Ask Two Geniuses with Dr. Christian Sorensen and Erik Haereid on Linguistic Breaks, Mind Maps, Truth, Irrational and Indeterminate, Conflicted and Contradictory Reality, Multinary Forms of Thinking, and “1+1=1”: Independent Philosopher & Metaphysician; Statistician & Actuarial Scientist (3)

Author(s): Scott Douglas Jacobsen

Publication (Outlet/Website): In-Sight: Independent Interview-Based Journal

Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2020/09/01

Abstract

Rick Rosner and I conduct a conversational series entitled Ask A Genius on a variety of subjects through In-Sight Publishing on the personal and professional website for Rick. This series with Erik and Christian build on this idea. Erik Haereid earned a score at 185, on the N-VRA80. He is an expert in Actuarial Sciences. Christian Sorensen earned a score at 185+, i.e., at least 186, on the WAIS-R. He is an expert in philosophy. Both scores on a standard deviation of 15. A sigma of ~5.67 for Erik – a general intelligence rarity of 1 in 136,975,305 – and a sigma of ~5.67+ for Christian – a general intelligence rarity of more than 1 in 136,975,305, at least 1 in 202,496,482. Neither splitting hairs nor a competition here; we agreed to a discussion, hopefully, for the edification of the audience here. If a higher general intelligence score, then the greater the variability in, and margin of error in, the general intelligence scores because of the greater rarity in the population. This amounts to a joint interview or conversation with Christian Sorensen, Erik Haereid, and myself. They discuss: the real world and language; “emotional divine experiences”; our “mind map” implying a ‘projection of sense experience categorized into patterns with reason for thought’; eternality of truth; the power of definition; dis-prove or dis-evidence the assumption; offshoring of previously conscious awareness requiring processing; intuitive grasp of reality; a trialectic and quadralectic, etc., form of thinking about reality; forms of reasoning; reality “intrinsically contradictory and conflicted”; modern rational tools; contact points about reality; thoughts maps grounded in experience; the relationship between the thoughts and experience; the real and unreal; emotion and thinking as part of thoughts; the quality of the thoughts or the maps; the “irrational and indeterministic”; statistics; 1) our thoughts and mind structures and 2) the outputs in life and societal organization with new thoughts and new frameworks for individual and collective operation; a capital “T” Truth cannot be reached ever; ‘1 plus 1 sometimes equal 1 if one knows how to count to 3’; the arithmetic principles of annihilation and symmetry; pseudo-indeterminism; “the beginning”; 1 + 1 always equalling 2; comprehension of indeterminism and determinism; a greater understanding of the reality; principles would imply never – not simply “sometimes” – producing 2 with 1 + 1; and predictable and determinate.

Keywords: Christian Sorensen, conflicted, contradictory, Erik Haereid, indeterminate, irrational, linguistic breaks, mind maps, multinary, reality, truth.

Ask Two Geniuses with Dr. Christian Sorensen and Erik Haereid on Linguistic Breaks, Mind Maps, Truth, Irrational and Indeterminate, Conflicted and Contradictory Reality, Multinary Forms of Thinking, and “1+1=1”: Independent Philosopher & Metaphysician; Statistician & Actuarial Scientist (3)

*Please see the footnotes, bibliography, and citation style listing after the interview.*

Scott Douglas Jacobsen: Christian, you spoke about a “linguistic break” and the “purpose of the idea of paradox.” On “the purpose of the idea of paradox,” with “a distinction between logical validity and truth,” the implausibility of logic’s relation to truth, and truth’s relation to logic, in a chain of reasoning from language and linguistic structure and the reality of the world. What is the purpose of the idea of a paradox in this sense to elucidate the apparency of a linguistic disjunction with the truth? How much does language approximate truth – simply sufficiently for good enough evolved organisms such as ourselves to survive in the world? More directly on the “linguistic break,” what does this Grand Canyon between the real world and language mean for the attainment of capital “T” Truth in some form for consciousnesses in the universe – in fact, any iteration of the current dynamics of the universe – including homo sapiens?

Dr. Christian Sorensen[1]*: I think that the whole question must be put in negative, and start from its end in order to understand the originative reason. Therefore I will start from reality, which going backwards with the question, is the cause of everything, since what occurs following an evolutionary sense, is that nobody actually has ever wanted to know anything about reality, because in turn there is nothing more terrifying and distressing than reality as such. This conflictual knot, is what paradoxically speaking, has made survival possible, in consequence the truth, which should arises from the relationship between reality and language, is subject to the above, and to what I will denominate as the original mythical repression of the primary symbol, that consequently, is lost and leaves a space of emptiness. The mythical repression of the primary symbol, is what produces the linguistic break, due to the fact that indeed, if a piece is missing, then it is possible that the language circulates through metaphors that lead to significations, that emerge from a particular significant in relation to the rest of the significants within the chain, nevertheless not with a related reality, which ultimately implies in its meaning at the same time, a disconnection with the signified thing, since the effort to squeeze reality through the truth, always shows regardless of the discursive coherence, that something in every linguistic act escapes throughout symbolization.

Jacobsen: Erik, you spoke more to “intuition, feelings, multiple meanings, semantics” regarding paradox, especially the God concept in which something unproven or unevidenced becomes proof or evidence of “God.” What did you mean by “emotional divine experiences”?

Erik Haereid[2][3]*: Sometimes our emotions bring us into a profound feeling, a state where we feel that everything is right. It’s like being connected to reality, to the truth. We can, more or less, explain what kind of intrinsic physical phenomena going on, but not what make these processes happen.

I didn’t mean that the unproven is a proof of “God”. We reveal hidden material all the time. But I suppose that we will never be able to reveal everything. There will always be, in every event and entity, a power of definition or free will or creator that is beyond our imagination abilities.

It has nothing to do with God in the common meaning, but with how we bodily involve experiences. Sometimes I can feel “God” when I watch ants building their anthill, or when I drink my coffee and watch the sunrise. And those experiences become more or less a part of me, depending on how my body internalizes it. The unproven becomes evidence of that we do not know everything. The point is to declare scientifically, logically, rationally a respect for what we don’t know. To claim there is a God is not within that respect, because then you define something that we don’t know. The only thing we know is that we can’t know everything, for how do we prove that?

Jacobsen: If a “continuous search for truth,” as the benchmark, and the “search for a logical reality” in our “mind map” implying a ‘projection of sense experience categorized into patterns with reason for thought,’ why is this an “eternal and continuous” process?

Haereid: I don’t know if it’s literally eternal. Truth is reality. We want to see, understand, reality; confined and imprisoned into our bodily and mental construction. Since this is impossible, we search for the optimal approximation. By optimizing our thoughts, or map of reality if you want, we get closer to reality; our interaction with reality will increase, there will be more inputs and outputs. We read the constantly improving inner map while walking in the real or true environment. Our search for truth is actually a search for a better projection of truth. One of our goals is to move or interact as best as possible in the real world, and one of our tools is our cognition and world of thoughts. This mental construction’s content is rational per se. Our mind filters or choose the parts of reality that fits into our rational construction, through a translation.

I guess that by evolving increasingly larger mental space of rational connections to reality, we become better and wider in our contact with reality, and this is a goal. It enhances us. As entities we drive for, want and need this improving connection. Maybe or maybe not forever. But it’s something divine with the contact between us as entities and the rest of reality, and our brain is a tool to improve the contact points. It’s about feeling safe and in charge, having control. We create illusions, maps, over a reality that make us feel in charge. And we live from there. The problem is that we are continuously awakened by irrationality and in conflicts with the parts of reality that is not rational and under our control. Until we can rest in a sort of total rational existence, we will fight and struggle with irrationality. If we one day in evolution reach the point of total rationality, it’s an illusion that we rest in. It’s not that we have understood or seen reality, that’s impossible, but that we have ended our journey of gaining more wisdom and insight. Then we have understood that the aim is not infinite amounts of knowledge, but an optimization of knowledge adapted to the human creature. Then we could say that the struggle or conflict between Apollo and Dionysus, between the super-ego and id, between control and libido, is ended.

Jacobsen: Why can eternality of truth, the “Truth” mentioned in the question to Christian, never be ascertained by a human “mind map”?

Haereid: Because we, humans, will never know if what we see as a complete understanding and insight to the Truth contains everything. It’s because of our limitations as creatures. To know that, we have to be the power of definition ourselves. And if we one day think we are, how can we know that there is nothing more, that this idea is just only that; a narcissistic idea? If everything is like we think it is because we experience it (it’s no surprises anymore), it does not prove that it is like this, because we can’t prove that we really have experienced everything. A proved TOE (theory of everything) doesn’t prove that this proves everything, just that there is a perfect rational internal map connected to parts of reality.

Reality has unlimited content. Humans task is to combine as much of this content with our body structure as possible; within our limitations. One way of doing this is to limit our interactions with reality (experiences, sense perceptions), like we do in the virtual reality where we are more in charge of creation. And like psychopaths, fundamentalists and racists do by manipulating others into their limited views. Another way is to open up for whatever content reality shows us, and treat it inside a system like science, to evolve understanding.

Jacobsen: Why is the power of definition the point of the ‘beginning of it all’?

Haereid: Since there is something, and this has a beginning or a point of creation. But this is an idea confined in the logic of the human brain. It’s reasonable. It’s difficult to think of something as infinite. So, when we talk about infinite, we talk about something that we don’t understand. It’s irrational. Beginnings, endings and infinity demand something beyond rational thoughts. We will never capture it with our mind.

There is no explanation that fulfills what we can’t imagine or think of. How can we know that we have explained everything when we prove that we have? How can we establish such a proof? I don’t know what is outside my limits of imagination, and that’s what I call free will or power of definition. It’s a label of what I don’t know and never can know. If I said that one day I maybe will know, I would lie, like people who say that God exists. We don’t know that. It’s impossible to establish knowledge about what we never are able to internalize or capture with our mind.

Jacobsen: ‘What would dis-prove or dis-evidence the assumption (“my assumption”)?

Haereid: To make everyone accept that “my assumption” is false.

Jacobsen: Does this automaticity, offshoring of previously conscious awareness requiring processing to the non-conscious ‘mind,’ help adaptability in new and old environments, i.e., as new problems are dealt with using fresh mental resources and old problems can be automated to previous cognition?

Haereid: When we deal with new problems, we think about that problem in ways that make us aware; we use our conscious mind to solve novel problems. Like learning to drive a car. When you have learned it, you don’t think about every move you take driving it. In this process we use every stored knowledge, every inherited wisdom, any available information learned, inherited or transferred in ways we yet don’t know about or understand, to solve that problem as best as we can to fulfill what we need and wish.

Jacobsen: Erik, following from the previous question (and Part Two), when we take the “conscious rational methods” as a formulation of the ‘intuitive’ “multinary form of thinking,”, why is this intuitive grasp of reality adaptable into formalizations at all?

Our way of thinking, rationality, time-space projection, is a language constructed for humans to “see” or comprehend reality; make us interact better with reality. Parts of reality are interpreted into this human language. The power of definition, nature, god, creator or whatever has created this feature, use this either as a goal in itself or as a tool to achieve some kind of inner or unconscious wisdom. Why our thoughts and consciousness are like it is, is impossible to say. And human will always try to find answers to this, and through this process converging towards a larger consciousness, either as a tool or goal.

Another comment: I said that one possibility is that our consciousness is a tool to achieve a higher degree of truth, and when we do, our consciousness vanishes. Then it has done its job for us. Another view is to think of our consciousness as a goal in itself, not as reality, still as a map of reality, but as a map that optimizes reality for human. Our mind is the reality’s way of giving humans a best way of being aware of reality, sense it, experience it and live it in expansions of here and now; in time and space. It’s a communication tool. When we reach as close as we can, when our mind pictures reality as best as possible confined into what a human brain is, we have reached our potential as humans, and can optimize our lives. If so, the goal could be seen as a complete consciousness, and not as in my other assumption where I pictured a path where the mind map converged into reality, and then disappeared; that humans aim was to discover and develop a complete or perfect map related to reality, and then disappear. Move into the next level of beings or entities, where we are unconscious or conscious on another level than we are as humans. It’s easier to think of consciousness as a goal in itself, because that’s what we can relate to. That’s how we see it now. We learn, develop, in an accumulation of wisdom through generations and history. Why I suggest the other option is that I see life or entities as part of a process, and not as a finite ruler. We will die, extinct, go into other forms, sooner or later. I think it’s convenient to see us as tools for something going on. And as a tool we have our mind. What’s the point with that? Where does consciousness go after human extinction? Why this kind of evolution; what is it good for? Why consciousness at all?

Maybe we need to evolve our consciousness to the mentioned high or perfect level where the mind map fits reality as far as possible, and exactly then we transform into a new form that need that insight to evolve further. That’s a thought.

Jacobsen: Christian, in a dialectic, what points of reference become implied in the analysis of the dialectic for coming at a representation of the real and the unreal? In a prior interview, we talked about trialectics, quadralectics, as an advancement in complexity of the formal or more traditional dialectic. What would be implied by a trialectic and quadralectic, etc., form of thinking about reality? How would this alter, not fundamentally, the Hegelian idea of thesis and antithesis for a synthesis? Christian, what forms of reasoning seem the hardest for the human brain to compute? Why?

Sorensen: In the dialectic representation of the reality and unreality what is fundamental is the presence of the opposition of symbolic terms, that as such individually are blind, but that when placed in a linguistic chain produce a sense in terms of meaning as a third term, that by itself is also blind, since as such does not means anything, nevertheless allows ideational mobility. Therefore I believe that the dialectic, trialectic and quadrilectic, are sort of polygons, where the points are the opposing terms, and the edges are the opposing relationships between these, which in turn end up converging in what I will denominate as fugue point of meaning, that as intermediate, is the third term of the synthesis within the discursive circulation of the symbolic chain. I think that the cryptic ideal forms, are the most difficult to assimilate, because the brain is used to digital and univocal meanings, and to the sensitive connection with the world, as a primary source of knowledge.

Jacobsen: Erik, what forms of reasoning seem the hardest for the human brain to compute? Why?

Haereid: Abductive reasoning is the easiest. We make decisions naturally based on what we think is actual, possible and not, all the time. This is inborn. Deductive reasoning seems to be the hardest. Our brains are quite new, and our cognitive abilities “underdeveloped”; we need more time to catch and develop the mental devices and their possibilities.

We can travel into fictions and experience it as real in one sense, and communicate it, like we do in any virtual reality. If all our movability and empirical senses where shut down, our lives would be limited to a virtual reality. Then this is the reality. But because we experience things with our senses, and also are able to live in fictive sceneries, we have two separate existences. Deduction is therefore linked to empirics. To prove mental images and logical theories, we have to experience empirically, because this is also a crucial part of humanity; our lives are not only in our thoughts, in a book or a computer game.

The more we exclude our contact with reality, by e.g. solely live in computer games, in movies, books and so on, in virtual creations of reality, the more we construct our own reality or map if you want. Then it’s easier to think that reality is what we think, because we have constructed what we want the reality to be like. The more we are in contact with reality, the more we collide with it and meet its irrational challenges. It’s easier to live in a virtual “reality” because we can create it ourselves. Then the contradictions are easier to solve.

The beauty about our mental reality separated from empirics is that we can make it as we want. We can agree upon the rules, and in a common virtual mutual existence of social harmony become whole. We can remove irrationality and make everything under control, given that we are passive and not separate into any empirical activity. To exclude discrimination, we would have to make rules and opportunities that everyone could use and benefit on. This is simpler in virtual reality than in real sensed reality. It’s not the symbols, language, mathematics, constructed thoughts that are the problematic part of our lives, but the combination of that and the sensed experiences. If we could rely on reason, life would be easy. I guess that’s one reason why we have developed reason; it lets us control our lives into a larger degree than if we were limited to a face to face reality with the empirical world. I think that’s the reason why computer programs and virtual realities are exploding. It’s controllable. We get closer to a defining power. If we can manage to create a reality that we fully control, we can “prove” (make the illusion that we have proved) that everything is determined or rational. Then we have showed that we, or whatever that drives us, is the defining power of reality. But still we can’t know what this defining power is or where it comes from, only that we have created complete rationality inside our view of reality. Let’s say that we are part of such a process, where complete control and rationality is the goal and final outcome. This makes natural sense. We are the dominating species, and want control, because that gives us more power. Evolving a mental device that gives us the illusion of control, e.g. logics, is a proper instrument to gain more control. In this context we do not profit on an uncontrollable empirical reality. We want control, and therefore we want to prove a TOE. Or we take control over the empirical reality to make us feel more in power, and to make our mental devices fit the empirical ones.

Our aim is to make the mind maps fit the empirical reality, but also to make the empirical reality more like our mind maps, because it’s easier for us to control the latter one. A mental problem appears when we ask why is that, and where does it end. This will forever be a mental problem for us. Why do we want control/power? What’s the point? Maybe it’s life itself. But life, before our complex mental devices, was an empirical journey and not a mental one. OK, so “we” understood that evolving mentality gave us better opportunities to survive as a species. But the dichotomy is that we drive apart from empirical experiences because this take the control and power away from us. Every time we “loose our brain” we get into more risks for damage and death. The solution is obviously to control the empirical world; remove every danger. And we try to do that as well as creating virtual realities, fictions, illusions and logics that make us feel powerful. But still this is only an explanation of how we increase our survival, and not of why we want to survive and live. Life per se is still an enigma. That’s why I conclude with that life as phenomenon is irrational. In general, you could say that at some starting point there are no explanation, no reason beyond. It’s just there. And what is just there is, when we try to make it reasonable, established by a defining power or on something irrational; that’s only an expression of what we don’t control nor have any power over.

What could happen when we gain complete power? As said, one thought is that we are at The End; we all die, all human consciousness disappears, and we go let’s say into a next and higher level. Another thought is that we go into a circuit of conscious harmony or eternal lives; a fulfillment of what we now and forever want and strive for.

Jacobsen: Christian, why is reality “intrinsically contradictory and conflicted”? What substantiates the claim of the ‘intrinsic’ nature of the (internal) ‘conflict’ and (internal) ‘contradictions’? With this intrinsic nature of a conflicted and contradictory reality, what connects these two sets of two points of ‘intrinsic contradiction & ungraspability’ and ‘intrinsic conflict & unreality’? With nothing to say to no one in particular about the ultimate in specific, an interesting part of this becomes neither the spoken in general or the universally unspeakable; the junction means something. What does this mean for the meaningful statements at the linguistic breaking point or the “linguistic break” between that which “nothing could be pronounced at all” and many things have been and continue to be said all the time? What is an example of a linguistic border to the breaking point? Something leading to the unspeakable (in definition, not in the sense of a horror film creature). Christian and Erik, with modern rational tools, e.g., statistics, to inform thoughts about the world, insofar as we can know the real world, do these tools provide unprecedented or more precise maps and, therefore, understandings of the world? Even with the same genetic equipment across the species, how does this change 1) our thoughts and mind structures and 2) the outputs in life and societal organization with new thoughts and new frameworks for individual and collective operation? If a capital “T” Truth cannot be reached ever, would this mean a continuous and never-ending change in “1)” and “2)” in proportion to one another?

Sorensen: If it is assumed that the contradiction, is equivalent to the opposition, and that this last is a necessary condition for the conflict, and on the other hand, it is accepted that in reality the opposition of things exists as something evident, then it can be deduced, because contradiction exists, that reality is inherently conflicted. On the other side, ungraspability and unreality, have little to do with the contradictory and conflictive nature of reality, since ungraspability is a cognitive consequence, which does not derives from the nature of reality, but rather does it from the nature of logos. Likewise although unreality is a condition of reality as such, as long as it’s a fact that it is nothing in itself, it is imperatively conclusive that then anything can be caused by such thing. The linguistic break occurs, because there exists, shining by its absence, only one and exclusively one signifier, that I will name as mute signifier, which as such it is unspeakable and unpronounceable, because if it is translated linguistically speaking into a word, it is indeed one but because of its emptiness. An illustrating example of the aforementioned, is what happens with poetry, which tries to explain figuratively, what is inexpressible through everyday’s language. In fact the statistics informs of something, but this is not equivalent to assume that doing so, is an approximation to something in truth terms, since what actually always does, is an approach more to what it is not, than to what it is, not for nothing its effort moves towards the acceptance of the null hypotheses in its empirical verification process. I think that this, though it can be felt as an ungrateful disagreement, is what makes individual and collective developments possible, because in itself, is intrinsically linked to movement, which in my opinion is the most fundamental action of the phenomenon of life. In similar manner, although I think that the most permanent thing is change, I also believe that this factual inertia, has an encoded meaning that despite it may be theoretically infinite, has a decryption limit in reality.

Jacobsen: Erik, any other contact points about reality and informed consciousness than ‘sensation, perception, feeling, and thinking’?

Haereid: Expression; output. Input and output, information in and out, is our contact and communication with reality. Physically we choose and amplifies received information, regulates it, making it into mental images, thoughts and projections of reality. We translate something un-understandable into something else, which we can relate to, which we understand and operate within. We can say something about the translation process, but not about the input to it. We know about the physical entities like the nervous system, hormones, neurotransmitters and so on. We build AI-processors based on knowledge of how we think our brain works.

By choosing and excluding (on/off) we can draw a picture based on what information we choose. But we cannot say much about the information we reject. By amplifying we can make chosen information more or less important to us. But we don’t know much about why we choose what we choose.

Jacobsen: Why are thoughts maps grounded in experience?

Haereid: We are born or created with the ability to see the world or reality in these mental images, in time-space-modus. Some of the content may be inherited, most of it learned and experienced. Experiences justifies and improves these maps. Experiences are our unconscious contact with reality, and experiences as projections into mind is our picture of these experiences. When we see, get distanced to, our experiences, we are obviously better fitted to improve in the real world; make our moves better towards whatever goal we have. But it’s still a projection, it’s not reality per se. When we think our thoughts and mental images is reality, we live in an illusion.

Jacobsen: While “thoughts are maps,” and to “sense, perceive, feel, [and] think” become the mediums by which the maps (the thoughts) are informed as experienced about reality, what does this state about the relationship between the thoughts and experience?

Haereid: Reality is sensed as, let’s call it information. Some sort of input to our body-system occurs, and we adapt it, internalize and process it, store it and combine old (stored in our memory) and new information to make an increasing better image or map, an illusion, of reality. You could say that the human body-system work making mess into order, or an inverse entropy. Our common brain’s mission is to collect all chaos in the Universe created once, into an understandable whole. It’s like we try to force an arbitrary evolution into systems of rationality. But this is us, this is a part of the chaos. So, human have a mission. This is an entity in the Universe. Even though we never will know why and where, we can trust in it because it’s actually there. Maybe human consciousness and our strive for logic is a universal appendix, or maybe it’s some higher meaning with it. We don’t know.

Thoughts are translated information, like in computers. The software programs are processes treating some input, information, and translate it into space-time figures; a user interface. Experiences are inputs, coming from reality, a world that we only have illusions about, but something that provide us with impulses. Our senses make these inputs registered before internalized. To maintain, survive and live as organisms or entities we have some needs, and we treat information in coordination with our needs. Our mental images are a product of our needs; we see and think what we want to see and think. What we don’t want or need, we suppress or ignore. It’s like when we have used all our repertoire of methods to rationalize and suppress, and reality becomes to uncomfortable and clammy, we choose to die; lock down the system. We call some of these clammy phenomena for diseases and accidents.

Jacobsen: What differentiates the real and unreal in this proposed framework of statistical and multi-modal maps of the world?

Haereid: Mentally, consciously, we don’t know what is real since we only have the ability to create images and representations or approximations of reality. We are in contact with reality when we experience; all the time. When we sense whatever, we experience, and that is real.

The real is the input, information; signals that we catch, receive and process with our inborn system of senses and other processing tools. Our expressions are real as signals delivered into reality and processed by other entities, like humans who create their images and representations of it. Since we can’t make a true image of the real, we have to trust more or less our images of reality. E.g. through logical systems like mathematics and statistics.

Jacobsen: With emotion and thinking as part of thoughts, does this make the maps, the thoughts, about reality as inextricably biased in the intra-psychic direction of the emoting, feeling when projected ‘outwards’ and asserted as the real world in which the entity operates?

Haereid: Yes.

Emotions are amplifiers of information; it’s an internal weight that make us suppress, ignore or focus. It’s a measure of importance as to our needs. E.g. we need to understand, create a rational picture of reality, and therefore we feel happy when we process information and combinations that enhance this feature, and sad, anxious or disgust when some information make the picture irrational. Emotions help us to choose the parts of reality (input) that help us evolve optimally.

Jacobsen: Should the quality of the thoughts or the maps continue to deteriorate, in general, with middle and elder age as the sense organs become less sensitive, and so the inputs – ‘sensation, perception, feeling, and thinking’ – lose speed, fidelity, and breadth?

Haereid: Age make us generally more indifferent and dependent of habits; more prejudiced. We relate on what we already know and have stored. Our senses are weakened, yes. Mentally we become more confined, pleased, but not necessarily less creative and right. The past becomes more important; with age a thinking human will get the opportunity to see the same information from new angles. Additional information is not necessarily an advantage. With new information and ditto processes we tend to exclude and make shortcuts to get through the aim; understand, reaching our needs. It’s not always about making the mind map, the space of knowledge and understanding, increasingly bigger. It’s about dealing with the knowledge we have until then. Something is more important than other things. If you believe that the goal is to understand everything, then you will stress gaining as much knowledge as possible and make rational coherence as fast as possible within the systems of brains (collective mind). 

Jacobsen: Why equate the “irrational and indeterministic”?

Haereid: When something is indeterministic it is a power of definition (my expression), or free will, if you like. It has no rational cause. It’s unpredictable. That makes indeterministic events irrational. If something is seemingly irrational, but after some research not, then it’s not irrational. Rationality and determinism are ways of interpreting and living in an irrational and indeterministic reality. It’s no explanation why it is like this. And this proposition is as said an assumption. We don’t know.

Jacobsen: Erik, with modern rational tools, e.g., statistics, to inform thoughts about the world, insofar as we can know the real world, do these tools provide unprecedented or more precise maps and, therefore, understandings of the world?

Haereid: Yes. Rational tools like statistics is ways of making us see, be aware of more parts (images) of reality. It improves our interactions with reality as real entities. As humans we are restricted to live in rationality, into order. And to do that we need to extract (translate) order from disorder in the chaotic reality. But order is not restricted to some limited amount of information. We evolve by collecting increasingly amounts of information, and make order out of it. This is the main purpose of human lives, seemingly. Evolving rational tools is part of this evolution. But our brains are constructed as though we believe that everything is order; we just have to collect some huge more amounts of information and put it into rationality (We want everything to be orderly; that’s part of our construction). But it’s, in my view, more reasonably that we never will explain the definition of power.

Jacobsen: Even with the same genetic equipment across the species, how does this change 1) our thoughts and mind structures and 2) the outputs in life and societal organization with new thoughts and new frameworks for individual and collective operation?

Haereid: I think individual and group-related narcissism and racism, and the opposite, self-hate, depression and suicide, are interim flaws or failures or appendixes to a better solution for the individuals and collective. The survival of the fittest is natures temporary act to get in power of controlling the evolution. On that road nature provide us with aggression and violence combined with opposing nurturing and compassion. Pure aggression leads us to perfection, which is the same as less variation and finally extinction. Pure compassion leads us to stop in evolution and no development. Then we will not be able to understand what we want to, and to get that control we strive for, whatever reason this is. This is a shuttle between safety and change.

It’s the manifold that define human cognition and mind, the Earth and life/nature. One conclusion could therefore be that the goal is more diversity under the rules of rationality, with the brain and consciousness as basic instruments. This leads to a possible infinite diverse reality, since the mind is an instrument to draw an increasingly more proper map over (parts of) reality. The reason why we restrict ourselves to perfectionism could be that we don’t have (yet) the capacity to embrace and internalize larger parts of reality into our logical structures. We choose what we can overcome at each moment.

We restrict diversity because we can’t understand it yet, and by understanding we create safety. While we are safe, we get energy for more diversity and more wisdom and evolution. Humans can be seen as one of natures instruments to internalize both variety (much information) and control (rationality).

There are species with the same genetic equipment, and the social structures will be a function of how far nature or life has come to reach its final goal. Peace is a function of safety, and safety is a function of feeling satisfied with being where we are. The day we are satisfied we know what we can and will know, we will relax and include everything that we sense and have in mind. Then we are at the point of optimal consciousness; where the mind as best reflects the invisible reality. Then the struggle is over. If we get there, we will live in harmony among species. The rules of nature will change because nature has reached its goal.

Jacobsen: If a capital “T” Truth cannot be reached ever, would this mean a continuous and never-ending change in “1)” and “2)” in proportion to one another?

Haereid: I think I answered this in the last question.

Jacobsen: Christian, why does ‘1 plus 1 sometimes equal 1 if one knows how to count to 3’?

Sorensen: Because 1+1= 1. In any case, I think that jealousy appeared in the evolution of human being when he learned to count to 3.

Jacobsen: Erik, why stick to the arithmetic principles of annihilation and symmetry?

Haereid: Because that’s one language which I am familiar with. I could push the limits and make several other interpretations.

Jacobsen: Christian, what is pseudo-indeterminism?

Sorensen: I think that pseudo indeterminism is equivalent to freedom, which is similar to a stain on clothes, since if a reverse reasoning is followed respect to the stain, it’s deductible that the more it is erased or made disappeared, which is analogous to the case of freedom when it is proclaimed or demanded, then more the underground of determinism and predestination will arise as indelible marks. Therefore I think that liberty in terms of pseudo indeterminism, is nothing else than what I will denominate as vitalist reactive formation, which means that a change of the original negative feeling that’s an expression of despair is done, in order to seek and replace it for another positive one of autonomy and of serenity of conscience.

Jacobsen: Erik, what is “the beginning”?

Haereid: Rationally, it’s chaos. Beyond our understanding, it’s a power of definition. A free will.

Jacobsen: Why is this, in arithmetic, always the case with 1 + 1 always equalling 2?

Haereid: It’s a definition and a logical consequence. It’s communication; an agreement. It doesn’t have to be that way. It’s a part of our common, objective mind map. It’s an example of how we humans squeeze chaotic reality into understandable order. It’s a compass. But it’s also misleading since it’s only a part of and an image of reality.

Jacobsen: Christian, what principles would imply never – not simply “sometimes” – producing 2 with 1 + 1? Are the degrees of comprehension of indeterminism and determinism, or the apparency of indeterminism and determinism, in the universe bound by the minds considering the two? In that, some things seem predictable and determinate to some, and unpredictable and indeterminate to others, where this means a greater understanding of the reality – or a greater accuracy in thoughts about the real world – within a bounded situation provides better predictive capacities to some in contrast to others. Does higher relative intelligence function in this manner?

Sorensen: I think that 1 + 1 is 1 and not 2 in two phenomena, one that’s plausible and another that’s certain, which are respectively that of ideal love and that of death. Something similar occurs with the mind and the understanding of reality, since in my opinion the unicity, the higher degree of intelligence and understandings are directly proportional, meanwhile a higher degree of intelligence with a predictable and determinable understandings of reality are inversely proportional.

Jacobsen: Erik, what principles would imply never – not simply “sometimes” – producing 2 with 1 + 1?

Haereid: It’s a definition and a logical consequence. It’s communication; an agreement. It doesn’t have to be that way. It’s a part of our common, objective mind map. It’s an example of how we humans squeeze chaotic reality into understandable order. It’s a compass. But it’s also misleading since it’s only a part of and an image of reality.

Jacobsen: Are the degrees of comprehension of indeterminism and determinism, or the apparency of indeterminism and determinism, in the universe bound by the minds considering the two?

Haereid: Yes. As insinuated, humans want the world to be deterministic, because that’s how we are constructed. We force ourselves by extracting the fitting pieces from reality and place it into suitable patterns that we can deal with. We see the world as deterministic, and each time reality shows us something else, we use energy to explain or twist these new inputs into our pleasant system of comprehension. We forget what we do not get.

Jacobsen: In that, some things seem predictable and determinate to some, and unpredictable and indeterminate to others, where this means a greater understanding of the reality – or a greater accuracy in thoughts about the real world – within a bounded situation provides better predictive capacities to some in contrast to others. Does higher relative intelligence function in this manner?

Haereid: The human mind is about processing input or information received from reality (I repeat myself…). Due to several causes, some are better to estimate or predict future events than others; their internal maps and processors are better. But this means that they are better in adapting the mind to the part of reality that fits the mind, and not necessarily better to understand reality. Such people are better to project parts of reality into a human language, and contribute to an evolution of that part. The consequence is that human interaction with reality increases (increasing in inputs and outputs); there are more connecting points between humans and reality. In that human view, reality will seem more and more deterministic, because we tend not to think of what we don’t see. We control amounts of thoughts, but not what we do not know or think of. But intelligent people also have a greater fantasy and therefore make more mistakes about reality; creating images that do not fit into reality. 

Appendix I: Footnotes

[1] Dr. Christian Sorensen is a Philosopher that comes from Belgium. What identifies him the most and above all is simplicity, for everything is better with “vanilla flavour.” Perhaps, for this reason, his intellectual passion is criticism and irony, in the sense of trying to reveal what “hides behind the mask,” and give birth to the true. For him, ignorance and knowledge never “cross paths.” What he likes the most in his leisure time, is to go for a walk with his wife.

[2] Erik Haereid has been a member of Mensa since 2013, and is among the top scorers on several of the most credible IQ-tests in the unstandardized HRT-environment. He is listed in the World Genius Directory. He is also a member of several other high IQ Societies.

Erik, born in 1963, grew up in Oslo, Norway, in a middle class home at Grefsen nearby the forest, and started early running and cross country skiing. After finishing schools he studied mathematics, statistics and actuarial science at the University of Oslo. One of his first glimpses of math-skills appeared after he got a perfect score as the only student on a five hour math exam in high school.

He did his military duty in His Majesty The King’s Guard (Drilltroppen)).

Impatient as he is, he couldn’t sit still and only studying, so among many things he worked as a freelance journalist in a small news agency. In that period, he did some environmental volunteerism with Norges Naturvernforbund (Norwegian Society for the Conservation of Nature), where he was an activist, freelance journalist and arranged ‘Sykkeldagen i Oslo’ twice (1989 and 1990) as well as environmental issues lectures. He also wrote some crime short stories in A-Magasinet (Aftenposten (one of the main newspapers in Norway), the same paper where he earned his runner up (second place) in a nationwide writing contest in 1985. He also wrote several articles in different newspapers, magazines and so on in the 1980s and early 1990s.

He earned an M.Sc. degree in Statistics and Actuarial Sciences in 1991, and worked as an actuary novice/actuary from 1987 to 1995 in several Norwegian Insurance companies. He was the Academic Director (1998-2000) of insurance at the BI Norwegian Business School (1998-2000), Manager (1997-1998) of business insurance, life insurance, and pensions and formerly Actuary (1996-1997) at Nordea in Oslo Area, Norway, a self-employed Actuary Consultant (1996-1997), an Insurance Broker (1995-1996) at Assurance Centeret, Actuary (1991-1995) at Alfa Livsforsikring, novice Actuary (1987-1990) at UNI Forsikring.

In 1989 he worked in a project in Dallas with a Texas computer company for a month incorporating a Norwegian pension product into a data system. Erik is specialized in life insurance and pensions, both private and business insurances. From 1991 to 1995 he was a main part of developing new life insurance saving products adapted to bank business (Sparebanken NOR), and he developed the mathematics behind the premiums and premium reserves.

He has industry experience in accounting, insurance, and insurance as a broker. He writes in his IQ-blog the online newspaper Nettavisen. He has personal interests among other things in history, philosophy and social psychology.

In 1995, he moved to Aalborg in Denmark because of a Danish girl he met. He worked as an insurance broker for one year, and took advantage of this experience later when he developed his own consultant company.

In Aalborg, he taught himself some programming (Visual Basic), and developed an insurance calculation software program which he sold to a Norwegian Insurance Company. After moving to Oslo with his girlfriend, he was hired as consultant by the same company to a project that lasted one year.

After this, he became the Manager of business insurance in the insurance company Norske Liv. At that time he had developed and nurtured his idea of establishing an actuarial consulting company, and he did this after some years on a full-time basis with his actuarial colleague. In the beginning, the company was small. He had to gain money, and worked for almost two years as an Academic Director of insurance at the BI Norwegian Business School.

Then the consultant company started to grow, and he quitted BI and used his full time in NIA (Nordic Insurance Administration). This was in 1998/99, and he has been there since.

NIA provides actuarial consulting services within the pension and life insurance area, especially towards the business market. They was one of the leading actuarial consulting companies in Norway through many years when Defined Benefit Pension Plans were on its peak and companies needed evaluations and calculations concerning their pension schemes and accountings. With the less complex, and cheaper, Defined Contribution Pension Plans entering Norway the last 10-15 years, the need of actuaries is less concerning business pension schemes.

Erik’s book from 2011, Benektelse og Verdighet, contains some thoughts about our superficial, often discriminating societies, where the virtue seems to be egocentrism without thoughts about the whole. Empathy is lacking, and existential division into “us” and “them” is a mental challenge with major consequences. One of the obstacles is when people with power – mind, scientific, money, political, popularity – defend this kind of mind as “necessary” and “survival of the fittest” without understanding that such thoughts make the democracies much more volatile and threatened. When people do not understand the genesis of extreme violence like school killings, suicide or sociopathy, asking “how can this happen?” repeatedly, one can wonder how smart man really is. The responsibility is not limited to let’s say the parents. The responsibility is everyone’s. The day we can survive, mentally, being honest about our lives and existence, we will take huge leaps into the future of mankind.

[3] Individual Publication Date: September 1, 2020: http://www.in-sightjournal.com/haereid-sorensen-3; Full Issue Publication Date: September 1, 2020: https://in-sightjournal.com/insight-issues/.

*High range testing (HRT) should be taken with honest skepticism grounded in the limited empirical development of the field at present, even in spite of honest and sincere efforts. If a higher general intelligence score, then the greater the variability in, and margin of error in, the general intelligence scores because of the greater rarity in the population.

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