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he effort of forced induction carries with it the strong possibility of failure. That outcome has specifiic recognizable consequences for the individual and for society as a whole.

Observe this standard lifeline (everyone can make one for his own life ... just decide whether your life was up or down at any particular time relative to your own extremes).

No one has a line that starts in the middle and goes steadily up and up. Parents hope that their child will be the first exception in human history ... but it has never happened and never will. The reason being that we know things by contrast-comparison. Without experiencing the worst we cannot fully know the best. We do not understand good without doing evil (or at least seriously contemplating evil, i.e. we commit the deed mentally and tally the consequences without actual physical harm).

I've put the extremes at the beginning because that's where you're most likely to find them. The high point is, of course, the acquisition of one's soul (previously defined as the best accomplishment of forced induction).

This is an important point in the following discussion because one's soul is the shovel with which we dig our experiential hole. Without this implement, we should be totally lost at the task of induction (hole digging + finding useful ideas which integrate into a consistent map of our overall experience).

One might also compare it to building a pile of dirt & rocks ... the bigger one's pile ... the more experienced is that person. The adult climbs to the top of his "pile" and overlooks the teenager's pile and finds it wanting. The teenager, on the other hand, cannot see the pyrimidal structure of the pile (having accomplished no great feats of induction by means of which experience is turned into a hierarchical structure) and counts it as a square block without distinction between top & bottom. To him one simply accumulates experience and does little else with it.

This is what the teen sees from the viewpoint of his experience (red). The adult (green) is narrow-minded.

What the adult sees (next image) is more complex. There is a hierarchical structure of possibilities (which doubles at each level thereby giving the status of geometric progression). As he crawls up the hierarchy (x₂), his field of vision narrows because he realizes that many things are now understood to be impossible (black). At (x₁), the field is broader and more permutations seem possible.

Thus, the teenager-liberal seems to be broadminded but is simply uninformed while the adult is seen to be conservative and narrowminded.

At (y), there lies the theoretical limit at which point there is only one truth and all other possibilities are falsified by the logical rules of the hierarchy.

Of course, if the hierarchy is malformed, the resulting apex gives a unique truth which is in fact ... false, since it was obtained by irrationally assembled rules. This individual will then be neither conservative nor narrow minded but rather ... hidebound. My views are now so constricted (many are now set in concrete) that I am often called "arrogant" by my detractors for not admitting of the possibility of other valid points of view. So solly ... ;o)

There are also levels of attack within the hierarchy.

Here is my approach [weigh in heavily at the topmost and do as much corroboration in the lower reaches as possible] ... versus ... the common approach of specialization [do as much as you can in a narrow field].

There are elevations in the hierarchy which cause a phenomenon of shape.

My approach (yellow) ... conform to the shape of reality. And ... The "collegiate" approach (blue) ... learn a lot to push oneself to a lofty position with minimal stability, i.e. the college kids have little confidence and are easily toppled over (they go introspective at the meerest hint of opposition). ["... be like a pyramid and to hell with the wind" - Ebtx]

We now have the general overview and can proceed to ...

What can go wrong at the individual and societal levels?

Fear of inevitable failure in the realm of forced induction is the generator of every misfortune attendant upon the individual who does not integrate his collected data.

The chief misfortune is a disorganized mind.

No conscious being can escape the inevitable accumulation of information which assails all of us on a daily basis. Free induction is much too slow a process for humanity which has arrived at the state of civilization.

Such a primary failure of extrospection is akin to a boiler with too much steam up. The only pressure let-off is successful forced induction. The only other alternative is to accept no further data ... to isolate oneself ... somehow ... from seeing new things.

A secondary form of failure is to create a false hierarchy (one not accurately reflecting reality). One must continually reinvent the structure ... refining it ... moving its pieces around to obtain a better match to reality. This shuffling of "file folders" rather than raw data is equally subject to error. Failure to reorder one's own house must result in a self-inflicted blindness to internal contradiction. It is a failure of introspection.

The standards we use to decide which data or concept (folder) goes where usually rests with other data and concepts which are already in place. Therefore, all failure is ultimately a reflection on one's soul (the primary standard of right-wrong and good-evil).

Thus, to fail at induction always induces a sense of worthlessness ... hence, the desire to avoid it. For if we introspect that perhaps the reason for failure may be ... that our soul is "no good", we shall be driven to the furthest depths of depression (there being no lower reaches than here). This is the direct cause of suicide (though some are for terminal medical conditions).

Therefore, it is imperative that the individual constantly strive to integrate his data lest he "blow a gasket" or suffer an internal "meltdown".

At the societal level ...

If enough of a certain kind of individual (the thinking segment of civilization) fails in the task of integration or if his successes are kept from general society (often by the artifices of those who wish to destroy civilization), then ... the general weal will suffer in two specific, characteristic ways.

These are: Complexification and Giantism.

Complexification is analogous to "blowing a gasket" as given above. Unable to induce higher principles, the logjam of accumulated information results in complex rules of behavior, e.g. laws become byzantine labyrinths and mechanical devices often suffer a similar fate.

Giantism is the magnification of previously discovered proper induction as if to declare that induction still proceeds apace, i.e. "Look at what we have done ... our civilization is the best that has ever existed.". This attempt to pass off a difference in quantity as one of quality is employed to assuage the sense that "things are going downhill". It is an attempt to lift the self esteem of society.

Concluding ...

Forced induction is the hallmark of all advanced beings. Failure to do so at the individual level is to return to "the caves". Failure at the societal level is to bring on another dark age. It is then easy to see why I propose that the success of man on earth is bound up with his proper understanding of the universe.

The earth is not yet a "won" planet.

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