Aesop made this obvious in his fable, The Four Oxen and the Lion, where the oxen together could protect one another, but were killed by the lion when they did not cooperate. Today it is obvious that Aesop's maxim applies on a world scale due to the unstoppable evolution of dangerous technologies coupled with people wanting to use them for self-centered ends. We are all sharing a common time on Earth, for whatever myriad of reasons. We can cooperate and try to maximize humanity's potential or we can let the lion of dangerous technologies and beliefs devour our species. This flag, which has the western hemisphere on the other side, would be an excellent symbol to unite people trying to improve our civilization.

      If this is true, as obvious evidence shows, then what are the implications of the widespread wickedness seen by children and adults in movies, video games, television broadcasts, and on Internet websites? Does the wickedness that people see and hear help them? Does it help our civilization? Wickedness has been part of people's environments since Confucius' time, and presumably long before. The medieval symbol of wickedness and evil (right) is a dragon comprised of various animal parts, and it sometimes has multiple, fire-breathing heads. Why, in our modern, "advanced" societies has there been relatively little progress toward the elimination of wickedness? Why are people not better informed about human tendencies causing wickedness and informed about the importance for everyone to control the tendencies? And along with this education, why are there not higher and widely understood standards of behavior and an intolerance of behavior that does not meet the standards?

      What did Newton mean by this? He was particularly aware of how things in nature (e.g. snowflakes, rivers, sand dunes, icicles, bee hives) have forms that are the result of natural processes. The chambered nautilus shell in the picture is an example. The nautilus forms this shell instinctively, and we can form a similar shape following simple rules, as shown here. Since Newton's time, so many mysterious phenomena have been found to have natural causes, that it now appears possible that all the phenomena we observe are the result of natural processes. Discovering the natural causes of mysterious phenomena should be of interest to anyone wanting to find the truth about our universe -- including the truth about human nature and why we are here. In recent centuries, increasing evidence indicates that finding the truth will not be simple because people and our universe are very complex.

      People's beliefs are limited to what is sensed or to what they can understand. They tend not to believe in the myriad of things that are contrary to what humans sense, unless they can understand the reasoning why seemingly good evidence is actually misleading them. Galileo's experience trying to convince leaders that the sun did not revolve around Earth is a good example where people's thinking was governed more by instinct than by evidence and reason. Galileo had very good evidence and reasons, as shown here. But either the leaders could not understand the evidence or they could not believe the evidence because it was contrary to their misleading observations and what they already believed. Probably it was a combination of both, and it resulted in perpetuating beliefs throughout society that were wrong. Leonardo da Vinci, long admired for his art and intellect, said the following which pertains to Galileo's belief and experience. "Anyone who conducts an argument by appealing to Authority is not using his intelligence, he is just using his memory."

The following, which pertains to "dialogue," is from the January 2, 2011 New York Times column by Simon Critchley.
     "Despite certain appearances to the contrary — Descartes seated next to his stove in the Low Countries, Wittgenstein in his Norwegian cabin or indeed Nietzsche in his rented rooms in Turin — philosophy is not a solitary activity of cogitation or rumination. In the various schools of antiquity, philosophy was a collective activity conducted in the Academy, the Lyceum of Aristotle, the Garden of Epicurus or in the shade cast by the Stoa.
     "In the contemporary world, it is difficult to find a Stoa large enough for us all to fit, so our digital cave will have to suffice. But the point here is that philosophy is a shared activity, it is dialogue. And dialogue is not the simple exchange of opinions, where I have my faith, my politics and my God and you have yours. That is parallel monologue. One of the goals of dialogue is to have our opinions rationally challenged in such a way that we might change our minds. True dialogue is changing one’s mind."
As we struggle to become a wiser civilization, imagine how much faster we could advance if we really had dialogue of the kind Critchley describes. What is impeding this dialogue? Isn't the unrealistic certainty with which political, religious, scientific, and other beliefs are held a primary obstacle? Critchley's kind of dialogue is threatening or uninteresting to people who are certain of their beliefs. It is sad that our certainty keeps us from learning from one another.

      To a large extent, our lives are shaped by the evolution of our minds. Surely fate also shapes our lives, but most of us have considerable control over how our thinking and lives evolve -- at least there are reasons for thinking we can have some free will if we try. It also seems like we should be able to determine principles for guiding the evolution of our thinking and lives. One reason for wanting to understand our lives is that history and our observations show that wisdom often results in good things and ignorance often results in bad things. New wisdom can be so valuable that one might expect philosophy to be of great interest to most people.
      Trying to assess our situation on Earth seems like the logical starting point for determining principles to guide us. The sciences, based on verifiable evidence, have been very useful for assessing our situation, and the findings of science caused great improvements in people's thinking and lives. But science has limitations. Often experimental observations are misleading, as in the case of Aristotle observing objects falling to Earth and concluding that all earthly objects have a natural tendency to move to Earth. And the evidence shows that our minds have biases and other characteristics making them prone to misunderstanding our existence. Therefore the ancient adage, "Know thyself," must certainly be one of our first principles for guiding our thinking and lives.