158 A Programmer’s Guide to the Mind
the Mercy internal world of the teenager has no emotional „teeth.‟
On the other hand, suppose that „getting pregnant‟ carries with it a
major social stigma, that abortion clinics do not exist, that becoming a
mother forces a girl to drop out of school and to get a menial job with low
wages, that having a baby leads automatically to the restriction of marriage,
and that no government handouts exist for single mothers. Elements such
as these will raise the emotional significance of the Mercy consequence;
they will increase the „splat‟ at the bottom of the cliff. In this case, thinking
about the baby may take top priority and move images about sex to the
mental back burner. Sex would then be seen as an incidental benefit
enroute to the major hurdle of caring for a baby.A Not only does behavior
change, but attitude as well.
This means that we have solved our problem, right? To support
conscience, we step in and adjust the consequences: If the punishment is
insufficient, then we alter societal opinions to make it more severe. If the
connection is statistical, then we add effects which are certain and
unavoidable. Unfortunately, I suggest that this approach also is flawed,
because it tries to adjust natural conscience by adding elements of
approval conscience: Society gives approval or assigns stigma,
government meddles with its „helpful‟ hand. As we will see later, natural
conscience and approval conscience do not combine very well. Mixing
them is like blending oil and water—the resulting mixture breaks down
easily into its original components.
Therefore, I suggest that if we want to adjust natural conscience
successfully, then we must discover natural consequences: Perhaps a
medical doctor encounters some dreadful new strain of venereal disease, or
some enterprising hairdresser from California realizes that teenage sex
cures acne. Conservatives may cringe and liberals leap for joy, but that is
all secondary, related to the world of approval and approval conscience.
What really matters is that we must use only the natural ingredients of
natural law to fiddle with natural conscience.
Not only does our attempt to increase the consequences mix natural
conscience and approval conscience, but the connection between cause and
effect is still ultimately based in probability. For teenage sex, the free
availability of birth control and condoms only makes this statistical aspect
A Remember that I am using teenage pregnancy to illustrate how the
presence or absence of various elements changes the mental focus of a
situation. In a topic as emotional as this, it is easy to focus upon specific
words or situations. My experience is that if we focus upon the issues
themselves, then we get nowhere. However, if we look at the mental
processing behind the issues, then we can eventually come up with some
solid answers. As I have just stated, Mercy situations are seen in the light
of the element with the strongest emotion.