This is an ethic of living. It is discussion and instructions on how to live well. Without actually telling you what to do. Truly-this is not a collection of rules or an attempt to impose authority on people. Instead, the ethic examines who we are, what life is, and some important considerations regarding meaning and value in this life. From there, arguments are offered about what sort of choices we should be making, within the Circles of how we interact with other people, how we choose to think, and how closely and how well we are aligned with the core of our living being. All for the sake of good outcomes for the reader. Those who choose the virtues, who live in dignity and simplicity, will have more freedom and more real meaning in their lives than those who do not. They will be healthier and happier. They will live well.

The acceleration of technology is changing all of our lives. We cannot know everything there is to know and we cannot keep track of everything important. The human world continues to grow larger and more complex. This work examines the meaning of human intelligence and seeks to filter value judgments through core human meaning. As we may be on the cusp of a singularity of recursive AGI, such a work is very appropriate at this time. This is a fresh look at who and what we are as people; it is a reconsideration of what is good and what is not good-for human beings. These are the measures by which our tools of technology must be judged. Should we choose to let our tools do some of our thinking for us? Should we create machines in the image of a human mind? This book does not necessarily claim answers to these questions, but it does provide a basis by which such questions should be answered.

Almost everyone alive seems to feel that there is something missing from their lives. That some knowledge or point of fulfillment is lacking. This work attempts to fill those gaps in knowledge. It attempts to show the way to true inner fulfillment. For those in high school, looking toward the bright empty promises of university. For those in college or university, or dropped out, that did not find what they were looking for. For all of the adults in the working world, squeezed into a job but still seeking answers. For every single person alive-this book offers answers. Hopefully true answers, and certainly a number of powerful truths, but in any case this is a new attempt at finding meaning.

This is a work of philosophy-but that's a claim that doesn't really mean much to most people. How about this-it does not matter who wrote this work. The work must stand, or fall, on its own. Either this is valuable, insightful, true information, that can be of benefit to anyone who reads it carefully enough to determine its meaning-or not. That is what is meant here by a work of philosophy. A work that must rest on its own merits, in the ongoing pursuit of human wisdom and human value.

This is an effort at communication of information that seeks to pass on the potential for knowledge states in the mind of the reader. Ostensibly it is an ethic of instruction in living well, but there are many other points of knowledge contained within.

The work is both fundamental and intricately derived, both simple and amazingly complex. I invite you to share in the vision and proposed solutions of DSV; I challenge you to learn it well enough to make the work your own and continue the journey that this book begins.