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Nurturing the New Mind: The Disruptive Nature of Ethics

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Everyone lies. Even so, it is the legitimate role of the New Mind to not simply detect lies, but moreover to dethrone those entities which pretend to the role of God. The Ethical Skeptic does not know what a god even is; nor does he possess all knowledge and wisdom. However, he can easily spot a monkey with a gas can. Even and especially if that gas can serves to intimidate via means of institution, socialized rationality or specious claims to science, evidence or truth. Inside this awareness, several telltale character traits, life signatures, differentiate the poser elitist from someone who can be trusted. This is his threshing floor – upon which he exercises the disruptive nature of ethics.

monkey with a gas canTo a degree, ethical skepticism can be viewed as a method of exercising a New Mind. It involves a keen survey of the landscape of animal, primate and human behavior, along with an understanding of how these roles, tactics and strategies of both survival and inhabitance, have played into our success as a species. It also involves (as does true skepticism) a keen understanding of the pitfalls of each strategy and how such pitfalls might manifest in our lives inside the societies in which we dwell. Everything of merit possesses a relevant range of application, outside of the bounds of which, even the best strategy can devolve into a practice oriented towards power; producing deception and suffering. Remember, that to a sentient intelligence species, deception-based ignorance and suffering are the same thing – one is simply the expression of the other. Lacking of knowledge is not a sin. The withholding of knowledge and denial of the right to thrive is a sin. This is a key tenet of ethical skepticism. It is not so much bunk we are fighting, as bunk will eventually falsify itself in a free information environment, rather cultivated ignorance. The ethical skeptic gets this, the small mind, no matter how rational, does not.

The Knowledge of God and Not-God

Let’s take a step back and examine the myth outlaid in the Torah, a myth which has for right or wrong, ruled much of our foundational understanding of good and evil as a western superculture. A condensed version of manuscripts taken from an older Levantine religion (I suspect from which the Sumerian, Akkadian, Hittite lineage spawned) now included in what we call The Bible. In the renamed condensed later manuscript now called Genesis, we see in verses 3: 22 – 24 (NASB):

Then the LORD God said, “Behold, the man has become like one of Us, knowing good and evil; and now, he might stretch out his hand, and take also from the Tree of Life, and eat, and live forever”— therefore the LORD God sent him out from the garden of Eden, to cultivate the ground from which he was taken. So He drove the man out; and at the east of the garden of Eden He stationed the cherubim and the flaming sword which turned every direction to guard the way to the Tree of Life.

Now I have found manifest in my years working with nations and corporations all over the globe, that man possesses a serious dearth in ability to distinguish good from evil, nor even cozen a coherent definition of each thereof. What man understands is ‘proper’ and ‘improper’. These are simply popular constructs relating to socialized rationality. Hence the persistence of malicious religions, governments and corporations – entities which thrive on ‘rationality’ but do not serve its goals necessarily; rather ultimately their own. Were we to recognize them in the context of true good and evil, possibly we could work to mitigate their deleterious effects. But we cannot even recognize such effects, even if we did possess a knowledge of good and evil at the outset. No, we are their prey – seriously falling under the contention that we must have eaten from the Tree of Lack of Knowledge of Good and Evil, were there such a mythical flora indeed. The bottom line is that the Bible is wrong, we do not know what good and evil is. We know harm, proper and improper. That is all. Perhaps our fall after all, simply resides in our presuming of skill at good and evil discernment in the first place.

Just think to yourself, what if your family dog one day licked an electrical socket and suddenly obtained the mental clarity to ascertain your true nature and celestial position as a human being? What if in a bought of tragic rift, your beloved pet, the furry creature who used to greet you at the door with such abandon, excitement and love each day after work, became knowledgeable about just who and what you were? What if he understood that you did not really kill and prepare the food you so faithfully gave him? What if he understood that you routinely lie to your parents in order to placate them? What if he understood that you had to betray a friend and take full credit for a paper that was partly her idea, in order to make the next step in your career? What if he understood that you destroyed a friend and former lover, in order to chance a relationship with someone more attractive – and it all collapsed in a heap of angst and broken hearts? What if he knew that you habitually tolerated or promulgated lies between 10-200 times every single day – along with the rest of humanity?¹ And even lived in a state of denial of even doing so, lying even to yourself? But never mind this, what if your faithful dog – suddenly possessed even the slightest understanding of who and what you are? He would hold then the wisdom of the Knowledge of God and Not-God. He might even bite you and leave.

He would be wise to you, and no longer serve in the faithful role in which you both previously existed. Bad dog…

Everyone lies. Even so, it is the legitimate role of the New Mind to not simply detect lies, but moreover to dethrone those entities which pretend to the role of God. The Ethical Skeptic does not know what a god even is; nor does he possess all knowledge and wisdom. However, he can easily spot a monkey with a gas can. Even and especially if that gas can serves to intimidate via means of institution, socialized rationality or specious claims to science, evidence or truth. Inside this awareness, several telltale character traits, life signatures differentiate the poser from someone who can be trusted. This is his threshing floor.

The ethical skeptic knows that it is often those who adhere to the most strict appearances of honesty – who can produce the most corrupt manifestations of ignorance and suffering. They can be known by hints derived from their motivations.

Standing Up to The Monkey with the Gas Can

Ethics are therefore disruptive by this very principle alone; and in an evolutionary context actually, eruptive. And in as much as this comforting metaphor of the family dog can serve to exhibit the crucial relationship between knowledge and control, even so we as thinking and discriminating beings can fortunately now examine the playing field inside which we reside. Our task is to become more than simply the smart but formerly obedient dog.  In so far as Pamela Meyer has outlined in her work “Liespotting,” the ability to spot lies in other people;¹ even moreso, the task at hand for us the ethical skeptics, is understanding the conditions when someone is pretending to the role of God in our lives. And trust me, it is not just mainstream religion which is pretending to this role. Primates seek power, pleasure and entitlement by any means they can – and uber-correctness, fake humility and social rationality can serve as great cover for such foibles.

First however, let’s examine the transitional role which primates have played in the evolution of consciousness and conscience. The stacked hierarchy of tactic and strategy inside the reality of the need to survive or thrive within this physical realm in which we find ourselves. A New Mind may perceive itself as an unwilling participant inside the grand play in which it holds a role. And whether self-deception, illusion or none of the above, it is of no matter. The reality is that we survey this landscape nonetheless.

Perhaps two examples from the natural world, the first from the Jane Goodall Institute and the second from the work of animal psychologist Penny Patterson of The Gorilla Foundation, can suffice to elicit this graphic below. (As a note, I would ignore the abysmally incompetent, paltry and biased writeups in Wikipedia on both these matters as the authors of those entries were merely doing amateurish hackjobs, and not true research expose on each topic – so the entries are useless as information other than nominal facts and fake skeptic viewpoints on the matter):

[One Chimpanzee named Mike (1938 to 1975) began a strategy of dominance through employment of a gas can.] One day as Mike was batting a gasoline can around, the loud thuds and irritating banging noises it produced resulted in a few of his fellow chimpanzees running quickly away from the strange object and the noise it produced. Mike understood this to mean that he had found a means to intimidate his fellow chimpanzees. Mike began to practice his new brand of display with two cans bouncing off trees and earth as he went running madly down the path with hair standing erect, shoulders pushed back, and face molded into a fiercely determined look. Chimpanzees cringed in fear as they heard his noisy approach and saw him running at them. They scattered off the path and out of his way.

Large high-ranking males fled up the tree trunks when Mike began his descent down the forest path slapping, kicking, and smacking three cans in front of him! The other chimpanzees had never seen or heard anything like it. It was as if the worst thunderstorm had erupted and Mike was directing it toward them. They shrieked and tried desperately to get away from him and the terrible rattling and banging noise the cans made as they flew down the hill in their direction. Not wanting to fight with the unknown, the males of Mike’s community acquiesced. Mike became the first alpha male ever to employ his brain rather than his brawn to govern his community. One year after Mike began his unusual display, he attained the position of alpha male.²

Successively then, let us regard a tale of Koko the western lowland gorilla, the primate who has single-pawed overturned our understanding of the primate mind.

Like most people, Koko has good behaviors and bad behaviors. Like most people, she takes credit for the good behaviors and blames the bad ones on someone else. The cat [All Ball] came in handy on one particularly destructive day. When no one was around, Koko managed to rip a sink out of the wall in her habitat. When the humans returned, they asked Koko who ripped out the sink.

Koko signed, “The cat did it.”³

What this indicates is then, the death of the idea of glorified but fallen-sinful humanity, and the introduction of the idea that our vulnerabilities, our proclivities for both illicit and legitimate gain – are simply expressions of natural strategies to survive and thrive. They are natural, albeit higher DNA based manifestations of expression. We were simply blinded to this by entities pretending to the role of God in our past. Bluffing into a form of control, or what might reside inside the blue levels of the primate pyramid below. Below, I have constructed a graphic depicting the less-than-dramatic schism between humanity and the natural realm, along with the challenge resident in the mind of the ethical skeptic as to how we progress from this problem of philosophy (Social Skepticism), and onto the next step. What I call, The New Mind.

The Heirarchy of Natural Competitiveness

Traits of the New Mind

sci literacyThe decision as to whether control, coaching and conscience are sufficient to the task of fostering The New Mind, or whether or not to apply the draconian measures of culling and conversion, wholly resides inside another camp altogether. So for purposes of this blog, let’s assume that coaching and conscience are the tactics which provide for success in crafting of The New Mind. In that context, for the ethical skeptic, the matter is not simply one of determining liars and lies. Everyone lies. This is the reality of the natural realm inside which we reside. Pretending to be able to counter all the proclivities of the natural realm is a matter of magic, self aggrandizement and boast. Our task is NOT to detect every single lie which is uttered, and swell our egos in a virtual cocoon of correctness. Such a state stands itself, manifest as a sort of lie of its own crafting.  The key for the ethical skeptic is to detect when lies become institutionalized, when they begin to manifest suffering on a small or even grander scale.

The question on the mind of the ethical skeptic is “How do we get to the New Mind?” And more importantly, how do I take control of my intent and begin to serve a New Mind in myself? This is the essence of becoming an ethical skeptic. To become a skeptic of one’s self, and others – in so far as spotting the character traits of one who is – or is not – residing inside this New Mind:

Be tenacious, not stubborn
Be kind, rather than nice
Be firm, but not cruel
Be genuine, rather than frank
Be ethical, rather than virtuous
Tender epoché, rather than doubt
Examine self, before others
Be a learner, rather than a professional test taker
Be curious, rather than incredulous
Be level-minded, rather than humble
Be transparent, but not full disclosure
Nurture, but do not molly-coddle
Possess integrity, rather than conformance
Be merciful, rather than charitable
Dream, rather than fantasize
Lead, rather than draw attention
Observe, rather than assume
Risk, rather than suffer ‘what could have been’
Communicate, rather than speak or be silent
Run, rather than race
Laugh, rather than mock
Joy, whether comfort/love is near or absent
Serve, before being asked
Leave a legacy, without trying to do so

humble costumeThese are the hallmarks of the person who can be trusted, and not whether they have ever made a mistake – nor pondered ‘pseudoscience’. A person who has overcome themselves, and further then realizes that the goal of life is not simply to be happy, judgemental or controlling – and especially to not pull off primate tricks in order to amass such pleasure. Rather, possesses the quiet focus to be steadfast, faithful, compassionate, hungry and firm in the face of elite thirst for power. In a world of primate tricks, corruption, collusion and control – such traits are innately disruptive.

Epoché Vanguards Gnosis.

epoché vanguards gnosis

¹  Meyer, Pamela; “Liespotting: Proven Techniques to Detect Deception”; July 2010; Pamela Meyer.

²  ChimpaZoo; The Goodall Institute, Chapter 21: “Mike the Alpha Male”; http://www.chimpanzoo.org/african_notecards/chapter_21.html.

³  “A Conversation with Koko”; Nature (1999) The Gorilla Institute; http://www.koko.org/dvds – as reported through Natural News; Mike Budrant; Jan 19, 2013; http://www.naturalnews.com/038743_primates_liars_gorilla.html.

The Inverse Problem and False Claims to ‘Settled Science’

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Science achieves its strongest theoretical basis when both the forward problem and the inverse problem agree, as to the outcomes attributed to a set of input variables inside a proposed solution. To simply craft models, parameters, constraints, arrival distributions, relationships – all of which impart risk to the model – and then presume that our current understanding of such will then guarantee a valid field result or outcome – is unfinished science at best, and pseudoscience or oligarch arrogance at worst.

Claims to consensus are invalid and claims to fished science are inaccurate, in a circumstance where the forward problem and the inverse problem of science – do not meet in agreement first. This is the circumstance we observe inside many of today’s most popular and vociferously contested scientific controversies. The public or outcome stakeholder observes one thing, and those observations stand in direct conflict with the forward model theoretical problem being pushed by conflict of interest, ‘skeptical’ agenda or profit-targeting studies.  One cannot under a claim to science, simply brush the public/victim/stakeholder’s observation off as a MiHoDeAL claims set. This constitutes a Truzzi Fallacy. It is an abrogation of scientific method committed by ignoring the testing exposure and informative advantage entailed through the inverse problem.

Verisimilitude and RiskThis principle is codified in much of Karl Popper’s work concerning verisimiltude and the assimilation of knowledge. Popper proposed the idea that most of science cannot rest upon a stack of empirical (historicist) ‘prophecies’ alone. He contended that most of our knowledge is attained through ‘highly informative theories which have a lesser chance of being true.’¹ Most of science is not like the science involved in predicting planetary motions for instance. Such forward problem prophetic constructs as eclipses and planetary motions are a rare condition in science. Instead, he conjectured that, the more information a theory places under testable exposure, the more informative it becomes. For our purposes here, a theory only survives a Popper Verisimilude condition when it can be independently derived or confirmed from the field observations from/to which it relates. Field observation generates alternative ideas and increases the number of features of information which an explanatory theory must bear under falsification testing. In other words, field observations, feature testing, sensitivity analyses and confirmations – make a theory less probable – and therefore more highly informative.

Science, or to be precise, the working scientist, is interested, in Popper’s view, in theories with a high informative content, because such theories possess a high predictive power and are consequently highly testable. But if this is true, Popper argues, then, paradoxical as it may sound, the more improbable a theory is the better it is scientifically, because the probability and informative content of a theory vary inversely—the higher the informative content of a theory the lower will be its probability, for the more information a statement contains, the greater will be the number of ways in which it may turn out to be false.¹

In other words, we reduce the risk of our forward model being errantly assumed as correct – by increasing the number of its features which are subject to falsification. We avoid the increasing orange curve in the graphic above. All models are going to bear these assumptions and features, whether we acknowledge them or not. So it is best to acknowledge and test them. The inverse problem allows for such features to be acknowledged by necessity, and then brought into the crucible of science (falsification).

From the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, the outline therein by Steven Thornton continues.

Astronomy skeptics fail to grasp scienceThis, then, Popper argues, is the reason why it is a fundamental mistake for the historicist to take the unconditional scientific prophecies of eclipses as being typical and characteristic of the predictions of natural science—in fact such predictions are possible only because our solar system is a stationary and repetitive system which is isolated from other such systems by immense expanses of empty space. The solar system aside, there are very few such systems around for scientific investigation—most of the others are confined to the field of biology, where unconditional prophecies about the life-cycles of organisms are made possible by the existence of precisely the same factors. Thus one of the fallacies committed by the historicist is to take the (relatively rare) instances of unconditional prophecies in the natural science as constituting the essence of what scientific prediction is, to fail to see that such prophecies apply only to systems which are isolated, stationary, and repetitive, and to seek to apply the method of scientific prophecy to human society and human history.¹

In applying this, the ethical skeptic therefore views the role of the inverse problem as introducing stark informative advantage to the scientific process, along the following lines of Popperian logic.

  1. Model OutcomesAll predictive theories/models contain the following features (parameters):
    • Control Variables
    • Arrival Distributions
    • Parameters
    • Constraints
    • Assumptions
    • Relationships
    • Interleaving Effects
    • Neural or Feedback Mechanisms.
  2. Predictive explanatory models (forward problem) which do not require exhaustive testing of these features, are rare.
  3. When a forward problem model alone is assembled, it contains these feature elements, along with their imparted risk, whether or not we acknowledge either.
  4. To improve a match to predicted outcome in the forward model, these model features must be assumed by any study addressing the topic, whether acknowledged or not.
  5. An inverse problem process involves the assembly of field observations which serve to do the following:
    • Acknowledge the presence of and role imparted by each model feature
    • Bring each feature into coherent measurable sensitivity relationships with the real world which increase their Popper exposure and informative context
    • Reduce the risk imparted by each element by testing their impact by means of two reductive methods (forward and inverse)
    • Reduce the overall field of uncertainty inside the subject (intelligence)
    • Highlight conditions/domains where a forward problem model may be, with or without our awareness, inaccurate, divergent in solution, inconclusive or incoherent
    • Dispel false notions of simplicity which promote ignorance around a subject
    • Introduce the avenue through which
      • falsification of model or features can be attained,
      • competing theories can be developed and
      • an increase in the epistemological basis of our overall understanding can be attained.

This is the process of science. The last three bullet points in particular constituting the basis for what Popper called ‘truthlikeness’ or ‘verisimilitude.’¹

Therefore, we see that in most of science, if field observations can be readily made, and the organization making a claim to evidence has not undertaken such observations to confirm or follow-up on their conjectured theory – then they have been guilty of Forward Problem Blindness, or unfinished science. Under such a condition, one cannot make a claim to settled science or consensus.

Inverse Problem

/philosophy : science : epistemology : observation : prediction theory/ : to predict the result of a measurement requires (1) a model of the system under investigation, and (2) a physical theory linking the parameters of the model to the parameters being measured. This prediction of observations, given the values of the parameters defining the model constitutes the “normal problem,” or, in the jargon of inverse problem theory, the forward problem. The “inverse problem” consists in using the results of actual observations to infer the values of the parameters characterizing the system under investigation.² ~Wolfram Media

It is not enough to theorize and predict, a scientist must also (if feasible) neutrally observe, confirm, follow-up and craft imputed theory from outcome intelligence as well.

The Inverse Problem and Skepticism 1

Solution (Theory)

/philosophy : science : epistemology : explanatory model or construct/ : a theoretical relationship or algorithm which is conjectured to comprise input variables, arrival distributions, controls and measures, parameters, constraints, assumptions, dependencies and interleaved feedback networks – all resulting in a given set of observable outcome measures. A completed solution is the condition where both the forward problem and the inverse problem agree in support of the proposed theoretical relationship.

A theory derives verity in both successfully predicting outcomes as well as being independently predictable from its observed impacts.

The Inverse Problem and Skepticism 2

Therefore, as we step from the realm of model development and into the domain of scientific study (which is simply an empirical form of model development) we carry with us the following observed risk:

Forward Problem Blindness (Unfinished Science)

/philosophy : science : epistemology : observation : prediction theory : pseudoscience/ : the “inverse problem” consists in using the results of actual observations to infer the values of the input parameters characterizing a system under investigation. Science which presupposes a forward problem solution, or employs big data/large S population measures only inside, a model and the physical theory linking input parameters forward to that model’s predicted outcome – without conducting direct outcome observation confirmation or field measure follow-up to such proposed values and linkages – stands as unfinished science, and cannot ethically justify a claim to consensus or finished science.

The four types of Forward Problem Blindness Errors:

Type I – Cohort/Subset Ignorance – wherein special populations or peripheral groups consisting of different inherent profiles are not studied because the survey undertaken was inclusive but too large, or the peripheral groups themselves, while readily observable, were ignored or screened out altogether.

Type II – Parameter Ignorance – wherein a model or study disregards an important parameter – which is tendered an assumption basis which is not acknowledged by the study developer nor peer review, and is then lost as to its potential contribution to increased understanding, or even potential model or study error.

Type III – Lack of Field Confirmation or Follow-Up – wherein a theoretical forward problem model is established and presumed accurate, yet despite the ready availability of a field confirming basis of observation – no effort was ever placed into such observation, confirmation of measures and relationships, or observations were not undertaken to determine long term/unanticipated outcomes.

Type IV – Field of Significant Unknown – wherein established ideas of science are applied to develop a theoretical forward problem model – and because of the familiarity on the part of science with some of the elements of the solution proposed – the solution is imputed tacit verity despite being applied inside a new field for the first time, or inside a field which bears a significant unknown.

Each of these Forward Problem Blindness error types will results in some kind of disposition other than accuracy – unless one is really lucky. And no, the process of peer review will not necessarily catch this. A model presumed accurate can still be inaccurate, divergent in solution, inconclusive or incoherent as the case may be, undetected – that is unless one undertakes the necessary follow-up and field sensitivity measures incumbent in the inverse problem.

 Common Examples of Application

Earthquake Predictive Model Confirmation

Vaccine Impact Follow-up by Genetic Subgroup and Malady

Field Validation of Public Consistently Contested Observations

Impacts of Pesticides Employed in Food on Human Health

Economic Control Measures and Their Impacts

In each of these examples, were a scientist to make a claim based upon a forward problem prediction alone, which is then just assumed to be correct without field follow-up, this would constitute an instance of unfinished science. Sadly, much of our conflict of interest and profit-driven science today, exists in this state of incompleteness.

Forward Problem Blindness in such cases constitutes a willful error of pseudoscience.

epoché vanguards gnosis

¹  Thornton, Stephen, “Karl Popper”, The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Winter 2015 Edition), Edward N. Zalta (ed.), URL = <http://plato.stanford.edu/archives/win2015/entries/popper/&gt;.

²  Tarantola, Albert. “Inverse Problem.” From MathWorld–A Wolfram Web Resource, created by Eric W. Weisstein. http://mathworld.wolfram.com/InverseProblem.html.