A slightly less terse semi-formal proof of the existence of G

Several Years Ago I published a semi-formal proof of the existence of G or God.  That little essay is here: (link).  It does not cover the Character of God - that is the question: "what is God like?"  It does, however, answer the question "Is there a God?"  It did it in such a way that it was a) new and b) preserved the intent of ancient proofs and c) was formalizable and sound in first order logic with identity and modal operators (necessity and contingency).  

The third requirement was the most interesting (and drove most of the answer to (a)).  Formalizability is a feature lacking in most demonstrations of God's existence.  The Ontological Proof is a stunning exception to this rule, essentially stating that because the definition of God is possession of every perfection, and existence is a necessary perfection, God exists by definition.  This proof however fell short in a few famous ways (in my mind, the proposition that Existence is a necessary perfection is questionable).    That is, the Ontological Argument has the feature that it is formalizable, but not the feature that it is formalizable using only provable statements from pure logic.  For instance, the notion of "perfection" is not a notion from first order logic and it is hard to see how it could be.   The requirement that my logical proof have only premises that were definitive of logic and science and only statements in it that were provable for those two disciplines was essential.  This was because the rhetorical form of the argument is roughly that since the existence of God is provable by pure logic, the only way to deny the existence of God is to deny the soundness of pure logic, that is, to be purely irrational.  One can't expect an irrational person to believe anything on the basis of reason, and thus they are exempted from this proof being interesting to them.  

However, the formalizability requirement made the argument terse and somewhat inapproachable to those without formal logic training.  The result is this reluctant essay in which I will try to present that same argument in a less formal way that my previous semi-formal presentation.  Unfortunately because part of the argument IS it's formalizability, it is impossible to do away with the symbolism of first order modal logic altogether.  There are plenty of good textbooks on the subject, but I have attempted to clearly state what each formal statement means in english and to try to present my derivations of propositions in english rather than formally in order to make the whole thing more readable.  This has had the unfortunate side-effect of making this whole subject much longer and less dense.   I personally prefer the density of information when it is purely information, and I regard what is contained in this as pure information, summarized by the statement "The existence of God is demonstrable in First Order Logic with Identity and Modality (I will refer to this as CORE LOGIC in what follows) which is itself fundamental to all science and human knowledge in general."  That is, that any rational person should accept that God exists is proved and provable.  I provide this information as a service to both God and Humankind in order that you all may know and love each other.  

The breadth of people who -should- be interested in this argument is extremely broad.  People who believe that mathematics expresses truths, that science discovers truths, that CORE LOGIC is valid, or that anything at all can be known by reason should be very interested in this proof.  That is, all of modern western academia should regard this proof as demanding their rational assent.  First Order Logic with Identity and Model extensions is -in fact- the language of science and reason.  

The proof starts by expounding on definitions.  In particular definitions of symbols used in CORE LOGIC so that it is extremely clear what is being proved.  

The most important definition and distinction for the proof is the definition of Necessity and Contingency.  That is, the unique operators of modal logic.   Necessity is, naively, the notion that some particular thing MUST be the case - can not possibly not be the case no matter what.  It is distinct from very high probabilities (there is a very high chance that the sun will come up tomorrow, but it is -possible- that a fast moving small black hole could collide with the earth tonight making sunrise impossible, for instance) in that some not-provably false statement could be true that would make the statement possibly false if it was true.    And here I don't just mean -physically- provably false.  I mean -logically provably false-.  That is, statements that break the first law of logic, namely that no pair of contradictory statements are true, the law of Non-Contradiction.  

Now, there are schools of thought that believe that -all of reality- is made up only of necessary facts - what I term Hard Determinism - the idea that everything that is the case must be the case and couldn't be any other way.  They deny this distinction between possibility and necessity.   Now I don't have a conclusive argument -against- Hard Determinism per se, but only considerations on why no person should accept Hard Determinism as factual.  The first, and most obvious, is that a Hard Determinist must regard every statement of a possibility as false.  That is, they can't even -consider the possibility- that something is true since that would be -for them- an extra-logical "possibility" for which they could not account in their core syntax.  They couldn't express the possibility in their language, that is.  But obviously, we all can all potentially express and understand possibilities, (in particular, that one) and I conclude that therefore the case for Hard Determinism can't be made in English, but some restricted language (I assume boolean logic with primitive arithmetic extensions might be the preferred language here).  But that language is not sufficiently expressive to be -our language- (we couldn't express fear or regret in that language) nor is it sufficiently powerful to express its own consistency  and therefore would be open to the basic attack of being inconsistent.  Simultaneously, Hard Determinism is a direct contradiction of Quantum Mechanics and is therefore anti-scientific (as I said, this doesn't make it false, just very hard to justify believing it).  That is, in short, Hard Determinism is very unlikely to be true and thus not part of my range of proof subjects.  Unfortunately I think this leaves Hegelian, Marxian and Spinozan historical determinists out of the conversation though I think their positions are very hard to defend in general anyway (though they are three of my favorite philosophers).  

Simultaneously, there are schools of thought that believe that there are no necessary truths.  This one is pretty simple to show is false.  If there are no necessary truths, then it is possible that there are no necessary truths and therefore possible that there are necessary truths.  If it is possible that there are necessary truths, it is possible that the possibility of the necessity of any of those truths is necessary.  If this were not the case, then it would be necessary that the truth in question was not possible, contradicting our previous supposition that it was possible, thereby contradicting the supposition that all truths are merely contingent.    (For those that don't know, a contingent truth is just a fact that could have been the case but is not or a fact that could is the case but might not have been).  

Thus are our core definitions established of Necessity and Contingency.  A necessary truth is one that could not fail to be the case no matter what.  A contingent truth is one that might not have been the case but is.  Now I've been loose on the question of Platonic Realism about any of this.  That is, whether or not real possibilities exist or whether they are just rhetorical or psychological objects of some kind, or whether or not numbers exist or whether or not Propositions exist.  These questions are beyond the scope of the current document and I hope you will forgive me for simply not addressing them except to say that I am in fact a Realist about platonic entities but that I intend for anything said here to not rely on the assumption of the existence of those platonic entities in any way so that the rhetorical position with regard to that question is effective either way and neutral with respect to either.  

With those preliminary distinctions and caveats in mind, we are ready to begin the proof itself.  

Proposition 1:  "Every set of contingent truths is also contingent."

Formally this is expressed : "Ax, y:  if !(x -> !y) & !(y -> !x), Pos(!x) & Pos(!y) <-> Pos(! x & !y)"

(where "Pos" is the contingency operator and stands -roughly-  for the english expression "Is possible" ).

Translating that formal statement into rough english: For all x and y, if x does not imply y and y does not imply x and if it is possible that x is false and possible that y is false, then it is possible that the group or set of x and y is false.    That is, formally it is affirming that the Contingency Mode is a distributive property.  So let's say you have two statements "The dog is in the yard" and "The dog is not in the yard" and both are contingent, it is therefore also contingent that "The dog is in the yard and the cat is in the yard" then it is possible that "The dog is in the yard and the cat is in the yard".    The requirement that x and y do not imply each other's falsity is there to catch cases like "the dog is in the yard and the dog is not in the yard" where the two together form a contradiction.  This is obviated by the negative case formation of the rule but is there just to make the expression clear for those who might think they've found a great exception (which they did!).

The proof of proposition 1 is pretty simple.   It is a proof by reductio ad absurdum - that is to show that the contrary supposition implies a contradiction.  Suppose the opposite, that there are two possibly false statements who's resultant set is not possibly false, that is, the set of them is necessary (since if something is not possibly false, it is necessarily true.)    Since necessity is Distributive (if it is necessary that a pair of statements is true, then it is necessary that each of them is true is a theorem of CORE LOGIC), it is easy to show that this supposition implies that is both necessary that both propositions are true and that it is possible that they are false, breaching our definition of possibility and necessity and resulting in a contradiction.  

Proposition 2:   "Every contingent proposition has a sufficient explanation for its truth"

Formally this expressed "A( P ): if  Con( P ) -> E(G): G -> P and G"

That is For every proposition, if that proposition is contingent then there exists some other proposition G such that G is true and G implies P.  This is equivalent to Lebniz's Law (The Principle of Sufficient Reason) in latin "ex nihil nihil fit" or "nothing comes from nothing".   Empirical science is -in fact- the expression of Leibniz's law in action in human society.  That is, science is the search for explanations and answers to the question "Why ?".  Anything -without- an answer to the question "Why?" is regarded as miraculous and suspect - the provenance of the spiritual if you will.  For example, the "Standard Model" in physics is the story of the big bang coupled with evolution to produce us humans here now alongside the laws of physics, chemistry and biology.  That is, all of it is just an answer to the question "Why?"   Now the further questions "Why are there laws of physics?" or "Why is there evolution?" or "Why was there a big bang?" are -out of line- for physicists.  This is not accidental I think, but in general if you want to make a physics professor happy, ask them why there is anything at all.  Now, given that we have restricted our audience further to "People who think science is relevant for producing knowledge", the existence of a BARE FACT - that is, one with no explanation for its existence at all, is absurd.  And for those people, I present the following proof:

Suppose that there is some proposition P such that no proposition G implies it.  But POSSIBLY, G is P - that is, G implies P because G = P.  Such truths we regard as NECESSARY TRUTHS, contradicting the supposition that P is contingent in our Proposition 2.  But since if P  and G are identical, if P exists, G exists and therefore our proposition would be fulfilled but by a NECESSARY proposition.  But suppose G is not P, then we regard G as P's explanation - why P?  G.     That is, in every case there exists some G such that G implies P, but in some cases P is not contingent but necessary.    That is, Leibniz's law is always true.  

Proposition 3:  "The set W of all contingent propositions exists"

Formally, EW: AP, Con( P ) -> P in W

Slightly less tersely: there is a set or group of things W such that if P is a contingent proposition, then P is a member of W.  Here I'm using the letter W to evoke the idea of World, but that is not the necessary meaning.  There are obviously MANY contingent propositions that are not members of this world (e.g. the statement that Santa Claus doesn't live in Manhattan is true (likely) but is not a fact about this world (since there is also no santa claus in this world).  That is - the W above is much more comprehensive than simply our universe or world, but rather includes ALL POSSIBILITIES WITHOUT RESTRICTION.  That is, anything that is possible and not necessary is a member of W.  I say this to encompass a variety of theories of possibilia, including classical, semantical theories, the possible worlds interpretation, platonic idealism, etc.  This is just to make sure that I'm not restricting the rhetorical reach of the argument by interpretation of modality.  

Now the rest is pretty simple and even obvious.  We know by proposition 3 that there is a set of all contingent truths.  We know by proposition 1 that if W is a set of only contingent propositions that W itself is contingent.  We know by proposition 2 that there exists some G such that G -> W.  Now suppose G = W, then W is necessary, contradicting proposition 1.  But suppose G is a MEMBER of W.  But then W is necessary, contradicting the supposing that W is the set of contingent propositions (since obviously W -> (… , W , …) where the "…" stand for arbitrary sets of true propositions).  Therefore we know that G is not W and G is not a MEMBER of W.  Since G is not W or a member of W we know that G is necessary (otherwise it would be a member of W).  

Hence we know the following:

Proposition 4: There exists some G such that G is necessary and G is the sufficient explanation of all contingent facts, W.  

That is, formally:

EG: Nec(G) & G -> W

(There exists an object G such that G implies the existence of the set of contingent truths).  

Now this G is not equivalent to Aristotle's Prime Mover though I think the intent is very similar.   The existence of MOTION is not necessary (it might be that nothing ever moved).  So the existence of a prime mover is contingent on there being motion (and all motion being dependent on a single source).  Neither is it equivalent to the G of the Ontological Argument since there is no attribution of perfection to G (yet).  Nor the Cosmological argument (essentially, since there is a world, there must be a God) although this is closest in intent.  The difference here being that the existence of G is deeper than the existence of the cosmos (since there might not be a cosmos and that fact, too, must be sufficiently explained by G).  I know the word "deeper" is vague, I intend roughly that the cosmological argument presupposes a specific model of this universe and derives, I think correctly, the existence of a sufficient explanation for this universe.  But it may be that there are multiple universes or none, or that there is no correct model of this universe, etc.  The existence of the set of contingent facts is definitive and without restriction making some of the standard objections to the cosmological argument fail against this argument.  

Thus I believe myself to have accomplished my three goals of having a formalizable, new, yet preserving the intent of the ancient proofs of God's existence.  This third requirement is important because I do not wish to attribute to St. Anselm or St. Aquinas an irrational belief in God, but rather just a different language in which they expressed this similar idea.  Which is to say, that I believe this argument to be an answer to the objections to the previous proofs of God's existence.  

It is important to note that this G who's existence I have just proved is not characterized by the argument - that is G might be anything -for all we know-.  It could, of course, be the beardy white man of middle-age artwork, or maybe a field mouse or the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, or Siva, or a kind of mathematical fact or something.   This will produce in the kind reader the desire to express the response to the argument presented that whatever I have proved the existence of, it is not God.  This will come from those religious folks who's faith have led them to a deeper understanding of God than I have described.  To them I can say only that the intent of this proof is to edify and encourage  - for those who's faith is weak to have stronger faith, and for those who have no faith to find it.  For those who's faith is already strong, this proof must be something you've known for a long time and have not thought it important enough to bring to the surface.  

FURTHER CONSIDERATIONS ON THE CHARACTER OF GOD

For those who have not faith and who desire knowledge of what G is, I have the following considerations in other blog posts which you will find on the web in various places:

ATTRIBUTION OF CHOICE AND POWER TO GOD

First, G CHOSE to build this world, these facts, the way you are, all of it, exactly the way it is and could easily have chosen otherwise.  That is, G is "all powerful" in that it -in fact- made this world, but could have made another.  This fact has a proof which I presented in my earlier work:

We define choice as follows:

Proposition 5: A fact P is "chosen" if and only if it is possible that P might not have been the case and there exists some N such that N implies P but not necessary N.

More formally:

X:{ AP: Con ( P ) & EN: N -> P}

That is N sufficiently explains P but P is not necessary.  Thus the sufficient explanation of P -could have- not been a sufficient explanation for P.  Now it should be easy to see that the set defined as X is -almost- equivalent to the set W above.  I say -almost- since in Proposition 5, N the explanans might be necessary since we are defining the concept of choice.  N is neutral with respect to modality.   We see here that in applications of the law of sufficient reason that the notion of implication of a contingent fact is unproblematic as long as its explanandum is contingent.  However, if we are talking about the set W of (4) above, the explanans G is necessary.  But if G is necessary and G implies W then W is necessary, contradicting the supposition that W is contingent.  Thus it is not the case that Explanation is always IMPLICATION.  This is why the negative form of Leibniz's law is preferred.  Here an example is in order:

Suppose a door closes as a result of a child siting there and deciding to close it.  Now, the child -might not- we think, have decided to close it.   Therefore, the decision in the child to close the door is the 

(a) insufficient but necessary part of the unnecessary but sufficient reason

 for the door closing (using Mackie's analysis of causation).  That is, something else could have closed the door, but didn't, and if the child had not decided to close the door, then this -most likely- would not have happened.  Simliarly, if the child's deciding to close the door is nowhere near an implication that the door is therefore closed.  LOTS of things could have gotten in the way of the decision to do X and X's being done.  Thus for the purposes of our proposition 2 above, the conditional -CAN- be implication but also -CAN- be this causation.  

There are further fine-grained senses of conditionality that further refine the kinds of things that can -count- as sufficient explanations for the purpose of (2) above.  They are restricted by the same logical requirements that any sets of propositions would be restricted to (something can't both be and not-be a sufficient explanation).  The sense of explanation which we are interested for this particular purpose is one where the explanans is necessary and the explanandum is contingent.  This would seem to some to be initially contradictory but only because they are thinking of the strict conditional not the sufficient explanation requirement we asked for in 2 above.  

I propose the following for this particular case:

(b) a necessary part of a necessary and sufficient condition

Now the question is whether or not G's conditionality (b) above is more like (a) or more like ( c ) -pure- conditionality:

  ( c ) a necessary and sufficient condition

I say this because in the -spectrum- of kinds of conditionality I suggest that (b) being closer to (a) than ( c) in character (that is, by being severally complicated by necessity and sufficiency) makes the condition of G's conditionality on W closer to the child pushing the door than to the number 1 being required to exist before 1 + 1 could be 2.    That qualitative and quantitative closeness is sufficient to treat the action of G on W as a CHOICE rather than a mere condition.  Consider, does the -decision- to do X always result in X happening?  No, so it is not sufficient.  Is X's being chosen always a condition of X's happening?  No, so it is not necessary.  BUT if your choice to do something was necessitated (e.g. by brainwashing) it would still not imply that it would happen.  

The choice of God to create this world (out of all the other possibilities that might have been or might yet be) is thus very similar to the choice of a person to do something except that God might not have been able to fail (we don't know) and might have not done anything at all -at all- (that is, a person must always do something as long as they exist in some ways.  However, God might not have made anything contingent happen at all, and thus nothing -ever- would have happened, a choice us mere mortals do not have as far as I know).   It is also very dissimilar to that of a boulder rolling down a hill and hitting something in that the boulder was completely constrained by a large set of contingent facts.  The choice to create the world however, could not have been constrained by contingent facts in the sense of cause, but only by the existence of possibilities, that is, unrealized options.  But what is an unrealized option but the idea in a person's mind or perhaps a whole world?

ATTRIBUTION OF GOODNESS TO GOD

We have seen from above that God Exists and God was Capable of Choosing this world from among all options and Did choose this world from among all options.  What we have yet to know is whether or not that was a GOOD THING.  A traditional attribute of God is God's Goodness.  While some people have worshiped as gods things that are not the creator of all things, among those that do worship the creator of all things, the common notion for all of them is that God is Good.  If the creator of all things were not Good, it would not be worthy of worship.  But the question is, is it good?

This part of the question is further complicated by the problem that an attribution of Goodness to God will require that Goodness be well defined as a predicate since, obviously, many people don't believe in Goodness per se at all.  Such people believe that Goodness is a culturally relative term, etc.   

I have found this attitude untenable in the face of the obvious evil that is in the world, and the great goodness often used to subdue it.  But is there a logical argument that would allow the introduction of the term "Good" to our purely logical vocabulary so as to remain within the confines of our requirement of formalizability?  

I suggest the following definitions:

If X exists it is good.

If Y causes X not to exist, Y is bad.

If Y causes X to exist, Y is good.  

If -on balance- Y causes more things to exist and for those things to continue to exist and produce things, etc., Y is, ON THE WHOLE, Good.

If -on balance- Y causes more things to cease to exist and for the things it causes to exist to cause other things to cease to exist, etc., Y is ON THE WHOLE Bad.

That is, existence and the spread of existence is good.  Nullification and the spread of nullification is bad.  That is, existence and goodness are co-extensive.   Salting the field so that nothing can ever grow is evil, but cutting the grass so that more things can grow is good. 

For choices, a Good Choice is something that causes, on the whole, more things to exist than it destroys.   A bad one does the opposite.  An intention is Good if it is the intention to make a good choice.  

To be beneficial is to cause, on average, more good than bad.

A choice is PERFECT if there is no other thing that could have been done that would have been more beneficial.

Now there is a very important one that is a bit harder to define and complicated to build up from smaller terms, so we'll jump ahead a bit - suffering.  Suffering is when a conscious being is the subject of a slow cessation of existence to the point of dread and death and pain.   The suffering of conscious beings is -worse- than the suffering of non-conscious beings for several logical and obvious reasons.  Firstly, a conscious being is capable of choosing and creating, something that non-conscious beings do not do (for whatever reasons).  As a result their potential for goodness is much greater than non-conscious beings (which can only do what they can do without choice).  For a conscious being can choose to improve the existence of others and thus multiply the overall potential for goodness whereas a non-conscious being can only serve as designated.  For instance, I am hoping to be doing a good thing by creating this essay to enrich your life so that you can also enrich the lives of others.  

Now since God, on the whole, has caused more existence than any other thing, it is the most beneficial thing in all of existence.  Could God have chosen to make a -better- world than this one?   Possibly.  But there is no reason to assume that God didn't do (or will not do) just that.  That is, this world as existing now is as close to infinite as we care to imagine, but even then there may be other worlds which are more or less close to perfect than ours, in terms of simply more existing things.    Now, I'm not sure if this is exactly right, but if God were to make the BEST OF ALL POSSIBLE DECISIONS - it would be to include everything that could potentially exist that -on the whole- caused the least suffering.  

Now, is this world, that world?  That is the problem of evil.  Could this world be the world that maximizes goodness and minimizes suffering, making it -the perfect choice-?

I'm hoping that that is the -strongest- formulation of the problem of evil possible.   The job in answering it is to decide exactly how the suffering to goodness ratio could be best optimized.  Consider that God could have made -every possible world- including those in which all people continually suffer at all times and those in which all people are free and happy and safe, etc., at all times.  I suggest that this world is -not- a world in which all people continually suffer (though I have heard something like this from some Buddhist friends).  I admit that I don't suffer much (I have a reasonable amount of pain and sorrow I think, but how would I know how much was normal?), but that many other people do -and have- suffered a lot throughout time.  

There are several debates and several possibilities here.  First is that God may have -in fact- made eternal life the reward for faith, in which case, no amount of pain leads to death, making all perceived suffering null and void for the faithful.  Second is that -just existing- the ability to feel anything at all, think, choose, be aware, is a precious gift.  And -percentage wise- the number of people who -on the whole for the duration of their lives- would rather have never existed is small, I think.  The price for the suffering in the world is all of the good that there is too - all of the happiness, all of the fish, all of the stars and galaxies, love, mystery, romance, and in some ways most importantly to me, freedom.   Third is that God -may be- in the process of creating every possible thing that can exist without being too much an admixture of evil and our observational context of -here and now- is simply unable to see that we are just a point in the great space of what is possible and thus something on the list of things to be done by God.  (The God of Spinoza, I think).  

Personally I think God only makes one world at a time - the group of coherent facts at any given time.  And this world changes as a result of God's desire to create as many good worlds as possible.  That is, I believe in the procession of time but only one "world".  I have great expectations for the future as a result.  For that reason I am very pleased to have been a part of this world and look forward to being part of those to come.  

In any case, I think that it is -very likely- that God took into consideration the possibility that all of us might like to exist and try it for a while even if we ultimately fail or fail in an untimely way.  We like being allowed to play -at all-.  

In short, I don't know that this is the best of all possible worlds, but it clearly might be and that is enough to answer the problem of evil as a logical problem.  As an emotional problem, in my opinion, the best thing to do is to be grateful for who and where you are at all times and to do your best to be as good as possible at all times, or, in the words of Our Savior, Love the Lord thy God with all thy heart and all thy soul and all thy mind and love thy neighbor as thyself.   If you are suffering, I can only say I'm very sorry and I'm trying to help in what ways I can.

  

Ideological Evolution - a Preface

The -most effective ideologies- are those that are psychologically effective for the most people.  Ideologies, thus, have a kind of Evolution - a survival of the fittest for human programming if you will.

It's important to rehearse first "what ideology is for".  Ideology is, essentially, the unproved background theory in which judgements regarding specific events and issues are couched.  Thus, for instance, religions are ideologies - providing a background of lore, vocabulary and value by which religious persons couch all of their thoughts about the world.  Scientism is also an ideology - the unproved assumptions in scientism being the epistemological foundational issues that remain undecided in all of science.  Obviously Marxism, Capitalism, Imperialism and Socialism are also ideologies.  If we inquire as to the source of the existence of these ideologies we find that in many cases they were invented or promulgated by a single source (e.g. Marx, Christ, Weber, etc.) and/or evolved from prior ideologies due to historical and cultural trends, generally themselves reactions to other ideologies.

As with biological evolution, ideological evolution can't be vacuous - that is, there must be some specific aspects of an ideology that make some survive and others fail in the context of the events described.  Survival is to be measured by adoption and rejection rates in the overall population.  This will also be a clue for predicting ideological evolution - which ideologies will survive, etc.  - and thus will constitute a science with testable results.  Indeed, I would say, a science that has been in practice though non-explicitly for centuries, viz the science of political rhetoric.

Research into this will be essentially a survey of ideologies of the past and present as well as the historical events that dominated the changes of those ideological systems over time - as well as to see what survived and what did not.

Thus, e.g., Capitalism evolved from earlier Mercantilism and Imperialism whereas, e.g. Marxism came into existence as a reaction to the then dominant imperialism and Capitalism.  So also Catholicism evolved out of a melange of early christian sects and the then-dominant Roman Empirialism, and Protestantism came into existence as a reaction to that Catholicism.  So we have essentially an evolutionary system - competition, mutation, survival of the fittest.

Some lesser ideologies remain in the world, e.g., "politically correct speech" or "theosophy".  These "lesser ideologies" don't -necessarily- present entire world-views (though some do) but rather are parasitic upon or grow in a niche where the more dominant world-views fail to take hold (in the human mind).  These lesser ideologies include everything from simple "internet memes" to large-scale political ideologies that are simply not adopted by large numbers of people (Libertarianism, e.g.).

One clue, of course, to the differentiation between surviving and non-surviving ideologies is therefore to take a look at relative adoption and rejection rates and the changes over time.

And here we would have to look at case studies which I intend to do in follow-up blog posts.

But we can provide a preliminary overview of some criteria:

a) Exposure - an ideology, in order to spread, needs access to people's minds.  A mind can not adopt an ideology of which it is simply not aware, and this often requires MEDIA and ADVERTISING in the current sense, or some kind of socialization system.  Sometimes these socialization systems are built-in (like Amway - to get ahead in the Amway system, you MUST invite others).  Other ideologies are spread using modern advertising techniques ("buy american") or ("buy organic") - finding and appealing to an audience based on their media preferences, etc.   In addition to raw exposure, many ideologies never achieve widespread acceptance because their audience is essentially limited, either because the ideology itself is limiting (racial purity ideologies, for instance, limit themselves in some ways to the races for which they were designed.  Given that the world is multi-racial, they are essentially limited, therefore, and as opposed to trans-racial ideologies.)

b) Appeal - an ideology must make a psychological appeal to the intended adopters.  Ideologies that are less appealing or less obviously appealing have a tendency to not achieve high adoption rates.  Thus an ideology of, say, pure self-denial, will have a relatively lower adoption rate than, say, an ideology of pure hedonism simply because "there's nothing in it" for the adopter.  Ideologies that subtly postpone the reward for the work required have a tendency, it seems, to do very well, likely.  That is, carrots help.

c) Fear - ideologies that appeal to fears have another sort of appeal.  Fear of death, fear of loneliness, etc.  Ideologies that promise assuage those fears have an appeal.  Some ideologies can get away with having no other appeal than the alleviation of fears.

d) Ease of Adoption.  Some ideologies are -hard to understand- or require too much investment on the part of the potential adoptee.  Other ideologies are simple-to-understand and require -at least seemingly- little investment on the part of the potential adoptee.

e) Competition.  Some ideologies are dangerous to other ideologies - either because they threaten to take their ideological potential adoptees or because they sometimes literally, destroy the adoptees of another ideology.  Romain Imperialism (e.g.) was essentially opposed to early Christianity and sought to literally destroy it because it realized that the Roman Ideology based on the God-hood of the Emperor was called into question by the rising christian ideology.  Thus the Romans killed christians by the thousands.  Protestantism took entire countries of dedicated catholics and removed them from their dominant ideology (with relatively less force required).  Ideologies that have a built-in ability to defend from competition have a better chance of surviving (viz, Capitalism and Imperialism have excellent competition prevention systems, whereas, e.g., Southern Baptist Christianity versus, say, the Southwide Baptist Fellowship where little obvious reason to choose one over the other is given and no obvious way to prevent ideological shift among its membership other than brand loyalty).

d) Momentum.  Ideologies are sometimes as fundamental as language itself.  Thus adoption of a different ideology itself requires energy even if the original ideology is itself in some ways unsuitable (e.g. being to costly or not making enough sense, etc.).  Thus an ideology can survive on bulk and momentum - and ideologies that capitalize on this by, e.g., promoting early education in the ideology and procreation among its members, (Mormonism, Catholicism, Capitalism, Lenninism, etc.), have an edge over ideologies that require adoption from outside (e.g. the Shakers).  Similarly ideologies with large followings have literal physical force to apply in competition versus other ideologies with smaller followings if necessary.

Semi-Formal Proof of the Existence of G

Def:

x is contingent if POS(!x)
x is necessary if !POS(!x)

Examples:
The car might have been blue, but is in fact red.  (Contingent)
If some proposition implies another proposition and the first proposition is true, the second proposition is true.  (Necessary).

Proposition 1:

Every set of contingent truths is also contingent:

Proof by contrary supposition:

Suppose there exists a SET of contingent truths which is necessary.  Every proposition in a conjunction is true if the conjunction is true.  (def of "conjunction).

Let C be the conjunction and P be any proposition in the conjunction C.  Suppose C is necessary.  C implies P (since if !P -> !C).  Therefore C -> P.  Supposing C is necessary, then P is necessary too.

Proposition 2:

Principle of Sufficient Reason -> Every contingent proposition has a sufficient explanation for it's truth.

More formally,

A(P), if (P) -> (E(G) G->P and G).

In the minimal case where P is necessary, P = G, and therefore P -> P.  To say that P is not necessary (viz contingent) is to say that the contrary, that P !=G.

Examples:

"The Dog is on the ground" is implied by "The Dog is on the ground", however, There exist other "reasons" (gravity, the existence of dogs, the earth, etc.) such that the conjunction of those reasons implies that the dog is on the ground.  Since the conjunction of those reasons is not necessary (there need not be any earth), the dog being on the ground is not necessary either.

Proposition 3:

The set W of all contingent propositions exists by definition.
The set W is contingent (by 1)
There exists a truth G such that G implies W (by 2)
G is not contingent (by def of contingent)

Thus there exists some necessary fact such that it implies the existence of the set of contingent truths.

-----------------

Attribution of CHOICE to G.

Def: Choice:

A fact P is chosen if Pos( ! P) & E(N) N->P but not necessary (P).

If contingent P -> Pos(!P) (definition)
The set W of all contingent facts is itself contingent (see above).
Thus contingent (W) -> Pos(!W)
If possible !W and W then the sufficient reason for W (from 2 above) effective decides W as opposed to  !W and is therefore a choice by Definition.

__________________

Attribution of Goodness to G:

This one is tougher, there are two main issues:

A) we don't have a good definition of good, but let's try these things:

(a) a thing is good IFF it is well intended
(b) what it does in fact is -on the whole- beneficial for others

and PERFECT if
(c) There is no other thing that it could have done that would have been more beneficial to others.

Let's assume (a) for the moment (since it would be fruitless to try to guess in this case).
(b) is often denied, however, it's clear that -many good things- have happened in the course of history - from pleasant lunches to overthrowing of tyrants.
Thus it's clear that G is Good.

However, the further question, is G PERFECT implies that there is no other possible course of action for G that G might have taken that would have, on the whole, been better for everyone.

That's a tall order, I suggest only the following considerations:

a) People want to CHOOSE what they do, implying that sometimes they will choose bad things, causing suffering.
b) A world in which people weren't free or didn't exist to enjoy it would not be Good.
c) therefore it's reasonable to expect some BAD things in the world.
d) The AMOUNT of bad things in the world from AIDS epidemics and cancer to earthquakes and rapists is hard to understand nevertheless, but there are further considerations here too:

The production of, in particular, Patience, Kindness, Honor, Love, Justice and, in the end, other Good Beings therefore, would be the most beneficial possible thing for G to do, and the world we see exhibits exactly those characteristics - a world in which Goodness in Others is encouraged for its own sake.

And while it's possible to say "God could have done X to make this world better" without a proof of that proposition, the speculation is irrelevant.

Thus, G is both Free and Good.

The Unity of G

Last time I wrote about this, I demonstrated the existence of a kind of non-contingent being on which all other contingent being was contingent, what is traditionally called "God" in most religions (sometimes, as in Taoism "The King of Heaven"). What I did not attempt at that time was the Moral Character or Unity of God leaving at least two avenues wide-open possibilities:

a) that G is morally decrepit or indifferent (e.g. the God of Spinoza)
b) That G is multiple-beings (e.g. the God of the Hindus or ancient greeks)

In this note I want to address (b) that G must be unique.

The argument takes the form of a reductio absurdum of the opposing possibility viz:

There are many things that satisfy the predicate "is non-contingent being upon which all other contingent beings are contingent".

At first glance this seems possible and even likely - why should all contingent things have exactly the one single explanation? There are many kinds of contingent things, why shouldn't there be many kinds of non-contingent things that cause them?

For this we need first an argument for the unity of other kinds of abstract objects, just to show -what it is- to be a unified non-concrete object. For instance, the number "1".

Obviously the number 1 has many different names and properties - it is known as "uno" in spanish, and the result of "3-2" in base-10 decimal arithmetic. It is the identity element for a monoid (under the standard interpretation), etc. We say of these different descriptions that they describe "the same thing" because we think that, for instance, uno = 3 - 2 = the identity field of a monoid = 1.

That is, we think they describe the same thing. Now, for those of you who didn't know that 1 is the identity monoid, this can come as a surprise when you learn it as most people do effectively in 3rd grade nowadays. Nevertheless, it is. If it were not, then there would be some other number which also was a multiplicative identity element on the natural numbers, but since it can be demonstrated that no other element on the natural numbers could be that (since any x 1 will yield a different result than 1 * x and it will not be x for all elements of N which you could prove by induction.)

Thus, we know that there is a proof that 1 = the identity element for multiplication. Any language in which standard mathematics is described that has a multiplication operator and has an identity element in it will have 1 and it will be that element and there will be a proof of that matter. 

Thus it is possible for there to be unique abstract objects with different properties and names, that is, ways of describing them or accessing them, which nevertheless refer to exactly one thing - the same thing. Let us call these things "abstract objects" and we will differentiate them from "abstract properties" on the basis that abstract objects can have properties and share them with other objects (both abstract and non-abstract) whereas abstract properties can be descriptions or properties of other objects (while themselves being objects) AND have properties and alternative descriptions.

So to the particulars - we defined G as 

An object upon which all contingent objects are contingent and which is not itself contingent.

So there is a property, according to us "being the contingency on which all contingent things are based, but not itself being contingent" (call it "O", the "God property" if you will).

And we supposed that there may be a group of things with that property D = (G1, G2, G3, ...) such that Ax:D (Ox) (D is the set of "deities").

Let P be the property "is contingent" and PG1x (where 1 is a subscript) be the property "being contingent on G1", and PG2x be the property "being contingent on G2".

Suppose Ex PG1x && PG2x && G1 G2 (our basic assumption).

That is, x is contingent on G1 and x is contingent on G2 and G1 is not G2.

Here's where our problem arises, by definition above, G1 is sufficient for x (since G1 is the sufficient condition for all contingent beings) and necessary for x (since without G1 no other contingent being is possible). 

If G1 is sufficient and necessary for x and G2 is sufficient and necessary for x but not identical, then there arises the possibility that G2 & !G1 & x (since G2 is supposedly sufficient for x). But obviously there is a contradiction if Nec(!G1 -> !x) & G1 & x.

Hence if G1 is actually sufficient and necessary for the x in question (and that x is the totality of contingent beings) then G2 if it is also sufficient and necessary must be identical with G1.

As a result, there must be only one being which is sufficient and necessary for the existence of all contingent beings (even if this being is in-itself "multiple" - that is has multiple aspects) - the whole of it must be exactly one thing.

There is a further question, namely, what is the "structure" or "character" of the thing - is it simple or complex, good or evil, etc. This will be the topic of a proof to follow.

ALOHA!

I read recently in Nous a review of a variety of Cosmological argument that says:

God exists because Something had to create the Heavens and the Earth and whatever created the Heavens and the Earth is what we call God.

The author broke this down symbolically as follows:

(1) If E(heavens and earth) -> Ex: !x -> !E(heavens and earth) 
(2) if (x -> E(heavens and earth) && !Ex -> !E(heavens and earth) ) -> x = God

Thus quickly displaying the metaphysical nature of logic itself plainly for us.

The author went on to point out that the argument in (1) needs some more "explaining" before it can be allowed to go through, in particular an explanation of what constitutes "heaven and earth" and why we would expect that the existence of Heaven and Earth would entail the existence of something without which it would not exist.

The author considers a few options for the constitution of "Heavens and Earth" - the totality of events, the totality of facts, the totality of objects - but seems to think that there's a problem with sufficiently well restricting whatever totality we choose so that it seems plausible that it must have an explanation, cause or reason.

Secondly, the author objects that the force of "->" above is unclear - that the necessity of the necessitated object is not given as a "reason" or a "cause" or a "condition", where cause would be interpreted materially, reason interpreted epistemically and "condition" interpreted abstractly (e.g. logically).

Lastly the author objected that any suggested use of "->" that made it required for the existence of the Heavens and Earth would also apply to God, since the question "why is there any such thing as God" would seem to arise just as it does in the case of the Heavens and the Earth.

I - THE TOTALITY OF CONTINGENT FACTS: U

Unfortunately, the author did not consider the actual argument as usually given here, viz that the "Heavens and Earth" is constituted by the totality of Contingent Facts - facts that could have been otherwise but just happen to be the way they are.

That is, the set of true facts satisfying the condition: 

U: (AF: F & Pos(!F))

If the author had considered THAT definition it would have been clear how to adequately demarcate the constitution of "Heavens and Earth" as everything that might not have been the way it is in fact.

It would also be clear from that definition why the the existence of that totality, U, stands in need of a "reason", what kind of "reason" it stands in need of, and why whatever would fit the bill would not itself also stand in need of the same kind of reason.

TWO KINDS OF WHY

In particular, it seems that the Contingent world stands in need of explanation for there arises the question "why is this the case, rather than that" or "how did this come to be at all?" both of which are varieties of the general question "why F?". But it's important to note that there are two different questions and that for contingent questions it is not always necessary that we have both, but only rather that we have an answer to the second kind of why. 

This is easy to see in general:

We can very often say why we, in our own cases, are doing something - e.g. that we decided to do it. But when asked why we are doing that particular thing rather than any other possible thing we might have done, there's no reason to expect that there's a particular answer. That is, in our own cases we know that we can be a sufficient condition for a thing taking place without thereby also making it necessary that thing had taken place rather than all the other things that might have taken place.

Furthermore, we know that in some cases while there are explanations for why something came to be at all (why it exists) there may not even be the need to explain why the thing is the way it is as a result - for instance, we know that if a woman is pregnant and survives a normal pregnancy in general it will determine that a baby will be born, but that these facts alone will not necessitate the character of the baby born.

And we know this not just because there may be intervening facts - the application of thalidamyde for instance drastically alters the character of the born-child - but also because we know that some facts need not be determinate AT ALL in the intervening steps in the process. That is, we have a quantum theory of unobservables that allows that states of things be indeterminate until observed and that the closing of an event chain does not necessarily close all the possible event chains in between observations. That is, while we know that every step along the way must be in -some state- observed or unobserved, we also know that the unobserved ones may well be in an indeterminate state - a superposition of states as they say - whos character is not determined either by the initialization of the process nor the conclusion of it.

Nevertheless, though, we know that the contingent character of the baby at birth REQUIRES that the intervening states, be they determined or indeterminate, must exist in order for the baby to have been born normally. If there were simply NOTHING AT ALL along any path in the time-line of the baby, then the baby would not be born. We would regard this "nothing at all" as a complete and inexplicable mystery, and even the believe that it might happen we regard as a bizarre kind of superstition.

So we have two kinds of "Why" - one which inquires into why something is at all, and one that inquires into why something is the exact way that it is and not some other possible way.

We'll call the first kind of why "Causal Explanation" and the second kind of why "Deterministic Explanation".

WHICH WHY - WHY NOT DETERMINISM

As I've said before, we don't believe that everything has a deterministic explanation (at least not everyone does), and there doesn't seem to be any reason to suppose that everything does have such an explanation since it would imply not only determinism, but that all facts tout court are necessary facts since, at every step along the way in every process, all the aspects of that process would have to be completely determined by previous events along that path. Thus the distinction between contingent and necessary fact is removed and all and only necessary facts remain. 

But this conclusion is absurd since we have within our own wills the ability to refute such a claim simply by doing something on purpose ourselves that wasn't in our own immediately prior plans - e.g. something spontaneous like suddenly whistling a new song. But worse, the idea that it was Absolutely Necessary that I happen to be sitting at my desk after midnight on a wednesday writing this email be a fact in the same way that it being necessary that 2+2=4 is preposterous. Clearly I might not even have existed. At least, anyway, the only reason for supposing that me writing this was absolutely necessary would be a rigid and axiomatic belief in Absolute Determinism.

Now it will be beyond the scope of this email to refute determinism of that kind since, as we know, all kinds of things have been said in favor of absurd propositions before, but we can say that if Determinism is true then Quantum Mechanics is strictly speaking false and that we have good Empirical Evidence of our current Quantum Mechanical model so, at the very least, such a belief in Determinism is anti-scientific.

Therefore, coming back to our original topic, the kind of explanation we're looking for when looking to interpret our (1) above is Causal Explanation - a cause is a reason that something is at all, but not necessarily is the way that it is. It is itself a Fact, for only Facts can be the causes of other Facts - and it is therefore not a purely mental explanation nor a purely abstract "reason". Facts are external, "real" things with real being in a real world.

A CAUSAL EXPLANATION 

We are, as a result, looking for a Causal explanation for the existence of the totality of Contingent Facts. We know that that totality has such a thing because each of its members do and that that totality itself could therefore be different. We don't know, given that, that it has a deterministic explanation since, as we just admitted, each of the members of U could have been other than what they were in fact - so we don't expect to necessarily know why every fact is the way it is, only that the existence of these contingent facts as a whole itself must have a Causal explanation, otherwise, there would be a "nothing" in our chain of causal explanation which would appear to us worse than miraculous, but outright absurd ("nothing" can not be causally related to any real thing, obviously).

That is, the suggestion that there might not be at least a causal explanation for any set of contingent facts is equivalent to the suggestion that there is "nothing" in the causal chain of those facts, which is equivalent to the suggestion that "nothingness exists" for how else could it be related to the contingent facts, and which is a manifest absurdity.

Let's call that causal explanation for U, "G". 

We can also therefore see that whatever the causal explanation of U is, it can not itself be a contingent fact, and so must therefore find itself among the necessary facts - it must be. Because it must be, that is, because it is a necessary fact, there simply is no question of inquiring into its causes - it can not be caused to be or not-be - just as it is absurd to inquire into why 2+2=4 in a causal way.

This does not preclude us from inquiring into its character or further into exploring its relations with other necessary objects! For we can, of course, give an argument that has as its conclusion 2+2=4, and just in the same way, we can give an argument that has as its conclusion the existence of G. That is, we can give an explanation to someone who doesn't believe that G exists in the form of a proof or reasons, but those reasons are NOT the same kind of Causal Reasons that lead us to find the relationship between U and G. That is, G explains the existence and contingency of U whereas G itself needs no explanation of its existence because it is not contingent, but necessary, but only a demonstration of its necessity, which we have just done - viz by demonstrating its necessity relative to the existence of a totality of Contingent Facts.

But what if there were no totality of Contingent Facts. It seems, if we follow the argument above, that we've proved G's existence Contingently on the basis of the existence of any Contingent facts. But said basis is not necessary, and so neither is the inference from U to G.

But is it necessary that there be contingent facts? I think the answer is clearly yes.

THE NECESSITY OF THE EXISTENCE OF CONTINGENT FACTS

We can clearly imagine there being lots of different varieties of Worlds - worlds with only shrimp in them, worlds of fire, earth and snow. But what we can't imagine is a world with NOTHING AT ALL in it - that is, a world in which there are no facts. For suppose there were no contingent facts in that world, it would remain a contingent fact that there was nothing in that world - contradicting the supposition that there were no contingent facts. That is, the supposition of the possibility of the existence of a non-existent contingent world is self-contradictory (and that can't be regarded as surprising). 

As a result, we know that there must be contingent facts, but as before we don't know that this fact entails WHICH contingent facts there must be. To the contrary, if it did, they wouldn't be contingent!

THE CHARACTER OF CAUSALITY

Lastly a word about the nature of Causal Determination.

We gave two examples above of the way in which a cause may effect the necessitation of its effect without determining the character of the effect, but I'd like to elucidate further. 

I can make a law "There will be baseball games on sundays" - and I may be able to enforce the law by conscripting players. Nevertheless, unless I have absolute control over the players I can not determine the quality or character of the game itself. That will still be determined by the decisions of the players. Now I can choose good players, but even good players can play badly if they so choose. Thus, any time I involve myself in a causal stream with something that can choose, while I may be able to guarantee that -something- happen, I likely can not guarantee WHAT happens.

The creation of the world must be roughly analogous to this - that in virtue of being "The necessary thing that must create some contingent world" the world which that thing creates must itself be actually contingent - that is, it can not be completely determined beforehand by the being what the content of the world created is. Thus, in a way, God must allow a world in which there is a significant amount of what we call Chaos or Randomness. Otherwise, if it contained no randomness, the world would be wholly Necessary, contradicting the supposition that it needed a Cause in the first place. 

CONSIDERATIONS OF OBSERVATION

Importantly, this coincides obviously with our observed world, where people choose their own destinies and which, at the smallest level of particles and at the largest level of stellar systems, we observe large amounts of Randomness.

We also observe large amounts of Willfulness. Willfulness is the other primary case in which -some- outcome is guaranteed, but WHICH outcome is not. For instance, by our wills we can become married, but we can not guarantee the success or quality of that marriage beforehand no matter how hard we try. Similarly, we can enter a war and thereby guarantee some amount of violence, but we can not guarantee what the outcome or intervening states of the war are. NEVERTHELESS, the choosing of the initial step is a sign of Willfulness and is a case where clearly Randomness is not the appropriate explanation for the nature of what ensues.

Willfulness is to be defined, therefore, as the beginning of a chain of events which itself is not random, but which contains random resulting events. This willfulness we observe in ourselves but also in the relation between U and G. Seeing that G can not determine the complete character of U, but G must initially and non-randomly be the cause of U, we can see that U must be effectively Temporal in that a world in which only one thing happened that was the result of G's action could not be Contingent since that one thing would be necessitated by G's action. Thus G must set in motion the sequence of random events in U. G, therefore, is willful by analogy to the character of our own willfulness. Thus U must also be Temporal in character since there must be elements of U which are not necessitated by G's initial (or subsequent necessary) effects on U.

A WRONGHEADED OBJECTION - AN ORDERLY CHAOTIC PROCESSION IN TIME

I have heard it objected that the character of a necessary thing is that it always must have all its properties at all times and that if G is as I explain here, then G must always be having the same effect on U as it does at any time. Thus, goes the object, G can not be the creator of the universe since the universe has already been created only once, and G would have to be continually creating them.

I hope the explanation given above gives a clue about how this objection is wrong-headed. G's effect on U is NOT deterministic, what is necessary is that G continue to have an effect on U - that is it is G's character to have a non-deterministic effect on U. Thus while it's true that we should expect G to continue to have an effect on U, we shouldn't expect it always to be the Exact Same effect on U since that would, again, make U deterministic. Secondly, it is of course possible that G would continue to create new U's ad infinitum - to always be creating new worlds, and that again would be an explanation of the existence of the observed phenomenon of Time. Time, to us, looks like the constant addition of new factors to the character of the universe as a whole. That effect, globally observed, appears simultaneously random (watching sunspots) and carefully planned (watching the rotation of the planets), and this is just as we would expect from the character of U described. U is willful and so attempts to do specific things, but is non-deterministic, and so produces effects that are radically chaotic. 

CONCLUSION

It seems to me, therefore, that the standard cosmological argument for the existence of God as the ultimate Cause of all Contingent Beings (that is, created things) stands, and that this basic argument is obvious and demands the rational assent of anyone willing to consider the matter thoroughly. At the same time, I have not described here the proof of the Unity of G nor the Moral Character of G though I have provided clues that should lead an interested party to the right answers.

So you just realized you live in a police state.

Lots of people have been telling you this for years, that the freedoms we american's have are not as guaranteed as you think, etc. But you didn't really think that much of it.

But then you started seeing policemen on television shooting pepper spray and shoving batons into peaceful protesters who are asking the big banks to get out of our government, that is, who are asking for justice and peace.

Whoa, you thought, they must be evil protesters.

But then you found out that no, they were from "Veterans for peace" or "Students for Peace" or "The Peace and Justice Club" or just standing there as bystanders watching.

Whoa, you thought, how can that be happening here?

Well, let's face it, it's not the first time.

Another time was in 1963, when the Civil Rights Protesters were -peacefully- asking for the right to be treated as fully human persons and citizens. The police set the dogs on them. Many were beaten and even killed. But the war was one by the peaceful protesters there by patient consistent advocacy for their position.

You remember, it was on TV. Then there were the anti-vietnam war protesters that wanted us to stop killing asians indiscriminately (yes, we were in Laos and Cambodia too...) and for no obvious -good- reason.

But now you're wondering, where is the federal government in this. During the civil rights movement, the federal government ended up trying and convicting many people on violations of civil rights - the right to freely assemble, to speak freely and to petition the government for redress of grievances, you know, OUR GUARANTEED RIGHTS AS CITIZENS.

Hey, that's a good question. The answer right now is, the federal government is coordinating with city governments to quash the occupy movement.

This will likely fail, and those who stood on the wrong side of it will be brought to light.

In fact, what we're finding is that more people are sympathetic to the Occupy Movement's peaceful agenda for justice and economic equality - people who weren't interested before, like probably you.

While the approval rating of congress is dipping below 9%, and the president below 20%, Occupy Wall Street's approval ratings remain high.

What can you do?

First, make sure that you voice your opinion and please take a look at the Occupy Washington's statement of economic solutions found here:

http://october2011.org/blogs/kevin-zeese/99-s-deficit-proposal-how-create-jobs-reduce-wealth-divide-and-control-spending