This book is built upon a single profound idea: that the objectively observable dominion demonstrated by every agent of change in the universe is evidence of its authority.
As the gravity of one astronomic body exercises its power to overcome the inertia and change the direction of travel of a second body, it existentially demonstrates its dominion or authority. As a crystal captures an ion, it exercises its existential authority over that ion. As a beaver fells a tree, it exercises its capability, demonstrating its authority over the tree.
As a human being speaks, it demonstrates its authority over itself and its sphere of dominion.
These are all examples of agents exercising obvious authority, which we recognize as their natural rights. I have named these existentially recognizable authorities, these capabilities of change, “Temporal Rights”. “Temporal” because this paradigm is purely secular, and because these rights flare into existence simultaneously with the “birth” of their owners and are extinguished with its demise.
This book stands or falls upon this single point: that a capability to effect change is at once the exercise of the authority of a natural right to do so. This recognition of existential authority changes everything.
This is a virtually unprecedented view of natural rights, in which they are generalized throughout the universe rather than restricted to humans or sentient beings. Spinoza and Locke were close to this realization, but searching for anthropomorphic rights kept them from it. Like a fish doesn’t realize it’s wet, we have failed to see what was everywhere we looked.
The scientific method has incorrectly ignored the authority that is existentially demonstrated by all effects, and has blinded civilization to the moral implications of all actions, making the universe a cold, calculating, amoral, secular machine when, in reality, it is alive with agents exercising the authority nature has granted them. The universe is the rightful subject of religious discussion, where meaning is sought in the give and take of rights in collision and cooperation.
The recognition of authority in the agency of agents is a profound paradigm shift that collapses dichotomies, merges silos of thought, and finds intelligence everywhere. It reveals a moral structure in nature that may prove useful in AI alignment. For example: science and religion are no longer poles apart, but are seated side by side, evaluating the universe because they are both concerned with morality and ethics. A fully aware science can no longer ignore the intrinsic ethical implications of authoritative actions of any entity, including scientists themselves. Cause and effect just got baptized.
Now, any deep thinker will, at this point, recognize that the question before us is whether Temporal Rights is a correct, reasonable, acceptable view of natural rights; that there could be a semantic problem here. The existential dominion of agents is unquestionable, and the authority of that dominion seems completely rational, but maybe it’s a semantic mistake to attribute natural rights to dominion. That’s why there’s a chapter devoted to the Ontology of Temporal Rights.
Those are some of the reasons for this book. The book’s basis requires only one sentence, but the implications are more than any reasonably sized book can handle.
Finally, to complete a useful introduction, I will point out that this book proceeds to build an intelligent structure of its own, based on objectively observable facts that may well provide a framework for AI alignment, founded on the laws of nature and the balance of nature. This shows promise as the beginnings of a method that is not founded on traditional ethics or rigid constitutions but on the existential principles that now rule the dynamic universe. As it turns out, the hierarchy of natural rights observable in nature presents a framework that AI can never surpass because the highest forms of intelligence are exhibited in the sexual unity of humans, a condition unapproachable by AI.
A Generalized Vocabulary for Temporal Rights
To facilitate communication, I have developed a tiny, generalized vocabulary:
- Operator: An agent capable of effecting change in its domain.
- Operation: An exercise of a capability, the exercise of a natural right.
- Domain: An operator’s sphere of influence wherein its capabilities and rights are demonstrable.
The Implications are Phenomenal
The generalization of natural rights across every agent of change in the universe has staggering implications. It makes every action
