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An Exercise In Analytical Reasoning

A few days ago, I was drawn to a curious post by Stephanie Wellen Levine in John Kellden's vibrant discussion group, "Conversations that Mind and Matter."

This group, which has some 3000 members, features a broad spectrum analysis and synthesis of topics of interest in Systems Science and Systems Thinking.

John describe the scope of his group thusly:

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"What does the world look like seen through conversational eyes?"

Conversation as an art through which human beings rediscover, rekindle, revitalize and respond - after which we align with the world, small moves, until here and now.

How? Add considered, considerate comments on other people's posts.

"We made it? What happened? We happened."

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Stephanie's post, highlighting one of her occasional essays, personal "slice of life" memoirs, and introspective narratives, drew substantial comments and discussion.

At one point, it became clear that Stephanie, who teaches Creative Writing at Tufts University, was somewhat unfamiliar with the methods of analytical reasoning that we routinely employ in the STEM Disciplines.

And so I added a comment thread to demonstrate analytical reasoning by way of an example, drawing from earlier comments and discussion in her thread.

I'm reprising it here on my own Facebook TimeLine because (for reasons not entirely clear to me), Stephanie and her like-minded correspondent, Jennifer Grove, objected to it, and requested that John remove it.

[QUOTE]

Here is an exercise in analytical reasoning ...

Jennifer Grove writes:

"I have a particularly hard time on the Internets because there are no Police. I have to do my own Policing and I suck at it. I use FB's "block" and "report" features constantly." ~Jennifer Grove

And a bit later:

"Quite often, blocking someone isn't about me believing they are a bad person. I have someone in this group blocked because their way of being puts my emotional well-being at risk. There is no fair or unfair judgment upon them. Just practical separation. The way you'd do if you were at a party and realized that everything you said irritated them and so you just spend your time in another room." ~Jennifer Grove

This is fascinating and intriguing, but probably not for the reason most people would imagine.

Suppose, for the sake of analysis, that I were the person Jennifer is referring to when she writes, "I have someone in this group blocked because their way of being puts my emotional well-being at risk."

The first question that comes to mind is to unpack the phrase, "their way of being". That's a pronoun without an antecedent.

Permit me to set this up as an Algebraic Emotional Equation.

Let M be person in this group whom Jennifer has blocked.

Let X = M's "way of being"

Let Y = Jennifer's resultant affective emotional state, as aroused by M's "way of being."

Let f(•) stand for the Cognitive-Emotive Function relating the outcome Y to the stimulus X.

We have Y = f(X).

We must solve for X, Y, and the function, f(•).

We have an Algebraic Emotional Equation where Nothing is known.

We do not know X, Y, or f(•). Solve for all three unknowns.

Is that baffling or what?

We know that X, Y, and f(•) all exist, and we know that Y = f(X), but have nary a clue to any of their values.

Clearly we need more clues. And only Jennifer can supply them.

What is the name of the unutterable emotion that M's way of being induces in JG?

Notice that my way of being here is Scientific, Methodical, Logical, Systematic, Analytical.

Is that the value of X in this Algebraic Emotional Equation?

It might be, if M = Barry Kort.

But if M = Barry Kort and X = Being Scientific, Methodical, Logical, Systematic, and Analytical, then what would Y be?

Could Y be an element of the set {Alarm, Anxiety, Panic}?

Maybe. Maybe not.

Do we have any evidence to support or refute such a working hypothesis?

Perhaps.

We have this:

"Stephanie, You rock! This is so like me. I'm not sure if the differences are just a result of me being older and having had to live with this obsession for longer or if we're actually headed in 2 ever-so-slightly different directions with this." ~Jennifer Grove

So we know that Jennifer and Stephanie have enough in common that they could well belong to the same NeuroTribe, with similar Values, Desires, Beliefs, Practices, and Intentions.

Now we also know that Stephanie finds my way of being obnoxious.

How do we know that? Because she said so, in these words:

"I can tell you that you were very hard to deal with on my own FB page, and many friends and family members suggested that I block you. I'm so relieved that you stopped posting your blog posts on my page, and talking about systems thinking there. It was very grueling. You did stop and I'm hoping that will continue." ~Stephanie Wellen Levine to Barry Kort, July 4, 2016

And a bit later, this useful detail:

"Barry: you should understand something: you were posting your blog posts so frequently in my FB threads that the mere sight of a new post made my stomach sink. No joke: it just sunk." ~Stephanie Wellen Levine to Barry Kort, July 4, 2016

And this:

"All you did was irritate the living crap out of me. The phrase "systems thinking" makes me nauseous." ~Stephanie Wellen Levine to Barry Kort, July 4, 2016

So we know for Stephanie that the set of resultant affective emotional states include Irritation and Nausea.

So is it plausible to surmise that the unknown resultant emotional state, Y, belongs to the set {Alarm, Panic, Anxiety, Nausea, Disgust, Irritable Bowel Syndrome}?

Perhaps.

Now my duty as a scientist is to try like the dickens to falsify that tentative solution for Y = f(X).

Or alternatively to seek confirmation from Jennifer that it's a correct model.

Perhaps someone here has the courage to inquire on my behalf. wink emoticon

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After three tries at bat, this inquiry struck out. I posted it twice and Anne-Marie LaMonde posted it once (to ensure that Jennifer Grove could view it).

Each time, the comment thread in which it appeared vanished. My understanding is that John acceded to the requests of Stephanie and/or Jennifer to remove it.