Preface
I Don’t Know is the result, ultimately, of a series of manic psychoses that I experienced beginning in October of the year 2000. These psychoses were thought to be the result of interactions among several odd substances, so-called “smart drugs,” that I was taking at the time. I am quite confident—as much as I am about anything these days—that the psychoses were much more than merely drug-induced glitches. I believe that they were a necessary adjunct to a communication with God, for reasons that will be clear to the reader upon completion of this book. At the time that this communication took place, I had no desire to have ideas that would involve work to write up, in either my field of economics or in politics, and certainly not in theology. I was hoping to become—indeed looking forward to it—what is known as “deadwood” in academia. Moreover, I was an extremely avowed atheist, for nearly four decades, going into this time of psychosis and insight.
I no longer am an atheist, again for reasons that will become quite clear. At the time of the psychoses, I was given—in admittedly somewhat rough form—many ideas in the span of just a few seconds, much like a “computer dump” right into my head. This book presents three of the more important ideas that were given to me in those few seconds. As will be seen, the ideas presented here are neither uniformly liberal nor conservative, as those words are usually bandied about. Indeed, the dogged adherence to such worldviews is here argued to be antithetical to original thinking, or really any kind of thinking…knowing harms thinking, and it is only at the latter that humans have some (limited) expertise.
I am hoping that I Don’t Know will be particularly enjoyed by those readers who like to read novels but are frustrated when they do not come away from having taken the time to read a book with “something more.” Something more substantive, some new insights, some learning…something worthwhile. An entrée for the mind, as it were, rather than just mind candy.
The book is broken into three relatively self-contained parts. Part I contains certain concepts from economics. After some background material of a fairly traditional sort, it presents some new material I was given involving so-called “public goods.” This part argues that there is a flaw in the economists’ traditional approach to valuing public goods. The flaw implies that many goods such as species preservation, carbon dioxide abatement, and the like are underprovided, possibly by a large amount.
A portion of the discussion of Part I deals with over-suburbanization and public policy. Much of the vast amount of suburbanization historically observed has not been about lotsize, per se, but rather about attempts to obtain higher levels of public goods than those provided in the urban centers of large American cities. This part argues for increases in governmental spending for such location-specific central public goods as quality schools, reduced crime and noise, more parks, and so on. The material of Part I is likely to seem “liberal,” as most readers currently use that word. I don’t know how much practical significance the material of this part possesses, but I think the ideas might be very important…it is up to the reader to decide.
Part II flows logically from the discussion of Part I, as characters in the book criticize the ideas of Part I that would seem to suggest that government spending should be larger and that there should be more regulation of certain kinds. Part II, then, takes up politics and points to a novel potential solution to the problem of controlling the growth, and to some extent the composition, of government spending. It is argued here that government does too many things that it should not be doing at all and not enough of the things it should be doing. The novel insight in Part II is that there exists a simple mechanism that would transfer control of government spending levels directly to voters. In advocating this mechanism, I compare it to a popular, but I think much less desirable, alternative—the various Balanced Budget Amendment proposals. The overall thrust of this part will be seen by the typical reader as being “conservative.” Again, I don’t know how important or practical the central idea of Part II is, but I think it might be very much so…as with Part I, it is up to the reader to decide.
Part III considers theology and presents what I think might be a novel view of the nature of God. I experienced a realization of the existence of God that was jarringly at odds with my prior, strongly held, (dis)beliefs. This part represents an attempt to render consistent the experiences of God that I had during my psychoses, with my prior arguments against the existence of God. The arguments of this part are likely to please neither atheists nor religious theists of traditional types. Religious people are likely to find the ideas aesthetically unsatisfying vis-à-vis the more traditional concepts of their various religious upbringings. Atheists on the other hand are likely to find the notions of God presented here to be sufficiently “innocuous” as to render their usual vituperation toward religion unwarranted. They will not enjoy losing their reasons for hating, hence denying the existence of, the traditional All-Knowing, All-Powerful, and All-Loving God. I don’t know how this part will be perceived, and it would certainly be difficult to characterize in terms of “conservative” versus “liberal!” However, for me, the arguments of Part III provide a convincing scientific rationale for belief in a God of the traditional sort, a notion that I was never even remotely convinced of before.
The three parts can be read in any order, though the character development would favor reading them in order. The parts are not all likely to be equally interesting to the reader. Part III on theology will probably appeal to virtually all readers, but it is presented last for a reason. Parts II and I are largely designed to give credibility to the central protagonist, Charles, in his notions of God presented in Part III. The characters are all fictitious, with names generally changed from those corresponding to real-world people. All of the characters of the book are, as is probably inevitable, a hodge-podge of people that I have met and enjoyed…if you see yourself, and like what you see, it is you. If you see yourself, and you don’t like what you see, I am writing with somebody else in mind!
--P.E.G.