Art of Deciding 3: Doors
The (Non-Mathematical) Finale of the Moral Mechanics Series
Imagine a never-ending hallway. It’s endless—door after door after door after door after door after door. There’s no worry about any mysterious ghost-twins or a child riding a tricycle blindsiding you. Instead, behind every door is an alternate universe. It’s an alternate version of you—at least as far as you can recognize—just slightly different.
In this infinite hallway with infinite universes and infinite versions of you, they split from the hallway of your timeline due to one choice. In one universe, you chose to eat the Oreos. In another universe, you decided to go alone to prom, and in a third universe, you dedicated your life to stand-up comedy. In that universe, you’re unfunny and homeless. It’d be tragic if it weren’t so ironic.
Did I lose you?
I do that often—lose people —but stay with me. This time, just as the title states, we’re continuing the “Art of Deciding” series. In this finale, it’s time to bring everything together.
In the first part, I showed you how we make anywhere from 122 to 35,000 choices a day, and we can separate them into three categories: Category 1 (the binary choice), Category 2 (the Goldilocks choice), and Category 3 (the complex choice).
In the second part, I showed you that every choice we make is a moral decision. Highlighting a moment from my past, I showed you how a choice I made earlier evolved into a more profound moral conundrum. These moral choices ultimately come from whatever culture and religion we come from.
In this part, we bring everything together without getting into the complex mathematics. The infinite hallway will come into complete focus, and we’ll solidify a truth you probably already know: we start (and end) our lives dependent on the very people on whom we have an impact. Every door, after all, leads somewhere—and where it leads depends on who you were when you turned the knob.
I call this the “Dependency Tendency” or “Dt” for short, and it’s a key part of Moral Mechanics. It shows the lifelong effects of our moral choices, whether we choose the moral positive (virtues) or the moral negative (vices).
Imagine an average human being. This average person makes half positive moral choices and half negative ones, just like any other human being, just like us. When we take a look at this person’s life on a graph of how dependent they are, it looks something like this:
From birth, we are incredibly dependent on other people. At 6 months (0.5 years) of age, we can form choices, yet we are still dependent on others. As shown, this level of dependency decreases with age, but it never reaches zero. We are a communal species after all.
We are our least dependent for about 15-20 years, depending on the choices, but we will get into that in a minute. These are our adult years, and note that as we age, our dependency on others increases.
As we grow into our later adult and elderly years, our dependency on others increases; however, we won’t be as dependent as we were as infants. Our bodies break down and deteriorate, and we might end up in a home or receive 24/7 nurse care. The graph only goes up to 96 years old; however, we can see that the dependency would increase every year.
What causes this fact of life?
Our choices.
If someone chose the positive moral outcome every time, their graph looks similar, but there is one noticeable difference—the dependency score.
The score is remarkably higher for someone who chose the moral positive for every choice since six months old. The highest score in this instance is 23,801 at six months old. The second-highest was 20,616.57 at 96 years old, and the lowest was 2,506.44 at 33 years old.
So, why is the Dt so much higher when making a moral positive choice than it would be at a 50/50 split? Would a Dt score look similar if someone made all morally negative choices? I ran the data.
The Dt score at 6 months was -987.38, at 96 years old, it was -772.06, and at its highest—when other charts would have it be at its least dependent—it scored -90.94 at age 34. Choosing the negative moral value would have a huge, determinative impact on a person's life over time. Not only would this imaginary person’s life be incredibly horrible, but their level of dependence would negatively impact others.
Placing the charts side by side makes this clear.
The thick blue line is the 100% positive. The red is the 100% negative, and the yellow is the 50/50. This could only mean one thing—positive moral choices make everything better. The impact on others is exponential. The age we’re at our lowest is also around the time we’re at our most physically capable, and even in old age, our dependence on others has a profound impact on the world around us.
Ironically, all my work, all the math, all my effort only proved what we already know. It showed that positive moral choices have the greatest impact on our lives and the lives around us. If love is the basis for every positive moral value, then this data shows only what philosophers, priests, and religious deities have been telling mankind since our inception—loving others to the same level that you love yourself is the key to making the world a better place.
In each door is a different version of you. In each door, you chose the positive moral choice or the negative moral choice. While it’s not always clear which choice is which, choosing the one that shows the most love will be the closest to a positive moral outcome. Philosophy aside, there is a science to this.
But Wait, There’s More!
Dr. Candace Pert’s research into neuropeptides, amino acids, and neurobiology was groundbreaking. In her book, Molecules of Emotion, Pert showed how our emotions are more than just thoughts in our heads; they affect us physically. Her research created the roadmap that links the mind and body.
Moral Mechanics continues Pert’s work, albeit without the scientific notation. Don’t get me wrong, I’d love to immerse myself in a doctoral program to prove what I am about to say. However, I am not doing this at the moment. Through one door, there’s a version of me relentlessly pursuing the title of “Dr. Breedwell,” without attempting to run a fertility clinic. Shoot, there’s probably another “Dr. Breedwell” running a fertility clinic through another alternate door.
Moral Mechanics links the spirit, the mind, and the body in a whole-human, whole-life approach to care.
With Moral Mechanics, we can not only aid people in therapy, social work, and elderly care, but we can also open the door to evaluating someone not just for what disease they have, but for who they are as a person and where they are on their journey. Moral Mechanics is the art of deciding how to make the most positive moral choice at any given time, knowing it will only benefit the decider and the world around them.
Every day, we walk that infinite hallway. Every choice, every turn of a handle, brings us closer to love or further from it. The only thing we have to do is just open the door.
With All My Heart,
Geoffrey
P.S.
The mathematical ending to Moral Mechanics is INCREDIBLY long. I’ll only release it to paid subscribers if there's demand. Otherwise, this serves as a great ending.