States Code. The Code of Federal Regulations is a compendium of rules and regulations issued by the various administrative agencies of the federal government.

The consequences of interactions take rather distinct but general forms within each of the three mentioned domains. Criminal conduct, that is interactions that effect results counter to criminal prohibitions, generally elicit physical sanctions of some form; either fines, a period of incarceration, periods of formal and informal scrutiny of activities or all of the above; that is, sometimes, the consequences might include a combination of all three domains. Interactions under civil law usually take the form of contracts in various guises. Contract law typically requires a specification of consequences within any agreement if that agreement is to be enforceable through further legal action. The consequences of contracts are usually referred to as consideration, and to guarantee that a contract, for example between two parties, is enforceable under most law, it is necessary for both parties to receive consideration under the terms of the contract. “I’ll scratch your back if you scratch mine.” An offer to provide something or to perform some act without provision for receiving consideration in return for it is typically referred to as a gratuitous promise and it may not be enforceable through the legal system. Consideration can take a number of forms: perhaps payment, perhaps a specific service or perhaps a promise to act in a certain way. Both criminal and civil sanctions tend to be backward looking. That is, they are applied after the fact of a transaction, when some party contests the validity of the transaction under the applicable rules.

The consequences of administrative interactions, however, tend to be forward looking. That is, rules and regulations will often require a specific set of actions, perhaps including some type of certification, prior to any governed interactions. A regulation established by the Federal Aviation Agency requires a pilot certification and periodic, acceptable physical examinations before a person is allowed to fly a commercial airliner. A prospective pilot is required to prove adherence to these rules before being allowed to take control of a plane. Failure to demonstrate that these requirements have been fulfilled are sufficient grounds for administrative or police officials to physically prohibit a potential pilot from entering the cockpit of a plane.

Religion

Religion is a central theme of this book, and we have now finally reached a point of sufficient background to expand upon our concept of religions as instances of social ecosystems; right here in the middle of a chapter; just about in the middle of the book for that matter. Our reasoning has been that religion is a natural result of the evolution of the human species. It is particularly associated with modern man, the term often used to describe the members of the species that have emerged since the last recognizable mutation event of extreme consequences occurred somewhere between 50,000 and more than 100,000 years ago. At the present time, no one is completely sure what the physiological manifestation of this event was, but since it occurred, there has been a steady progression of human development, culminating in the current situation in which Homo sapiens sapiens is capable, both intentionally and unintentionally, of overwhelming the physical world to the extent of making it uninhabitable for the human species. Or course, one might readily speculate that, at the point where we collectively proceed over the precipice, the physical world will continue on and some other species will get its shot at the golden ring. But, we’ll leave that value judgment, as best we can, for others to consider. Let us, instead, make an attempt to reconcile religion with human physiological characteristics such that we arrive at the current culmination of social ecosystems.

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