How do you discern between facts and opinions?

First I consider the time-binding record for "fact" and "opinion". Then I look at the context. Finally, I look at past communicitations with the individual using the terms, thus taking into consideration three levels of multi-meaning: Dictionary, Context, and Idiosyncratic (as inferred by personal time-binding history).

"How do you discern between facts and opinions?"

What a good question! I suppose that in honest truth I rely largely on something like "gut-instinct" based on a life time of personal experience in evaluating evidence. (Probably this is just another way of expressing what Ralph said above,)

I tend to honor the opinions of others, unless they are clearly destructive, without feeling obliged to agree with them. And if something I have considered a probable "fact" turns out otherwise I am not usually shocked into permanent immobility, at least not so far.

Maybe what I am saying is that I am skeptical of so-called "facts." I might be tempted to say, "It's a fact that everything is a process. In other words there are no facts." And how does one deal with that oxymoron? But then as is abundantly clear I am not a mathematician. I can only say .

If you are talking about putative "events" in situations where the the terms 'fact' and 'opinion' are not actually used, that "is" a different story. Now we have to look at the afforementioned "definitions", in the context, and make a personal judgement as to which term to apply.

In the case of the term 'fact', common ussages include both as a reference to a putative "event" (known or otherwise) as well as to a statement or assertion as to such a putative event. In both cases a person asserts something about what is going on (has gone on). How can you tell if they are reporting an observation, or they are making an inferencet about their experiences, or even simply making something up? It's still personal judgement about another's actions.

GS authors, including specifically Irving Lee, have covered this topic of fact vs. opinion before. I haven't read anything recently, and I thought I'd tap the group mind.

Offhand, a fact occurs to me as some statement that I can (relatively speaking) verify, while an opinion lacks this verifiability.

Compare:

John says either...
"This pencil is 6 inches long."
or...
"This pencil is long."

The first, to me, qualifies as a fact, while the second, to me, qualifies as an opinion.

I could make the second statement factual by saying "John says this pencil is long." This new statement doesn't say anything 'about' the pencil, but instead 'about' John (or 'about' what John said). I may verify that John said this in a number of ways.

Verifiability doesn't seem to me an absolute process. It seems to me one can dispute nearly any verification, and nearly all verifications indefinitely. So you come to a point where (maybe) you feel satisfied by the amount or degree of verification. For example, you might feel satisfied by holding a wooden ruler up to the pencil, despite seeing a little bit of warp in the ruler. Could you go more precise? Yes. Do you need to? That depends on the situation, or perhaps simply how much you care.

Some thoughts.
Ben

It just occurred to me:

"Smith brutally stabbed his neighbor, Jones."
vs.
"Smith allegedly brutally stabbed his neighbor, Jones."
i.e.,
"[Someone alleges, probably the police, that] Smith brutally stabbed his neighbor, Jones."

By including "allegedly," a reporter makes a factual statement. Without it, she offers more of an opinion, or inference, or unsupported claim.

"Just the facts, ma'am."

Also, a reader (culture) can more readily confuse fact and opinion by someone's adding "allegedly" to a statement loaded with opinion. For example, including the word "brutally" constitutes an opinion--you can't verify it. By alleging someone stabbed someone "brutally," the reader gets opinionated about the execution of the stabbing under the guise of hearing a factual statement. Removing "brutally" altogether reduces opinion and makes for a more factual statement.

I don't know if that makes sense; I feel a bit tired at the moment.

It crosses my mind to wonder how someone could stab another non-brutally. "He gently stabbed his neighbor?" Maybe if he was a surgeon and anesthetized him first. I don't know. This kind of thing can MAKE you "tired." As I say .

I suppose you arrive at the question, "Does stating something as done 'brutally' communicate a fact?"

I think even the word "stabbed" probably connotes an opinion; the word usually suggests some kind of intention behind the movement of knife through flesh. So, to call the action "stabbing" as opposed to "puncturing" or some other word less suggestive of intention reflects an opinion about what happened. To the reporter, it doesn't look like an accident, though investigation could reveal a death by some knife accident.

I fear a digression from discussing how you discern between fact and opinion, so I'll hold off from going down that rabbit hole.

It was a hot summer day at the picnic. Everyone wanted cool drinks, but the only ice was a large block. John rushed into the house to get an icepick. On his way back, he slipped and fell into the crowd of picnicers, and, in the process of falling, stabbed his neighbor's leg with the ice pick. It made a scratch, but not a long one.

"," said Ralph.

Nobody mentioned the multiordinality of 'fact' and 'opinion'. These terms would be considered undefined without reference to a particular context or abstraction. That being said I think the salient difference between the two terms is that 'fact' would be reserved for situations where a certain amount of objectivity is indicated whereas 'opinion' would imply more subjectivity. If you ask an expert in a field, say pathology, for his opinion in a given case and he says "you have cancer" then most would agree this is factual compared to some family member looking up your symtoms on the internet and claiming the same thing. So there are no cut and dried facts and opinions, in my opinion , it's more a matter of which statements are given more weight.

Yeah, I agree with Thomas.

When I saw Ben's first post in this thread, I thought "which facts? when? whose opinions?"

In other words, it seems to me that such an abstract, broad question has too many possible answers. At best, one can say obvious things like "I consider my understanding the situation and what I know about the qualifications of the person making the statement, then decide if I like the answer enough to overlook any doubts I have about their likely knowledge on the subject."

Thomas frequently reminds us of the central importance of consciousness of abstracting. This seems like an excellence application. At any given moment, where I feel the need to distinguish a statement of fact from a statement of opinion, I evaluate what I can abstract about the situation and make the best guess I can, remembering that both my evaluation and my guess come from "in-here" more than from "out-there."

Perhaps more importantly, one might ask "What do you do AFTER to discern fact from opinion?"

Do you decide you have indeed "discerned fact from opinion" and stop thinking about it? Do you remain aware of your role in the distinction and keep vigilant for reasons to change your mind? Having an ongoing, process orientation about evaluation seems far more important than any one given moment of decision, to me.

Ben wrote:
"How do you discern between facts and opinions?"

I consider an opinion to be a product of inference. Looking at it from that perspective, your question brought to mind the distinction between a factual statement and an inferential statement as described by Harry Weinberg in "Levels of Knowing and Existence". On page 15, Harry wrote:

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quote:

A factual statement, as we define it, is one which is made only after observation and which is verifiable by accepted standards. In other words, it is a verifiable descriptive statement. We use the term "observation" here and elsewhere in a very broad sense to include not only visual, but any sensory perception. A factual statement does not go beyond or add to what has been observed. An inferential statement is not limited by observation; it is a statement about that which has not been observed. It may be a guess which takes off from the point where observation ceases or it may be a wild and wooly fabrication in no way related to observation. Thus, if I look out the window, see water falling from the sky, and say, "It is raining," I have made a factual statement (provided someone is not pouring water from a bucket from the window above). If I add that it is raining 1000 miles away or around the corner, I am making an inference.

Factual statements approach certainty; they have a high degree of probability of being verified. Inferential statements have widely varying degrees of probability of being verified. The reason why factual statements only approach certainty, but never reach it, is that they are based upon observation, and there is always an element of uncertainty in any observation.

---

---

quote:

A factual statement does not go beyond or add to what has been observed. An inferential statement is not limited by observation; it is a statement about that which has not been observed.

Factual statements approach certainty; they have a high degree of probability of being verified. Inferential statements have widely varying degrees of probability of being verified.

---

Thomas,
There is a philosophical difference between "a statement of 'fact'" (a map) and "the 'fact' of the matter" (the territory); the former is an assertion alegging to describe a statement while the later is purportedly about an event or a condition.

Whatever way they are stated, the common meaning of "fact" is about an event or state of affairs in the world. Aside from the ambiguity between map and territory, as in "statement of fact" and "fact of the matter" respecively, "fact" when properly used is not multi-ordinal, It can be used only at two specific levels of abstraction, and both of these are "at low levels". (Recall, that I am now talking about formulations that use the word 'fact'.)

The term 'opinion' always applies to indicate what a person thinks or believes (territory), expert or not. It can also apply to a statement (map) uttered by a person. Consequently both 'fact' and 'opinion' can be used about both "territory" and (verbal) "map".

When a person uses the term 'fact' it is nigh always in a context that refers to a territory or to a statement about the territory.

Such and such is a fact - about the territory.
"Such and such" states a fact - about the language about the territory.

Neither of these uses is multi-ordinal, because they do not ambigously cover different levels of abstraction.

Now, if we are to take statements that do not use the word 'fact', and attempt to evaluate in some way whether or not to classify the statement in terms of a presumed distinction identified by the terms 'fact' and 'opinion', that is an exercise in applying concepts by intuition, both of which "fact" and "opinion" are. Since these "concepts" are not defined explicitly by postulate formulations, any evaluation based on the presumed distinction, will significantly depend on the idiosyncratic interpretation by the person doing the evaluation. They will, however be abstracting from a statement or statements made by persons - usually in the form of an assertion about what is going on. Those assertions can be at any level of abstraction.

Consider "E=MC²". Here we have a very abstract theory statement that has been strongly corroborated. Do we classify it as a statement of "fact"? or a statement of "opinion"? This is not an observation statement; it is a relation statement in a theory of the world. As such it would only qualify as an "opinion" (believed rather strongly by most now-a-days). Remember, it is not "confirmed"; it is merly "corroborated" by many individual observations, each of which, by the way, would qualify as a "fact" or as a "statement of fact" (all the individual experiments designed to disprove the theory).

Consequenly, there is a strong correlation between the (proper) use of the terms 'fact' and 'opinion' with "observation statements" and "theory statement" respectively in our current model of science. Since "'fact' of the matter" is about what is going on - a metaphysical statement, we general semanticss - mired in the epistemological - fearing to tread in the metaphysical - would presumably not make such statements. We "ought" to be speaking about "statements of 'fact'" exclusively.

Now-a-days I think I rarely use 'fact' without a qualifier. I use 'alegged' and 'putative'.

Theh time-binding record for "fact" and "opinion" gives us many way of distinguishing between these concepts by intuition.

An opinion is at a higher level of abstraction than a "fact". "Facts" only reside at the lowest level of abstraction.

I tend to see the multiordinality of the term "fact" in the following way.

I first say "I have an enlarged heart."

I then say "I likely jeopardize my life should I become an elite runner."

I follow that with "By jeopardizing my life, I probably put my family's livelihood in jeopardy."

We could say each of these statements constitutes a fact in some conversation.

These first, second, and third facts come in order (i.e., sequence, as in 1st, 2nd, 3rd--the meaning of "ordinality").

But these facts do not have the same credibility. If you use the Structural Differential as a guideline for proper abstracting order, you put more credibility in low-order abstractings (observations and the like) and less credibility in high-order abstractings (labels and inferences and the like).

Without an order to statements dubbed "facts," you might equate all facts, or perhaps even put more importance on high-order abstractings and less importance on low-order abstractings. According to the Structural Differential, in doing so you reverse the proper abstracting order and become "unsane" by definition.

Seeing the term "fact" as multiordinal helps a person to see differences in statements dubbed "facts" and arrange them in an order of importance or credibility. Without seeing the term "fact" as multiordinal, unsane behavior potentially ensues from the person at particular times, in particular places.

"There is a philosophical difference between "a statement of 'fact'" (a map) and "the 'fact' of the matter" "

I'm don't see how we can consider a 'fact' or 'opinion' anything other than a statement. Whatever I think "is a fact" I have to put into words to tell someone else.

"Without an order to statements dubbed "facts," you might equate all facts, or perhaps even put more importance on high-order abstractings and less importance on low-order abstractings. According to the Structural Differential, in doing so you reverse the proper abstracting order and become "unsane" by definition. "

Ben, if you saw a wire coming out of the wall would you go touch it? Your lower order abstractions are not going to alert you of any danger but your higher order abstractions may well save your life. Sometimes higher order abstractions are more important and vice versa - there is no hard and fast rule.

A good point. Yet, fictions could also save your life. You might believe a wire coming out of a wall contains the Devil, and refuse to touch it on those grounds.

I would see it as lower-order to see a wire, note its connection within the wall, conduct a test for electricity, etc. I would see as higher-order saying "it's safe" or "it's dangerous," saying "you could get killed if you touch it," etc.

If you make the statement "it's safe" or "it's dangerous" more important than observations you make of the wire, you operate unsanely. It falls in line with that observation Benjamin Whorf made of the smoking habits of workers around gasoline* barrels marked "empty"--they smoked, though the barrels contained dangerous fumes. Had they made their observations more important that the words, they may have spared various fires**.

event level > object level > descriptive level > inferential level

Change the order of these, and relative to Korzybski and his Structural Differential, you become unsane. (my interpretation of K)

Ben

* I think gasoline, but he might have wrote of a different contents that when gone left inflammable fumes.

** I don't know whether Whorf reported any fires as a result of such behavior, but I believe he noted at least the potential danger from such behavior.

Let's go back to I have an enlarged heart. Did the doctor tell you that you had an enlarged heart. Did he tell you that the term enlarged heart has no more substance than happy, popular, rich, etc. When he would speak to his colleagues he might say your heart was enlarged by some specific amount.
I don't trust people who make broad statements like the pencil IS long. The IS has been used improperly. Same with the pencil IS six inches long. Pencil and six inches do not equal one another. A better way, this pencil measures six inches with this ruler.
I prefer people who tell me "that from the data I have seen, I believe the world reacts thus and so. Let me share my data with you."

Well, in actuality the pencil doesn't "measure" either.

I understand your preference but wonder just how many individuals you encounter in everyday live who speak to you thusly?

"I would see it as lower-order to see a wire, note its connection within the wall, conduct a test for electricity, etc. "

Ah, but the theories of electricity "are" higher order abstractions which are indicating what your actions should be to ascertain safety. Without this theory, like if you were an animal, you have no idea of the danger, although animals are naturally very suspicious of new things. Even your example of the empty gasoline drums requires some knowledge of combustion because drums are more dangerous when they are almost empty than they are when they are full. Gasoline requires oxygen to combust and it only when they are almost empty that the vapour pressure is low enough for oxygen to get into the barrel and cause an explosion. On the other hand, apparently you can strike an arc in liquid gasoline without causing an explosion, although I wouldn't want to try it!

I understand that if someone reads a sign or hears words and reacts as if it is "the gospel truth" then that represents confusion of orders of abstraction. A common expression for this is "taking for granted" and that has to do with taking other's word for things. I have worked in large mills on shutdowns and when you work on equipment they have a system where the worker puts a padlock on a board which indicates he is there working and until he removes it NOBODY can start it up. It is so dangerous that they would never take someone's word that it was "safe" to start it up. But we can't ALWAYS do our own investigations, we have to take someone's word at some point and this is where experts or knowledgeable people come in. We are more likely to take the word of someone who is "in the business", so to speak, than someone who's just voicing an opinion. Have you ever checked whether e actually does equal mc^2? Is it a fact that if we were to make these measurements we would actually get this result? We assume it is since people "in the business" tell us so.

I don't doubt the value of each "level"--events, objects, descriptions, and inferences. The higher-order abstractings have value to us. I don't set inferences equal to 0 in the inequality above, or anything like that.

But from the K perspective as I understand it, unsanity lies in the shift of priorities. If your value system resembles Inferences > Events, you have a degree of unsanity. If your value system resembles Events > Inferences, you have a degree of sanity. (Do value systems change? Yes, and they may change with context and situation. Someone may generally have E > I, but in particular situations exhibit I > E.)

From what I can tell, theories of electricity don't necessarily apply to your example, Thomas. You talk of identifying danger--I might go about testing for danger by using some kind of device that determines its electricity, and use its results in combination with other information I have around the wire in the wall (the baby died when touching it, it sparks, it comes from a panel of some sort, etc.).

The wire lies on the object level, the word "wire" on the descriptive level, and the word "danger" on the inferential level. Tests of the wire, to me, lie on the object level, their results (usually words or numbers) lie on the descriptive level, and evaluations of those results lie on higher levels. Theories of electricity may have no tangible bearing on my determination to touch or not to touch the wire--I may take in different information.

You might show me otherwise, though.

I understood Thomas to say that thinking of ways to test the wire for "danger" requires an awareness of the highly abstract theory of electricity and the ways in which we apply it to the real world (ie, wiring our houses). If you don't know about electricity, would you have any other reason to "test" the wire, other than, as Thomas noted, the animal's instinctual fear of new things?

As I understand it, we act based on our own personal theories, or inferences, which we build up from experience and observation. To respond appropriately to outside stimuli, we have already made *some* evaluation, usually comparing current experience with past experience. To initiate an action from some internal motivation (for example, evaluating a wire coming out a wall), we generally observe the available input, filter it through what we already know about similar inputs, and respond in ways we found useful or non-dangerous in the past.

Yes, we do better if we condition our responses accurately to the present events, rather than requiring the events to match our theories, especially to the exclusion of current evidence. But to say that we rank events before inferences does not mean we can, or should, avoid inferences about events.

To test for danger, we have to have some reason to *assume* danger. In the case of a simple wire, without the theory of electricity, why would we assume danger?

Without a theory of electricity, we might assume danger because a baby died when touching the wire. And we don't want to die.

Sure, we have other ways of testing the wire. For example, I tested the wire by seeing a baby touch it, and I noted that the baby died. I could use that information as a symbol, perhaps signal, for "danger."

I don't know much about electricity, certainly not theories of electricity.

Yes, we respond based on our own personal theories about things, but we also respond based on evidence or 'proof,' based on instruction, based on conditioning and instinct, based on force and compulsion, and based on other things. All of our behavior does not stem from personal theories. And all of our behavior toward a wire in a wall does not stem from knowledge of theories of electricity. Some of it might, and some of it might not.

What does this have to do with discerning between fact and opinion?

As has been mentioned several times animals possess an instinctive wariness toward something new. Curiously enough I just recently had the experience of seeing my 8 mo. old kitten growl at seeing a computer connection wire come through a hole in the outside wall of the house.

Given the "wire coming out of the wall" scenario under discussion, lacking any knowledge of electricity (or computer network wiring) etc. would we not most likely react with the same animal instinct as my cat?

Ben asks: "What does this have to do with discerning between fact and opinion?"

It seems to me that in a discussion about deciding the difference between fact and opinion, we get some illumination from understanding how we make decisions.

We might say that we discern a statement of fact from one of opinion in part based on whether we have some theory already in place into which the statement in question does or doesn't fit.

Nobody has said that "all of our behavior" towards a wire in the wall stems from a theory of electricity. However, if we wish to distinguish between a fact ("here is wire sticking out of the wall") and an opinion ("I better not touch it because it might kill me") it seems to me that we benefit from recognizing that we generally use some theory to evaluating the difference. And further, that most theories involve higher order abstractions about "how the world works".

Certainly the kitten has developed some expectations about how the world works based on her experience too, but a generalized suspicion of something out of place does not equate to "I'd better not touch this because it could electrocute me." (Indeed, in my cat-owning experience, once the initial shock wears off, it seems to me that cats generally move on to batting at the scary thing pretty quickly.)

In other words, a cat's bristling reaction to something odd does not say much about the issue of how humans distinguish fact from opinion.

I'd say that humans have the ability take the extra step of thinking about their thinking, which gives them the opportunity, if they take it, to see a qualitative difference between a statement that describes an event and one that evaluates or abstracts from the event.

"But from the K perspective as I understand it, unsanity lies in the shift of priorities."

No, I don't think so. I think confusing order of abstraction is where K says unsanity lies. So evaluating a labels as a thing, an inference as a description, etc.

"Given the "wire coming out of the wall" scenario under discussion, lacking any knowledge of electricity (or computer network wiring) etc. would we not most likely react with the same animal instinct as my cat?"

LOL, I haven't growled at any wires lately.

Same basic thing.

You "confuse orders of abstraction" if you "shift your priorities" from E > O > D > I (what K prescribes) to, say, I > D > O > E (or really any combination outside of E > O > D > I).

In other words, if you confuse Inferences as most important, you get unsanity.

So is the "event" -- in the case of our scenario an unexplained, unexpected wire sticking out of a wall -- a "fact?" And what we subsequently decide to think about what it may represent an "opinion?"

Not that it is terribly significant, but I don't see that our behavior pattern here is different from that of the cat except in its degree of sophistication and experience. "This strange new thing might hurt me. I'd best be very cautious until I've evaluated it(formed an opinion)."

Ah, but the cat will never, as far as we know, think "ah, but my fear about this might be irrationally based on my misunderstanding of how it works." It also will never, as far as we know, come back from school and say to itself, "ah, I knew it was dangerous--it's an electric wire!" As far as we know, only humans have a habit of using learning to retroactively justify evaluations.

No argument there. But that all qualifies as sophistication and experience--and, oh yes, time-binding!

I don't think it hurts us to be reminded occasionally that we too belong to the animal world.

Ben, I think you are leaving out perhaps the most important part of the process - the one where we translate the higher order abstractions into lower order abstractions, ie. "practice what we preach". A person who is familiar with the theory that smoking is harmful and yet still smokes is not translating HOA to LOA. This theory wasn't always around - it used to be fashionable and sophisticated to smoke but not anymore.

I don't think I know about that part of GS. I know about projection, but not about translating HOA to LOA.

If you've referred to the turnback of labels toward the parabola on the Structural Differential, that might describe it, but I guess I never really thought of it that way. (Admittedly, that part of the SD has long confused me in what it represents.)

Ben asked:
"How do you discern between facts and opinions?"

It seems to me that something classified as:
- "fact" describes some form of empirical evidence.
- "opinion" describes some form of conclusion (by way of inference), which may or may not be supported by empirical evidence.

In other words:
- an "opinion" goes beyond what can be observed, and may be false-to-empirical evidence.
- a "fact" describes empirical evidence without "going beyond" what can be observed or verified.

Loel stated a pencil doesn't measure. That depends on definitions of measure.
Also, he thought I would not find people who spoke to each other the way I suggested. Perhaps I could put it into the vernacular.

Engineer called in on a problem. Resident engineer says, " The d___ thing is not working. Here is what seems to be happening. This is what we tried, and it still doesn't work." We call this gathering data, which may contain some factual information.
Consulting engineer says, "I am not sure but from past experience I believe if we do this it might solve our problem. Let's see what happens." Called gathering more data.

Fact, or factual: It, what ever constitutes "it", does not perform as designed.

Opinion: Just about everything else.

I believe this may qualify as the scientific approach.

Ben, here is a relevant quote from p.280, S&S;

"It appears that the main importance of the linguistic higher order abstractions is
in their public character, for they are capable of being transmitted in neural and
extra-neural forms. But our private lives are influenced also very much by the lower
order abstractions, ‘feelings’, ‘intuitions’,. These can be, should be, but seldom are,
properly influenced by the higher order abstractions. These ‘feelings’. , are personal,
un-speakable, and so are non-transmittable. For instance, we cannot transmit the
actual feeling of pain when we burn ourselves; but we can transmit the invariant
relation of the extremely complex fire-flesh-nerve-pain manifold. A relation is
present empirically, but also can be expressed by words. It seems important to have
means to translate these higher order abstractions into lower, and this will be the
subject of Part VII."

Both Frank and David made good points, I think. AK often used the expression 'false-to-facts' and by this I think he meant 'not similar in structure to empirical relations'. In other words, if you were to investigate yourself you would not find the relations empirically.

You know, I don't think I miss the point, Thomas. Proper abstracting per the SD corresponds with E > O > D > I. Just because I falls at the tail end of that ordering doesn't mean it lacks importance. Instead, it has less importance than E, O, and D.

All four, E, O, D, and I, influence our evaluations. I might classify a first evaluation as EODI₁, then using those EODIs, we make another evaluation, EODI₂. Then, making another evaluation on the basis of EODI₂, we make EODI₃. As a result, we reveal the multiordinality of the term "evalaution"; we have a 1st evaluation, a 2nd evaluation, a 3rd evaluation, and so on, and each differ significantly, one presumably least influenced by prior EODIs, others presumably more influenced by prior EODIs.

I hope the jargon doesn't confuse. I will explicate if it helps.

Ben, I'm not sure why you keep saying inferences are less important - I guess I'm saying sometimes they are more important.

I go off of page 406 of S&S as some of the support of my interpretation:

When we introduce ordinal language, we should notice that under known conditions we deal with an ordered natural series; namely, events first, object next; object first, label next; description first, inferences next,. This order expresses the natural importance, giving us the natural base for evaluation and so for our natural human s.r. If we identify two different orders, by necessity, we evaluate them equally, which always involves errors, resulting potentially in semantic shocks. As we deal in life with an established natural order of values which can be expressed, for my purpose, by a series of decreasing in value: events or scientific objects, ordinary objects, labels, descriptions, inferences.; identification results in a very curious semantic situation.

I wouldn't call it a storm - more like a squall . I think I see where we are not communicating so well. AK puts the event as the most important, as you point out but I think we have to differentiate between personal inferences and scientific inferences. It is through scientific inferences that we even know about the event and it is these inferences that I am saying we need to allow to influence our feelings. I think AK was trying to battle the tendency in unscientific people to allow blind beliefs and dogma affect their perceptions and actions. It isn't the process that's bad it's that we need to start with the proper inferences that we wish to guide us. As AK often says do we want to use primitive inferences or modern scientific ones?

I could buy that. For example, in the above quotation, he calls them not "objects" but "scientific objects." With that I see a desire to start with a certain inference about objects. In other words, we don't, say, start with an "anthropomorphic object" or a "religious object." We start with an object as inferred by science.

K brings an order and an ordinal relation between and amongst the event-level, human sensation, labeling and description, and inference. Without something like the SD, we might simply see them as various processes for taking in reality, not necessarily related. Instead, as I understand it, he points out the natural order as seen in the nervous system, somewhat codifying that order as the "sane" order, suggesting that removing the ordinality (by identification) or reversing it yields "unsanity."

Yes, very true.