Knowing versus 'Knowing' 187go splat regardless of whether others are watching or not. Even if I know
that no one else will ever find out, nature knows, and nature punishes.A
These two factors are responsible for keeping approval conscience and
emotional 'truth' together, and for combining common sense and natural
conscience with Perceiver confidence. On the one hand, because people
have limited knowledge and awareness, approval conscience can never
provide the repetition and stability which is needed for Perceiver
confidence to develop. Instead, approval always remains dependent upon
the specific Mercy experience of a person being either present or absent.
On the other hand, the predictability of natural law builds Perceiver
confidence and the inevitability of natural cause and effect discourages
people from using approval to meddle with the laws of nature.
Before we go on, I should clarify a potential confusion. Conscience is a
mental construct, in which Perceiver knowledge integrates emotional
Mercy memories. Approval and natural feedback, in contrast, are both
external results. Approval or disapproval is a reaction which I receive from
another external person; natural feedback is a result which occurs
externally, in the physical world. Approval conscience is the mental system
which results from the external reactions of people. Because approval is
dispensed by beings who are weak, limited, and uncertain, approval
conscience itself tends to be weak, limited, and uncertain. If approval
conscience wants to overcome these limitations, then it has to define a new
type of human who is not weak, not limited, and not uncertain. Who or
what is this? We will answer that question later on. Right now, I want us to
remember two points: First, conscience is internal whereas approval is
external. Second, people are limited, therefore approval conscience is also
limited.
Natural feedback comes, like personal approval, from the environment.
But, unlike personal approval, natural feedback operates consistently.
Therefore, this external foundation can be used to build a more stable form
of internal conscience. This does not mean that natural conscience is
always stable. If the mind crumbles, then it also will become uncertain. But,
the external foundation upon which it was originally constructed is
inherently more solid than the external foundation holding up approval
conscience. Even if the mind crumbles, the outside world around it remains
a stable source around which thinking can be rebuilt.
It is possible to build a hybrid conscience which mixes approval with
natural law. As an example, let us look at the rule “If you take a cookie,
then you will get a spanking.” The „bait‟ of „eating the cookie‟ has to do
with natural law. My mind and body are wired up in such a way that baked
dough in my mouth produces pleasant sensations. The spanking, in contrast,
A Or in parenting language, it „spanks.‟