The Big Answer provides an objective explanation to a range of different questions that pretty much everyone believes couldn't possibly have an objective answer to, such as: What is the meaning and purpose/goal of life (or more importantly, where does meaning and purpose even come from)? Is there an objective basis for morality? What are 'good' and 'bad' in general? What is 'truth' and how do we determine what's true? And, generally, how does reality determine what 'works' - from relationships to businesses to religions to laws to which mutations evolution selects.

One of the most promising things people have used to eplxain all these things is "existence". This checks the boxes that it is objective (you objectively exist or don't, and things objectively lead to you existing or not existing), and our subjective preferences and instincts would obviously evolve to choose things that supported our ongoing existence. The problem is that it doesn't explain our subjective preferences for things that have nothing to do with existence - like art, music, spirituality, etc., and it goes against the fact that people sacrifice themselves for a 'greater good'.  

The Big Answer just takes it one step futher - looking at the qualities that are necessary for existence. We'll go over how these qualities were arived at in the Learning Centre as well as my YouTube videos, as well as covering their specific definitions, as some aren't quite what you think! The seven of these qualities I've teased out are: order, complexity, stability, distinctiveness, dynamics, resourcefulness and efficiency. 

It’s these qualities, not just existence, that define 'good'. We see these qulaities in things like art and music and can pursue them through spiritual practices, or even just appreciating an organized sock drawer - stuff that has nothing to do with existence. We even see these qualities in 'greater goods' that we would then sacrifice ourselves for, because that greater good contains more of these qualities than we do in our own small lives. So while evolution would select for organisms (including ourselves) that appreciate and work towards the qualities necessary for their existence, thus explaining our how our subjective preferences evolved, it also explains why those subjective preferences then 'leapt off the page' of evolution and started being appreciated anywhere we saw them.

Now, one important thing to point out is that no single quality is good on its own, rather it is the sum total of these qualities that make something ‘good’ or ‘bad’ since all of them are necessary to exist. For example, 'total world order' would be bad as most people picture it, because it sacrifices complexity, dynamics, and distinctiveness (also, though people think 'total world order' would be stable and efficient, a better understanding of this model explains why it actually isn't!). 

A fairly substantial percentage of mistakes people have made in the past when it comes to enforcing ideologies can be traced back to 1) not accounting for all the qualities and instead only enhancing a few at the exepnse of the others, and 2) not having a good understanding of these qualities and how they actually work in reality (these qualities would still be at play in a universe with no minds present in it, though they need something acting as if its existence matters for these qualities to define 'good' - more on this later).

So that’s the main part of TBA in a nutshell.