Shifting Levels of Abstraction Disingenuously

I've been reading Steve McConnell's Code Complete 2nd edition. This is a book that I've had on my shelf for at least 13 years (1st edition). I should have read it in detail a long time ago.  In chapter 6 he talks about designing classes.  He explains the value to effective programming of having the class's interface present a consistent [level of ] abstraction.

He summarizes with this checklist:
Abstraction

    * Does the class have a central purpose?
    * Is the class well named, and does its name describe its central purpose?
    * Does the class's interface present a consistent abstraction?
    * Does the class's interface make obvious how you should use the class?
    * Is the class's interface abstract enough that you don't have to think about how its services are implemented? Can you treat the class as a black box?
    * Are the class's services complete enough that other classes don't have to meddle with its internal data?
    * Has unrelated information been moved out of the class?
    * Have you thought about subdividing the class into component classes, and have you subdivided it as much as you can?
    * Are you preserving the integrity of the class's interface as you modify the class?

This concept of class design has parallels in design of organizations, and in the structure of a conversation or document meant to educate or persuade.

The profound personal insight that came to me from pondering the larger implications of class design, keeping in mind the principles of Objectivist Epistemology, was how I deliberately shift level of abstraction in a conversation by asking about details that appear to contradict the principles that the speaker is talking about.  My ostensible purpose is to give the speaker a chance to anchor their concepts in reality, in sensation, but many times I pick an example that I know can't be explained by the principles I'm hearing discussed.

The result is to confuse the speaker and derail the conversation.

Example: I ask what is more valuable (to whom!); the individual or the collective (society)?
I hear the reply "Well that depends on the situation. What if the individual breaks a law that was passed because we (society) just says so?"

This is a sudden drop in the level of abstraction, introducing undefined terms, that cloud the discussion: What is the purpose of law? Is it an objective law? Is it just? What is the definition of justice?  Is "...we just say so..." really a reason for anything? These terms are derivative from the concepts of individuality, and the conditions for life. If they are used as floating abstractions, logically broken from their conceptual derivation then they have no meaning. They fog the discussion. We need to take a detour to define them properly.

The Bailey's Irish Creme Story

Donna's favorite drink was Bailey's Irish Creme. I remember her walking around her parent's living room in Escondido rubbing her bulging tummy saying "Baby loves Bailey's!" and I would pour her another shot. We were still in California, so it must have been in 1982? January, February? before my final deployment with USS Permit.

She insisted that I get her some Bailey's cheap from overseas. I smuggled a bottle back from the Pacific in the middle of my sea bag. This bottle sat in the refrigerator for years, until 1989, because it was "too special to open!" I checked the price when I got home and found that I saved a little over $2, oh well anything to keep the wife happy.

She went to visit her parents for the month of August, 1989, (the same time period that she had agreed to finally do marriage counseling with me, but I guess she forgot). The first night she was gone I went to see the movie Batman and then came home and decided to open the Bailey's because it had been looking suspicious for a year or so.

The Bailey's had congealed into a gelatinous blob that would not come out of the bottle. I got a stainless steel mixing bowl and took a barbecue skewer and whacked around inside the bottle chopping up the contents until they began to dribble from the bottle into the bowl. I felt like I was doing an abortion. There was nothing edible in the bottle.

It was a metaphor of our marriage. We kept saving the good times until later, the honeymoon that we never took, the vacation together that we kept putting off, the time to just get to know each other.... and now it was all just a blob that wouldn't pour from the bottle.

And some eternal part of me that I was barely aware of woke up and said, "Fred, you're beginning to get it!" and it went back to sleep.

Spiritual Survival in a Radically Changing World-Time

William Patrick Patterson's book is incredibly valuable to a sincere seeker. It is the most concise formulation of basic transformational experiences that I have ever read! The book is a powerful, compelling invitation to the Fourth Way! He probes deeply into behaviors that I had never noticed or always taken for granted -- cuts me to my heart! The Gurdjieffian view provided by Patterson of current issues evokes a deep re-evaluation of my own opinions and values!

Arnold Schwarzenegger and Consciousness

In Arnold's encyclopedia of body building he has some general tips. One that I recall is that he stressed the importance of sending the attention, flowing energy, into the muscles being exercised. I need to find the precise quote.

Impeccability and Gurdjieff

The Life and Teachings of Carlos Castaneda by William Patrick Patterson is informative, intriguing, and it led me to further reading of the books in the extensive bibliography. William Patrick Patterson provides the links between the history of esotericism and Carlos Castaneda. The additional historical essay included in the book, gives the historical context of Don Juan's sorcery from the perspective of the Catholic Church.

After I read this book I researched further and found unmistakable parallels of Gurdjieff's words in Carlos Castaneda's works. For example: See the chapter titled "The Measurements of Cognition", page 119, in The Active Side of Infinity, and then the last page, page 1183, of All And Everything. Both books talk about complete, embodied awareness of our personal impending deaths as the source of our salvation. Castenada had introduced the idea of "Death as an advisor" in Journey to Ixtlan, but I hadn't made the connection to earlier teachings until I read William Patrick Patterson's new book.

Count Alfred Korzybski

"The map is not the territory."

I first came across the Count in A. E. Van Vogt's "World of Null-A."  I ordered his "Science and Sanity" from the state library system. I built a structural differential and presented it to my 8th grade english class, thereby earning the remark in my year book from my english teacher, Mrs. Murphy, that I was "... the first student to teach her a new word, epistemology."  

Recently it occurs to me that the "null-A pause" to allow cortical-thalamic integration to occur sounds like bringing the cerebral cortex into connection with the sensations of the body?

I need to go back and re-read "Science and Sanity" 

Conspiracy Advocates

I've been wondering what is the fascination of conspiracy theories for some people.
Could it be that they have a sense that the world isn't real?
Then conspiracy would be an attempt to rationalize this underlying sense of unease about reality.