HAVING posted extensively on Facebook and Goodreads regarding my latest curmudgeon thoughts as well as if and how they relate to my new SciFu (Science-based futuring) novel, THE EDGE OF MADNESS (Aignos 2020) by Raymond Gaynor, I want to take a moment to relate my opinion on the differences between froth from fact. Not necessary, you might say, in this emerging world of docuverts, fake news, propaganda, deceptive advertisements and social-bashing, which is quickly becoming a new “norm” (as long as it makes money and the deceivers don’t get “caught” and arrested or at least socially shamed). A longtime adherent of the ancient Greek ideals behind factually-supported”critical thinking” (logos or good reasoning and logic), avoiding the classical appeals that are based primarily on pathos (appeal though emotionality), ethos (appeal to the readers or dominant religion or morality), keiros (appeal based on a popular authority or leader) and numos (appeal to the law), avoiding the long established “logical fallacies” like non sequitur (“it doesn’t follow”), post hoc ergo propter hoc (assuming that if “A” occurs after “B” then “B” must have caused “A”), ad hominem (attacking or slurring the character of a person rather than arguing his or her assumptions, arguments, facts or conclusions), ad populum (presenting what “most people” think, to coerce one to think the same way), Petitio Principii (circular argumentation that “begs the question” ), presenting “anecdotal evidence” and others. The first, logos, has truth-value that one only needs to evaluate and confirm in order to establish fact that can be subsequently cited. All the latter, have little to no truth-value (though they may be quite persuasive) and should not be subsequently cited, especially as fact.
In essence fact is something presented that includes sufficient logos for the reader to ascertain it has full truth value (“is factual”). Anything else is froth and should not be regarded as true or factual, and should never be cited as truth or fact especially in a subsequent logos appeal.
Now, you may laugh at this, or consider it overly academic, but if you look at what’s being stated in the world today, especially in the social media, most if not all is froth, often so appealing as to be accepted and perpetrated as true or factual. And therein lies the danger, especially to a democracy: People need to be able to easily separate truth from froth, non-fiction from fiction, fact from opinion in order to meaningfully “vote.”
So what about overlap like in novels (e.g. historically-based fiction), comedy or satire? Like science(-based) fiction or fantasy, and the new genre I proposed in writing THE EDGE OF MADNESS — science-based futuring or SciFu? Futuring or Futures Study, I believe, is a new form of “proof” relating to M-Superstring Theory, the proposed fourth method of “proving” something, the classical three being authority, science and statistics. In futuring, one assumes what’s scientific (repeatable) and projects it into a plausible future that readers can use to decide whether to continue current actions or inactions, or change, negating the futuring. Or as Vladimir Ivanovich Vernadsky in his pioneering works on “biospherics” said, seizing the future of our own evolution, taking it into our hands like responsible adults rather than following our errors blindly like child-victims.
In essence fact is something presented that includes sufficient logos for the reader to ascertain it has full truth value (“is factual”). Anything else is froth and should not be regarded as true or factual, and should never be cited as truth or fact especially in a subsequent logos appeal.
Now, you may laugh at this, or consider it overly academic, but if you look at what’s being stated in the world today, especially in the social media, most if not all is froth, often so appealing as to be accepted and perpetrated as true or factual. And therein lies the danger, especially to a democracy: People need to be able to easily separate truth from froth, non-fiction from fiction, fact from opinion in order to meaningfully “vote.”
So what about overlap like in novels (e.g. historically-based fiction), comedy or satire? Like science(-based) fiction or fantasy, and the new genre I proposed in writing THE EDGE OF MADNESS — science-based futuring or SciFu? Futuring or Futures Study, I believe, is a new form of “proof” relating to M-Superstring Theory, the proposed fourth method of “proving” something, the classical three being authority, science and statistics. In futuring, one assumes what’s scientific (repeatable) and projects it into a plausible future that readers can use to decide whether to continue current actions or inactions, or change, negating the futuring. Or as Vladimir Ivanovich Vernadsky in his pioneering works on “biospherics” said, seizing the future of our own evolution, taking it into our hands like responsible adults rather than following our errors blindly like child-victims.
The Edge of Madness
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Je6CC...
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