The Tree of Knowledge is a very powerful concept. The tree really represents a mathematical tree in that all knowledge is understood by interconnecting it with other knowledge. New words are defined in terms of old words. It is much like the way that software is developed. A word is defined and is passed around in the vocabulary. Once the word becomes common then that word represents a reference to everything that went into the definition of that word. So if I say "democracy" I invoke volumes of thought with a single word. We all know - more or less - what that word means. But someone had to invent that word - create a concept around it - and educate society as to what it means. Thousands of years ago there was no word that represented the concept of democracy. Now we have it. I inherited that word from the Tree of Knowledge. Now it is time for me to give back to the Tree. I have created the name "Tree of Knowledge" so that I can talk about our shared knowledge structure in a single phrase. And - one of the missions of the Church of Reality is to make this phrase - and many others - part of the vocabulary.

With the discovery of the Tree I realized that if we are going to be explorers and explore the reality we live in - that we are going to have to all do that together. We are only partially individual minds. In reality we are all socially interconnected and our whole lives are spent interacting with others, exchanging ideas, and learning. We are all in this together, so the better the support structures are and the better society works - the better we can explore reality together. Exploring reality and growing the Tree of Knowledge is really the same thing.