First Blog

  Dream States At this point, with most of the well-defined problem-solving techniques explored (in a previous post), we delve into the great known unknown, the mind’s secret weapon, the dream.   Therein lies a power most certainly unknown. Let’s begin at the movies. What happens when you watch an intense movie late at night?   Your mind is absorbed in the pictures, dialogue, and sounds of the film.   Your mind still dwells on these, computing, digesting, and ruminating on all of these even into sleep. In your dreams, your subconscious mind recalls all these thoughts but convolutes them as only dreams can. Maybe you wake up with yourself a part of the distortion. Maybe, you make it through the night of restless sleep but your wake troubled. Dreams fade quickly, happily.   Has this happened to you?   To me, many times. As a pre-teen, my dad took me to the movie, The Man with the Atom Brain .   The imagery and plot of that movie stayed with me for years. Welcome to one aspect of cr

If hate is a disease, it is virile, vile, contagious, and lethal.   It has sanctioned all varieties of murderous activity, including war and the destruction of entire groups, ethnically, religiously, and politically.   This emotion of destruction compels those infected with a single-mindedness overwhelming any sense of propriety.   It defeats normal logic and decency. Associated,   there is a logic, and it’s simple.   Call it the first order propositional logic of hate .  "If A hates B and B loves C, then A hates C." This is also a type of converse transitivity.   Aristotle, of course, would be dismayed. You may say the logic of hate is ridiculous.   Yet, the philosophers have constructed quite an interesting and complete logic of belief .   It even has a name , Doxastic logic. Just Google it. Applications: a. Let A = Catholics, B = Protestants, and C = Martin Luther.   (maybe a little dated) b. Let A= Muslims, B = Infidels, and C = Baptists or any reli

The wise Captain of life always sails with a trusted crew of six, What, Why, When, and How, Where, Who.*    The ship has a sturdy mast constructed of proof, sails of logic, with a rigging woven of axioms, evidence, and findings.    His mates are Skepticus and Optimus to steady the travel, while deep in the hold kept chained are the Negatives, who multiply  prodigiously  especially in darkness. The four-ever cousins are rejected. You know them well: Whatever, Whomever, Wherever, Whenever.  They embody sailing with equivocation and belong in the hold with the Negatives . Credit the idea here to Rudyard Kipling, The Elephant's Child.

Theories allow logic to be grafted to nonsense. The teacher who does not listen graduates a class that will ask no questions. Learning is a deliberate Q&A event. You can’t learn without asking questions and then discovering answers. Centuries ago, the people hunted witches. Now the witches hunt people. Both are wrong. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Debt .  The current US national debt is about $21T.  The current total debt of all Americans, including credit cards and mortgages is $13.3T.  The current non-financial corporate business debt securities and liability is about $6.1T.*  Basically, this means total US debt of consumers and corporations is slightly less than the national debt. *https://fred.stlouisfed.org/tags/series?t=corporate%3Bdebt -----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Problem Solving – the pathway to the impossible Life is problem solving.   From work to school to religion; in love in pleasure, in strife, we are always solving something.  Some problems are simple, some tricky, some poorly defined, some complex.  Many are impossible. We have not set about to discuss school math problems.  In a sense, these are the simplest of all because much of the toolkit needed for solving them have been presented in the course.  These problems are those with the greatest clarity, a unique solution, and for them there is always a final resolution.  You get it or you don’t.  We have an array of problem solving methods, from logic to emotion, from instinct to intuition, from random to programmed, and more.  These methods are applied individually or in combination, often generating intrinsic conflicts, resulting is partials solutions, no solution, personal solutions, new problems, new situation, and impossible situations.  Results can be satisfying or frustrating,

Inconsistency and Impossible Problems Definition of INCONSISTENCY from the American Heritage Dictionary. 1. Displaying or marked by a lack of consistency, especially:         Not regular or predictable; erratic: inconsistent behavior.         Lacking in correct logical relation; contradictory: inconsistent statements.         Not in agreement or harmony; incompatible: an intersection inconsistent with the road map. 2. Mathematics. Not solvable for the unknowns by the same set of values. Used of two or more equations or inequalities. Inconsistencies in problem solutions seem to be correlated with the social competence of students.  Remarkable but apparently true. Impossible problems also arise from inconsistency.  This implies a type of conflict at the systemic level. When we have a system with inconsistent truths within, we are naturally led to impossible problems.  This can occur from regulations that are contradictory.  These can come from government agencies or industry leaders who

Seven Ways You Figure Things Out and Solve Problems The human brain is a marvelous organ.   It is designed for but one thing: survival of the body.   And survival means solving a non ending stream of problems. Ever thought about how you figure things out? Your marvelous brain has it covered. Indeed, you use six separate systems to make conclusions, resolve questions, problem solve, and just about everything else. Using the acronym BRAIPIE, we describe them in this order. The order and priority a person uses one or another of these systems varies from person to person, from religion to religion, from fine arts to science. Beliefs/Faith - You have a set of beliefs and a state of faith, both of which which function as guideposts on how to view problems and resolve difficulties. These are your strongest system, and can override all other considerations. The two overlap so much, it isn't really possible to distinguish them. The first is the second, and the second is the first. Ra

It never ceases to amaze me that some folks, expert in one area, believe their expertise or excellence automatically transfers to another area. I mean, they really believe it!  Examples: physics → politics, business → education, any domain → sports, chemistry → religion, and so on. We’ll call this the transference effect or the transference phenomenon.  [I'm not sure if this note is an admonition to others or a personal admission; let's make it both to be on the safe side.] We restrict this note to arguments made outside one’s expertise, not within for which there are many more argument types. The expertise areas will be called domains . So, we are discussing the arguments made by a person, expert in one domain, toward conclusions made for another domain. For our purposes here we use the domains: Science, Education, Politics, Philosophy, Religion, Humanities, and Business. You may wish to add your own. The types of assertions we discuss are direct assertions

Using Analogies We all use analogies to explain the concepts we want to impart, to convince, to help understand, and to reduce to a simpler more physical and familiar level of understanding.   Analogies have been used over the great span of time, even in Plato’s Phaedo , where the philosopher’s soul of reason should not do and redo arguments as with Penelope’s rug 2 . (Plato, Phaedo ) Research says indicates that using analogies assists in concept development. This is something we’ve all suspected. It is interesting to note that it is somewhat established in the literature 1 .     To be effective, analogies must be familiar, and their features must be synchronous with those of the target. Reasoning by analogy indicates the target concept is like something else.   You can argue it, but it is still only an analogy and may prove nothing at all.   The real problem is that the analogy may be false, and worse still is that your audience may interpret your intended concept throu

Ever thought about how you figure things out? Your marvelous brain has it covered. Indeed, you use six separate systems to make conclusions, see describe them in this order though it varies from person to person. Beliefs/Faith - You have a set of beliefs and a state of faith, both of which which function as guideposts on how to view problems and resolve difficulties.  These are your strongest system, and can override all other considerations.  The two overlap so much, it isn't really possible to distinguish them.  The first is the second, and the second is the first. Random - When all else fails, and all considerations are equal, what do you do? Throw the dice. This means just take a guess.  We all do this from time to time, usually when there is little time to use your more considered systems to respond.   Analytic - This is the logical part of your brain. It channels you through issues using the strengths of logical deduction and induction. You try hard to use accepte