izing, classifying, and otherwise dividing things tends to instill in the minds of people that these are ideal methods for acquiring knowledge. A Taoist views knowledge of such ideas with a skeptical eye because at base they only increase disorder in the world. How do they increase disorder? Willful human activity -- however well-intentioned -- interferes with the natural order of the nature of things. Human beings, like all other living things, have an inherent nature to be instinctive. But, unlike other living things, humans have, through their discriminating consciousness, acquired a perception that fails to see the holistic totality of everything around them. This view far transcends the dominant idea of utilitarianism that has been promoted in the West for the last two hundred years or so. The idea that happiness is in some sense the supreme value and/or proper aim of human socieites, and of human individuality, and that all other values flow from that should not be considered as absolute.
             A thought experiment suggested to me rec
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