The Mouse in Limbo

Last night Mrs. Mouse & I attended a talk on global warming sponsored by the local Democratic Committee and delivered by Rev. Steve Brown, Director of Virginia Interfaith Power and Light. This county -- named for James Madison -- is largely Republican, so we were careful to advertise the event as a non-partisan, religious gathering. We sent letters to all of the local ministers outlining the program and asking their help in getting their congregations to attend. Indeed, the final newspaper announcement appeared in the religious section, and indeed again, the speaker was none other than a minister of the Presbyterian faith.

So, who attended. With four exceptions, no one other than the same cadre of Democratic activists who attend all the events sponsored by the Committee. The exceptions? The minister of the local Episcopal Church, the minister (and his wife) of the Presbyterian Church where the event was held, and a man well-known in the community for his devotion to what the Mouse calls "true Christian principles," care for the poor, love of his God, and devotion to doing what he can to improve the lives of everyone. I do not know the voting habits of the four "strangers," but apart from them, I can say for sure there was not a person there who is of the Republican persuasion.

To be honest, that was expected. I cannot recall ever seeing a Republican at any Madison County event that promised to deal with liberal or progressive issues. But then, how and why has it come about that global warming is considered a liberal issue? If 98% of the scientific community is right about its worldwide catastrophic effects, global warming is a human issue. To the extent we think of it as a problem that can be batted around by politicians and pressure groups until it just goes away, we are disastrously mistaken.

Think about one of the facts presented last night. Hurricane Katrina affected a coastline about 90 miles long and produced 150,000 refugees. Global warming will affect every coastline in the world and could produce more than 100,000,000 refugees, that's one hundred million. Katrina killed less than 1,000 people. Global warming may kill millions.

Madison County's Republicans are not the only ostriches. The Washington Post, three days ago ran a story focusing on the report just released by NASA's chief climatologist, James Hanson, in which the facts were spelled out as clearly as could be. The article appeared on page A22. I recently blogged about a subcommittee hearing that ran on C-Span, in which the debate centered not upon what to do, but rather upon whether the statistical methods employed in the famous "hockey stick" report employed a method different from another statistical method -- and those people, your elected representatives, were serious!

Let me say something about that "hockey stick," where it got its name. If you track the ratio of CO2 to temperature change over the past 450,000 years you get a correlation that is essentially perfect. That is, as the amount of CO2 in the atmosphere rises, temperature also rises. As CO2 falls, temperature falls. Smooth out the minor squiggles, and you get two curves that are essentially parallel. The interesting thing is that at the peak temperatures -- seven of them over the 450 millenia -- the amount of CO2 in the atmosphere topped out at 300 parts per million (PPM). If you draw a trend line connecting those high spots, you get a more-or-less straight line. That's the handle of the hockey stick. Now look at the most recent measures of CO2 in the atmosphere. The number is 380 PPM, almost 30% higher than at any point in the measured past. What's more, if you project the current trend of CO2 being put into the atmosphere into the future, you get a line running up at a near perfect 90 degree angle, the only slope being that brought about by the passage of time. Connect that line to the straight line of the handle, and you get the hockey stick's blade, a graph that shows CO2 shooting to almost double any amount observed in the past.

Now recall the almost perfect correlation between CO2 in the atmosphere and temperature, and you get the fact that, unless we do something pretty soon, the earth is going to be hotter than it has ever been in the past 450,000 years. When that happens, the polar ice caps will melt, sea levels will rise by 40-60 feet, climate patterns will dramatically change, and many thousands of living species will cease to exist, one of them perhaps the species homo sapiens.

In any case, human life will be in grave danger.

So, back to the question. How has it come about that global warming has been considered a liberal issue? Surely liberals are not the only ones who can read and comprehend the meanings of "hockey stick" graphs and other scientific facts. Surely liberals are not the only ones who, when faced with death-dealing predictions, would be concerned. And surely liberals are not the only ones who will be affected by global warming.

A possible answer -- in fact, the most likely answer -- for the blindness of certain partisans lies in the fact that certain economic entities -- Exxon/Mobil and Shell Oil -- have taken action to distort the facts associated with global warming. They are doing this because they perceive that some of the things we might do to save ourselves from the worst effects of global warming will cause their profits to fall. If for example, people start buying high-mileage automobiles and start using other than oil-based fuels, Exxon will certainly sell less gasoline. The coal industry as well has begun to fight back against the incontestable fact that coal is the worst of the CO2 offenders. I have in the past several days seen at least three TV commercials vouching for the cleanness of coal, the opposite of the truth. In short, the industries affected by what we might do to avert global disaster have instituted a brain-washing campaign to make the American people believe the opposite of the truth ... and it is working, since even some liberals have bought the story.

Add to this the apparent fact that the present occupant of the White House and his fellow travelers in the legislature are more the servants of the corporations than of the people, and the answer to our question becomes patently clear. We're in for big time trouble because corporations (understandably, because their conscience is focused on the bottom line) and our government (unforgivably) have managed to sell us a bill of goods. They've told us we're playing a friendly game of Bingo when in fact we're playing Russian Roulette with all the chambers loaded.

I've discussed in the past, right here, the underlying reasons why some government officials have made their mistakes. I don't for a minute think they're all evil men, but I do think they have been persuaded by a philosophy that is fundamentally flawed. As I say, I've talked about that before, but tomorrow I'm going to talk about it some more. In the meanwhile, be assured that there is hope. If no other message was made clear last night, it was that the means are available with current technology to head-off the worst effects of global warming. All that's needed is the moral and political will to act.

Getting Beyond Mendacity

On the fifth anniversary of the 9/11 attacks Newsweek ran an article questioning the role of religion in the deeds, not only of 9/11, but for many thousands of similar atrocities that have occurred throughout history. The analysis got my attention because it placed emphasis on the epistemological methods of the religious mind. "Tell a devout Christian ... that frozen yogurt can make a man invisible, and he is likely to require as much evidence as anyone else, and to be persuaded only to the extent that you give it. Tell him that the book he keeps by his bed was written by an invisible deity who will punish him with fire for eternity if he fails to accept its every incredible claim about the universe, and he seems to require no evidence whatsoever."

It may be argued that the word "devout" nuances the remark so significantly that it might apply only to Christians of the Jerry Falwell, Pat Robertson ilk, but there is no Christian of any persuasion who does not ground his beliefs in one or more of the "incredible claim[s]" of scripture.

In a discussion with several acquaintances about the article, one of them, a frequent commenter on this blog, made this statement: "So what do you care? If you don't believe the way that I do why do you care what I think about hell or God or salvation?" The person who made the statement had not grasped that the Newsweek article did not deal with what he or any other person believes, but rather how he came to that belief and why he thinks it's valid.

Now, I grant you that when we attempt to trace any belief about ultimate reality to its source, we eventually come to a place we cannot get beyond. Some cause-like things must forever remain unknown for the simple reason that the records have been obliterated. The Big Bang -- which perhaps ought to be called "the great evidence shredder" -- took care of a lot of that destruction. For very practical reasons we cannot go beyond that point in our search for reality, but that fact has not put the quietus to the human imagination. We can still believe things for which no valid reason exists.

But as I said, I'm not concerned with beliefs as such, but only with the method used to form them. A person may, for example, experience a deep and meaningful joy in believing that The Koran is the final word of God, and may place great faith in the men-more-learned-than-I who interpret the words of The Prophet in such a way as to justify the killing of all non-repentant infidels. The joy the person experiences provides evidence enough for him to "know," beyond the shadow of a doubt, that it is okay to fly airplanes into tall buildings.

On the other hand, the person may be of a Christian persuasion and may have had a direct and joyful experience of God, inspired by certain statements from the Bible. Because this Christian gentleman is not flying airplanes into tall buildings, because he is in fact leading an ideal Christian life and enjoying the rewards that usually accrue to the pious, the joy of his experience vouches for and reinforces his belief in the authenticity of the written words that inspired it. He has arrived at a knowledge of the truth by way of his feelings. Joy has convinced him.

It may never occur to the Christian convinced by his feelings that he and the Muslim terrorist share the same epistemology. They both believe something simply because if feels good.

What does this say, then, about all religious beliefs? Are they all grounded in emotions?

Well no. Some are grounded in axioms that may or may not be true. John 3:16 is such an axiom. "For God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten son that whosoever believeth in him should not perish but have everlasting life." True, those who immediately believe this axiom experience a sort of joy that may be likened to the joy experienced by those who have a direct experience of God. But the source of that joy is so easily seen as superficial -- who wouldn't get joy from everlasting life? -- most religionists who think at all are not persuaded simply by John's promise. They might then assume the statement to be true and seek to work out a reasoned "plan of salvation" grounded in the notions (1) that God cares, and (2) that God cares enough that he would sacrifice his son. (We leave unquestioned the means by which God sired the son.) A complex theology (or Christology) follows: original sin, redemption from sin by blood sacrifice, eternal life, etc etc. If that theology works, it also will produce a certain sort of joy. The superficial joy obtained by believing in life everlasting is now intensified by a reasonable workout explaining everything.

But by grounding his belief in a reasoned theology the Christian has opened his belief to the normal criticisms aimed at all reasoned systems. The most fundamental of those criticisms involves the fact that all genuine axioms are unproven and unprovable, and consequently, they need some way to test their validity. One way lies in applying the axioms to real world models of known authenticity. We may ask, as the Corinthians asked Paul, questions about the nature of the afterlife, what form the body shall take after the resurrection? The answer, as delivered by Paul, required the creation of another axiom, another unproven and unprovable "fact": The "incorruptible" soul alone shall be resurrected. From this has naturally followed "disputations" and "concerns" lest the "whosoever" referred to in John's promise be not flesh and blood as was seen in the risen Christ, but some other sort of "person," the nature of which remains (to this day) mysterious.

As more and more axioms are created to resolve "concerns" we eventually arrive at a system so shot through with unproven and unprovable statements that we would be justified in calling it "imagined" rather than "reasoned."

Nevertheless, experiences of God are real. To deny their reality would be to deny the reported experiences of millions. They occur to believers of all religions and have generally been interpreted as experiences of another world. Such experiences are of two sorts. One comes without form or shape, only as a feeling as if we were suddenly filled with great knowledge and the whole of eternity were opened to us. Another form of the God-experience is more like a vision, a seen view in which objects appear: faces, gates, clouds, great lights. This second sort of experience also conveys to us a feeling of great knowledge or power, and so may be understood as a conditioned form of the first sort of experience. A Christian might experience gates and faces like those artists have created for Jesus. (Paul himself heard only a voice.) A Hindu might see Nirvana unfolding as an altogether different experience, filled with symbols from his own real-world life.

But when we finally judge the reality of these experiences, we see that it is the experience that is real, and not the things (if any) which appeared in the experience. We have had what the Buddhists call satori, an ineffable experience of the "All."

I mention these apparently diversionary details to introduce the possibility that there may in fact be a ground greater than mere joy that can be appealed to as a justification for some forms of religion. If we forget the joy, and focus only upon the imageless content of the satori, we see that it has something to do with knowing, more to do with a sense of totality, and all to do with an awareness of ourselves as a part of whatever eternity is. We experience ourselves as if we were infinite.

So, what sort of axioms might we concoct that would explain our experience. Well, we might try these two: (1) the All is infinite, and (2) we relate to the All as effects in an infinite stream of causes and effects. Then, if we feel the need -- born in our culture -- to have a God, we may consider ourselves as natural and necessary parts of an infinite God. And we may do this without too much fear that our axioms will be subject to disapproval, since to disprove them, one would have to reach the end point of an infinity, a point which does not exist.

And this is what some folks call natural religion, a religion that does not require us to doubt the reality of what seems most real to us. True, this religion may not provide us an eternal life, but if we are already parts of an infinite being, we must in some very real sense already have eternal life. Just a thought, but one that has an appeal, both to what is undoubtedly real and that which will forever remain mysterious to the living.

True Mendacious Occurrences

After delivering myself of that great body of unforgettable truth that appears as yesterday's blog (actually I'm writing this yesterday, too) I decided that I needed a bit of relaxation. Too much earthshaking knowledge in one day can lead to a frightful distemper. So I went to my bookshelf hoping to find there an antidote for the disease.

I happened to espy, tucked away between two huge volumes of assorted lore, a little book-like thing that did more than any man could ask for by way of dispelling an approaching case of the heebie-jeebies. The volume -- I hesitate to call it a book -- bears the title, Eating Democrats, Alien Porn, The Zambian Space Program, and other True Remarkable Occurrences. Beneath the title, in the place normally reserved for the author's name, appears a "truthful" statement intended to explain how this collection came into being. It says it was "Compiled and Annotated by John Train, Illustrated by Pierre Le-Tan, Preface by George Plimpton," all of which has the appearance of truth. Mr. Train was at the time a financial guru gainfully employed by Forbes magazine, and Mr. Le-Tan had earned a measure of fame as a cover artist for The New Yorker and as the writer/illustrator of three children's books. The late Mr. Plimpton needs no introduction, as his involvement in matters of the sort represented by this book had, even before his untimely passing, become a distinguished exhibit in America's museum of foolishness.

But enough of this preambulation. The remarkable occurrences compiled by Mr. Train and illustrated by etc etc etc has provided your (now) more humble Mouse protection aplenty from the overdose of thinking with which he had been afflicted. The potions assembled between the smallish covers of this epi-tome, are designed to cure ailments of all sorts, though -- it must be admitted -- some of the remedies may have side effects. Of that number, one stands out. Here it is, word for word, exactly as the compiler delivered it. This is from the section entitled Affairs of State and bears the title, Chops Populi.

Victor Biaka-Boda, who represented the Ivory Coast in the French Senate, set off on a tour of the hinterlands in January 1950 to let the people know where he stood on the issues, and to understand their concern -- one of which was apparently the food supply. His constituents ate him.

(A footnote describes Biaka-Boda as a "small, thin, worried-looking man.")

This would not be funny if it were not true. 'Twould be just another of the anecdotes for which the French are famous. I'm sure you remember Charles DeGaulle. Need I say more?

Mr. Train has not exactly overwhelmed us with volume. There cannot be more than 50 remarkable occurrences total, but as people like Plimpton say when they are being serious, what they lack in number they make up for by the thinness of the volume. My favorite -- and I will confess to a bias here -- is entitled Hare Trigger. It appears on page 39, in the section called Sport.

Near Louisville, Kentucky, a rabbit reached out of a hunter's game bag, pulled the trigger of his gun, and shot him in the foot. -- The New Yorker, May 1947.

Unlike the episode of the unfortunate Mr. Biaka-Boda, the truth of this tale may be doubted. It seems to me just possible that the hunter accidentally shot himself in the foot and concocted the story of the rabbit, not only to maintain his good name as a careful hunter, but to earn himself a place in history as the only man ever shot by a rabbit. Several of the occurrences in the book are of a similar sort, stories that may have a measure of fact about them but which could be understood differently.

Finally, this one, taken from the writing of a genuine authority. Train gave it the title, Cover-up.

Of Pope John's trial at the Council of Constance in 1414-1418, Gibbon records that "The most scandalous charges were suppressed; the vicar of Christ was only accused of piracy, rape, murder, sodomy, and incest."

Train's footnote perhaps explains why the trial lasted four-going-on-five years. "The council was also attended by seven hundred harlots, according to reliable authorities -- fifteen hundred, according to others."

The book, published in 1978, is probably out of print, but can probably be obtained from one of the internet's used book markets. [Parental guidance advised.]

The Mind's Mendacity

The notion persists that the universe is somehow mathematical. Nevertheless, to move from Galileo’s and Einstein’s descriptions of the behavior of inanimate forms, to Watson and Crick, who dealt in the stuff of life itself, may seem a leap from one mathematics to an entirely different one. The equations describing acceleration and energy seem distinct from the combinatorial mathematics slowly emerging as a depiction of the way DNA relates to life. One is, at best, the stage upon which life is played out, while the other relates directly to the script the players follow. Nevertheless, the fact that, in theory, both can be described mathematically suggests that mathematics is the language spoken in the mind of God.

Let’s assume that’s so. Let’s say that not only can the universe and all that’s in it be described in mathematical terms, but that the equations possess the characteristic of all genuine scientific laws, that they can be manipulated to predict the future.

If these assumptions are granted, then it would appear that the great mathematician in the sky knows how everything is going to turn out, and the rest is to be nothing more than strut and circumstance. Religionists, for theological reasons, will quickly deny this, pointing to free-will as the wild hair in the matrix that will upset all predictions. But if there actually is such as free-will, then our assumptions are false: the universe is not mathematical, and God does in fact roll dice that behave in an absolutely random fashion. The underpinnings of quantum mechanics seem to suggest that a form of randomness occurs at the particle level, but these effects do not appear to change the world into a chaos. We do not observe radically random effects in the world of “large things.” The causes that change things at the experiential level all seem mathematically explainable. Besides, the behavior of the particles themselves is also predictable, but only by reference to the laws of probability, a branch of mathematics equally as dependable as arithmetic. So the world, even at its lowest levels can be described mathematically.

So, how do we explain apparent free-will, and how then relate to God?

Consider the human brain. It is certainly a physical thing that behaves in what appears to be a mathematically predictable fashion. The ten billion or so neurons all work in accord with known principles, and collectively they determine the way we behave. It is thus theoretically possible to write an equation describing how the human brain works. So, what’s the problem?

Well, the brain by itself may control certain bodily functions, but until it receives data from the outside world it is useless as a determinant of human behavior. Like a PC’s internal processors, they are useless until they are given a program to execute and some data to manipulate. But then, all human brains do in fact receive input from the world and they do begin to process the data in a way that determines how the human being will think and act. So, again in theory, if we have an equation that describes how the brain works, and given a determined set of data, we ought then be able to predict the behavior of the human who owns the brain.

But then, who is this human? Well, because we have said that he is the owner of one brain, and that he has experienced a determinant set of input data, we realize immediately that if we have two different humans they will act differently even if their brains are identical. Why? Because their inputs were different. Nothing could be simpler to understand. We behave differently because we are working with different sets of data. So even if the workings of each of the two brains can be said to conform to a mathematical equation, the behavior of the two different humans will be different. They may be running the same equation, but they’re processing different data.

Note well, that from the viewpoint of our mathematically-minded God, everything is as it ought to be. Nothing happening in the world is out of the ordinary. It is only from the viewpoint of the different human beings that what’s happening seems unusual. We do not understand how that person could not see things as we see them, and that might suggest to some of us that the world is more like a chaos than the cosmos it actually is. Multiply the two persons we have been dealing with by three billion and the problem of trying to understand human behavior becomes extraordinarily difficult.

But it’s worse than even that. I’m sure you have experienced many, many occasions when your stream of thought has suddenly and radically shifted from one idea to an entirely different one. Psychologists have tried to explain this by referring to hidden associations, overlapping meanings of which we are not sufficiently conscious. And of course, that is sometimes the case, else some forms of psychotherapy would not work. But the cases requiring treatment are far outnumbered by non-pathological diversions of the train of thought, but if we are to retain the hypothesis that all the brain’s actions are mathematically predictable, these also must be explainable. We might explain them as benign hidden associations, but if that were always the case, we ought at least, upon reflection, to be able to discern the connections, as we sometimes can. But we are dealing here with cases in which no apparent connection exists, so if we are to find an explanation it must lie outside the scope of meanings. So where?

Perhaps it is the case – and this is an hypothesis – that neurons participate in more than one “train of thought.” We know that a PC’s memory devices are divided into separately addressable locations. When these locations are used to store data from the outside, they each contain a fixed number of bits, usually eight or nine. None of the bits are shared by different data. If a certain location contains the word “cat” no other data can use that location. But we have no reason to believe neurons are similarly restricted. We rather suspect that the same neuron may be a part of many different neural networks, each of the nets representing a different element in the brain’s collection of “ideas.” If that is the case, then sudden switches in the train of thought might be explained as a “sidetrack” in which a system of neural firings that had been proceeding in one “direction” encounters a different train of thought with which it shares one or more neurons. Circumstances so far not understood by neurological science, but (by hypothesis) clearly reflected in the brain’s equation, cause the train of thought to switch at one of the junctions of shared neurons. The result would be a pseudo-connection of two previously unrelated trains of thought. The impact of these new connections into the pattern of ideas that determine behavior adds a deeper level of confusion to an already complex equation.

We must also quite realistically observe that this rather structured picture of the brain ‘s neurons is suspended in a “wash” of peptides and hormones. In real time, these chemicals change the way we feel about the meanings we experience. We may one day love this and hate that, and in the next feel the reverse. Those suffering from illnesses brought about by hormonal imbalances may see their emotions soar up and down the scale of joy and sorrow like feathers in a windstorm. To them the illusion of free-will vanishes. Many of the rest of us continue in the delusion.

And it is easy to see why that is so. Even if there is a mechanistic, mathematical equation that describes the brain’s operation, the equation is so complex and the produced behavior so unpredictable, we will appear to be free. But if we are, then not even God, possessed of all the equations and an infinitely powerful processor could understand why we behave as we do. We would be free of him. And in that case, he would no longer be God.

So, what are we to do about this? First, we need to educate ourselves to understand the general structure of the way our brains work. We ought to grasp the relationship implied in the slogan, “we are what we were when our heads were filled with data.” And we ought to understand that our equations, though all similar, work to produce for us a different way of seeing the world, and that that is not only the way it is but is the way it must be. Then, if we truly catch on, we may see that it is not God who is to rescue us, not God or Nature – for they have made us what we are – but that we ourselves must find our own way to salvation.

Perhaps, we as the whole of humanity may never find the way, for after all, it is difficult. But each of us, in his own being, can know what we are and why we are the way we are, and out of that knowing, relate to the world in a way not permitted to those who remain ignorant of the truth. In a word, salvation is a private and personal achievement.

Only by what seems a dream may we imagine that a critical mass of humanity will find the way, and that out of that force … well, who knows what may happen when great numbers of human beings wake up.

Contagious Mendacity

The al Quedas are using pictures of the dead and mangled bodies of Iraqis as recruitment posters. They're saying that the "invaders" were the ones using the bombs.

The current occupant of the White House is upset that the al Queda would tell such lies.

He thought he was the only one to have been granted the privilege to lie.

The Opposite of Mendacity...

… is “Truth,” and there are at least two kinds of it. The first involves accessible matters of fact, statements a person can know to be the truth. If a sane person were asked, “Where were you at around 2 PM yesterday,” he or she would almost certainly know the answer. No mystery would shroud the truth. For private reasons the person may choose not to answer truthfully, and depending on the circumstances, the lie may be more or less harmless. If the question were more difficult, like, “Where were you at 2 PM on this date last year,” the most truthful reply may be, “I don’t remember,” the truth of the matter being inaccessible, not because it cannot be known, but simply because it is not known. An infinite number of questions of this sort might be asked, with the answers unknown but knowable. We may call these, questions about the empirical world. They can be answered by taking a look, though sometimes taking the look may be difficult.

The second kind of Truth involves questions that cannot be answered truthfully by even the most powerful empirical look. “Why is it that every effect has a cause?” is a question of that sort. We may say without fear that every effect has a cause, but even if we were to catalog every such instance of causes and effects, we would still not know why it were so that no effect can exist without a cause. We would just know that every effect has a cause.

We approach answers to this sort of question by metaphysical means. We may, for example, imagine a chain of causes and effects progressing back into the past, each cause being the effect of some prior cause or causes. But eventually we would see that such a chain would be endless. We cannot even imagine that the chain would have a beginning. We then might do something like what mathematicians do when they represent an infinite series of, say, prime numbers. They list a few of the numbers separated by commas and then put an ellipsis at the end. When we see “1,2,3,5,7…” we know the three dots mean that the mathematician does not know the last number in the series and, moreover, that he cannot know the number. Such expressions are metaphysical, even though they appear regularly in rigorous mathematics. They transcend the scope of any possible empirical look.

Situations of this sort lead to several “explanations,” none of which completely satisfy. We might say that to ask, “What is the highest prime number,” is not a legitimate question because it has no answer. We may then adopt a metaphysical rule that tells us we should never ask questions of that sort, and while we may not like it that some mathematical fact has restricted our freedom, we would, if we were reasonable people, admit that there was in fact little to be gained by asking unanswerable questions.

But what if the question is changed. Instead of asking “What is the highest prime,” we ask, “Is there no such thing as a highest prime?” In other words, are we asking a legitimate question when we ask if the ellipsis is telling us the truth, that there are in fact an infinite number of primes? A truthful answer is available: yes, it is true – and Euclid himself proved it – there is an infinite number of primes, so the question as rephrased is legitimate. That is, it has an answer.

Immediately after we grasp the infinity of the set of prime numbers, we are led to notice the similarity of the set of primes to the set of causes, which also appears to be infinite. But if we then try to apply something like Euclid’s proof to the set of causes – seeking to prove that it is actually infinite – we see that in order to do so we will have to assign something like numbers to the causes. Well, that can be done. We can map the set of prime numbers onto the set of causes, such that every cause in the infinitely regressive set of causes is identifiable as a prime number. We then apply Euclid’s proof and, presto, we see that, yes, the number of causes is infinite. We have asked a legitimate question, “Is the number of causes infinite?” and have gotten an answer.

But note well, none of this is empirically observable. Just as we do not know the highest prime – and to seek it is illegitimate – so do we have no knowledge of the “first” cause. Why? Because there is no first cause. The word “infinite” means no beginning, no end, so the notion that some cause might be “first” is foolishness.

But then a mathematician more mathematical (and, as it turns out, less metaphysical) than the Mouse might object. “You have used number theory analysis, and Gödel has shown that any system that is subject to number theory analysis is either inconsistent or incomplete.” By “inconsistent” Gödel meant that there was some true theorem derivable from within the system which would be found untrue within the system, and by “incomplete” that there was some theorem derivable from the system that cannot be proven, true or false, within the system. But if we consider each of the prime numbers as a “theorem derivable within the system,” we see that in theory, every one of them can be shown to be truly prime, so the charge of inconsistency could not be effectively brought to bear. But what of incompleteness? Surely it must be the case that no matter how many primes a person was able to list, the list would never be complete, so in a very real sense the system of primes, and consequently of causes and effects, is incomplete. That is, both sets are, by definition infinite so they are both eternally incomplete.

But then the metaphysician, with a bemused look on his face, would answer: “Hmmm. Isn’t that what Euclid proved? That the set of primes is eternally incomplete? And isn’t that what I just proved by applying Euclid’s proof to the set of causes? That it also is eternally incomplete?” To make his idea comprehensible to the mathematician, the Mouse might then put the matter in practical terms. “If there were in fact a Big Bang, then it was not the “first” cause of the universe. It was only the next cause in an infinitely regressive series of causes. Something caused the Big Bang, and something else caused the cause of the Big Bang, etc etc etc …”

The mathematician would, of course, grasp the meaning of the three dots, and would (in the Mouse’s dreams) nod his approval and go forth forever assured that the universe (or whatever) is infinite.

And that is an example of the second sort of Truth. We do not, by that method, know the nature of all the causes that have produced the world (or even a gnat’s eyeball), but we have made a true and definitive statement about the nature of “the all.” We know something for sure that we cannot prove by empirical methods. We have gone beyond the limits of what is scientifically knowable. We have, in a word, said something about “everything” that cannot be grasped by an examination of any of the parts of “everything” or of any finite subset of those parts. The ultimate nature of Nature can only be grasped by methods that do not depend on empirical fact for their validity. They depend simply and only on Reason.

Mendacious Idols

I have more or less committed to write a series of articles on the U. S. Constitution for the local newspaper. Coincident with my preparations for the articles I have also continued to participate in a weekly discussion group which is ostensibly a Bible study. This morning it was actually a Bible study, the subject being Psalm 115. In the course of the group’s dissection of the Psalmist’s words, it came up that the barbs he threw at the pagans for their idol worship were somewhat a distortion of the truth. The pagans actually believed in transcendent Gods and the idols were nothing more than representations of those Gods. And that’s where this discussion of the Psalm coincidentally tied into my study of the activities leading up to the writing of the Constitution.

I had been struck by some of the measures the Constitutional convention had considered. One of the sticky points the delegates had to handle concerned the matter of representation. Under the Articles of Confederation each state had been equally represented in the federal government, an arrangement the large states found unacceptable, since it gave the smaller states an amount of power disproportionate to their population. The delegates from New Jersey – at that time, one of the smaller states – had proposed (probably for strategic reasons) a radical alternative. They suggested that the boundaries of the current states should be eliminated and a new set of districts be formed in which the population would be approximately equal. Hamilton, one of New York’s delegates, countered with a magisterial proposal that the states be eliminated altogether. Neither proposal met with success. The states were left as they were and the government as we know it today (with a few differences) became the structure implemented in the Constitution.

I mention these radical proposals only to show that the convention was serious about their business. They ruled out nothing. They were even at one time considering a monarchical form of government, with George Washington as the king. (That was probably the agenda behind Hamilton’s proposal.) These were men determined to do the right thing.

But what was their overall grand objective? Given the far-ranging scope of their considerations we may legitimately conclude that they were not seeking any pre-ordained form of government, but were striving to design a government that could be trusted to implement and maintain the ideals of freedom. They had a purpose that transcended the forms and functions of government. They had an idea that was to them so perfect they were willing to consider any constitution, however radical, that would enable them to assure for themselves “and their posterity” a way of life infused with liberty. The Senate, the House of Representatives, the Supreme Court, the Presidency … all these were means to an end. We might even say that they held their ideals above even the land then known as the thirteen states, though I concede that the land and those ideals were so closely knit it would be hard to say they were different. Nevertheless, we can say without fear of contradiction that the Founding Fathers regarded the constitutional government they finally constructed as the best means they could devise to bring about the realization of their ideals.

It must be added that these men, at least some of them, primarily James Madison, recognized the dangers inherent in federalizing so much power in the hands of so few men. They knew human nature to be such that, in time, the means might be transformed into the ends, and the ideals of liberty and justice sacrificed on the altars of security. It was with eyes wide open that those men entrusted the destiny of their ideals to a government elected by and administered by men.

I doubt, however, that they imagined that the government they had designed would degenerate to the point where it would relate to their ideals as did graven images to the Gods they represented. I doubt that they imagined serious men proposing that government dictate the terms of marriage, that government should be empowered in times of danger to suspend the guarantees of liberty, or that government would actively implement policies designed to favor one class of citizens over another. I doubt that they imagined that political partisans, seeking raw power, would cater to religious majorities, actually denying the fundamental separation of church and state. I doubt that they could possibly have imagined a nation so completely given over to material possessions that it would condone the manipulation of currencies for what are euphemistically called “economic necessities.” I doubt they would have envisioned the nation being so blinded to the ideals of freedom that it would pursue policies designed to impose “freedom” on foreign nations at the point of a gun. I doubt they would have imagined the nation they founded would have become an aggressor hated by half the world.

We have become idol worshippers, devoted to our government more than to our ideals. We have become like those religionists who worship their Bibles and their theologies more than their God. We are more in love with a scrap of paper, more devoted to this piece of real estate, more committed to politicians than to justice. We would today answer Patrick Henry in the affirmative. “Yes, Mr. Henry, we do love peace and life so much that we are willing to purchase them with the chains of slavery.”

Well, maybe that’s a bit too strongly worded. I at least do have the liberty to speak freely, to worship or not as I please. If I and my happiness were the only things that mattered, I should have no complaints. If I were assured that my children and theirs were destined to enjoy as much of the fruits of liberty as I have, I would have said none of this. If I did not see the last bastion of liberty – the free press – being bought and paid for by fascist powers, if I did not hear with my own ears respected religionists claiming that our Constitution was based on their Bible, if I were not fearful that the forces of economic tyranny were every day strengthening their grip around the throat of the American dream … if I were hopeful … I assure you I would have writ not a word of this.

But as it is, I cannot in good conscience erase a word of it.

Morning Mouse

Waking-up moves with the sunrise in a narrow band over the face of the Earth. At the equator it measures perhaps a thousand or fifteen-hundred miles across, tapering as it nears the poles. I would say it looks something like an orange peel, except I've never seen an orange peeled the way longitudes would look if they were peeled from the Earth. In any case, this band travels over the continents at the speed of the sunrise and within it, people come up out of their dreams and into life. There must be a favored hour or two during which the multitudes of China and India wake up. I've often wondered if those hours hold more mystery than the others, so much life all at once seeing itself alive again.

At other times I wonder if the word "mystery" has any meaning left.


Weird thoughts like that one started coming up for me a month or so after this blog itself became mysterious. I'd wake up at two-thirty in the morning and find myself sitting on the side of the bed staring at a print of a little Klee fish painting on the east wall. Some nights the moon is dark, others light, but no matter which, the tiny fishes, as I watch them, seem to glow and to tremble, soundlessly. Before, when occasionally I would be up and about for nature's reasons, I would take no notice of the silence. But tonight -- especially tonight -- I see silence as a human thing, an effect of carefully arranged stone and glass. Outside, there's plenty of sound, crickets and owls, the gentle wind, the river's endless play upon the rocks -- plenty of sound -- but it all seems foreign and penned up, something that remains outside.

Strange, how differently I see things since these fits of wakefulness started. Unlike milady, who notices everything, I never noticed much of anything before. I just lived here. This house might as well have been a Bowery tenement with windows opening onto alleys littered with trash. But the first time I brought her here, even before the place was refurbished, as she stood just there, before that window, watching the narrow mountain stream bouncing downhill, she wondered aloud about the thoughts that might have passed through the minds of the Indians who first chanced upon this view. She said she would like to have been one of the few who could say, "we alone have seen this idyllic stream."

Now I see -- at least here in the night -- that the river does possess a certain kind of sacredness. The Blue Ridge darkens its window after eleven-thirty, and the countryside changes from the orderly assemblage of rural fields and barns it is by day into a black mass of crowded foliage. After midnight, like an indolent thought, the river folds into a hushed softness that lures the mind into its stillness. Darkness elevates the river's daylight greyness into a moonlit ribbon of light, truly worth being the first to see.

Listening to these words in their silence, I hear a disparagement of civilization, the same civilization that brought us the wherewithal to purchase this home ... this very window. But I think that when we see our culture as wholly other to some prior and presumably better world, we see it wrongly. Buildings and street lamps don't destroy the world. They only change the way it looks. For some people, a well-made museum stirs as much awareness of beauty as the paintings hanging there, or as the nature that inspired the painter. Museums, broad avenues, and windows to stand behind while watching the night work its magic on the human soul, merely witness the magnificence we create for ourselves when we work at our best.

The river was never beautiful until milady's Indians chanced upon it.

The world is everywhere a mystery.

Mouse Makes Amends

I’m told that my previous blog was confusing. I of course disagree, but then who am I to say? I’ll try again.

All of our ideas are formed in our heads. They’re of several sorts.

One: Some of our ideas appear in our heads as words, pictures, and feelings depicting the stuff communicated to us by our senses. Those images etc are always consciously experienced, though we may notice some of them more than others. Nothing in our consciousness of sensate data is explanatory. If we were limited to our senses, we would have no knowledge of the causes of the things we experience. So this is the lowest form of knowledge. For want of something to call such experiences, we may call them “imaginations” or “hearsay” or just raw, unprocessed consciousness.

Two: Some of the words we hear ourselves thinking are of the sort we call “names.” At sometime in our personal past we have learned to connect certain words to certain things. When we see an image that looks like a tree we connect the image to the word. But before we can do this, we – or those who taught us the names – must also have engaged in a third kind of experiencing, called “wonder.”

Three : We wonder what these sensed things are. We may not be conscious of our wonderings, but it seems apparent that our brain/minds are challenged to identify similar things – like different kinds of dogs – and that our brain/minds invent concepts like the word “dog.” We are never conscious of the process that forms concepts, but when the brain/mind is stumped about what to call a thing, we may become conscious of the brain/mind’s problem. That’s what we might call a conscious wondering.

Four: A special form of wondering occurs in our heads when we “hear” ourselves wondering about the why and wherefore of things. These may proceed into actual inquiry, though nothing in the experience of wondering specifies the method by which the why’s and wherefore’s may be sought. One method involves what we have come to call science. Another involves religion. All such methods, however, begin with wonder and proceed through a different form of experience called “theorizing.”

[None of the above involve actual knowledge of causes and effects. They may all be classified as what Spinoza calls “knowledge of the first kind.”]

Five: Theories arise as potential answers to wonderings of why and wherefore. Before the formation of a theory, the mind has been a passive “presenter” of experience, but as it forms its first theory about why or wherefore (or even, “what should I do about this?”), it becomes an active part of the human being, an ally in the human’s need to survive.

[I’m tired of this. The rest should be easy for anyone. The point, though, is that ideas – whatever their form or category – emerge for us out of ourselves. There is nothing like any of the above in the world “out there.” We are the final arbiters of what we believe to be right or wrong for us. If we get it wrong, there will probably be consequences, some bad, some worse, some deadly. The troubles we find in the world – apart from the catastrophic events of nature – have nothing to do with the world itself except as it is manifest in what we are. But that’s common knowledge. We have, however, made the mistake of believing that there’s a fatal flaw in human nature, an “original sin,” as it were. The only flaw we actually have is the one that we have created, the belief that we do not have it in our power to make up a world in which human beings can live together in peace. We’ve come too far from caves and smallpox to accept the notion that we are a species doomed to its own destruction. We need only start recognizing the source of our ideas. None of the ones dealing with “rights” and “religions” have come to us from the mind of God. We made them up, and the sooner we catch on to that the sooner we will begin to approach the boundaries of real salvation.

A commenter to the previous blog said, “In the end, the scriptural exhortation 'to act justly, to love mercy and to walk humbly with your God' is the attitude that will bring peace to the world." He was of course right in the part he quoted, but by referencing a “scriptural exhortation” he has apparently believed that the advice he proffered came from somewhere other than a human being. If so, he’s wrong in one of the deadly ways. He’s also holding on to a notion of God that is as far from reality as I am from a genuine mouse. (The mouse is grey.) When obviously bright people like our anonymous friend wake up to their own power, then, and not before, will the world turn from the destructive path onto which current epistemological beliefs have led it. Selah.]

How Mice Know What They Know

I promised a friend that today I would write a blog on epistemology, that branch of philosophy that deals with how we know, and how we know that what we know is true. This grew out of a bumper sticker milady stuck on her car: DON’T BELIEVE EVERYTHING YOU THINK. I mentioned this sticker in a group discussion and out of that came the promise to say something Mousefully meaningful about epistemology.

But think about it: Saying something -- saying anything -- about “how we know” is closely akin to lifting yourself by your bootstraps. The apparatus we use to make meaningful statements is the same apparatus we’re trying to explain. It’s like a mirror looking at itself in another mirror; all it’s gonna see is an infinitely regressing image of itself. No matter how deeply we peer into the array of pictures of ourselves, there never will appear in any of the images anything completely new. So, what’s a poor little old Mouse supposed to do who has promised to say something meaningful?

Well … maybe the problem is not so difficult as that trick with mirrors has made it seem. Let’s say the Mouse is one of the mirrors, the one who’s looking into a real mirror. True, as the Mouse reflects the image of himself back into the facing mirror, he’ll still be the same Mouse, but the Mouse can say at least one thing without fear that he’ll be saying something false. He can point to the mirror he’s facing and say, “Those images are not me.” Then, pointing to himself, “I’m me and those images are just reflections of me.”

Bearing in mind that the mirrors are metaphors for the thought process, that each image is an idea, the Mouse will know, for sure, that he and his thoughts are different things. He knows that he will remain “the Mouse” regardless of what he thinks, so what he thinks and what he is must be different things.

Sounds reasonable, at least at first glance. But then – on second glance – the Mouse realizes that some part of himself must be changing when he thinks whatever he thinks. His brain, the whole apparatus he has come to call his neurological system is constantly changing, and every changed state of the system relates in some way to his changing ideas. He’s not sure how those two “parts” of himself interact, or even if they do. He just knows that for every brain state there is a corresponding idea. The brain may be physically causing his ideas, or it may just be operating in parallel with them. Whichever of those happens to be the case, the fact will remain that the order and connection of his ideas will be the same as the order and connection of his brain states.

At a more general level, the Mouse will have come to the conclusion that his ideas emerge out of something he is. To believe otherwise would be to believe that what he calls “his ideas” are actually pumped whole into his mind from somewhere outside him. He suspects – but cannot know for sure – that that’s a false notion. It seems almost a certainty that his senses receive signals from outside, but that those signals remain essentially meaningless until they enter his brain and get “processed” into ideas. The Mouse would never have known that those images in the facing mirror were of himself unless he were more capable of thinking than he would be if he were merely another mirror. The reflections would still exist as light rays (or what have you) but they would never become ideas without the special capabilities of his neurological system.

Hmmm. So, now the Mouse knows a trifle more than he knew when he first acknowledged that the images of himself were not him. He knows that he is the source of that idea. True, he would never have had the idea had not his senses admitted the light into his body, but it was still him, his brain and its supporting network of senses, that converted the light rays into ideas. Without even trying to do it the Mouse has placed himself at the center of a different philosophical sub-category. He has identified himself as the “object” responsible for all ethical decisions.

But that’s not what the Mouse promised to do today. Getting a leg up on the question of ethics is important, but whether the Mouse and all mice can function effectively as moral agents must finally depend on whether the ideas forming in their bodies are true or not. The Mouse can behave absolutely in accord with his ideas and think he’s doing the right thing, but unless those ideas are in some sense “true,” the Mouse, though he may have very good reasons for his actions, may be doing all the wrong things.

And that’s where we came in. How can the Mouse know that the ideas he is basing his actions on are true?

Answer: Apart from the sorts of knowledge we’ve already admitted must be true, the Mouse can never know that any of the ideas he forms of the world are completely and consistently true. He may know that his body and his thoughts are different, he may know that his ideas form internally to himself, and he may know that his senses provide unprocessed data. But he can never know that the sense he makes of his sensations is the absolute truth. His ideas of the world and of its complexities may be valid, but they are almost certainly not the whole and unquestionable truth.

Valid ideas are those that an observer – if he knew them – could correctly analyze to interpret our behavior. We act in accord with what we believe to be the truth, and those beliefs would be a valid explanation of our actions and our subsequent thoughts. We think they are true because the neural apparatus that has formed our ideas operates like a logic machine, with the difference that it not only draws its conclusions from immediate premises – raw input data – but works also to make its “new” ideas fit neatly with all the other ideas we have formed. And some of those “old” ideas entered our heads as unexamined “facts” that were merely assumed to be true.

If our brains have managed to do their job well, if they have produced a concoction of ideas that is quite capable of dealing with new sense data with a minimum of pain, then we will have an array of valid ideas that works for us, and it wouldn’t matter a rat’s ass whether that array were even marginally the truth.

But what does it avail us to know this? How can this view of the epistemological problem be made to work for us? Well, if we know that the ideas we have formed of the world (as apposed to those intuitive ideas that cannot be doubted) are only satisfying arrangements put together by a pragmatic neural mechanism … well, think about it … if we know that of ourselves, then we must also know it of all who are like us, whether they are Christians, Jews, Muslims, Democrats, Republicans, neighbors, strangers, or what have you. We must know that we are all fundamentally alike.

And with that idea firmly implanted in our mechanism, isn’t it possible that we might deal with the world in a significantly different manner than we would have if we all made the mistake of treating our merely “valid” data as the truth. We might be able finally to see ourselves as a unity of similar beings, all facing the same epistemological reality.

It seems to me that if we were finally awakened to the reality of what we are, we would experience a form of joy quite unlike the joy we obtain from believing we are solely and uniquely right. We might actually all fall in love with the same God, the one within which we, and all other beings, exist as whatever we are.

The Poetic Mouse

A Place in a Garden

A half-tone shaman leaned against the grey gate
of an ancient fence he'd conjured
and, wielding hoodoo like an axe, dreamed
himself in Alabama when magnolias bloom.

He had never been in Alabama and wanted less
to be there than here, leaning on a voodoo gate...

but to see a magnolia open when its time came
to see the brash flower surrender its inhibition

to watch the petals of a pale magnolia turning sepia
in the white-hot glare of Alabama

to live, perhaps an instant after leaning here
and wishing here to watch a white magnolia
blooming in Mobile (where magnolias flourish)

...a magical vision conjured in the afternoon
of a pretended garden somewhere not in the Alabama
where magnolias die.

Mouse Reporting Next Year's News

Dateline El Paso, TX
The Hallibrton Corporation (NYSE, HAL) has been awarded a $150 billion contract to construct a 15 foot high wall along the Texas border with Mexico. Contract options include extending the contract into New Mexico and Arizona as the effectiveness of the wall is demonstrated.

Dateline Mexico City, MX
Brown & Root, a subsidiary of the Halliburton Corp (NYSE, HAL) has been awarded a $125 billion contract to teach Mexican's to pole vault. The terms specify that B & R will be paid a flat rate of $100,000 per trainee, but only for those trainees who demonstrate proficiency at heights greater than 15 feet.

Dateline Yuma, AZ
The United States Marine Corps recently announced the award of a cost plus fixed fee (CPFF) contract to Marksman, Inc, a spinoff of the Halliburton Corp (NYSE, HAL). The contract calls for Marksman to deploy patrols along the wall that is to be built by Halliburton along the Mexico-Texas border. The amount of the award has not been disclosed, but confidential sources have indicated to the Mouse that payments in the amount of $100,000 per body will be paid to Marksman for every pole vaulting Mexican shot in the vicinity of the wall.

Dateline Washington DC
President Bush announced from the oval office that he has signed a Presidential Order directing that the Washington Monument be dismantled. The President reacted swiftly to a study conducted by the Foundation for Sexual Purity that the phallic monument has been a leading cause of increased homosexuality and oher forms of sexual promiscuity among Washngton teenagers. This follows on the heels of the Foundation's demands that the domes of the capitol building and several other landmark buildings along the Washington Mall be flattened. When asked the reason for this expensive alteration of the Washington scene, Foundation spokesman Horace Perriwinkle blushed.

Dateline Washington DC
Presidential spokesman Tony Snow responded vigorously when he was asked in yesterday's press conference about the abortion that was apparently performed in 1971 on one of the President's girl friends. "That is old news that has been completely discredited." Charles "the Blaster" Gertling, the reporter who raised the question, was in the process of producing affidavits and other paper work when he was escorted from the press room by heavily armed guards. At press time, Gertling was unavailable for comment.

[And that's the datelines for today, sports fans. Be sure to wear the safety helmets provided by the Office of Homeland Security. The diarrhetic pidgeons we reported yesterday -- believed to have been medicated by terrorists -- are still on the loose.]

Mouse Teaches Semantical History

The brave people of the 13 colonies rebelled against their king because they felt they were being denied certain liberties to which they, as Englishmen, felt they were entitled. They did not rebel because the king was destroying their property and threatening their lives. (The Boston Massacre comes as close as any pre-revolution event to something like 9/11, but that seems to have been a put-up job in which Sam Adams took advantage of a situation to provoke an actionable cause.) No, the patriots rebelled for political reasons.

Now one may wonder why King George III would have denied his colonial subjects their rights. Why would he levy taxes upon them when they had no voice in the English Parliament by which they might have argued for or against the taxes? Well, George III thought it only proper that the colonials shoulder some of the costs associated with administering the colonies, especially those costs the king had incurred in defending the colonials in the French & Indian War. The colonists, not necessarily opposed to the idea of repaying their king, felt it would be proper for the taxes to be levied by their own provincial governments. The king, by his arbitrary action, was depriving the colonials of what they saw as their just rights, so they went to war. That is, they put their lives on the line for their rights.

And make no mistake. If the patriots had lost the war, all of the Founding Fathers would have been executed as traitors. Franklin, Washington, Adams, Madison, Hamilton, Jefferson, and all the rest would now be remembered in English history as something less than scum, and Benedict Arnold would be revered as a true and loyal soldier.

During the war that followed, some of the colonials – for reasons that now appear to have been purely monetary – sided with the king. They organized themselves into guerilla bands, murdered their defenseless neighbors, and pillaged their homes. If we take it on face value that the king approved of these acts, then the king and his supporters should properly be called terrorists.

But this raises a question. Let us imagine that the king, instead of inciting these criminals to action, had somehow restrained them, had in fact managed to fight the war by the Queensbury rules, army against army. Would it nevertheless still be legitimate to think of the king as a terrorist? Does active suppression of the rights of the people constitute terror?

One of the dictionary definitions of “terror” runs like this: “violence or threats of violence used as a means of intimidation or coercion.” This suggests that the king, because he was quite capable of instilling fear as a way of intimidating and coercing the colonials to surrender their implied rights, was guilty of terrorism. The very presence of his armies and, in fact, the nature of government itself, clearly indicates that when the king chose, illegally, to impose his will upon the people, he expected that the “threat of violence” would be sufficient to assure that he would succeed.

Of course, the case for the revolutionaries rests upon a fine point of the law. Nothing in the British constitution dealt with the rights of colonials. It was merely the fact that most of the patriots were of English origin that led them to believe they were entitled to the rights of Englishmen. Like I say, a sticky point, one that, in truth, is still debated by historians.

But it seems that if we apply the same logic to the situation in America at the present time, the “sticky point” loses it gumminess and becomes an easily defensible position. The Constitution of the United States of America is quite clear about the rights of the American people, and two centuries of common law have defined those rights so perfectly that any “king” who might choose to use the powers of the American government to impose his will illegally upon the American people could unequivocally be recognized as a terrorist.

In other words, if this logic holds, then the current occupant of the White House is a terrorist.

More Mouse Talk: On Morals

[Written in the spirit of Erasmus and the vernacular of the later Twain.]

Some people imagine that what we are calling moral behavior has been dictated to us by a higher and wiser power. More often than not, the people making that claim are referring to words in one or the other of several old books written by Moses, Mohammed, Joseph Smith, Jeremiah, Isaiah, Saul/Paul of Tarsus, and several other now-dead men who claimed to have been God’s secretaries. To Christians and Jews the most famous of those writings appears in what Christians call the Pentateuch and what Jews know as the Torah, the first five books of the Old Testament in the Bible. And the most famous part of those writings appears in the Decalogue, or the Ten Commandments. To “the people of the book” those few words contain the underpinnings of all morality.

The Jews have logically expanded the less than 200 words of the Decalogue and the less than 100,000 of the Torah into 23 volumes of detailed guidance called the Talmud, of which there are two (but don’t quote me on the number of volumes in each). The Christians, conditioned by ages of separate-but-unequal independent thinking and non-thinking, and thus finding themselves less susceptible to regimentation, have relied upon a more-or-less loose-leaf book of morals, where what is right and wrong is decided by what has come to be called “situational ethics” – that is, they do as they damn well please, but are always careful to logically justify their behavior by turning to one or more of the conflicting “prophets” for their premises. Both approaches – Talmudic and loose-leaf – work quite well. The Jews have managed to maintain their unity as a persecuted people, and the Christians to excel as more than capable persecutors of both the Jews and themselves.

Both groups of well-meaning religionists seem to have believed that the laws of God – as compiled by men – are not the same as the laws of nature. We may violate the laws of God (they thought) but not the laws of nature. Hence the necessity for armed forces here on earth to apprehend and dismember violators and for a hereafter to “take care of” those who escape justice here on earth. Those arrangements also work. Maintaining the armed forces and the places of business of those preaching the hereafter provide a tremendous cash flow and assure the useful employment for many who might otherwise find themselves destitute.

But the same people who believe that men have been endowed with free will – so as to be able to violate God’s laws – also (occasionally) profess a belief in divine providence. This is the belief best expressed in the words of the famous German plagiarist, Gottfried Wilhelm Leibnitz, who put it this way: All things are ordered by God just so that the world we have is the best of all possible worlds. It has not gone unnoticed that the notions of “free will” and “divine providence” contradict each other. As we speak, there have been written exactly 234,873 full-size books (a book being a document between covers that consists of at least 111 pages) and ten times that many lesser papers, memos, and bulletins to explain how it is that we are free to do as we please while, at the same time, being compelled by God’s divine will to do as he pleases. Those explanatory writings have not been nearly so successful in making their point as have the armed forces that administer and execute God’s laws, although if the two were evaluated on an economic scale, the writings would certainly be found superior.

[The remainder is written in the spirit of Spinoza and in the Mouse’s own vernacular (though the latter may seem the same as the vernacular employed above, since the Mouse is one of Mr. Twain’s 1734 reincarnations, may their tribe increase).]

God, being God, does not make laws that can be broken. To think otherwise would be to suggest that God is no more than any other earthly potentate whose dictates are subject to disobedience, even to nullification. The sum extent of God’s irrevocable and unbreakable laws is not known to us, and probably never will be. The laws of nature – the ones scientists are trying to identify – are the category we most often think of when we imagine God’s laws, but the laws of science (even if we knew them to be true) presuppose and depend on another body of law, and that body is what philosophers address when they study God’s laws. The most pre-dominate and pervasive of those metaphysical laws expresses itself as the “law of causes,” the law that says there can be no effect without a cause, nor a cause without an effect. You can see that if that law were not a law, whatever laws scientists might discover would be of no effect, since they could not be said to be laws if the law of causes were not a law.

The law of causes, and many of God’s most fundamental laws, are referred to as “metaphysical” primarily because they cannot be proven by reference to the sorts of things scientists refer to as “empirical data.” They cannot be directly observed. They can only be inferred from what is directly observed. We see things, hear things, touch things, smell things … we sense things, but we cannot, in the same sense of the word, sense things like the law of causes. And yet, the behavior we observe in all things implies that they are obedient to the law of causes.

Some philosophers, called logical positivists, in thrall to the physical sciences, have treated the fact, that the law of causes cannot be observed, as proof of the fact that it is a convention of some sort invented by men to enable them to organize their thoughts in an orderly fashion. The logical positivists got their inspiration for this from the German idealist philosopher, Immanuel Kant, who observed, quite correctly, that the law of causes could only be explained as a function of the way the human mind works. This same man, though a devout Christian, said that the existence of God could not be proven, only assumed. Apparently Kant had forgotten, and certainly the positivists have disregarded, Spinoza’s most fundamental claim: Without God, nothing can be or be conceived. That same Spinozistic claim can be understood as an acknowledgement that all things, including human beings and their minds, are in God, either as his creations or as naturally occurring beings. (Christians and Jews may choose the first, Spinozistic pantheists and scientists of the natural religion persuasion the latter.) If that is so, then transcendent laws, like the law of causes, must be understood, either way, as fundamental constituents of the mind of God. We may go so far as to suggest that they are thoughts in the mind of God.

To get directly to the point, that is, to synthesize the contradictory notions of free will and divine providence, and to place them in the context of a consideration of moral behavior … the law of causes stands beneath any conceivable moral code. Whether we conceive the functioning of morality as the mysterious workings of Fate or as “what goes around comes around” or as “whatsoever ye sow, so shall ye reap” or as the human conscience or merely as “the long arm of the law,” we cannot fail to see the law of causes. If there were no such law, then morality, in any sense, would not, and could not, exist.

Human beings have, for the most part, composed their understanding of morality by supposing God to be just, but even the most casual understanding of his true laws – i.e., those laws that cannot possibly be broken – demonstrates the error of that understanding. The law of causes sees to the punishment of the just and the unjust with equanimity. God plays no favorites. To God, humanity is one of the infinite effects of nature. Consequently, to God the word “justice” has no meaning.

It does not follow from God’s (or nature’s) unconcern with the affairs of men that men themselves ought to be unconcerned. (And certainly we are not.) God is infinite and thus need not be concerned with his survival, but men, and all things, are finite; consequently the drive to perpetuate themselves in being operates as a cause with the effect that, in nature, all things are in conflict. (See Hobbes, Leviathan.) And it is from this fact – which is also from God’s divine providence (though not by intent, since God has none) – that the need for Justice arises.

The rest should be easy, but obviously is not. Nature has determined that men are free to interpret their needs differently. Hence, they are free to arrange their moral codes differently. Some – unfortunately, a great majority – have seen fit to identify their codes as God’s, a mistake devastating to the possibility that a truly effective Justice might be obtained. Though the state of nature Hobbes saw as an inevitable outcome, that would be sure to prevail without governments, has been somewhat mitigated, the essential differences and the mistaken authorities assigned to those differences have created a world in which the “all” who are struggling with “all” have emerged as entities far more powerful, and thus far more deadly, than the individuals who would have been at war in the Hobbesian state of nature. We have organized ourselves as “true believers,” ordained our so-called moral codes with the imprimatur of the divine, and have set about to destroy ourselves and, perhaps, all the innocents of the earth.

Well, yes, denial is easy, because we “know” we are right. And yes, finding the power to lift ourselves by our bootstraps out of a sea of error is bound to be difficult. “Needs must it be hard, since it is so seldom found. How would it be possible, if salvation were ready to our hand, and could without great labor be found, that it should be by almost all men neglected? But all things excellent are as difficult as they are rare.” Those are the final words of Spinoza’s Ethics, and I feel compelled to observe that they have truly resulted from the one mistake that great man made: he spoke his truth so obscurely that men have been able to use their ignorance of it as an excuse for their murderous and “moral” ways.

And those are the Mouse’s final words … for today.

Mouse Talk: Health Care

Health care is a moral issue. Health care is not an economic issue.

But surely, the house cat argues, it has to be paid for; doesn’t that make it an economic issue?

Mouse answers: economic goods – automobiles, televisions, electric back scratchers, and similar nice-to-haves – flow into the possession of those who can afford them. The desire to possess them can be satisfied better by those who are economically successful. To increase one's power to acquire them might be regarded as an economic incentive to work hard. So we must ask whether health care should be similarly regarded as a reward to successful people that is denied to the less successful.

To help decide that question we ought to substitute for the words “health care” the much more understandable single word “life.” Should economically successful people be granted more life than others?

House cat replies: If you put it that way you certainly have a point, but even if I give you your word for it, wouldn’t you say that in the great scheme of things, it’s all about life. Life would seem to be the ultimate incentive and health care just one of the ways it translates into a practical goal.

Mouse paused, deep in thought. Several answers to house cat’s logic trickled through his mind, but for each of them, an equally logical rejoinder also cropped up. Finally, he realized that moral issues and economic issues are obedient to different strains of logical thought, and that they both begin with the answer to a question that is as fundamental as life itself.

Are we in this struggle as individuals, each alone fighting against nature? Or is this a battle we join as a species?

Mouse recalled the mythical scene described in the Bible, of the Samaritan who interrupted his journey to come to the aid of a stranger lying injured beside the road. Yes, the story is most often told to illustrate the ecumenical, Jews and Gentiles, nature of the new religion, but doesn’t the bottom line of even that interpretation suggest that we are one people, Jews, Gentiles, and barbarians, all together, one people in God. True, the story of the Good Samaritan was not about the health care the injured man received. It was about the nature of the human heart, about what is morally good, and what is morally wrong. It makes the point that life is a moral good, not an economic incentive. The Samaritan was not necessarily a rich man. He was a good man.

The Mouse smiled knowingly (as he had seen the house cat do on occasions that shall remain unnamed). He knew that to argue the point further with a carnivore would not be fruitful, could even prove dangerous. He decided he had framed the issue well. Leave it now to the people in power to decide. He did not feel very confident that they would see it his way, but what else could he do? After all, he’s only a lowly little mouse.

Medacious Message from a Burning Bush

[Or at least he will be burning if there is a Hell.]

He said we're still at war.

[He's read the poll numbers that seem to be saying 47% think he'd do better than a democrat at waging this war. It's insignificant that the majority now thinks the dem would do better. The "war" is where he scores the highest.]

Still no apology for getting us into this fiasco.

[No apparent chagrin for the 100,000 dead.]

He says the nation is still in danger.

[No indication that he's caught on to the fact that he's the source of the danger.]

I'm tired of pussy footing around with this incompetent boob. I think I'll ask for his resignation.

Applied Mendacity

Yesterday I blogged about the two fundamental lies that constitute the political substance of the American system of government. The blog was a complete failure. You see, I had entertained the notion that someone might take the idea seriously and begin to wonder why in the world a good American like the Mouse would say the nation’s highest ideals were lies. Instead, all I got was a snide remark from one of my dearest friends, to which I replied with equal “snididdity,” which was no way for a gentle Mouse to treat a friend. What made this so bad was that I knew my friend to be quite capable of finding an explanation for the Mouse’s arrogant behavior. She had, herself, just the day before acknowledged in her own blog that it has been humanity, and not God himself, who has loaded God with the tons of religious baggage he’s carrying around these days. In other words … we have all been lying about God. How much less can it be to acknowledge the lies upon which our nation is founded.

Well, perhaps there is a difference. Presumably there is a truth about God, and perhaps that truth could be found if we unloaded the baggage. But there’s no guarantee that such as a truth about the way we ought to govern ourselves exists. I acknowledged in my blog that quality of humankind that seems as if it were God-given, our existential freedom, but was quick to point out that our freedom to do as we please is exactly the reason we need governments.

On reflection I might have achieved a more meaningful response had I been more direct in saying what I had to say. I had thought – stupidly – that it would have been much better if I left unsaid “the moral of the story,” and left it to my readers to discover for themselves the truth of those two lies. I still believe that we have to discover for ourselves the bedrock constituents of our creeds, and not have them drummed into us by teachers, preachers, and gurus, however well-intended those worthies may be. But I guess, if we wish to share our beliefs – and that’s exactly what I was doing yesterday – we have to be much more specific than I was being. I was expecting people to be mind readers.

OK. Here’s the straight of it.

The human embryo, and hence the human being, is not imprinted with ideals. We are not born knowing that “all people are created equal.” We are in fact born believing the opposite, that we are the center of the universe. We are not born believing that “all people are endowed with unalienable rights.” We are in fact born believing that we have rights that all others are obliged to respect, We are born as selfish children. We have to be taught to be “good citizens.”

But who’s to teach us? Well, no one, if we expect our teachers to have been born into a different, all-knowing species. Our teachers derived their principles from the same sorts of places we did. They got their ideals from other human beings, and if we trace back far enough, we’ll discover that some other human beings – with names like Madison, Hamilton, and Jefferson – made them up. Now I know that things that are just “made up” are not necessarily lies. I thought – again, stupidly – that if I called them lies I might attract more attention than if I just called them “made up ideals.”

Didn’t work that way. It didn’t work at all that, because human beings created the ideals upon which our nation is based, we should take ultimate pride in recognizing the greatness of which humankind is capable. It didn’t work at all that we should take full responsibility for believing our lies, that we should defy anyone who thinks our lies are not working to make up better ones. It didn’t work at all that we should each acknowledge ourselves as the source and sustenance of the dream.

Maybe I would have let it go, but this morning I received an email from another blogster asking me to write something encouraging people to write out a statement of their Credo. (Capital “C” intended.) He told me that he had done it and that he thought it would reinforce everyone’s commitment to life if they were to openly state the principles guiding their decisions. I told him I would make such a request, but I found that I couldn’t get into it until I made it clear that all such creeds are made-up things. We might claim we based them on authoritative sources like the Bible, or the Constitution, but in order to take full and unquestionable responsibility for our creeds, we have to confirm ourselves as the persons who decided to take those sources seriously. And in order to do that – and to know that we had not foolishly bestowed our allegiance – we ought to have a clear understanding of why we did that. We ought to think hard about those things we agree to treat as authorities.

For you see, in addition to making us free, God has also made us reasoning animals, and just as we may exercise our freedom in self-destructive ways, so may we also use reason to justify what is essentially false. So maybe that’s why the friend who emailed me this morning found making a Credo so useful. When we write something down, something like a statement of beliefs, we are forced to ask of ourselves if we are telling the truth in the practical sense of the word. If for instance I were to write that I believe all people are created equal, I am not necessarily saying that’s a fact. I am saying simply that I am running my life on the assumption that all people are created equal. If that’s the truth, if I am actually treating my fellow human beings as if they were my equals, then it wouldn’t matter that the statement itself was true or false. My part of the real world would be operating as if that statement were the truth.

And that’s what I meant yesterday when I spoke of the dialogue that we as individuals ought to be carrying on with ourselves. If we hear in our mind’s mind the voice of those two lies I spoke of, if we are guided by the small voice of our most precious ideals … if we are true to our own lies, and if they are good lies … well, you see, that’s how the God of the Bible – if he were real – would have us behave, not merely as obedient to “the law,” but as a law unto ourselves. (Reread the “Sermon on the Mount” – Matt 5-7 – with that idea in mind.) (Or read Spinoza’s proposition 43, in Part Two of the Ethics.)

The world works better – anything works better – when we take responsibility for making it work. Maybe taking the time to write out a Credo will be a good beginning, or a good way to reaffirm our commitment to making our nation a workable place. And maybe if we do that … who knows, maybe even the world will work out better for those it’s not working so well for at the moment.

Mouse Tells All: Plato Nods Agreement

So, if in his Republic Plato wasn’t prescribing the details of a practical system of government, what was he doing? Very simply, he was telling us of certain understandings that all men ought to employ in their conduct at all levels of their lives. The details of the republic – training of the philosopher-kings, organization of the armies, etc – were, in my opinion, laid on to provide a structure for the book’s “story.” Swift used similar devices in his great satire, Gulliver’s Travels. He created Gulliver as an almost completely different sort of being from those his travels brought him into contact with, and did so, not because he thought men were that much different in themselves, but because he needed a stark contrast of their differences if he were to successfully argue his case. Plato’s devices were more subtle, since his “props” seem almost believable. Only by a careful analysis – and by a large dose of imagination – can the “facts” presented in The Republic be separated from the book’s true intention.

Begin with the great lie – and bear in mind that Plato tells us, in bald face words, that it is a lie. Here’s the logic of the lie.

All men are made of earth, but the earth is not uniform in its being. Most of the earth is pure dirt, but the Gods have embedded within that great mass certain other substances, iron, for one, precious metals for another. Hence, some men, because they were shaped by the rare iron, are made to be soldiers, while others, who derive their being from the even rarer gold and silver, are made to be philosophers and rulers. But the great mass of men are made of the plentiful substance, dirt, and are thus fit only to be controlled by the men of iron, and ruled by the men of gold.

Now, Plato certainly was not of the opinion that all men possess the same qualities, but – because he told us he was lying when he said it – we know he did not believe men’s differences could be traced to the natural substances from which they all were made. But if not that, then what?

To answer, consider the education of the philosopher-kings. In yesterday’s blog I made the point that no great body of absolute truth existed that these pupils could be taught. What then specifically differentiates the method of their training from, say, the education of the masses? Two answers come to mind.

Answer number one: The prospective philosopher-kings were taken out of the world, isolated from the corrupting influences which every day were bombarding common men. They were shielded from life as it actually is. Plato, then, is telling us that there is something about the way life is being lived by common men (read, all men) that gets in the way of their being able to learn the way life ought to be lived. Throughout The Republic Plato offers an almost interminable list of influences that shape the way men see the world. Not all of these influences are frivolous, some are even necessary if life is to be successfully lived, commerce for example. The pressures placed upon the business man, the shop keeper, and those who work for wages divert their eyes and souls from the broader view of the world that, if they could but see it, would permit them to live more in harmony with nature and with themselves. I mentioned yesterday the difference between the work of the corporate executive officer and the wise king. The one must focus on a narrow objective – corporate success – while the other must seek to bring all the divergent forces of a nation into harmony. The CEO is not paid to harmonize anything other than the relationship between his company, its suppliers, and its customers. To the extent he does this, he is successful, though his success – which often comes at the expense of others – might constitute a major problem for the wise king. If during his training a fledgling philosopher-king were exposed to too many influences of the sort that naturally affect common men, he might not be able to achieve the necessary level of objectivity. He might become “one of them.”

Answer number two: Philosopher-kings were not taught truth in the sense that truth can be expressed as a body of facts. They were taught the method – dialectic – by which an effective “truth” could be derived. That is, they were taught how to think. Plato was sold on the dialectic (by which he meant, the discursive way of seeking answers). If the world is viewed as an infinity of constantly moving forces, each with aims and methods of its own, to understand the world as a body of facts would be virtually impossible. We may not therefore understand the world the way we might understand an arrangement of numbers, but we can understand the people of the world in the sense that we know they have aims that are their own which, if sought without restraints of any kind, might not – almost certainly will not – produce universal harmony. We can see that, left to their own designs, people and their society will become a conglomerate of individual forces, each setting the rules of its own behavior. Now, it is easy to see that trying to force these free entities into discourse, each with the other, would be difficult. So, if as Plato suggests, dialectic is the answer, what is to be the nature of the dialogue? This question brings us back to the noble lie.

“All men are created equal and are endowed with certain ‘unalienable rights’.” Both clauses of this sentence are lies. By no actual measure are all men equal, and even if there were such as natural rights, they would certainly not be “unalienable.” But just as Plato’s noble lie was intended to create belief in the infallibility of the philosopher-kings, so does the lie of the American experiment have a noble intent. To the extent that lie is believed, and to the extent it becomes a partner in the private dialogue all Americans have with themselves, so will the American nation avoid many of the internal conflicts that throughout history have plagued other forms of government. The lie that served to maintain the power of monarchies – divine right – stopped working when the monarchs started believing their own lie, began to think they were actually divine, and thus stretched their ambitions beyond the point they could be sustained.

The American lie is more believable than the other. There is a sense in which men are equal: we are all born existentially free. And there is a sense in which men’s desires and powers can be interpreted as “rights.” But the most fundamental problem of government lies in men’s existential freedom. Governments can, by force, control men’s tongues, but can never control men’s hearts. The drive to be free is not simply an act of so-called free will, but is rather a fact of the way men are. Our “rights” become rights only when we treat "power" and "right" as synonyms. They become logically and physically defensible when we recognize them as a part of the great lie we have agreed to believe.

Oh yes, the word is agreed. For, you see, the great American lie is unlike others lies – which lose their effectiveness when they are seen to be lies. I may know very well that all men are not equal and that my rights exist only because a powerful government has been committed to protect them, but I know just as well as I know the lie to be a lie, that if we the people begin to behave the way we respond to other lies, we will be doomed, not only as a people, but in all likelihood, as individuals as well. We are protected from the worst aspects of the Hobbesian notion of life as “mean, cruel, and short” by the ideas we have embodied in the notion that “all men are created equal and are endowed with certain unalienable rights.” It does not matter that the sentence contains two lies. What matters is that if we behave as if we doubt their truth, the power and glory of the American dream will come to a bloody end.

It must be admitted that many of the glories of “the dream” have been lost to us in recent times. Powerful forces within the land have found ways to use the lie the way Plato’s lie was originally intended: to establish the ultimate power of those in command. The dialogue that works – the one we must continually carry on between ourselves and our noble lie – has been turned on its head. The American dream has been made an apotheosis, has been made into “America,” has been given substance just as touchable as the real estate we live upon. And in defense of that physical substance we have too often found it necessary to discard the insubstantial ideas that form the core of America’s humanity. We have started to behave as if the lie were no longer relevant to the affairs of men. We’re behaving, again, as Hobbesian creatures, struggling all against each, and each against all. We have lost our awareness of our ideals.

Perhaps in the end that's all Plato's understanding has meant to us. His analysis has served as one of the many contributors to the evolving sense of self that finally grew into the American idea. But nothing in the evolution of ideas suggests that it has an end point. If it took men like Madison and Hamilton, Randolph and Mason, to thrash out the statement of a great and practical lie, perhaps history now has need for a convention of different men, new men who can manage in themselves the sort of isolation from the masses that’s needed if a better and more transcendent lie is to emerge. Perhaps we need open our minds to the possibility that the American ideal was but a small step on the way across the bridge from what we are to what we might become.

I would love to live long enough to see it, but I don’t think that’s going to happen. That’s OK. I can still imagine such a world and can still hope that the world we have remains sufficiently sane that I can carry that hope with me close to the edge.

Mouse Reveals Plato's (Secret) Plan

Twenty-four centuries ago Plato complained that governments based on pure democratic principles were bound to result in nations that were poorly administered. He based his pessimistic view of democracy on what he saw of the masses that constituted the vast majority of the population of 5th century BC Athens and the other city-states of the Peloponnesian peninsula. He saw people who were not only illiterate, but whose lives were so completely given over to making ends meet they didn’t have the time or energy to devote to a reasoned consideration of the issues they would have to deal with in order to make an effective contribution to self-government. He was disappointed with even the limited democracy practiced in Athens; out of a population that may have numbered 200,000, only about 6,000 Athenian citizens – primarily the propertied class – were allowed a vote. Perhaps Plato, in taking his anti-democratic stand, was still teed off about the death sentence those privileged Athenians had laid upon Socrates, the man he regarded as the finest Greek who ever lived.

As an alternative to democracy, Plato proposed a "sophistocracy," a government administered by professional “philosopher-kings” who, from childhood, had been selected and trained for the work of governing. Their training would be perfectly geared to produce men whose every thought would be for the good of the nation, and whose ability to govern would be assured by their mastery of what Plato called “dialectic,” but which was nothing other than logical reasoning. My own opinion is that Plato never intended his ideas to be implemented, but that The Republic, the book he wrote describing the system, was intended as irony, a demonstration of a system of government so obviously impossible that the difficulties of government would be made visible. It was a fine example of indirection, a plan designed to reveal insurmountable problems, while pretending to propose solutions.

My opinion is, of course, debatable. Nowhere does Plato say, or even suggest, that The Republic was not meant to be taken as a realizable plan. But one thing about that plan, and another thing about the philosopher-kings, must be admitted as possible clues to its ironic intent: the plan assumed that an indisputable body of truth could be identified, and that teachers could be found to inculcate that truth into the fledgling kings. Plato must certainly have known – because Socrates had been his instructor – that no such body of truth existed, and that, as a consequence, no teachers to teach it existed either. As for the kings themselves, if they actually materialized as Plato described them, they would be specialists so perfectly focused on their work they would seem almost inhuman.

But the superhuman focus of the kings would not appear to be impossible to obtain. Modern corporate executive officers are expected to display similar total commitment to their work, so much so that they too, if they actually did it, might seem inhuman. But the task of the CEO is remarkably different from the task of a king. Without argument, the CEO can be said to have succeeded if he optimizes a tangible reality, bottom-line profit; but the rulers of a nation are successful only if they govern in such a way that the people being governed are reasonably happy and assuredly safe.

Plato recognized, though, that not all people would be made happy by the same governmental policy, even when the justice of the policy was not in question. So Plato’s republic would succeed only if the people were to believe the philosopher-kings were always right.

We can certainly agree that people might seem to be happy if they are made to believe they are happy, and that’s exactly what Plato proposed as the grand strategy for his philosopher-kings. The details of the lie by which that goal was to be achieved are too silly to imagine that it would work in today’s world, but the same lie has shown up, in different forms, throughout history. The so-called divine right of kings was a variant of Plato's lie, as are the superstitions that under gird theocratic governments, and those more-or-less secular governments whose leaders claim divine guidance. In any case, such lies only work when the people remain relatively ignorant.

We might imagine that in today’s world Plato’s low opinion of the people’s abilities might not be quite so valid as it was in his day. Free public education has certainly created a much higher percentage of literate people, and the internet has made possible a much wider debate of the issues. But some of the facts of Plato’s time remain with us. It is still true that the great masses of us still spend huge amounts of our time working for a living. Even if we might have a few more free hours, the same sorts of technological breakthroughs that gave us the internet and the nightly news, also brings us boatloads of time consuming entertainments that have nothing to do with public debate of critical issues. We as a people are probably no more able to make an assessment of the issues than were the plebeians of Athens. Moreover, because the techniques by which believable lies are formulated and delivered have been vastly improved since Plato’s time, we are perhaps even more prone to believe lies than the Greeks were. As I wrote two blogs ago, we are also not educating ourselves to be critical thinkers, but rather, to be true believers in the infallibility of “the American way.”

Well, the American way may not be perfect, and the American people may not be as aware of its imperfections as they might be with a more liberal education, but the American experiment has played a necessary role in the progressive development of government as it is now practiced in all of the western democracies. And tomorrow, Gates willing, I will continue this exposé of Plato’s secret plan.