“Well, we all know what Einstein explained to us about time, that it isn’t some fixed entity. There’s no Newtonian Absolute Time. Time shrinks and expands according to one’s frame of reference. But I think we all feel that what Einstein was talking about was the present. What if the past is also malleable?”
 
“Go on,” you say. “Really, go onnnnn. Of course, the past is fixed; there’s no changing it. As Einstein explained, time’s arrow is unidirectional; otherwise, the universe would fall apart, and you could precede your ancestors.”
 
“What I mean is that we keep changing the past. Partly, we change it because we realize that the past we thought we knew wasn’t the past that really was. We get details hidden from us intentionally or unintentionally.”
 
“Explain.”
 
“Well, take President Kennedy’s Camelot. Wonderful world that. Admired wife. Cute children. Days sailing. Celebrities gathered around bathing in the adulation of adoring fans and crowds. But then we discovered what some knew at the time: Kennedy pretty much used and discarded women, the most famous of which was Marilyn. Not so much a pretty picture of Camelot as the press of the time led the world to believe. Those in the know kept us from knowing the debauchery of the time. And now we know. Sure, it came out not long after the assassination, but not for the great majority of Kennedy fans. 
 
“We have now changed that particular past. And, as we look around today, we see others in the process of changing the past not on the basis of new information about its details, but on the basis of current beliefs and attitudes, definitely on the basis of special interests. So, currently, those with the power to do so, change the past as they desire, not realizing that in some unknown future, others will change what they changed. Rewriting history will never cease, and it will always serve some group.”
 
“I see. I guess we do change the past. But then, doesn’t that mean that whatever the present is, is not necessarily what it seems?”
 
“Bingo! Look around. Take almost any current event. In understanding it, what do you have to go on? Sure, there are some matters that occur without nuance and subterfuge, but on the big news-making events, you owe yourself some doubt about their specifics and causes. Unfortunately, we don’t make knowing either the present or the past much of a science. We can’t really run experiments on either, but falsifying, to use Karl Popper’s criterion, what we know isn’t in the picture very often. Scientists can look to falsify their experiments to eliminate errors and correct conclusions. We can’t run the present over again to see if it produces the same result, especially since we really don’t know all the results. 
 
“So, the past is malleable, not because of some principle of spacetime physics, but rather because the frame of reference changes as attitudes and social forces change. We change in the present, and because of our changes, we change the past. We find out, for example, that someone falsely accused someone else of whatever, an indiscretion, a faux pas, even a crime. We realize later that the falsehood could not have been falsified because we couldn’t get the ‘experiment’ reset because the lab was closed to us or because certain information about apparatus or methodology was off limits. 
 
“I could go into the current political arena for examples, but I’d rather just stick to a recent story posted in USA  Today.* Here’s part of the report by Tony Plohetski, KVUE: Christopher Precopia was accused of felony burglary and intent to commit other crimes. A former girlfriend said he broke into the house and carved an ‘X’ into her chest. So, the police arrested him and charged him with crimes that could result in 99 years in jail. In the eyes of the press and the eyes of others, he was guilty. The police called him, and he returned their call to leave a message before they arrested him. At that moment Precopia’s past appeared to be fixed, and with it, his future. His parents posted a $150,000 bond, then set about proving his innocence. Seems he had been 65 miles away from the crime scene surrouned by witnesses. Also, he had a time-stamped selfie proving his innocence. But the photo didn’t get to the authorities until nine months after the arrest. Nine months with the past fixed as something it wasn’t: Now it’s a different past. So, what about the potential future? Certainly, Precopia’s time between the arrest and the exoneration changed from what it likely would have been. From that past, all the potential futures changed. And now, that past is changed. 
 
“And the same thing seems to happen all the time. Stories about people circulate, even in newspapers and on news programs. Later, some unknown details surface, and the past changes. But that previous past has already set in motion the present and its potential future. So, a newspaper prints a correction in section 2, page 3 on the lower righthand corner. Who sees it? Who recognizes that the past was changed? Plohetski reports that Precopia wants to move on with his life.”**
 
“But that doesn’t mean the past has really changed, only that we didn’t know what we didn’t know, as in the case of President Kennedy’s wild flings,” you remark.
 
“Yes, but what is your philosophy of the past? Is the past fixed by your current knowledge? Or is the past a matter of unalterable events that existed even without your knowing, like the proverbial tree falling in the forest. Or does the past, any past, lie in the mind, disdained or romanticized as the mind wishes? 
 
“Be careful here. You’re about to step onto ground that might be unstable. If the past is malleable and knowledge derives from it, then what truth is there in what we know? I’m guessing that Washington’s cutting down the cherry tree might be apocryphal. That’s a minor matter, you say, meant to promote Washington’s memory and not meant to have life-altering or nation-altering significance. Maybe. But a bunch of generations grew up with the story, just as a generation associated itself with the Kennedy Camelot stories. 
 
“And what of those who refuse to print retractions to stories they know to be false? They’re influencing the malleable present and altering the future by altering the past. Come to think of it, aren’t most of us most of the time inclined to accept a ‘fixed’ past as it serves our present? And in accepting what we believe to be a ‘fixed’ past, don’t we often fail to recognize that in being ‘fixed,’ the past was or is hammered into shape by those who fixed it or fix it thus?”  
            
 
*Tony Plohetski, KVUE Published 7:58 a.m. ET Nov. 16, 2018 | Updated 9:58 a.m. ET Nov. 16, 2018, Online and accessed on November 17, 2018 https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2018/11/16/selfie-saved-texas-man-99-years-prison/2022832002/

Juvenal said, “No one ever reached the climax of vice at one step.” Obviously, a couple of thousand years ago he wasn’t speaking of our contemporary problems of addiction to crystal meth, or opioids, or even to cocaine, but he observed that humans don’t become engulfed by vice in an initial encounter. Vice isn’t a one-off matter; it’s habitual. And as we all know because we all have habits both helpful and not-so-helpful, habits reproduce themselves like rabbits. 
 
Is there such a thing as “free will”? Or is the brain and its chemistry in complete control? A few decades ago an experiment by Benjamin Libet seemed to demonstrate the absence of will. Libet’s experiments centered on simple muscle movement, but might have had an experimental flaw in their design.* Apparently, Libet could identify the moment the brain sent a signal for a finger to move prior to the test subject’s awareness of the signal, but then he relied on some self-reporting by the test subject to confirm the lack of synchronicity between message and awareness. The brain’s activity preceded the conscious decision to move in this experiment, but as we all know, self-reporting after the fact, even closely after a fact, can be tainted by changes in focus and split-second intervening events, tiny ones to boot. 
 
As Juvenal tells us, getting involved head over heels in vice isn’t a single act. Some vices, like taking harmful drugs or visiting a house of ill repute, take planning. If vices were the necessary result of some predisposition and action in the brain, then reaching the “climax of vice,” would entail no more than that single step sans conscious decisions. Even if one were a fully engaged materialist, that’s a difficult proposition to accept with regard to, say, gambling or acquiring expensive drugs. Materialists might favor brain chemistry, whereas in opposition, free-will proponents* would say that will exerts itself through consciousness, through self-awareness.

Once addicted, however, a person appears to have yielded to chemistry over will. In that, the materialists and determinists have a point to make. It’s a matter of a philosophy of biology: “The body does what it does,” they would say. Of course, that thinking makes psychotherapy a futile exercise and reduces us to the same kind of chemistry that produced life abiotically 3.5 billion years ago long before consciousness entered the world.   
 
Generally, when we perceive that either we or someone else is free from “bad habits,” we usually attribute that freedom to will power. But one could just as easily argue that being free from inimical habits is a habit itself, that it isn’t much different from establishing a pattern of taking a daily walk or jog. 
 
“But a daily walk or jog is a good thing, isn’t it?” you ask. “Surely, it’s not the same as taking the repeated steps toward the ‘climax of vice.’”
 
Both are patterns of behavior, and both require more than “one step.” Materialists could argue that in “good” habits we find our brains flushed with dopamine and serotonin just as vices can boost their flow. That would mean simply repeating a “good” habit is also a matter of chemistry—a matter of matter.
 
“I can’t help myself” implies thinking of oneself as an interaction of chemicals. Of course, as Juvenal said, it isn’t that one step that entraps us. Even if Libet had demonstrated the lack of free will in the short term, there is still the matter of the long term, the term over which habits and addictions form. If you read about Libet’s experiment, you’ll come across his term “free won’t.” It’s his notion that we have the power to veto what the brain might tell us to do beneath our level of apparent consciousness. Everyone has experienced “I want to, but....”
 
Maybe we will never be able to prove that we have free will. But then, maybe we will never be able to explain how the physical world arrived at consciousness, and how in us the universe became self-conscious. 
 
Whether or not we have free will or free won’t, we still have to deal with those many steps we need to take to get to the “climax of vice,” and that’s where self-awareness plays its role. More time equals more steps. If we become aware of Juvenal’s “one step,” we have a chance to change. And if we don’t stop that “one step,” we have other steps to avoid on the path to vice.
 
Look down. Watch your feet. Are they ineluctably stepping toward a “climax of vice”? If so, see whether or not you have the willpower to step off the path or change direction.***   
 
*Libet experiment critiques: 1) https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/out-the-darkness/201709/benjamin-libet-and-the-denial-free-will
2) https://www.newscientist.com/article/dn22144-brain-might-not-stand-in-the-way-of-free-will/
3) http://www.jneurosci.org/content/38/4/784
**I’m tempted to say free-willers, but it might make someone think of Free Willy. In the dualism of spirit and body, spirit is beyond quantification. But if the world is mere matter, then any assessment or qualification, any involvement by mind or will, can’t really exist unless materialism is self-contradictory. Yet, we know we, material beings undeniably so, think. Should we believe that all thinking is mere reaction to chemistry, as in Libet’s “free won’t” ?
***Okay, here’s the next argument by the materialists: Maybe the brain in an act of self-preservation can decide to walk off the path that leads to a harmful “climax of vice.” Maybe the brain knows better than the mind and acts in the absence of will. 

​Just when you think you have everything figured out, measured, and weighed, someone comes along to point out an error. That’s what seems to have occurred with regard to the proton. Yeah. The proton, that tiny thing in the center of an atom, the one with the positive charge. 
 
Protons are little, smaller than one of those semisweet chocolate morsels moms put in chocolate chip cookies. For a while, we thought we had a handle on their size, a measurement in femtometers (a millionth of a millionth of a millimeter). However, some prankster must have put petroleum jelly on that handle. The newest measurement differs by 4% from the old measurement. That’s not much in femtometers, of course, but scale it up to you. If you are an Albanian woman of average height, you’re 161.8 cm tall (five-foot-three and a half). A difference of four percent makes you either 6.472 centimeters taller or shorter (or about two and a half inches). Depending on whether that’s taller or shorter, that would put you either at the height of an average Italian woman or at the average height of a Malaysian woman.*
 
Now measuring the radius of the charge of a proton isn’t something to which most people might aspire—probably because it’s a bit more complicated than what one can do in a garage or in a high school physics class. The measurement was done by people at the Max Planck Institute of Quantum Optics in Garching. (Yeah. People get paid to do that) Anyway, Randolf Pohl and his colleagues made the tiny measurement with tweezers or lasers or something. 
 
Surely, if money was spent on the project by a max-plancker at a prestigious institute, there must be some significance we can understand.
 
Well, if you remember your periodic table, you’ll recall that hydrogen, the simplest element has only one proton. It also happens to be the element that quantum physicists know the most about. But, hey, you don’t have to trust me in this. The author of the report on the new measurement, writing for MaxPlanckResearch, says, “Since it consists of just one proton and one electron, it is…the atom that they can describe best in mathematical terms. In other atoms with more electrons, they have to rely on approximations. That’s why they use hydrogen to test their theories, and also why many groups around the world are constantly competing to see who can characterize this atom more and more accurately…They don’t do this out of a sporting ambition but because, in doing so, they have continually made fundamental discoveries—quantum electrodynamics (QED), for instance” (50).** If physicists don’t have a handle on what it is that they are measuring, doesn’t that do something to their so-called Standard Model? Doesn’t that mean that there might be something missing, possibly an unknown entity hiding in the proton charge?
 
There’s a lesson in this somewhere. Oh! Yes. I remember. Notice how most of us have a habit of measuring others just once. We don’t refine our measurements except under circumstances that force us to reconsider not only our measurement, but also the very way we measure. Most of us most of the time accept our initial measurements as final.*** And we don’t look for something that might lie within the people we measure, some unknown quantity (or quality).
 
Now imagine that you live not in the macro world of big stuff, including big organisms we call people, but rather in the micro world, nay, the femto world. You are surrounded by protons, and you see that making a measurement is difficult because contrary to what you learned in elementary school, protons aren’t some little round balls made of protonstuff. You can’t play catch with them. You realize that now on that scale of existence you see that what you are measuring is a charge and that even though you can’t see inside the charge, you suspect that there are other “things.” Those are the quarks that no one has ever seen in isolation. So, what are you measuring? Something that seems less pin-downable than you originally thought? Something even as shifting as waves on the surface of the sea, “things” that you see apparently as some morphing crest that changes just as you are trying to measure it? 
 
The protons that we believe we have accurately measured are the people of this world. What if your measurement of one is off by just four percent? Would that make a difference? Would you recalibrate? What if your measurement were off by more than four percent? You know that’s possible, don’t you?  
 
If we can’t be absolutely certain about our judgment of a proton at the core of the simplest element, why are we so certain about our judgment of a person?  
 
*Or, at least that’s what Wikipedia writes: See List of average human height worldwide, online at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_average_human_height_worldwide
**https://www.mpg.de/7531136/W002_Physics-Astronomy_046-053.pdf
***This appears to be particularly true with regard to public personalities of all stripes.

“…so without effort did Odysseus string the mighty bow.”* That’s a line from one of the world’s great stories, The Odyssey. Returning to find his home invaded by suitors for Penelope’s hand, the disguised Odysseus steps into the contest to see who can string the bow of the presumed dead king. It’s his bow, of course, and only he can string it as the suitors find out to their ill fate. But you know the story.
 
Not that others want your spouse and kingdom, but some do want what you have and want to be what you are. They don’t understand that only you can string your bow. That’s your strength. But be aware that should you want to string the bow of another, you would face the same difficulty in stringing another’s bow that anyone would have in stringing your bow. 
 
*The Odyssey, Bk. XXI. Trans. by George Herbert Palmer. New York. Barnes and Noble Classics. 2003 in a republication of the 1921 translation.

The highly innovative 18th-century novelist Henry Fielding included many kinds of characters with the gamut of human strengths and weaknesses. In probably his most famous and best work, Tom Jones, he says, “Every physician almost hath his favourite disease” (bk ii, ch. 9). 
 
We could ask our family physicians whether or not they have “favourite” diseases. I suppose none or few would admit so, but then, why are so many doctors specialists? Is disease specialization an indication of favoring? Is it an obsession?
 
Put the question to those involved in binge-watching pundit programs. The political “diseases” on which they specialize—though changing as each pundit tries to outdo the others—have watchers also specializing. 
 
Fielding made another comment that might apply here. Early newspapers were often full or half broadsheets. That is, the publisher used a sheet of paper printed on both sides and sometimes folded in half. In the eighteenth century, a newspaper might be exactly the same size day after day, everything fitted to the space available on the broadsheet or half broadsheet. Fielding wrote, “A newspaper consists of just the same number of words, whether there be any news in it or not.” If Fielding were alive today, he would see a half-hourlong or hourlong TV pundit show with the same amount of time from day to day, each with the same number of words, “whether there be any news in it or not.” 
 
Do you have a favorite political disease? If you answer “Yes,” then ask yourself, “Am I the doctor or the afflicted?” Ask, also, “Is there really any news in it?” Or, are you watching to get the same number of words "whether there be any news in it or not"?

Want to cure the "disease"? Stop watching.

If you drive northward on Pennsylvania State Route 19 toward South Hills Village Mall, you will pass a farm on your left. It lies across Route 19 from the mall. Just up the road a bit there’s a new Whole Foods; close by is a Giant Eagle grocery store, also. And then there are the many and sundry other businesses and trendy restaurants, all in an upscale community with a number of large homes and a relatively new high school that cost over $30 million. Everything. Really, everything, and Pittsburgh is not too far farther north on 19. What more could one ask for, a farm with every amenity, and many of those nearby amenities within walking distance. And don’t forget the city water and the beautiful fire department building just a little to the south.
 
Right, what else is needed? Does it surprise you, then, when the Autonomous University of Barcelona did a study that showed “Citizens prefer to enjoy natural landscapes that combine nature with built infrastructure”?* The authors, Johannes Langemeyer, Fulvia Calcagni, and Fraccesc Baro, say, “The results show that, contrary to general belief, the presence of man-made infrastructure in green environments does not seem to negatively affect the aesthetic consideration that citizens have of the landscape.” They also say, “The study shows us that landscape aesthetics seem less dependent on ‘pristine nature’ than experts and planners assume.”
 
Who’s assuming this? Okay, let me reduce it. We like Nature, but give us a clean restroom with an ample supply of toilet paper, and not an outhouse filled with flies. Sure, there are Nature-lovers who like to rough it, but for the majority of humanity, the choice between Nature with infrastructure and Nature without infrastructure is a clear one for most, and it favors the one with civilization’s hard-won progress. We like driving to our scenic vistas.
 
We drive to national parks. We don’t cut new trails through the wilderness. We get there, say “Ah,” and then leave. A few of us might stay in tents or cabins, but others stay in luxurious lodges and home rentals, ala Vail and other “wilderness” sites.
 
I keep thinking of those people who own that farm in the midst of beautiful houses in an upscale shopping district with a high income. They should consider themselves among the most fortunate. They have both Nature and city.
 
And they probably serve as a model for modern Man. We can rough it as long as we can shower afterward—and, oh! don’t forget the gourmet foodstuffs just up the road. We’ve come a long way from our hominin roots. But I think that given the same wilderness in the city setting, going back through our roots from Homo neanderthalensis, Homo floresiensis, Homo heidelbergensis, Homo erectus, Paranthropos boisei, Homo naledi, Homo rudolfensis, Australopithecus africanus, and way, way back to Australopithecus afarensis, this is what we’ve been evolving toward. We’ll express our love of Nature and Planet Earth as long as we can have our stuff in comfort. Sure, we go out to find Nature during the day, but as night falls, we hustle back to our kitchens and TVs. Wild guess: If anywhere along the line of hominins we offered an environment similar to a farm in midtown, our ancestors would have simply asked “How much is the rent?” or “What’s the asking price for real estate around there?” or "When can I move in?" The question about moving in might be the first one asked. 
 
“Pristine Nature?” Leave your camera at home the next time you go to a scenic area. Just use your hippocampus. Otherwise, accept that we are ourselves part of Nature, are ourselves “natural,” and are only just different in degree and not in kind from beavers who chop down trees and block streams.
 
“Surely, you’re joking,” you say. “What humans have done to the environment in a very short time is orders of magnitude greater than what any other organism or group of organisms accomplished in a similar time.”
 
Yes. We have altered the natural landscape quite considerably. But is there blame in that? Aren’t you one of those “humans” who is responsible both directly and indirectly for the changes in the environment? You do go to malls and strip malls; you relish the ease of travel on smooth roads; and you like having more than 50,000 foods—much of it “fresh”—at your disposal. Casting blame on others is like the casual drug user’s thinking that he or she isn’t at fault for the cartel-inspired deaths along smugglers’ pathways. 
 
I’m at fault, also. I’m writing this while seated in a comfortable chair. I’m using a computer. I’m drawing on the electric supply. So, what should I do?
 
“Just give up all that stuff. Recycle the computer, write on a clay tablet and hand-carry your message to the seven billion people you wish to reach. They’ll all appreciate your effort to keep Nature pristine.”
 
Sure, they will. And they will also emulate such actions by turning the surrounding suburb back into not just farmland but into the original forest from which it was cut, and by giving up the roads into Yosemite, the grocery store, and the trendy restaurants—not!  
 
 
*Phys.org. November 12, 2018. Online at https://phys.org/news/2018-11-citizens-landscapes-combine-nature-built.html

Tombstones bear a wide range of remarks on the lives of the deceased. Some epitaphs are silly; others, serious. One I find to be a reminder of our potential. It is the epitaph on Sir Christopher Wren’s marker at St. Paul’s Cathedral, a building he designed. It reads, “Reader, if you seek his monument, look around you.”
 
So, barring someone’s putting something silly on your tombstone, do you hope for a comment similar to that placed on Wren’s marker? 
 
Not an architect? Haven't so much as designed a tool shed? True, buildings do last a long time, but all of them eventually fall into ruin to some degree, and some purposefully so—before Wren’s edifice arose, the previous “cathedrals” on the site had been damaged or destroyed by both foreign and domestic political and religious groups.  
 
Maybe “look around you” can be a reference to the lives you touched. Maybe those are your monument. They might not last as long as a large building, but they will be conscious of your role as architect, unlike the cold stone of a church. 
 
Don’t know if you’ve built any such monuments to date? Then it’s time to start laying the cornerstones. 

Some solids are crystalline. The natural minerals fall into that group. The atoms and molecules in them are joined in regular patterns. There’s an order that is often, but not always, recognizable in the outward form. Closely examine a bit of salt from a salt shaker, and you will see little cubes, broken probably, but still in recognizable partial form. Those cubes reflect an internal arrangement of sodium and chlorine atoms. Breaking a larger piece of salt produces smaller pieces that retain the atomic cubic pattern. Nature provides us with half a dozen basic arrangements, all of which can be “broken” while retaining their internal atomic order in the smaller pieces. Just keep this in mind: There’s an underlying, detailed reason for the outward appearance of a mineral crystal.
 
Crystalline solids form because atoms of certain sizes and valences can “interlock” in patterns. Sometimes other atoms replace the typical ones found in the structure. Diamonds are thought of as pure carbon minerals, but not all diamonds have the same composition. The famous Hope Diamond contains minute amounts of boron, an element that gives the jewel its blue/grey color. Boron fits into the arrangement of carbon atoms without changing the underlying cubic structure, but it does change the way light passes through or reflects off the gem. The outward appearance of crystals can also change with a depletion of certain atoms. The paucity of one kind of atom or a substitute atom stops crystal growth and truncates the structure. Simple: Running out of atoms to combine stops crystal growth. It’s worth noting that given ample space and supply of appropriate atoms, very large crystals can form.* 
 
Some solids are amorphous, not crystalline. The atoms and molecules in them are random like drops in a cloud; they have no regular alignment or arrangement. Obsidian, or natural glass, is one of those non-crystalline solids. Whereas mineral crystals require time for growing, obsidian is a product of “fast freezing.” Formed from lavas that cool fast and solidify, obsidian’s internal atoms get locked or “frozen” in place before they can line up in patterns. 
 
Fully developed philosophical ideas are very much like crystalline solids. There’s a logical arrangement of components. Splinter philosophies retain remnants of the underlying structure just as bits of salt retain the internal structure of sodium chloride. As a simple example, Platonism reveals itself as the underlying structure in Neoplatonism. The same holds true for other structured forms of thought: Political philosophies like Marxism, formal religions like Christianity, and psychologies like Freudianism. An originator, someone like Marx, St. Paul, or Freud, develops the structure that followers modify by truncating certain aspects or by including ideas that seamlessly fit into the structure like boron in the Hope Diamond. 
 
Less organized philosophies of life manifest themselves in irregularities, and their outward form is not necessarily a reflection of their internal structure. Let’s make this a practical example: Take the instance of the recently elected Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, whose ideas seem to be loosely affiliated with Marxism. Apparently, Marxism, like other ideas, has undergone various interpretations, meaning that Marx himself might not recognize the current variations of his thought. Back to Ocasio-Cortez and unstructured thought: When asked how one pays for an expensive entitlement program, she said, “You just pay for it.” And if you ask various socialists how the components of a society work for the betterment of mankind in the long run, you will find a random collection of atoms that make up an opaque glass. The details are obscure and only randomly connected. The solidity of the thinking manifests itself in the chaos of current Venezuela and in Ocasio-Cortez’s unspecific thoughts.
 
Maybe the old expressions about crystallizing ideas have some merit. Seldom do we encounter an idea of singular composition the way a diamond is “supposed” to be “just” carbon atoms aligned in a pattern. Keep in mind that the Hope Diamond contains boron—and maybe some other elements. Ideas are seldom, if ever, like pure diamond. There are atoms of other ideas that fit into the arrangement. We tend to crystallize ideas with the “atoms” in our reach, and we accept the imperfections in their arrangements because pure crystals are hard to come by. And there’s something else. We all realize that any philosophy, if carried to the extreme, contradicts itself; all social systems do the same. We also know that all philosophy rests, just like geometry, on axioms and assumptions. 
 
What to consider: As each of us examines the structure of our own thinking, we might consider sorting through the atomic components of our ideas. A “pure philosophy” might lie only with the originator of an idea system. Any ensuing idea systems, including our own, probably have those stray elements that just happen to fit into our local version of a general philosophy. You might believe, as the Congresswoman seems to believe, you have a crystal similar to that of the originator, as she seems to think she has a handle on Marxism. But her ideas, like some ideas many of us hold, contain many substituting “atoms” that just happen to “fit” into the general structure.
 
Now, of course, no philosophy stands on its own. Martin Heidegger, for example, tried to “rethink” philosophy, but his own efforts blend elements from aesthetics. He wasn’t the “pure thinker” he thought he was. No philosophy ultimately derives from a purely logical arrangement since assumptions and axioms underlie our thought processes. But crystal growth has to start somewhere, so we take what we believe to be atoms that fit together in a clearly defined pattern. We do so at the risk of not being able to see those tiny inclusions, like the boron present in the Hope Diamond in a mere few parts per million. 
 
There is a difference, however, between a crystal with a small inclusion of the “wrong” elements and the random nature of non-crystalline solids. Crystalline solids still have a regular arrangement inside, a “logical pattern.” With regard to crystallized thinking, the thinker can explain the system and show how it logically proceeds from its internal structure as long as one accepts its underlying assumptions. Those glassy solids like obsidian are opaque in their randomness. Congresswoman Ocasio-Cortez, though probably well-meaning and committed, will probably always rely on the “You just pay for it” generalization of a mix of incompatible idea-atoms. In her dependence on a random collection of Marxist-based thoughts and her apparent lack of knowledge about countries like Venezuela, she will continue to extoll the virtues of a system of thinking that has depressed the economies of countries, held down the advancement of freedom, and even led to the deaths of tens of millions of people as Marx’s Manifesto turned into twentieth-century Communism under figures like Stalin. 
 
Regardless of Congresswoman Ocasio-Cortez's sincerity about making Medicare free and comprehensive or others’ sincerity in wanting to establish free college education, the reality of economics is that no socialistic or Marxist structure has proved to be self-sustaining without arbitrary redistributions of wealth and property. Socialists can proclaim “You just pay for it” as a solid solution to injustices and inequalities they seek to eliminate, but they are at best working with an inferior mineral, one whose purity has been diluted by the inclusion of many different kinds of idea atoms and little actual proof that the system can work in “the real world.”
 
But isn’t that the way of the human thought processes? Isn’t it easier to accept an idea as pure and effective than it is to put it into practice? Put aside the tension between the Haves and the Have-nots (though the Congresswoman did appear in an expensive outfit). Think, instead, of the nature of how we depend on ideas we think are perfect crystals.
 
The late Nobel Laureate Richard P. Feynman is legendary for his work in physics and his explanation of the 1986 Shuttle disaster. His lectures are still popular on YouTube, and his books still sell. Though I had read some of his books, I missed the collection of his shorter works until a friend** recently lent me a copy of The  Pleasure  of  Finding Things  Out.*** In his 1974 Caltech commencement address, entitled “Cargo Cult Science: Some Remarks on Science, Pseudoscience, and Learning How to Not Fool Yourself,” Feynman gives examples of thinking by scientists that mimic that of Ocasio-Cortez. 
 
Referring to witch doctors, Feynman asks, “How do they know that their method should work?” (p 207) And then he relates some stories about scientists who built on other scientists’ work without rechecking that same work, that is, without redoing the original experiment or rethinking the method they used. Redoing experiments is the method Michael Faraday used as he wrote his book that summarized the knowledge accumulated about electricity and magnetism. Rather than accept what others had said about electrical experiments, he repeated them to discover their truth. That is the advice Feynman gives in his “Remarks.” It’s advice all of us should keep in mind. We are too willing to accept what others tell us about the world without thoroughly examining not only their ideas, but also the very nature of how they came about those ideas.
 
I conclude that most of our ideas, if not all of them, are either imperfect crystals or amorphous substances. It’s not that I want to pick out the ideas of a young Congresswoman in particular, but that I want to point out a way of thinking that has long pervaded even the most hallowed halls of academia and politics. We don’t look at the way previous experiments were run in either venue. We’ve spent trillions on eliminating poverty and untold billions on reducing illegal drug trafficking with little success. We’ve spent untold amounts on crime prevention, but our prisons are overcrowded. And, as Feynman points out in that commencement address, we have spent incredible amounts of energy on reading and math education with near zero results—and in some instances with declining reading and math scores.
 
We don’t really put matters to the test. We accept results on the basis of culture or ideals, both of which are flawed entities, both of which contain many elements hidden in their makeup. And we accept those we dogmatically accept or deem “pure” without tracing their potential consequences in a manner consistent with the workings of the real world. In short, eager to take shortcuts, we value the most worthless of solids highly and value the valuable solids more than we should. The Hope Diamond is under protective glass and watchful guards and cameras in the Smithsonian’s National Museum of Natural History. It is currently insured for more than $250 million. Not far from the Hope are displays of other solids, including some other spectacular crystals. But, maybe there's  hope near the Hope. On a recent visit to the Smithsonian, I could not find a piece of obsidian, not even among the igneous rocks. Maybe I missed it, or maybe, as I hope, the petrologists and mineralogists at the Smithsonian decided that something that is as disorganized in its makeup as obsidian isn’t worth the display space, isn’t worth much consideration. Obsidian might be shiny, might even capture the eye in a stare, but it is just glass. Just glass. Amorphous inside its opaque exterior that hides that disorganization. Not insurable. 
 
What if we all looked at the interior of our philosophies to see whether or not they were truly organized within or contained some imperfection that we merely overlook because rejecting them would require considerable rethinking and possible practical experimenting? How, Congresswoman Ocasio-Cortez, will we pay for an entitlement that will cost trillions of dollars with no proof that it will improve the human condition. “You just pay for it.”
 
 
*See pictures of the Cave of the Crystals (Giant Crystal Cave or Cueva  de  los  Cristales ) in Naica, Chihuahua, Mexico. Pictures can be seen at https://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2010/09/photogalleries/101008-giant-crystal-cave-science-mexico-pictures/
**Thanks, Ryan 
***Feynman, Richard P. The Pleasure  of  Finding Things  Out. Cambridge, MA, Helix Publishing, 1999. You can hear someone’s reading of Feynman’s “Cargo Cult Science” on YouTube at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yvfAtIJbatgor you can read it online at https://www.cs.ucsb.edu/~ravenben/cargocult.html

Shake-your-head-sideways-in-disbelief observation: There seems to be a Conservation of Foibles that runs throughout the generations. Try as we might, we can’t get all the members of an ensuing generation to learn from the mistakes of a preceding generation. The same foibles keep recurring. It’s as though we’re in a loop of behavior altered only by a change in names.
 
Take inimical drug addiction. Is there no lesson that crosses generational boundaries? The foibles make it through, easily traveling from generation to generation, the young of the next generation picking up addictive habits that destroyed lives in the previous generation. 
 
But not just drug addiction that leads to death by overdose and ruined careers, families, and segments of society: Other foibles—and you can name them—keep recurring. 
 
Are foibles a closed system? An open one? The only influx of sustaining energy they need seems to come from a change in generation. Do foibles, of all the components of the universe, defy the Second Law? 
 
Let’s ask Neville. Mr. Chamberlain, what do you think?
 
“My good friends, this is the second time in our history that there has come back from Germany to Downing Street peace with honour…I believe it is peace for our time.”*
 
 
*Address, on return from Munich conference, September, 1938. A year later Germany invaded Poland and Britain and France declared war.