Chapter 1: My Objective/ The Short Version:
Whenever someone writes an important scientific thesis like this, they always start with an introductory section on how they researched it, why they wrote it, and why they’re qualified to write it. If you’re willing to believe that I know what I’m talking about, feel free to skip ahead to Chapter 4 and come back to this later, because you won’t miss out on anything crucial to the rest of the book.
I ought to warn you perhaps that the most important part of understanding what makes people what they are lies in how you come to that understanding. For something as important as making sense of the world, it isn’t enough to know what the answers are; you also need to know why they’re the answers. Obviously, for something as important as this, each person has to make sense of the world for themselves, and you can’t do that just by reading a book, no matter what book it is.
With my scientific background, the only answers that I could accept in my attempt to make sense of the world were objective, scientific ones reached through objective, scientific means. That means that all of my answers and all of my means of searching for them are usable by everyone in the world. No one can write a book that spells out completely all the answers to each individual’s personal quest, but to the extent that it is possible, that’s what I’ve done. The first section covers my scientific approach, and the other three sections cover the conclusions of my research.
Whatever you need to do to make my scientific approach personally meaningful to you is up to you. All I can do with a book is to give you a map of landmarks you’ll find along the way.
For as long as humans have been defined as humans, they have searched for a definition for themselves. In other words, humanity is defined by its search for its own definition. That means that in order to truly understand what it means to be human, you have to search for the answer yourself. In order to become the most fully realized human being you can be, you have to learn how to search as thoroughly as possible, and that’s what this book is really about. If you skip the next three chapters, read to the end of the book, and think you understand everything because you’ve memorized all the conclusions I’ve reached without learning how to reach such monumental conclusions for yourself, you’ll have missed the whole point.
While the first three chapters are important, if you’d rather jump right into the real story now and come back and read the first three chapters at some other time, I think the book will make just as much sense either way.