i. An Existent is something which exists in reality. The only Existents are matter, energy, information (structure and form), space and combinations of these including all attributes and emergent properties of these combinations. Existents are transformed by "causes" during the passage of time into other Existents, their continuers. Such a transformation is called an Event. Objects are assemblages of matter, together with the energy and information contained therein, except Humans.

8) This is a simple statement of the metaphysical basis of reality that is necessary to formulate the Natural Social Contract. Though the statement is simple, I think that it captures the essential elements of the meanings of the defined words which are sufficient for this purpose. However, it is important to point out that "thoughts" are also Events that change the brain into a continuer of itself. Later in another place and time, I hope to get more heavily involved in creating my own Metaphysics, but not just now. The concept of "Objects", which includes solids, liquids, gases and even lifeforms, but not live human beings, helps simplify the definitions and statements of the Natural Social Contract. For more detail about Existents see my essay: "Collectivism in Language: Its Effects on Valid Reasoning".

ii. A Human is a member of the species and genus Homo Sapiens Sapiens including his Person (mind and body) and all information within, attributes and emergent properties at any given time in any life state between birth and death. An Individual is a Human who is not dependent on any other particular Individual or Individuals for any essentials of life (ie he gains such life essentials solely by Trading - by mutually Voluntary and mutually beneficial exchange of value with other Individuals). A Dependent is a Human for whom some particular Individual or Individuals (his Guardian(s)) provide certain essentials of life, not as an immediate Trade, nor under the terms of a Valid Contract, but in the mere "hope" of some future benefit. For the purposes of this Agreement, it will from here on be assumed that a Dependent interfaces with Individuals through his Guardian who, as the Dependent's Culpable Agent, has Published the extent of his responsibility for the actions of the Dependent.

9) It is important to note in passing that "homo sapiens" translates literally as "man the wise" and is defined as "sentient, conscious, thinking man". Since all rational thought necessarily implies action to achieve the thinker's goals, that man is "sapient" also implies that he is "homo faber" - man the molder, maker and creator, both of himself (the "I") and of his environment (the "non-I"), to the extent to which he is capable.

All issues involving fetuses, age of viability definition, abortion, surrogate motherhood, paternal rights, children's rights, the rights of the mentally retarded, parent responsibilities, etc. are specifically and purposefully omitted from consideration in this Natural Social Contract. Note that since a Dependent is not an independent responsible Individual, a Freeman may wish to bar him from the Freeman's Property (even including egress Real Estate). Therefore, in order for a Dependent to have some ability to travell beyond the boundaries of his Guardian's Real Estate, his Guardian (or some other Adult) will generally need to agree to be his Culpable Agent under some contractual arrangment that may include a restriction of the Liberty of the Dependent. Such a contractual arrangement will then need to be published so that other Freemen are aware of the extent of responsibility.

iii. The Freedom (also Possible Actions) of an Individual is the set of choices that are available to him at the present moment among all the choices that are not forbidden by the laws of reality. Those choices that currently exist, but of which he is unaware, are part of those that are unavailable to him. An Individual's Liberty is that part of his freedom which remains when there exist any Violations of him by other Individuals, when he is a Party to a Valid Contract, or when he is subject to Privileges or Entitlements under an Acceptable Social Contract.

10) The idea of "Freedom" for a lifeform is the natural extension of the concept of "degrees of freedom" within physical theories of matter and energy. Just as the number of degrees of freedom (independent alterations of its physical parameters) of a physical object is proportional to its size and complexity, so also for a lifeform is its set of existentially possible actions (independent alterations of itself and its environment) proportional to its complexity. Extended to a human being, therefore, the definition of "Freedom" given is entirely reasonable. The restriction of a human's Freedom to those actions which are "available" to him arises from this reasoning in the following manner. If a human lacks the information which would otherwise make him aware of some choice and its consequent action, to that extent the "complexity" of his brain is reduced and, therefore, it follows that his degrees of freedom (ie. set of possible actions) is also reduced. Note in this regard that "thoughts" are among the Possible Actions of any Individual. Moreover, this reasoning also shows why and how thinking creates more Freedom! - thinking increases the information content of a human's brain and, thus, increases his complexity.

It is important to note that while most writers appear to make little distinction between "Freedom" and "Liberty", I have defined them quite separately. In effect, "Liberty" is the political aspect of "Freedom", in a similar manner to which "self-sovereign" is the political aspect of "self-owner" (although the latter is a term that I think is counterproductive and have generally eschewed it in favor of "self-master"). That this is so can be seen if one imagines a human alone on a desert island. In such a state it is clear that the notion of the freedom to perform certain acts, the mastery of himself (in the sense of intimacy of control and perception of his person), and the control of whatever things external to himself he finds useful are all essential to his survival and his continued happiness. However, the notions of "Liberty" (applying only to those Freedoms that are capable of being restricted through relationships with other Individuals), "self-sovereignty" (that he is the only one who should be allowed to govern himself), and "ownership" (that he should have entitlement to possession and control over certain objects external to his body) have no practical use.

11) Before deciding that this simpler definition of Freedom would be sufficient for the Natural Social Contract, I had dissected the concept into the following distinct ideas:

• The "Potential Freedom" of an Individual is the set of all actions which are not forbidden by the laws of reality.
• His "Current Potential Freedom" is the subset of his Potential Freedom which is available at the present moment to any human whether or not they are aware of them.
• His "Current Freedom" is the subset of his Current Potential Freedom of which he is aware.
• His "Rational Freedom" is the subset of his Current Freedom which he thinks will increase his Lifetime Happiness.

"Potential Freedom" would thus be independent of time; "Current Potential Freedom" would be independent of his knowledge of what was currently available on Earth; "Current Freedom" would be equal to the term "Freedom" defined in definition iii; and "Rational Freedom" would be what I termed "Rational Choice" defined separately in definition vi. However, I decided that there was no practical requirement for this additional breakdown and that it might confuse the essential meaning of "available" since even though currently "available" in an existential sense, those choices of which someone is not aware are not available to him in any realistic or practical sense. Hopefully, this will show the reader that I did not simply put all those definitions into the Natural Social Contract to make it difficult to understand :-) I tried my best to make it as simple as I possibly could and yet still be clear, consistent and well defined!

The definition of Freedom or Possible Actions which is used in the Natural Social Contract does not ignore the fact that each Individual has a unique set of attributes and capabilities. This means that certain Possible Actions which are available to other humans are often extremely difficult for him to achieve and sometimes completely forbidden to him (because of some physiological characteristic, eg. a disability). Thus in general, it is a fact of reality that there are some actions that are possible for some humans, but that are not even potentially possible for others. However, the essential uniqueness of humans implies that it is neither truly possible nor would it be socially compossible (ie. mutually beneficial for all at once) to attempt to make possible for everyone, all actions that are potentially possible for some particular human. Instead, all that can be done by any consistent, reality-based social ordering system is to provide an optimal environment for each Individual:

• to maximize his Current Potential Freedom by means of increasing the number of choices that exist (the Potential Freedom),
• to increase the ease with which he can become aware of them (ie. increase his Current Freedom), and
• to not have his Liberty to choose what he knows about Involuntarily restricted (ie. allow his Liberty to be as close to his Freedom as he wishes),

as long as no such environmental attributes and Voluntary choices constitute a Violation of another human (since that would reduce his Liberty).

iv. Lifetime Happiness means the accumulating total of the instantaneous states of happiness of an Individual over his lifetime as evaluated by that Individual.

12) The definition and the understanding of the meaning of "happiness" is the second most important factor (after the essential separation of each human from the rest of reality described in 1) above) for the success of any science of human conduct. Thus, it is also absolutely critical for any successful understanding and implementation of both the Declaration of Individual Independence and the Natural Social Contract. I have chosen to use the word "happiness" as the general term by which I mean to include all possible desirable (by him) states of the Person. For an Adult, desirable will necessarily be equivalent to beneficial, again in the widest-viewed, longest-range sense. However, understanding the validity of this equivalence need not be a requirement at the outset for analyzing the meaning of "happiness". The reason that happiness is so critical is that it is the basis of all value estimation within each Individual's mental activities - conscious or subconscious, and ultimately, of each Individual's chosen actions to increase his Lifetime Happiness. "Happiness", as a concept within the science of human conduct, thus assumes the same role as does subjective monetary value in the science of economics. However, a major difference is that while economics only deals with exchanges between Individuals of values measured by money or some other tangible, a complete science of human conduct must also deal with exchanges both between Individuals and within a single Individual of values that society has heretofore been reluctant to measure by money or other tangibles. In order to help understand happiness and with an aim towards the potential mensuration (act, process, or art, of measuring) of all forms of estimated worth (value) that are exchanged with others, I have dissected the concept of happiness in the following summary, with necessary elaboration below the summary:

• "Happiness State" is the value vector in the multidimensional state (space) of all contributing independent components (such as pleasure, gratification, joy, exhilaration, fun, satisfaction, contentment, fulfillment, etc. and the different types of displeasure - with negative component values) that a human is currently experiencing. (Actually it could contain all possible types of pleasure and pain that he has or could ever experience.)
• The "Importance Weighting" of a human's Happiness State is the multidimensional vector of current relative valuations of each of the independent components to his Happiness State (sometimes referred to as a human's "hierarchy of values"). If the definition of Happiness State were enlarged as suggested above to contain all possible value types, then the Importance Weighting for those types of values that he was not currently experiencing would simply be zero.
• "Current Happiness" would then be the scalar product of his Happiness State with his Importance Weighting. ie. the sum of the products of each component of the Happiness State vector with its Importance Weighting.
• "Lifetime Happiness" is then the integration (in the mathematical sense) of the instantaneous values of the Current Happiness of a human over his lifetime.

With the concept of "Happiness State", I am trying to gather all the multifold contributions to a human's present moment pleasure/pain "feelings" into one complex potentially measurable item. For example, one of the multi-faceted aspects of happiness of a human is the scope of his Possible Choices. Since many of the contributions to happiness appear to be independent of others (eg. Is there any amount of time spent listening to your favorite music which is equivalent to eating a 100 gram bowl of fresh strawberries? If there is such an equivalence, how does it change with time and circumstances? And how much of the pain of a cut on your body would you be willing to endure to obtain each of these? Is such "cost" you are willing to pay even the same for each two equivalent values - ie. are such values associative?), I have selected a vector quantity as the natural mathematical measuring tool for this purpose. Even though neuroscience is not yet able to measure (or even fully itemize) the individual component values of such a happiness vector, it is clear that such must exist because the brain makes some kind of "calculation" with them every time that it makes a decision. Whatever units of measurement are ultimately used for the various independent happiness components (eg. minutes for music, grams for strawberries, brain pain sensor readings for the cut, etc), there must also be a weighting factor that will vary with type, time, satiety, etc (eg. the type of music - although these may even be independent - can one truly equate the joy of a certain amount of Mozart to that of a certain amount of Madonna or the variety and degree of flavor of the strawberries? - also noting the difference in pleasure between the first 10 grams of strawberry and the last 10 grams, the same cut on your leg versus abdomen versus face, and how fast a healer you are, etc). So there must also be an "Importance Weighting" vector with a weighting value for each independent component of happiness which you are currently experiencing, the component values of which "weighting" also vary with time and circumstance.

In order to arrive at some kind of summation of your Current Happiness, which is needed to allow relative weighting of different components of happiness and the eventual making of decisions between alternate choices, what is mathematically called the scalar product of these two vectors can be computed - ie. the sum of all the independent happiness components times the weighting factor for each. Although it is unlikely that any human consciously does any such computation (the conscious appears to be actually incapable of dealing with such detailed complexity without additional memory and calculation aids), something like this must be actually being done by the subconscious. Such a computation both allows the components to be compared and enables a choice decision among alternates. If one tries to picture what is going on inside the brain of any thinking person, he must, in fact, have a pretty fine measuring grid for these preference ratings, which although most thinkers have regarded as purely "ordinal", in the end becomes not different in kind from a cardinal scale (since in reality cardinal scales are never infinitely fine!). Any difference (between cardinal and ordinal here) only arises because no metric (certainly no absolute one) has ever been devised. Thus, while no one could consciously do this kind of complex evaluation every time that he makes a decision (because of time restraints alone), something very like this must actually be done subconsciously within some part of the brain. These conclusions are also fully consistent with what many highly self analytical individuals have observed about their own behavior; namely that the closer one trains one's feelings and emotions to be consistent with one's well considered conclusions, the closer any such subconscious evaluation (and emotional result) will be to one's long deliberated conscious evaluation of the same data.

In the end, as in the case with "Freedom", I decided that the degree of complexity concerning happiness detailed in these annotations was both unnecessary and would unduly burden the average executor of the Natural Social Contract. I expect that most readers, whose eyes may be glazed over by this point (if they have even got this far), will heartily concur! :-)

13) The definition of "Lifetime Happiness", on which I settled, has another problem not related to the complexity issues just discussed. Many people may not be prepared to accept that the goal of their life is to maximize the accumulation of their individual happiness (even as evaluated solely by each of them for himself) over their lifetime even though they do understand and agree that their goal is always to effect the highest happiness that they can in the immediate future. However, since few of those same people will be willing to be solely hedonistic in the sense of not being at all concerned with the happiness of "next week", I think that with contemplation, most will agree that, suitably discounted to the present because of the risk that in may never happen (because his life might end, he may change his mind or something else may prevent its occurence), working toward and then experiencing future happiness is just as important as is experiencing present happiness. Therefore, the accumulation of Lifetime Happiness must actually be what each Adult seeks to maximize.

v. An Adult is an Individual who has achieved his human potential for self-awareness, introspection, abstraction, thought, evaluation and action all of which enables him to determine both the current state of his happiness and those choices among his Possible Actions which he evaluates are likely to increase his happiness most or decrease it least, thereby maximizing his Lifetime Happiness. Also Adulthood.

14) As in the Declaration of Individual Independence (DOII), this Natural Social Contract is designed to be executed by Adults - those humans who are sufficiently advanced in their essential human attributes of "self-awareness, introspection, abstraction, thought, evaluation and action" that they are fully using these to promote their lives. The use of the adjective "essential" to describe these human attributes relates to the fact that they are distinguishing characteristics between homo sapiens and other species. While many other species have these characteristics to some degree, some few probably even have them to a moderate degree (eg. porpoises and apes), and, if one considers the evolutionary record, the ancestors of humans must have had these characteristics at all levels up to those in current humans, humans exhibit these characteristics to a far greater extent than any other species among those extant on Earth.

As in the DOII, the term "Adult" makes no specification of age. All that it requires is that a person possesses the characteristics of "self-awareness, introspection, abstraction, thought, evaluation and action". Furthermore, it is assumed that a decision to execute the DOII and this Natural Social Contract is evidence of such Adulthood. There will be some humans who are ready, willing and able to do this at a very early age and there will be others who are never ready, willing or able. As time progresses and the concepts necessary for these actions and the advantages incurred by them get better understood and disseminated among people, it is expected that the number of those who do not execute such documents will drop practically to zero. As is made clear by stipulations within the Natural Social Contract, this empirical fact of Adulthood is not practically open to fraud because it requires certain responsibilities that, if not met, in effect result in the loss of such de facto status (of being a Freeman). This potential problem will also be minimized by the practice of Freeman to inspect the personal Identifying Information that each Freeman is required to make accurately and verifiably available, before interacting with him. Thus, the ease of any Individual prematurely or inappropriately declaring himself an Adult and, after executing the DOII and the Natural Social Contract, becoming a Freeman, is a naturally self-limiting and self-correcting problem.

15) It should be noted that all of the terms "self-awareness", "introspection", "abstraction", "thought", "evaluation" and even "action" are the source of disputes within philosophical circles concerning their meaning, their importance and even their existence as aspects of human behavior. Still most people, and even significant numbers of those philosophers who examine the world from a practical point of view, agree that the concepts named by these terms do meaningfully signify such important aspects. I have chosen to not elaborate more on these concepts here, but instead to accept the meanings of the terms as they are currently defined in generally accepted dictionaries, which meanings I think are reasonable and useful.

vi. Rational Choice means the goal and intent of a Possible Action which goal and intent an Adult decides will increase most or decrease least his Lifetime Happiness.

16) There is much dispute in philosophical circles over the term "rational"; both with respect to its meaning and whether it is even possible for any human choice to be either rational or irrational. Some philosophers argue that "rational" has no valid meaning, some argue that it has, but that humans always act rationally, and still others argue that it has a meaning but such behavior is not possible for any human. I will therefore state clearly at the outset that I think "rational" is a meaningful description of behavior that occurs for all humans some of the time, for some humans most of the time, but not all of the time for any human. This last follows from the fact that no human is omniscient. By "rational", as with the standard dictionary definition, I mean applying reason and logical processing in a sane and lucid manner to knowledge and abstractions within the mind in order to arrive at a conclusion, a choice and an action that has the best possible chance to maximize his lifetime happiness. That some people do act rationally some of the time follows from the fact that they remain alive and, since for a human maintenance of life cannot be achieved by instinct alone, staying alive requires that a person use his mind for productive decision making (ie. to efficiently gain ends - something that can only be done by using reason and logic). However, since a few people most of the time and many people some of the time do not either logically process information or act in a mentally sane and lucid manner, but instead act on unfocused whim in a manner little different from that of any "lower" lifeform, I do not agree that all human conduct is necessarily "rational"5a. Furthermore, almost all people some of the time practice evasion of certain information either consciously or subconsciously (often by "trained" habit) and, thus, do not act rationally because they do not use all the information that is actually available to them. And yes, it could be argued that this information is not actually "available" to them and that they are making a Rational Choice within the context of their Possible Actions. However, I think this argument is specious and simply serves to excuse as acceptable, habits, attitudes and behaviors that are inherently irrational because they are not conducive to the generation of maximum Lifetime Happiness - certainly not in the sense of being beneficial over the long run, in any reasonable sense, to the Person of the human who uses them.

In order to fully validate the concept of "Rational Choice", it is necessary to specify a method for deciding whether or not a given person's choice, and consequent action in accord with that choice, is "rational" or not. Thus, I must specify how, when and by whom this is to be decided! I will state right off that even though I argue that the term "rational" as a description of a particular human action can be given a valid meaning that differentiates such action from many other available actions (that are irrational), I do not agree that this distinction can be decided with any finality at any time during the life of the acting individual either within the mind of the actor himself or externally by others. Such a judgement can ultimately only be determined - by the objective results of the action in question upon the acting individual, all of which results continue to unfold in time, only bounded by his death5b. Others may think, judge and even discriminate against a human because of an action that currently appears irrational. However, in the end, only the Individual who acts can be the final arbiter, because only he has to live with the consequences (unless such action Violates another human causing Unrestitutable harm). If an Individual is trying to be rational (ie. trying to maximize his Lifetime Happiness), however, he will perceive that his action appears to not actually have had the desired (beneficial to him) effect, and he will then do the necessary self-analysis to see why the action turned out to be irrational (if that was indeed the reason why the action was not successful in its goal) or why it otherwise failed, and how that might be corrected in the future. Nevertheless, in spite of the subjectivity of any instantaneous or even less than lifespan (his) attempt to describe a given human's actions as rational or irrational, any successful science of human conduct must distinguish between such actions. To not be able to state a priori of its final determination by reality whether or not a human action is rational is little different than to not be able to state a priori of its final determination by the free market what is the value of any good or service. One must make a decision and choose simply because one must act within a limited amount of time in order to maximize one's lifetime happiness. The rationality of an action can only be determined by its effects on reality (including other humans), just as market values can only be determined by human actions relating to the good or service in question. Thus, Rational Choices may be seen as "internal services", which when translated into action produce value, some of which only becomes apparent as it benefits the person over time. In that sense, rationality may also be seen as a part of the measure of the value of an action, so that instead of merely rational or irrational, all human actions are more correctly seen as, ultimately, more or less rational.

vii. A Self-Sovereign Individual is an Adult who has signed and published an Acceptable Declaration of Self-Sovereignty (of which Appendix B is an example) and an Acceptable Social Contract of which he is not in Breach, both of which are Searchably Linked with his Identifying Information on a Universal Communications Network. An Acceptable Declaration of Self-Sovereignty includes, at the least, text similar to that of Appendix A (or a faithful translation of that text to another language). For the meaning of Acceptable Social Contract see Section D of this Agreement. For brevity hereafter in this Agreement the term Freeman will be used in place of Self-Sovereign Individual. A Social Imperative is a required action of this Agreement, the non-fulfillment of which within a time stipulated herein is grounds for a Charge of Breach of this Agreement and for the potential Revocation (forced termination of the Agreement by a Trial) of the status of Freeman with respect to this Agreement. A non-Freeman is any Human who is not a Freeman. Also Unacceptable Social Contract, Freemen, non-Freemen, Revoked.

17) It is of paramount importance to ensure the optimality and stability of social order created by the Natural Social Contract that all Freemen be completely open with respect to all information relating to their conduct under this Natural Social Contract and the conduct of their lives in general. Only such personal openness and lack of what is currently called "personal privacy" will sufficiently enable that the necessary level of discrimination and judgement by each Freeman is brought to bear on each other Freeman both before and after initiating contact with him. This kind of evaluation concerning how well a given Freeman is adhering to the social meta-needs is just the kind of discriminatory judgement that is required to allow any social order to be fully self-sustaining - ie. to make it work in a practical manner! Such discriminatory judgement by all of all enables and promotes the kinds of social incentives, rewards, disincentives, ratings and preferencings (weak and individualized forms of ostracism) that are generally lacking in our present society (because of the penchant for total tolerance and privacy), and that could so easily and ideally be accomplished by means of the Internet (UCN).

Another way to view what is needed here and to understand why it is so very important, is in terms of the fluidity of market evaluative mechanisms. It is well known that free market exchanges work best when each participant has the most possible information available on which to base his individual subjective evaluations of goods and services before making his buying choices and actions. For the same reasons and to the same extent, the marketplace of interpersonal relationship "exchanges" will work best when each participant has the maximum possible information available with which to make his own subjective evaluations of the worth of the various attributes of other participants in that relationship marketplace - when the relationship "trader" has the most possible information with which to make his judging and choosing decisions concerning with whom he wishes to establish a relationship and to trade personal attribute values (ie. to interact with).

18) Although I have attempted to make the definitions within the Natural Social Contract general enough that they will apply to many cultural notions of what are correct principles of "justice" in human interrelationships (so that other social contracts could use the same definitions), I am well aware that such cultural differences may require major changes from the social arrangements that are detailed in this Natural Social Contract. From this consideration arose the need to decide how to deal with such humans who have a very different view of their own social meta-needs and wish to adhere to highly different principles of social order. I have "resolved" this conflict (in a weak sense of "resolve") by defining and using the concept of the "interacceptability" of different social contracts. Ultimately what my "solution" means is that people operating under unacceptably different social contracts will generally not deal with each other. However, this does not prevent any Freeman under this Natural Social Contract from individually becoming an executioner of any other unacceptable (to this one) social contract by means of which he can deal with members of this other group. In this manner such people can be "go-betweens" for the different cultures. Since in my system all useful property will be privately Owned (after all, there is no government to own it and if Unowned and useful it will soon be claimed and Registered), this method provides a full solution to the idea of "competing" (in this case mutually unacceptable) social contracts. In an attempt to allow as many other social contract and declaration of self-sovereignty forms as possible to be "acceptable", I have held the Stipulations that they must contain to an absolute minimum - those that express the essential social order generating elements of the Declaration of Individual Independence and the Natural Social Contract documents that I have written for the Self-Sovereign Individual Project.

19) Just as with any other Valid Contract, the Natural Social Contract can be Breached and upon validation of such Breach by a Trial, the Breaching Individual will lose his status as a Freeman. For how Freemen are to deal with non-Freemen, particularly when some are still part of a government ruled system of social order, see Section C and the annotations related to it.

viii. An Individual is Connected with any Existent that is within the boundaries of his Possessions or of which he is aware either through direct sensory contact or via some communications medium. An Involved Individual is the Individual or the Guardian of a Dependent, who is Connected with a Freeman with respect to some Event (the Involvement).

20) A major characteristic of the social ordering system presented here is that all social meta-needs occur within the context of Individuals who are "locally" relating to various elements of reality including other Individuals. Just as is true for choices, so also matter, energy and information with which an Individual is not Connected are, in reality, unavailable to him. Except that an Individual's Connection to his Possessions is part of his Property Entitlement to them which connection would be made specific by actually Registering them, there are no "global" Connections with reality. In the same way, there are also no global Violations (Violations of every human), except that a Breach of the Natural Social Contract itself is effectively a Violation against every other Freeman, since each is a Party to that Contract. I have incorporated this idea of "locality" into the Natural Social Contract in many ways, but the idea of the Individual's need to be Connected with something before it can affect him is basic to them all. Note that the concept and statement of the locality of Connections does not deny the possibility that the actions of an Individual can have effects on many other humans and even, potentially and eventually, on every other human who will ever exist. These would all be "ripple effects" of local Connections continuing to be made into the future. What is imperative, however, is that each of these effects be analyzed in the context of its separate effect on each human - who is the Effective Cause, whether the Event is a Violation, and thus, whether and how much Restitution is owed to the Victim by the Violator. And that is why the concept and application of the local Connectivity of the Individual is so critical. Finally, while a Connection may persist into the future through memories, such a Connection cannot be Violated if an actual (not either memory or imagined) Connection (necessary for possibile for benefit) is no longer possible, and no Connection can be extended from its inception into the past. For a discussion of some aspects of Connectedness, see the Yahoo Morelife discussion thread: Msg 727.

ix. An action of an Individual is the Effective Cause of some Event-A, if the action was the last Individual action that was a cause of Event-A and some pure chance Event-B could have caused that action to cause the Event-A. Also Effectively Caused.

21) Many prior Events contribute to any given Event and are causes of it to some extent either sequentially or coincidentally, at least in the sense that if they had not occurred, then that Event would also not have happened exactly as it did. While it often appears that some prior Events are more important or essential contributing causes than others, there seems to be no general logical method of specifying the primacy of one such causal Event over another. Nevertheless, when one or more prior Individual actions are causes of some Event that results in harm to another Individual, it is of paramount importance to have a method by which to determine which of the prior human actions (if any) are responsible for the harm. The definition of Effective Cause given here attempts to specify such a method of assigning Individual responsibility for an Event, a component of which is harm to one or more Individuals. The reason why such an assignment of responsibility is possible may be found in the ability of a human to use his reason and conscious awareness to ascertain and estimate the likelihood of the possible results of all his actions. This ability to so ascertain and estimate implies the responsibility to do so in order to maximize one's Lifetime Happiness and the theory of Social Meta-Needs shows that such personal maximization of lifetime happiness necessarily implies the concommitant social responsibility. In effect, such social responsibility is a natural restriction and limitation on the Freedom of any Individual seeking to maximize his lifetime happiness. Maximizing one's Lifetime Happiness is a constant task of benefit/cost evaluation for every action that one takes. The method of specification of Effective Cause that works in general is to assign the Effective Cause of some Event to the Individual who is the last actor in one of the Events causal chains for which the action itself had the potential to cause the harm that was caused. The reason this works is because he is the last person such that if he had not chosen as he did the harm would not have occurred. Therefore, I have defined Effective Cause in such a manner that it captures that responsibility. For more detail and another look at this issue see the definition of Adequate Control. For a discussion of some aspects of Effective Cause, see the Yahoo Morelife discussion threads: Msg 741, Msg 748 and Msg 781.

x. A Culpable Harm to an Individual-A by another Individual-B is an Event Effectively Caused by Individual-B which Individual-A judges to have resulted in: a) a reduction of the value to him of an Existent to which he is Connected, b) a reduction of the number or scope of his Possible Actions; except when Individual-A is in the act of Violating Individual-B, or Individual-B has Entitlement, Privilege or Permission by Individual-A, to act as he did. A Defensible Threat to an Individual-A is any action by another Individual-B which Individual-A judges is likely to be the Effective Cause of Culpable Harm to him.

22) The definition of Culpable Harm has three major novel differences from any current notions of "culpability" and "harm" which are of critical importance to its understanding and application. The first important aspect of this definition is that Culpable Harm is an Event, something that is objectively verifiable. This is of critical importance in separating the harmful action from the judgement of resulting harm. This separation of Culpable Harm from the harmed Individual is critical for allowing any objective judgement of the occurence of Culpable Harm as opposed to its magnitude, which can only be subjectively judged by the harmed Individual. The second important aspect of this definition is that Culpable Harm can only exist within an Equity Relationship - it is not something that can occur outside of an interpersonal relationship nor that relates to society as a whole. This placing of Culpable Harm clearly in the context of an interpersonal relationship is critical to any clear and objective determination of the requirements of justice (ie. the restoration of earned value), because it shows that only the Involved Individuals have any direct "interest in" (the state of having one's well-being affected by) the Culpable Harm Event. The third critical aspect of the definition of Culpable Harm is that the amount of harm, but not the occurrence of the Culpable Harm Event, can only be judged by the person who is harmed. This follows from the existential fact that only he experiences that harm and only he can access his value structure (weighting of his happiness vector components) to correctly estimate the subjective value of the harm done.

I originally had defined also a more general term "Harm" as: any event which temporarily or permanently reduces the value of one or more aspects of an Individual's happiness, thereby also reducing his Lifetime Happiness. The general term "Threat" would have then meant anything which an Individual perceives to have a risk of harm to him. While these definitions may be useful in general, and are close to the vernacular meanings of these words, I decided that with respect to an Individual's purely social meta-needs the general concepts of harm and threat were outside of the pervue of the Natural Social Contract and that only Culpable Harm and Defensible Threat as relating to human Effective Cause were relevant and needed.

23) The definition of Culpable Harm specifies only two fundamental ways in which a Culpable Harm Event can be evaluated as harm by an Individual. The first is by some "reduction of the value to him of an Existent to which he is Connected". In the definition of "Existent", I assumed that reality is composed of "matter, energy, information (structure and form), space and combinations of these including all attributes and emergent properties of these combinations". I have not included any possibility of a reduction of value of Real Estate per se (apart from Existents within its boundaries) because I cannot imagine how a given volume of space itself can have its "value" reduced, since its value is dependent entirely on the locations and conditions of its boundaries. On the other hand, as opposed to space, time is quite another story, since time passes away irreplacably and all event transformations (including happiness) require time for their occurence. A human would certainly have "time" reduced in value (in effect stolen from him) if he could be involuntarily directly transported into the future, since the time between now and then would forever be denied to him as time during which he could experience happiness. In more practical terms, however, one might say that an Individual's time is reduced in value if his choice of Possible Actions during some period of time is involuntarily reduced, or has his evalutions of such choices are negatively altered by a Defensible Threat.

This reasoning leads to the second fundamental way in which a Culpable Harm Event can be evaluated as harm by an Individual, and without any direct reference to time - he may judge it to be "a reduction of the number or scope of his Possible Actions". This analysis shows that it is not the actual time that is stolen, but that the harm follows from a reduction or negativity of alteration of the Individual's Possible Actions, which is why the Culpable Harm Event is described in that way. This analysis also shows that the amount of harm reasonably judged by an Individual is the potential value of those missing or negatively altered Possible Actions that were Possible Choices for him. It is important to note as before, that the Individual's thoughts are included within the totality of his Possible Actions.

24) It is with respect to both Existents and Possible Actions that the notion of "Connected" defined previously is so important. This is because both any reasonable notion of harm to Existents and negative alteration of all one's Possible Actions can only involve those Existents to which one is Connected. I am making an assumption that the only manner in which an Individual's happiness can be reduced is by means of the reduction of the value to him of some matter, energy, information or scope of choices to which he is Connected, because I cannot imagine any other way in which any reasonable human would think that he had been harmed. Note that I am not precluding the situation where the knowledge of Culpable Harm does not occur until long after the Effective Cause of the harm as long as the Person of the Individual or an Existent to which he currently has a Property Entitlement was harmed. I am not even requiring that the Individual who is harmed ever actually knows what exactly is the Effective Cause of the harm - a Connection may come into existence only after the harm is detected. For this reason, there is no specified time nor Ownership change limit on responsibility for Restitution for Culpable Harm! Note once again that my only exception to the detectability criterion is that an Individual is Connected with all aspects of his Possessions by Entitlement, whether he is aware of them (the Connection) or not. However, also note that Connection is not retroactive merely for the purposes of assessing that Culpable Harm was done. Therefore, if an Individual-A was not aware of the existence of some other Individual-B or Existent-B until after the Culpable Harm Event against Individual-B or Existent-B occurred (perhaps as a result of publicity surrounding it), he cannot make any case for Culpable Harm to himself.

25) Note that "invasion" of privacy per se is not an instance of Culpable Harm (what Existent does it devalue or Possible Actions does it alter?) although, depending on circumstances, it may be a Defensible Threat. Privacy is in the category of ways in which one Individual can be isolated from others. Every Individual can attempt to be isolated if he wishes, but any other Individual can also take action to ascertain information about the isolated Individual - ie. to end that isolation - as long as this action does not Violate the other. Any action to continue such isolation other than a purely Protective measure, will necessarily be a Violation of the Individual who is non-Violatingly trying to end the isolation. In fact, the moment that one Individual-A interacts with another Individual-B, "A" automatically ends his isolation because that interaction necessarily allows "B" to find out additional information about "A", and thus "A" reliquishes some of his privacy. If an action by Individual-B that happens to reduce the privacy of Individual-A is also the Effective Cause of Culpable Harm to Individual-A, that is quite separate from the reduction of privacy itself. Moreover, the Property Entitlement to Real Estate includes the Entitlement to Evict Trespassers, which is certainly one method of Protecting your privacy. This Entitlement to Eviction is why the definition of Culpable Harm has to exclude the initiation of whatever action is required to effect the Eviction. (Part of the first exception in the definition since Trespass is one of the defined Violations.) This exception is necessary in order for Property Entitlement to Real Estate to have any effective meaning.

26) Within the definition of Culpable Harm are listed two types of situations for which an Event that an Individual judges to be harm is excepted from being considered to be Culpable Harm. The first is the necessary action of Defense by one Individual against Culpable Harm from another. The second and third exceptions (when the harming Individual is repelling a Trespasser or recovering his Stolen Property) are an extension of the Property Entitlement to Real Estate and Ownership/Possession. The fourth is because Individual-B has an Entitlement to be the Effective Cause of the Event in question because of his Self-Sovereignty, his Ownership, Possession or Control of some Existent or as a consequence of the Terms of a Permission or the Stipulations of Valid Contract until such are Withdrawn or terminated, respectively. All such exceptions are the result of Entitlements of one form or another and I can conceive of no others. If someone thinks of others, then please let me know and if I agree then I will include them.

27) There is a major variation here from what generally exists under current state or common law systems, which should be noted. Under this Natural Social Contract, an Individual may seek Restitution for harm that results from an Event caused to another human or an Existent in which he has no financial interest or Property Entitlement. However, this only applies when the harming Event was Effectively Caused by someone who did not in turn have the Entitlement to act as he did. This leads to a situation where if some highly valued Individual is Violated or some highly valued Existent is harmed, many others beside the Violated Individual or the Owner of the Existent may also seek Restitution from the Alleged Violator for their loss. On the other hand, if that Individual or the Owner/Possessor of that Existent did the exact same thing to himself or the Existent, since that action is their Entitlement, no Restitution may be sought by other Individuals even though they were Connected and did in fact suffer harm - ie it would not be a Culpable Harm.

xi. An Agent is an Individual-A who acts in the place of another Individual-B according to Individual-B's intentions and purposes either as instructed by Individual-B or as best that Individual-A can determine those purposes. A Culpable Agent is an Individual (whether an Agent or not) who bears ultimate responsibility for all of his Possible Actions which are taken - especially all Violations. A Perpetual Agent is an arrangement by which a Culpable Agent with respect to certain obligations will exist as long as those obligations exist.

28) There should be no limitation on assigning any of your entitlements and responsibilities to Agents who are also Freemen. However, such Agents do not gain any special privileges under this Agreement by such assignment, except those Privileges relating to a Peonage Enjoinder. The responsibility of an Agent for his actions as a Freeman under the Natural Social Contract is not changed in any manner by acting as an Agent - he is still a fully Culpable Agent. For this reason, any reasonable Agent will likely require some form of Valid Contract with his client stating that the client will in turn be responsible to pay any Restitution which is incurred by the Agent in performance of actions on the client's behalf (usually termed an indemnification Contract). In turn, any client needs to be very careful about giving such a "blank check" of entitlement or responsibility to an Agent. This problem of mutual trust will likely be resolved by the Agent having demonstrated in the past great wisdom and sensitivity about handling various situations, and possibly by Agents having themselves insured against liability for Restitution. All such details are clearly matters which the free market of services will work out to the benefit of everyone involved once a structure of social meta-needs is in place to guide it.

Generally, an Individual must convey a clear Voluntary direction to someone before that Individual can act as his Agent. However, there are times when an Individual may be in danger and incapable of making such a direction. Therefore, a Freeman may unilaterally decide to be the Agent of any Individual. However in doing so, as always, the Freeman takes all responsibility for his actions - ie. the Freeman is a Culpable Agent. If after the events have reached a point where the Individual is again capable of volitional decision, he agrees that the actions of the Freemen were what he would have asked for if he had been able, then the Freeman was retroactively the Agent of the Individual all the time. However if at that time, the Individual states that the Freeman acted against his wishes and if the Freeman actually did him harm, then the Freeman was not his Agent and has done Culpable Harm to the Individual who he thought he was helping. In summary, although he may gain value, a Freeman gains no privileges under this Natural Social Contract by acting as an Agent and always bears full responsibility for his actions and those of his Dependents whether those actions are beneficial, harmful or even Violations.

29) Since there are no such things as collective or otherwise fictitious entities which act volitionally, all Equity Relationships must be between Individuals. Therefore, in order for the obligations of an Individual under a Valid Contract or Covenant to be able to continue for the natural duration of the purposes for which they were made, a method of such continuation is required. This is the purpose of the idea of Perpetual Agent. A simple example of a Perpetual Agent is the Owner of Real Estate with respect to a Covenant on the Real Estate. In this case, each Owner is the Perpetual Agent of the first Owner who made the Covenant. In this manner his purchase of the Real Estate both gains him its benefits and commits him to the obligations of all its Covenant.

xii. Individual-A is said to be under Duress from Individual-B when there is a Defensible Threat to Individual-A, Effectively Caused by Individual-B who is not under Duress from Individual-A or his Agents. Voluntary means not under Duress. A Voluntary Relationship is any relationship among Individuals where none is under Duress from any of the others within the relationship or from their Agents. Also Voluntarily, Involuntary.

30) Given the previous definitions of Threat and Effective Cause, this definition of Duress follows quite reasonably. It is important to note that Duress only relates to actions within a particular relationship. Even though Individual-A in a relationship with Individual-B, may be under Duress from some Individual-C outside of the particular relationship, that Duress has no bearing on the Voluntary status of Individual-A's actions within the relationship with Individual-B.

xiii. A Valid Contract (also just Contract) is a recorded manifest mutual understanding among Individuals who are in a Voluntary Relationship or is a Restitution Requirement or Peonage Enjoinder: a) wherein each receives Consideration, b) which does not require any Party to Breach this Agreement, c) which contains Arbitration Clauses, and d) which contains clauses specifying some method by which each Party may terminate his Involvement in the Contract. The mutual understanding is said to be Stipulated in the Contract, however recorded, and the Individuals who execute the Contract are said to be Parties to it. An Individual is in Breach of a Valid Contract to which he is a Party when he is not acting in accord with its Stipulations, unless only certain Stipulations are specified as being mandatory. Consideration is some right, interest, profit or benefit accruing to, or some forbearance, detriment, loss or responsibility given, suffered or undertaken by each Party to a Valid Contract.6 Arbitration Clauses are one or more Stipulations in a Valid Contract which create a method by which, for the duration of the Valid Contract, there will exist an Individual or group of Individuals (the Arbitrator(s)) who may Attest the initial Valid Contract execution and will Mediate disputes between the Parties to the Valid Contract according to methods also Stipulated in the Valid Contract. An Attestor is an Individual, who is not a Party to a Valid Contract (accept possibly as Arbitrator), who verifies the authenticity of the Identifying Information and execution date of a Party who executes the Valid Contract. Also Breached and Unbreached, Stipulations, Attest.

31) Although in the history of civilization verbal unrecorded contracts have generally been accepted as reasonable and binding, this has very often led to unresolved disputes and conflicts because of the lack of any objective means to verify just what the understanding was. Because of this, particularly with the complexity of current life and with the relative ease of access to recorded media, it is past time that this acceptance of the validity of unrecorded contracts should be altered. Therefore, this Natural Social Contract requires that all Valid Contracts be recorded in one form or another so that an objective record of what was actually agreed is available.

32) It is a principle in common law that some Consideration must be forthcoming from each Party to a Contract before it is binding and valid. It is a principle which promotes mutual responsibility to adhere to agreements and thus, appears necessary for an optimal set of social meta-needs. That is why Consideration has been made a mandatory part of any Valid Contract under this Agreement.

33) The potential problem of agreements for Violatory purposes is neatly resolved by simply declaring that these are not Valid Contracts and are, thus, not enforceable under this Agreement. In point of fact, their prohibition is even stronger than that since if any Freeman were to sign one (as the purchased Violator) then he would ipso facto be stating his intention to Violate and would be subject to Revocation of his Freeman status.

34) While, within current legal systems, contracts are not required to contain termination clauses, once more, the social meta-needs adequate for an optimally functioning society should require that some method of termination be clearly declared in any Valid Contract or else a de facto kind of "enslavement" is the result. The exact nature of the appropriate termination clauses will depend greatly on the nature of the Valid Contract and must be left for the Parties to decide.

35) Another extremely important part of every Valid Contract should be an Arbitrator. When the Contract is being setup is the time when the Parties are always "agreeable". The time of Contract initiation is therefore the best time for the Parties to decide on the contents of Arbitration Clauses. Not only will the Arbitration arrangement need to be for the duration of the Contract, but the method by which Arbitration decisions are made should be specified in the Contract. In addition, any reasonable Arbitrator will also seek to ensure that each of the Parties and he have the exact same understanding of the meaning of the Contract terms including the entitlements and responsibilities of each Party before the Contract is executed. If such reasonable practices are adhered to, then there will be far fewer wrangling disputes between Freemen and far greater benefit for all Freemen. In this manner, most Contract disputes will be resolved without the necessity of a Trial. In fact if the Arbitration clauses are well done, the ruling of the Arbitrator could in most cases be effectively binding, since a non-obeying Party could otherwise be Charged with Breach of this Agreement because any such Party would be intending to Breach a Valid Contract. Only in the case where the Arbitrator himself is Charged with a Violation of the Arbitration Clauses might a Trial be necessary. The Arbitrator would also generally serve as Attestor to execution of the Contract.

xiv. An Entitlement of a Party-A to a Valid Contract is a set of Stipulations of that Contract that specify certain Events of which Party-A is the Effective Cause, and that Permit such Events to not be Violations of the Permitting Party-B. A Global Entitlement is an Entitlement which is Permitted by all executors of Acceptable Social Contracts. A Local Entitlement is an Entitlement which is Permitted by fewer than all executors of Acceptable Social Contracts. An Entitled Individual is an Individual who holds an Entitlement. A Property Entitlement (also just Title) is a special kind of Entitlement related to Property, which contains a set of Stipulations in one or more Valid Contracts concerning the Possible Actions of the Owner(s) with respect to Owned Property and/or of the Possessor(s) with respect to Possessed Property. A Deed of Entitlement is a specialized Valid Contract which contains a description of the Property, includes the obligations and Permissions of the Owners and/or Possessors and may contain Covenants all with respect to the Property involved. The Ownership and/or Possession of Property may be Registered by publishing its Deed of Entitlement on a Universal Communications Network. Also Registering, Registration.

36) Since Existents can be used to harm others, the Property Entitlement to an Existent cannot be completely unconditional, but must conform to the social meta-needs. But this is not any reduction of the Liberty of any Freeman because all Rational Choics are still available to him. As with other documents which it is beneficial to be made known to other Freemen, the Ownership of something may be Registered as a Property Entitlement Searchably Linked to the Owner. In addition, it is also possible and may sometimes be useful to Register an Unowned Possession, especially if that Possession is the object of a long-term rental or lease Contract. Freemen may also want to Register descriptions of Owned items which are precious to them or which are simply a major part of their total assets. Publishing a Deed of Entitlement may be particularly important when something is co-Owned and thus the terms of co-Ownership need to be clearly understood by many. Although simply having these co-Ownership arrangements written in a Valid Contract may well be sufficient. For example, Registration may be desired for a co-Owned vehicle which is often far away from one of the Owners.

xv. Possession is the state of Existents of being juxtaposed to, enclosed by or held within the boundaries of the Person of an Individual or other of his Possessions; or the state of Real Estate of being Owned or for which Possession has been Permitted. A Possessor of an Existent is an Individual who has it in his Possession. Exclusive Possession means that a Possessor is the only Human who has Possession. Entitled Possession means that a Possessor is an Owner or has acquired Possession by means of a Valid Contract. Also Possessed.

37) The idea of "Possession" was a difficult concept for me to nail down. Yet I needed to do so because it is critical to any delineation of gain and loss of Ownership. As I see it "Possession" is a kind of "intimate" or "strong" Connection between an Individual and an Existent which enables him to have some Control of that Existent that others do not have. The ultimate Property Entitlement to Possession of any Object or pure information is coincident with establishment of its Ownership. Of course, the strongest Connection of all is the identity of an Individual with his Person of which he can never relinquish Possession without ceasing to exist either partially or fully. However, for all Existents external to the Person, Possession may either permanently or temporarily be completely relinquished by the Owner to another Individual by Stipulating his Property Entitlement with respect to it under a Valid Contract. Even for one's Person some of the Entitlements of Possession can be relinquished to another by means of a Valid Contract. In fact, this should be done whenever one needs or wishes to Permit another Individual to have direct access to one's Person. Note that Possession does not necessarily imply a knowledge of something sufficient to actually Control any of its major functions (think of a savage "Possessing" a notebook computer). In addition, an Individual in Possession of something need not be its Owner (think of renting things) even though he may be the Owner of things which are within something of which he is only the Possessor. Thus, the critical aspects of Possession are the proximity of the Possession to the Possessor, Entitlement to its Possession, or for Real Estate, its Ownership with Property Entitlement to Possession not having been assigned to another Individual. An Individual is still in Possession of either rented or Owned Real Estate and its contents when he is remote from it. While technically not Possessing Owned or previously Possessed Objects, when he is remote from them, an Individual still has Property Entitlement to Possession so long as he has not Abandoned them or Voluntarily Transferred them, just as he has Property Entitlement to Possession of anything which is Stolen from him. Originally, I had also included within the meaning of Possession, the ability to still exercise "effective control" over it, but I removed that for the reasons stated in the next comment.

xvi. Control means that an Individual is able to take Possible Actions which direct the operation and effects of some Existent. A Controller of an Existent is an Individual who has it fully or partly under his Control. Exclusive Control means that a Controller is the only Human who has any Control. Entitled Control means that a Controller is an Owner or Possessor or has acquired Control by means of a Valid Contract. Adequate Control means that the Possible Actions of an Individual who is in Possession or Control of the Existent are sufficient to prevent any effect of the Existent from being the Effective Cause of a Violation with respect to any Individual.

38) With respect to the social meta-needs of Freemen, there are two essential aspects of "Control". The first relates to the Entitlement of Control and the harm done to the Possessor/Controller by the loss of the Control. The second relates to the potential for harm to a human who is an "innocent bystander" (ie. not the Possessor/Controller) by something which is not sufficiently Controled. The latter is the reason for the subcategory of Control that I have named "Adequate Control". Other forms of Control may affect the Possessor, and loss of them may affect the personal welfare or the social meta-needs of the Possessor/Controller, but only lack of Adequate Control can be an Effective Cause of Culpable Harm or Duress, and therefore, affect the social meta-needs of other Freemen.

Possession or Control even without Possession is the necessary precondition for causing Culpable Harm or Duress through lack of Adequate Control. Since the act of Possession and Control is volitional, the lack of knowledge of how to Control an Existent does not absolve an Individual for responsibility for Adequate Control - ie. the Possessor/Controller is still the Culpable Agent. However, to the extent the Possession or Control is not due to the Individual's action, but instead due to the action of another Individual, the former is not the Culpable Agent. A very clear example of this would be if some very strong Individual took hold of my arm and used it to beat against someone else. I would still be the Possessor of the arm (although at the time, so would he also!), but would not have Control over it. He would in fact be the one with Control, and thus, he should be culpable for the damage my arm did, not I. Another way of looking at this, is that with respect to the Event that occurred, my choice of Possible Actions played no part. Note that this is very different than if I was ordered at gunpoint to damage someone else. In that case I could have chosen not to cause the Culpable Harm. It was still in my scope of Possible Actions. In the latter situation, I would still be responsible for full Restitution for the Culpable Harm done, but then in turn I would Charge the Individual who threatened me sufficiently to make me do the Culpable Harm and would attempt to recover more than enough from him to pay my Restitution to the Individual harmed.

xvii. Ownership is the Global Entitlement to hold a Property Entitlement of Possession and Control for a clearly specified type and amount of an Existent, except a Human, granted to a particular Individual who has acquired such Ownership in accord with Acceptable Methods until such time as the Property Entitlement is reassigned by Voluntary Transfer or the Existent is Abandoned (see section A.2. below). Such an Entitled Individual is called an Owner and is said to Own the Existent. Unowned means not Owned. co-Ownership arises when two or more Individuals have Ownership of the same Existent. Also co-Owned, co-Owner.

39) This definition establishes Ownership not a "right" as so most natural rights philosophers have insisted it should be, but instead as an Entitlement. However, a correctly structured Property Entitlement to the Ownership of something (as accomplished by this Natural Social Contract) acquired by Acceptable Methods, does not detract from the Liberty nor any other social meta-needs of anyone else. For details of how and why this is so, the reader is directed to the clauses of Section A.

The Person (body and mind) of an Individual could well be classified as something which he Owns - certainly no one else can Own them. However, because of the special nature of the Person as being synonymous with the Individual himself and without which the Individual cannot exist, there is an essential distinction between the Person and those Existents to which the Individual has a Property Entitlement. An Individual's Entitlement to his Person is both stronger and different in kind to Ownership, since it is a true Existent and the only one which would cause his immediate non-existence if it were removed from him. For this reason, the concept of Ownership is without valid meaning and is counterproductive when applied to an Individual. Instead, where the term "self-owner" might have been used, I have chosen to use "self-master".

xviii. Trespass is the state of an Individual-A who has effectively caused the removal or addition of any Possession, or the alteration of the Control of any Existent by an Individual-B without the Permission of Individual-B. Eviction is the Entitlement of the Owner or the Entitled Possessor or Entitled Controller of Property to initiate sufficient force required to terminate the Trespass. Also Trespassing, Trespasser, Trespassed, Evict, Evictor.

40) "Trespass" was another difficult idea to nail down, particularly with respect to the ways in which it causes harm. Even though it is sometimes applied to other lifeforms, the notion of Trespass used in this Natural Social Contract applies only to acts of humans. Although at first thought the manner in which Trespass per se (ie. merely the location within) can be the cause of any harm (since it alone does not reduce the value of any Existent to anyone nor does it reduce anyone's Liberty unless the Owner/Possessor is aware of the Trespass) is not clear, the Property Entitlement to Possession is so important to his Lifetime Happiness that a Possessor ought to be able to exclude any other human (or any of that human's Possessions) from being within the boundaries of his Possessions unless that human has been given prior Permission. On the other hand, I personally see no reason for excluding a Trespasser and I would never seek Restitution for any Trespass per se, ie. given that the trespasser causes no real harm. In addition, it is possible to include certain clauses within the Registered Deed of Entitlement which would give conditional Permission for Individuals to enter one's Real Estate by certain paths for certain purposes. It is important to note that being within the boundaries with Permission becomes a Violation if the Trespassing Item is not removed when the Possessor of those boundaries so requests of the Individual in Control of the Trespassing Item according to previously established terms of withdrawal of such permission. (With respect to such "terms", see clause A(3)(c).) This is a case where the Entitlement of one Freeman takes precedence over the Liberty of another - the Trespasser is simply not entitled to that particular kind of Possible Action (ie. the Unpermitted location of any portion of his Possessions within the Possessions of another). The most important reason for this is that it is entirely at the discretion of the Possessor to decide whether or not Culpable Harm or Threat is being caused by the Trespasser and how much the Restitution for Culpable Harm should be. Another way to state this might be to think of Trespass as not a Rational Choice action because of the risk that harm might be done. However, the problem with this is that the evaluation of "rational" here depends on the Trespasser (since it is his action) and not on the Possessor being Trespassed. In the end, Trespass is still is a very "thorny" issue of which any solution is not likely to satisfy everyone. However, I think that my solution appears to be flexible enough to allow sufficient alterations (by means of Permissions) to satisfy most people.

41) As if the problems with defining Trespass weren't enough, when I came to "Eviction", I found another major problem. This is because the Trespassing Item or Individual may not have come from an adjoining Possession to which it can be directly Evicted! For example, it may have just been Evicted by someone else from their Real Estate onto my Real Estate, or it may have even fallen from the sky. The solution to the problem was found when I realized that every Real Estate will have to abut some specialized Real Estate into which entry including Evictions are generally Permitted. One could call this an "Egress Real Estate". It is what will need to replace what are currently public rights of way connecting parcels of private Real Estate. For additional details about these issues see the annotations to Stipulation A.3.c. Finally, there is the question of the Withdrawal of Permission to act in a manner which would have been Trespass without the Permission. It would not be correct to immediately turn this into a Trespass. This was solved by the definition of "Withdraw", that I have supplied with the definition of "Permission" and by the Stipulation A.3.d.

xix. Real Estate is a volume of space of which the boundaries, Owner Identifying Information, Possessor Identifying Information and Covenants are specified by the Stipulations within one or more Registered Deeds of Entitlement Searchably Linked with the Identifying Information of each Owner or Possessor. A Covenant is a Stipulation within a Deed of Entitlement specifying certain Permissions and responsibilities (with respect to the Real Estate which remain part of the Deed of Entitlement as a Valid Contract) of each of the Real Estate Owner(s) and/or Possessor(s), as a Perpetual Agent continued through transfer of the Ownership and/or Possession of the Real Estate, and a specified other Party as a Perpetual Agent. If the specified other Party is the Owner and/or Possessor, as a Perpetual Agent, of an abutting piece of Real Estate, then such Covenants will: a) state the responsibilities of each Owner and/or Possessor with respect to the common boundary, b) state the Permissions of each Owner and/or Possessor with respect to the other's Real Estate, or c) place certain limits on the use, sale and transfer Possession of their Real Estate by one or both Owners. If the Covenant relates to a boundary with Unowned Real Estate, then it simply describes the current boundary conditions which the Freeman Registering the Real Estate requires to not be altered by the action of any Individual. If the actions of some non-abutting Real Estate Owner and/or Possessor can affect those boundary conditions, then additional covenants must be concluded with the Owner and/or Possessor, as a Perpetual Agent, of such Real Estate concerning those boundary conditions if more than Trespass is the subject of concern.

42) I have defined "Real Estate" as a mere volume of space to keep it distinct from other Existents which are within the boundaries of that space. This separation has roots in common usage, since land has often been Owned without the Ownership of water, oil, lumber, mineral, trapping and other aspects of the land. In fact, Ownership of land rarely includes complete Ownership of all water which is within its boundaries at any given time. If the Ownership of the space is shared, or if Existents within the boundaries of the Real Estate are not fully Owned then the names of the co-Owners and the conditions of the Possession, Control, use, and disposition of the co-Owned aspects by all co-Owners must be also specified as Stipulations within the Registered Deed of Entitlement. The Deed of Entitlement must also clearly delineate which Stipulations are Covenants and which, if any, are not. Likely all Deeds of Entitlement will contain some form of Permission Covenant for entry from abutting Egress Real Estate or a Covenanted "right of way". To prevent disputes between neighbors, every piece of Real Estate should have Covenants relating to every other piece of Real Estate which it abuts, and this is, in fact, a requirement of Stipulation A.1.a

43) The biggest existential problems with respect to Real Estate (although perhaps not the commonest practical problems) are:
a) the vertical limits of the boundaries of Real Estate, and
b) the requirements (if any) in addition to pure boundary Registration which are necessary for Property Entitlement to Ownership.
Part of the reason for these considerations is that it is clear that the social meta-needs of Freemen require that there is some natural limit to the extent of Real Estate for which an Individual can "acceptably" acquire Property Entitlement. It makes no sense to agree that an Individual has Property Entitlement to the Moon, for example, (or even a star newly found by him) merely because he is the first one to Register it on a UCN. Just as with every other Existent which an Individual Owns, he or an Agent must have first have become a Possessor in some manner of the Real Estate that he wishes to Register. The necessary conditions to establish Property Entitlement which solve these problems are stated in Stipulation A.1.a Another illuminating way to understand the situation with Real Estate is to think of it not as merely a volume of space, but as a "relationship" between a volume of space and a particular Individual (its Owner or Possessor) who is "permitted" by other Individuals (ie. has "entitlement") to do certain things with that volume of space that other Individuals do not have such "entitlement" to do. The definition of Property Entitlement was designed to capture just such a notion.

xx. The Property of an Individual includes all Existents of which he has Ownership. However, Property may also be merely Possessed by an Individual under a partial Property Entitlement from its Owner.

44) As with Real Estate, Property may also be considered to be a state of an Existent of being in a certain relationship with a specific Individual who has full or partial Property Entitlement of Possession to the Existent. Once again, it should be noted that Individuals are not included in the definition of Property because they cannot be Owned - not even by themselves.

xxi. Permission is a Valid Contract or a recorded or unrecorded mutual understanding between two Individuals which effects the temporary Voluntary Transfer to one of them of partial or full, use or Control with respect to some portion of a Possession of the other (including the bodies of himself and those of whom he is Guardian), but for which there is no formal mechanism available for recovery of loss from any harm done by either party related to that Possession unless such Permission is by means of a Valid Contract. Withdrawal is the act of terminating Permission. The Terms of Permission are the details of the description of the form and extent of the Voluntary Transfer including the Terms under which Permission is Withdrawn. Also Permit, Permitting, Permitted, Withdraw, Withdrawn.

45) Even though it is strongly urged that most understandings between Freemen which involve exchanges of values should be recorded as Valid Contracts, because of the effort involved there will always be simple things which will be done in an unrecorded fashion by the use of