Why We Chose Nine Goals for All Domains

The nine goals are fixed for this site, but users should consider them helpful rather than definitive. We decided that the best way to ensure that our goals covered all domains of work and life was to base them on separate brain systems that develop late in life. The brain has distinct systems that every expert uses to reach the goals of their expertise.

  1. Two systems focus either inwardly or outwardly. They are reflection and attention.

  2. Two systems process information using language or reasoning.

  3. Three systems enable us to interact with others. Empathy enables us to create a theory of another person’s mind. Collaboration uses knowledge of individuals while complying uses general cultural knowledge.

  4. Two systems integrate the others for planning the future or reporting the past.

Our method for arriving at nine goals is likely to outlast their headings and descriptions for two reasons:

  1. The science behind brain systems is new and rapidly changing.

    We based our choices of the nine goals on individual neurological development rather than on historical and artificial intelligence development. Work on distinguishing brain functions is less than 150 years old and has undergone enormous improvements since the beginning of fMRI studies in the last 4 decades (functional MRI is a technique for observing which parts of the brain are active during specific tasks). In addition, though distinct, the nine systems both overlap and are flexible. One system can partially take over functions of other systems when disturbed. It seems likely but not certain that when events thwart one goal, achieving high levels of another can compensate.

  2. The number of highly complex systems is not exhaustive.

    The enormous variety of possible actions is possible because each system develops by becoming more complex. Avoiding, beginning, exploring, sustaining, mastering, and inspiring define six levels of complexity. Since avoiding is always the same and inspiring never the same, we excluded them in our definitions, but they do matter in thinking about the number of patterns that can be achieved with a certain number of levels of complexity. In our case, six levels of nine distinct goals creates 10 million patterns. That’s more than enough enough for practical human purposes, but is likely to be tiny compared to the uses of Artificial Intelligence.