[Thesis] Beyond the Scientific Method - Shifting into the New Age

Here are some observations and conclusions based on the last several years. Kind of looking at the big picture from my perspective. Don't let the terms "evolution" and "new age" throw you, they are kind of self-defined below and don't necessarily imply what you might have predefined from other sources.

I'd really appreciate any feedback anyone has. I know reading these types of long things aren't for everyone, but I feel the ideas presented below will be important moving forward. Also check out the other thread "Inside the mind of a conspiracy theorist". This is kind of the big picture/thesis, the other one is more personal.



Beyond the Scientific Method: Shifting into the New Age

(Also see the companion writeup "Inside the Mind of a Conspiracy Theorist")

Cognitive evolution in humans

Cognition in humans as a group can be viewed in terms of distinct stages. In each of these stages, everyone tends to use the same thought processes which structure society. Whether these changes are causes or effects can be debated. The important thing is that with them comes a paradigm change in human experience.

The earliest humans that we know of were hunter gatherers who used basic tools and drew on cave walls. The way they thought can be speculated on from their paintings, which were generally of animals and other things directly from nature. There did not necessarily exist any rational component to their minds, at least about abstract ideas, because what they left were reflections of what they saw and experienced, without necessarily any meaning attached. Living conditions consisted of family groups in makeshift shelter (like caves).

The next identifiable change came with the development and/or refinement of spoken language, which we'll lump together with the development of the first primitive religions. The important change here is that no longer was the mind a quiet and peaceful place, but rather it became inhabited with discrete thoughts. These discrete thoughts could then be used for rational thoughts – comparing things, drawing basic conclusions. Larger social structures could form, totally changing living conditions.

With the development of written language, the state was able to form. Religious texts were written and they were also gathered together to form official dogmas (this is what society at large experienced from religion). Empires were built. Rational thinking and reasoning was developed, but it was an implied rather than explicit process. The official dogmas were full of reasoning, but very few realized this reasoning existed. Things were seen as good or evil, righteousness “just made sense”.

It is important to realize that the cognitive behaviors occur before humans really figure out what is happening. In the first case, paintings showed that there was some form of higher thinking at work, yet the individual didn't consciously have thoughts. Rather he just illustrated his view of the world in a painting.

In the second case, verbalized, discrete thoughts inside the mind were known, allowing a spoken language to exist to represent those thoughts. But the underlying process of reasoning was not known. Yet they used it to come to agreements to build societies and in their verbal grammar.

In the third case the idea of rationalization was known, and reasons could be written down for why God did this or that. But the objective, independent nature of reasoning was largely unknown to humans. There were Greek philosophers, mathematicians, and astronomers in that time, but nevertheless their ideas never spread to the larger population. Perhaps one reason was because the state actively suppressed such a change. They wanted a monopoly on reason.

In each of these three cases, more advanced cognitive processes were necessarily running subconsciously – unknown to man – to support the conscious processes he was using.

When people became aware of the explicit, fundamental, and independent existence of rational thought and deductive reasoning, the next great paradigm shift occurred, which is known as the Age of Enlightenment. As before, the human experience drastically changed with the technology this Age produced.

Since the rational mind finally become aware of its own existence, or at least its own independence, it created a system by which it could consciously create mental constructs (models) of the world: The scientific method. This method focused on harnessing deductive reasoning to allow even greater social and technological complexity than ever before.

Today, as in past times, there are subconscious cognitive processes which we depend upon but which humanity is unaware of collectively. When we become consciously aware of the implicit processes just beneath the surface of our thinking then we will again, as a group, experience another paradigm shift in our collective experience.

The scientific method: deductive vs abductive reasoning

The scientific method, as is widely understood today, is a process of exact deduction based on observations, hypotheses, predictions and experiments. It is an algorithm which, if run long enough, will eventually determine the unambiguous truth of any inquiry. It has proven itself over hundreds of years and given us the modern world we live in today.

However, there is a serious problem with the use of the scientific method today, just as in previous times there was a serious problem with the way reasoning was used. The problem is that the current scientific method is generally only useful, and in fact only valid, when used by institutions with potentially unlimited life spans. An institution such as a university or academic society can last for many generations, and certainly more than 70 man-years. That entity has the time and resources to properly traverse the scientific method algorithm, systematically proving or disproving hypotheses, until the final true understanding is arrived at.

Why isn't the scientific method valid on shorter timescales? The reason is that it's based on deductive reasoning.

Deductive reasoning requires a known premise, at which point it can generate a conclusion. One is therefore faced with either unquestioningly accepting a premise, or first proving the premise to be true. Unfortunately, to prove a premise is true would require induction (obviously deduction can't be used to prove itself). The problem with induction is that it doesn't prove anything. Over long time periods with simple data sets induction becomes more powerful, but it is significantly less useful when discussing a single human lifetime. The human experience is just too rich and unique, and lifetime just too short.

One may object that every human doesn't need to reinvent the wheel, and can simply draw upon the collective experience of humanity for his premises. By that argument, one should accept the basic world views of whatever society one grows up in, including whatever religion, philosophy, political ideology or other 'obvious thing' is given at the time. It is easy to see these views are very different, yet each is self-consistent as long as their precious premises aren't questioned. Therefore, there is no choice than accept that induction, deduction, and the scientific method are not the final destination of our cognitive evolution as a group. It is this conscious realization that causes the next paradigm shift. (Don't get too excited yet. Even though I just described it to you, it doesn't mean you necessarily 'get it'. In fact, the article has been written quite deductively so far!)

Lucky for us, as in previous times, pioneers have already broken through these barriers. The development of abductive reasoning allows us to overcome the problems the scientific method poses.

The basic idea of abductive reasoning is that no premise is assumed, and rather than a definite logical conclusion, we only ever end up with a number of probable conclusions. We aren't guaranteed to ever know the truth with complete certainty, all we're guaranteed is a best effort based on all data available to us.

Abductive reasoning can be understood as “the best guess based on everything you know”. Instead of hiding the fact that one is implicitly assuming some unproven premises, it is understood that the conclusions which are arrived at are only best effort, and can change as more data is received. A consequence of this is that different people generally arrive at different conclusions. More on that later

The practical, real-world, usefulness of abductive reasoning has made it attractive for use in artificial intelligence, computer science, and law.

The astute reader may realize that equating the scientific method with deductive reasoning could be flawed. However, as it is widely understood and implemented, it is an additive process – previous conclusions are almost always used as premises for future deductions. Philosophical circles have since broadened (i.e, fixed) the definition to include the missing abductive elements, however the awareness and even acceptance of this is not broad or universal.

http://s1.postimage.org/g0549udz3/paper.png

The problem with society

The problem with society is that people have many irreconcilable points of view, and many who hold these irreconcilable points of view are also not able to tolerate others with contrary points of view. This leads to violence. For example, someone burns a Koran in a Mosque and the villagers grab the visiting foreigner and kill him.

Society can be viewed as simply the interaction of a number of peers in a network. Depending on belief system or ideology, these peers are clustered in groups and follow different protocols. However, when a node of one group tries to send an incompatible packet into another group, things simply blow up. There isn't any fault-tolerance in the different protocols.

We can start to see the problem a little more clearly: (1) different groups hold different (unprovable) premises which are offered to them by society, (2) they come to different, irreconcilable conclusions from these premises, and (3) they are unable to tolerate others with differences.

There is one more issue to look at, and that is the role of bias, intelligence, irrationality, and bigotry. One of the most common premises that individuals hold is that they are not biased, able to be tricked, irrational, or bigoted. As mentioned previously, the conscious realization that no premise can be proven leads to the shift. In this case, it is clear that the realization that one cannot necessarily know for sure if he is biased, easily tricked, irrational, or bigoted is profound and can indeed lead to some sort of fundamental shift. In this case the fundamental shift is necessarily towards tolerance of others no matter how much you know they are in error, or contradict your deeply held beliefs. It is also of self-observation and continual effort not to be bigoted. It's simply a consequence of properly recognizing hidden, unquestioned assumptions, and yet it leads from an easy certain world into an uncertain shadow world.

Some would say the problem with society is that people repeat things as truth which they don't in fact totally know are true. If there was just some minimal level of intellectual honesty our problems would be solved.

The issue is that people are convinced that what they know is totally true and what they say is certain. That is, until one day they wake up. Then they finally realize they were wrong previously, but luckily they have since figured it all out. Problem is, they're still completely wrong. Only the second part of the claim about intellectual honesty is correct. If one is intellectually honest, it has to be admitted that nothing is known for certain. So the solution is not just being really certain, it has to be something else. More on that coming up.

The cognitive model of society

As alluded to previously, society can be modeled as a peer-to-peer network. Each node is a person, and each person is a node. Information spreads throughout this network, and causes the network to do various things.

The current model is based on the Age of Enlightenment as well as from the previous age for some (groups of) people.

It goes like this: Each node has a belief system built up, layer by layer, reason by reason, upon some fundamental premises which is not observable by them. These people characteristically come with labels and have a figurehead or champion which they feel represents them or fights for them. It could be a politician or political party, a media figure, etc.

These champions hold the same basic premises as their followers, so the followers only listen to them, and all come to the same conclusions. Kind of like group-think. These champions I'll call broadcasters, and the nodes I'll call relays/receivers. New signals (ideas/opinions) are born from champion broadcaster nodes, and then quickly relayed through the network. With such a fixed-premises deductive reasoning system, this is expected. The champion node will quickly deduce the conclusion to any situation or new data in terms of their basic premises, then broadcast that pre-computed result to the follower nodes. The passive follower nodes will then robotically repeat the broadcasted signal everywhere. The robotic repetition isn't really a flaw of the node, rather it's just the result of the deterministic nature of deductive reasoning.

When these passive follower nodes, in different premises groups, try to communicate with each other, conflict will occur. There can be no reasoning, no resolution to this conflict. After all, it is ultimately reasoning based on unquestioned fundamental differences, which is really no reasoning at all. This is the Age of Enlightenment shortfall here. It's a situation where people understand the objective and independent nature of reason itself, outside of a dogma, but they fail to be consciously aware of the extra step that their brain is taking just beneath the surface – their unquestioned, unprovable assumptions.

Of course we all know our world is full of violence, injustice, and intolerance. Now you know it's because a passive network is being inundated with irreconcilable signals.

But does this not seem like a hopeless problem? Which signal is right, and how do we know which one to listen to? How many more wars will be fought until the right one is discovered? The answer is that none of the signals are right. Or more precisely, they're all right.

The new cognitive model of society

The fundamental problem is not an error in the transmitted information, but rather the receiver. The receiver assumes that it receives perfectly correct information from some sources (the champions), and perfectly incorrect information from other sources (conflicting repeater nodes).

With the conscious realization that no one is provably correct, then all sources simply become noisy inputs to the node. The node must first become fault-tolerant to be able to accept noise from its surroundings. Then it must process these noisy inputs, and generate its own less noisy output.

In other words, the new network is no longer a system of broadcasters (church, state, media) and relays/receivers (people). Every node is both a noisy broadcaster and a fault-tolerant receiver.

Ok, the way things currently work is easy to understand. But this new way seems abstract. What does it really mean?

Here's an example: You see a story about something on the news. You read about it online. You read people's theories. You hear your friends give you their opinion. You think about it in context of some book you read, maybe in sort of an allegorical way...maybe it was a fantasy book. You are also reminded of a certain movie. Moreover, you think back on your personal experience...what's happened to you in the past. So, when someone asks who on tv you agree with, what do you say? No one! You don't agree with anyone on what happened, although you take key elements from what other people have said. You have your own theory. You explain it, give what justifications you have, but some parts of it you don't justify at all. It's just a gut feeling, what you really think based on everything you know. Then the person mentions some contradiction you didn't think of. No problem! You change your theory on the spot based on this new information. Or, depending on what they said, maybe you just discard the whole thing!

Now this person doesn't believe any of the subjective nonsense you just told them. In fact, you only said one thing that even made any sense...seemed somewhat plausible. They incorporate that one thing into their personal theory of what happened. Later that day, the person gives their own theory to someone else, which also has a tiny distorted piece of your theory in it.

There were two important things that just happened. The first one was that even though you may have just transmitted a massive amount of noise into the network, it didn't actually get beyond whoever you personally spoke to, except if they thought it was worth repeating. In order for signals to flow through the network, it has to pass the critical analysis of other people's brains.

The second important thing that happened was when the information got repeated to the next person, it was modified to the best of the next person's ability.

Essentially, a noisy signal was sent from one node to another. The second node received and filtered the noisy information, processed it, and retransmitted it. No longer is the network (society) a passive conduit for false information. It just became a distributed computer.

Certain ideas will propagate virally through the system. They will be things that fit the observations so well that they're either truth, or misinformation that nonetheless is really plausible. But that's ok. This misinformation explains the unexplainable, and it's a lot better than pretending things you can't explain don't exist. When the real truth is discovered, it will virally overtake the misinformation because it offers a better explanation.

Red vs blue networks

At first it may appear impossible for such a system to work. What kind of order can there be in society if everyone has their own version of everything? The first thing to realize is that this is exactly the system we currently have in place already. In fact there can be no other system. The difference is that instead of a bunch of passive nodes which don't realize they are receiving and retransmitting noisy information, each active node does realize it is receiving and transmitting noisy information. The passive network isn't aware of its own existence, whereas the active network is self-aware. It doesn't attempt to pretend its own inherent communications are perfect. It is self-aware, self-doubting, self-critical, and self-healing. This is the difference between a red network and a blue network.

A blue network is simply made up of blue nodes. A blue node (remember, a node is a person) is a passive node which receives a broadcasted signal and retransmits it without modifying it. It is a passive network and the information in it is easily controlled. It's almost transparent – inject a signal and watch it spread across the network, unmodified, almost instantly.

A red network is an active network made up of red nodes. Each node attempts to only transmit signals which represent it's best attempt to make sense of the information, with the understanding that it's likely not perfect. When a signal is injected into a red network, each node will distort the signal based on its unique point of view and abilities. It is almost opaque: injecting a signal yields an unpredictable and constantly adapting response. Whereas the blue network didn't realize what it was, the red network realizes each node has a unique and important role. And it will not destroy itself because of clever contradictory signals (opposing ideologies).

Like-minded people in this network will cluster together in groups, for example forums or message boards. Each forum focuses on certain topics. These communities of red nodes are really computers. The forum converges on common themes. These link into other forums (computers), which form into a large supercomputer. An interesting phenomena is that, while members of these forums each have their own personal opinions, they eventually converge so closely together that the end result is they've reached a much more accurate conclusion than would have been possible in a traditional passive network where each node has an identical but wrong conclusion.

People may say someone has taken the red pill if they subscribe to a certain fringe view of a certain event. This may be used as a litmus test by some. However, in general the test for a red node is whether they have any unquestioned assumptions.

How does one know if he is a red node or a blue node? Awake or asleep? Well, if one is a blue node then he can know for certain that he is a red node. This is probably what the majority of blue nodes believe. On the other hand, a red node can never know with certainty if he is indeed a red node. There will be continual self-observation, questions, and doubt. The more activated the node is, the more it will question itself. The more it will believe it's probably a blue node, self-decieved in some way, desperately looking for answers in pieces of trash lying on the ground. It's absolute personal responsibility. This is the unknown, and it will us lead to the next age of human experience.

It is a difficult path to take, but it directly follows from being honest and rejecting artificial intellectual constructs based on assumed premises. When an individual leaves nothing unquestioned, they are truly an activated node in a once dormant grid of human minds. Once this grid is switched on and humanity becomes a giant supercomputer, we will again have the comfort and certainty that the scientific method once promised us. Individually we can't achieve it, but as a group with our parallel theories and decision making, constantly converging in the right direction, eventually things will be collectively be known in an absolute way.

Revelation as the new communication method

The future will have less focus on systematic citation of sources and instead take on a more revelatory characteristic. In other words, instead of trying to prove things point by point as we do today, we'll simply say exactly what we think, in a bold manner, and let people take it or leave it. The most important justification for a proposal is that it's the best we've got. That's all we should feel obligated to prove. If there's no logic or self-consistency, people will simply ignore whatever we say. But if it contains an intuitive yet unspoken logic, it will be truth on a higher level than has ever been achieved before.

Humans have already mastered deductive reasoning and rational thought. We write computer programs! We are already aware of its objective value outside of any specific belief system. We are not in danger of falling back to previous error because we are more aware now than we were before.

Revelation is a step forward, not a step backwards. It's decentralized truth discovery. This document is nothing but a revelation. There are no sources, just influences. I made it all up. Take what you want, and leave the rest!

When people walk out into the world they either see everything according to their group thought structure first and then see the world......a bit like they have glasses on and everything they relate too on the outside has to be processed according to some belief they may of acquired while growing up from others.
Or people have very little preconceived thought patterns and instead see things as they really are,without bias ,no filters basically reality.seeing this way requires less thoughts and contains an innocence that is always fresh and new.

My mind is my friend but that is all,it is not the overriding influence in every situation and I respond to the world in an instinctive way with limited preconceived ideas as I've seen the damage it can do and the absolute idiocy of behaving this way.

Most people may live within their mind and lost in thought patterns one after the other,on and on and on.

What happens without the thought pattern......peace,silence and well being.

A bit like living in your soul where you can swim around a bit and feel limitless.

Not so with the mind as it clings to fear and is basically afraid and has taken many on a wild ride especially when combined with emotions.

The new age is the change within ,don't expect to wait for it to come to you .

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Serpo

What happens without the thought pattern......peace,silence and well being.

A bit like living in your soul where you can swim around a bit and feel limitless.

Not so with the mind as it clings to fear and is basically afraid and has taken many on a wild ride especially when combined with emotions.

The new age is the change within ,don't expect to wait for it to come to you .

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Wisdom is in those words. I am a kindred spirit. Thank you.

AT

bump

Any comments are greatly appreciated.

This is a remarkable piece of writing. I can see a detailed description of the differences between a Rush Limbaugh 'dittohead' and any one of the people on this forum. The difference between a 'fellow traveler' and a 'true believer'.

I think I've subconsciously grasped these differences. So far, for me, what has filtered down to my conscious mind--that which I am now aware of is what I have lately found a very useful mental 'maxim'--that 'whatever I believe is true'. So, when I think something is true, I can ask myself 'do I believe this'? And if I can say (honestly) yes--then it is true. But honestly, I can't say I believe anything with enough certainty to give it the status of truth. So, I don't really know the 'truth' and I have long suspected that it does not exist anywhere except in one's own head. And it's different in everybody else's heads. So the truth covers a wide range of things because there is such a wide range of beliefs among humans. And all of them are true. For somebody. Maybe not you.

I think you have explained quite a lot of things in that writeup Vacuum. I assume your vision of the future is that more people will abandon the ideological conformity and obedience to their 'isms', and start looking more closely at what is actually happening without the ideological filter. I think you're right if that is your assumption. But, 'Waking Up Is Hard To Do' Think of the Neil Sedaka song of a similar name. Most people have an Ovine nature. They need to be guided and told what to do. The 'isms' do that for them. What you seem to be predicting is that if one took an ordinary sheeple off the street, and made that sheeple join GSUS, one day that sheeple would be indistinguishable in their viewpoints or attitudes from any other GSUS member. Some of us are more tolerant of differing opinions than others. We're all pretty good at questioning our assumptions.

I think however that shifting away from the scientific method to a 'degree of certainty' in pursuing truth is useful because 'truth' and 'reality' is much more shaped by politics, (euphemism for power relationships) that we have to take into account what the people with money and authority think. It doesn't mean we should allow ourselves to be corrupted by the people with money and authority. And for that, it is necessary to hang on to some absolutes. Like the golden rule.

Good for you Vacuum. You got me thinking.


Hatha

Dialectic and Decline
www.youtube.com/watch?v=6Pq5gqhSavY
www.youtube.com/watch?v=6Pq5gqhSavY
Published on Aug 22, 2012

"The masses were never meant to see the abyss. The void is not for the eyes of the slave. The master builds upon it through option and gives idiom to the slaves."

[()];) I like turtles.