In 1987, the American economist and philosopher Thomas Sowell wrote the book “Conflicts in Vision: Ideological Origins of Political Struggles.” In it Sowell describes American politics as broken down into two distinct visions: the constrained and the unconstrained.

Those with a constrained vision believe that human nature is flawed, but fixed. They, like our founding fathers, acknowledge that humans are greedy and self-interested by nature, and that power always corrupts. A constrained vision is at strict adherence to federalism and the idea that a healthy government needs a separation of power in order to limit the damages done by human nature.

Those with an unconstrained vision believe that a government can be as powerful as it needs to be in order to make the world just. As long as the right people are in office then the government can rid the world of the problems caused by human’s flawed and greedy nature. They believe that human nature is not fixed, but malleable: “There are those who look at things the way they are and ask why… I dream of things that never were, and ask why not?” – this is the shared attitude of the unconstrained visionary.

Sowell was recently interviewed on these old ideas and was asked how they relate to the politics of today:

In this interview he expands on his ideas regarding the unconstrained vision, which he believes is like a disease slowly taking over America, and especially those who are currently being led by the most unconstrained visionary ever to be President of the United States: Barack Obama.

Sowell warns us that the Left is almost always seeking some unconstrained vision. It is a vision never rooted in the reality of men, but in the dreams of idealists. Instead of protecting the freedoms that this country was founded on, they will utilize government intervention until there is not equal opportunity, but equal outcomes. They believe they can achieve a Utopian-like society as long as they are given the power to do so.

“Ask not whether our government is too big or too small, but whether it works.” Barack Obama

Our President will grab as much power as he can until his vision is fulfilled. And the unconstrained American people are willing to give it to him – as much as he wants in fact – because we believe Obama is the right person to do it.

But the constrained are saying “Stop!”

They understand power corrupts, and more power is almost never a good thing. Even if Obama is half as noble as the unconstrained believe he is, then what happens when the next president comes into office? What happens if he is corrupt? Or the next guy after that guy is corrupt? Eventually someone is going to step to the floor with all of these new powers – and we will be doomed. By giving government these new powers we are only setting up a time bomb for our own inevitable destruction.

Sowell believes that the unconstrained are the same kinds of people that believe communism would have worked – if only Stalin wasn’t in power. They fail to understand that a system like communism only brings people like Stalin into power. The same is true for all other forms of Fascism and Socialism that have failed in the past. Power corrupts – this is human nature – the constrained understand this.

In an economic environment, the unconstrained visionary believes that the powers of the free market only appeal to particular interests instead of focusing on the public interests. And Obama, as well as other unconstrained visionaries, have taken it upon themselves to define what “public interests” even means.

They fail to understand that man only has one mind, and by nature there are only individual interests. Only the conglomerate of actions done by individuals, driven by their own one-minded interest, can create the outcome of the “public interest.” There is no one-minded man that can possibly know what is in the interest of the public. Obama with his unconstrained vision is ignoring his senses, and the limitations of his own mind, in replace of his dreams. This is dangerous.

When Sowell is asked why he voted for McCain, his answer was simple: “I wanted a disaster over a catastrophe.” Sowell believes that Obama’s presidency is going to offer a good demonstration… of how government intervention, as a result of an ever encroaching power, almost always messes things up.

In 1972, Thomas Nagel first introduced what is now known as the “epistemic gap” amongst contemporary philosophers. It was described in his paper “What Is It Like To Be A Bat?” and the gist of the argument was this: one cannot fully understand the mind unless one is experiencing that mind.

Nagel took the example of a bat because bats are so fascinatingly different than humans; they hang upside down most of the time, use echolocation, they are nocturnal, and most eat nothing but insects. Could a human ever convincingly claim that he knew what it was like to be a bat? Nagel didn’t believe this was possible – I agree.

Can the same be true amongst humans? Can another human fully understand the mind of another, or, does one have to be in the first-person to understand the mind more clearly?

Philosopher Frank Jackson wrote a paper in 1982 titled “Epiphenomenal Qualia” where he introduced the famous thought experiment known as Mary’s room. It goes like this:

“Mary is a brilliant scientist who is, for whatever reason, forced to investigate the world from a black and white room via a black and white television monitor. She specializes in the neurophysiology of vision and acquires, let us suppose, all the physical information there is to obtain about what goes on when we see ripe tomatoes, or the sky, and use terms like ‘red’, ‘blue’, and so on. She discovers, for example, just which wavelength combinations from the sky stimulate the retina, and exactly how this produces via the central nervous system the contraction of the vocal cords and expulsion of air from the lungs that results in the uttering of the sentence ‘The sky is blue’. (…) What will happen when Mary is released from her black and white room or is given a color television monitor? Will she learn anything or not? It seems just obvious that she will learn something about the world and our visual experience of it. But then is it inescapable that her previous knowledge was incomplete.”

These arguments by Frank Jackson and Thomas Nagel are two of the most famous papers in support of the idea of qualia - a term used in philosophy to describe the subjective quality of conscious experience. It is an idea often associated with the mind/body dualism (the belief that the mind is in some-part nonphysical, and therefore a separate entity from our physical bodies).

The epistemic gap does not prove any such thing however, and it is perfectly compatible with a materialist view of the mind. The real questions that the epistemic gap provokes is within the field of psychology and the scientific method itself.

Science is science – we believe – because of its objective, empirical, and third-person approach to knowledge. Science has often given men the ability to step outside of the happenings of natural phenomena, study them, test them, replicate their findings, and come to conclusions.

There is no doubting the breakthroughs and advancements science has come to offer man throughout the centuries. It would be foolish to deny these achievements.

Even in Western psychology (which is quite a young field relative to the natural sciences), researchers have made incredibly discoveries of the mind and how it works. We have devised useful models for how the mind perceives sensations (Psychophysics), how it processes information, stores memories, and solves problems (Cognitive Psychology), how the mind changes throughout the human lifespan (Developmental Psychology), how the mind builds associations and how these associations affect our behaviors (Learning or Experimental Psychology), how the brain or the “physical anatomy of the mind” works (Neuropsychology), and we’ve been given the chance to take all of this information and apply it to a variety of other fields: Clinical Psychology, Industrial and Organizational Psychology, Sport Psychology, and even Forensic Psychology.

There is no denying the leaps psychology has made, all in the name of proper science. This is knowledge we would likely have not gotten any other way if it were not for the extraordinary and rigorous scientific method.

However, there is good reason to believe that Nagel and Jackson are right and that we cannot fully explain or understand a mind from an outside view. This is the belief that once science carries out its full course of discoveries that there will be something left unsaid about the mind (our understanding of the mind could never be as complete as our understanding of the physics on our planet). Unless – we redefine science.

But I believe we already have the techniques used to fully understand a mind – or at the very least, our own mind.

To understand this technique properly, we need to first drift away from the Western logical positivist philosophy of “if you can’t measure it, then it isn’t real,” which I believe has plagued much of modern day intellectual thought. Instead, I turn to the philosophies of the East – who have been studying the mind far, far longer and far more thoroughly than the West.

In particular I am fond of Buddhism which – like Western Science – takes pride in an objective approach to the study of phenomena. But there is a important property of the mind that Buddhists acknowledge and scientists go out of their way to ignore: the mind is – before all else – something that must be experienced first-person, or it wouldn’t be a mind at all.

This brings me to the practice of meditation – or more generally – a mindfulness of our inner worlds. There is a world in all of us that is subjective, personal, and completely our own. We cannot let anyone in it no matter how colorful our language or how much experience we share with another human being – it is ours and ours alone – and there are aspects to it that can only be dealt with by our self; no therapist, psychologist, family member, friend, scientist or spouse can ever figure it out for you.

Neither Buddhism or Science can rightfully claim to know how to bridge the gap between the subjective and objective. Both try their best to be objective at different vantage points: Science takes a third-person empirical approach while Buddhism takes a first-person empirical approach. Why can’t the study of the mind include both?

There is a fast growing interest in the West in meditative practices, yoga, tai chi, and other mind/body, holistic and alternative medicines for physical and mental health. This suggests there might be a vacancy in the West’s psyche, perhaps due to a combination of an incomplete scientific view of the mind along with an overwhelming nihilistic and atheistic attitude toward what would be deemed the spiritual or “mystic” aspects of man.

Many of these so called mystical practices are lumped into the demeaning pop psychology term “New Age.” Followers of so called New Age practices are said to be gullible and weak-minded – and perhaps some of them are. But it is also my belief that introspection and reflection on one’s mind can be the most rewarding and therapeutic practice for better mental health, the sharpening of one’s mental skill set, and a complete understanding of how the mind truly works (in the context of how it operates in the head of the individual and not by inference of a third-person observer).

Because of this I am very welcoming of these alternative and non-scientific studies of the mind. I in no way mean to deter scientific practices (I believe their should always be a science of the brain and a science of human behavior and thought), but science is not the be-all end-all of knowledge. It has its limitations, and we must be open to alternative studies of the mind. Introspection and turning our senses inwards is a legitimate method of obtaining knowledge about the mind – and it is worth exploring.

How often do atheists think about God? Perhaps an even more interesting question is – how much thought does a typical atheist give before denying the existence of God?

My reasons for asking aren’t intended to provoke a decision one way or another on if there is or is not a God. But I will admit something: I think about God quite a lot.

But my real question is – why wouldn’t you think about God?

I believe most of us are agnostic – meaning we all have different degrees of doubt in our beliefs about a God. Only the most devout atheists and most devout followers of religion can truthfully say they are fully confident in their beliefs regarding God.

But to be completely and fully confident in something where there is so much uncertainty seems deluding, and I believe it is even a suppression of one’s will to avoid thinking about God – regardless of which side of the fence he clings to.

I believe it is not only completely natural for a human to question the existence of a God (just as it is natural to question the meaning of life, why am I here, or what is good and evil), but mandatory for any healthy mind.

For one thing: there are so many aspects of God to question.

Before we can accept or deny the existence of something we must first try to find out and define what it is we are accepting or denying.

I will not go into what I believe a God is, as I am inclined to think that this is something better left for one’s own personal exploration and good judgment, and I don’t intend this article to favor either decision; I am only writing to decide what there even is to decide.

So first, we must ask ourselves, “What does the term ‘God’ mean to us?” This question is not something one can simply answer with ease.

We are constantly bombarded with various and conflicting ideas of what God is all the time. For this sole fact I find it important for any man to spend time unraveling the twists and knots of ideas in some measure of solitude, meditation, or prayer. This way we give the mind a fair chance to first define what is meant by “God” before rushing to any judgment on the concept of “God.”

Many people, due to the natural and ever-changing relations between mind and language, will likely have ill-defined Gods. At times we may believe God is always loving, yet other times we think God is punishing us. Sometimes the existence of God depends on our mood, what we want, or how fortunate our lives have been recently.

Others believe God is a metaphysical or supernatural force, as true in the eyes of many organized religions. While others, who may look at God from a more scientific, skeptical, or unorthodox point of view may play with the idea that God is nature and physical law, or God exists only as a symbol in society’s collective unconscious, or God is a feeling of happiness and appreciation.

For many, our Gods are probably mixtures of these things depending on our personalities.

When it comes to God, we must all be philosophers. Only through a sense of introspection and meditation can we clearly define our terms, beliefs, and reasons for these beliefs. Beliefs are often very flexible things that can change depending on one’s experience and perception. But beliefs are especially flexible when we don’t take the time to come up with our own personal “concrete” fundamentals and reasons for why we think the things we do (whether it is about God or anything else). And do these beliefs make sense from a rational or from an emotionally or spiritually satisfying way?

There is no one strategy to go about defining God. Every individual will have his own mode of thinking, some more consistent than others, some more critical, while others more flexibly and freely. We can think about God however we want. We can take a practical approach or dogmatic approach or even the approach of avoiding the topic altogether.

But if there is only one valid point I make throughout this writing then I hope it is that: God is worth thinking about. Call it prayer. Call it meditation. Call it science. Call it whatever you want, but don’t be afraid to let it occupy the mind. Don’t be afraid to change beliefs, even just for the sake of changing perspective, even to just end up going back to a firmer position on the beliefs you already had. Get a feel for God, what you want it to be, or what you may call ‘God’. It’s food for the mind and makes it strong. Thinking about God is often a pleasant and rewarding experience no matter what conclusion you reach, or even if you end up choosing to never use the word again.

It is important to count your blessings every now and then. By making lists of the things you enjoy and appreciate out of life you are reminding yourself that life is infinitely awesome. This is an exercise I recommend for anyone while they are down or depressed. You just can not physically stay sad after recollecting so many positively-energized thoughts.

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Humans are the best learners on the planet. This is due to our highly evolved minds – and especially – our expertise in language compared to other species. We begin learning about our environment right once we leave our mother’s womb, and at a very early age our parents put us into educational institutions so we can learn the fundamentals of reading, writing and math.

Being a good student is in itself a skill that must be practiced. It requires mindful attention being paid at all times and in all places and situations. Always be observant, never count a moment out as useless or a waste of time – it is only your mind that can make it so. These suggestions will not only guide you in becoming a better learner but will enrich your life in a multitude of ways. Good learners simply have more fun.