In 1986, a NASA astronaut walked toward the ill-fated Space Shuttle Challenger thinking about the safety of the spacecraft. Consider the following three thoughts for rationality, confusion, and delusion:
a) “This spacecraft is safe for the mission.“
b) “I believe that this spacecraft is safe for the mission.“
c) “This spacecraft is safe for the mission, but, then again, maybe not, I just don’t know.“
The distinctions among the statements are important, albeit perhaps subtle.
“Confusion” tends to exist during the process of making a determination, or in drawing a definitive conclusion. Confusion often occurs in wrestling with the interpretation of facts.
Confusion tends to get a bad rap, because there are people who purport to be certain and will sometimes impugn others who are claimed to be, e.g., not “smart enough” or “certain enough” to draw any (or the same) proposed conclusion. Yet, so says the brilliant Voltaire:
“Doubt is not a pleasant condition, but certainty is an absurd one.“
Confusion has some core virtue going for it; to wit, such as we are using the term here, at least we know this: someone who is confused is thinking.
Now, delusion is something very different from confusion. Confusion and its related doubt can be a very healthy part of finding the truth. But, delusion is to consider something a fact that is not a fact. Delusion is the black hole for the light of truth. Confusion creates work, delusion avoids work.
Delusion sucks into it all thinking, because there is no need to think anymore, as the conclusion is final. The “fact” adhered to by the proponent might simply be incorrect, or it something might be something that is not rationally properly a fact, but, rather, a judgment, opinion, or belief.
Delusion is to hold an untrue fact to be true, a true fact to be untrue, or to hold a judgment, opinion, or belief as a fact when it is not a fact.
To say 2 + 2 = 5, on the common standard mathematical framework, and to hold it it be true, would be delusional. This type of delusion tends to be rather easy to demonstrate, since its own framework will allow the contrary proof, with fingers and toes, for example.
However, delusion regarding judgments, opinions, and beliefs is more complex.
If someone says that blue-eyed human beings are more physically attractive than brown-eyed human beings, that can be a delusion, depending upon how the statement is made.
It takes only one person who contradicts the assertion of the fact to disprove it; that is, in a debate, only one person needs to say, “But, you are deluded in your conclusive fact, since I personally find brown-eyed human beings more attractive than blue-eyed human beings.“ Now, the retort is one of statistics. “My fact is true, because 9 out of 10 people say so.“ And, indeed, that statistic may be an undeluded fact, but to state the extrinsic conclusion as an absolute remains delusion. That is, the rational statement of fact is, “Per this or that report, 9 out of 10 people consider blue eyes more physically attractive than brown eyes.”
This statement of fact is merely the statistic itself: the statistic, not the truth it might suggest for a inductive conclusion.
Statistics are intrinsic facts and do not create extrinsic facts. Opinions are intrinsic facts, but opinions do not create extrinsic facts. Judgments are intrinsic facts, but judgments do not create extrinsic facts. (This is why conclusive judicial orders are written with or as “opinions.”) Statistics, beliefs and opinions are jaded mirrors of extrinsic facts, but they are not the extrinsic facts. The statistic only proves the statistic (subject to its own scope and application), although it may be evidence of an extrinsic fact. Stating a statistic does not change the truth of the individual contradictions or variations by which the statistic is achieved.
For example, if 12 jurors believe OJ Simpson committed a crime, then that is the statistic; if less than 12 jurors believe that he did not commit a crime, then that is the statistic. That statistic has been determined to be acceptable for legal consequences by Western American culture and statute, but that statistic does not change the extrinsic factual truth. It is a fact that OJ Simpson did not commit criminal murder by the statistical result of the jury trial in the State of California. In another state or country, perhaps the legal impact would be different for the same evidence.
Therefore, whether OJ “killed” anyone is incidentally a completely different truth from the impact and legal consequence of the jury statistic for “murder.”
The difference between a fact, on the one hand, and a judgment, belief or opinion, on the other hand, is that a fact is inherently universal, but a judgment, belief or opinion is inherently personal. Confusion tries to reconcile an opinion to a fact, but delusion foolishly mistakes an opinion for a fact.
Delusion occurs by rhetoric, insecurity, self-interest, bias, emotion and all sorts of other taints to truth, often simply induced by human nature. It is natural to desire that our opinion be the extrinsic fact. It happens all the time. Delusion is everywhere, and it’s a tricky and slippery thing.
Watch how it occurs (putting aside paradoxical implications that if someone admits the deprecation of a fact to a mere belief in a fact, then the belief cannot subsist, leaving only the claimed fact, which is really the nullified belief itself):
“Odin is the only god,” [delusion] versus “I believe Odin is the only god,” [rational, as such, since it is admittedly within the scope of personal opinion] versus, “Everyone says Odin is the only god.” [The fact is not whether Odin is the only god; the fact is what everyone says.]
“Yahweh is the only god,” [delusion] versus “I believe Yahweh is the only god,” [rational, the belief does not pick a pocket or break a leg] versus, “Everyone says Yahweh is the only god.” [The fact is not whether Yahweh is the only god; the fact is what everyone says.]
“Adam and Eve actually lived and Eve was made of Adam’s rib,” [delusion] versus “I believe that Adam and Eve actually lived and Eve was made of Adam’s rib,” [rational, because it qualifies itself as a belief, opinion or judgment] versus, “Countless people for millennia have asserted that Adam and Eve actually lived and Eve was made of Adam’s rib.” [The fact is not whether Adam and Eve actually lived; the fact is what people have asserted.]
“My god is better than your god,” [delusion] versus “I believe my god is better than your god,” [rational, as it is not absolute, but personal opinion] versus “Nine out of 10 people say our god is better than your claimed god.” [The fact is only what 9 out of 10 people say, not the superiority of a god.]
“The Space Shuttle Challenger is safe,” [a predictive delusion, as no future is absolute for this context] versus “I believe the Space Shuttle is safe, or safe enough for me” [rational] versus “Nine out of 10 scientists say that the Space Shuttle is sufficiently safe for the mission.” [The fact is the statistic, which is an opinion and may be a rational basis of acceptability.] “The Space Shuttle Challenger is safe enough for me, so I’m going,” is not the same as “The Space Shuttle Challenger is safe enough for you, so you’re coming.”
“The COVID vaccination is safe,” [a predictive delusion, as no future is absolute in this context] versus “I believe the COVID vaccination is safe, or safe enough for me” [rational] versus “Nine out of 10 scientists say that the COVID vaccination is sufficiently safe for most people in civil society as a trade-off.” [The fact is the qualified statistic, which is an opinion and may be a rational basis of acceptability.]
To frame an emergency new vaccine—being a complex technology injected into countless different complex human organisms—as an absolute fact regarding futuristic safety, is patently foolishly irresponsible. Any absolute guarantee of safety is a predictive delusion regarding the unknown future for this context.
[Moreover, in the event, for example, that the COVID vaccine is found in the future to be a catastrophic social disaster, it is a fait accompli no less than JFK’s secret assassination papers, that the government will not admit to causation by interest of national security and will withhold the evidence, and manufacturers are already “immune” from liability.]
The most that anyone can rationally assert—be it the drug companies, the media or politicians, all of whom are interested for different reasons—is that it is a personal belief (opinion or judgment, however grounded or ungrounded) of safety, and/or that the statistics suggest that the vaccination is safe for many or most people, but not everyone, such as the evidence currently suggests.
But, alas, sound bites with qualifications, rather than simplistic absolutes, are far less rhetorically socially effective.
Indeed, a vaccination is not “safe”—a vaccination is “believed to be safe enough for many based upon known evidence to date.” Some vaccines have been tested longer than others, have endured more iterations than others, and are more evolved than others.
New technologies, including space ships and new vaccines must be tested, and must evolve through trial and error. A wide variety of animals have been launched into space to test new technologies, including monkeys and apes, dogs, cats, tortoises, mice, rats, rabbits, birds, frogs, and insects. Some of these test animals survived, and some of these test animals did not survive, and when the animals did not survive, those animals were deemed to be necessarily expendable within the scientific margin of error.
If the best and brightest NASA scientists believed that the Space Shuttle Challenger was unsafe in the context, it would not have launched.
Therefore, let us not be deluded as to what is, and the catastrophic social disaster that no one desires or necessarily expects, and, yet, we must rationally admit that it could occur.
Rational assessment requires that we admit that the FDA as a predictive bellwether has been way off before in its scientific judgments, beliefs or opinions, and it will be way off again.
However, this time people are being forced into the vessel—like it or not—doors locked, and, after the launch of injection, it is too late.
Some of the most devisive debates throughout history are catastrophes of delusion crashing into delusion. Opinions deludedly treated as facts. Facts are universal and can be empirically contradicted. Opinions are personal—some more rational than others—yet constrained to that personal framework. Predicting the precise future is always a personal judgment, opinion or belief. Yet, delusion stubbornly refuses to deprecate the fact to a mere belief in a fact and therein lies the challenge.
This articles gives no opinion on the efficacy of any vaccine or its purpose, but only the thinking-process as stated. This article does not address the necessary casualties for the maintenance of social order, which is a different issue. The opinions and beliefs set forth in this article are solely the author’s and are not endorsed, condoned or supported by any affiliation of the author.
See also
[181] The History of the Decline and Fall of the American Hegemony—Chapter 7 Excerpt—Wall Street [#GRZ_181]
[122] The Four Horsemen of the Social Justice Apocalypse [#GRZ_122]
[73] Surviving Prejudice, Not All Bad [#GRZ_73]
© 2021 Gregg Zegarelli, Esq. Gregg can be contacted through LinkedIn.
http://www.linkedin.com/pulse/challenge-vaccines-predictive-delusion-gregg-zegarelli-esq-/
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