Socrates, whose famous injunction "KNOW THYSELF" echoes across time and cultures, was not the first to point out the importance of human self knowledge. Almost every religious or spiritual tradition holds the knowledge of man's true nature as central to the development of the human potential. We just haven't all agreed to what the essence of that self is. Over the centuries, the body of information available to the human species about itself has grown exponentially, yet it can be argued that most of us are more confused about these matters than ever before. Why is this?

A story is told of three blind men who encounter an elephant for the first time. The first one, upon touching the elephants leg proclaims that the elephant is like a tree. The second, grasping the trunk of the beast, declares it to be like a snake. The third encounters the side of the beast and says it is surely like a giant wall. Each one, having directly experienced one aspect of the elephant is certain of the accuracy his own perception, and in the argument that ensues each one clings to his own viewpoint and none of them come away understanding elephants............

In a similar way, to a person raised with a traditional religious world view, the findings of modern science may seem like heresy. Similarly, every few years, a new way of looking at human nature emerges in the academic world itself, leaving the older ways of understanding human nature in shambles. Every time a new tool for looking into the mind is developed, the men studying the elephant begin arguing anew. Is it any wonder then, that we, the pupils of these blind, deaf, and dumb teachers are a bit confused! As time passes, it becomes evident that every one of the ways of understanding the human condition has some validity, but is not the whole picture. The problem is that to those of us outside the academic world, the whole picture is the only thing that matters. This interactive knowledge-base is an attempt to try to begin to create a whole picture based on everything we collectively know about the human condition, and to make the details of this emerging picture available to all. This is an attempt to gather our knowledge. There is so much available to us, yet it is so spread out, and we are already on information overload. Even the specialist with a well rounded education has been out of school since all the recent developments in these fields have taken place.

It seems that the human journey we call science is nearing the end of a stage of breaking the world into little parts, and finally entering a stage of putting it back together again. We have added unimaginable new realms to our collective knowledge of the universe since the days of Francis Bacon, who, it has been said was the last man who could possibly know everything science understood in his time. Today, the most brilliant minds, the ones who make our discoveries must know so much about their specific specialty, that it would be quite impossible for them to know much about the findings of those outside their own field.

In the last few years we have been given the technology to create and organize information and view points in a way that breaks through the old barriers. Because the program is interactive for example, you will have the opportunity to explore it according to your own interests and level of understanding. Because it is being created "auto-cybergenically" on the internet, you will have access to many different opinions and viewpoints and the information should stay fresh and up to date. Here is a first approximation of a way of looking at the various perspectives on human nature: