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A GUT is a Grand Unified Theory that attempts to tie existing theories from different disciplines together. This is often necessary as two 'correct' theories can appear in conflict under certain circumstances. A typical example is the conflict between Relativity and Quantum Mechanics that has caused headaches to physicists for nearly 100 years.
The objective of a personal GUT is that of tying together all the years of study and life experiences into a single volume of universal personal truths or theories that are not limited to specific domains in an effort to create a more abstract and generic view of the world. In the same way that the movements of the planets conform to F = gMm/r^2 and one does not have to memorize the orbit of each planet, a personal GUT allows you to remember less, but know more - which is good as you get older.
Think of the ancient Greeks: Aristotle, Plato, Archimedes, Pythagoras... all great thinkers, it didn't matter whether they applied themselves to philosophy, ethics, math, science, law or politics, great ideas got published. Broad-brush, cross-disciplinary work was typical of the polymath thinkers we study in history, yet is not readily encouraged nowadays. Perhaps specialization didn't exist so the line between science, philosophy, math and engineering was not well defined and hence one's mind could wander without boundaries. The Renaissance brought back aspirations of Greek thought. Leonardo would spend one day painting, the next on farmland irrigation, the next building engineering marvels and the next dissecting a dead body (among many other things). This continued throughout history and for many famous 'mathematicians,' math was just their hobby. Or Gregor Mendel, the lonely monk who fathered genetics while tending to his plants. History is littered with contributions from hobbyists. A pharmacist categorising all the clouds. Darwin, Gauss, Escher, Fourier, Fermat, Van Gogh... and my favourite hobbyist of all time: Einstein. A [3rd-tier patent office worker][3rd-tier-einstein] who, after publishing quite possibly the 4 greatest scientific discoveries since Newton in the same year (1905), was denied an academic position and after returning to the patent office was also denied a promotion.
These inspirational and unlikely people form the bedrock of humanity, our knowledge-base and our greatest accomplishments - yet we are not taught to follow in their footsteps. We are told to assume people like that who can make significant individual contributions to many different fields simply cannot exist today. We are taught to seek complexity and become specialists. We are taught to yearn for difficult answers. The more you work or study, the more you are forced to specialize until eventually you become the only person that understands 'your field.' Look at the history of Nobel Prizes in Physics. 10 medals for work measuring properties of neutrinos! Einstein didn't even get a Nobel Prize for Relativity!
GUT 1: The world is not complex.
Complexity is a lack of understanding. Try again.
The very definition of a belief - something assumed to be true without proof - is completely unscientific. Unfortunately, science can barely explain itself so beliefs must fill in the gaps. The primary problem with beliefs is that people often end up with a bag of beliefs that are inconsistent, complex (see GUT 1) and often contradict one another. The Jew that eats bacon cheeseburgers, the vegetarian that eats fish, the decaf coffee addict, doctors that smoke, the jealous adulterer or the depressed entertainer. We are all guilty of unresolved belief contradictions, but the simplest resolution is to just change your belief to fit your feelings. Being honest and consistent with your belief system will make you a better person. Even better, accept nothing and generate your own belief system from inductive reasoning of your own experiences.
The most damaging beliefs people can have are those linked to their perception of other people. Racism, sexism, ageism, religion, caste systems and birthrights can cause irreparable damage and worse still, even more extreme counter-beliefs. But what makes us different from each other? Genetics, sure. But genes are just random permutations of 4 amino acids (GATC). How can one combination be better than another? And even if you could prove it was better for a niche purpose, your genes are certainly not something you did and therefore cannot make you better than someone else. Society then, your social upbringing? Globalization has destroyed these notions as well. Adopt an infant from a foreign part of the world and they will grow up seeing their original home as foreign as you do. Every child learns to speak their own language fluently and solve incredibly complex problems with their brain to catch a ball.
Moreover, all of these people do something with their time. Consider the security guard you pass every day at the bank, the office or the airport. You may think that they waste their days standing around, but the beauty of the brain is that it doesn't switch off. (Ever tried to think about nothing?) Perhaps the thoughts of the security guard are not valuable to you, but they are still thoughts that you do not have and hence something you do not know. Hence, you can learn something from everyone and everyone has something to share. Perhaps the museum guard can tell you which painting a person will stop in front of based on their shoes. In the same way you cannot say one gene is superior in every way, you cannot assign a hierarchy to thoughts. Everyone has an equal number of hours in a day and an equal number of thoughts. They may not all have the same output but the equivalence remains.
GUT 2: Everyone is equivalent.
The poor, the ignorant and the weak should not be looked down upon. At the same time, you should not allow others to look down on you nor should you idolize the strong, the knowledgeable or the rich. If you believe everyone is equal, most religions are not for you.
We can prove this point by contradiction. Any system that does not encourage a peer-to-peer equivalence ultimately leads to an unbalanced relationship which is ultimately unsustainable. If inequality was inherent, unbalanced systems would be Think of market economics. So long as buyer and seller see each other as peers, the market is healthy. But when this equivalence is destroyed it creates the unwanted side of a capitalism: abuse, neglect and misery, all driven by the fundamental removal of the freedom of choice.
Where buyer >> seller, you have the classic large corporation dictating prices and supply chain dynamics for small sellers who are at the mercy of the large buyer's wishes. The food sector looks a lot like this. If there is only one buyer of coffee for a region, the coffee farmer pretty much has to to what he is told.
Where seller >> buyer, you again have a common scenario where the seller removes choice, recourse to negotiate and the ability for the buyer actively participate in the market by influencing prices with their decisions. Regulations and consumer protection agencies have been set up for the sole purpose of addressing these imbalances.
[3rd-tier-einstein]: