The Reason: Cause and Effect

By Alex Duthie

"The Reason - Cause and Effect" delves into the intricacies of the human condition and human existence within the context of Earth's environment. The book unfolds its narrative in chapters one through twelve, and later in chapters fourteen through sixteen, providing a deep exploration of what it means to be human in our world.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Springer Literary House LLC
• Release date: Nov 24, 2023
• ISBN: 9781961078437

Alex Duthie

Alex Duthie, a Professional Engineer (PEng), has spent fifty years working as a mechanical engineer in industries like automotive, aircraft, nuclear, and entertainment. His true passion lies in understanding how things function. Married for fifty-four years to his first wife and raising four children, Alex has now remarried and resides in Kincardine, Ontario, Canada.

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Copyright © 2023 Alex Duthie

ISBN Paperback 978-1-961078-42-0

ISBN Hardback 978-1-961078-41-3

ISBN e-Book 978-1-961078-43-7

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system without express writt en permission from the author, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical reviews and certain other non-commercial uses permitt ed by copyright law.

Printed in the United States of America.

Springer Literary House LLC

6260 Lavender Cloud Place

Las Vegas, Nevada 89122, USA

www.springerliteraryhouse.com

Acknowledgments

I am indebted to two people for their interest, support, and comments about this book. My brother Bill who lives in Scotland who has supported me during the writing of this book, and my wife, Mary, who has supported me in everything I do.

Introduction

This book was written as an attempt to describe the human condition and how to live a life with reason, with purpose, but more importantly, with peace and joy.

The writing style used may give the impression that the concepts described are true for all circumstances, but that is not true. Everything in nature is variable; no two things in nature are identical, and no two circumstances are ever the same. There are exceptions to every rule, and similarly, the concepts outlined here are not meant to be categorical, but rather, as general observations. The important thing is to understand the concepts and use them to enrich your lives.

The Reason

Synopsis of Chapters

This book provides a better understanding of the nature of things. Each chapter covers its own specific area of interest, and for that reason, this synopsis of chapters was created.

Chapter 1 – Life in this World

This chapter describes our earth and its place in the solar system, and the Milky Way. It examines the other life forms around us, the earth’s significant weather cycles, like the water cycle, the varieties of life forms and the variations within the species. It also tells of the human brain, and all it has achieved and what more it can achieve, how it is possible for us to live comfortable, peaceful and happy lives.

Chapter 2 – The Human Makeup

This chapter covers who humans are, how they change as they get older. It talks about the mind, the spirit, and our instincts. It also provides some insight into our learning processes. It especially describes a child’s development, using the analogy of a seed growing in the soil.

Chapter 3 - The Human Ego

This chapter talks about our egos, how we all have an ego, but some are much more than others. It talks about a child’s ego forming, and they go through their terrible two stages. The ego is very important in sports, where performance is important, and of course it discusses people with super egos, and how people like Hitler and Mussolini thought they could rule the world, and they tried to do so. It also tells of small egos in people who do so much good in the world.

Chapter 4 – The Human Condition

This chapter covers the history of human conditions from ancient times until now, covering the times when families had to fend for themselves, on through their banding together, and on to the urban groups we know today. It covers the history of empires from their flourishing times till they collapsed. People have changed little over time, whereas wealth has never been shared evenly. Governments have evolved with their rules and regulations, and now control most of our lives.

Chapter 5 – The Human Brain

This chapter discusses how the human brain is different from the animal. Also covered are the brain and the tongue, the brain during light sleep or dozing, speed reading, brainstorming, human intelligence, its memory system, the advent of artificial Intelligence, and the vagaries of computers.

Chapter 6 – Our Beliefs

This chapter deals with how our beliefs evolve from the knowledge we have and the reasoning power we have developed. Our beliefs are formed when we accept something is true. Some say beliefs are the result of how a person has been treated or how he has been conditioned or brainwashed. Belief in the religious domain is mostly created when we are born, we are the products of our parents, and changing religious faith is very hard to do. With some faiths you cannot join if you are not born into them. In chapter 8 the five most popular religious faiths are described.

Chapter 7 – Our Choices

Our lives are full of choices, from the moment we wake up till the moment we go to sleep, the day-to-day choices we face are numerous. Most choices we make have very little effect on our lives, but there are some that can be life changing. Sometimes we come to a crossroad where we are confronted by significant choices, and after we choose and go down this path of choice, we sometimes wonder what the other path or choice would have led to. People are responsible for their own choices and are also responsible for the outcome or result of the choices they make.

Chapter 8 – World Religions

This chapter describes the six largest religions in the world today. The are Judaism, Christianity, Islam, Hinduism, Buddhism and Sikhism. The history and features of each of these religions are discussed. After this the Chinese Folk Religions are discussed. Interestingly a Chinese person worships their past, the present, and their futures.

Chapter 9 - The Political Arenas

The various political matters are discussed in this chapter. The three most significant International political philosophies are Capitalism, Communism, and Socialism, and all three are discussed in detail. In the national scenes the two most significant philosophies are liberal and conservative, or Democratic or Republican, and the different entities they support are the ordinary people or the wealthy, respectively. However, we find that politics is evident in most of society, in businesses, in social organizations, and even in family life.

Chapter 10 - Living in This World

Living in this world can be complicated, and many of these complications are researched and outlined here. Discussed are the choices we have and the consequences of these choices. The matter of winners and losers, win-lose, or win-win situations are also discussed. The difficulties we have in earlier lives are outlined her, along with the lessons we hopefully learn. A person with sound guiding principles find it easier to handle these life choices.

Chapter 11 – What Matters

People all must determine what matters to them. We must ask ourselves, why am I here? Is there a purpose of my being? What type of person am I supposed to be, or what type of person do I want to become? Relationships are very important in our lives, and a true friend is a treasure. It is said that if you have one or more such friendship in a lifetime, you are very fortunate. So the choice of life we live is ours; between being judgmental and critical of others and being committed to self-interests, leading to a life of stress, anxiety, and fear; or being compassionate and forgiving of others and sharing with others, leading to a life of faith, resulting in a life of peace and joy.

Chapter 12 – Our Lives

We only have one life to live, and we will create our own history, based on the choices we make along the way. We have the power within us to become whatever type of person we want; the choice is ours. The driving force of our lives ought to be the quest to live up to the best we can be.

Chapter 13 – Sample Lives

This chapter is a short novel about two families from two very different and opposing cultures. John Stewart, a twenty-year-old, shortly becoming a university graduate, was the only child of Norm and Gladys Stewart. When his father decided that John was to spend a year abroad researching potential clients for his company, John embarked on a life journey of his life, clearly different to what his father and mother had envisaged. John’s life journey is unique and compelling.

Chapter 14 – The Ultimate Choice

The ultimate choice anyone can make is how they are going to live their life, what kind of person they are to become. The spiritual choices they will make will decide the ultimate person and personality they will become. This chapter deals with the Christian faith.

Chapter 15 – Spiritual Growth

What does it mean when we talk about spiritual growth? Spirituality comes from a search into and an acceptance of the existence of God. Spiritual growth offers enlightenment about the meaning of life, which can erase fear and provide a more peaceful and joyous life. The mind, being initially dominated by the ego, tends to concentrate on the earthly things, fleeting things, rather than permanent, things that bring peace and joy. People should learn to accept and embrace their fundamental humanity, with all its limitations, imperfections, and transitory nature, or they will doom themselves to dwell in prisons of their own making.

Chapter 16 – Near the End

So, when a person is near the end of their life, what would they be thinking about? This chapter examines some possibilities, and relates that all their frustrations, grudges, resentments, and jealousies will die with them, along with all their hopes, ego, ambitions, and plans. Their memories will also disappear, but what matters are the memories they leave behind with the people that loved them.

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Chapter 1

Life in This World

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We humans live on this planet we call Earth and share it with a multitude of other living things. We look with wonder just how wonderfully the environment in and around the world supports life for us humans, along with all our wonderful neighbors.

Our Earth is a unique, relatively small planet, which is spinning like a top, while revolving around our sun.

Our sun is one of an estimated one hundred billion stars in our galaxy, the Milky Way. The Milky Way is a relatively small galaxy in the universe, which has countless billions of other galaxies. In the Milky Way, the closest star to ours is the called Proxima Centauri, which is 4.3 light-years away from us. To understand what this distance means, if we were to embark on a journey to Centauri in the fastest rocket ever made by man, the journey would take in the order of 12,000 years. We can now understand why our earth is sometimes called the lonely planet, or as Carl Sagan called it, when seen from space, the little Blue Dot.

In nature, there is variation in everything; no two things are ever the same. The varieties of life forms are vast, ranging from the lowest, single-cell life-forms, the microbes, to the highly developed humans. As far as we know, the environment around the Earth, the atmosphere, is unique in the universe. It is a combination of several elements, which supports a myriad life-forms. Everything living on Earth shares this same environment, and every living thing takes essential elements from, and contributes to, the balance of nature.

Each of the major categories of life-forms—fish, birds, flowers, trees, insects, vegetables, and animals—all appear to serve a purpose; each species appearing to be for the use of, or the support of other forms of life. For example, in the food chain, minerals are required to sustain life in plants and animals. Plants become food for animals, and some animals become part of the food source for other animals. Similarly, in the environmental cycle, where the balance is more critical, the air is made up of several elements, like hydrogen, oxygen, nitrogen, carbon dioxide, plus many other elements. A critical element for life in animals is oxygen, while carbon dioxide is an essential element for plants. Animals inhale oxygen and exhale carbon dioxide, and this process is reversed in plants that inhale carbon dioxide and exhales oxygen. Those complementary air exchange processes are designed to maintain the air with a good balance of elements for all life to exist.

The earth’s environment has several energy cycles, which keep the essential elements required for life recycled, refreshed, and in balance. The most important of these natural cycles are the water cycle, the carbon cycle, and the nitrogen cycle. Water is very abundant in this world. It covers three quarters of the earth’s surface, and is essential for all life as we know it to exist.

In the water cycle, water evaporates from the surfaces of oceans and lakes, and the water vapor forms clouds that eventually precipitates and drop on the land as rain or snow. The rain provides moisture to the land areas and returns to the oceans. The water in rivers pick up minerals along the way, which makes the oceans salty.

The evaporated water that rises as clouds, of course, is fresh water, but as it becomes clouds, drifting along, it can be contaminated by smoke particles in the air. This contamination can be hazardous to the health of living things, but contaminated rain, if percolated through the proper ground conditions, is filtered into fresh water again.

When we observe the intricate and beautiful life-forms of the flowers, fish, birds, trees, and animals, we appreciate what a wonderful world we live in, and we begin to understand the incredible balance of nature. Humans are the most highly developed species of life in the world because they have evolved over time with the most highly developed brain. The human brain has enabled man to become very creative, to create so much wonderful technological gadgetry and harnessing processes to create hospitable environments. Some of these inventions have enabled us to create environments to make our lives healthier and easier, and we now have the ability to develop new and better ways to provide food and shelter for all of mankind.

Although humans have a magnificent brain that can create better environments for themselves, as well as the other life-forms in the world, we also have the capability to become destructive beings, capable of doing the most horrific things to our fellow humans, as well as to the other life-forms on the planet. What is the reason we humans can be so destructive in what we do? It is our ego, an inherent part of our makeup as human beings, which makes some of us greedy and selfish. Here we are, living on this wonderful, unique planet, with a very advanced brain, so what are the opportunities or hindrances preventing us all from living comfortable, happy, and peaceful lives?

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Chapter 2

The Human Makeup

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Humans are a unique and complex life species. In this chapter, we will lay out a concept of what constitutes a human being. There are three basic elements to the human makeup.

We have a body that is changing continuously, a mind that is also probably changing a lot, and a spirit that is basically stable and is the essence of our being—making us who we are. In addition, we have the following five traditionally recognized senses: our sight, our hearing, our taste, our smell, and our touch.

The Body

Our body is continually changing. Our physical condition changes the most during our growth years, and when the original growth peaks, we have a period of stability—our middle years, when we flourish as energetic and productive beings. After this midlife period, things start to atrophy or deteriorate; this deterioration continues through our aging process. We can, however, slow this deterioration process through 5 sensible eating, sensible exercise, and a disciplined, positive mind.

The most fundamental changes to our body are the changes that occur continuously—as we breathe, as we eat, as we exercise, and as we sleep. Every breath we take changes us somewhat; we breathe in the new and breathe out the old. We notice another obvious change when we weigh ourselves; we see the changes in our weight if we weigh ourselves before we go to bed and weigh ourselves when we get up in the morning. If we don’t believe the long-term changes told by the weigh scales, we can look at photographs, taken a year ago, five years ago; the changes are usually significant. A photographer is also aware that we are continually changing and usually takes several pictures before he gets a good, or acceptable, one, and try as they might, they may never capture that same good picture again.

The Mind

The human brain is a wonderful, complex organ. The mind mysteriously dwells in the brain and controls most of our actions, our physical movements, as well as some of our nonphysical characteristics, such as our thoughts, our listening, our speech, and all our other communicating expressions and actions, which help us communicate with each other. Our mind, however, is susceptible to and can be positively, or negatively, conditioned by changes in our environment and by our experiences.

The Spirit

We are all born with a spirit, or a soul, and this is what makes us unique individuals. Some have very high, or active spirits, and they tend to be busy all the time, sometimes never taking a rest, taking time to recharge. Of course, being too high-spirited can make us hyperactive at times. Others have very calm spirits, and they can withstand the many rigors of life very well.

They do not get too excited. They know that perceived difficulties pass and that things usually work out for the best in the end. Some have positive spirits and can handle trouble well, while others have negative spirits and worry about things a great extent. They think everything bad happens to them. We are all different, and this is because of our spirit. Our spirit controls our behavior, whether we are in a positive or a negative cycle, whether we are ambitious or content, and whether we are aggressive or passive at any moment.

It is interesting that clinical psychologists did not recognize the relevance of spirituality or religion until late in the 19th century. Up to that time, some psychologists considered spirituality and religion as pathologies, like obsessive disorders, but some think that many of the religious authorities of these times were practicing psychologists.

The primary task of the early life should be aimed at development of a stable ego and to enable individuals to adapt to the external world. The later period of life should be to both experience life fully and reflect on the inner self. It is during this later period, that people try to find their true selves or meaning to their lives. This is when a person may enter the crucial midlife transition from an external to an internal orientation. When this period is accompanied by anxiety, restlessness, and or depression, it is often referred to as the midlife crisis. If, however, the person is more oriented to their spiritual growth, then they may peacefully outgrow this stressful period. For some, it helps when they think about their further development with an attitude of playful seriousness.

Spirituality is now recognized as the search for, and connectedness to God, for the meaning and the purpose of life. When we talk about transcendence of the spirit, we do not mean transcendence over other human beings, but for the transcendence of our spirit, over external things, and toward our inner spiritual thoughts.

A Child’s Development

For a child, the environment they live in has a huge effect on its future development. A child’s brain is like a plot of land with perfect, rich growing soil. That plot of land is ready to grow anything the farmer sows. The farmer can sow seeds that will yield the most nutritious plants, or the most beautiful flowers; or he can sow other seeds that will yield the most dangerous or poisonous plants. The plot of land has no choice; it will enable the plants to grow what the farmer chooses to sow in it. The child’s brain is like the rich soil in the plot of land; the brain of the child is ready to absorb and process all that the child experiences, hears, sees, smells, or feels.

Generally, if the child grows up in a positive, supportive, and encouraging environment, it will probably grow up with traits that reflect these influences. Conversely, if the child grows up in a negative, isolated, or downgrading environment, it will probably grow up with these traits. The child has no influence on these factors; the choice belongs to the parents or caregivers who create the environment around the child. This conditioning caused by the environment we sometimes call brainwashing.

Take, for example, a set of identical twins who are separated at birth and brought up in completely different cultures and/or environments. Imagine that one child grows up in a loving, encouraging, and supportive home; and the other child is brought up in an abusive, negative, and unloving home. Probably, these children will grow up having very different attitudes, character traits, and may even have different core values. Finally, it is the parent’s responsibility to encourage a child—rewarding it for good behaviour and ignoring bad behavior when they are very young.

The Conscious and Unconscious Mind

We each have a conscious mind and an unconscious mind. We are very aware of our conscious mind; it processes all that our body experiences—what we hear, see, taste, smell or feel—and captures those experiences in our memory. The human brain has very high capabilities for reasoning. It can be used to rationalize complex mathematical and scientific problems. It recognizes and can measure the passage of time and can think about death, which we generally think no other animal can. We take all this for granted.

Our unconscious mind is working all the time—when we are awake, and even when we are asleep. When we sleep, we sometimes dream, and the images we dream are imprinted in our mind, for us to remember when conscious. Even when in a deep sleep, our unconscious mind is working. It is aware of sounds and other physical stimulation. On occasion when these occur, it sometimes awakens us, and we become conscious. Our conscious mind observes what is going on in our lives, as well as being aware of stresses we are being subjected to during the day. It gathers and processes information and consolidates memory. Our dreams are very powerful and are an inherent part of who we are and gives us clues about ourselves and about our bodies.

Our dreams are considered symbolic, and not a forecast of reality. Some dreams may represent events in our lives. When we dream about structures or vehicles, these things may represent our bodies; and when we dream about eggs, they may represent our lives. Eggs are born twice—once being laid by the chicken and when the chick is breaking free of its shell. The shell may represent our environment, and such a dream may be telling us not to continue to be restrained or repressed by our environment, but to break out and live life as we want to. Having a positive attitude and being fully absorbed in what we are involved in usually guarantees us a successful life.

Our Instincts

Our unconscious mind is very similar to the mind of animals, which is instinctive. Animals react very well to their environments. An animal basically lives by its instincts. Its primary focus, like humans, is for food, shelter, and self-preservation. When an animal sees, smells, hears, or senses a strange sound or movement near them, its instinctive reaction causes the animal to escape by jumping away from the source of the potential danger. We humans react just like that, instinctively. In similar circumstances, when suddenly we are in danger, our unconscious mind tells our body to react, whether by jumping aside, screaming, cowering, or grabbing on to something for safety. We do this instinctively.

However, the human brain enables us to rationalize and consider many factors, and which, on occasion, inhibits instinctive reaction. Another circumstance is when we suddenly swerve to avoid an accident when something jumps in front of us when driving a car or when something falls in front of us. Our reactions are instinctive and comes from our unconscious mind. In these circumstances, if we were to depend on our conscious mind to react, there would be too little time to react to avert the danger. Our unconscious mind is always on alert to protect us.

The human brain has been evolving over the last million or so years, since our genetic ancestors, including the Neanderthal man. So here we are as humans, complicated living organisms, like other animals, but with one very important difference, we have a brain that can reason. We have the ability to reason and have a conscience or spirit which helps us to know the difference between right and wrong.

Our Learning Process

Our conscious and unconscious minds work together when we are in a learning mode, and we see this when we are learning a new skill, like in any sport. For example, take a sport like golf, or tennis, or many other sports, first we must learn the fundamentals—what these sports are all about and what we must do to become proficient in them. There are many things to learn about each of the sports. To illustrate, we will examine golf, where the three fundamentals are the Grip, the Stance, and the Tempo (GST). In the beginning, after learning the fundamentals, the next phase is entirely up to you.

Like any other physical skill, you learn by doing, and doing in golf, like any other sport, means practicing, hitting the ball. Proficiency will take time, and maybe many sessions with your mentor, but eventually, with practice, proficiency will be yours. Initially, when practicing, you must consciously concentrate on having the fundamentals in place before playing the game—checking your grip, your stance, and remembering your tempo. Nothing to it.

Now proficiency is a relative term; the more we practice, the more proficient we become. Proficiency does not mean perfection; none has ever reached perfection. Even the greatest sportsmen, when playing their best game, are usually not satisfied. They see places where they could have done better. Getting back to our consciousness, when we have reached a reasonable level of proficiency, we usually do not have to consciously think about the fundamentals, the practicing we have done have put the fundamentals in place, and we perform the motions automatically, or unconsciously. Our unconscious mind has taken over from our conscious mind. In competitive sports, sometimes a player chokes.

They may be leading the tournament, has played better than everyone else, and victory is at hand, but the pressure of maybe losing or winning the tournament affects their thinking. Their conscious minds take over their unconscious mind. They start to think about the details of the fundamentals, rather than let their unconscious mind allow them to perform as they had for the first part of the tournament. They start playing like they were just learning the game. When conscious thinking takes over, it pushes the unconscious mind aside. Choking is about thinking too much, about letting the conscious mind take over, when we should be letting the learned, now inherent ability, to continue to control the performance.

We do many things unconsciously, like sitting down on a chair. The process of sitting down requires us to bend our knees, to bend at our pelvis, and to put our arms and hands slightly forward to keep our balance, but we don’t have to think about all these fundamental motions. We do them unconsciously.

The brain gains almost all its knowledge from the body’s senses—sight, hearing, taste, smell, and touch. Much of this knowledge is gained subconsciously, becoming inherent, part of our nature. This naturally gained knowledge has the greatest influence on our early convictions and beliefs, until our reasoning capabilities start to take over. Our reasoning power is developed by recognizing cause-and-effect relationships, as they occur in all aspects of life. The more different and varied cause-and-effect relationships we learn, the higher the development of our reasoning capabilities. When we examine a cause-and-effect relationship, we are looking for the reason for something. Everything happens for a reason, and the challenge is to find the reason. What is the result of some action, or what happened to cause the effect? Examining cause-and-effect relationships is responsible for most of human reasoning processes, and certainly, most of all research done in the areas of nature, medicine, industrialization, social and human interactions, space explorations, and other technical development. In medicine, one end of the spectrum is exploring the effect of different remedies and medicinal concoctions. Do they help heal or reduce pain? On the other end of the medical spectrum is finding the cause of an effect or symptom of a patient. In engineering, development of new materials is followed by measuring the effect the new recipe has on the characteristics of the new material. Does it have more strength, more flexibility, or better wear capabilities? At the other end is the research into engineering failures, researching the causes for the failures.

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Chapter 3

The Human Ego

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In this chapter, we will examine the human ego—what it is and why it is so important in our lives. The human ego is closely associated with the human mind and is a mysterious element of the human makeup. It dwells with the soul in the spiritual realm.

What is an ego? We all have an ego. We develop an ego as we grow and develop in this life. The ego develops, along with the mind, and can establish the type of person we become. The ego starts developing very early, and its development is usually related to the environment of the world around it. The ego establishes in our mind the importance of us as a unique individual. The ego is all about me—how important I am, how I can influence things around me, how I can show my importance to the world and what I can get out of it. Sometimes we talk about someone having an ego when they have an inflated ego, but we all have an ego.

When a baby is born, it comes with a history from its gene pool. There are usually many hereditary traits, physical appearance of course being prominent. When we look at a new baby, we are usually looking for some similarity to its parents or ancestors. Does it look like its mother, or its father? Very often, other genetic traits start to appear, like mannerisms, voices, et cetera. However, for the first few months of a baby’s life, it has very little recognition of the world around it.

Its whole life focuses on its mother, who provides all its needs, comforts, and nourishment. As it gets a little older, it starts to realize that there is more out there in the world, that their mother is not the whole world. They start to see and recognize others and react to other environmental stimulations, such as noise, lights, movements, et cetera. It also starts to realize it can interact with its environment. Its hands can touch and grab things, and it can kick its legs. The baby’s progress then accelerates to being able to crawl, walk, talk, and realizing that it is an actual unique entity, an individual being itself. During this growth stage, many of the inherited traits may become apparent—these traits being completely inherent, not learned. Later on, other traits are learned.