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General Epistemology        Chapter I-5       

 

Chapter I-5 REASONING MISTAKES IN

QUADRIPOLAR LOGIC

 

(Permalink) (note 93 on the use of © content)

As we noted in the previous chapter, quadripolar logic rules a great set of very important social situations. So in such conditions it is a bit astonishing if it was not discovered sooner, which would have brought us still more benefits than modern science and technology.

The reason is obviously a series of fundamental confusions which forbid the diagram to work in our minds, or reduce it to oppositions which then appear «logical» and thus irreducible. (Let us not take the trouble to comment on the idiotic opposition to «esotericism»). We can legitimately call these confusions: reasoning mistakes, as with Aristotelian logic. Simply these mistake don't occur in a chain of reasoning, but sooner, when we put the problem in a logical form, when we put it in the quadripolar diagram. And the specific reasoning mistakes of quadripolar logic are very common, and they have dreadful and often catastrophic consequences in our daily life. From where a vital interest to study quadripolar logic, in order to detect the associated reasoning mistakes. And not to study it in faculty, or in saturday night late, but in primary school, for everybody.

 

We already noted in previous chapter I-4 two mistakes, horizontal opposition and vertical confusion:

Explanation of horizontal opposition and vertical confusion

An action inspirited by vertical confusion:
the revolution without discernment©.

(Permalink) It is a particular case of the amalgam, between a Sephirah and its shadow Qliphah. This mistake is made by persons who try to solve a problem while moving horizontally in the diagram instead of rising up. For that they will support as a whole one on the two sides of the diagram, seeing only its good aspects without being wary of its bad aspects, and indistinctly reject all the opposed side, good and bad aspects also confused. Such a mistake is difficult to understand, as it looks «logical». Just as an optical illusion which makes us see things which are not, it plays a trick to the dualistic structures of human reasoning, when this human mind is not quite simply obnubilated by desire or hate, which only allows it to see all things in terms of opposite clans, «friend» or «foe». It is hard to comprehend that these «friendship» and «hate», are pure illusions! However this mistake was made many times in History, with always catastrophic consequences:

-Indistinct rejection of Christian spirituality and Catholic dogmaticism by the French revolution.

-At time of the American Revolution (or more generally of the industrial revolution) confusion between its positive aspects (freedom and individual initiative into the society) and its negative aspects (antisocial self-centredness). This mistake still forms the basis of capitalism, and summarises all the perversity of this ideology, perversity that so many persons can hardly understand, but which is however at the origin of our economic, social and ecological crisis, when we possess all the technical and intellectual means to immediately and radically solve these crisis.

-Indistinct rejection of true spirituality and of cults (note 48).

-Reciprocal mistake of the previous: accepting all the cults in the name of freedom.

-Rejection of any morals by most Hippies, confused with oppression systems and social standardisation. This mistake is at the origin of the grotty-punk movement which started in the end of the 1970 years.

-Rejection of any science by some ecologists, New Age and alternative medicines, which they confuse with the scientistist ideology (note 92).

 

But, in any logical reasoning, the very first step is to put the problem in a workable form. This is especially true for quadripolar logic, and probably explains why it was not discovered sooner: fundamental mistakes in the very building of the diagram merely forbad most thinkers to discover it so far, even before doing mistakes in its functioning.

The coarsest mistake we can do, the most harmful to the understanding of the situations described by the diagram, is to confuse the good/evil axis with that of the Yin-Yang dialectics. Such a mistake, common in both east and west thinkers, simply forbid to only guess the very existence of the diagram, and hide it under a false duality, a situation which of course leads to gross misunderstanding of the situations described by the diagram. All the ideological wars in the world have this confusion as a cause.

But, the very relevance, precisely, of quadripolar logic, is to clearly separate what is about the Yin or Yang quality, morally neutral, from the related good/evil problem. In short, we do not judge the Yin or Yang character of the situation, but its more or less harmonized characteristic, cause for happiness and success, or, on the contrary, its dualistic opposition characteristic, which generates conflict and suffering.

This separation is made with placing the Yin-Yang dialectics on the horizontal axis, and the good/evil problem on the vertical axis. Of course any confusion at this level completely blocks the understanding of the problem. This is one of the main sources of social problems.

Mistake of confusion between axis© of the diagram

(Permalink) To easily understand what this means, I show the progressive distortion of the diagram, as a box which we crush:

How the mistake of confusion between axis appears, illustrated
			as a progressive crushing of the Quadripolar Diagram

Then, with the example of commonly confused values, such as male-order-force artificially opposed to woman-freedom-sensitivity, I show two shapes of crushed diagrams which are obtained, by the ¥ang classical fascism, and in the case of the new «libertarian» ¥in fascism.

How the classical fascism and the new «libertarian» fascism
			are equivalent, being just a Yin-Yang inversion of each other

We immediately note that we lose any possibility of interpretation, and that numerous dreadful misunderstandings become unavoidable:

 

-The horizontally reciprocal situations (of equal happiness or misfortune) appear opposite (a «good» and a «bad»)

-Aspects of life are unduly seen as bad, while others are deified without reason.

-Illusory revolutions appear radical and essential, and major antagonisms between horizontally reciprocal situations divide the society, also perfectly illusory because the two forces lead to the same result.

-A vertical confusion can pass unperceived; persons join together on the basis of a common speech without being aware that they carry out in fact different movements in the diagram. In the same time they will fight those who could help them.

-Utopianism and pragmatism seem leading to opposite results, any of both being seen like «good» and other as «bad». Generally pragmatism is confused with the reaction, and the utopia with disorder.

-The very concept of middle way is unthinkable, ruining any hope of progress. The illusion appears that progress would come from elimination of one of the tendencies and not of a psychological work of progression from the whole society. But this is impossible, as we cannot remove one of the sides of a Yin-Yang dialectics.

 

(Added October 7, 2017) At a pinch, the mistakes in the interpretation of the Diagram distort so much the perception of reality, that we can speak of hallucinations. Well they are not properly speaking psychiatric hallucinations, but the dualistic hallucinations and relativistic hallucinations (see further) led numerous times to divorces, murders, wars, all of them without any motive. Thus they are serious enough to justify coercion measures.

«Western» or «intellectual» way to crush the Diagram:
to occult the Yin-Yang axis under the good/bad axis.
This is the good/bad axis confusion©.

ERROR: the Yin-Yang axis is hidden under the Good/Bad axis

(Permalink) In an extreme case, in the mistake known under the name of dualism, the diagram is not only crushed, but it is furthermore reduced to only two points, similar to those of Aristotelian logic, but rigged with good/bad values instead of true/false. The result of Dualism is to artificially oppose ethical values, or human groups. Both are criminal.

 

Dualism also appears when we make this reduction (chapter II-7) in the case of fuzzy or gradated logics, and also when in a non-duality we oppose the two terms artificially. Dualism is also a logic validity mistake© (chapter I-7) where we interpret as «Aristotelian» what cannot be interpreted in this way. (Aristotle confirmed this through e-mail) Those who make this mistake have an apparently logical and Aristotelian vision which even more rigidifies their mental and ideology. These persons are in fact placed on the extreme points of the diagram. At left, see the example of a male chauvinist and anti-freedom diagram. For the corresponding feminist dualistic (femnazi) diagram, it is enough to reverse. It is clear that a dualist person inevitably places himself in situation to understand nothing to what occurs, and to create much suffering, for him and for others. Extreme dualism leads to fundamentalism, religious or other.

 

The same crushed diagram also exhibits the mistake of confusion between values©:

Values or important facts in life may be wrongly associated, such as for example the authority and the masculine: the marriage is used as an male chauvinist oppression mean, and freedom is seen like a female defect. These associations do not actually have any basement, neither metaphysics, nor spiritual, and even not psychological. They simply appear as confusions or mixtures between similar diagrams pertaining to different pairs of values.

«Eastern» or «spiritual» way to crush the diagram:
to occult the good/bad axis under the Yin-Yang axis.
This is the Yin-Yang axis confusion©.

ERROR: the Good/Bad axis is implicit under the Yin-Yang axis

(Permalink) In the East the most common mistake is to hide the good/bad axis under the Yin-Yang dialectics. This is the Yin-Yang axis confusion, which leads to various forms of relativism, where moral and human values are artificially opposed together, or they are put into competition with personal egocentric inclinations of a people, a clan, a nation...

 

Example: the Occident would be Yang, the East Yin, therefore the East would have a subtle approach when the Occident would be scientist, and... «human rights would be a concept of western intellectuals which would not apply in the East»! If the axis confusion is not noticed, such a vicious reasoning appears like being highly spiritual and morally unattackable. Those who speak like are just hiding deeply a subtle mistake under an apparently highly spiritual vision, and it is thus all the more difficult for them to understand their mistake. More, the concept of evil often remains subjacent to this pseudo Yin-Yang dialectics, and arbitrarily attached to the Yin. At left, again the same example of a male chauvinist and anti-freedom diagram, but confused this time with the Yin-Yang axis. It is immediately noticeable that, except for the pseudo Yin-Yang dialectics, it is exactly the same as previously! And that it thus leads to the same possibilities of exclusion or confusion, in particular confusion between values. The Yin-Yang axis confusion can be encountered even in some Taoist books, sometimes even allotted to Masters, either that the disciples badly understood, or that these Masters were not so wise.

 

Quadripolar logic has the precious advantage, while placing the good/bad discussion and the Yin-Yang dialectics on two different axis, to clearly separate what belongs to the one or the other, an so to avoid any coarse or subtle confusion between the two.

A more subtle mistake is
to apply the diagram to inappropriate pairs of values©.

(Permalink) For instance feminine/dominating, free/clever, chastity/secularity... because these things, even if they may have relations, are not Yin Yang complementary aspects of a same object. It is like if, in Aristotelian logic, we oppose an open door to a turned off tap, or a dead dog to a full cup. As for opposing values between them, or objects, such as for example ecology and economy, ecology and progress, economy and human rights, it is just passionate and confused assertions which do even not pertain to the study of the diagram, when they are not deliberate mind control attempts.

To place a clan hypostasis on a side of the diagram

(Permalink) A subtle error, which is not specific to the quadripolar diagram, is to place an hypostasis (note 5) of clan on a human group, whatever it is (to think, unconsciously, as if the human group was, like a gang or an army, composed only with individuals all having the same intention, and who collectively bear the responsibility of all the acts and mistakes of each of them).

For instance, in the 1990 years, a large French «left wing» weekly magazine thus tried to accredit the idea that the Arabs (mostly immigrates, and targets for racism in France as Blacks are in USA) were coming in France to appropriate the country, and that the delinquency in «ghettos» was thus knowingly orchestrated for this purpose, to drive the white people out of these places and to make strictly Arab districts. Before even discussing if there are really some Arabs provided with such intentions, this idea obviously appears absurd: the Arabs, as every other human groups whatever they are, are composed of various individuals, good or bad, honest or dishonest, and are inhabited with all kinds of motivations, for the majority completely stranger to what they are accused of. Therefore any sentence in the style «the Arabs want...» «the Blacks are...» «the Americans make...» «the women think...» any sentence of this style is not even worth the effort to read it further, even if it is true for some members of the quoted group. Such generalisations as just a hidden (often unconscious) form of racism. Personally I would summarise in saying that Auschwitz was built only of 10% of hatred against 90% of such hypostasis, of which we are still far from being disencumbered. Even in the case of a political or religious group meant to be provided with a real unity of thought and intention, this sentence can conceal some surprises. Thus «Hippies were seeking for expansion of the consciousness», although theoretically exact, could have led to some abrupt disappointments, in practice, in some dirty squats for wasters. See also note 63.

In the case of the diagram, placing an hypostasis of clan on the persons who are on one side (for instance on the Yin side the women, or on the Yang side the police) is as much stupid, and provide with similar inappropriate and deterring results, for instance hating all the women because we had a bad experience with one, or stoning the cops under the pretext of rejecting dictatures.

We cannot build a valid diagram between two complex facts
which are not Yin-Yang pairs.

(Permalink) For instance between scientific knowledge and religious faith, because they are two things which differ by several aspects: 1) knowledge/belief, which is an ordinary good/bad discussion (with only one axis) 2) material/spiritual, which are two places into reality forming under certain conditions a Yin-Yang dialectics. We shall be validly able to thus make a Yin-Yang axis between study of interior reality (spiritual) and external reality (physical) and a good/bad axis between knowledge and dogmaticism. This rationality and spirituality diagram will be built in a more detailed way in chapter II-6 on epistemology, and it will be one of the basements of the reasonings in this second part.

At last the most subtle mistake is
to oppose an extreme value
to a value already harmonised with the first.

(Permalink) For example violence and non-violence, because non-violence is already a harmonisation (and even a non-duality) between activity (activism) and respect of others, whereas ordinary violence is completely decompensated disrespect. The persons who made this confusion (for example certain ecologists at the time of the great antinuclear demonstrations in the 1970') often did this with the purpose of fighting non-violence. This reductionistic view (chapter II-7) (and often dualistic) leads to a very poor understanding (insoluble duality between violence and non-violence, where the later however remains basically misunderstood or caricatured), whereas the complete diagram shows a whole variety of forms of non-violence and beneficial violence which can satisfy a broad variety of styles and situations. In particular non-violence is entirely understood in terms of respect of the «foe», but we can also manage to understand how the violence expressed by some Boddhisattvas (note 16) (or Jesus with the merchants in the temple) can be given through love, with the only purpose of making the others progress.

Violence and non-violence are not a Yin-Yang pair,
			as non-Violence is already harmonised

(1) is the strict non-violence as designed by Gandhi. (2) is education with (some) spanking, or Jesus with the merchants in the temple. (3) is the assassination of the Langdarma tyrant by the yogi Pelkyi Dordje (who killed it out of an arrow while projecting his soul in a pure land to deliver him from evil. This event is commemorated in all the festivals in Tibet, under the name of dance of the black hats). (4) are Buddhist wrathful deities (violence with a compassionate motivation). (5) is the traditional political action within the framework of a democratic play. At last in (6) dwell fanatic groups, extremists or fascists, where violence is completely dualistic, only due to hatred. But (6) is also able to display the appearance of «non-violence»... It is worth to note that both (1) to (4) are Middle Ways, despite the fact that some are placed in extreme positions, where they may lead to strong behaviour.

The logic validity mistake©

(Permalink) This will be studied in Chapter I-7

 

 

 

 

 

 

General Epistemology        Chapter I-5       

 

 

 

 

 

 

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