After examination of the Human Condition and Human Foibles, one could conclude that there is not much hope for Humanity. Yet, that would be as foolish in the negative direction as our historical and current delusions are in a positive direction. So we will examine some things humans have learned, developed, created and demonstrated to understand better our potential and our value.

The most obvious activity of humans, starting with the cave dwellers, was our effort to develop order out of apparent chaos, so that we might survive. This sounds like a variant of our attempts to define the cosmos in terms comfortable to us. But in fact we did adapt to the reality of the physical world, in such a way that our survival was likely, even when we had little but our animal instincts (genetically pre-programmed behavior) to guide us to find food and shelter, and to reproduce.

We were pre-programmed, just like the other animals whose fundamental behaviors and accomplishments within each species have remained unchanged, as far as we know, throughout our recorded history. By means whose explicit origin we do not know at this time, humans departed gradually from complete pre-programming by adding behaviors that would increase our survival odds and our comfort. In short, we started to associate physical objects around us with their potential use as tools. We probably started with rocks and sticks as weapons for self-defense, discovered randomly by last ditch survival efforts in a state of terror during a physical attack. This was early neural network processing.

You might note that today, our better computer programmers create what are called neural network programs that have the facility of modifying their "behavior" based on accumulating input information, which the program categorizes and weights in importance, and which becomes the basis for future action. For example, credit card fraud detection uses neural network programming. Now we return to our distant past.

Fire caused by lightning or volcanic eruptions provided us with exposure to non-solar heat, which we all realize can be pleasant on a cold night. It isn't much of a stretch to understand that we would attempt to maintain fire as one of our tools, once we observed how combustible matter could be introduced to an existing fire to prolong the experiences of keeping warm and being able to see during the night. We also learned to use fire to render vegetable matter, fish and animal flesh more palatable.

Without further belaboring the point, we observed and we experimented, and we modified our behaviors, because we could. Our bodies and our brains were capable of development. We did develop, both in fine and major motor skills and in linear and non-linear thinking to create new tools and concepts. Cave drawings let us know today just how early we learned to add abstract symbols to our verbal tool set. I suspect that our rapid development as a species was a result of the synergism of using that abstraction capability for practical reasons and then having it further exercise or supplement the basic programming in our brains. Much like we develop increased muscular strength by using our muscles.

We should feel proud of our accomplishments as a species. Nobody gave us a crib sheet to assist in our development. We had to bootstrap ourselves to use that capability we call the human brain. That means we started with essentially no conscious knowledge and we were able to apply observations, analysis, reasoning, experiments, and new observations, etc., in a feedback cycle, to increase our knowledge. That was true progress, and it is how we measure ourselves today when we think rationally. Clearly, anything that impedes that process is anti-human.

Simply consider how hard we work to break sports records. We harness everything we can to do better than our present limits would suggest as possible, and we succeed! Whether we are talking about sports or science, politics or art, we have this undeniable behavior of pushing our limits to discover better ways of living and understanding both our world and us.

It is obvious that our curiosity to look beyond what we have is what makes us human. The harnessing of the knowledge we gain shows that we have ability to continue the process of discovering our unexplored potential. Within certain limits, we thrive on new experiences.

Our social behaviors that were founded in our need for physical security led to the creation of civilizations that were quite impressive for their time in history. Division of labor allowed for humans to specialize, and thus advance our knowledge along multiple paths within a generation. Think about the Roman aqueducts and road systems. Yes, think about the challenge of building the pyramids. Think how progress would have been limited without the creation of papyrus, and of the fact that someone had to have free time to discover how to make it?

Most interesting is the discovery that we started our socialization skills early, e.g., the code of Hammurabi. We learned methods to improve how humans would interact with each other in the close proximity of villages, towns and ancient cities. We began commerce, which further extended our abilities to specialize in our work and boost our rate of discovery.

We learned to pay homage to the teachers and religious people who prepared us to live in society, add to it, and understand that there are important questions about our existence that we could not answer definitively. We learned to become humble and cooperative when presented with the high cost of personal conquest (crime) within our communities. We established the sciences as well, and supported governments to provide us physical security from external attack.

Overall, our knowledge of recorded history, presented to us in various ways, rightfully leads to the conclusion that, as a species, we were and are capable of growth and progress. We expect growth and progress, and our belief in the basic goodness and positive destiny of Humanity has outlived our worst natural disasters and our worst times in hurting each other during our history.

Our expectations for continued progress are with us today. I know of no period outside the Dark Ages when humans have been less than optimistic regarding our ability to promote progress, with the possible exception of our attitudes during the darkest periods of major wars. Based on our historical accomplishments, we should expect regular progress. In fact, it is more of a purpose for living than a simple expectation. It is the hallmark of being human. Without that, we would be glorified ants.

It is rather obvious that we are not static in our capacity to learn or to grow. Each time we increase our knowledge and apply it to better our experience of life we demonstrate our dynamic capacity. This aspect of the "facts of life" is in sharp contrast to our less enlightened behaviors. It speaks to something inherently human that has continued since our beginning that has no implicit relationship to time in history or to any particular society.

Thus, we have grown. We are not about to stop our growth if we can find the means to evolve ourselves individually and our societies overall. Nor should we stop. However, we do recognize that we need much more knowledge about our world and ourselves to assist that evolution. So now we will move on to the development and application of knowledge, for knowledge-based activities are our only path to success.