The basic command data on which the body and brain operated was SURVIVE! That was all. Nothing fell outside this. It was postulated to see if it worked. That was in 1938 after several years of study.
The axioms began with SURVIVE!
SURVIVE! was the lowest common denominator of all existence. They proceeded through axioms as to what Man was doing and how he was doing it. Nice definitions for intelligence, drive, happiness, good, evil and so forth fell into line. Suicide, laughter, drunkenness and folly all fell inside this, too, as it computed out.
Book: Dianetics: The Evolution of a Science (1950)
Publication: Dianetics: The Evolution of a Science (2007 ed., p. 18)