Subject

Like the elephant in the parable of blind men and an elephant, the state of Quality is the same for everyone, and yet it is beyond the reach of any single subject. Every subject gets a unique slice of the ultimate reality. By sharing their own slice of Truth with other subjects, they can reveal more of the ultimate reality.

We'll mark the limited subjective judgements of Quality with an * to differentiate them from the ultimate Quality. Subjective judgement of Quality is $Q^*(s)$, the ultimate is $Q(s)$. Similarly subjectively perceived Value is $V^*$, actual Value is $V$, and so on with other concepts.

Subject's perception of Quality can be attuned to the ultimate Quality to a greater or lesser degree. Because Quality is the phenomenological root—the starting point of meaning—subjective perception of Quality biases all subsequent phenomenological structures: because Value is derived from Quality, subjective evaluation hinges on subjective perception of Quality: $V^*(s) = Q^*(s) - Q^*(s_0),$ because Potential is derived from a distribution of Value outcomes, subjectively perceived potential and the associated emotions depend on the subjective evaluation; and subject's actions to a large degree depend on the perceived potential.

Subject's intentions, aims, and actions, therefore, have their root in the subjective judgement of Quality. These are the structures, which influence how the reality will unfold for that individual and for anyone they come in contact with. The more the subject is attuned with Quality, the less $Q^*(s)$ deviates from $Q(s)$, and the better their perceptions and actions.

Within this framework, progress — personal and collective — can be defined in terms of reaching greater alignment of $Q^*$ with $Q$ [^1]. On the subjective level one still perceives a tiny slice of reality, but the degree to which that slice is good depends on subject's alignment. Individuals' alignment with the ultimate Quality is the precondition for Unity.

To show how this conceptual distinction manifests in the implicit structures of our language, consider these characteristic misalignments or qualities of a person's character:

What does it mean for someone to be distrustful? Their subjective perception of potential tends to skew toward the negative side from the ultimate. Because Trust is defined by how much of the potential lies on the positive side (i.e., expectation of a good outcome), whenever the weight shifts to the negative side, the trust is less. When a subject is generally distrustful of people the perceived potential of including a person $x$ in the frame will shift the current baseline potential to the left like in the following graph. This means that the subject's perceived marginal potential of interacting with person $x$ will be negative, and hence that possibility will be excluded.

What does it mean for someone to be naive? Their subjective perception of potential tends to be oblivious of the possibility of negative Value outcomes. That's a person that naively trusts a person $x$ in some situation, even if in reality that person will most likely take advantage of them. The blue line in the following graph show that the subjectively perceived potential of including the person $x$ is wholly positive relative to the black baseline, whereas the red line (reality) shows there is a 50% chance the person $x$ will pull off a scam:

See Equations for Distrust and Naivety for the derivation of the following expressions two equations.

The reason distrust and naivety are considered negative character traits is because they are misaligned with the ultimate. If there were no ultimate Quality, there would be no reason to consider any character trait as either negative or positive. But there is a real difference: positive traits lead to positive consequences, and negative traits lead to negative consequences. Distrust leads to opportunity cost on both sides, because potentially good outcomes won't be actualized, and naivety hurts the naive person, and also allows the morally questionable person the opportunity to do something bad [^2].

There is not only misalignment of people's aim with the ultimate, but characteristic patterns of misalignment, which allow us to differentiate and name these patterns. The names represent different qualities of character.

The differentiation between the subjective and ultimate perception of Quality seems to be implicit in our language. One of the aims of this framework as I've described in the Understand article is to make the underlying mathematical structure of our natural language explicit.

[1]: In these terms, the prospect of science and other means of pursuing the Truth is in seeking greater alignment of Quality judgements $Q^(s)$ with the ultimate Quality $Q(s)$. The process of science is that of methodically combining millions of subjective lenses on what is better into a shared inter-subjective lens, which covers a lot more ground of reality than a single individual can alone. In other words, this combined lens can approach greater attunement to the ultimate $Q(s)$, just as the blind men approached the elephant.*

[2]: Tao Te Ching says "True trust is trusting the untrustworthy". One can still engage an untrustowrthy person and exercise what Peterson calls "courageous trust", which leads to a better outcome for everyone involved.