Transcendent Reality Simplified

Transcendent Reality attempts to address the fundamental elements required to enhance – beyond random chance – a group of humans ability to survive, continue-in-kind, and prosper in a hostile environment that is at times catastrophically reformed, besot with chaos, where evolution appears to be driven by random chance and accident, and where human conflicts often result in complete annihilation of a an entire human culture.

Transcendent Reality is a paradigm – that is, it is a system of rules to live by, with four main roots – science, philosophy, religion and governance.  We often discuss these roots as if they were complete, separate, and unrelated disciplines.  In fact, however, they entwine and are interactive – we cannot fully develop one without employing the other two:

1) Science – a system of discovery.  Hopefully, a self-correcting system to discover natural systems, and verify perceptions and uncover the truth from its cloak of deception.

2) Philosophy – a system of prediction.  Hopefully, a self-correcting system to construct physical, intellectual, and social models which provide reliable prediction – to anticipate, contain, or control the occurrence of natural events, and to cause and precisely control man-made events.

3) Religion – a system of values.  Hopefully, a self-correcting system of values and choices that further the greater collective social good – for the Seventh Transcendence in general, and adherents of Transcendent Reality in particular.

4) Governance – a system institutions, laws, regulations, and standards imposed on the population to further the greater collective common good of that population, and that furthers the power of the society to act as an entity – consistent, deliberate, and effective.

In science, Transcendent Reality embraces the scientific principals – carefully structured hypothesis, careful and methodical investigation, manipulation of variables where possible, repeated experiments and independent verifications.

Transcendent Reality accepts that our knowledge of reality and our environment is incomplete, our understanding limited, and often our experiments flawed and wanting.  And that we are obligated, in order to enhance our own probability of survival, to devote considerable and continued resources to scientific investigation, and very often – re-investigation and verification of what we perceive to be natural systems, fact, or truth.

In philosophy, Transcendent Reality embraces physical, social, logical and ethical system constructions that are dynamic, and, to the extent they can be measured, are measured and verified using scientific principals.  Transcendent Reality accepts that real- world systems change and evolve, and that all our philosophical models are incomplete, approximate, and always subject to improvement and revision, including the paradigm of Transcendent Reality itself.  Because of these inherent built-in limitations, it is incumbent on us to always be seeking to improve the relevance, as well as the predictive accuracy, of our philosophical models.

In religion, Transcendent Reality serves as the collective social conscience.  It works to discover, define, establish, and promote attitudes, actions, and activities that serve the greater collective social good.  It does this by embracing moral and ethical constructs that maximize and measurably promote the collective survival, continuance-in-kind, and prosperity of humankind in general, and adherents of Transcendent Reality, in particular, as a group:

Survival – Foremost, we must survive as a paradigm by formalizing and institutionalizing the precepts and teachings of Transcendent Reality.  We must survive as a culture – through vibrant and productive social institutions such as schools and churches.  We must survive genetically, through continuous generations of vigorous and healthy family lines.  And we must survive as an individual, until we can continue our selves in-kind through procreation, and raise successful offspring to maturity.

Continuance-in-kind – is of three primary aspects, or levels.  First, our paradigm must continue through effective and meaningful methods of passing the paradigmatic scheme and content to our successor generations.  Secondly, the paradigm must evolve and grow so that it continues to be relevant to the changing environment that we exist in.  Thirdly, we must continue genetically by passing our genes on to the next generation – with the admonition and responsibility that they in turn labor and endeavor to likewise nurture the generation(s) following them. 

Prosperity – is the rewards of our personal and collective efforts that exceed what we need for survival and continuance-in-kind.  Transcendent Reality does not espouse one economic system solely to the exclusion of others.  To some degree or another elements of capitalism, socialism, communism, and communalism can be combined to insure that prosperity is fairly distributed to the population in accordance with both personal effort and need.  

1) Transcendent Reality must endeavor to always be more efficient and more productive – in fact, to be better than other paradigms in successfully enriching the culture it sustains, the political states friendly to it, and tribes, clans and families that continue it through generations, as well as the individual who adheres to its precepts. 

2) The burdens of sustaining the culture must be fairly borne by its adherents in a manner that is both perceived as fair, does not over-tax or over burden one adherent in respect to another, and that transforms, reforms, disciplines, or removes elements or individuals that are nonproductive, counterproductive, or inimical  to its success. 

3) The rewards of prosperity collectively obtained must be fairly distributed among its adherents in a manner that is conducive to the continued promotion of efficiency and productivity. 

4) Some of the rewards of prosperity must collectively be re-invested in expanding the capabilities of the culture – such as for self defense, to travel faster and further, to explore farther into the unknown, to settle new lands, new continents, new planets, new stars, and new galaxies.

5) Some of the rewards of prosperity must be set aside or pooled as a hedge against unforeseen calamity, chaos, and catastrophe.

6) Some of the rewards of prosperity must be devoted to the care, education, and guidance of the young so that all have more or less an equal opportunity to develop their potential as adults.

In governance, we see to insure the moral structure defined by our religion is properly reflected in our institutions, laws, regulations, ethics, and mores.  We seek to construct the instruments of governance and those of the society to be mutually symbiotic, aligned in purpose, supportive of the paradigm of Transcendent Reality, and tending to bind the society into a powerful social entity capable of self-defense, and potent action  

As a religious construct, Transcendent Reality might be better thought of as a preferred path, rather than a mystical concept of prophets, revelation, rituals, and deities. 

Nevertheless, Transcendent Reality does have a concept of god – as a “collective social consciousness,” particular to a human group or culture, rather than a singular, omniscient, omnipotent being.  In Transcendent Reality, this collective social conscience is considered an “entity” – a real and potentially powerful social force, measurable and extremely important – it is a symbolic unity of the culture – a unifying aspect – in that a culture that is cohesive and “believes in itself” increases its own strength in what might be described as a positive feedback loop.  We hold that this “collective social consciousness,” or god, is an entification of the “collective society” and provides continuity to the culture though successive generations, though individuals compromising the culture leave or die.  This collective social consciousness, or “god,” can be a great cohesive and motivating power for a group.  It can have a life span measured in centuries, starting embryonic, growing strong, weakening of internal dissent, becoming irrelevant with age, and dying. 

The ultimate goal of religion for adherents of Transcendent Reality is to evolve a system of effective moral and ethical choices that consistently, reliably, and measurably promote the groups collective survival, continuance-in-kind, and prosperity.  A secondary goal is to evolve to be the unifying religious construct that welds all of humanity together – if such an aspiration is possible, given that the humans have already evolved and mutated into distinct and separate races, which may further mutate into separate sub-species or even entirely separate species.

Evolution.  Transcendent Reality accepts that complex life forms, including humans, evolved from simpler life forms in a complex, chaotic, and sometimes catastrophic process we call evolution, which occurred over perhaps hundreds of millions of years.  Moreover, we believe that evolution continues, particularly in spinning off new forms of human cultures, cohesive groups, and governmental systems such as tribes, kingdoms and modern states.  We believe that discovering our evolutionary history, and understanding the evolutionary process, not only in tracing our roots, but as to how evolution branches into new races, sub-species, and species – and how evolution occurs on the cultural and social organizations of humans – may provide important insights in formulating accurate, relevant predictive models of human social behavior.

Transcendent Reality recognizes two major branches of evolutionary theory – morphological evolution and transcendent evolution.  We discuss them as if they are separate and unrelated evolutionary mechanisms, but in fact they appear to be intertwined and interdependent: 

Morphological evolution – is a process in which organisms change a feature, and sometimes a function, from generation to generation over what we might call genealogical time – that is, the number of generations it may take for a mutated trait in a living organism to become established in the population.  Over time and isolation from the parent stock, a sub-population, in a collection or series of mutated traits, differentiate into a separate subspecies, eventually into a new species which can no longer interbreed with its parent stock or other differentiated mutations of the parent stock.  Morphological evolution is Darwin’s theory of the evolution of species.

Transcendent Evolution – is a process in which singular organisms collect together and evolve into a colony creature, and eventually become so interdependent over genealogical time that it is impossible for the individuals to survive except as a unified entity, and the former colony now replicates the entire unified organism. 

Transcendent Reality recognizes seven broad stages or levels of transcendent evolution:   

1st transcendence:           Proto-matter to atoms

Maybe there are evolutionary stages within proto-matter , but for convenience and lack of knowledge we lump all proto-matter as a single stage from which atoms are formed in a nuclear holocaust in the bowels of stars or in the center of galaxies.  Life as we know it cannot live in such nuclear-active environment, and eons must pass before the environment cools to allow the next stage to progress.

2nd transcendence:        Atoms to molecules

Chemical elements form and chemical associations occur between different element forms, culminating eventually in complex replicating molecular chains such as prions and viruses which represent the dividing line between life and non-life.  Despite all our progress in scientific experimentation, we have yet to duplicate or produce living, replicating life forms from inert matter.  We are convinced that it happened, but we are as yet unable to demonstrate it.

3rd transcendence:         Complex replicating molecular chains to single-cell organisms

A significant evolutionary step was achieved when complex replicating chains began to aggregate and eventually mutate into an identifiable cellular form.  These single celled creatures formed the basis for the next evolutionary stage.

4th transcendence:         Single cell organisms to multi-cellular organisms

Singled-celled organisms evolve into many forms, and some begin to aggregate together as a colony creature.  Eventually these colony groups evolve to the point the individual cells cannot survive independently.  At some point the colony becomes so interdependent with specialized cells that it replicates itself entirely as a single life form.  These multi-cellular organisms continue to evolve through morphological changes, eventually, over millions of years, culminating in human forms and our own present species – homo sapiens. 

5th transcendence:         The emergence of human families, clans and tribes

Morphological evolution will likely continue in the human species, spinning off sub-species that may eventually diverge to the point that interbreeding is precluded.  Social evolution continues in human social organization in its various forms. 

Human families, clans and tribes are “natural” social organization, with counterparts in varying degrees in other social animals.  We recognize a hierarchy in these natural affiliations, which are bound together by genetic blood lines: 

Family.  Individual humans and families evolved together as a unit.  The basic unit is the mother, the father, and their offspring (children).  A strong cohesive family could prevail in competition and conflict with weaker and broken families.  The sense of the greater good to the family is the survival, continuance and prosperity of the family.

Clan.  Related families may form clans.  These extended families include cousins, uncles, and aunts.  Allegiance to the clan can become stronger than loyalty to the family.  Strong, cohesive clans will more likely prevail in conflicts with families and less cohesive clans.  The sense of the greater good to the clan is the survival, continuance and prosperity of the clan over that of its individual families.

Tribe.  Related families and clans may form tribes.  Tribes extend familial bloodlines even further than clans, but also begin to include even more distant relatives and possible non-relatives in the form of slaves or “outsiders.”  It is at the tribal level that we consider a distinct social organization forming around something more than just bloodlines.  Allegiance to the tribe becomes stronger than loyalty to clan or family.  It is at this level we begin to recognize a collective social conscience, or god as an identifiable entity.  This social conscience, or god, is particular to each tribe.  The sense of the greater good to the tribe is the survival, continuance and prosperity of the tribe over that of the clan or family.

6th transcendence:         The emergence of political states

The state is the evolutionary social successor to the tribe.  States consists of related and unrelated tribes, clans and families occupying defined territorial limits.  States create institutions of government, have monetary systems, specialization in occupations occurs, commerce exists, systems of formal education are created.  The collective social conscience becomes much broader and stronger.  Tribal gods become subservient to the state God – the greater good becomes what is good for survival, continuance, and prosperity of the state over that of the tribe, clan, family, or individual.  Allegiance to the state is specifically promoted, and loyalties to tribe, clan, or family may be officially or tacitly discouraged.  Strongly cohesive states prevail over less cohesive states, tribes, clans and families.

7th transcendence:         Beyond the political state

Transcendent Reality believes that humankind is in the dawn of the seventh transcendence.  What will ultimately supplant the political state?  Are super-states, such as the United States of America, the Russian Federation, or the European Union, just more complex forms of the state?  Or are they embryonic seventh transcendences?   Is the United Nations, a collection of nation-states, the nascent seventh transcendence?  What will be the form of the seventh transcendence, and what we call it? 

We do not yet have answers to these questions, and must watch the seventh transcendence unfold and adapt to it.  However it unfolds, we endeavor to be a guiding factor – to precipitate and usher in the age of the seventh transcendence – the emergence of an even higher social conscience – the birth of GOD.  We aim to accelerate the emergence of the seventh transcendence era by promoting its greater social good – which we hold to be the tenants of Transcendent Reality.