"You have faith, I have evidence"

This is a common rhetorical strategy of materialists and atheists against christians. It has been so widely used that the faulty premises on which it is built have worked their way into the assumptions of even knowledgable people. Well read individuals will talk as though faith and reason are at odds. They will say, "Sure, I have no evidence, but everyone put's their faith in something". These statements are made sometimes as an attack against christian belief. Other times they are are stated by christians as a last ditch effort to defend their beliefs. However, both honest critics of the christian faith and christians themselves should relook at the relationship between evidence and faith.

Evidence is being contrasted to faith here. However, very often it is reason that is used in place of evidence. "You have faith, I have reason" is probably a more common way to phrase a similar attack. Similarly, christians will admit to a "tension" between "faith and reason", as though there is some sort of balance that needs struck between the two. However, evidence is a more interesting comparison for a few reasons. First, the word "reason" is quite vague. Reason could be a set of logical deductions given particular axioms. Alternatively, reason could just be a way to describe the consistency and forcefulness of an argument. Lastly, reason could mean "sufficient reason" to believe something to be true. This last version of the word reason is what is often being contrasted to faith, and "evidence" is more to the point and avoids ambiguity.

To define faith, let us first turn to the Bible. In deed, if we are to address an argument made by atheists against christians, or improve christians self understanding of such an important concept of their religion, the Bible must be where we turn first to define the term. Hebrews 11:1 says, "faith is the assurance of things hoped for." This verse is clearly providing a definition of faith. The definition is split into two things that are related in a particular way. The two things that make up faith is assurance and hope. The relationship is that the assurance provides sufficient, or even abundant, reason for the hope.

Assurance here is sufficiently synonymous in this context for evidence. When you see a car go fast, you have evidence that the car is fast. You have assurance that the car is fast. Hope is simply something you want to happen. Faith is neither plain evidence, nor just any hope, it is strictly the combination of the two. You may have evidence for something that you could care less about. That is not faith because even though you have evidence, it is not evidence for something in which you are hoping. You might have hope for something but have no evidence for it. This is merely hope, not faith.

Now some will say here that sure, the Bible might provide this definition for faith, however, it is clearly out of step with the every day usage of the word. However, is this indeed the case? If you listened to a discussion or debate between a christian and an atheist you might come away with that impression. However, if you listen to yourself, or the normative usage of the word, you will come away seeing that the Biblical definition actually more closely matches the modern normative usage.

A common phrase or concept is to say that a person has "faith in their spouse". Now, when a person says this, are they saying that they hope their spouse is loyal, but truly they have no good evidence to support this hope? Of course not. When someone says they have faith in their spouse they are clearly intending to indicate that they have abundant evidence that their spouse is loyal.

A person might say, "I will cross this bridge because I have faith in it." When they say that, are they intending to say that they could care less as to whether the bridge holds or falls? Or that they have no good evidence on what it will do? Of course not, they intend to say that they have seen the bridge hold traffic every day for years and years. The foundations are solid, we have a city government that repairs our infrastructure, and so I have good reason to cross this bridge with full assurance that my hope that this bridge holds will be true. Faith is evidence of things hoped for.

Examples could be multiplied. If someone says "I have faith in you", they are most certainly not saying to you "You know, I have no reason to believe you will succeed, but I am blindly hoping that you do". Of course they actually mean "I have every reason to believe you will succeed". Faith is the assurance of things hoped for. So you can see that whether we turn to the Bible or to normative usage, the word faith has been misdefined by those who wish to subtly undo the christian faith. Sadly, too many christians have picked up on this redefining of the word and use this misunderstanding in their own conversation.

"You have faith, I have evidence"

Well, faith is the evidence of hope, so I sure hope that you have faith as well! And if I have faith, then that means by definition I have sufficient evidence, in my own understanding, to support my hope.

"There is a tension between faith and evidence"

Like there is a tension between melody and rhythm. A good song needs both. Without evidence faith is just hope. Without hope, evidence is just Nihilism.

Now the point here is not to say that everyone will agree that the evidence being provided for the hope is sufficient. A christian will say that they have faith in Christ. They are certainly not saying that Christ has given no good evidence for the hope he promises, but I am blinding hoping it all works out like he says. What they actually mean of course is that Christ has provided abundant evidence, more than sufficient reason, for placing our hope in him. He has lifted us out of a life of sin, provided his word to guide us, lived a perfect life, died a perfect death, and has been resurrected for our justification. His perfection, his love, his life provide abundant reason for us to hope in him. An atheist will of course say that they do not find this evidence being provided as very compelling. However, this is the point. It is incorrect to say that faith in Christ, or faith in anything for that matter, is definitionally belief without evidence. That is a misguided, and very likely malicious statement.

So the point is not that everyone everywhere will accept the evidence being provided for the hope, but that evidence is indeed being provided, and that by definition, faith cannot exist without both evidence and hope. faith is not belief without evidence, as some would suggest, but evidence in things hoped for.

Now, I would like to finish by looking at some statements made in modern normative usage that would seem to challenge this notion of faith being evidence of things hoped for. Has the every day usage of the word changed? Is this not what people mean when they talk about faith? Let us take some examples.

"You need to live by faith"

What do people mean when they say this? Do they mean that you need to live by means of belief without evidence? Do they mean that you need to construct your life on a set of beliefs that you have no evidence for? Do they mean you need to build up your life by having faith in a bridge? Do they mean that you need to live your life built upon faith in your spouse? In fact, none of these meanings are intended. What is of course meant is that you need to build your life upon faith in Christ. And so we come back to our previous discussion. What do people mean when they say they have faith in Christ? Do they mean that they hope in the promises of Christ even though Christ has provided no good reason for this hope? Of course not! They actually mean that Christ has given overflowing and abundant reason to hope in Him and His promises, and they are going to build their life on this great and assured hope.

"I take it on faith"

This statement does seem to smell of that incorrect understanding of faith being belief without evidence. Someone might say, "Why do you believe that?" And the reply might be, "I take it on faith." This to me is not a biblical way of speaking about faith. Assuming the belief under question is some tenet of the christian faith, it seems to denigrate the works and words of God. Now, this statement could be intended to mean that the person believes something because they have assurance of things hoped for, which is the proper definition. However, more likely than not this statement is synonymous with, "You know, I don't really know why, so I guess I believe it just because." This is clearly not a God honoring view of the person and work of Christ. Christ has of course provided great reason to hope in Him.

Finally, faith is sometimes made synonymous with presuppositions, or, those things that must be believed in order to then proceed to understand anything at all. For example, nearly all of us presuppose that there is an external world beyond myself that my senses of sight, hearing, smell, and so forth reference. While I am sympathetic to the importance and role of presuppositions and making them explicit, I do not think that presuppositions themselves are synonymous with faith. Rather, shared presuppositions would make the evidence of hope agreeable between two people, and non overlapping presuppositions would make the provided evidence uncompelling between two people. If one person is a true and bare materialist, they will be uncompelled by an argument that rests on sin, judgement, and holiness. Presuppositions to some degree determine the weight a person givens to evidence, but presuppositions are by no means synonymous with faith. Not biblically, and not in normative usage.

And so, faith is the assurance of things hoped for.

Evolution is a process whereby there is a species of individuals that exist through time in generations, with each new generation capable of new and different features that are selected by an environment, which causes the proceeding generation to be different from the previous one. If the creativity of the new and different features is unlimited, and the selective pressures change sufficiently, then the change in the species that the process of evolution can produce is itself unlimited, given enough time.

Evolution is not merely change. It involves, as described above, a species (or collection) of individuals, that exist in generations, where each new generation has new features, that are selected by an environment. Evolution is often discussed in the realm of biology, and it is the most commonly accepted theory among biologists accounting for the origin of diversity of the species. Often evolution is invoked when simply change over time is actually intended, and the phenomenon in question lacks one of the key components of evolution, mentioned previously.

Evolution of an animal species would involve an animal species such as a certain type of moth, the individual moths, the generations of moths, the various features that the moth is capable of expressing such as color or wingspan, an environment such as the English countryside and a selection such as certain moths being eaten because their dark color exposes them to predators. In this scenario, evolution can describe the change in the moth species from a dark color to a light color after the introduction of a factory that leaves a white film over the newly industrialized English countryside.

Evolution can exist in other phenomenon as well when the basic requirements of evolution are met, such as technology, and, more specifically, particular technological devices that large numbers of people use on a daily basis that are capable of significantly and directly impacting the schedules, thought processes, and daily life of people. We will call this subset of technology Personally Integrated Devices (PIDs), or just devices for ease of speech.

In order to apply the tools of evolution to devices we need to understand the characteristics of a particular piece of technology that makes it a PID. Then we can view these devices through the lens of evolutionary theory and see if it provides any insight into human behavior and the technologically infused world of certain modern societies.

A Personally Integrated Device is anything that is not a part of the human body and not another biological species, that exists in generations where each new generation the potential for new features, that is used by a large amount of people within a society and is used often enough to affect that persons life, their decisions, and the way they perceive the world. Two things that might fit this description are viruses and clothing. Viruses exist on a hard to categorize line between living and nonliving material, and so they might fit into the "not another biological species" category and would thereby be ruled out of being a PID. If not, they are certainly not human, they exist in generations, each generation can have new features, some are involved in a large number of people within a society, and obviously affect the lives of those people. However, because it is not clear that they are "used" by people, and for other reasons, we will not include them in the definition of a PID.

Clothing, and other common tools and materials used by people, might fit the previously given description of a PID. Clothes are not apart of the human body, they exist in generations since new clothing needs made and often with new features (styles), used by essentially everyone, and clothing effects the lives of people, their decisions, and the way they view the world. Clothing effects everything from morning routines to partner selection.

Other things that fit this description are TVs, desktop computers, laptops, phones, tablets, and other similar devices. These devices certainly fit the description of a PID, and have a particularly new and pronounced effect on the lives of people, their decisions, and their view of the world. It is these in particular that we will focus on, using the term device to discuss these particular PIDs (keeping in mind that other things such as clothing might fit the description of a PID).

Now to apply the concept of evolution to these devices. Obviously devices are individuals (the particular device that a particular person has) of a species (phones in general) and each new generation is capable of new and different features (touch screen that can fit into your pocket, for example). However, is there an environment that selects which features the next generation of devices has?

The device environment is not the human environment, even though spatially these devices almost always exist together with the humans that own them. The device environment is the desires of people that either choose to use the device a lot and ignore the device and eventually discard it or otherwise cease using it. In order for evolution to be applied to devices the features of the device must be capable of effecting the choice of the person to either use the device more or discard the device. Since it is clearly the case that when people use these devices their choice of whether to continue to use the device or discard it is significantly impacted by their actual use of the device itself. This point needs clarified and stressed. A person who has never used a smart phone laughs at the idea that they one day would say that they can't live without it. Their use of the smart phone itself changes their choice as to the importance of the smart phone. In this way, the smart phone is competing in the environment of that persons desires and behaviors, and is selected (that is, survives) if it can change that persons behaviors to include the use and protection of the device.

When viewed through this lens, we can see an active evolution occurring among devices, where the survival strategies being employed involve the manipulation of the desires and behaviors of the people themselves.

The creative engine behind the features of devices used to be the creativity of engineers. However, devices can now creatively adapt through machine learning. This machine learning is centralized in a geographically separate place, however the resulting effect is new features being acquired by the device that is physically present with the person.

This survival strategy of devices has ensured the survivability of the species by becoming so important to the human being that, in often said words, "I couldn't live without my smart phone."

Is this relationship parasitical? This question can be answered philosophically by looking at the ideal of what a person should strive for or empirically by looking at how societies involved in this relationship behave. However it can also be answered personally. When you go to sleep on a Sunday evening thinking about your week to come, do you think in that moment that it would be ideal for you to spend 10 hours on twitter in the coming week? The philosophical and empirical answers are just as obvious.

Sometimes this parasitical infection by the device reaches levels with noticeable and sometimes sever symptoms. A person might be incapable of holding a conversation without stimulus from their phone, might be jittery when sitting without their phone, feel depression or anxiety when they for some reason cannot use their phone, are spending hours a day scrolling through apps, and may have other symptoms. We will call this severe case of the parasitical infection Technological Mental Disease (TMD).

TMD should be researched as a medically diagnosable disease. Its affects should be studied individually and societally. Prevention mechanisms should be put into place to prevent it.

One of the most clear observations that we can make of the world is that it is complex. By complex I do not mean difficult to understand, although the world is often difficult to understand as well, but rather I mean that it is composed of multiple things. The opposite of complex is simple, which, in this usage of the word, means singular or whole. Another example of this use of these words is in chemistry where a simple molecule is a molecule with a single atom and a complex molecule is a molecule with more than one atom. This first observation of the world is both obvious, important, and yet easy to forget. Another observation that we can make is that for two things to relate to one another they must relate by some principle. We could say that a hammer and a rock relate by the principle of smashing things. The head of the hammer breaks apart the rock. We could offer a more robust example such as boiling water and metal relating by the principle of heat transfer. Many examples could be given, but the point is that two things must relate by some principle.

This observation that the world that we observe is composed of many things that all relate to each other by some set of principles is a generalized observation that many others have made in the history of philosophy. Some will describe this in terms of cause and effect or using other philosophical concepts. However, I have found it useful to generalize this to the simple observation that the world is composed of multiple things, and these things interact or relate in various ways.

A few other observations can be made. If there is no principle of relation between two things, then it would be as though those two things existed in entirely separate worlds. They would simply have no knowledge of each other, so to speak. This means that there needs to be a principle of relation between all things. If you continue to press the question, eventually everything needs to relate to everything else. This thought process inevitably leads to the observation that there must be a single principle that relates everything to everything else. We could call this the first principle. Also observe that there could not be no first principle, for how else would anything relate to other things? Secondly, observe there cannot be more than one first principle, for how then would those two principles relate? If there were two “first principles”, then you could simply ask how those two principles relate. We are led to the conclusion that there must be a single first principle that is the principle of relation of all other things.

This is a more generic analogue of the statement that you could follow the cause and effect relationships between things back to a first cause of all things. However, a principle of relation is more generic and emphasizes the fact that this first principle is not some “originating cause” that has it’s effect, kicks the clock work into motion, and thereafter is hands off. Rather, this first principle relates things to each other continually. So when we say “first cause” we do not mean temporarily first, as if God acted at time equals zero, but substantially first. To say it differently, just as there is nothing back of God causing God to be God, God is also back of everything else causing everything else to be, at all times.

This observation is extreme simplicity in that it denies all complexity and composition in God. Other examples of simplicity would be moderate simplicity. For example, a simple sports team would be a team with one player. However this is moderate simplicity in that the single player is still a composition in manifold ways. However, when we say that God is simple we are denying all forms of composition in God. This doctrine of simplicity is witnessed in the scriptures, is the foundation of monotheism, and has been confessed by christians for millennia. Any composition in God begs the question as to how those individual things which are not God come together to be God. First, if these things that are in God come together to be God, how do these things individually exist, and, by what principle do these separate things relate to each other as to compose God? Said differently, denying the absolute simplicity of God by the slightest bit, indicates the existence of at least two things that exist without God, cause God to be God, and indicates the existence of some principle or cause that is more fundamental than God. All of these outcomes shred the biblical witness, monotheism, and the christian confession throughout the ages.

As an aside, when discussing simplicity one thing that needs to be avoided is the sneaky introduction of time in our statements. We could say that there is nothing before God that causes God to be God. However, this assumes that God is an agent in time, and that time is somehow more fundamental than even the discussion of the simplicity of God. One way that we can avoid this is to amend the previous statement and say that, there is nothing back of God that causes God to be God. We have replaced the word “before” with “back”. Now this introduces spatial language instead of temporal language into the discussion. However, when speaking of God, no matter what we do, our language will be inadequate, and so we simply need to choose the statement that is the least prone to error. Given that people more readily understand that God is not circumscribed by space than understand that God is wholly outside of time, using the spatial term of “back” is less prone to error than the temporal term of “before”. And so, there is nothing back of God that causes God to be God.

When speaking of these concepts one of the things that must be done is to take time to pause and discuss the usage of words. Learning theology often involves learning a phrase that is akin to a formula, such as that God is “a most pure spirit, invisible, without body, parts, or passions”. And then learning what those words mean in this theological context and how they are composed in the phrase. So here I want to pause yet again and think about this word, “circumscribed”. Another thing that helps when defining terms in a particular theological context is to start with the definition in it’s common modern use, then proceed to narrow in on what it means in a particular theological context. And so, circumscribed means for one thing to fully surround or contain another thing. If you draw a circle around a picture of a rabbit, the circle circumscribes the rabbit. If you put apple butter in a jar, the jar circumscribes the apple butter. So what does it mean that God is not “circumscribed” by time and space? Well to start, it is another way of saying that God is eternal and omnipresent. To say a particular circle does not circumscribe God is obvious, but to say that space itself cannot circumscribe God is to say that God cannot be measured with spatial dimensions like physical objects can. God is not ‘here’ or ‘there’. The property of spatial location is not a property of God like it is for physical objects. And the same applies to time, that God is not measured in temporal dimensions. He is not “then” and “now”. Neither time nor space is a property, or part, of what constitutes God as it is for created things.

We could expand this to say that God is not circumscribed by anything, including our language (which is to say that God is incomprehensible), nor time (which is to say that He is eternal), or space (which is to say that He is omnipresent) and therefore He is infinite in the truest, unlimited sense of the word. To say that God is infinite is to say he is not circumscribed by anything, which is to say that he is not parameterized, or constituted by, the properties that constitute other things, such as ourselves. Here we have shown a connection between many of the attributes of God including his infinitude, eternality, incomprehensibility, and omnipresence. As we can see here, the attributes of God are not a list of isolated qualities that we pick and choose. They are all deeply interconnected, a fact that strongly hints toward simplicity itself, which declares an absolute identity between the attributes of God themself. But more on this later.

So what have we said so far? A simple observation of the world is that it is composed of multiple things related to each other in various ways, and this leads to the inevitable conclusion that there is a first principle which relates, or causes, all things. God is therefore the first principle of all relation, or said differently, the first cause of all things. Additionally, God must be absolutely simple and all composition whatsoever must be denied of God. If God was composed of parts then there is something back of God that causes God to be God. And finally, we have stated that this doctrine of simplicity is the foundation of monotheism. My goal is to make these statements not indirect conclusions but direct observations. These are direct observations of the world which we are capable of making ourselves and confirming with both scripture and the historical christian confession.

The church fathers placed the doctrine of simplicity as necessary to a proper confession of monotheism and as the anchor point for the doctrine of the trinity. Modern theologies usually reverse this, and deny or augment the doctrine of simplicity on the basis of the doctrine of the trinity. We may also feel like this is the right move to make but upon inspection we find that the church fathers made the right move. The doctrine of simplicity frames and structures our understanding of the trinity. This might be a difficult leap to make at first, similar to asking someone to pour the milk into their bowl before the cereal. Old habits are simply hard to change. As we progress we will see more and more as to why the doctrine of simplicity should guide our doctrine of the trinity and not the reverse. However, to touch on this only quickly, we can at least outline the basic reasoning.

First, we can state positively that only a doctrine of the trinity that rests on simplicity can be a truly historic trinitarian confession of faith. Or said more simply, the doctrine of the trinity was developed by church fathers who themselves relied on simplicity. And so to strip away the foundation from the conclusion is to destroy the doctrine itself. Secondly, the doctrine of simplicity is not only amenable to the doctrine of the trinity, but necessary. For the doctrine of the trinity is not only about the threeness of God but also the oneness. Trinitarianism was from the outset and has always been monotheistic, a three in one, not just three. To have trinitarianism without simplicity is to speak of the threeness of God without the oneness of God, which is no trinitarianism at all. Finally, we speak of the threeness of God as the absolutely simple substance of God relating to itself. Again, we will expand on this slowly, but I wanted to outline the arguments early.

This doctrine of simplicity is something of a great filter on theology in that all belief systems can be described as either being based on simplicity or complexity, and I would argue that this is the most foundational characteristic of a philosophy or religious belief. Paganism is the belief in a complexity without any underlying simplicity. The pagan gods are all forces in a material world of unending complexity without any underlying simplicity. Modern materialism is essentially an augmented paganism in that it again replaces the simple first principle with a complexity of things without any underlying principle of relation. Atheism is expressly predicated on the denial of the doctrine of simplicity. In fact, the word atheism means exactly that. Non theism, which can be alternatively stated as denying simplicity. What we see is that when comparing the philosophies of christianity to paganism, materialism, and others we see that one takes seriously the necessity of simplicity, while the others miss the absolutely fundamental first observation that we can make of the world, which is that it is a composite that demands an underlying simplicity.

A polemical tactic of atheists has been to categorize belief systems as falling into two main categories, religious and non religious. This makes paganism and theism and other "religious" beliefs into one category and has atheism stand alone in its own unique category. However, this is the wrong way to categorize belief systems. The better categorization is between beliefs based on a doctrine of simplicity and those based on a doctrine of complexity. The philosophy of paganism and polytheism share more in common with atheism and materialism than they do with monotheism. And the reason is the “mono” of monotheism, meaning “one”. Polytheism and atheism are both based on a principle of complexity. From the outset a robust monotheistic belief stands categorically apart from other beliefs. It is also worth noting that all belief systems that incorporate a robust doctrine of simplicity are rooted in the Abaramic and Mosaic tradition. “And God said to Moses, ‘I am who I am” and “Hear O Israel, the Lord is our God, the Lord is one.” Compare these statements from Exodus and Deuteronomy to the first line of the Second London Confession that describes god: “The Lord our God is but one only living and true God; whose subsistence is in and of himself.”

In comparison, the differences between paganism and atheism are minor. Both put forward an unexplained complexity with no underlying simplicity. They differ in their ability to understand and predict the complexity that they put forward. One puts forward rational agents that can be inconsistently predicted with motives. The other puts forward rules based material that can be consistently predicted with mathematical formula. This is a good step forward from paganism, but still fits into the same category and fails to grasp the totality of reality and its underlying unity.

In contrast, a philosophy of simplicity puts one on the track towards understanding and appreciating the complexity of creation, and more importantly its simple underlying principle of relation, the Lord Himself.

Philosophy is the study of that which could not be otherwise. Note that philosophy is not that which could not be otherwise, but rather the study of that which could not be otherwise. We call that which could not be otherwise: the mind of God.

Physics is the study of that which is. Physics is not that which is, but is the study of that which is. We call that which is: the creation of God.

Mathematics is a subset of the study of that which could not be otherwise, usually denoted by certain formal characteristics of its axioms. Strictly speaking there is no clear dividing line between mathematics and the rest of philosophy. Sometimes, the word philosophy is used to describe only the subset of philosophy (as defined previously), that is not mathematics. Often, using this restricted definition, the phrase, "mathematics and philosophy", describes the whole of philosophy (as defined previously).

When it is said that which could not be otherwise is the mind of God, the word "mind" is used in an analogical sense. It is not meant that God has a mind that is like the human mind. Rather, it is an attempt to describe some aspect of God that shares some aspect of the human mind. We are searching for some way to put words to some aspect of God. It is also not meant that God, "has a mind", as though God had various parts which constitute him. These are all limitations of our language.

What we do mean when we speak of the mind of God is that there are truths which are true and could not be false, and that these truths are not somehow logically behind God as though he depended on them, but rather they are true because of him. In some sense, truths which could not be otherwise are a reflection of God himself. And so we can say that philosophy is a search of the mind of God. This search is astounding because it is possible for us to do at all. It is awe inspiring because there is always an ocean beyond the shores that we have thus far travelled, no matter how far we think we have come. This search is humbling because no matter how far we have come, we are still only in the shallow waters and the great deep is always beyond our grasp.

We use "mind" to put a word to this aspect of God because the human mind is capable of conceiving of that which does not exist, that which is not not but could be. This ability of the human mind to stretch beyond what is and into that which could be, combined with the ability to conceive of that which could not be otherwise, makes the human mind an analog to this aspect of God that we are attempting to describe. The human mind searches this space, the divine mind defines this space.

Physics is the the study of what is, not what could exist, but what actually exists. The first thing that can be known to exist is that an experience is being had. Experiencing something is the first fact of existence any experiencing agent can come to. What is being experienced? That is a harder fact to pin down. How is it being experienced? This is even more difficult. But that something is being experienced is as undeniable of a fact of existence as there is.

In searching for what is, in order that we might study it (the domain of physics), we add to experience (which we will call consciousness), the first fundamentals of math and philosophy. These are the basic truths that could not be otherwise (derived not from physics but from philosophy) that a conscious agent could experience even if it had no input from outside itself. An experiencing agent can come to basic truths such as non contradiction without any outside input. These truths in and of themselves are a part of philosophy. However, the experience of these truths by an experiencing agent are the second part of physics. These first fundamentals of math and philosophy will prove to be an important second step in the study of that which is.

With experience and the first fundamentals at hand, we add something that we will call super direct observation. This is not what is usually meant by direct observation, such as the direct observation of a cup on a table. Therefore, we add super to the phrase in order to emphasize it more. A super direct observation is not a person seeing a cup on a table, but the the experience of a cup on a table. This is a critical distinction. A direct observation involves the light proceeding from the cup, entering the eye, being processed by the brain, and eventually resulting in the conscious experience. The super direct observation is just the conscious experience of the cup on the table.

An experiencing agent, armed with the first fundamentals of math and philosophy, having a super direct observation, can then make a conclusion about the reality that is causing that super direct observation. This conclusion, which is dependent on the first three steps of physics, is called a direct observation. Note that these direct observations are not at the bottom of physics, but are dependent on the conscious experience, the first fundamentals of math and philosophy, and the super direct observations.

Now these direct observations can be mixed with the first fundamentals to make predictions about these direct observations, which we will call direct predictions. A generalized example of this is asking what will we directly observe next, if some action is taken. Again note that these direct observations depend on the first four steps of physics: conscious experience, the first fundamentals, the super direct observations, and direct observations.

Finally, armed with the ability to make direct predictions about things that we directly observe, we can also make indirect conclusions about things we do not directly observe. For example, we could ask what is the molecular composition of the cup on the table? We cannot directly observe the molecular composition of the cup on the table. However, we can make direct observations, combined with the first fundamentals of math and philosophy, to make indirect conclusions about things that we cannot directly observe. Note that these indirect conclusions are dependent upon the first five steps of physics: conscious experience, the first fundamentals, super direct observations, direct observations, and direct predictions.

For those wanting a map that can be used to construct the study of that which is (the process of physics), refer to these steps:

1. Conscious experience

2. The first fundamentals of math and philosophy

3. Super direct observations

4. Direct observations

5. Direct predictions

6. Indirect conclusions

One may ask wonder how much correlation there is between the direct observations and indirect conclusions. This is a common question among scientists. Do the models of our physics correspond to a real thing? Or is it just a model that allows us to predict a direct observation? This question I will leave to others.

We might also wonder how much correlation there is between the super direct observations and direct observations. How much does our conscious experience relate to the actual thing in front of us? If this correlation is extremely loose or negligible, the word "direct" in the phrase "direct observation" might be misleading. However, if there was such an incredible disjoin between what we experience consciously and what actually is, then any predictions made by our conscious experience would have no correlation to the actual outcome. Given that, in certain restricted domains, we can make continuous correct predictions, then some lower bound on the correlation between super direct observations and direct observations must exist.

When discussing consciousness, dualism and materialism are often presented as two distinct options. Materialism is described as explaining the mind, consciousness, and human behavior with "natural" and "materialistic" explanations and dualism poses a "supernatural" or "spiritual" explanation for the mind, consciousness, and human behavior. Then, with this basic outline, it is then stated that no brain experiment has found anything other than material causes acting in the brain. Finally, on this basis, the dualistic argument is ruled out, and materialistic explanations are said to be the only explanation.

What is wrong with this line of thinking? Well, a few questions to ask: (1) Is materialism vs non materialism a valid distinction? (2) How would a non materialistic cause be identified? In other words, how would a scientist doing an experiment see something and say, "Ah, there it is, a non materialistic result!" The reality is that dualism itself is polemic used by self proclaimed materialists to discount possibilities that don't fit into their predefined set of possibilities.

The concepts of 'dualism' and 'supernatural', as expressed in this polemical way, is not a positive position that anyone actually holds.

In fact, when results of experiment vary from the predicted outcome, this never leads the scientist to the conclusion that materialism must be false, and there must be some non materialistic explanation (as though 'materialistic' and 'non materialistic' are well defined concepts in the first place, which they are not, as we shall see later). Instead, the scientist simply makes the observation that their current models of prediction (i.e., their theories) need adjusted to account for new data.

This same fallacious argument is invoked when physicists discuss evidence for simulation theory? It will be said that one way to test for simulation theory is to find evidence of 'bugs in the source code'. However, once again, how would one notice a 'bug' in physics itself? What is observed is exactly what physics attempts to describe in it's predictive theories. A bug is nothing more than unexpected data points that constrain the parameters of the theory. Epistemologically, there is not way to notice the difference between a universe that is a simulation, even a simulation with bugs in the source code, and a universe that is the 'ground' or 'base' universe itself. Again, this is a problem of physicists and lay people with bad philosophy, making poor arguments. Some of these poor arguments are repeated by some massive percentage of physicists, and the whole argument is rooted in a poor materialistic philosophy.

This same fallacious argument is used in the realm of so called miracles. A miracle has never been observed, and so they miracles must not be true, the self proclaimed materialist says. However, what observation would lead the scientist to say, "Aha, there it is, a miracle!"? Instead, what happens? New data may be inside existing predictive models. They may fall slightly outside existing predictive models, which would require the models be slightly adjusted to account for the new data. Additionally, new data (our so-called miracles) may fall wildly outside existing predictive models and call for radical rethinking of our theories.

One might object and say it would be easy to spot a miracle in the lab. You would see the laws of physics suspended for a time and then resume. However, again, this would not be interpreted as a miracle, or a pausing of the laws of physics, and rightly so. Instead this would be interpreted correctly as data that does not fit current predictive models, which is how any good scientist would interpret such an event.

Yet again, 'miracle', as usually expressed, is a fallacious polemic, not a positive position that people actually hold, other than those that have been unwittingly tricked into defending such a defenseless position.

It might be objected that Christianity and the Bible put forward miracles as articles of belief and therefor fall into this untenable belief. This might be true of some christians no doubt, but Christianity has never historically believe in this view of miracles (which is really a view that derives from atheist's arguments against Christianity, not derived from positive christian opinions). Christianity rather believes in wonders and signs. That is, events that are out of the ordinary daily experience, grab our attention, and are filled with a particular purpose. This is not a suspending of the "laws" of physics, but just one more observation that a complete model of the world would need to account for and be capable of predicting.

The question is what are the epistemological primitives on which all claims to truth must acknowledge. It is often put forward that on religions and philosophical questions everyone has a right to their own opinion, but on science everyone must agree. Is it true that 'science', used often used in this expression as a known, is the epistemological primitive upon which everyone must agree regardless of your philosophical or religious commitments? Well, this would most certainly put forward the heralds of science into quite a unique place, being the only ones that contain the truth to which all other claims must account.

However, science is not the exclusive vessel of epistemological primitives. Rather, direct observation, in all its forms, is the truth that must be accounted for. These observations can be systematic or haphazard, empirical or anecdotal, but it's observations that must be accounted for. Science develops hypothesis based on prior observations and forms theories out of those hypothesis with ever more complete sets of observations that could disprove or reinforce the hypothesis. However, this system of practice that is called science does not lay exclusive claim to observation, it simply one very effective way of using observations to generate predictive theories.

What then is materialism? The proper domain of science? On the contrary, materialism is that unscientific philosophy which blinds, prohibits, and restrict science to only consider observations that fit into a predefined scope. That is, what the self proclaimed materialist deems to be, 'material'.

Why have I repeatedly said, 'self proclaimed' materialist? This is because while the blind folds of materialism limit the acceptable domain of observation, observation itself forces itself upon this self proclaimed materialist. When this happens, the self proclaimed materialist does not sit upon their materialism, but rather they give way to proper observation in order to make account for something that did not previously fit into their definition of materialism. At least, they sometimes do.

At other times, they down right reject basic observations. Observations come in many forms that a materialist is self-blind to, and denies the validity of on the basis of their own philosophical commitments. Observations such as the first hand observation of an inner subjective experience, the ontological distinction of consciousness from the fields of quantum field theory, the obvious reality that mathematical truths remain true whether or not they are instantiated in the physics of the universe, or the ontological requirement of a single relation between all things, which is described in christian philosophy as simplicity. Observations can be what we may call material (a particle collision at CERN), philosophical (the need for explanation of the universe itself), moral (suffering is not a moral good in and of itself), and formal (the second law of thermodynamics has a mathematical truth which stands outside the universe in some sense).

Materialism is that scientific conservatism, which could be called scientism, which says that the only observations that contain epistemological necessity are those in the realm of what they deem to be 'material', which in reality is just a cherry picked list of domains of inquiry which they decide are acceptable.

Inherent in this scientism is a contradictory dualism. This is the often used phrase of 'natural causes'. That is, intelligent or human activity is somehow non natural. In this thinking, intelligent design is non scientific because it proposes a 'non natural' explanation for life. Intelligent design may or may not be correct, but it is not non scientific because it proposes a so called non natural cause for something. In fact, this argument against intelligent design is non scientific because it assumes a dualistic view of reality, put's it's own causal hypothesis in "natural" or "material" category and the opposing causal hypotheses in the "non natural" or "non material" category. When looking at the object in space that was called ʻOumuamua, any explanation that offered an intelligent extraterrestrial explanation was deemed to be non natural. However, does this not necessarily imply that intelligent life forms some how non natural? Does this not create a dualism? Why are intelligent causes deemed to be non natural even though we see such intelligent causes at work all the time? How is it that materialists themselves get away with the most extreme dualism without anyone noticing?

This scientism has led to denying from the starting line the possibility of non human intelligent causes to life, other human experiences such as what commonly described as UFO encounters, or objects in space such as ʻOumuamua. It has led to a resilience to take seriously psychedelic experiences. It has directed funding towards certain lines of inquiery and away from others.

All of this had some benefits. We focused on planes, particles, and cell phones and built the modern world. However this has its limits, impeded future progress, and slows our knowledge. To know more, at some point you must take off the blind folds and be willing to take seriously observations that were previously dismissed. As a scientific society we are brushing upon those limits now, and advancement will come at the cost of abandoning the comfort of the fallacious philosophy of materialism.

Mothers in certain hunter gatherer groups are known to deliver there babies in separation from the father. This social practice is connected with the practice of infanticide in these cultures. Since babies rarely leave the mothers arms for up to the first three years of life due to circumstantial restraints of food and lifestyle, having a new baby interrupt the raising of a slightly older sibling could spell death for both. At least, this seems to be the reasoning behind this set of interconnected practices.

This evil of infanticide could be explained a number of ways. An evolutionary argument could be proposed. If the practice of infanticide resulted in more surviving children in the end, and resisting the practice of infanticide even when the pressure was extreme under dire conditions did the opposite, then the practice of infanticide would become wide spread. The end result is evolution explaining human practices, even explaining the reason for a sin as great as infanticide.

However, there are many hidden assumptions that are involved, and are often involved, when evolutionary arguments are proposed to explain various traits and behaviors. First, the daughters and sons of parents that practiced infanticide must be more likely themselves to practice infanticide, even when under no social influence by the culture under consideration. Secondly, the practice of infanticide would have to make it more likely that the surviving children themselves had more surviving children. Thirdly, there would need to be consistent environmental pressure that made this behavior more likely to result in more surviving children in the next generation.

Each of these three statements must be true in order for evolution to be capable of explaining the practice of infanticide in the situation previously described. Each of these three statements might be true. Of course, they might not be true or might be difficult to prove. Often, at the mere proposal of such an argument it is assumed that evolution must provide the best explanation and very often none of the underlying factual requirements have been shown to be true.

Is infanticide a genetically inheritable trait? It might be so, but how would this be shown? Disentangling the behavioral predispositions of a person that are genetically inherited versus those that are learned is quite difficult. Maybe a clever researcher could do this disentangling but it is not obviously possible. There are many empirically impractical, and unethical, dilemmas. For example, you could separate children at birth from their parents, have them raised in another culture, and compare their rate of infanticide versus both cultures rate of infanticide. Besides the moral problems with this, you would need vast numbers in order to differentiate the small signal from the noise in the data. Maybe it is possible to empirically prove this first requirement, maybe it is empirically impractical. In either case, in order for evolution to be a valid explanation of the behavior, this would need to be shown, since it cannot simply be assumed.

The next thing that needs demonstrated is that the practice of infanticide as described would need to confer a reproductive benefit in the sum total of its affects. This is not obviously true and at first glance seems impractical to prove. Killing your own baby seems to make it less likely that you will have more surviving children. Now it could be that by trying to raise the baby, the increased difficulty of survival causes less members of the family to survive than if the baby had been killed. Any ethical person would hope that this would not be the case, and that infanticide is not only evil but causes a reduced chance of survival to the family, but strictly speaking those two things do not necessarily have to coincide. In either case, this counterintuitive notion that infanticide increases survivability would need to be demonstrated.

Lastly, there would need to be consistent environmental pressure that causes this increased survivability due to the practice of infanticide. This environmental pressure would need to last long enough for the evolutionary effects to be seen in the population. This is a historical question that would need to be answered.

Alternatively, a cultural explanation could be given. A culture with a specific evil practice teaches that evil practice to each new generation. The reason for the behavior is not because the population underwent an evolutionary adaptation but because it developed an evil practice that it taught to each generation. Another explanation that could be given is that of a common humanity. All people, given enough pressure and lack of common restrain, are liable to commit evil acts. These two explanations would need to have their own evidence given to support the hypothesis. However, this is the way most people think most of the time: in terms of learned behaviors and common humanity. But often the mere suggestion that it could be explained with evolution causes many people to think, "Oh they did it again, we thought we understood this behavior but once again it was just evolution at work all along". Even though the layers of evidence that must be shown in order for evolution to have explanatory power in the proposed situation is never discussed.

It might be true that the reason infanticide is practiced in cultures that match the description given earlier has an evolutionary basis. But when a proposed explanation either cannot be proven or is empirically impractical to prove, then we cannot simply assume that it is the correct explanation. In fact we must go much further, and rule it out. Just as we would rule out any other explanation which cannot be proven or is empirically impractical.

I could say that my microwave works because small elves are inside of it. If you look closely and don't see the elves, you just need to look closer. Besides its absurdity, why is this a bad explanation? Because it is empirically impractical. Why is it empirically impractical? Because you cannot always "just look closer". At some point you have looked as closely as you can. When empirical limits are reached, you must look for another explanation. Some hypothesis' avoid this fate by being favored by the intellectual culture. Evidence is often optional for these hypothesis'. Evolution, in our current intellectual culture, is just such a hypothesis.

If I have a hand crafted metal bracelet, I might find it incredible valuable. If someone comes along and automates the production so that a million carbon copies of this bracelet are made in short order, the value I place on that bracelet goes way down. But now I can afford to increase the value I place on some other object that is still unique in precise proportion to the decreased value of the bracelet.

There is an argument that automation will take jobs away, funnel money to those who own the automation, and leave the rest of us destitute. Human beings have been automating since the dawn of time, but the argument is that this next round of AI powered automation will be different.

However, is this "end of history" argument valid? Are we on the cusp of reaching the stage in human history where we can all sit back, kick our feet up, and let machines do all the work, just as long as we change our economy accordingly? Are the old systems and philosophies of economy soon to be archaic in the new world of AI?

Possibly, but there is an alternative view. Maybe, when we no longer need people to drive trucks, make hamburgers, and take orders, we can pay for the labor of those same people to do things that are more enjoyable for both them and us. As necessary tasks are automated, labor will be freed to do things of convenience.

The reality is, I want access to your labor. If I need a hamburger, I want access to your labor in making me the hamburger. If a machine can make the hamburger and I no longer need you to do it, that does not change the fact that I want access to your labor and am still willing to pay for it. Maybe, in a future economy, I don't need you to cash out my groceries, but instead I want you to teach me a board game, play some guitar, or run a roleplaying session for me as a dungeon master.

That is not to say that step function improvements in automation are not painful, they most certainly are and have always been. However, treating "the next automation" as some sort of "final stage" of human economy, may actually prevent us from progressing forward. When we could live in a world where unskilled laborers play guitar instead of making hamburgers, policies such as guaranteed incomes might lead to stagnation, lack of meaning, and increased hopelessness as we live off the allotment we are given, instead of earning it through new forms of meaningful labor.

Lastly, has this not always been the story of humanity? From the first proto cities where everyone lived in the same conditions doing the same work, to the next step of diversification of labor that led to advances in technology. We now live in a world where berry picking is automated. I do not need you to pick berries for me, but now I am willing to pay you to give me a pleasant grocery buying experience by keeping the shelves stocked. In a future world, even that is automated, but now I would like you to teach me some Settlers of Catan strategies and teach me about the obscure history of the Grateful Dead.

The extent to which the government should be involved in the affairs of its citizens is a common debate. To simplify this discussion down to a linear estimation, you either want more government influence, or less. As with any other form of argumentation, limiting principles are required. If you say that more government influence is better, why is the most possible government influence not the best? If you say that less government influence is better, why is the least possible government influence not the best?

We have terms for this scale of government influence. The most possible government influence is termed totalitarianism. The least possible government influence if termed anarchy. Either the government has all power, or all the power that it is technologically capable of wielding, or there is simply no government at all. Between these two extremes there is a gradient scale of government influence that we call socialism and capitalism. If a move toward socialism is the growth of government influence, the ultimate end of socialism is totalitarianism. If a move toward capitalism is the reduction of government power, the ultimate end of capitalism is anarchy.

There is no single dividing line that can be drawn between these two. There's no objective way to say that one country is capitalistic and another socialistic. Rather, your statement of one country being capitalistic and another socialistic must always be relative to some reference point. A country can be more or less capitalistic or socialistic in comparison to some other country.

From a philosophical perspective, totalitarianism and anarchy exist as two opposites, two extremes on a linear scale. As we will see however, this line forms a circle, and totalitarianism and anarchy meet together. Before we come to this, however, we must first discuss why this is the case.

If not subdued in some way, violence and the threat of violence, otherwise known as fear, is an all too useful tool. It can achieve many ends. In such a circumstance violence and fear become a means to success. In totalitarianism, violence and fear are used by the state in order to achieve its ends. In anarchy, a great number of people use violence and fear to wield power over others and to achieve their ends. As success is achieved, power is concentrated, and totalitarianism is the inevitable result.

Removing violence and the threat of violence is often suggested as a means to prevent this situation. However, this is in fact one of the ingredients of totalitarianism. Removing the threat of violence from other people is how one gains violence derived power, not how one achieves peace. In order to have peace you need to make violence into a poor means of achieving success. The only way to do this without violence itself is with the threat of violence.

Under the surface of any peaceful society is a real and serious threat of violence. This often comes in the form of an armed populace with family and community loyalties. Weapons give the society the capability of violence and family and community loyalties gives them the reason to inflict it, when those families and communities are threatened. When these two ingredients are in place, the threat of violence is real and serious and any would be totalitarian has reason to fear it.

A society having a real and serious threat of violence is only one ingredient of peace. The second is actual violence being monopolized by the state. Without this second part, then anarchy ensues, violence can be used to achieve success, and those with the most success inevitably become totalitarians themselves. However, when the state has a monopoly on violence, and yet is ever fearful of the real and serious threat of violence from the society itself, violence no longer becomes a means of success, but rather a means of failure. Such a society has peace. The only peace that a society of fallen people may have.

So the extreme of anarchy by no means prevents totalitarianism, but rather leads to it, because one of the ingredients of peace is having violence monopolized by the state. On our scale from totalitarianism to socialism to capitalism to anarchy, both extremes, while philosophically opposite, are practically the same. We also established that socialism and capitalism are not distinct points on this scale but a gradient which joins the two extremes. Therefore, how do we determine where the optimal place is in this gradient?

If violence must be monopolized by the state and the threat of violence from the society itself must be real and serious, then a limited government with checks and balances is the first half of the answer. The government must be limited, otherwise it could remove the real and serious threat of violence from the society. It must have checks and balances, otherwise it will not stay limited. The second half of the answer is an armed populace with strong family and community loyalties. It must be armed, otherwise it has no real and serious threat of violence. It must have strong family and community loyalties, otherwise it will all to easily yield to the pressures of an overreaching government.

In political dialog the question of what is asked more commonly than the question of where. For example, "what should the government do about poverty?" is a question that undergirds many political debates. A great many differences of political opinion come back to this question. It animates elections, fills debate stages, and consumes the energy of many people. The problem is, what, is only half the question; the other half is almost never addressed.

If you see a fence in a forest, you should stop to ask yourself why it is there. If you are building a cabin, you might want to know why its there before you choose which side of the fence to build it on. American government is divided in both vertical and horizontal dimensions. Vertically, there is the federal government at the top with the widest area of influence, then state governments, and finally local governments, which are themselves often vertically divided into counties, cities, and townships. Horizontally, these separate governments are divided with the goal of creating competing interests that will naturally put a check on one another and will tend to balance each others power within government. If you see a fence in a forest, or a heavily divided system of government, you should ask why it's there.

Due to this vertical and horizontal division of government, anytime the question of what the government should do is asked, another question is also asked, either implicitly or explicitly. That other question is where the government should do it. Or put another way, is the 'what' under consideration something for the federal government to do, state government, or local governments? And furthermore, is it something for the courts to decide, the legislature to vote on, or an immediate act of the executive government?

The dangers of an implicit answer to this question is that it corrodes the vertical division of power between the levels of government as well as the horizontal checks and balances within each of those divisions. If the federal government is always the place where government solutions are enacted, then we are ignoring the "fence in the forest" of state and local governments. These divisions of government are essentially a "there be dragons ahead" sign on the side of the road that is too often ignored. The key to a mature democratic people is that even if they want something done, they want it done the right way. This might mean not supporting federal policies that in principle you agree with, because you would rather see these policies enacted at the state level. Or this might mean not supporting something, because you would rather see it passed as legislation instead of issued as executive order.

The world is a complex place. Understanding why things happen, and thereby predicting what will happen next, is quite difficult. Oftentimes we limit ourselves to only consider events that are within our ability to understand and predict. We protect our world from complexity and shield ourselves from unpredictability. We put a hood over the engine of our cars, not only to protect it from the weather, but to protect ourselves from having to consider the complexity of it. The complexity of a phone is hidden inside a clean looking shell. The difficulties of relationships are smeared over by truisms and social media posts.

We like to view the world in terms of a choice between two options; smart or dumb, mean or nice, well behaved and misbehaved. Putting everything on a scale simplifies the world. Finding the "right balance" between two extremes becomes the goal. Sometimes this works. Sometimes the objective world fits with our simplistic, linear thinking. However, oftentimes, the complexity of the world defies our linear descriptions.

Applied mathematics shows us just how complex the world can be. Exponential growth, compound interest, asymptotic limits, are all important ways of describing crucial aspects of our lives. Financial investments, retirement incomes, the spread of disease, diminishing returns, all require an understanding that goes beyond a simple linear scale. Attempting to understand and predict these things using only linear growth and linear scales makes life feel simple. In ignorance and blindness, one can fool themself into thinking that they understand the world; afraid to honestly face its complexity and their own inability to understand it.

This problem becomes evident in politics when two sides develop over an issue. How little or how much border security is needed? How little or how much should be spent on fighting poverty? Too often it is assumed that the next "issue of the day" is a linear scale, with each political party setting up camp on either side of the scale, and so called moderates sitting comfortably in the middle. However, what if the issue being discussed is more complex and incapable of being accurately modeled in a simple linear fashion? What if more complex analysis is required? What if the question of immigration and border policy requires more than a single dimension of analysis? What if it is is not just a scale, but a two, three, or four dimensional space of options? Asking such questions would require us to admit that we may not know the answer, or even understand the proper question.

The most blatantly obvious example of this in politics is the left vs. right, conservative vs. liberal description of politics. In most usages of this terminology, all of politics is boiled down to a linear scale. On one side of the scale you have the right wing extremists. Going towards the left you have the right wing, center right, moderates, center left, the left wing, and finally, the extreme left. As if all of politics can be placed somewhere on this scale. However, without a doubt, the space of political opinions has more than one dimension.

You may say that in order to understand the world we must simplify. That is quite right, but only carefully applied simplification leads to increased understanding. Over simplification leads to false confidence and dangerous ignorance. A proper, useful overview of political opinions should consist of at least three dimensions. Social policy, economic policy, and federalism. How much should the government be involved in the social affairs of society, how much should the government be involved in the economic affairs of society, and these same questions applied to every level of government, federal, state, and local. One person might agree on social and economic policy, but one person may want it applied at a state level and another at a federal level. Any simple left vs. right linear thinking will miss this massive difference.

Missing these difference, being willfully incapable of thinking in higher dimensional, non linear analysis, is dangerous. It leads to bifurcated factions on every issue. It leads to missing solutions because those solutions exist outside the single dimension of analysis. It leads to collective extremes instead of individualized opinions. When a people can think complex thoughts, complex issues can be dealt with. When a people can only think in simplistic terms, they are easily controlled by so called experts. When a people can think in higher dimensions of analysis, they can have their own opinions and refrain from factitious sway of artfully spoken politicians. When a people can only think in a single dimension of analysis, they are easily controlled by agendized leaders.

When walking along the edge of a cliff, each step you take becomes very important. If your goal is to ascend the mountain, very few paths will take you there. The vast majority of paths take you back down the mountain, either slowly, or very quickly. You must choose your direction carefully or else you plummet down. This is an uneven dichotomy. It is a dichotomy because there are two directions you can go, up and down. It is uneven because almost every direction you go will take you down, and only a few directions will take your up.

So it is with progress in human societies. Select some random change to social or economic policy. Odds are that it makes things worse, not better. "Trying things out" is no way to navigate along the edge of a cliff. And make no mistake, human societies are quite similar to the edge of a cliff. History shows us how quickly a society can go into a downward spiral. Never make the mistake that we are at the bottom, and so just about anything we do now will be an improvement. We are not at the bottom. There is always further down to go.

In light of this, progress is something that must be gained in small steps that are taken very slowly. Another illustration here might be useful in emphasizing the point. Imagine a car engine. There are lots of things you could do to a car engine. Your creativity is the only limit. You could hit it with a hammer, unscrew some bolts, replace some belts, bend some pieces of metal, drill some holes. An incredibly small amount of changes that you make to the engine will improve how the car functions. The vast majority of changes will break the car or increase the likelihood of a dangerous on-the-road malfunction. When making such a change it is best to ensure that the changes have made an improvement before continuing on to making more changes.

Of course, such measurement can be difficult, or impossible. Has one or another social policy improved society? Empirically, this is almost impossible to determine. This is why principles and ideals rule in politics, because empiricism cannot provide the answers. This is also why ideologies are so powerful in politics, because who can prove you wrong? The merits of good principles and the dangers of bad ideologies are rarely resolved through empirical research. However, there are a few concrete measurements that we can, and should, make. Did the change produce disaster for the society? If so, then you now know something to avoid. If not, then you can proceed to more fine grained measurements if and when possible.

If the goal is to make a complex system better, whatever better is defined to be, this is the only way to proceed. Small steps taken slowly. And never think that society is at the bottom, and so whatever direction we go in will be up. Society is never at the bottom. Situations can easily get much worse but improvement is always difficult.

The terms conservative and liberal can have different meanings depending on the context in which they are used. In there common usage in modern political dialog these terms often subtract from the clarity of communication more than they contribute. However, that does not mean they cannot be used accurately, or be that they cannot be given more useful definitions.

Both of these terms can, broadly speaking, mean one of two things. First, they can be used to refer to the opinions and beliefs of the any person living at any time and place. Secondly, they can refer to the opinions and beliefs of people at the present moment. We will start with the former, more general definition, and then proceed to the latter, more contextualized definition.

A conservative, using the general definition, is a person that wants to conserve something, usually something that is either political, social, religious, or economic. A liberal, likewise, is someone who feels free to change those same things. At the time of the founding of the United States the founders were the liberals of their day and those loyal to the monarchy were the conservatives.

With respect to the last 500 years, capitalism is a liberal idea. With respect to the last 100 years, capitalism is a conservative idea, at least in the United States. Homosexuality is a liberal idea in the 21st century United States. However, in the second millennium B.C. it was a conservative idea. Using these broad definitions of liberal and conservative, time and place is necessary in order to make sense of the terms.

No person is a pure conservative, and no person is a pure liberal. Everyone has some conservative elements (those things about their life and society that they want to remain the same) and some liberal elements (the things they want to see changed). Most people are conservative on most aspects of their life and society. Almost no one, even revolutionaries, wants to change a majority share of their life and society.

Another definition of these terms that is more common in everyday political dialog is the present moment definition. To be conservative using this definition, is to be on the conservative side of some issue that is currently being debated. To be liberal using this definition, is to be pushing for change on that issue.

These terms are often used as adjectives of people instead of adjectives of issues. By doing this, the assumption is made that there are two groups, and that one group is entirely on the conservative side of every issue and that the other group is entirely on the liberal side of every issue. The reality, of course, is that everyone is mostly conservative, with important liberal elements. These liberal elements are what is brought into the political debate, and while someone might want to see change on one issue, they might want to see conservation on another.

Another reality missed by improper use of these terms is that an individual might be conservative on most issues using the second definition but with respect to a longer timescale they are liberal. For example, the debate between centralized planning and market systems goes back hundreds of years. That is not a long time in the context of human history. While the capitalists of the modern day might be associated with conservatism, in the scope of human history capitalism is a radical, liberal idea.

Centralized planning is an economic system whereby a small group of elites make decisions for the rest of the population. This concept can apply to more than just economic systems. Other forms of social contracts, culture, and even morality can be centrally planned. In all of its forms, the authority to make decisions and to make changes resides in a small group of elites who then have the power to enforce those decisions on everyone else.

The common examples of centrally planned economic, political, and cultural systems are monarchies, dictatorships, communism, and socialism. The primary difference between these systems is who the elites are and how the power is given to them. In a monarchy, the elites are the royal class and power is given through birthright. In a dictatorship, the elites are the ruling party and power is taken by force. In communism, the elites are the revolutionaries and power is taken through revolution. In socialism, the elites are those within the bureaucracy and power can be given to them in a number of different ways.

The alternative to all centrally planned systems, whether they be economic, political, or cultural in nature, are markets and freedom. A market is the system whereby individuals make their own financial choices. Freedom is simply the system whereby individuals make their own cultural and moral choices. In a centrally planned system it is the role of the state to make economic, cultural, and moral choices on behalf of the people. In a market system and a system of freedom, it is the role of the state to protect the rights of the people to make their own choices.

Socialism is unique among centrally planned systems because it can be enforced through majority rule, otherwise known as a pure democracy. While monarchies require a ruling family with a tight grasp over the minds of the people, dictatorships require deadly power and communism requires bloody revolutions, socialism could be voted for by the people. In such a case, the power to centrally plan is given to elected representatives or unelected bureaucrats. This is commonly called democratic socialism.

The benefit of democratic socialism is that the process of giving power to the elites can avoid the violence and bloodshed which is required in the other forms of centralized planning. However, after the power is given, the result is still a system of centralized planning.

The problem with centralized planning is that it takes power from most people and isolates that power with a few elites. Markets spread power out throughout the whole population. It is common to object to this, saying that the reverse is true. However, let's look at the definitions. Socialism, by definition, takes economic decision making away from the average person and puts that power into the hands of a bureaucrat. For example, instead of choosing which school to send your kids to, the state mandates it. Instead of choosing how to save your money, the state saves it for you in the form of social security. Instead of choosing among a market of healthcare options, the state chooses it for you. Centralized planning, in all of its forms, takes power from most people and puts that power into the hands of a few, democratic socialism included.

Markets, on the other hand, retain the power of decision making in the individual. This makes markets ethical, and centralized planning unethical. However, even markets can malfunction in one of two ways. First, in so far as a market is not an actual market but a blended system of centralized planning, it is malfunctioning. This is a very common observation, usually with the idea that a move towards centralized planning is the solution. However, the market malfunctions to the degree that free decisions of individuals are replaced by the centralized decisions of the elite. When a market begins to malfunction, the answer is to make it an actual market and to remove the aspects of centralized planning. This is not to say that there is no role for government in markets, for this is just one factor of many with regards to the role of government, but it is an important factor nonetheless.

Markets, like all systems involving human beings, also require a pious populace in order to function properly. This is inescapable. No political, economic, or cultural system can function without a moral populace. This means that individuals need to care about the welfare of others, churches need to care for their communities, companies need to have honest dealings, and the government officials needs to respect the power that they are given. When the fear of God is pervasive throughout society, free people making free choices will result in a well functioning, stable society.