Carl Sagan: The Demon-Haunted World: Science as a Candle in the Dark

LEEs Lead to Arrogance

Maria Popova wrote a great article about Carl Sagan’s The Demon-Haunted World: Science as a Candle in the Dark focusing on chapter 12 entitled The Fine Art of Baloney Detection. Both Sagan and Popova did a good job of popularizing a difficult subject. Sagan is a quintessential sage in such matters, and I miss his penetrating insight and wit. Unfortunately he passed before I ever started working on what became Elegant Reasonism. I would have loved talking to him about it. Maria’s article made me smile with fond memories having read it when it first came out all those years ago. The problem with both the article and the original subject is that neither were familiar with Langer Epistemology Errors (LEEs) much less the implications of them. Her article though gave me the idea of articulating Sagan’s criteria for “the fine art of baloney detection” in context of Elegant Reasonism. What does that mean? Well, essentially it means being able to mode shift every one of his discussion points through the process & methods representing Elegant Reasonism, and that is by no means an easy task. So, I thought I would write this article to help others wield science to penetrate the darkness with something a bit more powerful than a candle.

Maria points out that through their training scientists are equipped with what Sagan calls a “baloney detection kit” — a set of cognitive tools and techniques that fortify the mind against penetration by falsehoods:

The kit is brought out as a matter of course whenever new ideas are offered for consideration. If the new idea survives examination by the tools in our kit, we grant it warm, although tentative, acceptance. If you’re so inclined, if you don’t want to buy baloney even when it’s reassuring to do so, there are precautions that can be taken; there’s a tried-and-true, consumer-tested method.

But the kit, Sagan argues, isn’t merely a tool of science,  rather, it contains invaluable tools of healthy skepticism that apply just as elegantly and just as necessarily to everyday life. By adopting the kit, we can all shield ourselves against clueless guile and deliberate manipulation. Sagan shares nine of these tools:

  1. Wherever possible there must be independent confirmation of the “facts.”
  2. Encourage substantive debate on the evidence by knowledgeable proponents of all points of view.
  3. Arguments from authority carry little weight — “authorities” have made mistakes in the past. They will do so again in the future. Perhaps a better way to say it is that in science there are no authorities; at most, there are experts.
  4. Spin more than one hypothesis. If there’s something to be explained, think of all the different ways in which it could be explained. Then think of tests by which you might systematically disprove each of the alternatives. What survives, the hypothesis that resists disproof in this Darwinian selection among “multiple working hypotheses,” has a much better chance of being the right answer than if you had simply run with the first idea that caught your fancy.
  5. Try not to get overly attached to a hypothesis just because it’s yours. It’s only a way station in the pursuit of knowledge. Ask yourself why you like the idea. Compare it fairly with the alternatives. See if you can find reasons for rejecting it. If you don’t, others will.
  6. Quantify. If whatever it is you’re explaining has some measure, some numerical quantity attached to it, you’ll be much better able to discriminate among competing hypotheses. What is vague and qualitative is open to many explanations. Of course there are truths to be sought in the many qualitative issues we are obliged to confront, but finding them is more challenging.
  7. If there’s a chain of argument, every link in the chain must work (including the premise) — not just most of them.
  8. Occam’s Razor. This convenient rule-of-thumb urges us when faced with two hypotheses that explain the data equally well to choose the simpler.
  9. Always ask whether the hypothesis can be, at least in principle, falsified. Propositions that are untestable, unfalsifiable are not worth much. Consider the grand idea that our Universe and everything in it is just an elementary particle — an electron, say — in a much bigger Cosmos. But if we can never acquire information from outside our Universe, is not the idea incapable of disproof? You must be able to check assertions out. Inveterate skeptics must be given the chance to follow your reasoning, to duplicate your experiments and see if they get the same result.

So as we review these various criteria, what is it about Elegant Reasonism missed in this ‘kit’? There are two major flaws. One is forgetting the philosophical roots of science. The other is ignorance of LEEs. Any lack of appreciation for implications of LEEs leads to a fundamental inability to be situationally aware. Before I elaborate on these two areas, please watch to cognition a short video of Richard Feynman speaking in 1950 on the differences between knowing and understanding.

 

 

Sagan admonishes against the twenty most common and perilous ones. Papova notes many rooted in our chronic discomfort with ambiguity with examples of each in action:

  1. ad hominem — Latin for “to the man,” attacking the arguer and not the argument (e.g., The Reverend Dr. Smith is a known Biblical fundamentalist, so her objections to evolution need not be taken seriously)
  2. argument from authority (e.g., President Richard Nixon should be re-elected because he has a secret plan to end the war in Southeast Asia — but because it was secret, there was no way for the electorate to evaluate it on its merits; the argument amounted to trusting him because he was President: a mistake, as it turned out)
  3. argument from adverse consequences (e.g., A God meting out punishment and reward must exist, because if He didn’t, society would be much more lawless and dangerous — perhaps even ungovernable. Or: The defendant in a widely publicized murder trial must be found guilty; otherwise, it will be an encouragement for other men to murder their wives)
  4. appeal to ignorance — the claim that whatever has not been proved false must be true, and vice versa (e.g., There is no compelling evidence that UFOs are not visiting the Earth; therefore UFOs exist — and there is intelligent life elsewhere in the Universe. Or: There may be seventy kazillion other worlds, but not one is known to have the moral advancement of the Earth, so we’re still central to the Universe.) This impatience with ambiguity can be criticized in the phrase: absence of evidence is not evidence of absence.
  5. special pleading, often to rescue a proposition in deep rhetorical trouble (e.g., How can a merciful God condemn future generations to torment because, against orders, one woman induced one man to eat an apple? Special plead: you don’t understand the subtle Doctrine of Free Will. Or: How can there be an equally godlike Father, Son, and Holy Ghost in the same Person? Special plead: You don’t understand the Divine Mystery of the Trinity. Or: How could God permit the followers of Judaism, Christianity, and Islam — each in their own way enjoined to heroic measures of loving kindness and compassion — to have perpetrated so much cruelty for so long? Special plead: You don’t understand Free Will again. And anyway, God moves in mysterious ways.)
  6. begging the question, also called assuming the answer (e.g., We must institute the death penalty to discourage violent crime. But does the violent crime rate in fact fall when the death penalty is imposed? Or: The stock market fell yesterday because of a technical adjustment and profit-taking by investors — but is there any independent evidence for the causal role of “adjustment” and profit-taking; have we learned anything at all from this purported explanation?)
  7. observational selection, also called the enumeration of favorable circumstances, or as the philosopher Francis Bacon described it, counting the hits and forgetting the misses (e.g., A state boasts of the Presidents it has produced, but is silent on its serial killers)
  8. statistics of small numbers — a close relative of observational selection (e.g., “They say 1 out of every 5 people is Chinese. How is this possible? I know hundreds of people, and none of them is Chinese. Yours truly.” Or: “I’ve thrown three sevens in a row. Tonight I can’t lose.”)
  9. misunderstanding of the nature of statistics (e.g., President Dwight Eisenhower expressing astonishment and alarm on discovering that fully half of all Americans have below average intelligence);
  10. inconsistency (e.g., Prudently plan for the worst of which a potential military adversary is capable, but thriftily ignore scientific projections on environmental dangers because they’re not “proved.” Or: Attribute the declining life expectancy in the former Soviet Union to the failures of communism many years ago, but never attribute the high infant mortality rate in the United States (now highest of the major industrial nations) to the failures of capitalism. Or: Consider it reasonable for the Universe to continue to exist forever into the future, but judge absurd the possibility that it has infinite duration into the past);
  11. non sequitur — Latin for “It doesn’t follow” (e.g., Our nation will prevail because God is great. But nearly every nation pretends this to be true; the German formulation was “Gott mit uns”). Often those falling into the non sequitur fallacy have simply failed to recognize alternative possibilities;
  12. post hoc, ergo propter hoc — Latin for “It happened after, so it was caused by” (e.g., Jaime Cardinal Sin, Archbishop of Manila: “I know of … a 26-year-old who looks 60 because she takes [contraceptive] pills.” Or: Before women got the vote, there were no nuclear weapons)
  13. meaningless question (e.g., What happens when an irresistible force meets an immovable object? But if there is such a thing as an irresistible force there can be no immovable objects, and vice versa)
  14. excluded middle, or false dichotomy — considering only the two extremes in a continuum of intermediate possibilities (e.g., “Sure, take his side; my husband’s perfect; I’m always wrong.” Or: “Either you love your country or you hate it.” Or: “If you’re not part of the solution, you’re part of the problem”)
  15. short-term vs. long-term — a subset of the excluded middle, but so important I’ve pulled it out for special attention (e.g., We can’t afford programs to feed malnourished children and educate pre-school kids. We need to urgently deal with crime on the streets. Or: Why explore space or pursue fundamental science when we have so huge a budget deficit?);
  16. slippery slope, related to excluded middle (e.g., If we allow abortion in the first weeks of pregnancy, it will be impossible to prevent the killing of a full-term infant. Or, conversely: If the state prohibits abortion even in the ninth month, it will soon be telling us what to do with our bodies around the time of conception);
  17. confusion of correlation and causation (e.g., A survey shows that more college graduates are homosexual than those with lesser education; therefore education makes people gay. Or: Andean earthquakes are correlated with closest approaches of the planet Uranus; therefore — despite the absence of any such correlation for the nearer, more massive planet Jupiter — the latter causes the former)
  18. straw man — caricaturing a position to make it easier to attack (e.g., Scientists suppose that living things simply fell together by chance — a formulation that willfully ignores the central Darwinian insight, that Nature ratchets up by saving what works and discarding what doesn’t. Or — this is also a short-term/long-term fallacy — environmentalists care more for snail darters and spotted owls than they do for people)
  19. suppressed evidence, or half-truths (e.g., An amazingly accurate and widely quoted “prophecy” of the assassination attempt on President Reagan is shown on television; but — an important detail — was it recorded before or after the event? Or: These government abuses demand revolution, even if you can’t make an omelette without breaking some eggs. Yes, but is this likely to be a revolution in which far more people are killed than under the previous regime? What does the experience of other revolutions suggest? Are all revolutions against oppressive regimes desirable and in the interests of the people?)
  20. weasel words (e.g., The separation of powers of the U.S. Constitution specifies that the United States may not conduct a war without a declaration by Congress. On the other hand, Presidents are given control of foreign policy and the conduct of wars, which are potentially powerful tools for getting themselves re-elected. Presidents of either political party may therefore be tempted to arrange wars while waving the flag and calling the wars something else — “police actions,” “armed incursions,” “protective reaction strikes,” “pacification,” “safeguarding American interests,” and a wide variety of “operations,” such as “Operation Just Cause.” Euphemisms for war are one of a broad class of reinventions of language for political purposes. Talleyrand said, “An important art of politicians is to find new names for institutions which under old names have become odious to the public”)

Sagan ends the chapter with a necessary disclaimer:

Like all tools, the baloney detection kit can be misused, applied out of context, or even employed as a rote alternative to thinking. But applied judiciously, it can make all the difference in the world — not least in evaluating our own arguments before we present them to others.

The above words were in both Papova’s article and in Sagan’s book, and they are included here to make a point about the assumption of fundamental common foundation being presumed. What happens when science forgets its philosophical roots is that it comes to believe it can discern all that is, and that is a noble pursuit. But what happens when the entirety of professional scientists commit LEEs because they philosophically do not comprehend those implications? Rhetorically what happens when professional scientists mistake the abstractions they work with for actual reality? The answer is that they grow distant from their philosophical roots. They believe their laboratories are showing them ‘what must be’, but they ignore the philosophical interpretations underpinning those observational insights. Sagan’s list above is powerful, right up to the point of commission of Langer Epistemology Errors, and in that instant situational awareness is lost.

Churning through the intervening years from 1900 to the present day, the above filter allowing scientists to detect baloney has been of great and powerful use. Elegant Reasonism, as a framework, underpinning an epistemology based upon it remembers philosophical roots of science’s methods and demands truth as a function of the unified Universe. Furthermore, it does these things in a manner that also seeks to minimize or eliminate Langer Epistemology Errors. So let’s take each of the criteria in the above list and discuss them briefly.

ad hominem

Elegant Reasonism does not allow this. We have published a reasonably extensive User Library for the purposes of historical research, and it contains the writings of original authors not to attack anyone but to provide insights into how they were thinking in their own words. This is useful when anyone is trying to complete the ISO 9001 Unification Tool for any given investigation. Humanity has been committing LEEs for as long as humans have existed. LEEs occur when anyone mistakes an abstraction for reality. What most people do not realize is that the human central nervous system intrinsically furnishes our brains with abstractions in order to relate to the world around us. It happens so subtly and innately that we almost never recognize that it is happening.

Much arguing back and forth between groups very often centers on what constitutes evidence. More specifically what justifies that evidence. In the case of scientists employ Scientific Epistemology, the scientific method, and Empiricism to justify their results. The usual retort is that if you can’t produce evidence meeting that criteria then there will be a parting of ways and that’s that. Elegant Reasonism integrates empiricism within its process & methods but holds it as insufficient essentially due to the potential of LEEs Empiricism Trap. The three phases of the framework: Recognition, Illumination, and Analysis which work in developing a treatise to established standards result in a final Treatise capable of perceiving and engaging the unified Universe. The analytical layers of Translation Matrices are fully capable of completely eliminating the source of non-scientific beliefs as incongruous with the unified Universe if in fact they are.

Argument from Authority

Elegant Reasonism seeks truth, and therefore authority, from the unified Universe which is always and without exception held litmus. Never does the framework or epistemology seek to attain a declarative position directly describing actual reality. Holistically the framework and epistemology describes models which reflect reality. We can declare what this or that model supports but never what reality ‘is’. The reason for this separation and distinction is very simple. Elegant Reasonism seeks to minimize and to the extent possible eliminate Langer Epistemology Errors.

Argument from Adverse Consequences

The argument that we get most often has to do with explaining the ‘grand design’ arguments. The Emergence Model employs knot theory as a derivative of the intrinsic nature of the MBP construct. Higher ordered constructs therein follow The Fundamental Entanglement Function limited by Severance, and configure MBPs into everything real. Any “plan” is a function of the intrinsic nature of MBPs. Secondly, The Emergence Model describes the unified Universe Bang to Bang. We are then faced with the something vs nothing argument. The list of specific litmus tests is irrelevant. That there are concept sieves and that there is an analytical framework employing ISO 9001 QMS standards with extensive root cause analysis is very much the point on being able to justify evidence. All of this is against a backdrop recognizing science and its specialized methods, practices, processes and tools which herein have a philosophical predicate priority consideration of unification.

Appeal to Ignorance

My primary area of interest when I was in school was aerospace engineering. No one wanted UFOs to be real more than me. I studied Alcubierre Drives until I feel asleep from exhaustion. I can discuss details of the different science fiction dramas. So you will appreciate the implications of me reporting that interstellar is going to prove a great deal more problematic than anyone ever anticipated, and answering the why question requires understanding predominant thinking along these lines committing LEEs and the implications of doing so. As you come to grips with that point, we are then faced with the fundamental definition of The Emergence Model. The very definition precludes warp drive, Alcubierre Drives, hyperspace, etc., and just as you get your hopes up because Rapidity governs velocity, they are dashed again as we realize there is no intervening medium with which to interact. While we can use solar systems real objects to gain incredible velocities, once we are on interval (e.g. EFPS2) that means our calculations must be incredibly precise or we will spend eternity in that ship. Miss your destination and ultimately you run out of fuel and supplies. You can imagine the rest. And then there are the real objects in the interstellar medium. They are neither few nor necessarily small. Almost any object compared to the vastness of space is tiny on any scale. That’s why, for example, the stars are not blocked out by the plethora of space junk in orbit around the Earth. Nor are they blocked by the asteroids or Oort cloud. Both areas we know to be replete with real objects.

The claim that whatever has not been proved false must be true, and vice versa, is a matter of impatience relative to what we know right now with data we can illuminate as true. This impatience with ambiguity can be criticized in the phrase: absence of evidence is not evidence of absence. Between the time Sagan wrote his book and present day projects and programs, notably the Kepler Mission, it has produced extrasolar star systems with planets that can harbor life. So much so that while we must say that no extraterrestrial life has been detected as yet, it is very improbable that it does not exist. The numbers of planets is growing at an ever increasing rate.

Holistically then,  the above two paragraphs reconcile both the Fermi Paradox with the Drake Equation. Unfortunately it does so in a manner that is also supported by the ever growing list of solar systems in the aforementioned data set that for all practical purposes appear to be building Dyson Spheres. We have often wondered why any civilization would want to do such a thing, and we may now have our answer to even that question.

Special Pleading

Elegant Reasonism only considers concepts congruent if they are found congruous with both a set of models which close to unification and the actual real unified Universe. That means evidence and situations consistent with having survived the framework and that can demonstrably illustrate full compliance with the criteria demanded by the unified Universe.

Begging The Question / Assuming The Answer

Mode shifting causality across the encapsulated interpretive models recognized by Elegant Reasonism finds it reduced to probabilistic interactions of architectural mass within a given Event Frame, and we have absolutely no clue as yet what those architectures are or even look like.

Observational Selection / Enumeration of Favorable Circumstances

Elegant Reasonism demands holistic comprehensive systems review in order to achieve full compliance with unification consistent with its rules and standards. For example, one can not claim success on an experiment employing gravity waves without mentioning the fact that the underlying premises do not close to unification. Elegant Reasonism notes that The Emergence Model would report waves of gravitons and does close to unification. Which do you think is the more important observation?

Statistic of Small Numbers

I agree this is a close relative of observational selection (e.g., “They say 1 out of every 5 people is Chinese. How is this possible? I know hundreds of people, and none of them are Chinese. Yours truly.” Or: “I’ve thrown three sevens in a row. Tonight I can’t lose.” There is an emotional component that success breeds success. Only in this case, if that previous success was based on a logically correct model committing LEEs, then we must stop and reassess the situation critically. Otherwise, success can preclude gaining the assure future successes.

Misunderstanding of the Nature of Statistics

Any number of statistical tools are intrinsic to Elegant Reasonism and none more important to investigators than Bayesian Statistics as it integrates belief systems before, during, and after the team moves from start to final Treatise in alignment with the unified Universe. Done properly they will have created an educational road map which everyone else can follow.

Inconsistency

Elegant Reasonism in seeking truth from the unified Universe demands that a plurality of models be employed, one of which must close to unification, and the objective and goal criteria are then taken through the framework resulting in a final Treatise. It is in that context that we comprehend the significance of Action within The Emergence Model. Not until we explore how The Emergence Model given proper maturing time leads to our physiological CNS providing the infrastructure for our philosophical contemplations and behaviors. It is in that context it is noted that Human Action, by Ludwig von Mises establishes a benchmark treatise holistically consistent herein and Economics.

Non Sequitur

Often those falling into the non sequitur fallacy have simply failed to recognize alternative possibilities;

For example,  we say that there is a limit on how fast things can go because no terrestrial processes can demonstrate speeds faster than that. Consequently, we establish a ‘rule’ simply stating that as a law. It never occurs to anyone to contemplate that photon velocity is a function of the systems emitting it rather than an external framework limiting it. Let’s take a firearm as a metaphorical example. Take a thousand rounds of your favorite high grade ammunition and fire it through your gun so that all of the bullet velocities can be measured. That system of real objects here taken as ideally constructed will always and without fail produce essentially the same velocity. There are no external rules saying that bullets can’t go faster than that. It’s just that with a given bullet weight and propellant metric that velocity will be expected and reasonably assured. The same is true of photons and electrons. Mode shifting emissions finds that photons depart electrons due to Severance. External limitations are completely dismantled by the basic definition of space. Hubble‘s data finding Red and Blue Shift values are vindicated with broader implications. Also with these insights,  many other issues are suddenly reconciled. The age of the Universe grows immensely ancient and unfathomably large. There are clues even in the WMAP data that suggest a size that makes our particle horizon tiny. But we won’t talk about any of that….

Post Hoc / Ergo Propter Hoc

There is no better example of this than the subject concerning the concept of rapid expansion during the Big Bang. It must have happened because the Universe is simply too big to arrived at its current size if that did not take place. Since our model is correct that must have happened.

Meaningless Question

Sagan does a good job stating such questions. The Emergence Model notes the question “Where do MBPs come from?”  MBPs within The Emergence Model are taken prima facie within that model. Someone else can use Elegant Reasonism as defined holistically herein and maybe create another model which also is fully compliant with criteria for unification, and then the framework will have two such models. Maybe then we can have an answer. Until then that subject must be prima facie.

Excluded Middle / False Dichotomy

Nothing can go faster than the speed of light because we can’t produce anything faster than that here on Earth. This kind of logic is what takes Hubble’s empirical evidence to the contrary and concludes that spacetime must be real and is some how magically allowed to violate those same rules which in turn justifies rapid expansion in the M1 definition of the Big Bang.

The Emergence Model vindicates Hubble and employs Rapidity (e.g. Beta) in governance over the speed of light. M5 does not have M1‘s limitations. The fact that we can not produce velocities faster than that on Earth is a function of Severance and the systems producing it and has absolutely nothing to do with anything else.

Short-Term vs Long-Term

The Universe is 13.8 billion years ago despite the inability of the Inflationary Theory to reconcile rapid expansion’s corollary of infinite compression’s against black hole growth. We then are presented with BX442, a grand design spiral galaxy which best estimates say takes 11 billion years to form under gravity. The problem? The problem is its location is so far from Earth that there is not enough time since the Big Bang for it to have formed. Consequently, we have what we call “concept compression” (e.g. something that does exist which presents compression issues for other considerations.) Under The Emergence Model the real unified Universe grows immensely ancient, and there is ample time for BX442 to form in the position we see it today despite the distances involved. 100% of those issues are reconciled by M5.

Slippery Slope

Elegant Reasonism as the framework and epistemology seeks truth as a function of the unified Universe. We are content to let the universe decide what is or is not slippery.

Confusion of Correlation and Causation

We can see the stars, therefore, interstellar space must be completely empty. That means that our solar system must have began as tiny dust particles that drifted together forming a nebula ultimately forming an accretion disc that separated out into the planets we see today. This is the same kind of logic that claimed there were dinosaurs on Venus because that planet has clouds.

Straw Man

Here again, Sagan’s arguments are skillfully drawn. I will add that scientists also completely ignorning philosophical roots of science resulting in a schism between the two has resulted in a fundamental commission of Langer Epistemology Errors. That failure resulted in attempts to rationalize away philosophical predicate priority considerations of unification which Elegant Reasonism reconciles.

straw man — caricaturing a position to make it easier to attack (e.g., Scientists suppose that living things simply fell together by chance — a formulation that willfully ignores the central Darwinian insight, that Nature ratchets up by saving what works and discarding what doesn’t. Or — this is also a short-term/long-term fallacy — environmentalists care more for snail darters and spotted owls than they do for people)

Suppressed Evidence / Half-Truths

We can state the many successes of predominant thinking and achievements brought to us by M1 or M2 thinking, but we suppress the fact that they can not accomplish unification. Why is that? I know why. Do you?

Weasel Words

Weasel words are akin to the technobabble on some of the recent science fiction videos over the last several decades. They are just words that sound useful but are completely meaningless. Elegant Reasonism and The Emergence Model employ words that while most existed in civilization’s lexicon, they have not been utilized in many many years if not decades. On holistic systems review, students and investigators will find fully compliant utilization of these terms. When Carl wrote his book, the world was coupled in tense geopolitical struggles. Helping to get us past that threshold in the history of civilization was I think one of his great passions in life. I like to think he succeeded, but we have a long way to go still.

Lexicon

There are words introduced by Elegant Reasonism, and there are old words used in new ways. There are also words that were in general use in 1900 which we picked back up. Here is a short list of the major terms used not just by the framework but the model it produced (e.g. The Emergence Model).

  • Elegant Reasonism
  • Entanglement, in M5 and M6, is the ‘build process’ which results when two or more MBPs become ensnared with one another to form a collective configuration. Such configurations are limited by Severnace. MBPs, due to their intrinsic nature, may entangle with at most two other MBPs each. The result of this nature is that they form strings, or in Knot Theory ‘rope segments’. In M1, or M2, entanglement is poorly understood. Einstein called it spooky action at a distance. It is spooky because MBPs are well below the threshold of perception even today. This explains much about state changes in systems which ‘at scale’ experiments have difficulty explaining. Because of this architectural mass is generally recognized as complex composite constructs very much more voluminous than previously considered. Constituents may be wispy and some may be dense, it all depends on the configuration of the constituent component within a given architecture. Architectures are also recognized as dynamic systems.
  • Epistemology is a branch of philosophy studying knowledge and its justification.
  • Event is the term used to describe any interaction between real objects under The Emergence Model.
  • Event Frame is The Emergence Model’s reference frame for all real objects. The geometric basis point for any Event Frame is any MBP or set of them within the construct.
  • LEEs is an acronym term representing Langer Epistemology Errors which are made manifest by anyone mistaking abstractions for reality. Abstractions may be created philosophically or they may be intrinsic as a function of human physiological central nervous system furnishing them to the human brain. Human physiology intrinsically performs this function in order for humans to relate to the world around them and this is the basis of LEEs Empiricism Trap.
  • MBP is an acronym for Most Basic Particle and is the result of Thought Experiment 0004 ‘something vs nothing’.
  • Severnace, in M5 and M6, is the ‘MBP configuration failure mode’ and represents configurations coming apart. Fundamentally Severance is why things break. Severance has associated values for given systems of systems. Like systems have like values. One example might be the photon – electron system pair. Photons always leave electrons (e.g. suffer Severance) at the same values, for the same reasons, and produce exactly the same velocity of light as a result. Does this mean nothing can go faster than the speed of light? No it does not. What it means is that the system-pair can not produce faster velocities. Cosmological velocities can be faster than that value and in fact that is what Edwin Hubble‘s data proves.
  • Translation Matrices are a type of standards based analytical tool in the form of complex composite three dimensional matrices manifesting a layered framework whose purpose is to employ a plurality of interpretive models relative to a set of juxtaposed paradigms of interest then holistically layered against a cogent set of analytics. These analytics employ ISO 9001 QMS standards, logic metrics, Bayesian metrics and more in order to meet quality requirements to assure the integrity of developed insights.

Blinding Success

The success of M1 has blinded us to the clues replete all around us. We think that we are progressing toward an ultimate answer based on M1,  but what most do not yet realize is that M1 is a logic trap of epic proportions. M1 will never accomplish unification exactly because its core constructs preclude it. If there is anything all of this teaches us, it should be that there must be a new sense of right and wrong. Those whose every other word is empirical need to understand the limitations of human physiology relative to empiricism and then take those limitations in context of LEEs. Failure to recognize these issues will inevitably lead to LEEs Empiricism Trap. There they will find a new humbling, as I did. Ultimately, as we come to understand all the various issues here, and each of us successfully wrestles our own pigs (e.g. affects appropriate paradigm shifts), we recognize what Langer was writing about all those years ago. More importantly we then back up and recognize the contributions to information sciences made by Systems Engineering,  and we have a new found appreciation for being able to collect requirements about both logical and physical views of systems, and therein is a very large caution. That caution is to those who do not yet comprehend LEEs.   Natural inclination is to think they are dealing directly with reality because they can reach out and touch some real object. In that act, your central nervous system immediately furnishes your brain an abstraction so that you can relate to the real world in which we all exist. That realization requires us to employ critical thinking and recognize the philosophical implications of abstractions relative to how we employ science. We also have a new found respect for the reasons the age old argument within the Systems Engineering profession concerning application of that profession beyond the anthropogenic systems of its origins. The Emergence Model illustrates therein everything real is a system or system of systems.

Distinctions

Holistically and collectively scientific confidence comes from successfully wielding the detail sets of M1 in their respective disciplines within science, but what everyone including me failed to recognize was that we were tying out those detail sets not to nature but to the context of our collective model employed, and we were doing that because we failed to recognize that all of us were committing Langer Epistemology Errors (e.g. LEEs). Elegant Reasonism requires us to focus our attention on the models we create, and never do we claim that we are dealing directly with nature because we are intrinsically apart of nature, and we must be especially careful not to commit LEEs. We must take every precaution possible to prevent that from happening, and this framework is designed for that purpose. Anyone who fully comprehends LEEs, commits them despite that knowledge, comprehends Elegant Reasonism holistically, and persists in status quo thinking, should be held in great skepticism and regard. To conduct one’s self in such a manner smacks of being arrogant. We would also argue that Elegant Reasonism flips the Dunning-Kruger coin over in that case because choosing to remain inside a logic trap, well, needs no further characterization. If I were to ever describe a demon, it would be the one that holds, shackles, and ensnares such people inside such a logic trap.

Powerfully Illuminating Illustration

Ardent disciples of various epistemologies face off amongst each other steadfast in their belief systems, and they are respectively unable to provide any mechanism or fodder to change the other’s metaphorical position. Elegant Reasonism poses a single requirement that stands to change that balance, and it is the requirement to manifest all that is real in context of the real unified Universe. Elegant Reasonism employs metrics at every step and stage consistent with standards and ISO 9001 QMS and then subjects it all to overwhelming scrutiny through Translation Matrices in gaining Treatise precipice. The integrated Epistemologies are subjected to Bayesian Statistics and logic calculus relative to the overall objectives of unification and simultaneous truths we already know to be true vis-a-vie traditional encapsulated interpretive models,  and at the same time what must be as a function of The Emergence Model (e.g. the set of models closing to unification as required by the framework in order to attain compliance).

 

Elegant Reasonism Introduction and Overview, Part 03: Mode Shifting The Baloney Detection Kit

 

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McGowen

By Charles McGowen

Charles C McGowen is a strategic business consultant. He studied Aerospace Engineering at Auburn University '76-'78. IBM hired him early in '79 where he worked until 2003. He is now Chairman & CEO of SolREI, Inc. ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-2439-1707