The Tree of Knowledge
~ The Sum Total of all Human Understanding ~

What Separates us from the Animals?
What is different about us that distinguishes us from other life forms
on this planet? Is it our opposable thumb? Is it that we walk upright?
Our intelligence? Our soul? Genetically, we are very similar to all the
other animals, yet we clearly rule the world. What is it that makes us
different? What makes us different is that we have a Tree of Knowledge.

The Tree of Knowledge is the sum total of all human knowledge that can
be passed on between individuals. It is everything we have learned as a
species. In the broadest sense - it's the total of everything that
everyone knows that is in some sharable form. Printed material - data
archives - video - recordings - stories passed on by word of mouth.
These all are knowledge that is contained in the Tree of Knowledge. And
it is this shared knowledge that is what separates us from the animals.
We are different because of the vast amount of knowledge that we as a
species share.

The human race can be viewed as a super organism that is made up of
individuals. In many ways we are similar to a hive of bees. Bees are far
more biologically linked together than humans in that a bee is nothing
when taken out of the context of the hive. Just as the cells of our body
are individual life forms, we don't look at them as individuals. In the
case of humans - and bees - the individual is the human or bee.

What separates humans from animals is our huge amount of collected
knowledge that we share as a species.
However - in the case of bees - they are so tightly coupled that one
could easily make the argument that it is the hive - not the bee - who
is the individual. The hive shares a common mind that the individual
bees are but members of the hive mind. These individuals share a common
purpose and act as a single organism. And to that extent - it is the
hive - not the bee - that acts. Getting stung by a bee is very different
that being stung by the hive.

We humans have some hive-like properties. If you take a baby and have a
wild animal raise it - is the result more animal than human? I think it
is. The individual would only have the knowledge of personal experience.
It would not have the knowledge that is available to humans raised by
other humans. The vast majority of our personal knowledge is not
knowledge we learned on our own - but knowledge we were taught from the
collective knowledge of mankind. And it's that collective knowledge that
I'm calling the "Tree of Knowledge".

What is the Tree of Knowledge?
Most of what animals know is based on instinct. Instinct is best
described as knowledge you are born with. Animals know how to eat and
avoid being eaten. Perform necessary tasks to stay alive - and to
reproduce. in some species - the parents teach certain behaviors to the
young who learn mostly through observation. This learned behavior is
mostly centered around how to acquire food and how to avoid becoming
food for something else. Some animals have a very small tree of
knowledge, but human have a vast tree. We know how to build cars,
planes, computers, networks, talk on phones, travel through outer space,
and split atoms. In every moment of every day we are thinking in words
of a language that we were taught to use to communicate. These words,
meanings, and our technology all come from our common store of species
knowledge which I am calling the Tree of Knowledge.

Tree of Knowledge depicted
as a Mathematical Fractal
Many of you are familiar with the "Tree of Knowledge" (knowledge of good
and evil) in the Garden of Eden from the Bible stories. Well - that's
not what I'm talking about here - except for the issue that I am ripping
off the name. In the Church of Reality the use of the word "Tree" has
nothing to do with a plant. "Tree" in the Church of Reality is more like
a software source code tree that allows thousands of programmers to work
together on a common software project. The way directories (folders) are
organized on a computer is a tree. Trees are mathematical constructs and
are often used to organize data and define the relationships between the
data. In the Church of Reality, all knowledge is represented as not only
the facts but the relationship between the facts. How the facts are
stored and organized.

The Tree of Knowledge includes the way knowledge is structured -
accessed - distributed - stored - shared - and the methods that allow it
to be built up and maintained. In the Church of Reality the Tree of
Knowledge is not a mythical plant but a real data structure that binds
society together and allows us to have species knowledge and distribute
this knowledge through or technological systems. as an individual - I
don't need to learn how to build a car. All I need to do is learn how to
drive a car. I rely on the knowledge of millions of other individuals -
as well as the stored knowledge of dead people - to create cars for me
to drive and planes for me to fly in - and computers for me to surf the
web.

Even though I am an individual - almost everything in my life involves
interacting with the accumulated knowledge of mankind. What I eat comes
out of cans and is raised and killed by other people. All my "stuff" -
chairs - desk - TV - bed - car - house - roads - phone - electricity -
practically everything provided by other people. We are all totally
intertwined with each other in a way that can be viewed as if all of the
human species were a single organism - and that we are like cells of
that organism - because we share knowledge - the Tree of Knowledge.

The History of the Tree of Knowledge
In the beginning ... as the story goes ... there was the big bang. And
the universe was created. It was the begining of time and space and the
universe was filled with pure energy. The energy then decomposed into
matter and the matter formed stars. After billions of years these stars
decayed and exploded and the heavier matter formed planets around new
stars. one of those planets was our own Earth. Then as the earth cooled
and chemical reactions occurred, some of these chemicals had the ability
to reproduce themselves out of the chemical soup around them - and
primitive life was born.

Then life started to evolve. Survival of the fittest. Early creatures
started to adapt - developing better ways to find food and keep from
becoming food for something else. Survival consisted of eating -
defending - and reproducing. After billions of years - life became more
complex. Living creatures developed a nervous system - eyes - ears -
touch - smell - taste - life had become smarter. Better eyes for finding
food - better camouflage to prevent from becoming food. Better mating
skills. Life got smarter - but life was still dumb.

The Bible says, "Thou shalt not eat of the Tree of Knowledge". The
Church of Reality says, "Who's hungry?"
Then humans evolved. Just erect apes at first. But apes had already
started communication as did many other species of animals. The
communication allowed one individual to pass information on to others
for the purpose of surviving. Most of this information was limited to
hunting, defending, and mating, but individuals who could communicate
survived better than those who did not. Humans developed language which
allowed them to communicate much more complex ideas. An individual could
invent something - like how to start fire - or the wheel - and pass that
knowledge on to other individuals. Thus new people could start with the
knowledge base of the previous generation and build on that. The process
- which started with verbal communication - represents what we call the
Tree of Knowledge.

Eventually humans invented writing. This allowed an individual to write
down information that could be communicated to other individuals who
were in different locations in both time and space. Writing facilitated
communication and allowed more knowledge to be distributed and - for the
first time - stored outside the mind of a person. Knowledge could be
stored in the form of books.

Then - the printing press was invented. This allowed for mass printing
of books, magazines, newspapers, and written knowledge could be spread
and stored in huge quantities. More people sharing more knowledge. Then
came the telegraph - the telephone - pictures - movies - recorded audio
- television - planes - trains - cars - radio. Knowledge exploded. And
the knowledge tree continued to grow.

Eventually we invented computers. Computers could not only store
information - but could process information. A computer can take a
simple thought process - like sorting and choosing - and do it much
faster and more accurately than the human brain. Computers became an
enhancement to the Tree of Knowledge in that they give the tree itself
the ability to think. We are no longer limited to storing information.
We can create smart processes to process this information for us and
help us understand the reality around us. Now we have the Internet -
e-mail - digital video - instant chat - databases - spreadsheets -
robots. And it continues to grow. And the more it grows - the further we
distinguish ourselves from the other species of life on this planet.

Humanity is defined by the Tree of Knowledge

Think back 1000 years ago. Being human was quite different than it is
today. We didn't have most everything that surrounds us today. Life was
very different. Most people were involved in farming. Most of our energy
went into eating and surviving. We didn't have electricity. We had to
make our own clothes, our own crude homes, kill our own meat, grow our
own crops. We only had the simplest of machines. No significant medical
technology. When the plagues came - millions of people died. We didn't
even have pain killers. Most people lived half as long as today, if they
were lucky. Most of our social contact was with people in our immediate
physical space. We didn't have cars, trains, planes, telephones, radio,
the Internet. Very few people could even read.

Today things are quite different. You're reading about this over the
Internet. We have instant world wide communication. Computers are common
in households. We travel in outer space. We take pills for diseases that
used to kill millions. We can transplant organs from one person to
another. We measure time in nanoseconds. We now have massive factories,
assembly lines, robots building robots - I could go on forever - but
things a very different today than they used to be. Yet - genetically
humans today and humans 1000 years ago are virtually identical? So what
has changed? Why is humanity so different today than it was 1000 years
ago - or even 100 years ago? The difference is in the Tree of Knowledge.

The Tree of Knowledge defines who we are as a species. It is what makes
humans what we are today. 100 years from now humanity will be quite
different than it is today and there will be a single thing that will
make us different - the changes in the Tree of Knowledge. Will we be
technologically advanced living in a peaceful and free world? Will the
human race continue to grow and prosper? Or will we use our technology
to create a horrible oppressive society that is dark and static where
knowledge is controlled and reality suppressed? What we become will
depend on how we structure or society - and how we structure our society
is part of the Tree of Knowledge.

To grow and maintain the Tree of Knowledge is to contribute and improve
humanity as a whole. If someone finds a cure for Cancer - that knowledge
become part of the Tree of Knowledge and the people of the world become
cancer free. Strengthening the tree of knowledge also improves humanity.
Strengthening involves the removal and updating of false or otherwise
outdated and useless information. For example, people used to think the
world was flat. The idea that the world was round was a revolutionary
idea and people had a hard time accepting it. Even to suggest that the
world was round was to invite death or persecution. But what would the
world have been like if we stuck to the flat world view? We wouldn't be
watching satellite TV - that's for sure.

Even though we see ourselves as scientifically advanced and
knowledgeable, we are not. There are a lot of things that a huge number
of people believe in that are just plain wrong - obviously wrong - yet
these world views continue to exist. For example - a huge number of
people still believe that the world was created in 6 days and is about
7000 years old. If this were true - we wouldn't be able to see stars
that were more than 7000 light years away. But we are seeing galaxies
that are 10 billion light years away clearly proving that the universe
is at least that old. But often there's a difference between what we
want to believe and the way things really are.

True knowledge often has a price. Take the example of religions that
have been around for thousands of years. The Jews (and Jewish
derivatives - Christians) are an example of this. Judaism is an ancient
religion and culture and Jews are some of the smartest and most
successful people on the planet. Yet their religion is frozen in time
and cling to the ancient rituals celebrating things that never happened.
But if the Jews were to admit that stories like Adam and Eve, Noah and
the Ark, and the Tower of Babel never happened, then it would undermine
a huge part of their culture.

If the world wasn't created in 6 days for example, (God resting on the
7th) then what is the point of all the Jewish laws relating to the
Sabbath? Do they strike it from the Ten Commandments as a mistake?
Certainly they should in the spirit of honesty. But to do so would be to
give up their ancient culture. And to Jews and Christians - their
culture - their tribe - is more important that experiencing the real
world the way it really is. And when other things are more important
than reality - then false information is kept in the Tree of Knowledge
and we as a species are weakened by that.

For the Jews to grow their tree of knowledge and maintain their
religious identity, they would have to have a modern day prophet who
would redefine what it is to be a Jew in a modern context. Jews could
dedicate their religion to the perfection of ethics and law for example
and turn a backward looking religion into a forward looking religion.
These religions could be modernized to contribute to the Tree of
Knowledge and have a real purpose in the context of reality.

My point is that there are a lot of barriers to the process of
correcting old and false information. Much of our culture and heritage
is based on ancient world views that are ingrained into the narrative of
our culture and not easily given up. It used to be that the entire
universe consisted of the area of earth that had been explored and
mapped and what a person could see looking up. We now know that this
planet is but a spec of dust in a universe of trillions of galaxies. To
accept than knowledge - we had to give up a lot of self importance and
accept a world view that maybe we are not as significant as we would
like to be. That was a difficult step - and a step that we are still in
the process of talking. And although it's obvious - it's a piece of
knowledge with a price - and many of us are too proud to accept that.

Maintenance, Debugging, and the Care and Feeding of the Tree of
Knowledge
The Tree of Knowledge is our common knowledge base that separates us
from the animals. It is like a software source code tree where billions
of people contribute to it every day. And like a software source tree,
new knowledge is always being added and old knowledge is being
reexamined, corrected, and updated. The maintenance, debugging, and
growth of the Tree of Knowledge is the dharma of the Church of Reality.

Maintenance and debugging is very important as old beliefs are replaced
by new and more accurate information and understanding. Our world view
must be purified by scritiny and doubt so that we can be confident in
our world view because our world view has been tested. Most religions
are sworn to hold onto their world view no matter how ridiculous the
belief is. The Church of Reality take the opposite view that when
information is determined to be inaccurate, it should be replaced by
more accurate information. Bad information adds chaos to the Tree of
Knowledge and we grow the tree and make it stronger by replacing chaos
with understanding.

One of the reasons we chose a fractal to represent the Tree of Knowledge
is that a fractal has a finite size and infinite edges. The edges are
both in the inner and outer regions symbolizing that the frontier of
knowledge includes both new discoveries and exploring what we already
know - or think we know. As you zoom in on a fractal image the zoomed
image is as complex and intricate as the original image. Fractals have
infinite detail and are infinitely complex. Because of this I think that
fractals make a good symbolic representation of the concept of a Tree of
Knowledge.

Thousands of years ago the concept of "Up" and "Down" were clearly
understood. Up was towards the sky and down was towards the ground. We
had gravity and straight up and down could be accurately measured. God
was up - Satan was down. And when the mythical Tower of Babel was built
- it was so high that God got nervous that it would reach heaven and
he'd have Jehovah's Witness's knocking at his door trying to leave him
copies of the Watchtower. God couldn't have that so he changed the
languages so they couldn't communicate. The Tower of Babel was abandoned
and God maintained a gated community. And this story was written into
the Bible and is still being believed today.

But we now live in a new world view with a much bigger Tree of
Knowledge. The concept of Up and Down are nearly meaningless except in a
very local context. We now know that the world is round and that it
orbits the sun which orbits the milky way galaxy. Not only have we built
far larger buildings that could possibly have been built in ancient
times but we have gone to the moon. When we fly on airplanes we go above
the clouds and when we look down - there are no cities with golden
streets. It is now obvious to free thinking people that this Babel story
is just a story and never really happened. But from a more scientific
perspective, a concept as absolute as up and down became almost totally
meaningless in the context of today's knowledge.

The Tree of Knowledge is very much like software development. There are
times where you add new features to allow the program to do new things.
Then there are times where you go into the old code and upgrade the core
technology, fixing bugs, and finding new and better ways to do things.
Debugging and strengthening the core is a necessary part of programming
because you often can't add those new features if your core program has
flaws. Likewise - if the Tree of Knowledge contains false information,
or the information is outdated, then the Tree of Knowledge becomes
polluted and it becomes more difficult to explore new knowledge in the
context of false information.

For example - people used to believe that there were four elements -
earth, air, fire, and water. We now know this isn't true and, with few
exceptions, the human species have given up on that description. We now
have modern chemistry which could not have been added to the Tree of
Knowledge if the four element model hadn't been updated. At some point
in the future we will have new knowledge that will replace things we
believe to be true today - or will add details to our knowledge in order
to build on those principles.