Friday, November 9, 2012

80% OF ALL TRUTHS ARE PARETO-TRUTHS




One of my essays in preparation is about “Eternal youth as punishment” (actually it is about the danger of remaining immature.) I have already written about the tragedy of eternal life
without eternal youth – it is a dreadful mess –see please: http://egooutpeters.blogspot.ro/2012/05/solving-insoluble-problems.html  the story of Eos.
Suppose I get both, despite the fact that it is a bit late- I know well that in the next 500 years I have to study really intensively the fine differences between reality and truth,
I feel it is my duty to speak today about Pareto Truths, trying very hard to understand a bit more than 80% of what I myself will say. The big idea is that we have to be aware of the fact that the truths we are operating with and vice-versa, are preponderantly incomplete, approximate and relative truths. and this is exactly what we can achieve in a disturbingly real world.


The basics about Pareto’s principle and truths are described here http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pareto_principle
As far I know this principle is not taught in the School, it is ignored almost or it is not taken sufficiently seriously and this is one of the deep roots of intellectual decadence and the support for Koalemos.

A short list of sayings, quotations, folklore re Pareto’s idea.

The first 80% of the task takes 80% of the time, and the last 20% of the task takes the other 80% of the time. (20/80 Principle)

People who create 20% of the results will begin believing they deserve 80% of the rewards. (Pat Riley)

80% of all statistics quoted to prove a point are made up on the spot. (The unknown statistician)

80% of the quotes on the internet are made up. (Abraham Lincoln)

Effective communication is 20% what you know and 80% how you feel about what you know. (Jim Rohn) –

80% percent of success is showing up. (Woody Allen)

Success is 80% attitude and 20% aptitude. (Funmi Wale-Adegbite)

The weather man is never wrong. Suppose he says that there's an 80% chance of rain. If it rains, the 80% chance came up; if it doesn't, the 20% chance came up!" (Saul Barron)

80% of all people consider themselves to be above average drivers. (Grelb's Reminder)

Never tell your problems to anyone...20% don't care and the other 80% are glad you have them. (Lou Holtz)

I make great mistakes. As I have told, I erred in 80% of the time. But there also are those 20%.  (Artie Shaw)

The average man never really thinks from end to end of his life. The mental activity of such people is only a mouthing of clichés. What they mistake for thought is simply a repetition of what they have heard. My guess is that well over 80 percent of the human race goes through life without having a single original thought.
(H.L. Mencken)


My personal experience with the Pareto Principle.

I can confirm that he Pareto Principle is painfully real:

a) Surprises- based on my diaries- you know those things used in the old times when the Blog still was not invented- I had lots of surprises, statistics shows 80% were bad, 20% neutral or good. It is positive correlation between the magnitude of a surprise and the harm it does.

b) In a standard human existence- life- only 20% is like wheat and 80% like tares (weeds)

c) The three components of the French Revolution – of democracy- liberté, égalité, fraternité- are treated differently. When I was traveling a lot in Romania, I have stated that 7 of our bigger towns have streets called Freedom, Equality and Fraternity.
In absolutely all cases (towns) the Freedom Street is in the center by far the longest of the three, the Equality Street is some secondary and the Fraternity Street is always the most miserable, a cul-de-sac at he periphery. I have maps and I could demonstrate that Freedom gets 80% of the total street lengths. This is kind of architectural-urbanistic reflection of the social situation of these concepts- lots of words about Freedom usually misunderstood as freedom to do what you want; Equality a noble slogan eaten alive by the 1%/99% situation and Fraternity (and Sorority) in its least sexist formulation Solidarity- fast degraded to Liquidarity and Gasidarity. Pareto ruling, that’s sure.

d) A humiliating but humorous experience- in the second year of writing my Info Kappa newsletter- (editorial, web-search school, a management and a motivational paper, selected quotations translated) for Astral Internet Service Provider my boss has told that the guy who wrote the daily Horoscopes has left and has asked me to write them temporarily till they will find a specialist. I have answered that I know well that horoscopes are baseless, worse than lies, idiocies for credulous people. He has explained me that the site lives from hits, page views clicking on ads and that Horoscope gets more, really more hits in a day than my “high quality smart” newsletter in an entire week, it is more profitable, Astrology offends Human Intelligence but  it is Business.. I got a salary increase and for 3 months, feeling the very guilt of intellectual prostitution, I have delivered those predictions for all the signs of the Zodiac. But at least I gave myself complete creative freedom, after learning the jargon and looking to a few models, I wrote the most fantastic prophecies- taking care only to respect a single rule: 80% good things some 20% not so good things but irradiating a contagious, invincible optimism. I had not a single complain, my popularity has peaked,
I got many questions and thanks. But I am not a lie-merchant and
I was happy when Astral got a genuine astrologist who has made a good, serious, well documented professional work.

e) I have stated that you are the happiest with a job where your motivation to work is 80% internal and 20% external;


f) The air we consume has a Pareto type composition- 80% nitrogen and 20% oxygen (the other gases have an effect disproportionate with their quantitative presence). I have
written a Septoe about Brainair- what is the bet for a well tempered brain: Brainair- four parts realism, one part imagination. Obviously this refers more to the sequence science-technology-management-business than to poetry, music art.

g) We have watched the American TV serial drama Twin Peaks
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Twin_Peaks  a few years after our Revolution that has removed the dictator Ceausescu and when we had observed with increasing discontent that the things have changed but not all for good, the forces of capitalism have not yet started to work. I have learned fast that the greatest sin in capitalism is to be poor, the inflation was lightning fast, violent events, stress, Twin Peak, this strange horror, occult comedy was in perfect harmony with our reality in which evil things have just changed form. In the day Twin Peaks has ended I have coined the Twin Peaks principle: “The evil is indestructible and always wins.”
Taking this seriously, it is a good reason for despair, demoralization, suicide, however the Twin Peaks principle is a Pareto truth it is true in many times and places – in some it is
Inexorable but for some other places, times and individuals it is not acting at all.
It was a revelation – to understand that our truths
are not ideal, not complete, not definitive, not universal, not ubiquitous, not pure, not absolute, not unique, not constant, and not certain! - no, our truths are broken, hopelessly fragmented.

This can be explained by science and reason- reality is so complex and dynamic that many times it cannot be adequately described by “formulas” accessible to the human brain that is
80% perfectible and only 20% marvelous has its very limits and constrains.

Religion also accepts- it has too forced by events and facts that Truth is broken. An old Jewish allegory found in the book: “Old Wine New Flasks” by Roald Hoffmann and Shira Leibovitz Schmidt, http://www.amazon.com/Old-Wine-New-Flasks-Reflections/dp/0716728990 says how it happened. The first author has won the Nobel Prize for Chemistry in 1981, is a poet and coauthor (with Carl Djerassi) of the bright play ‘OXYGEN- about scientific discovery:-
http://www.wiley-vch.de/books/sample/Oxygen_Study_Guide.pdf

The religion-based explanation of fragmented truths is the following:

“It was a tie; the heavenly vote was split right down the middle ˜ two in favor, two against. At issue ˜ “Should man be created?” The ministering angels formed parties: Love said, “Yes, let him be created, because he will dispense acts of love,” while Truth argued, “No, let him not be created, for he is a complete fake.” Righteousness countered, “Yes, let him be created, because he will do righteous deeds”, and Peace demurred, “Let him not be created, for he is one mass of contention.” The score was even: Love and Righteousness in favor; Truth and Peace against. What did the Lord do? He took Truth and hurled it to the ground, smashing it into thousands of jagged pieces. Thus He broke the tie. Now, two to one in favor, man was created. The ministering angels dared to ask the Master of the Universe “Why do You break Your emblem, Truth?”, for indeed Truth was His seal and emblem. He answered, “Let truth spring up from the earth.” (Psalm 85:11)) From then on truth was dispersed, splintered into fragments like a jigsaw puzzle. While a person might find a piece, it held little meaning until he joined with others who had painstakingly gained different pieces of the puzzle. Only then, slowly and deliberately, they could try to fit their pieces of Truth together. To make sense, some sense of things.”

It is straightforward and sound, plausible, but to tell the truth I don’t like it much. Being a bisinisencephalian, my affinity to religion is low, but due to my love of order and discipline and
due to the years spent in authoritarian bureaucracies, I have a trend toward bigotry. The Divinity asking advices and not taking instant decisions, the professional risks of an ideal job- of Angel, the violent solution a la cutting a Gordian Knot- these seem a bit heretic to me. The good part is the science-spirituality consensus regarding the ‘in-pieces” status of truths. A not easily comprehensible truth, anyway.

h) My great Pareto Fiasco- the newest- shows quantitatively that failures are also governed by the Pareto Principle.
I was very happy when after many years of hard work, intensive thinking, multiple testing and worldwide communications with peer problem solvers I was able to finish my 20 Rules of Real Life
Problem Solving.  Well applied these can solve all the existing and the Pareto majority of he imaginary problems... You can find the final text of the Rules here:
http://egooutpeters.blogspot.ro/2012/02/problem-solving-quasi-desperate-appeal.html

 I was convinced that this was the difficult part and all that has to be done is:
- to translate the 20 Rules in 100 languages making them accessible to 80% of the Mankind;
- to introduce the Rules in the programs of schools and convert the kids everywhere in practicians of problem solving.
It could be considered unpardonably repetitive if I will tell that globally Mankind’s efforts are 80% spent for creating i.e. making problems on a continuous and renewable basis and only 20% efforts for solving problems- usually those less difficult ones.
I have friends everywhere and I am making new Internet friends all the time however the reality is sad. Starting with the Rules in English and Romanian they were also traduced in chronological order in: Swedish, French, Portuguese, Italian, Polish, Hungarian, Ukrainian, Russian, German, Spanish, Greek, Dutch, Tagalog, Malay, Chinese, Slovak, and Danish.
Yes, all these make 20 languages despite my efforts to get help, the Rules are NOT translated in 80 languages from those planned
including Japanese, Arabic, languages of India each spoken by hundreds of millions of people- who surely have lots of problems to solve. I have promises from very nice people for translations in more languages but it seems some barrier cannot be penetrated the Pareto Principle is dominant and merciless. But I hope that some good people will help the 20 Rules to work.

But, this blog is not so much about truth, Pareto or non-Pareto, as about Value- new sources of energy.
“We” have solved the main problems of information, but in matters of energy our methods are still a shame/
Recently the expression “the fossilized idea to use fossil fuels for energy generation” became used and abused but it is only words.
The primitive and obsolete reaction of burning is used today for getting some 80% of the energy we are consuming and wasting.

In my Will it is a directive- reverse the Pareto Rule here: till the end of this Century make it 20%. Use LENR instead and find other modern sources, break the Rules and be Human.

Peter






2 comments:

  1. Did you overlook Theodore Sturgeon's "90% of everything is crap", or just assume that "everybody knows that"? (Which certainly be true.)

    About the unhappy Eos: The moral of that (and other) legends are that we should not wish for more than we can handle. (There's a saying about that.) In another story, from Ovid (Baucus and Philemon), those two treated Jupiter and Mercury (while the gods were traveling incognito) with kindness. The gods punished the others (who didn't), but gave the two a wish - whatever they wanted. They said that all they wanted was to be priests in the gods' temple, and that neither would outlive the other.

    They got what they asked for ... because it was right and proper, because it was within human grasp. Had they asked for power and gold, they would have been sorely disappointed.

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  2. Dear ZZMike,
    First of all, thank ypu- I didn't hope that somebody will read this writing with attention, my close friends are focused on energy.
    About your kind remarks;
    - re the Sturgeon saying it is an other generic idea and it belongs to the quality kitsch dichotomy;

    - Eos- the story is so well told by Fuhmann, it is more about stupidity, gaffes. The revesrse story- eternal youth with no etrnal life is about dumbing down of people, not leting them to grow up, to become mature. It is inspired by: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Juvenile_hormone
    At one of my former workplaces, the local Chemistry Institute it was a good team specialized in smart ecofriendly insecticides as
    pheromones combined with traps and those juvenile hormones.
    Societies use memes as such intellecticides. It is an efficient method, the most perfidious form of it is is the cult of celebrities.
    Eventually Baucis and Philemon is mostly about marriage, matrimonial love. Based on our personal experience of 47 years and survival of a tragedy (autistic son who died at 31) the secret iscomplementarity nd both should be alpha characters.

    Peter

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