The Ethical Skeptic

Recently we finished a vitriolic presidential election, inside of which a particular accusation had been made from one of the candidates towards the other. Specifically, Hillary Clinton was accused of mishandling classified material at origin, by sending it through non-secure means of communication, and handling it in a non-secured environment and by means of non-secured premises and procedure.  The accusation pertained to a batch of several thousand emails which bore classified material and classified context, but were sent over personal computers and media services in violation of the National Security Act.

Clinton’s technically correct response to the allegations was issued as follows:

I have a lot of experience dealing with classified material, starting when I was on the Senate Armed Services Committee going into the four years as secretary of state,” she said. “Classified material has a header which says ‘top secret, secret, confidential.’ Nothing, and I will repeat this, and this is verified in the report by the Department of Justice, none of the emails sent or received by me had such a header.   ~Hillary Clinton ¹

Now let’s break this set of propositions down by their logical calculus under The Tower of Wrong deontological framing:

• First sentence – true (red herring, appeal to authority)
• Second sentence – true (serves to dis-inform – ingens vanitatum – see below)
• Third sentence – true (ignoratio elenchi – a misdirection in argument around threatening ‘classified material at origin’ laws under national security.)

In other words,  what Ms. Clinton did here was authoritatively lie, through facts and argument misdirection.  How do I know? I was a director level Black Top Secret intelligence officer for years. I know how classified material is to be handled at origin. Ms. Clinton conveniently misdirected the argument to a context of administrative handling conditions, wherein she either originated classified material, or re-posted or discussed such material stripped of its Controlling Authority context and marking. Nice trick. Origin classified material NEVER has ‘top secret, secret, confidential’ markings. Those dispositions are only tendered later by the Controlling Authority.² However, classified material of such nature prior to disposition is handled in the same way as is all classified material – and any recitation or discussion of such materials retains the classification of the referenced material itself (recitation: Executive Order 13526 and National Security Act procedures for handling classified material at origin).² If what Ms. Clinton claimed about having ‘a lot of experience dealing with classified material [at] the Armed Services Committee’ was true, and I think it was; then Ms. Clinton knew this to be a misdirection. She lied by means of an ignoratio elenchi fallacy called ingens vanitatum. A key element inside The Tower of Wrong.

Ingens Vanitatum

/philosophy : argument : fallacy : ignoratio elenchi/ : knowing a great deal of irrelevance. Knowledge of every facet of a subject and all the latest information therein, which bears irony however in that this supervacuous set of knowledge stands as all that composes the science, or all that is possessed by the person making the claim to knowledge. A useless set of information which serves only to displace any relevance of the actual argument, principle or question entailed.

Ingens Vanitatum Argument – citing a great deal of irrelevance. A posing of ‘fact’ or ‘evidence’ framed inside an appeal to expertise, which is correct and relevant information at face value; however which serves to dis-inform as to the nature of the argument being vetted or the critical evidence or question being asked.

Hillary Clinton’s statement was a correct lie in other words. She lied with facts. The statement does not serve to inform, rather it serves to dis-inform us all. This is what is called an Organic Untruth. It is one of the tools in the utility belt of the skilled professional liar and stands as one of the stack of key elements inside The Tower of Wrong (more specifically the ’50 Shades of Correct’ below).  So without any further ado, let us expand on this towering set of conditions of incorrectness.  In the chart below, you will observe the three Wittgenstein Proposition Framings, in burgundy (bedeutungslos, unsinnig and sinnlos) – comprising the stack elements which constitute the journey from confusion, to delusion, to lying…

…highlighting the final breakthrough in the mind of the ethical skeptic: Value and Clarity. The critical deontological nature of relevant, salient and scientific critical path information, as they are enabled by knowledge and the state of being found incorrect (has value: see blue pyramid stacks below).

The Components of the Professional Lie

At the heart of the professional lie, resides the agenda they are seeking to protect, the Omega Hypothesis. This is the agenda, conclusion or theory – which has become more important to protect, than the integrity of science itself.

Omega Hypothesis (H_Ω) – the argument which is foisted to end all argument, period. A conclusion which has become more important to protect, than the integrity of science itself. An invalid null hypothesis or a preferred idea inside a social epistemology. A hypothesis which is defined to end deliberation without due scientific rigor, alternative study consensus or is afforded unmerited protection or assignment as the null. The surreptitiously held and promoted idea or the hypothesis protected by an Inverse Negation Fallacy. Often one which is promoted as true by default, with the knowledge in mind that falsification will be very hard or next to impossible to achieve.

The Omega Hypothesis is enacted and supported through the following Tower of Wrong elements (Wittgenstein sinnlos) and the four Wittgenstein sinnlos Mechanisms. As a note: The definition I have crafted here for sinnlos, develops the concept into a more clear and complete fit in terms of today’s methods of misinformation – rather than solely its classic Wittgenstein framing as ‘senseless’, which overlaps too heavily inside English as opposed to German usage lexicons with his unsinnig ‘nonsense’ class of proposition. In addition I have taken the concept of sinnlos and applied it into the following four stack elements (Ambiguity, Organic Untruth, Inadequacy and Mechanism) which function to underpin a professional lie. The final elements are four mechanisms which are exercised by the most prolific, celebrity, power holding and habitual appeal-to-authority enactors of the professional lie.

Wittgenstein Epistemological Error (Proposition Framings) – the categorization of a proposition into meaninglessness, nonsense or uselessness based upon its underlying state or lacking of definition, structure, logical calculus or usefulness in addressing a logical critical path.

bedeutungslos – meaningless. A proposition or question which resides upon a lack of definition, or which contains no meaning in and of its self.

unsinnig – nonsense. A proposition of compromised coherency. Feynman ‘not even wrong.’

sinnlos – useless. A contention which does not follow from the evidence, is correct at face value but disinformative or is otherwise useless.

Ambiguity

Equivocation – the misleading use of a term with more than one meaning, sense, or use in professional context by glossing over which meaning is intended in the instance of usage, in order to mis-define, inappropriately include or exclude data in an argument.

Proxy Equivocation – the forcing of a new or disliked concept or term, into the definition of an older context, concept or term, in order to avoid allowing discrete attention to be provided to the new concept or term. Often practiced through calling the new concept/term, falsely, a neologism or brush off with the statement ‘that idea has already been addressed.’

Ambiguity – the construction or delivery of a message in such words or fashion as to allow for several reasonable interpretations of the context, object, subject, relationship, material or backing of the intended message.

Slack Exploitation – a form of equivocation or rhetoric wherein an arguer employs a term which at face value appears to constrain the discussion or position contended to a specific definition or domain. However, a purposely chosen word or domain has been employed which allows for several different forms/domains of interpretation of the contention on the part of the arguer. Often this allows the arguer to petition the listener to infer a more acceptable version of his contention, when in fact he is asserting what he knows to be a less acceptable form of it.

Uti Dolo (trick question) – a question which is formed for the primary purpose of misleading a person into selecting (through their inference and/or questioner’s implication) the incorrect answer or answer not preferred inside a slack exploited play of ambiguity, interpretation, sequence, context or meaning. The strong version being where the wrong context is inferred by means of deceptive question delivery; the weak version being where the question is posed inside a slack domain where it can be interpreted legitimately in each of two different ways – each producing a differing answer.

Amphibology – a situation where a sentence may be interpreted in more than one way due to ambiguous sentence structure. An amphibology is permissible, but not preferable, only if all of its various interpretations are simultaneously and organically true.

Context Dancing – the twisting of the context inside which a quotation or idea has been expressed such that it appears to support a separate argument and inappropriately promote a desired specific outcome.

Wittgenstein Error – manipulation of definitions, or the lack thereof.

Descriptive – the inability to discuss, observe or measure a proposition or contention, because of a language limitation, which has limited discourse and not in reality science’s domain of observability.

Contextual – employment of words in such as fashion as to craft rhetoric, in the form of persuasive or semantic abuse, by means of shift in word or concept definition by emphasis, modifier, employment or context.

Accent Drift – a specific type of ambiguity that arises when the meaning or level of hyperbole of a sentence is changed by placing an unusual prosodic stress (emphasis on a word), or when, in a written passage, it’s left unclear which word the emphasis was supposed to fall on.²

Subject Ambiguity – the construction or delivery of a message in such words or fashion as to allow for several reasonable interpretations of person, place or thing to which the message applies.

Organic Untruth

Organic Untruth (verum mendacium) – a constructive form of argument which exploits concealed ambiguity or altered premise as the core of its foundational structure. A statement which is true at face value, but was not true or was of unknown verity under the time frame or original basis, soundness, domain or context under discussion. Ignoratio elenchi is a misdirection in argument, whereas an ingens vanitatum argument is a method of lying through this same misdrection or misleading set of ‘true facts’.

Ingens Vanitatum Argument – citing a great deal of expert irrelevance. A posing of ‘fact’ or ‘evidence’ framed inside an appeal to expertise, which is correct and relevant information at face value; however which serves to dis-inform as to the nature of the argument being vetted or the critical evidence or question being asked.

Lob & Slam Ploy – a version of good cop/bad cop wherein a virtual partnership exists between well known fake news ‘satire’ news outlets, and so called ‘fact checkers’ media patrols. The fake news is generated and posed to the web as satire, subsequently stripped of its context by a third party, and then inserted into social media as true – whereupon it is virally circulated. Subsequently, ‘fact checking’ agencies are then alerted to this set up (the Lob), and then slam home the idea of the fake nature of the ‘news’, as well as the lack of credibility and gullible nature of those who passed it around through social media. This in itself is a fake ploy, a form a Fake-Hoaxing and Hoax Baiting practiced by social agenda forces seeking to artificially enhance the credibility of a news ‘fact checker’.

Praedicate Evidentia – any of several forms of exaggeration or avoidance in qualifying a lack of evidence, logical calculus or soundness inside an argument.

Praedicate Evidentia – hyperbole in extrapolating or overestimating the gravitas of evidence supporting a specific claim, when only one examination of merit has been conducted, insufficient hypothesis reduction has been performed on the topic, a plurality of data exists but few questions have been asked, few dissenting or negative studies have been published, or few or no such studies have indeed been conducted at all.

Praedicate Evidentia Modus Ponens – any form of argument which claims a proposition consequent ‘Q’, which also features a lack of qualifying modus ponens, ‘If P then’ premise in its expression – rather, implying ‘If P then’ as its qualifying antecedent. This as a means of surreptitiously avoiding a lack of soundness or lack of logical calculus inside that argument; and moreover, enforcing only its conclusion ‘Q’ instead. A ‘There is not evidence for…’ claim made inside a condition of little study or full absence of any study whatsoever.

Inadequacy

The entire core of fallacy, crooked thinking and misrepresentation of Data, Method, Science, Argument and Assumption which is reflected inside the Tree of Knowledge Obfuscation as it pertains to a subject. This is paired as it pertains to persons with misrepresentation of Opponents, Semantics, Groups, Self and Authorities.

Any condition where a conclusion is chosen to be drawn from, or the science is regarded as settled under, a less than satisfactory representation, possession or understanding of the available evidence or under a condition where the available evidence does not satisfactorily provide for a basis of understanding, null hypothesis, Ockham’s Razor plurality, or alternative formulation (as in arguing M Theory).

Mechanism (of Social Lying)

Einfach Mechanism – an explanation, theory or idea which resolves a contention under the scientific method solely by means of the strength of the idea itself. An idea which is not vetted by the rigor of falsification, predictive consilience nor mathematical derivation, rather is simply considered such a strong or Occam’s Razor (sic) simple an idea that the issue is closed as finished science from its proposition and acceptance onward. An einfach mechanism may or may not be existentially true.

Imposterlösung Mechanism – the cheater’s answer. Employing the trick of pretending that an argument domain which does not bear coherency nor soundness – somehow (in violation of science and logic) falsely merits assignment of a ‘null hypothesis’. Moreover, then that null hypothesis must be assumed sans any real form or context of evidence, or Bayesian science cannot be accomplished. Finally then, that a null hypothesis is therefore regarded by the scientific community as ‘true’ until proved otherwise. A 1, 2, 3 trick of developing supposed scientifically accepted theory which in reality bears no real epistemological, logical, predicate structure nor scientific method basis whatsoever.

Höchste Mechanism – when a position or practice, purported to be of scientific basis, is elevated to such importance that removing the rights of professionals and citizens to dissent, speak, organize or disagree (among other rights) is justified in order to protect the position or the practice inside society.

Entscheiden Mechanism – the pseudoscientific or tyrannical approach of, when faced with epistemology which is heading in an undesired direction, artificially declaring under a condition of praedicate evidentia, the science as ‘settled’.

Skulptur Mechanism – the pseudoscientific method of treating evidence as a work of sculpture. Methodical inverse negation techniques employed to dismiss data, block research, obfuscate science and constrain ideas such that what remains is the conclusion one sought in the first place. A common tactic of those who boast of all their thoughts being ‘evidence based’. The tendency to view a logical razor as a device which is employed to ‘slice off’ unwanted data (evidence sculpting tool), rather than as a cutting tool (pharmacist’s cutting and partitioning razor) which divides philosophically valid and relevant constructs from their converse.

Verdrängung Mechanism – the level of control and idea displacement achieved through skillful employment of the duality between pluralistic ignorance and the Lindy Effect. The longer a control-minded group can sustain an Omega Hypothesis perception by means of the tactics and power protocols of proactive pluralistic ignorance, the greater future acceptability and lifespan that idea will possess. As well, the harder it will to be dethrone as an accepted norm or perception as a ‘proved’ null hypothesis.

This wiggle room between what is considered to be ‘correct’ and what is indeed true-informing, resides at the heart of the 50 Shades of Correct. As you make your journey past the confused, deluded and lying members of our society, this mental framework is useful in vetting those who are interested in pushing agendas, from those who are keenly and openly interested in the truth.