Phoesune

“Garbage in, Garbage out” - George Fuechsel

Throughout my discussions of this Manifesto I will elude to how the human psyche operates. In order to assure that my use of words is later understood with clarity I must first define those terms which by others are explained differently. Throughout my life I have studied many religions. That pursuit was spurred on by an understanding that religion and the religious constructs of humanity are the structure that men and women have used to explain an underlying truth for which they could find no other illustration. That out of ignorance, blind fabrication, and even political will, mankind has formed religions so that the mysteries they faced in every day life could have an explanation.

I have chosen to use the words and terminologies of the religious lexicon as the scientific explanation although close to an understanding cannot or will not accept the reaches of my understanding and I would avoid debate over such thing as the extent of the human psyche when in turn I could use the word soul and face less comparative scrutiny from such a well defined and analyzed perspective. I do not fear the scrutiny of the scientific community but rather embrace it. It is that attempting to redefine such terms would cause more confusion than utilizing religious verbiage which already has many and various meanings. As such my use of these provides the liberty to express my views more freely and with scrutiny focused more on the content of my comments and less on the glossary of my terminology.

To begin, I will define my understanding of the human soul. The soul is divided into three sections: Emotions, Cognition, and Volition. The emotional and cognition segments take input from environmental stimuli and process these into an understanding of the world around the person. For example, you walk in and find that your pet has defecated on the floor inside your house. Your emotional response to the smell is disgust, to the dog is anger, and to yourself depression. Now on the cognitive side, your mind is analyzing the length of time the feces has been on the floor, the location of the dog, the likely event that someone is coming over to visit, the list of options that you have in order to deal with the situation. What turns this revelation around is that the information gathered by your cognitive and emotional receptors is being processed by the volitional part of the soul. It determines that the feces remaining on the floor is unpleasant and therefore must be rectified immediately. It also determines from the cognitive input the most effective course of action to deal with the situation in order to remove the discomfort. The volition then sets the course of the activity which in turn is activated outward through the emotions and cognition. (as a special note: This process outlined here utilizing this example is occurring on both a conscience and subconscious level.)

Now you may be asking, that all sounded like he was mostly using scientific terms and very little religious; that I am contradicting myself from an earlier statement. Get over it. Some things just have to use the clinical approach so that it is clear. Now that is my understanding of the basic structure of the human soul. Now, with that construct in place, it is good to note certain aspects of each of the three segments.

Emotion:
The emotional portion is comprised of two pieces: Reactionary Emotions and Volitionary Emotions. Reactionary Emotions are the responses to stimuli. It would be the feelings that people have. For instance, we’ll examine hate briefly. A person witnesses someone breaking a valuable item of theirs. The instant response would be a flare up of anger. It displeases the individual that valued the item. This is a reactionary emotion, I mean that should be pretty clear, but you never know who will be reading your writing later so I have to make sure.

Now, a volitionary emotion is the choice of the person on how they feel about the incident after additional information has been processed by the volition and the person understands the situation. Say for instance that the person was a two year child that had broken the item accidentally when they bumped a table playing wildly with another adult in the house. Now the processed data would suggest that the anger would not be geared towards the child. So the person chooses not to be anger at the child. They instead choose to be angry at the adult for roughhousing around the house and for knowing better. They also choose to feel sad for the loss of the valuable trinket and less angry concerning it breaking.

Therefore, each person can have a reactionary response and a volitionary attitude toward any given situation or person. It can be seen most commonly in the phrase “a Love/Hate relationship”. The person has a reactionary emotion to love someone in spite of everything in their mind and body telling them that they should hate the thing. So we have conflicted and very often confusing interactions with those we love. When I discuss Love later and other things such as hope I will be referring to the volitionary emotions as opposed to the reactions of a persons feelings. Think of the times when you hear two people that love each other talk about how they get frustrated, angry, sad, happy, joyous, and all the other things yet they say they still love the person. This is where that kind of observation finds its fount of existence. So a person may respond in the moment with a certain emotional reaction yet maintain a deep underlying emotion that cannot be shaken by these moments.

Cognition:
Cognition is pretty straight forward (keeping this section short). The mind analyzes information and stores data through memory. When the volition decides the course of action the cognition relays this to the body to take action. Even while taking that action the cognition observes the outcome and makes adjustments based on the success or failure of the results. The determination of success or failure and any adjustments are the providence of the volition. If you understand how a computer works then think of the cognition as the various forms of memory: Ram, Cache, and Hard Drive. Think of the volition as the Processor.

The most important thing about all this is that the soul is the essence of who we are. We have control over our feelings. We can choose how we feel, how we think, how we act, who we will be, if we have the will to do so. The will like everything else about the human being needs practice to become stronger. So the first goal of the Manifesto is that every effort engaged in this journey is an endeavor to bolster the will. Whether it be honesty, integrity, love, faith, compassion, humility, beauty, or mercy, all these virtues are mere shells of themselves if we cannot have the fortitude to maintain them, or the nobility to choose them.