The accompanying set of charts, represents a new idea, just developed during the past year. Four of the charts - "Geared for Work out Well" "Primary Reality", "Stages of Cure" and "Conscious Reasoning" - go to the heart of this approach, while others, for example "The Conversation about The Conversation" address some of the moment to moment issues raised.
The initial purpose of these charts is to, even by reference to just a few of them - in fifteen short minutes - "set the structural framework of thinking" for an abbreviated, but I hope comprehensive, self-evident-to-any-person's-cognitive-mind proof of the accuracy of the central point of 'Paradigm from California', namely that nature and human nature are geared for a work-out-well-for-all-circumstance.
The actual proof is what the whole paradigm project is all about. Originally, I could prove it in ten million words of verbal explanation, but, of course, that's not a practical proof, and therefore not really a proof at all.
The Paradigm Volumes, written in 1984-86, got the whole thing down to about a hundred thousand words, well-organized, and all written down, but trouble getting it published convinced me that I would have to find a more concise exposition of proof.
I tried with each of the three "summary" papers - in 1991, 1993, and 1996 - each one just ten or fifteen thousand words, but those didn't seem to do the trick either.
What I am in pursuit of, is a fabled "magic sentence", some dozen or so words that will definitively and self-evidently prove to anyone the accuracy of the entire Paradigm from California idea.
I do have the description of the idea down to about a dozen words, namely, "Nature, and human nature is designed, via evolution, for things working out well for everyone", which I think is a very helpful crystallization - sort of like "The earth goes around the sun", or "E=mc2", or "The unconscious can be mapped", or "Oxygen is one of many basic elements"; pretty good I think, but, of course, a description of the thing to be proved, although in itself illuminating quite a lot, does not constitute the proof itself.
So, ten million words of proof, to be crystallized down to a magic ten; elusive, but not impossible. So my tactic of the moment for this purpose, is to, with just three or four or five concise charts, set a 'framework of understanding' within which the reader or listener understands the general context surrounding what it is I'm trying to expose. Then, with all the basic context already presumed, it seems like it'll be much easier to come up with a "self-contained", "standalone", one or two sentences of comprehensive, self-evident, proof.
By no coincidence though, this chart-set also serves, and is designed to serve, another, immediate purpose. It is my hope that the "Stages of Figuring" chart will make it much easier for people to understand what type of conversation they are engaged in, for any sort of conversation at all, and therefore, how it relates to something larger.
Hopefully, rather than simply get excruciatingly frustrated with conversations that "seem to go nowhere", a person can see the value in almost any type of conversation, while maintaining one eye on what else may also be needed.
Also, hopefully, it will allow people to very specifically describe their own degree of certainty about the accuracy of what they're saying. I'm hoping that this will allow a person to be unafraid of explicitly stating uncertainty about one thing, ("I can still only explain that in 'Stage Two' terms") without losing their credibility regarding being certain about other things ('Stage Three' or 'Stage Four' understandings).
I'm hoping these two functions will make conversation generally, regarding any matter, less unnecessarily tense, and more helpful.
The "Primary Reality" chart also has, I think, an immediate application. It has long been my contention that something like three-quarters (or more) of all aggravated disputes between people, including marital disputes, center on the parties being unclear about whether they are basing their discussion on the "singular reality" system, or the "no real reality" system. It's only three quarters, but that's still a lot.
This chart is designed to clearly show the distinction between these two frameworks of understanding, and to bring that clarification out into the clear-light-of-day.
I have the idea that the "no-real-reality" point of view can only be used in most conversations, as long as these distinctions remain unclear. In other words, in some cases, you don't have to be convincing at all; you just have to accurately clarify. To recall, how Andrew Wiles put it regarding solving 'Fermat', and to add my own idea - 'you just turn the light on in the room', and nature takes care of the rest. That's the theory anyway. Well, even if the "turn-on-the-light" metaphor is only a 'Stage Two' idea, that is, it's not always right, well, even so, there's still something to it.
At any rate, I am hoping this "no-real-reality"/"singular-reality" clarification, can assist in the resolution of some of the most extremely frustrating aspects of argument generally, particularly aggravated academic arguments and personal arguments.
Others of the charts, such as 'Nature' and 'Conscious Reasoning' also have their 'standalone', and in-the-moment applications, and the 'Conversation' chart - well, I certainly hope anyway - people will find most useful as a way of clarifying some perhaps previously inexplicable aspects of everyday conversational.
So this set of charts, particularly the first nine plates, is really designed to serve two general purposes. One is to enable a much more easily understood and succinct presentation of this paradigm as it stands, as well as making it much easier to come up with a paradigm explanation that is far more succinct still.
And two, is to introduce people to a "framework of conversation" that they might not have been aware existed, and that I think - again, at least I hope - many will find generally helpful.
If these four charts do turn out to help to make "figuring out" type conversations - of all sorts - among the population at large, more productive, more reasoned, and, of absolutely paramount importance, less inexplicably frustrating, then, certainly for my purposes, that's all to the good.
