As was shown in Section 1, valid knowledge of reality must ultimately originate in the individual's experience of it—through one's own perceptual observations as integrated by an autonomous conceptual process (pp. 1.3:56-9, 1.3:61-2). In order to discover one's values and the means of attaining them, therefore, a person must cultivate the virtue of independence, the recognition that reality (rather than consciousness) is primary and that one must therefore take the responsibility of discovering the truth by one's own mind. A less independent person attempts to see reality through the consciousness of others, asking: "Who am I to challenge the experts?" Such people accede docilely to common opinion because "the majority is always right." This view of existence was dubbed "social metaphysics" by Ayn Rand and Nathaniel Branden (). Metaphysics, the student will remember, deals with the basic nature of reality. In the social metaphysician's view, the only significant "reality" is created by the opinions of others in society.     

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