Maturity (E05)

The “I can’t explain it, but I know it when I see it” trait

“Nobody cares how much you know, until they know how much you care.” —Theodore Roosevelt (1858-1919)

This is Essay Five (E05) of a series prescribing a vaccine for the authoritarian virus now infecting our body politic.

The virus is not a biological entity. It is instead bad knowledge gone viral. The vaccine works because it is a good knowledge standard that conflicts with the virus. It is literally impossible for one mind to express both ideas at the same time. When a person gets the vaccine in their head and deliberately practices following the knowledge standard in every context, the person stops spreading the virus, kills the virus in themselves, and improves their relationship with themselves and others.

See also E03. If a person is deliberately practicing the science knowledge standard, then they are repeatedly subjecting their own assumptions to rigorous skepticism, and the vaccine is killing the virus. A person who repeatedly protects their assumptions from skepticism has the virus.

Who are we? There is a wealth of evidence supporting the conclusion that humans act callously, inhumanely, and without any limitations of conscience. There is also a wealth of evidence supporting the conclusion that human nature is moral, humane, and it is in our nature to be conscientious about the impact we have on others. Human nature can’t be both, but is it the former and we learn the latter, or vice versa?

The wisdom hypothesis suggests that human nature is good, and that life should be teaching us how to know ourselves, and then we are good. Thus, if people are bad, then they’ve learned how to deny who they are. E04 describes how to test the hypothesis. E05 uses the virus, vaccine, and maturity concepts to support the hypothesis.

While the word “maturity” is one of those “I can’t explain it, but I know it when I see it” things, our knowledge of the concept is implicit in lieu of explicit. One intent of E05 is to turn our implicit knowledge into explicit knowledge by suggesting a context-independent and simple definition of the concept. Maturity’s definition necessarily follows some background information.

We cannot understand human behavior until we understand the human social system, and we cannot understand the human social system until we understand the “system” concept, which includes understanding the “subsystem” concept.

A system is not a subsystem, and vice versa. A healthy system acts like the system is its ultimate (which is in lieu of proximate) concern, and its subsystems also act like the system is their ultimate concern. If an ultimate concern appears to be a part of the system in lieu of the whole system, then the system appears to be unhealthy.

That one-paragraph explanation is not all there is to know about systems, but it will suffice for E05’s intent. A more detailed explanation is in my book, The Wisdom Theory: A prescription for optimism (2024). The book includes the story of a fictional character named Ki (rhymes with “she” and “he”). By helping us understand the human social system, Ki helps us understand who we are as individuals.

While Ki is in the womb, the “me and Mom” subsystem is two things. First, it is the limit of Ki’s concern. Second, it is the limit of Ki’s influence. This is important to understand, and it requires me to introduce two new terms.

The first term is the “circle of influence” (CofI).

While Ki is in the womb, Ki’s influence is limited to Ki and Mom. Thus, Ki’s CofI is the “me and Mom” subsystem. When Ki is born, that CofI suddenly expands to include Dad. Now Ki’s CofI is the “Ki, Mom, and Dad” subsystem. Over a lifetime, as Ki interacts with larger and larger subsystems, Ki’s CofI is expanding in a stepwise fashion.

For example, your CofI expanded in a stepwise fashion on your first day of school, on your first day at a new job, on the day you got a promotion, etc.

A person’s CofI is not a perception. If the person has an influence on a subsystem, then the person's CofI includes that subsystem, and then the person is one of the subsystem’s subjects. A subsystem’s health is a function of the collective behavior of the subsystem’s subjects.

The second term is the “circle of concern” (CofC).

While Ki is in the womb, Ki’s concern is limited to Ki and Mom. Thus, Ki’s CofC is the “me and Mom” subsystem. When Ki is born, that CofC does not suddenly expand to include Dad. Instead, Ki’s CofI is the “Ki, Mom, and Dad” subsystem, but Ki’s CofC is still the “me and Mom” subsystem. In other words, in Ki’s mind, Dad is an “object” in lieu of a “fellow subject” of a common subsystem.

The moment an individual’s CofI expands beyond the individual’s CofC, the discrepancy repeatedly produces conflicts of interest. The question is not who will resolve the conflict. If the conflict is resolved, then it is resolved when the individual’s CofC changes. If Ki’s CofC changes, then the change was made by Ki. But is the change an improvement? The answer depends on the answer to another question. Is the “Ki, Mom, and Dad” subsystem healthy?

When an individual’s CofI expands beyond the individual’s CofC, the expansion is from a smaller to a larger subsystem. Either way, the individual’s CofC will change. If the larger subsystem is healthy, then the CofC will also expand, and the change will be an improvement.

Ki’s CofC expanded to include the larger “Ki, Mom, and Dad” subsystem, but not automatically. Ki made a conscious decision to include Dad. The decision was then saved in Ki’s unconscious mind. When it replaced the “me and Mom” CofC, the conflicts disappeared, and the smaller subsystems began to reflexively optimize the larger subsystem at its smaller subsystems’ short-term expense. Ki’s decision strengthened the bonds that hold a family together, and all family members benefited in the long-term from the family’s strength.

Here is the promised definition of maturity:

While a person’s CofC encompasses the person’s CofI, the person is sufficiently mature. While a person’s CofI extends beyond the person’s CofC, the person is insufficiently mature.

A CofC includes people, places, ideas, and things. What is not included is excluded by default. In the 21^st century, an adult with a CofC that excludes some people is insufficiently mature. Thus, a mature CofC excludes the idea that it is okay to exclude some people.

While a child is immature, the maturation process is incomplete. When an adult is immature the adult is a subject of an immature subsystem that might not be an authoritarian autocracy, but it is heading in that direction. Regardless, the subsystem is infected by the authoritarian virus, and the vaccine is needed to cure the disease.

Currently, there is precisely one global human social system including roughly eight billion people. Every other identifiable group is a subsystem of that larger system.

An explicit definition of maturity is important because implicit definitions vary widely and get mistaken for unrelated concepts like chronological age, education, intelligence, sophistication, status, etc.

The explicit definition makes it easy to evaluate a person’s maturity. A mature person may not agree that they are having an unnecessarily negative influence on other people’s lives, but it will be apparent that they are subjecting their assumptions to skepticism. Mature people either provide an understandable rationale for their behavior, or they admit they are wrong. If a person is protecting their assumptions so they cannot be subjected to skepticism, then the person is immature.

When an adolescent is granted a beginner’s license after passing a driving knowledge test, it is one manifestation of the “better CofC because it is larger” pattern. Think about what just happened. Passing the test demonstrates that the learner’s knowledge is consistent with a knowledge standard. Then the learner practices under the supervision of an experienced practitioner until the learner can demonstrate that their behavior is consistent with the knowledge standard by passing the road test. One difference is that the wisdom knowledge test only has one “Will you be skeptical of your own assumptions?” question with one “yes, I am mature” option and one “no, I don’t want to grow up” option.

Understanding the adult necessarily involves understanding who they were as a child, and understanding our species necessarily involves understanding its “Paleolithic band-sized social system” childhood. That will be the topic of next week’s essay.