The Plague of Misidentification

Biases, Fallacies, & Heuristics Part 5

I apologize for any duplicates that may be received. For a currently unknown reason, today’s email did not go out as scheduled. And now to the post! B.S.R.

Heuristics

A heuristic is a process of problem-solving used to save time, generate substitutes, or reduce effort. Heuristics are often built throughout one's lifetime. They can be thought of as best-fit, rule-of-thumb, rapid solutions to problems that arise. The heavy load of deliberating logically through every aspect of life is one reason why heuristics are present. There is too much for the average human to deal with on a daily basis to take the time to weigh all aspects of the grand problem set.

As a result of this overwhelming amount of information, the individual organically searches for best-fit solutions. This search is not without its merit, logic, or methodological weight. However, heuristics are only as good as their ultimate logical substructure. As a result of their being based upon certain flow of life aspects along with the individual's history as well as advice from whatever sources, we can see that this is a method doomed to have a violent uprooting from time to time. It is in this way that heuristics are only as good as their ultimate logical foundations, and those foundations will only be as good as their agreement with reality. 

A Serious Problem

There is a serious problem present within all of this that I will point out in brief. If humanity does not have a solid grasp on reality, and if our grasp upon logic is itself imperfect across any, some, or all forms of logic, either in the pure understanding of the logic or in the perfect application of the logic to reality, or via both to varying degrees constantly changing across space-time; then it begs the observation that there is a way in which humanity is operating upon heuristics to a staggering degree. Due to the above being the case and to what degree it is the case, we will leave for a later time, but suffice it to say, we humans have some significant hurdles to overcome. 

Classification

For now, we can see the immediate need to classify heuristics into at least two categories. I propose the term deep structure heuristic for the types that I alluded to in the above paragraph and surface structure heuristics, which are what are more commonly thought of as heuristics. 

E.g., a surface structure heuristic would be one that attends to some aspect of daily life, like when you are in line to order lunch, and the line is moving quickly. You don't really have time to deliberate about what you would like to eat today, so you use the heuristical process and order what you know you have enjoyed before (inference based upon past experience) at this restaurant.

A deep structure heuristic is another animal altogether. It attends such areas of thought as the crossover between Newtonian Physics and Quantum Mechanics. E.g., if you want to send a probe out several thousand light-years from Earth and you would like that probe not to be unfathomably off course and to arrive at its destination, then the use of Newtonian calculations will not suffice. For such an operation, one would need to calculate well past the fourteenth decimal place to have any hope of being on course at even one light-year worth of travel. The problem is that humanity at that specific time in our history was unaware of the need for that level of calculational accuracy, though, to be fair, we were not dealing with light-years. That fact caused some difficulty on more than one occasion. However, it was ultimately resolved by observing the problem set closely and applying the core mathematical structures that underpin Quantum Mechanics to gain the needed level of accuracy of trajectory. 

Isn't this just not knowing what we needed? Yes, it is for sure not knowing what we needed, but it also was not knowing that we didn't know we needed that level of accuracy. Am I trying to be clever here? No, not at all. In other words, we expected certain probes within our solar system to be perfectly on course. Why we expected that to be the case was, in part, because the Newtonian worldview had not had its limits pushed in this way up to that point in time. So, we both didn't know it would be a problem and didn't know we were unaware of the fact that such a problem was imminent. While this can look like one problem, it is, in fact, two separate problems: 

1. (A) We did not know that the probe would be off course. (Though I was not there, I am sure it was a concern and was observed for continually. This would classify as a known unknown in that we were aware of the possibility of being off course, but we didn't necessarily know why.)

   (B) We did not know why the probe would be off course. This is the known unknown from above.

2. We did not know that the probe being off course was imminent or a foregone conclusion. This entails the heuristic and the unknown unknown. In other words, we were unaware of the fact that they were, without a doubt, going to be off course, and we were unaware as to why they would be off course. 

I will stop here and address the series as-is for the sake of brevity. 

The heuristic here is as follows: in the thought space of the unknown unknown, we were necessitatively (necessitated of the structure) operating based upon past data, thus projected forward with the expectation that it would work out as it has in similar, not same, situations throughout history. It is precisely in these ways that the above is a deep structure heuristic: it possesses an obvious heuristical form, and it has a novel level at which the depth of both the problem set and its solutions matrix live. Put simply, in like manner to when we bought that familiar meal so as not to hold up the line, based upon past outcomes, we also aptly launched a probe across the vast, possibly unventured expanse of outer space, expecting our historical methods to suffice, therefore, yielding the same future outcomes. We can see that the nature of a heuristic contains within it some sense of "It has worked in the past, so it should work now or in the future." 

Known Knowns

Known knowns are things we are aware of and are firmly within our understanding. 

Known Unknowns

Known unknowns are things we are aware of but do not understand. 

Unknown Knowns

Unknown knowns are things we understand but have no awareness of. 

Unknown Unknowns

Unknown unknowns are things we are neither aware of nor understand. 

I will discuss the critical distinctions concerning the Known Unknowns Matrix in future installments. For now, take some time to contemplate their definitions or descriptions as is the case (critical distinctions). Remember, our current goal is to gain an expansive base of thinking tools that will aid us in reaching our ultimate goal: discerning the real from the misidentified, imagined, or unreal. 

The Real

Reality, as used within this series, can be defined thus: all that is, as it is, having nothing present that is hypostatized, misunderstood, errant, fallacious, or otherwise misidentified. If humanity could reach this state of knowledge, what we would be able to do would be astonishing, to say the least. What needs to be taken from this definition is that the knowledge base would be complete in identifying the observed, observer, and all other states and vectors of approach. This completeness regards the ability to identify correctly the total state of "what is," thus precluding misidentification in all of its forms and, therefore, misunderstanding. Well, wouldn't that be nice? 

With our current state of being, i.e., the state of things as they are within this space-time snapshot of reality, such an understanding of reality exists across a vast chasm of known knowns, known unknowns, unknown knowns, and unknown unknowns. We have to deal with our bodies and their perceptive capacities, life span issues, and knowledge acquisition states regarding growth and time-bound processes; support of the life of the individuals undertaking the studies, i.e., financial and corporeal requirements of all types that manifest as provisional requirements, dealing with such subjects as distance, being, and the connectivity of causal chains; and acquiring an accurate historical knowledge base as it concerns the causal matrix of reality and its statistical projective analysis to name a few. This is nothing compared to what has to be dealt with for our species to get a grasp on reality, much less to see it perfectly. 

So, if all of that is the case, and it certainly is the case, then why even try? My answer to this is, I pray, logical and straightforward, but I will leave that up to you to judge for yourself. Each life has purpose and meaning. If we try, we can gain further understanding, and that further understanding outcrops into the future to yield a greater coverage of reality and its depth of field. Every single step toward this goal is worth a great deal to the generations to come as well as those alive today; if we build the whole of understanding and steward it with love (big if), we will reach astonishing levels of understanding of this universe and what it has to offer. At the time of this writing, we sit on the shoulders of giants. We benefit from those who dedicated themselves to this very task, and it is a significant achievement and one for which I am profoundly thankful. We should try because we exist. We should try because others will exist. We should try because it helps each of us better navigate life. We should try because every truth we uncover can help us be better to all we encounter. 

The Unreal

The unreal, as used within this series, can be defined thus: all that is not existent within reality and all dimensions of reality in its entire case. We can't go much further without introducing a concept that I call thought space. Thought space is the place where things can have an existence that is not contained as termed within physical space. Meaning that thought space is a space that deals with abstractions, and that may or may not align with what is real, though the thought space is itself real and, to some extent, has both a thought space and physical space reality. 

E.g., one could use thought space to imagine a creature that has no physical existence in the real. That creature is not "real" as imagined (its created physical form and philosophical functions of all types generated within thought space). However, if one were clever enough, they could generate this thought space creature and incept it into the real. The creation of this being would inevitably bring outcropping issues once it was incepted into reality, and that would essentially entail the fact that it, in its real or tangible form, is not what it was in its thought space or imagined form. This presents some serious issues concerning creation, re-creation, inception, beingness, and their interactions, as well as correctly identified distinctions. We will come back to our thought space creature in later writings. Let your mind play with this material and see what types of thoughts you can generate. 

What is essential to understand, for now, is the fact that we deal within a construct that allows the real and the unreal to exist or not within their respective classifications or types of existence and non-existence. The creature in thought space is not a substantial physical creation (having physical substance). However, its thought space existence is held within a substantive physical existence that has given rise to a construct that allows for abstraction into multiple levels of what might be best termed, at least for now, as imaginative depth.

Reification Errors The Nightmare

Suppose we misidentify those states of existence and non-existence! If we were to make such an error, we would attribute something with no substance within reality to have substance, or we would attribute something real and substantive with its being unreal, imaginary, or having no substance. The error of attributing the misidentified and unreal as the real or giving an abstraction within one's thoughts attributes of the real is known as the error of hypostatization or reification. Suppose we hypostatize or reify a misperceived thing as existent and, therefore, as having a physical factual existence within reality. In that case, we are misidentifying the real and, therefore, are at odds with reality. That being the case, we will certainly generate a lot of trouble for ourselves. The result of such errors can range from minor to the loss of decades or centuries of hard-won intellectual progress. 

We will continue.

B.S.R.