We feel strongly that a discipline cannot be considered matured until it is based on explicitly stated assumptions which, when accepted by the members, can be elevated to the level of axioms. These can then become the conventional basis for the logical foundation of panetics. The number of axioms should be limited.

Definitions

Let us state five key definitions. According to Webster, an axiom is "a proposition or principle as to which people in general agree; an established principle in some art or science, which, though not a necessary truth, is universally received."

A law is "a statement of an order or relation of phenomena which, so far as is known, is invariable under the given conditions."

Suffering is "the state or experience of one who suffers; the endurance of, or submission to, affliction, pain, loss, etc; also, a pain endured; a distress, loss, or injury incurred." To suffer is "to submit to or being forced to endure the infliction, imposition or penalty of, to bear as a victim or the like."

Pain is "a form of consciousness characterized by desire of escape or avoidance, and varying from slight uneasiness to extreme distress and torture. An affection or feeling proceeding from a derangement of functions, disease, or bodily injury.... A sensation varying in quality from prick to ache, commonly aroused by a stimulus that injures or nearly injures the skin or tissues, usually but not always unpleasant and leading to avoiding reactions."

Inflict is "to give or cause by, or as if by, striking a blow, pain, etc; to cause to suffer (something unpleasant); to impose, as a penalty. To trouble, to afflict."

Relative Maturity of Panetics

All of the natural sciences and other practically applied disciplines are guided by unique sets of axioms and laws. Physics is validated by the laws of thermodynamics, etc.; chemistry by the gas laws, etc.; genetics by the laws of heredity, etc.; economics by the law of supply and demand, etc. Of course, these are always subject to change in the light of new and deeper insights.

How about panetics? Essentially zero. That being the case, we may conclude that the discipline has not yet begun to grow out of adolescence.

Until we begin to construct a valid framework of axioms and laws, our explorations will remain more in the realm of disconnected generalizations without specific applications that will reliably work over and over—for that is the nature of axioms and laws. As soon as we begin to put forth this missing structure, the utility of panetics will rise dramatically. We will also learn and advance from and build on our mistakes as well.

We would like to float the following ten trial balloon axioms and ten laws. These are to be discussed provisionally and, if needs be, reassessed, reshaped, replaced, added to, and/or eliminated. Hopefully, a spirited dialogue will commence and lead to an initial consensual cluster of panetic axioms and laws before too long.

Provisonal Axioms

The infliction of suffering is intrinsic to the processes of life and social operation. Every decision and action of a person or an institution has the potential, qualitatively or quantitatively, to modify the state of suffering in oneself or others, immediately or n-steps removed. Everybody inflicts suffering on others and everybody is inflicted upon. The threatened or actual infliction of suffering is the most powerful instrument of persuasion. Every human being is caught in a never-ending personal tug-of-war between the largely cultivated need to inflict suffering on others and the largely natural desire to reduce it. The victim's pain is a function of the infliction actually delivered and independent of the inflicter's awareness, intentionality, and justification. It is the situational context which usually opens the door to a given spectrum of panetic choices. Any significant change in a given social relationship among parties will eventually modify the distribution of suffering among them. The success of a government in reducing the suffering of its people and maintaining it at a practicably humane level is a direct function of its panetic knowledge and integrated management. Humaneness starts with stopping the inflicting. Provisional Laws

The equilibrium constant of an ongoing infliction/acceptance relationship between two individuals or groups will remain unchanged unless some external influence is injected. The magnitude of suffering inflicted varies directly as the intensity of the inflicter's desire for the fruits of infliction and capacity to inject noxious conditions, and inversely as the capacity of the victim to retaliate and of outsiders to intervene. When two or more inflicters concurrently inflict suffering on the same victim for mutually exclusive gains, the inflicter who gets what he/she is after is the one whose increment of infliction first increases the total suffering borne by the victim above his/her tolerance threshold. The capability of an organized group to inflict suffering on another goes up arithmetically with its superiority in technical proficiency and geometrically with its superiority in numbers. The amount of suffering inflicted, within and externally, by an organization varies geometrically with its membership and rate of growth. The amount of suffering by the citizenry in a democracy varies inversely with its depth of awareness of the panetic ramifications of governmental deliberations and immediacy of transmission of this understanding to its elected officials. The probability of revolt against a government goes up geometrically as the level of suffering among a third of the citizenry rises above three dukkhas a day for over three years (3-3-3 threshold). The drive to alleviate suffering varies inversely with the spatial, temporal, fraternal, kinship, national, and cultural distance between the parties. The amount of effort required to preclude a given infliction of suffering varies inversely and geometrically with the number of successive linkages and the duration of time before the overt act itself. A maximum position of panetic well-being of a society under a given set of conditions is achieved when any decrease in suffering of any individual will result in an associated greater increase in suffering in another. Concluding Comment

This initial draft of basic axioms and laws of panetics is offered for review, supplementation, modification, simplification, or elimination. We look forward to a succession of much improved versions. The follow-on arrays should be regularly subjected to the same rigorous examination and revision for intellectual solidity and practical utility. This will help assure that panetics itself will continue to grow in its contributions to human well-being.