Welcome

Using science & reason to understand human nature & society.

“Humanity is a mystery. It needs to be unravelled, and if you spend your life unravelling it, don’t say you’ve wasted your time.”

Fyodor Dostoevsky

Most of humanity’s problems, such as war, poverty, and climate change, are self-inflicted. Sustainable, long-term solutions can only be found by unravelling Dostoevsky’s mystery of humanity. But this can only be done through an honest, rational, objective, and scientific understanding of human nature. I will post one article a week on a Wednesday morning (GMT). These articles will discuss human nature from the ground floor up. They include, therefore, articles on evolution and systems science. The topics that I have covered to date, and will cover in the future, are listed on the Index page. I would recommend reading them in the order listed, as each article builds on those previously published. You can also see the articles in my Quora space at rational-understanding.quora.com.  If you would like to receive articles by email, please click the subscribe button. If you have any questions, comments or suggestions, I will be pleased to hear from you. My email address is email@johnachalloner.com.

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Most Recent Posts

Constraint Analysis

I’m pleased to share a new paper and accompanying course modules on Constraint Analysis; a structured approach to understanding how complex systems behave, change, and sometimes fail. Rather than looking for single causes, this framework focuses on the conditions that enable or inhibit system processes, and how these interact across different domains: 🔶 Material (resources,…

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The Ontology of Randomness, Structure and Information

I’m pleased to share the publication of my latest paper: The Ontology of Randomness, Structure and Information This paper is the third in a series on General Systems Theory. It develops a clear, physically grounded account of how patterns arise in reality, addressing a fundamental question: 👉 Why does the world exhibit recurring structure rather…

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Ontological Foundations of General Systems Theory

I’m pleased to share the publication of my latest paper: Ontological Foundations of General Systems Theory This paper is the second in a series on General Systems Theory. It sets out a clear, physically grounded framework for understanding reality in systems terms. It brings together concepts of space-time, entities, structure, relationships, causality, and change into…

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Here are five simple questions for you to meditate upon:

  1. How confident are you that you know the problems of humanity?
  2. To what extent do you care about those problems?
  3. How confident are you that you understand why these problems exist?
  4. How confident are you that you know the solutions to these problems?
  5. How empowered do you feel to make a difference?

If you would like to reply to these questions (and only these questions) in a 90 second, anonymous questionnaire, click here https://www.surveymonkey.co.uk/r/S2CQBGL.

When sufficient people have responded I will publish the results here.