Scientology Logic 15

Logic 15 - The introduction of an arbitrary into a problem or solution invites the further introduction of arbitraries into problems and solutions.

An arbitrary is defined as "something which is introduced into a situation without regard to the data of the situation".

Unfortunately many laws are arbitraries. They are a solution which has little or nothing to do with the problem they are supposed to solve, so they cause more problems which then have to be solved with more laws.

Income tax is a prime example. Forced through to "tax the rich" it has never done this because the rich can pay for the tax attorneys to work out ways around the tax laws and can pay the lobbyists to get loop holes created.

The income tax actually penalizes the average man or woman and has little or no impact on the rich. Because it is an arbitrary it has meant that more and more laws have had to be passed to try and solve the "problem" of "tax the rich". It now takes CPAs and attorneys who are specialists in the field to figure it all out. We have specialists in personal income taxes, specialists in corporate taxes, specialists in partnership taxes, etc., etc.

And this is all because the law was an arbitrary in the first place and caused more arbitraries to be introduced to solve the problems it caused. A national sales tax would be a much simpler solution to the true problem which is "How to fund the government".

Happy Thanksgiving

I guess a billion bloggers today have probably sent out that message to a billion surfers, but hey, it is Thanksgiving and it's a time for celebrating what we have and being thankful to whatever we consider is the source of the many good things in our lives.

I had a great day and am stuffed full of turkey and pumpkin pie. I hope y'all had a great day too and are just as stuffed :)

Scientology Logic 14

Logic 14 - Factors introduced into a problem or solution which do not derive from natural law but only from authoritarian command aberrate that problem or solution.

Note: aberrate means to depart from rationality. See "aberration" for a full definition.

I guess the best known example of this was the Prohibition Law in 1920's America. Drinking alcohol was a normal part of life for many people and suddenly it was made illegal as a solution to the perception by a minority of the population that drinking alcohol caused crime and affected the efficiency of workers. In other words the banning of alcohol was not derived from the customs of the people (natural law of sorts) so it had to be enforced by authoritarian command which then aberrate things further: Organized crime expanded, people died from drinking contaminated liquor, law enforcement became very unpopular, the rule of law fell into disrepute because prominent citizens and politicians violated the Prohibition Law, etc., etc.

Enforcing a solution that violates natural law is going to get you, and anyone else involved, into big trouble.

Scientology Logic 13

Logic 13 - Problems are resolved by compartmenting them into areas of similar magnitude and data, comparing them to data already known or partially known, and resolving each area. Data which cannot be known immediately may be resolved by addressing what is known and using its solution to resolve the remainder.

Example

There is a business that is not doing well. We want to help the owner improve things so he can be successful and bring prosperity to the town and his employees. So where do we start? Let's chop up the business into related areas and then analyze each area to find out what's going on.

How should we compartment it? Well, put related areas together (areas of similar magnitude and data). So for example, we would not put the sales force with the janitor, but we would probably put staff training with quality control because how well trained the staff are has a major impact on the quality of what is produced by the company.

The area that looks the worst is credit collections - they are very low. We look into the area and find that customers are refusing to pay because they claim that what they are receiving is defective. We contact some customers to make sure this is true and not just an excuse by collections. We find it is true and that the customers have sent in complaints. So the credit collection area is now resolved as far as our investigation is concerned - we have resolved it by comparing the data in the area (collections are low) to data known (customers are complaining).

Now we go to quality control to find out why they have not responded to the complaints and find that the complaints file is empty. How come? The head of QC claims he has never received any complaints. Whether this is true or not cannot be immediately known because there is an absence of proof (no complaint letters). But, based on past experience, we know that the head of QC is a truthful guy so, for the moment, we regard QC as resolved and now go to the communications department to see what happened to the letters.

We find that the communications department is a complete mess with correspondence and internal memos piled up all over the place. Suddenly a lot of other situations we have observed in the company make sense because they can be explained by a lack of internal and external communication (Logic 10 - The value of a datum is established by the amount of alignment (relationship) it imparts to other data).

So we give our attention to fixing up the communications department and the company starts doing better.

Now that may seem simple and logical, but what happens in a normal company?

• The credit collections are down - fire the credit collection clerks and hire some better people.
  
• Customers are refusing to pay - sue 'em.
  
• We hear that there are lots of complaints from customers - fire the head of manufacturing.
  
• The company is doing poorly - take out a loan to get us through the lean period.
  

Not using Logic 13 would have failed to get to the core of the problem and things would have just gotten worse.

Evaluation of Data - Scientology Logics 7 through 12

Logics 7 through 12 are all about evaluating data so let's see them in action.

Mom observes that the apple pie is missing from the stove top and that the empty pie dish is lying by the dog's bowl.

She puts forth the hypothesis that the dog ate the apple pie. She attempts to apply Logic 10 to this: "The value of a datum is established by the amount of alignment (relationship) it imparts to other data." It doesn't fit too well because another datum is: between the edge of the stove top and the pie was another pan which was not displaced. The dog hypothesis doesn't align with that because the dog would have knocked the other pan out of the way.

She now applies Logic 8 "A datum can be evaluated only by a datum of comparable magnitude." A datum of comparable magnitude would be who has the capability to lift the pie dish from the stove and put it by the dog's bowl. Possibilities: husband or son.

Now she applies the 2nd corollary of Logic 7 "Truth is relative to environments, experience and truth." From her experience if husband had wanted to eat some of the pie he would have simply eaten it.

This leaves her with the hypothesis that son ate the pie and tried to frame the dog. She goes to son's room and finds crumbs under the bed. To gather more data she finds son and asks him if he'd like a sandwich because from her experience (2nd corollary of Logic 7) she knows that he is usually hungry at this time of day. He says no thanks, he's not hungry. She applies Logic 10 again and sees that the datum of the crumbs and the not being hungry align with the "son did it" hypothesis.

She asks him if he ate the pie. He denies it. She notes that he can't meet her eye-to-eye and, again, from experience knows that this is usually a sign of son not telling the truth.

Now she has to decide what to do. She uses Logic 11: "The value of a datum or field of data can be established by its degree of assistance in survival or its inhibition to survival" and Logic 7 "Gradient scales are necessary to the evaluation of problems and their data." She evaluates that this is extremely serious and that son should be grounded for the rest of his life. Then she recalls Logic 12: "The value of a datum or a field of data is modified by the viewpoint of the observer" and realizes that her viewpoint is affecting her decision. She then re-evaluates and decides that the pie eating was bad, but not terrible, the lying was worse and the framing of poor Rover was the worst. On a scale of offences from 1 (minor) to 10 (severe) she decides that son's actions end up at about 7 and that his future survival (Logic 11) is endangered by him having the viewpoint that it's okay to do such things.

She assigns him menial house cleaning and trash disposal duties for a week and requires that he study "The Way to Happiness" so that he understands for himself why lying is not a good idea and what the consequences of unethical behavior are, not only to other but to him personally.

So there you have a very down-to-earth (and hopefully humorous) example of how to evaluate data and come up with logical solutions using Logics 7 through 12.