“A Luxurious and Geometrically Interesting Stairwell.” From the Author’s Museum of Photography.

Copyright and Intellectual Property

All contents, including photography and artwork, are works of Mattanaw I., Mattanaw the First, unless otherwise noted. In the early creation of this book a small number of stock photos were purchased and used, via Adobe Stock. The purpose of this is to have adequate content for supporting an initial design. The privacy policy and term and conditions can be found in the appendix, found at the end using the main contents.

Copyright© Mattanaw^TM I.^TMTM, e.g. Mattanaw I., for all his productions that will ever exist. Patents and Trademarks are pending or have been realized.

Publication Numbers:

• ISSNs, International Standard Serial Numbers:
  • 2998-713X (Online)
  • 2998-7121 (Print)
• LCCNs, Library of Congress Control Numbers:
  • (Pending), Issue I: The Velocity of Significance and Ideation
  • 2024940363, Issue II: Abandoning Equality
• ISBNs, International Standard Book Numbers
  • 979-8-9900874-0-8, Issue I: The Velocity of Significance and Ideation
  • 979-8-9900874-1-5, Issue II: Abandoning Equality
  • 979-8-9900874-2-2, Issue III: Book About Books
  • 979-8-9900874-3-9, Issue IV: Human Shortcomings
  • 979-8-9900874-4-6, Issue V: Constraint and Determinism
  • 979-8-9900874-5-3, Issue VI: Humans are Animals
  • 979-8-9900874-6-0, Issue VII: A System of Thought
  • 979-8-9900874-7-7, Issue VIII: Introduction to the Book and Journal of Mattanaw
  • 979-8-9900874-8-4, Issue IX: Higher Order Attention
  • 979-8-9900874-9-1, Issue X: Procrastination
• MYSBNs, My Standard Book Numbers:
  • uZJQKwK3IHFhKxj, Issue I: The Velocity of Significance and Ideation
  • xLf7tW7wP8G9mK7, Issue II: Abandoning Equality
  • FtOhfoMa7kCt8C3, Issue III: Book About Books

Patents Pending

Mattanaw is a Trademark^TM of Mattanaw Mattanaw, formerly “Christopher Matthew Cavanaugh”.

The Moral Rights of the Author are Hereby Asserted.

Author

Artist/Author: The Honorable Dr.⁹ Mattanaw, Christopher Matthew Cavanaugh, Retired

Interdisciplinarian with Immeasurable Intelligence. Lifetime Member of the High Intelligence Community.⁶

• Masters Business & Economics, Harvard University (In Progress)
• Attorney, Pro Se, Litigation, Trial, Depositions, Contracts (E.g. State of Alaska v. Pugh, et. al., Alaska Superior and Supreme Courts)⁴
• B.S. Psychology, University of Maryland, 4.0, Summa Cum Laude¹
• B.S. Computer & Information Science, University of Maryland, 3.91, Magna Cum Laude²
• B.A. Philosophy, University of Maryland.³
• G.E.D., State of Maryland, Montgomery County, 1999.
• Lifetime Member of the High Intelligence Community, Mensa Lifetime Member

Former Chief Architect, Adobe Systems

Current President/Advisor, Social Architects and Economists International.

CEO PlaynText | CEO PlainText

Contact:

• cmcavanaugh@g.harvard.edu
• christopher.matthew.cavanaugh@member.mensa.org
• mattanaw@mattanaw.org

Resumé

• Professional Resumé

Contents

The main contents for the entire Book and Journal is on the left side, opened with the main menu button on the top left of the screen.

Individual sections, chapters, and articles have their own contents sections. This is the opening introduction, preface, and acknowledgements. The contents for this section are listed below. The main contents for the book and journal is always available on the left.

• Author
• Copyright and Intellectual Property
• Contents
• Edit History
• How to Read This Collection of Works
• Value of This Book and Journal
• Preface
• Acknowledgements
• Introduction

Edit History

• 156 Wanattomians, Epoch 1735974017, Saturday, January 04, 2025 15:00:17, Perth, Australia
• 51 Wanattomians, Epoch 1726902604, Saturday, September 21, 2024 15:10:04, Bali, Indonesia
• 47 Wanattomians, Epoch 1726589634, Wednesday, September 18, 2024 00:13:54, Bali, Indonesia
• 43 Wanattomians, Epoch 1726234992, Friday, September 13, 2024 21:43:12, Bali, Indonesia
• Tuesday, August 13^th, 2024, 5:20 PM Tempe, Arizona Time
• Sunday, June 9^th, 2024, 12:18 PM Bozeman, Montana Time
• Wednesday, August 30^th, 2023, 1:41 PM Payson, Arizona Time
• Thursday, December 15^th, 2022
• Sunday, July 10^th, 2022
• Prior edits since 2016 exist

How to Read This Collection of Works

The Book and Journal of Mattanaw is a large collection of works dedicated to articulate a system of ethics and moral philosophy that is of very great importance for a person’s decision making regarding how to live life and make decisions regarding long and short term behavior. It is the result of several decade’s of work of the author, and is a growing work underway.

The author of this work is extremely well acquainted with the philosophical literature, and does not prefer like so many authors to repeatedly introduce readers to the subject matter of philosophy, and to repeatedly list the same names again and again of those figures who have attained prominence. These figures who have attained prominence, that one can name from Western Philosophy, create a shade over the rest of the world of philosophy, including those who have striven to write in the East who have not had their names listed along with those names which have been excessively popular in the West. For example, I tire of mentioning Plato and others in continential philosophy, English philosophy and so forth. I also tire of mentioning any figures within religion. These have been skewed by nation and ethnicity and too many have been excluded from philosophy as a result. Furthermore, I find that the subject matter and results of philosophers from ancient times to presetnt to be largely stagant and stifled, and instead prefer the results of my own creative efforts, which I have built up for many years, to the works of others. So instead of talking too much about what historical philosophers have done, and too much about those regular subjects introducing philosophy, I venture to create a new path that is interesting and fresh, and more relevant and important, and usable. I think many readers would share the opinion that Philosophy as a discipline is largely a repetitive teaching of what has been communicated too often since ancient times without much progress, and that too many of the works of philosophy are “Introductions to Philosophy” that really do not add anything useful to the field. Instead attention is better shifted away from dwelling on what has not been unproductive to what is productive. Much of philosophy is treated as if all the problems were insoluble but I do not think this the case, and have arrived at solutions to issue that have allowed extensive advancements. It’s somewhat saddening to think that others just repeat the same problems and examine them briefly as interesting insolubles while not advancing similarly. The total work here is an aggregate of solutions and advancements that should nudge along philosophy in a wide number of ways if there is adequate attention and appreciation for what has been accomplished.

Eventually, this Book and Journal should comprise a list of only completed works that develop in an organized fashion encyclopedically the subject matter of the whole; however, as it stands today, it is a transparent publication in progress, with some areas more complete than others. Complete book issues exist in the contents with the designation of the issue number, while other portions that are in draft state and are in progress do not yet have such a designation. All books have digital copies that are freely available, and finished works are also in print format and are stored in the Library of Congress in the United States. These print books are available for purchase, when they are in stock, from under the featured menu, and are hand made and printed in a luxurious softcover format by the author. Eventually, if time permits and I am able to live long enough to do it, the work will all be print and bound and each and every section will move from a draft state to a complete state. I say that the entire work will remain incomplete, because I’m aware, that one simply decides that something is done, when in reality there is any number of edits and improvements that may be performed later. If I were to live indefinitely, I would work on it indefinitely; I will work on it for however much time I have to live. There is a finite but large number of texts required to bring it to a kind of completion that would result in the level of cohesiveness and finishedness to the story I want to tell, however, and so there is a point in which I think the total canon of works will move from something growing in number of texts, to an unchanging quantity of texts, but I don’t see an end to the number of editions that will result from subsequent work I’ll be doing. Future works will call for changes to earlier works, and the desire to have a clear interrelated story will mean adding and creating relationships. The fixing of one work will call for the fixing of some number of others. But for now, the instruction needed for the reader is simply that the work is largely in a draft state, and that there should be some anticipation of seeing incompletenesses. But the reader should also know that these incompletenesses does not mean all is incomplete. There are finished works and all will be finished eventually life permitting.

The recommended way of reading this text is to start with this introduction and then simply progress through each of the sections in sequence as listed in the Contents. Those contents items marked “Issue” will indicate they’ve been published in print and have been distributed or will be distributed later. These deserve more time and attention. Other sections are books in progress that have quite a lot of value and much to offer as far as ideation, but are in a draft state. The purpose of publishing in a draft state is to collect data on the editing and publication process, with the intention to eventually share with the reader openly how writing can efficiently be performed in a way that is more modern. It is helpful to others, to be able to share the stages of development in a work. Artists sometimes share videos of how they created their artworks, from blank to finished canvases. Likewise, this Book and Journal has a history of development, that will enable the sharing of stages of development, from blank pages to complete books of very good academic quality. This informs the writing process and willl help readers understand what obstacles arise, and easy ways to circumvent and move on. Like in the videos on artistic productions, it helps one see how to finish! And with all the books planned in the contents now, think of how much needs to be finished that likely will be! This is my chance to share with the public how a massive undertaking can be successful, and what it looks like along the way. When you are writing your books, if you care to write books, for a long time, they will look very incomplete. I do not need to hide my incompletenesses. I will happily share them so there is little to feel worried about, since of course it’s entirely normal for incomplete things to appear as they do. Why do people worry that incomplete things do not appear blemish free? How could it be otherwise? Why not like it the way it needs to be? Enjoying how it needs to be leads to a healthier life. We can help people become less judgmental in ways that don’t make sense to be judgemental.

The contents presents the work in the order that will best connect all the works together in the right sequence. I expect that there will be some changes, but simply reading one section then the next is best. An observation of the contents page will give the reader some idea as to the envisioned organization of the entire work, and will tell a bit about what the work means. Eventually the organization of the contents and the works themselves will come together to be both the skeleton and body of the text, communicating thoroughly and in an organized fashion the system of the whole.

Value of This Book and Journal

Some cultural contributions are so great to make it difficult to see all that has really been contributed, and all that might go into the value estimation of the work. This Book and Journal happens to be one of those creations that has so many facets of value that it is hard on inspection to know just how important it happens to be. In some ways, this somewhat plain, text-centric website, that still includes a vast amount of media, is akin to a simple text-based book that has been valued by everyone. A simple instructional text, or book, that does the job well, that has many teachings, may have a very large assortment of reasons for giving the work a place in one’s life. Why start reading anything? Well one would need to know why it happens to be valuable in some key ways to justify spending time with it. Fortunately, although there are too many benefits to explain with ease very quickly, there are some very obvious benefits that can be communicated quickly.

Let’s take a moment and reflect on the experiences we’ve had as students. As students, we’ve had some courses in which materials were provided at significant cost. We were happy anyways if these materials happened to have extremely high learning value, and later on, we feel somewhat satisfied or sometimes more than satisfied at the expenditure. This entire book and journal is entirely free. So that immediately provides value beyond what is provided in education. Secondly, we really like it when our instructors provide us with additional materials that are of good quality and are free too. Sometimes a teacher might have their own website? Are their websites very good? Sometimes they are fairly good and provide us more ways to learn about the instructor and provide ways to learn more. Instructors often have poor websites on their own. Comparing this website with the sites created by instructors even at the very finest institutions would reveal that this website is of a vastly greater quality than what they were able to achieve. But that is understandable– they are not necessarily technologists who are wanting to focus on that as much as provide what they can with some text they are able to supply and some associated resources. But how do they justify their sites if they do not excel here? Is there a reason to visit the lecturer’s websites. Oftentimes not. But even the fact that this website is vastly superiot to what all have supplied provides an immediate statement as to the value. We have here now two reasons: firstly, that the contents are free and are of good quality, making it unnecessary to buy the book materials, and secondly, that the lecturer’s website, my website that is also a book and journal, is already of a quality that exceeds the very best. Together we have all the resources people who want to learn in a format that is masterful and of high value, exceeding what professor’s of elite institutions provide. This is enough to convince, if one is persuaded aright, if one is rational, that if one wanted to learn what happens to be contained, or some of what is contained, in many of the books and “courses” here offered, that what is offered here is extremely valuable. I do not think these reasons, however, are really the reasons I would like to provide the persuade, and yet that is adequate and satisfactory, and quite more than enough! Instead there are much more important reasons. Here, one would likely not yet be persuaded of the value of having a relationship to the contents. That is rationale. One may not know what this Book and Journal provides for learning or enjoyment specifically and what it is about. But notice that one msut already agree, that if the contents do supply what is wanted or needed for some particular class of readers or students then it is already justified that it is worthwhile for them to have a relationship to it. That’s because the quality of what is offered in the free offering and in the materials presented, which are better than what lecturer websites provide, then it must be a superior “courselike” location to learn the material. There are considerations of certification, and results from learning, but we have already seen that books themselves if good in quality also provide value to culture and to readers who are needing information, even if it is for additional study or supplemental study to what certifies. Arguably, studying on one’s own is superior to education in many ways if one is self-driven and motivated, and as one is a student in a formal setting, one is still going to need reading outside that setting. Here then we have plenty of reason to think this Book and Journal is very worthwhile using only a few reasons.

People struggle to justify the existence of blogs of their creation and various writings that appear on the internet. If already one’s website is superior to lecturer’s websites, which are supposedly justified for existence, then already it is justified that it is as valuable or more valuable for its existence. In this way, simply having this website and keeping it alive is very valuable at a rudimentary level.

This book also happens to be very important and useful for my own development, and in a tremendous number of ways. If it happens to be valuable to me, then it is valuable to someone like me. This was an original mantra of sorts guiding my very first writings which would eventually lead up to the creation of this Book and Journal. I happen to be a person with diverse intellectual interests and needs, and desires for self improvement which are nearly universal. If this work happened to be incredibly useful to me, and for an extremely long period of time, decades, then it is certain that it would be invaluable to someone else with similar interests. On some subjects, almost anyone would be interested andn would benefit, if the material were presented in simple one-to-one conversation. When I talk to friends and peers, they care about what I have to say, and to recommend. I have worked recommending things as a consultant elite figures in business and technology. Businesses and teams have followed and paid for my guidance. Simple conversation with them with thoughts that are here recorded have aided them in many ways. So there are many materials that are helpful to a very wide audience. Some other materials are helpful to more selective audiences. That’s how books and journals work anyways. Each book is not for everyone, although some might be nearly usable by all people. Most books have specific topics, and therefore, if a person has enough interest, there is a good justification for learning the contents. It is the same here, where there are many books and “courses” and not only one. This more greatly expands the interest of the Book and Journal to others. So there is something here for everyone that is of proven value because it’s been of value to myself in ways that it would be valuable to everyone else. Additionally, for all of the other works, if there are specific alignments between myself and the other, like between myself and customers, and people I’ve mentored, then there will be great value. Much of the value is simply conversing over topics that will have a very great effect on quality of life in a number of domains. And again, since the presentation is free and exceeds what many universities offer on lecturer sites and in some books they offer, it is certainly of value where there is an alignment of interetest.

But now we want to go beyond these simple justifications by comparisons to know more about why this Book and Journal happens to be a good cultural resource for all to have available, even if they do not specifically want to use it themselves. This justification is like explaining why “it is worthwhile that a set of books should be worth including in a national library”.

Draft state, more to come

Preface

This Book and Journal is the progression of my work on Moral Philosophy which has been underway since I was still a teenager, over 20 years ago.

It is also a result of a long software project, the culmination of which is to share my entire life online; as far as is possible in the artifacts I’ve collected over the years. This may seem insignificant, but consider: Who do you know who shares every, or nearly every photo from their camera roll online? Who do you know, who has collected all of their personal writings for decades, and photos from photo albums, including negatives, and digital files, and organized them in such a way as to be able to share them all online. I have recently been able to transfer all of the digital photos and videos in my possession up to this book. This means this book really does hold each and every file I have that could be put in a photo album, and each and every piece of writing I have archived. I have reached a point where I can nearly destroy every paper document in my possession with no issue.

Also a part of this effort is to have an open identity. I have shared my identity and some health records on this book which may be of interest to readers. These can be found on my page Open Health and Identity. If you think through the topic of autobiography writing, you’ll notice there are two serious concerns: the first is of including all that you can about yourself honestly, to be totally open. The second is ensuring authenticity of your writing that matches your life so that others do not have any authority at all to distort your recorded persona.

That is only possible, however, if you are able to openly share your life, in a way that does not exclude much if any personal details. This is where autobiography and openness connects with morality and moral philosophy, and living a moral and ethical lifestyle.

Content on this book will be a gradual fusion of my life events and my moral thought. You will find video content on channels related to my travels, fitness, and the like, which appears to be separable from my moral philosophy, and is to an extent in relation to interests in entertainment. However, if I’m not speaking in a landscape scene at a national park, it does not mean that the content does not figure into my plans in life which relate to my moral philosophy.

Acknowledgements

There are a number of people I would want to provide acknowledgement concerning their support over the years on things unrelated to writing, which still contributed to the opportunity to complete work. There are others I would want to thank for more interesting conversation and mutual growth. Others I would thank for providing interest or positive nudges at times where that was more wanting. People who I would like to provide some acknowledgement to with increasing specifics can be found in acknowledgements.

Extensive acknowledgements to the former President of the United States, Barack Obama, and his wife, Michelle Obama, can be found in my sub-book entitled The Velocity of Significance and Ideation. This is a critical work for understanding much contained in the remainder of the work, and could be read earlier than indicated by the flow of the contents. The acknowledgements there contained are also to other important internationally recognized figures like Noam Chomsky, Peter Singer, Daniel Dennett, and members of the High Intelligence Community. This work was published as a free copy and was distributed widely, including to the acknowledged.

I have felt for a long time that I could give acknowledgement even to people who I would not really want to openly credit, for being people of poor character, people who I’ve interacted with and learned from, who didn’t do anything of great significance for mutual growth, and people who simply related to a development that occurred within my own skull. I still feel some sort of appreciation at times although I’m not certain they deserve any special attention or any recognition for somehow contributing to my work. In this sense I would like to thank all those I have not simply forgotten to include on my acknowledgements page.

My acknowledgements page has not yet been improved to include more specific reasons for providing attention. I think this is a defect in our culture, that we don’t truly know how to credit yet, and have a typology or system for knowing how to classify contributions or stimulations.

An important thing I do need to state is: This book is almost entirely of my own mind with nearly zero contribution from any other person proximally. There are intellectual references and citations that are needed, because there are some thinkers who I’ve been exposed to, mostly deceased writers, who I’ve depended on greatly for material which I thought about but did not create on my own. Everyone who is not a writer, who does not have a very specific contribution mentioned, simply has not contributed to this work.

I am fond as of late of bringing up the need to use frequency distributions. If I were to take anyone else’s contributions as a numerator to my own contributions to this book, for each and every person who could be input, the result would be approaching zero. As the site grows, their contribution is approaching nearer and nearer to zero, wherever it is negligible and not nothing.

Acknowledgements are scattered and elaborated upon separately in different journal issues and sub-books, because these are offered as separate although related publications, and contributions from specific people relate to some works but not others. Many works have no acknowledgements, because there are none to mention, other than very abstract general “thanks” to others who I’ve known, in the main acknowledgements.

In this particular section, of importance to the entire Book and Journal, it is of the greatest importance to mention that this work is almost entirely of my own creativity, as evidenced by the datum of the productions of certain sections of this site, archive, career history, underlying software, ThoughtStream chapter demonstrating timed generativity, and of course, the datum that is The Velocity of Significance and Ideation proving immeasurable intelligence in argument and in production speed. It only took 12 days to produce that entire book in its first edition.

Details on Navigating the Site

All site materials are available using the contents within the sliding menu. If sections are larger, they will contain contents sections atop which will allow for navigation within that part. If there is any archiving, there may be a link at the end of the page, pointing to older versions of the page. This is to ensure that pages can be loaded, since some pages are quite large, and may include hundreds of images, or many pages of text.

Treat this site as a Book and Journal. All can be found on the primary contents, but those sections may have their own organization and treatment, but all can be found easily from the main menu.

Introduction

Moral Philosophy has been traditionally divided into practical morality and theoretical morality. For those who are coming from a religious background primarily and not an academic ethical research background, this division can be thought of as the life of the moral philosophy and writing about application, versus the parts which might be more abstract and general without as clear an application. In my estimation, the theoretical part could be considered simply knowledge. For those who have neither a religious background or moral philosophical background, but a scientific background combined with personal learnings in life experiences, I would say the theoretical part would correspond with the totality of scientific knowledge at its widest scope, or potential natural knowledge, and at its smaller scope, which is also of great importance, knowledge and wisdom that has high veracity that can be stored in a human brain. This is your wisdom that you have from all your learnings and not those that simply appear to be moral necessarily.

Part of my effort in my work is to re-orient a study of morality and life behavior, to extricate from errors of earlier moral philosophers and religious thinkers, and confusions of scientists too. Notice that scientists have not supplied anything really comparable to religious moral teaching, or teachings from moral philosophers. There have been some inroads through the discipline of Psychology, which includes, of course, methods of aiding people in improving their lives and their behaviors, with some solid scientific basis and findings, but not any totally open holistic approach, that people can use without making payments to people. I have a degree in Psychology and nearly a Bachelors in Philosophy from when I was a dual degree major at the University of Maryland. I have been exposed and trained in each of the disciplines relevant to this effort which I am now finally sharing, again after more than two decades of work. For other relevant details about my history, see my Bio Page.

This site does not yet have a section that is totally about the theoretical part of my ethical system, and these writings will slowly be included. This part has been very well developed, however, to the extent that working on this section is not of personal interest. The reason for holding back on this part is to potentially unlock a book deal which might provide me some financial return, and also to build interest first, and complete other groundwork necessary, to get people prepared for learning something which otherwise would be inaccessible. There are several preparatory articles I still need to publish before this theoretical work is included, fully elaborated.

This journal is totally free, and I really do intend to share all I can without any expectation of monetary contributions. I’m already successful in software and in my career, and am semi-retired, in part to make my efforts possible without requiring any financial support, which can be corrupting or distracting, depending on how it is received. Despite this mission, I do also have a strong desire to publish a single smaller volume containing less that is in this site, but with perhaps more edits and more polished appearance, for those who would benefit from having a high quality presentation with less demands on attention. I also simply wanted to have a book written on paper. But as I work and developed this site, I am becoming less interested in that, for prospects of being able to self publish here and to self publish anyway. But to be candid regarding openness, I did think it worth mentioning that I do find it attractive to have a volume published through an academic publishing company, perhaps with similar materials available here but in a different format that makes a purchase attractive and reasonable for certain readers.

References to materials are usually to items freely available here, either in the digital library, or in the work itself someplace. Books and Journals with extensive references have historically been to materials that were scattered widely and hard to access. Often too costly or difficult to obtain. Here, however, these materials have been made available, except for those books the author has read and has included to indicate with transparency what he is familiar with and has read himself in his life. This is necessary to provide a more complete autobiography, but not necessarily to provide direct citations. The point is that research is not easy and much work has to be done simply to get subscriptions or physical access to libraries. Here the author is striving to make this unnecessary, regarding the materials that are within the author’s control.

Currently the site mainly includes developments on the practical portion of the moral system which is about effectiveness in behavior. There are articles of interest that will tie into the overall system of ethics as it is gradually released. The remainder of the site is autobiographical. My life is bound with my work and I want to share all I can; but it’s also extremely useful to me too. Instead of having to have many photo albums in my possession, I can simply look at my own website. I have my own private cloud of all my assets here. These assets connect, again, with ability to be totally open with what I’m doing, and how I spend my life. It includes my various life plans which lay out where I’m going.

I’m unaware of anyone who has connected their own personal digital and writing interests completely with their method of sharing their autobiography, in connection with their moral outlook and system of ethics. At present I’m not sure there are many people, if anyone, who could combine years of moral system development with software architecture, and organization of life assets in a digital library. Given my backgrounds I’m not sure this is something easily achieved by anyone else.

This may lend to some justification as to the naming of the site in my own name. Really the site is for me, and it is to convey my life. It doesn’t appear there is any other name which would be justifiable to my mission unless it is another self-interested title of sorts. Writers of blogs and books will tend, I think, to share concerns about naming, particularly when the work is large and there is a desire to have a universal name for it all, and not just the parts. For example, suppose a writer has 100 works. Suddenly the author’s name is what connects them all, but there is no additional word or title that can be used in a published format to bind them all together into one. Book and Journal of Mattanaw is the best I can think of for now that binds all together into one final, holistic-as-it-can-be corpus of writing.