One of the most simple calls to "the basic experience of the world" comes to us from Merleau-Ponty, "The whole universe of science is built upon the world as directly experienced, and if we want to subject science itself to rigorous scrutiny and arrive at the precise assessment of its meaning and scope, we must begin by reawakening the basic experience of the world of which science is the second-order expression." He speaks here of the need to return to the underlying movement of the "worlds" we live, not the worlds we theorize into existence. All of our theorization--not to mention our attachments and aversions--is grounded in this living and anonymous "experience," if we can call it that, of living. Living precedes thinking. It is what thinking presupposes. Living is prior to things, prior to separate selves, prior to the likes and dislikes of an alienated self.

The view from the inside out calls for a "reevaluation of all values." Inside out thinking, the result of reportage from the domain of the living, calls for values to be based on the realization that the world is always "my world." In effect, my life equals, in the words of Ortega y Gasset, "I plus my circumstances." Given the universality of this fact of life, values may be seen as the elements required to improve the world, the universal "my world."