Foundation series : Enlightened morality (II)

resource. But that is not what happens. Instead, we see short-term thinking. The same is true in most kinds of planification and action. People see short-term benefit bigger than that benefit's future - and possibly grievous - harm.

In contrast, spirituality, by its teachings of the unity of all space and time, teaches us to see the long view of things. An interesting secular example of this is the Long Now project, which seeks to build 10000-year clocks as its main project. From our point of view, 10000 years encompasses all of human civilization. But if we look from the point of view of biological evolution, 10000 years is barely enough time for one evolutionary step. As for our own species, homo sapiens is approximately 130000 years old. Consider that the Earth is 4.5 billion years old. This timescale is quite beyond even the most encompassing mind. Now that ten thousand years is starting to look really minuscule.

The notions of short-term and long-term are rooted in time, but time is ultimately an illusion. We are eternally located in the present: the past is our memories and the future is our anticipation, a mental extension of our place in the causal chains of Existence. Because of this unity of time, there is an apparent, intuitive harmony between short-term and long-term action, but it is hard to conceptualize and explain.

Even Buddhism tells us to be "fully present in the moment". How then should we understand action at all, since all action is based on causality, that what we do will have a future effect?

I think the contradiction can be resolved if we realize that our actions are part of the present, and that our actions are a consequence of our thoughts. In this way, we can see that the unity of our actions must come from our present values. Since our goal is to maximize the good, and our values are how we judge what is good, every moment contains the seed of all our life's decisions.

As such, the unity and illusory nature of time does not imply that we should ignore what we call the future. Rather the reverse is true: since the future is entirely contained in the present, we must take full responsibility for our lives at each moment.

You see, the past is past and the future is yet to come. That means the future is in your

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