Understanding the Ethics of Human Physics

The ethics of human physics, not opinion, should be the first consideration in civically negotiating civil order and personal relationships. This includes the United States Supreme court, which counter-intuitively seems more interested in opinion than in reality--physics.

See for example the majority’s arbitrary actions against the defense of children in Windsor v. US.[1] What makes that termination of the people’s legislation (the congressionally misguided Defense of Marriage Act) uncharacteristic is that there were no litigants: the US had agreed to pay Windsor. Nevertheless, in most cases, the court’s allegiance to their authority might be responsible for the privation of reality. They feel they answer to a people, and indeed the preamble to the United States Constitution fortuitously[2] makes that claim. The Supreme Court decides to hear cases when a plaintiff has standing and has a case to present; the court responds to the arguments presented by the plaintiff and the defendant. As I have described throughout this blog: what follows the preamble (the articles) should fulfill a people and the object is civic governance, not opinion.  So why might the court decide on opinion that does not conform to reality? Often, they are rendering opinion about opposing opinions, when reality has not been introduced into the arguments by either the plaintiff or the defense. I contend that privation arises because the people are governing under opinions about their gods[3] when the focus should be reality. And the ethics of reality comes from physics. Physics operates and people either understand and make the most of the ethics of physics or not. Opinion has no standing before physics, and people can only try to discover and conform. A people fall back on opinion only when the ethics of physics is cearly not known.

Before the universe, there may have been potential energy. When the big bang happened, all or some of the potential energy became kinetic energy interchangeable with mass in space-time: physics emerged.[4] Additional emergences came after that initial plasma-chemistry event:  high temperature inorganic chemistry, cooler inorganic chemistry, the earth, organic chemistry in 0.5% oxygen and life, sex, organic chemistry in 21% oxygen, mammalian evolution, awareness. Borrowing a thought from Ralph Waldo Emerson, the interrelated laws of physics unfold.

The laws have existed since that time (and perhaps before the emergences), and it is humankind's opportunity to discover and make use of them and for each person to understand and live the best life during their opportunity, perhaps some eighty years during this era. (Lifetimes in the past were shorter.) Humankind’s understanding is a space-time continuum that gradually increases toward either infinity or termination. However, each newborn experiences an era in that continuim and must become informed, reach understanding within the limits of his/her natural abilities, and apply comprehension within the limits of fate and personal humility.  The will to understand and make use of the laws of physics is a wise choice, because physics operates whether we like it or not. When we slight comprehension or defy understanding, we beg ruin. For example, if the 2014 weather center advises evacuation to escape a hurricane or tornado, it’s best to already know where to go and have the means to sustain the journey and depart right away. A wise alternative may be to live out of the danger zone.

In defending children[5], Judge Martin Feldman, on September 3, 2014, addressed the “democratic” issues involved in the “passionately charged national” same-sex “marriage” issue. His respect for “democracy” is in keeping with his job for a people who, often without comprehension, live under a social contract they have not committed to: the preamble to the United States Constitution. The Constitution specifies a republican form of governance by a people. So, I write to the governors of the USA, a people, who need to understand physics in order to civically negotiate civil order. The majority takes for granted that we are governed under their gods, not recognizing that no two people have the same god and some people willfully resist the god they perceive controls the unfolding of reality. People who claim there is no god suffer civic tyranny. Some claim they do not know if a god exists but nevertheless conduct their lives in conformity to physics and its ethics. The only personal choice that is real is either taking advantage of or defying the laws of physics, and that’s where a people should start when trying to determine civic ethics leading to civil order. A people is interested in civic procreation of children, and the child’s dignity and equality are protected if she/he enters the world through matural heterosexual monogamy. Other entries demean the entry of the child into life, are against civic policy, and are the responsibility of the people who perpetrate novel approaches. For example, gay-partners who procreate impose on a newborn the indignity of being torn from the mother to whom he/she is attached to go with an attachement surrogate or two neither of which is female.

The laws of physics are the basis of the laws of ethics (Albert Einstein said that differently, using a word I do not use. An essay adapted from his 1941 speech is on my blog[6]). Consider a physics example that establishes ethics; you and I have differing locations. We use our vehicles to travel intersecting paths toward each task. We reach the intersection simultaneously, and one of us must wait while the other passes. Otherwise, we’d try to get our vehicles into the same space-time and that would defy physics, which, in this case, we have clearly learned to work to our advantage. One of us stops at a red light while the other expedites passage through a green light. Thus, we have civically faced a physical dilemma and created civil order. Some people observe traffic signals because it is the ordained and maintained law. However, most people behave orderly out of ethics: acceptance of the physics of the matter. The civil order is the resolution of the civic issue. Einstein’s example was lying, which may seem more of a moral consideration than physics, but is not. He said we don’t lie, not because of some divine rule, but because we want to communicate, concluding that physics and ethics come from the same laws. 
The incentive for a people to communicate is the fact they they are born or naturalized here and want to get along; hence the physics of not lying. Also, for a people to cultivate* civil order they must neither let special interests cause them to withdraw from the transcendent association as a people nor excuse un-civic actions because of conflicting special interests. * Mona Sevilla suggested "cultivate."

If the ethics of physics was understood by parents, they would not threaten children with their gods' punishments in order to coerce their children into good behavior. Parents would take advantage of the laws of physics in managing their own lives and let the children benefit from the ethical examples. Grandparents, who are typically more psychologically mature than parents, visit with the children and fill gaps. This is how the phyics of continual monogamous procreation defends children.

One of the dilemmas of the human brain is that its physical formation is not complete until age 25, so the wisdom that may be reached at age 65 or more has a late start relative to the beginning of fertility around 12-15 years old. There’s actuarial evidence in auto liability-insurance rates, which reduce at age 25 for males. Also, a citizen may run for congress at 25, the senate at 30, and for president at 35. (These 200 year-old age requirements should have a decade added to each of them.) Also, procreation before age 25 should be discouraged, even though it would reduce the woman’s fertile window by a decade.

Respecting sexuality, men have abundant semen to fertilize ova. Women are equipped with ample ova for the potential to produce up to 400 new lives during her fertile decades but a body that is capable of gestating perhaps only 20 babies. Women, with this awesome responsibility, have evolved the innate tendency to be reliable caretakers and accordingly (by physics, regardless of civil order) have sole responsibility as to whether to remain pregnant or not. Men have evolved the innate tendency to support a female and take responsibility for the family--make certain to understand and make the most of physics in cooperation with the entire family, not in a democratic, opinionated way but in sharing the benefits of physics. Commitment to a family is for life by both monogamy successions; any progeny may need support from the ancestors.  A woman who is aware of these considerations seeks a man who will fulfill the physics of family and satisfy her preferences, and men seek a woman whose attributes are worthy of his commitment and satisfy his preferences. Progeny of monogamous parents benefit from generations of monogamies and perhaps actually visit with their grandparents. Not all people accept or are willing or have the fate to undertake heterosexual monogamy for life, but as members of the body civic, they still have the responsibility to defend children.

Humankind is part of a larger physical evolution: placental mammals. Mammals evolved from single-cell beings that live and grow on chemical potential—energy, under the laws of physics. In the earliest instance of sex, eukaryotic organisms, there is no sentience. Hormones are the part of chemical evolution that drives mammalian sex. However, the mammals also have sex organs, brains, and awareness. When their hormones are driving, the lower mammals seek relief and the higher mammals seek gratification. Anything will do for relief: a knothole or stump, another mammal, a member of the same species, or a member of the same species but the opposite sex. However, gratification is more complex.

Humankind is the most aware of all the species, so it clearly is interested in gratification when the hormones are driving, and its methods of gratification are more varied and sophisticated than any other species has achieved. Gratification is also more psychological for humans. In fact, for some humans, hormonal drive cannot overcome psychological prerequisites. The mere message from a potential partner, “I do not want to make love,” can incapacitate the hormone-driven partner. For some humans, honing sexual gratification is a way of life. Perfection in sexual gratification can be pursued through variety, such as promiscuity, or through mutual discovery by a monogamous couple. Many humans are bright enough to manage either approach without problems, such as genophobia, sexually transmitted disease, breech of commitments, or unwanted pregnancy. I cannot say which approach is better--sexual promiscuity or monogamy, but my preference, without experience with promiscuity, is monogamy. With same-sex sex, one of the potential consequences, pregnancy, is avoided, and being the most aware species, some humans use same-sex sex to avoid pregnancy and for reasons beyond. However, physics involves another personal function: passion.

The typical human being has a propensity to mutual attraction. You might say most people could love most people once they get to know each other--except that some people are either evil or simply have no brain functions that empower empathy for other people. Love is out of the picture for them. It is noble for partners to discover and accept monogamy-for-life regardless of the bodies that contain each of the persons. However, part of the nobility must be acceptance of the consequences: the nobilities and dignities of other persons must be upheld, including that of children both living and to be born. How those considerations are addressed are beyond me, but my first inclination is for such couples not to objectify[7] children. Both procreation and adoption to benefit same-sex partners should be against civic policy.

One other factor is that personal autonomy[8] is a cooperative practice: each person honors the other person’s autonomy. Consequently, people get to know each other cautiously. Yielding personal autonomy is a slow process that requires mutual accommodation. Mutual accommodation involves mutual commitment. Breech of commitment can invoke negative passion. Despite prior commitments, when alternative attraction is not controlled, sexual passion can truncate mutual accommodation of autonomy by the attracted people. In other words, two people who do not want to break promises they made to themselves break those promises in the heat of passion. The consequence may be mutual, incidental objectification: each person uses the other for sexual gratification, cost to personal autonomies ignored. If the consequences have no impact on the public, then this breach of personal autonomies is private. However, violence, disease, and procreation, for examples, can make the breach a civic issue.

With simple sexual passion, mutual attraction combined with compromised autonomy can lead to unintended sexual acts that have lasting consequences: pregnancy, disease, breach of commitments, autonomy lost, and guilt. If a person experiences unintended loss of personal autonomy, it may take therapy to recover, and good therapy just like good parenting is hard to find in a people under governance by their gods instead of a people guided by the ethics of physics. If one party was committed to the act, it may also take counseling, therapy, or arbitration to disentangle from the compromised autonomy. The object of therapy is consideration and comprehension, and understanding can occur without help, if the affected party wants to benefit from the physics of the matter and has the autonomy and character to take action for the benefits. Some people simply defy physics. Other people are evil. Evil persons must be avoided.

People who mutually surrender personal autonomy in marriage—publically commit to each other-- should be making a life-long contract to each other and any progeny. When I married, I thought it was a commitment to monogamy but did not understand the dictionary, which takes monogamy to mean having one spouse for life. My commitment was beyond: no intimacy with anyone else for life. Thank goodness I did not understand the semantics of monogamy, because I have experienced many attractions, not necessarily mutual, without breaking my commitment to myself! Each time I felt drawn by attraction, I reduced the association to protect my commitment to be monogamous. Of course, my wife and children fortified my personal commitment, but after the committment was made.

Let me present an application of these ideas. Assume a person is married and promiscuous, and the spouse neither expected nor accepts the situation, yet has not left--divorced. It seems to me the offender should examine whatever commitment the offender made to the spouse upon marriage—not the words spoken, but the image of how well the spouse would be cared for. If the intent was to take care of spouse for life, but subsequent attractions caused failure, then admit failure to self and beg forgiveness and state that new understanding will change life together. When the spouse shows approval, embrace the unique, precious bond and reform.

Then, sit down and read this essay, so spouse can fully understand that the change is the benefit of an understanding of physics and its consequence, ethics: there’s no god involved. The writer claims he could be wrong. For all the writer knows, the inspiration for everything comes from Jesus or Jehovah or Allah or Zeus or Plato and Shakespeare or chaos or the preamble to the US Constitution. However, I think it does involve the ethics of physics.

After a few days developing a renewed or new-found spousal relationship and observing the reality of it, announce to family and friends who need to know the discovery of original intentions and re-commitment to live them out. Let affected parties deal with the change as they must. Help them find counseling if needed, but be true to self and spouse first.

Copyright©2014 by Phillip R. Beaver. All rights reserved. Permission is hereby granted for the publication of all or portions of this paper as long as this complete copyright notice is included. Revised 9/19/14 .

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[1] Windsor v. US, onlne at www.law.cornell.edu/supremecourt/text/12-307 .

[2] I write “fortuitously” because only 70 % of delegates to the Philadelphia convention signed the 1787 Constitution with its opening phrase “We the People.” Some of the 30% who did not sign wanted the states to govern. Others wanted “god?” to govern. In 1790, 100% of “citizens” were Christian (99 % Protestant), and 6 % of the population including slaves could vote. The preamble defines a people who civically act to fulfill the civic contract stated therein.

[3] Most writers express this intellectually constructed entity with a capital “G,” but, to express humility, I use a literary device that avoid any indication that I know anything about what controls the unfolding of reality.

[4] Swimme, Brian and Thomas Berry, The Universe Story (1992), page 269, ff.

[5] Defense of Louisiana ban on same-sex marriage. Robicheaux v. Caldwell, online at docs.justia.com/cases/federal/district-courts/louisiana/laedce/2:2013cv05090/158362/131/0.pdf

[6] Phil Beaver, “Why Our Example Is Not to Ever Lie,” July 6, 2014, online at understandtheknowledge.blogspot.com.

[7] By objectify I mean make a child or children an object of a personal partnership, for example, between same-sex partners. Heterosexual bonds incorporate civil obligations for the lives of any progeny of the bonding. Parents who deny that obligation are civically immoral and are, according to the laws of physics, responsible for the consequences, often broken lives in the progeny. So far, civil order does not adequately address the civic responsibility to defend children. Perhaps civil procreation licensing is needed, and I think it is.

[8] By “personal autonomy,” I mean the opportunity to control, within the limitations imposed by place of birth, to control personal progress toward psychological maturity. In general, each person is born with the potential for healthy childhood, K-12 education, vocational education, adulthood in chosen services, and retirement. Fate and personal behavior can interrupt, even terminate the opportunity. For example, early attraction to convenient sex can lead to a  disadvantaged lifestyle, even STD and death.