent from Harmony to Discord.... but after reading these thoughts I'm wondering about splitting them off with different intents - death and survival are pretty baller and would be cool.. but idk if I can see Kelsier and Marsh signing up for that?

Beautifully written!

The Christian god directly commands and allows rape, murder, killing of infants, and even chattle slavery. You simply cannot say that Christianity believes in objective, unchanging, and immutable morality. It believes in following the subjective morality that they are told their God commands. We have the right to judge a rapist because from our perspective that seems like a bad thing to do. Because our goals are centered on furthering the well-being of humanity and society and the individual. If we can help convince others to adopt these same goals, they will also agree that rape is logically opposed to those goals. If your only goal is to do what your god tells you to do, then there is no reason or logic that will prevent you from killing or raping in your god's name. This has been documented time and time again throughout history. Edit to add: How can you judge someone who believes that god told them to murder or rape? How can you know that he didn't and that what they did was actually immoral or wrong? At least with a secular humanism perspective we can measure and analyse the impact of an action and then outline reasons why it should be considered wrong or right. In your worldview, if god commands an atrocity it must still be considered moral and good. As I said earlier in my comment that you haven't engaged with, Nale is not right or wrong. Nale chose to outsource his morality (much like religiously motivated people do). He chose to let something else tell him what is right/wrong (the law) regardless of what he individually feels or thinks about it. His position does not allow him to question or improve the laws, only to blindly follow them. We can do better as a society by focusing on the right things - progress and well being. The things that hold us back from this are traditionalist worldviews that blindly accept what ancestors believed and taught, refusing to think critically about our morality. Brandon's books (imo) encourage us to critically analyze why we think things are good or bad. If we don't have a good reason for it, that should tell us something pretty important. It's not about measuring 'right' or 'wrong' since those are just labels that we each subjectively apply to reference whether it gives us positive or negative emotions. More important is measuring whether our current beliefs are TRUE (if they can be tested and measured in a way that gives us some confidence in their accuracy) and whether our actions are in accordance with our goals. We can measure the impact of actions and laws and lifestyles and everything else, and when someone's practice infringes on the rights and freedoms of another person we can determine what (if any) regulations and restrictions need to be placed on that particular action... like murder or rape. I think the problem is you are still operating under the assumption that 'good/right' and 'bad/wrong' exist outside of our subjective experience. Numbers and math and physics exist and have laws that we have had to test and experiment with in order to solve and learn - they exist on their own, independent of whether humans discover them or not. Morality is different - it is something we describe and prescribe based specifically on our human experience. It varies based on cultures, religions, governments, and other influences throughout history. As humans have progressed to where we are today, we have collectively refined and updated and improved the general moral guidings. We've largely agreed that slavery is not good for society and that owning a person is a gross thing to do. Someone can still believe that it is good and moral and make arguments for why it should be allowed, but anyone who has the goal of promoting well-being for all will agree that slavery goes against those goals and is therefore immoral. It's not that we don't think slavery or murder or rape are bad in every single case - we do. I don't think there is a situation where slavery is the 'right' thing to do (though the Christan God would disagree with me on that). But I also acknowledge the reality that these are definitions we have come up with as a society. Slavery being bad/wrong does not exist as some transcendental guiding principle of the universe that we can measure and discover. The only way for us to come to that conclusion is to have social discourse and debate (and when necessary, a civil war) to ensure that the freedoms of all people are protected as much as possible. We don't discover eternally true morals, we just continue to make the world a better place and to create better goals that improve our lives and the lives of others in as fair a way as we possibly can. Every situation is unique, and every person has their own rankings and priorities of what they value. That all goes into consideration when someone makes a decision to do or not do something. I was taught growing up that drinking was bad, simply because it was commanded by god in my church (through prophets who actually did still drink even after the commands were made). Now I view this differently: drinking is not inherently bad, but it has consequences and can lead to some bad outcomes. So responsible drinking is a good balance - let people choose whether they want to drink or not, but have legal punishments and processes in place for those who drink and drive or who get violent from drinking and cause harm to people. So where do the morals come into play? What is 'right' and what is 'wrong'? My former church would have said that drinking is evil and should be banned. I personally believe that it is more important for people to be able to make the individual choice of whether they want to drink or not. I think giving people freedom gives them more opportunities to better themselves and their lives and improve their well-being. See how those are different opinions and different subjective interpretations of the situation? The different values cause each side to come to a different conclusion. There is no way to channel the spirit of the universe or something and have a list of moral laws for all situation listed out to tell us what should or should not be done in any circumstances. We have to figure it out ourselves, and that takes grappling with difficult questions, listening to multiple viewpoints and opinions, and eventually deciding what WE think is moral/immoral. But if we just outsource that entire process to 'god' or to 'the law' or to an individual person, we are doing ourselves and everyone around us a massive disservice. We are giving up our own moral responsiblity and pretending that we aren't accountable for our actions. We think that as long as we are doing what we have been told is right (even if we don't understand it) then we are not responsible for the harm we cause others along the way. That is one of the worst ways to live a life, and we see great examples of this throughout the stormlight archive, especially in WaT when things get turned on their head and we realize that the right thing to do in the situation was the thing that everyone thought was objectively wrong. Turns out acting with honor is more than just keeping an oath because you made it - it's deciding what the best action is in the situation and being willing to change your mind when you realize that your previous commitments or beliefs no longer work within the constraints of that situation.

I think this is an excellent example of starting a conversation about a topic about what society should and should not engage in when it comes to regulation. There are issues to consider - are we preventing people from choosing to live a free life by banning opium? What are the harms to the life of the individual and/or society if widespread use of the substances occur? Essentially we are looking at the impact and determining whether or not there needs to be societal regulation in place to prevent a potentially damaging impact. Personally, I am not nearly well-informed enough on the topic to give you any answer. In general I think legalization of drug use is often a good move because it provides more regulated and safe circumstances should people choose to use the stuff. It also takes away the power and control that illegal organizations that are currently distributing it have over society. So I would likely lean towards government regulated safety standards to ensure people aren't getting mysterious substances that haven't been tested for toxic contaminants, etc. But regardless, I would view this as an open topic that needs serious debate and consideration regarding the pros and cons. Again - this is something that people can debate on and decide what changes (if any) need to be made to improve the current societal structure we have in place. Your examples are all in alignment with the idea of subjective morality that requires an appreciation for nuance and recognition that there likely is not an eternally 'true' answer to the question. Can you please tell me how this is an argument for us to stop using societal discourse as a way to define (and refine) what we view subjectively as good/bad? You first jumped in here quoting the part of my inital comment where I referred to the idea of trusting in something beyond human as something we don't need. My point was that we can determine as a society what is moral and immoral based on how the action impacts well-being. So far you have only used examples of regulation and I haven't been able to tell if you support those examples or not. My whole argument is that we are 'ignorant wandering in the dark' as OP put it when it comes to morality. I don't believe there is some outside force that dictates what is morally good/bad and that we need to look to some invisible party or something beyond human to somehow pass knowledge to us about what we should consider moral or immoral. I think that is a terrible way to frame one's ideas around morality, and it's a method that has been hijacked by many throughout history to enrich themselves and to control large groups of people. Instead I think we should look critically at what govern's our morality and make sure that we have done the work to properly reason out why something must be viewed as moral or immoral. I think that's actually what we've done throughout history, sans the disruptive influences of people who claim god told them that it's ok for them to have slaves or that it's necessary to stone a woman who commits adultery. That is why I am opposed to looking to 'something beyond human' - it's always some unprovable claim with zero logical explanation behind it.

Can you elaborate on this a little more? I am trying to make sure I understood it all but I think I like where you are going with it. Are you highlighting that when someone is ignorant of the reasons behind their own morality they might come into points of conflict where they believe they don't have any good choices, but really it could be that they haven't dont the work to build a framework that truly guides their moral compass in more difficult times? Like for example if you believe the killing someone is wrong, but you also believe that everything your god commands is right.. and then you somehow receive a command from your god to kill someone... that kind of a situation? Or more specific to the books - Sigzil and Rosharan's in general viewing what the Radiant's did as objectively wrong (rejecting their oaths and dead-eyeing their spren) but when placed in a position where he was able to reject his oaths to save his spren from a more permanent end, he chose to do the 'bad' thing in order to get a better outcome. For me these things all point to the nuance of what is right and what is wrong. It's all constructed by our own subjective viewpoints and beliefs, and the more we explore that and consider what it means, the more capable we can be in difficult situations of analyzing our potential actions and their impact without holding on to prior presuppositions about what is objectively required of us in any given moment

There was a really fun theory before The Lost Metal that I was hoping for. The idea was that Wayne is actually a full feruchemist and was using Identity with hats that were lined with Aluminum. Basically saying that he could store aspects of his identity in a way that would help him better take on new identities, which was why he was so good at disguises. Cause a lot of people line their hats with aluminum to prevent being influenced by soothing/rioting, and it would then give more meaning to why a hat he had for a longer time would be more important to him (even if he wasn't totally sure what he was doing with it) because it had stuff stored in it. But I guess it's still just as cool that he was just really talented and skilled at the disguises.

To me it's all about the Identity. It's a driving force and theme in all Cosmere books. One's Idenity defines who someone is and how they will react in any given situation. I won't go too far with it and call into question the idea/illusion of free will, but ultimately each character is who they are and are going to do what they are going to do given any set of circumstances/experiences/input data. Their brains recieve the input and they act according to how they feel they must. Adolin killed Sadeas because that is just what Adolin would/did do in that situation. Additionally, there is something to be said for what happens when a person becomes a cognitive shadow - they lose their physical form and become a being of pure investiture. Investiture is kind of rigid and flexible depending on how you look at it. It's flexible in the sense that it can be changed by outward perception and how the collective conciousness of the Cosmere views it, even to the point of gaining its own sentience (see spren). People who become cognitive shadows (regardless of whether they are still the 'same' person or merely a copy) can be influenced over long periods of time. For example, Kelsier is a cognitive shadow stapled to his old bones and there is a whole religion based on his mortal life and death with people thinking about him and praying to him and all that stuff. They focus on his ability and determination to survive and inspire hope. As millenia go on, we could expect those aspects of him to be enhanced significantly over time. Just as strong of an influence can be made by his own perception of himself. So it is often the case that these cognitive shadows get more and more dug in on their own perspectives of themselves and the world. We see a lot of the madness that can come with this condition in the heralds, though theirs is a special case that is impacted by both too many memories to keep their minds organized and the corruption of Odium's investiture through Ishar. Rayse is a very old character. We didn't get much time with him or get to understand him very well, but Hoid certainly knew him before Ascension. From what we see of Rayse, he seems very confident that he is someone who abides by the intent of a contract and not wily methods of using loopholes or turn of phrase. We see Hoid refer to this even going so far as to say (I believe) that Rayse could not use a loophole as it would be contrary to his nature. His nature has been solidified over such a long period of time that he should be pretty easy to predict. When he realizes that he had been outsmarted by Odium, he knew that it had to be a different vessel. Again - Hoid has a long-standing relationship with Rayse and knows what to expect. It really just comes down to Rayse's nature and Identity vs Taravangian's nature and Identity. Taravangian is much more crafty and subtle/sneaky with his approach, which allowed him to take actions that Rayse personally would have been too proud to consider seriously. It's kind of like how Dalinar, because of who he is, had to keep his oath to the Mink instead of doing what have made more rational sense in the moment. Each act we see a character take shows us more about who they are as a person and what their motivations are. Does that make sense and give some clarification as to why Taravangian was able to do things Rayse was not?

Was the loophole thing just not a formal oath though? I thought that was just Rayse describing his individual nature and his personal Intent, whereas Taravangian as an individual is more of the loophole seeker. I don't think there was ever anything that prevented Rayse from using loopholes other than the fact that he has been existing for thousands of years and views himself in a very set and determined way. He isn't going to change on a whim and he was never a person to exploit a loophole... so he just solidified for millenia and become more and more entrenched in his own viewpoints. I don't know of any examples of Rayse making oaths as Rayse and not as Odium... maybe I missed that though and you can point me to where this is explicitly called out? Edit to add: I also don't know that Taravangian as Odium would still be required to protect Kharbranth since the oath was made with Taravangian himself.. so Taravangian would have the power of both sides of the agreement and be able to change that. I don't think he would be forced to keep an oath that the previous vessel made with him, just as Dalinar was able to represent Honor in releasing Odium from the oath they had made that trapped Odium in the system. If both parties of an oath agree that it is better to dissolve the agreement, that's not breaking the oath it's just coming to a new understanding and making a new and improved version of the agreement/terms. And he holds control over both sides now right?

I'm struggling to see the disagreement here. WiFi is not something that exists on it's own - it's just a name/term assigned to the specific standards defined and adopted by industries and governments. The benefit is that everyone gets aligned on the same standards, which allows everyone to build other products that can safely assume compatibility. It sets a foundation that we can build off of, just like morality does. But WiFi is not some kind of transcendental thing that was revealed to humans as an objectively "this is the only right way to do it". It isn't something that we had to look to a higher power for in order to be able to define the standards or anything. Just like we don't need to look to some higher power or something beyond human (that may or may not even exist) in order to determine what is right and what is wrong. At the end of the day, if someone disagrees with the standards for WiFi or finds a method that is more advantageous for society... well, society will eventually make the shift to the better platform. There will be growing pains and products that are made obsolete in the process, but everyone will eventually build for a better future and better products on a cohesive platform that is expected to be adopted by the most people... simply because it is the most advantageous for society. We are seeing this with Bluetooth - the Bluetooth/Sig group is moving towards a new foundational standard that removes some of the limitations that regular Bluetooth has. The new platform is called LE Audio or Auracast. It allows people to connect multiple headphones or output devices to the same source device (TV, speakers at train station, etc.) which is not possible on the current platform. What 'beyond human' thing did we need to reach out to in order to find out what the 'correct' standards should be? None, we simply continued to gain a better understanding about what is possible and what needs to change in order to make the world a better place. Or if I've just misunderstood the argument you are trying to make please let me know.

It sounds to me like you are having a tough time being confronted with the ideas of objective vs subjective morality. I get it - it can be scary to realize that there might not actually be any objectively 'good' or 'bad' in the universe and that these ideas are simply the way we as a human society have chosen to define and categorize our interactions and behaviors based on the impact they have. These ideas are very complicated, and have been debated for a loooong time. Brandon's exploration of these themes is (imo) intended to force us to confront what guides our own morality and what our view of 'good' and 'bad' are rooted in. For many on the religious side, the guiding factor is what their god(s) tell them to do and not do - but how often have horrible acts (genocide, murder, SA, etc.) been done in the name of religion and in the name of one god or another? Many popular religions claim a belief in objective morality, but their scripture and belief claims are rooted in contradictory commands at different times. Their god can commit atrocities, and they must accept those atrocities as morally correct because they come from a morally superior being who must have a good explanation for it that we just can't understand. What this means is that those people actually follow a subjective morality - based on the subjective views and commands of their chosen deity. For me personally, I strongly believe that there is no truly objective morality or objectively 'good' and 'bad' because those things are defined by our human experience and perspectives/goals. I think we have developed instinctive behavioral patterns that are better for society as a whole - being a highly social and community-driven species, we have evolved to prioritize behaviors that will be better for (a) the species as a whole and (b) our own individual survival. A community with a general social contract where everyone agrees that murder is bad and we shouldn't do it will survive better. Individually, I know that living in a place where people are not murdered is a safer and happier way to exist, which encourages me to also not go around murdering people. Laws help enforce and reinforce these behaviors. Now, just because something is not objectively good or bad doesn't mean that we shouldn't try to build a society with structure based on what we subjectively view as good and bad. Recognizing that it is subjective does not change the importance of morality, it just helps us create a framework for why we need moral guidelines and what they should be based on. The way we do this (and have always done this throughout history) is through discourse and debate - one side will argue for why a certain action/behavior is not moral, while another side will argue for why it is moral. Ideally, we can work through these issues as a society and come to a general consensus on what those moral guidelines should be. I actually think this points strongly towards the idea that we actually are ignorant and wandering in the dark. I get that it's a scary and uncomfortable thought initially, but it doesn't remove our responsibility to actively and seriously engage with these thoughts and ensure that our own morality is not being outsourced to traditional guidelines that are not rooted in sensibility and reason. I think it's actually pretty great that the first few books of SLA were focused on the exploration of blind acceptance to oaths, the idea that one should always keep an oath regardless of the outcome simply because it is 'honorable' to keep the oath... and then it all gets flipped on it's head with Sigzil and Dalinar and Fen and others all rejecting their oaths while doing what they viewed as the right thing. Sure, you can argue that it was wrong... but it can also be argued that it was right. We don't have all the answers, we don't know the future... all we can each do is try our best in every situation to do what we believe is right based on our individual and subjective moral guidings. Anything that makes us think deeply about what the driving force(s) is/are behind our moral compass is useful and important. We should question our morals to make sure that we are being consistent, rational, and honest with ourselves. I think the point is more so that we can choose for ourselves what is right. Nale chose to completely outsource his own moral compass to whatever laws are made in whatever land he is in... that's one way to go about it but I think it's a pretty stupid and lazy choice. Going that route lets one pretend that they are not responsible for moral decisions, that the only thing that matters is doing what the law says. This does not allow for one to question the law and try to improve it - personally I believe that laws can be and often are immoral (from my subjective opinion) As for trusting in something beyond human... why? Why can't we, as a society, simply try our best to make laws and guidelines that help protect people from harm and create a safe community that maximizes individual freedoms (while obviously punishing any act that would be stepping on someone else's freedoms... like murder, theft, etc.)? I think if we spent more time trying to make the world a better place for ALL instead of holding on to tradition for the sake of tradition, there would be a lot less suffering in the world. Look how long it took us to realize that slavery was an abhorrent practice? Or that the LGBTQ community deserves all the same rights to the pursuit of happiness that everyone else has? We have a lot to learn still as a society, but as we continue to progress I have faith that we will develop better systems/laws/cultural practices that will make the world safer and happier. And I believe that should be a major guiding factor in our subjective moral development.