A Tool Can Fool Us
Will you let me hammer that into you?
We’ve all heard the saying that if your only tool is a hammer, then everything looks like a nail.
This saying, described here now in a nicer manner, declares that the way we think will help determine how we view the world. How we use our brain directs us into seeing the things the way we think they are.
Naturally, at some points in time, we’ll bump into problems that are like nails indeed. The hammer is then the correct tool to use.
Yet when the toolbox is not opened up wider, and there is just a hammer, then we may not be capable of solving each problem in its own appropriate and best manner.
- When a tool is not there, we may not be aware that it is missing.
This article is about ourselves, our toolboxes, and how there are some lessons to learn, at times even for the best among us.
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Mathematics is said to be the language in which God speaks to us. Yet, in reality, mathematics is nothing but a tool. It is a system in which abstractions are described in numbers, and wonderful truths can be revealed.
Perhaps the most beautiful mathematical anomaly was delivered by Gödel who showed, using mathematics, that mathematics is itself an Incompleteness. Gödel showed that all formal systems (systems with their own specific foundations) cannot remain truthful when placed by themselves at the overall level of reality.
An easy example to show how a word may not declare a truth is found with the word blue.
- When in a paint store, blue has quite a different meaning then when on the couch with the shrink.
It is the context that ends up providing the correct meaning for the actual contents of the word blue.
In other words, when we are inside a context, then we can find a truth. Blue ends up with its specific meaning given the supporting context.
Yet blue pronounced without any context is either meaningless or contains great uncertainty about what is meant with the word.
If no context is provided?
Then there is also no truthful contents to a word.
This will be investigated more in a bit with the word universe, the largest context we may think of as a context, but… isn’t.
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A problem that using tools brings with them may remain unnoticed by the users of the tool.
For instance, in mathematics, it is common to remove anything with a value of zero. But that is the tool doing its thing; it does not always reflect reality.
The simple example is ‘01’ and then removing the zero.
Perfect result; nothing changes when that zero is left out.
However, start out with ‘10’ and then leave out the zero, you will have changed reality in a drastic manner.
When we consider zero to always be nothing and unimportant, then we missed the specifications of the tool of mathematics. We can eliminate the zero and think we did everything right, but we could have turned a truth then into a lie.
In general, few will make this mistake. Yet, while going boldly where few have gone before us, it is much easier to make that mistake. More on this later.
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I like the story of the old man who shrank a bit when he got older. He did not like that fact at all. So, instead of acknowledging that he had shrunk, he blamed the tape measure.
He said that the tape measure stretches when it is measuring old people.
- He blamed the tool.
The interesting part is that, other than everyone laughing out loud, the scientific data is exactly what the old man said. Tape measures can indeed tell the story how the tape measure stretches with the elderly — if we turn the story inside out, that is.
We should never put the cart before the horse.
This example of the old man blaming the tool is useful in showing that we must do two things to get it right, and not just one thing.
- We must recognize that we are dealing with a tool.
- We must make sure that we ourselves are not a tool.
At no point will a tool tell the absolute truth. A tool can only tell us the truth as delivered by the tool. If the tool declares an unexpected outcome, then don’t blame the tool. Go look for the (interesting) answer!
It can get a bit complicated with time dilation.
Time dilation is said to be an aspect of our universe. But… time is measured by a tool. Like the tape measure measuring distance, the clock is measuring duration.
So, what is going on?
When matter is placed in a distinct spatial location, then matter is subjected to that environment unlike the environment it was in before. So, when a material clock is sent into space, then the tool is delivering us its truthful story — per that new environment.
The complication is that the tape measure did not get placed in a spatially distinct location, but the clock did get placed in a spatially distinct location.
- It is as if the tape measure is put in an oven and then is supposed to keep its intended accuracy as a tool?
If the clock points to a change in time on its display, then we should know that the clock’s matter changed in the way it works, perhaps ever so slightly.
Obviously, it can be difficult to distinguish which part is the head of the dog and which part is the tail. We should not wag the wrong part.
Since we are dealing with a tool, we have to investigate both options.
- Our interpretation of the data may be the inverse of what is really going on.
That said, no tool can be more than what it is. When time dilates, then that is like the tape measure stretching. The tool is then abused. We are wagging the dog if we insist that the tape measure stretches when measuring old people.
For more on this interesting outcome of the clock showing a different time on its display:
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Some scientists state that the universe expands. They have no idea that they are abusing a tool (in this case language).
To understand what is going on, first a different example:
“The freeway experienced congestion.”
You probably have heard this before and there is a good chance you have said it yourself. I have in the past, and I may still do so today. But it is an incorrect use of language.
The explanation why this sentence is incorrect is simple: A freeway is not a living being, so it cannot experience anything. It is the people in their cars that are doing the experiencing.
Same for the “universe expands” because the universe is not an entity. Rather, it is a name tag for the collective of everything there is.
Just like the people in their cars doing the experiencing and not the freeway itself, matter in the universe is involved with the pronounced expansion and not the universe as a whole itself.
Still, this needs to be understood correctly. Matter does not expand; it is the spatial distance between matter that is getting larger. In simple words, matter is spreading apart further and occupies therefore larger and larger swaths of space without adding any subsequent amounts of matter/energy.
So, the area in which matter is found gets larger, while the average amount of matter per spatial unit (expressed, for instance, in cubic miles or kilometers) diminishes.
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It cannot be overstated that scientists need to be aware that they are working with tools, and that all of their latest and greatest was furnished to them by their tools. Of course, the human brain has to help out, but that is where it can get tricky.
Another simple example to help warn physicists for the pitfalls of tools:
- A pen and paper are the two tools in question, and a human face can get drawn on a piece of paper with the utmost accuracy by many professional artists.
Yet, when the human face has just one eye located in the middle of the forehead instead of the usual two, then we all know we landed in a fantasy world.
A Cyclops is an excellent example to show us that a single position of something totally true may still not be the natural reality. It was with the help of tools that a unrealistic outcome was produced.
The example is purposefully simple. Here is the more complicated reality physicists deal with.
- Write twenty mathematical equations about black holes on the black board, and it can become highly probable that the Cyclopic aspect among them is not recognized. When one equation is correct, it may still not reflect the natural reality that could potentially demand a doubling of that equation among the twenty already on the black board.
- Or… when something with a zero value is discovered, that position itself cannot be eliminated just because the rules of mathematics allow for that elimination. An empty chair is not nothing. An empty location is not nothing.
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Back in 1992, I discovered the patterns explaining the distribution of the prime numbers.
All prime numbers can be extracted with just three bowling balls, knocking down all pegs. In this case, the pegs represent all non-prime numbers.
This pattern includes one additional step beyond the Sieve of Eratosthenes and shows what is really going on with the prime numbers (answer: a whole lot less than what you might think).
Yet the importance of this result is that, instead of having these three bowling balls do mathematical calculations, the system is actually based on positioning alone. It’s not much more than a pattern that continues into forever and then spits out all prime numbers. Like bowling balls, the pattern knocks all non-prime numbers out of the way. There are no calculations, just simple interactions.
When we see numbers, and think mathematics only, then we may miss the underlying organization of things. We may miss out the importance of zero because we fail to give zero its own location. We may miss the simplest parts because we removed a zero value altogether.
Instead of focusing on the reason the non-prime numbers got knocked out of the game, we may be scratching our heads, wondering what the system is that decided how the ‘open frame’ of pegs remained standing after throwing three balls. We can focus on the wrong thing.
- It is like the kid’s joke with seven burning candles, blowing out three, and then being asked how many are left in the morning.
Those who say ‘four’ focused on the wrong thing because the three candles that got blown out are the ones that remained standing.
We can focus on the wrong thing, amazed about the outcome — until we understand the trick.
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In the center of the Black Hole theory, physicists have placed a religious position.
To accept the theory, one must believe that in the center an invisible mass of enormous proportions exists.
The scientific surprise is the acknowledgment that no scientific data can come forth from the black hole, since we can only see what is visible on this side of the event horizon.
- Physicists have found their altar because they accepted a ground on which they cannot stand.
If I were to tell you that the Eye of the Hurricane contains an invisible mass controlling the storm, you’d probably fall off your chair laughing because you know better.
Yet with the Black Hole model, everyone sits up like a good dog and eats the cookies presented by our physicists. Naturally, it is a bit complicated, but also not too difficult to understand.
The circular motion of the Solar System is of such a slow nature that an enormous mass can sit in its center. This is then like an eddy in a stream collecting leaf after leaf, and then branch after branch. The slower the turn, the more matter can collect in the dead center of the circular motion.
The circular motion of the Milky Way, however, is of such a level that there cannot be any mass in that spot. The speed of, and the expressed force on that location is too enormous. Any mass in that spot would get slung away from that center, or crunched into pieces and spat out via two perpendicular vents.
- In the center exists a force, but not a mass.
We all know that the eye of the storm is the result of a force, and does not contain a mass. The resulting eye is established by the whole of the storm. The eye did not create itself.
In the exact center itself, there is not even a force. It’s all net-zero. There is no wind in the center of the eye. With the storm pulling from all directions, a depression of greatest quality establishes a forceful reality. Yet this force is expressed particularly with the WALL of the eye, and definitively not with the center of the eye.
By eliminating the zero position in the middle spot, then there is only one alternative left; it must be one. And that is the mistake.
Just like our Sun in the center, physicists think the Milky Way has a mass in the center. They go boldly where no one has gone before, but they forgot to find the correct tool in their toolboxes to understand what they found.
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When there are twenty equations, then folks may not see the Cyclopic aspect among them. The single eye is of course a correct single eye. But in reality, nature has two eyes, sometimes even more than two eyes.
The final surprise may be therefore that the human brain should be recognized as nothing but a tool, too.
We are using our brain sometimes as if all it conjures is true and correct. Until we realize we fooled ourselves into thinking something to be true, while in reality the explanation was a bit simpler.
The trick is to recognize which items we hold inside our brain are actual items and which items are abstractions.
- The word universe is an abstraction. Something that is the most complete opposite of something singular is presented to us by our brain as something singular.
In a way, our brain is helping us because it is easier to grasp something as a singular abstraction than to recognize how incredibly large and complex the universe is.
Yet, with that singular abstraction, we may fail to remember that an abstraction is the result of a tool — our brain.
We may not realize, for instance, that the ultimate space is itself only space and not an entity.
When something has a value of zero, and takes up a position, we may have a hard time letting it be. Space has a value of zero and yet takes up space.
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The human mind may ignore the truth that a zero value declares to us. We may ignore this altogether or end up seeing things that cannot be real.
Envision a ten-story apartment building. It has eleven floors.
The eleventh floor is the roof.
- Don’t ignore the roof.
- Don’t go looking for apartments on the eleventh floor.
Recognize when you are involved with a tool and, next, make sure you open your toolbox wide enough to see if the right tool is available to you to capture the true meaning.
