1.                              Summary

The Ultimate Values of Freedom and Well-Being, from which all other values can be derived, depend crucially on a "truly liberal education" or a "world-class education" as I call it. "World-class" denotes here first-class--unrestrained, intellectually honest, ethical--and global or world-wide applicability. In this work, such learning is organized within the framework of a modern and moral worldview that is an all-embracing explanation of the world and of the human condition. It follows that this kind of learning is immensely practical because it makes possible these crucially needed ultimate values.

     Formal liberal education is constrained by society’s political, economic, and religious interests that self-servingly work to maintain the status quo. It is these special interests who insist that "everyone ought to stay in their place, with ours [theirs] as it happens somewhere near the top." Thus, in spite of idealistic mission statements by colleges, formal education is in general inadequate because it is transmitted to small groups only and in disconnected fragments, that is, crucial parts and pivotal connections are missing.  

Hence, my objective is here to offer a world-class education--available to all and not constrained--by writing connectedly in one book what others have written disconnectedly, or not at all, in many books. Accordingly, like a bee that gathers the best nectar to make the finest honey, I gathered the facts, intellectual skills, and wisdom of this world from the best accredited sources and joined them in one long deductively connected argument. This way, the text forms a unit and step by step guide for others to follow and form their own perhaps more correct views.

     Life Is What It Is All About, for as far as we know an individual's earthly existence is a one-time event. This fact should be a prime consideration when deciding on life plans that entail making the best out of whatever life has to offer. However, the choice of what is best is up to the individual who must consider personal preferences and his or her ever-changing circumstances. It follows that most religious, political, and philosophical systems are inadequate on account of their rigidity because most claim to be true for all people, all times, and all situations. On account of this deficiency, and to avoid the tragedy of a wasted life, the individual has to create his or her own best-life philosophy. However, to do so successfully, one needs to acquire mental competence that begins with freeing and enabling the mind through truly liberal learning.

     This task of making the best out of one's life, while considering the common good, requires an overall perspective, a guiding worldview, from which one sees and interprets the world. It then serves as a pathfinder for action because it is personally held and connects the knower successfully to the world to the extent that it is grounded in the real world. The choice is here between making such a guide explicit and act accordingly or to practice unthinking conformity grounded in subconscious opinions that enchain life at a lower level of consciousness. In this work, a mind-enabling education is organically arranged in the form of a guiding modern and moral worldview. This view of the universe and humanity's relation to it is comprehensive and compelling in its explanation because a solid chain of evidence connects the beginning of the world to the present. Through the study of this account, one can acquire mental competence, that is, autonomy or self-reliance in matters of judgment. This ability enables the mind and liberates it from its natural and enculturated limitations and disabling assumptions.  Excellence of mind, personality, and life itself can now be achieved.   

     Also, an all-inclusive worldview is essential if one wants to move from mere fragmented knowledge to an overall understanding. For to adequately understand things--life, oneself, society, religion, the universe, etc.-- one needs to know origins, development over time, and how things relate to each other and the larger whole. Without an all-inclusive vision "to see," or framework "to fit in," fresh information will be difficult to understand and probably applied haphazardly. Without it, people make mistakes because they consider the parts of life but not life as a whole. This writing is a guide that provides pertinent knowledge and thinking skills to decide on best choices that give direction and meaning to one's life. It thus paves the way for creating a personal best-life philosophy that includes an ultimate belief.

     The personal best-life philosophy made possible by this work facilitates the forming of a robust, intellectually honest, and morally justified framework of orientation and devotion--a personal worldview and a set of personal values. Guided by the wisdom to make the best out of whatever life has to offer here and now, this life stance can be free from the follies of our time and the stupidities of tradition. It is personal for the reason that it will be the individual's creation and not some group's guide for living and acting in the world. It is best because it is intellectually and morally defensible, and to the degree possible, it will build character or as the ancient philosopher Seneca tells us, “greatness of soul . . . a thing unshakeable, sound to the core, uniform and strong from top to bottom, --something that cannot exist in evil natures.”

     The ultimate belief attainable is perhaps the apex of a best-life philosophy because it includes one's highest aspirations, hopes, and ideals. It is for most people of a religious nature, but it can also be philosophical or a hybrid of both. It does not shut out believe in higher powers or the possibility of life after this one because everything that is not impossible is at least logically possible. However, such an ultimate belief condemns as wrong those practices that take advantage of people’s most cherished beliefs and exploit them for power, profit, privilege, and prestige. An individual’s intellectually honest and morally correct religious or secular (meaning this worldly) belief trumps most institutionalized beliefs when it rejects their pernicious, self-serving doctrines that often embrace disastrous errors, damnable doctrines, and superstitious assumptions of a pre-scientific age. Most importantly, a sound ultimate belief can serve as an external standard to evaluate other beliefs and their institutions.

     To reiterate because it is important: Relevant facts and thinking skills organized within an individual’s coherent worldview make for mental competence. This proficiency liberates and enables, thus makes possible excellence of mind, personality, and life.

Connecting the Sections of This Work (Note: Underlined titles in this work refer to sections or chapters listed in the Overview/Macro Contents.)

The topics enumerated in the Introductory are foundational to the text as a whole. They allow the reader to get oriented and to acquire an initial sound footing. The Front Cover indicates the all-embracing scope of this work--an explanation of the world and of human life, a worldview--and points to the learning to be conveyed. The Vital Questions suggests ancient existential problems and contemporary social problems that need to be answered. These queries start the thinking process toward fruitful answers. Answers are often found when we understand the origins, development over time, and connections to the larger whole of ourselves, society, and our home, the universe. The Contents lists the seven sections that make up the worldview within which this work is organized. It indicates how and in what order the text conveys the learning promised and answers the questions raised.

     Placing the above noted three parts side by side, yields a well-connected overview. Understanding is enhanced if one argues from causes to effects within a framework. As can be inferred from the Contents, this work is from beginning to end mostly an unbroken chain of causes and effects. It is one long deductive argument where an original event or cause, such as the Big Bang, produces an effect that then becomes the cause for the next effect, and so forth, to the present. Complexity in the deductive argument is avoided because its content is broken down into seven major sections with chapters, subchapters, and sub-subchapters, etc. See Table of Contents.

     The “Statement on Liberal Learning” in  World-Class Ed was adopted by the Board of the Association of American Colleges & Universities. It defines the macro contents and macro objectives of what it calls a “truly liberal education.” From it, the reader can evaluate to what extend this work meets their suggested standard.

     Also, one must have a standard by which to judge the completeness and quality of a world-class education presented within the framework of a modern and moral worldview-- one needs Writing Criteria. Hence, this part elaborates on the following four topics:

A.    A. The Neutral Point of View—this criterion demands that all writing should be written without bias so that it can offer views fairly.

B.    B. The “Book” of Nature—is thought to be the best available source for reliable knowledge, the facts and data of this world. This fountain is the scientific and philosophical interpretation of the only original and trustworthy "text" humanity has, namely, the “book” of nature. It is reading or studying nature as if it were an authoritative book. This spring was first discovered by the ancient Greeks and was fully reborn and expanded in The Age of Enlightenment on whose principles and further development a matter-of-fact education  should be based.

C.    C. Worldview Benchmarks—this part offers criteria for evaluating a modern and moral worldview grounded in a down-to-earth education while simultaneously providing an organic and organizing framework for such an education.

D.   D. Working Compass—explains the tenets and working hypothesis that guided the writing of this text from the beginning. It is these pages that tell the reader from what assumptions this work was initially composed.

A.    E. Concerning Religious Beliefs—expresses my attitude toward belief systems. 

The seven worldview sections connect as follows:

I.        The Physical World is foundational because everything else is entirely dependent on it for its existence. It consists of matter and energy that behaves according to a few observed regularities known as the laws of nature. As we know it, the world or the universe started to unfold some 13.7 billion years ago. Our solar system together with planet Earth formed 4.65 billion years ago. Shortly thereafter, 3.7 billion years ago, life began on our planet and would eventually give rise to large brains capable of higher thought and thus allow the brain-mind event to take place.  

II.        The Brain-Mind Event occurred only recently when "trial and error" life processes, mutations with survival of the fittest, brought forth the large human brain. It is an organ of highly and intricately organized matter and energy. Unlike other animals, a large part of the human brain is dedicated to higher thought. With this event, the universe had become conscious of itself in humans. That is, humans had become aware of themselves as demonstrated by an individual's self-recognition and conscious experience, as stored in memory, of a distinct, personal identity that is separate from all other people and things. It is this capacity for higher thought that made possible the parts that make up the intellectual realm.

III.        The Intellectual Realm enables us to eradicate harmful ideas before they harm or eradicate us. This section offers the mental skills that allow the successful use of one's mind. It explains: what constitutes justified true knowledge, how to acquire critical thinking skills, how to avoid harmful fallacies, and the tools science has to offer. This realm made possible the social world which largely depends on the intellectual realm for its improvement and continued existence.

IV.        The Social World allows us interdependent social beings to flourish through ethical relations. This world can be properly understood only through its origins and development over time together with the natural origins of morality. The quality of these ethical relations depends on the practice of The Common Moral Decencies and Ethical Excellences as more concretely reflected in the UN: Global Human Rights Norms. The preceding makes possible The Educated Citizen who insists on a Just Social Contract. This type of citizen and contract form the foundations of a Functional Democracy. However, the religious realm significantly influences the social world of which it is a dominant part.

V.        The Religious Realm has been and still is a most dynamic and powerful part of individuals and the social world. So if we want to understand the world, then we must know something about the major world religions; though in the final analysis, “we shall know them by their fruit.” Also, some of the world religions have been and still are, though often covertly, world powers. Therefore, it is crucial to describe and critique this realm. However, abysmal antisocial forces are against both genuine religion and a functioning social world generally.

VI.        The Abysmal Antisocial insidiously forestalls and subverts universal freedom and well-being. This phenomenon, driven by greed for wealth and power, is present to a degree in most societies, dominant in some societies, and exists on account of failed ethical relations. The enduring presents of this abomination is maintained by mind-dwarfing education in general and in particular moral education. As a consequence, a poorly informed multitude practices unthinking conformity--to swallow and to follow. An antidote to the abysmal antisocial is a pragmatic education and the pragmatic life as described below.   

VII.        The Pragmatic Life--It applies knowledge and skills from all the preceding sections with wisdom to living a fulfilling practical life. It culminates, with guidance for the reader, in the chapter Creating a Personal Best-Life Philosophy.

The preceding seven sections, when connected and perhaps corrected, can form an individual’s and society’s guiding conception of the world and of human life. These segments draw extensively from two of the great adventures of the mind, science (the facts and data of this world) and philosophy (what follows from the facts ethically, logically, and in terms of what we can and cannot know). It is these two disciplines that facilitate the problem-solving and decision-making abilities on which an individual’s freedom and well-being, happiness and success, largely depend. By itself, to satisfy one’s curiosity can be an enduring pleasure of the mind. In particular when the discoveries evoke strong emotions that eventually lead to a final positive conclusion such as knowing that one makes the best out of life whatever it has to offer, for one could do no better.

A world-class education is most rewarding, but it is neither easy nor fast:

As offered here, it requires courage, a clear head, and perseverance. However, compared to attending college for a number of years, which is still not sufficient for a commonsensical education, this work offers numerous advantages. It is available and affordable to almost everyone. It offers faster learning because it is concise yet comprehensive. It is more inclusive because there are no taboo subjects. It is more interesting to read and easier to comprehend because learning is ordered within the framework of a worldview with its sections organically connected. The idea was to arouse the reader’s curiosity, get his attention, and never let her go from beginning to end. Finally, this work is intellectually honest because it was written without institutional or societal restraint. Yet, to gain the most from this text may require:

1. Considering it in its entirety because it forms a unit.
2. Reading it again and again for comprehension and internalization.
3. Revising its guiding worldview and implicit life philosophy.
4. Integrating it with one's existing views into a coherent whole.
5. Staying macro-oriented as one goes through the sections and chapters by regularly viewing the Contents. And staying micro-oriented when reading lengthy chapters, by consulting the contents listed at the beginning of the chapter.