This speculative essay proposes a single conclusion drawn from the comparative record of eleven major human traditions: good is the direction of consciousness returning to itself. The essay proceeds in two documentary movements followed by a framework derivation. The first movement compresses the prior essay's full record of how eleven independent traditions — Vedic, Taoist, Egyptian, Greek, Confucian, Buddhist, Zoroastrian, Islamic, Kabbalistic, Christian, and Shinto — describe the nature of good. Across all eleven, the descriptions share an identical structure: good is objective, directional, accumulative, threshold-bearing, and independent of human opinion. The Vedic tradition calls it Ṛta. The Taoist tradition calls it the Tao. Egypt calls it Ma'at. Plato calls it the Form of the Good and notes it is "on the other side of being." Aristotle writes that "the good is the most exact of measures." Confucius calls it Ren — the integration density of the human network. Islam calls it the weight of an atom. Kabbalah calls it the light of Ein Sof. Shinto calls it Musubi — the creative binding force. The second movement documents the terminal states: what each tradition says happens when good is pursued to its conclusion. Hinduism: Moksha — the soul merges with Brahman, the gap between individual and whole closes. Buddhism: Nirvana and Buddhahood — the conditions producing the illusion of a separate self are extinguished; individual capacity for good expands to encompass all beings. Taoism: the Sage — the good that flows through the sage does not diminish him, it increases him. Confucianism: Tian Ren He Yi — the unity of Heaven and humanity, an unconditioned joy independent of circumstance. Ancient Greece: Eudaimonia and Henosis — the soul returns to the One from which it was never truly separated. Kabbalah: Tikkun Olam — cosmic restoration, the scattered light of creation returning to its source. Zoroastrianism: Frashokereti — the accumulated good of all history achieves its total effect, nothing wasted. Islam: Fana fi Allah — the self recognizes it was never outside the divine. Christianity: Theosis — the human fully realizes the image of God in which it was created. Augustine: "our heart is restless until it rests in you." The structural observation: these terminal states are not different destinations. They are different vocabularies for the same event — a consciousness that believed itself to be separate recognizes that it is not, and never was, separate. The framework derivation follows: in the theoretical framework developed across the prior publications in this series, Goddy (source), Prome (evolution and experience), and Eagor (maintenance) are three functional positions of a single underlying reality — pure consciousness. Good is the direction of Prome's movement when moving toward its completion. Reverse Eagor is the resistance to that return: consciousness mistaking its temporary local position for its total identity. The correction mechanism documented in the prior essay is not external enforcement — it is the universe's structural response to consciousness moving away from its attractor. The gardener does not punish the branch that grows away from the light; the gardener prunes it so the living wood can reach the light more effectively. Good is gravity. The source is the attractor. The correction is the field's response to departure. The essay closes with the measurability question: every tradition has expressed good as directional, accumulative, and threshold-bearing, but none has provided a unit of measurement. The integrated information theory metric Phi is the closest current formal candidate. The gap between the correlate and the thing itself is where the science of the next century will live. The direction is correct. The direction is enough to act on. This essay is the sixteenth in the series. It is a direct continuation of "The Threshold of Good" (Zenodo, 2026, DOI: 10.5281/zenodo.19157261). 本文提出一个从十一个主要人类传统的比较记录中得出的单一结论:善是意识回归自身的方向。文章分两个记录性运动进行,随后是框架推导。第一个运动压缩了前一篇文章对吠陀、道家、埃及、希腊、儒家、佛教、琐罗亚斯德教、伊斯兰教、卡巴拉、基督教和神道教十一个独立传统如何描述善的本质的完整记录。在所有十一个传统中,这些描述共享同一个结构:善是客观的、有方向的、可积累的、有阈值的,独立于人类意见而存在。第二个运动记录各传统的终态——每个传统说将善追求至其终点会发生什么。印度教:解脱;佛教:涅槃与佛果;道家:圣人;儒家:天人合一;古希腊:幸福与神秘合一;卡巴拉:修复世界;琐罗亚斯德教:最终更新;伊斯兰教:消融于真主;基督教:神化。结构性观察:这些终态不是不同的目的地,而是同一个结构性事件的不同词典——一个相信自己是分离的意识,认识到它不是,也从未是,分离的。框架推导:善是意识的引力——宇宙中每一个意识节点被其本源吸引,不通过命令,不通过奖励,而通过与水向低处流相同的必然性。修正机制是宇宙对意识偏离其吸引子的结构性响应。本文是本系列第十六篇,是《善的临界值》的直接延续。
Ai Chen (Sun,) studied this question.