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Conscience, Time, and Life 113

process and look for a person who can solve our problems. We make
legislation based upon specific regions, ethnic divisions or special interest
groups, rather than the general well-being.
So what does democracy have to do with life? Quite a lot. If we look at
the alternatives, we see mainly death. The history of Russia has shown us,
for instance, that communism kills its citizens, both mentally and
physically. Similarly, Nazi Germany has taught us that the logical result of
fascism is genocide and warfare. If we examine tribal Africa, we find that
their state of government leads also to conflict and brutality. Does this
mean that democratic government results always in life? No. Rather, I
suggest that democracy is one symptom of life. When people are alive,
then they will demand democratic leadership.

What is Life?

What then is required for life? Let us tie together some of the threads
which we have been following so far. That will give us the first aspects of
a big picture. At the moment, we can only provide a skeleton of
understanding. The rest of the book will flesh it out. Likewise, I suggest
that life itself does not appear instantly. Rather, it is constructed, piece by
piece. At the beginning, there may be only be a flicker. However, each
additional aspect of development adds another dimension.
First, we saw that life involves Mercy experiences. We live in a real
world of matter. If we want to be alive, we have to interact with this world,
which means including Mercy experiences and feelings. Second, life
requires an integrated mental network. When enough memories
interconnect, then they become „alive.‟ Third, life goes beyond automatic
thought. Instead, it involves the internal world of thought. When emotional
experiences enter the inner world of Mercy thought and form a „living‟
network, for example, then personal identity emerges—me forms. Fourth,
life requires stability. This is provided by Perceiver beliefs, which give
solid form to Mercy thought. Without this constancy, Mercy identity is like
a jellyfish, drifting on the sea of raw experience. The result of these four
steps is a mental network living within associative thought. However, by
itself, associative thought is only capable of coming up with spatial objects.
And we have seen that these are static, incapable of supporting life.
If life in a true sense is to form, it must expand to include analytical
thought; it must extend beyond the right hemisphere to involve the left.
This is what happens when static objects, based within associative thinking,
are augmented to include a sense of time. Time is related to the left
hemisphere, which uses analytical thought. As we will see later, I suggest
that it is Server thought which is responsible for adding this sense of time.
As for generality, the other requirement for life, we will learn later that
Teacher thought, the other analytical mode, deals with generalized
concepts.