What-ifISM, SCIENCE, LEADERSHIP     Nov.8-9th 2004/Apr.30th 2005, by X.Toff/Tophe
"Tophism", maybe not Sophism…
(one What-if logic among others)

Context
Source link
Science power
Scientist errors
Industrial civilization
Statistic use
Statistical errors
So bad a World
For a better world...
The end of my analysis
  P.S. Reasons to hope
  P.S.2 Misunderstanding
  P.S.3 Seeing and rejecting “The matrix”
  P.S.4 Good illustration
  P.S.5 False demonstration

Context
  I am not normal, I know, I am:
- an unconventional What-if modeler-drawer after hours (loving unreal airplane shapes, preferred to Real successful machines)
- an unconventional doubtful technician at work (discovering severe issues in protocols, even if the required work is to apply them only)
- an unconventional agnosticist at night (dreaming with some respect towards the Christ, the Buddha, Karl Marx)
- an unconventional survivor, having fallen from a cliff then a building, at the age of 15 then 34, without reaching eternal peace
   I am classified as mad, though I think - madly maybe - that I am right as long as logic is concerned.
   Before I receive again brain-washing medicines, let me invite you honestly to actual brain-storming

Source link

  Seeing a calibration protocol of scientific apparatus, my mathematical sensitivity has been upset: very obviously for me, if the source figure were X, the conclusion would be completely wrong, ridiculous, and even a child could laugh of such a huge mistake… I asked explanations, and the experts shouted : " you stupid What-ifer! The case you imagine does not exist, it is statistically proven! Just apply silently, focusing on your output per hour, obeying what our Science-graduated superior brains command ". Feeling sick, I have checked the archives (after hours because that was not my job), and in a tiny sample of 250 daily calibrations (among 10,000 times more : 1 year x 1 apparatus among data for 40 x 250), my 'fanciful imaginary' case had happened twice... Never? Stupid? I was disgusted, but I have not declared a war based on 'Reality proofs' (What-if I was in a dream?), I have just gone back to my work, applying stupid commands from incompetent leaders. I would have understood such lack of respect (towards people and logic) from male wolfs, whose only goal is to dominate and crush the others, but when such a wrong violence comes from a woman, a Christian, a Scientist, a Doctor, I feel lost…
  Let us start it all over, around this subject : statistics, Science leadership, What-if principle…

Science power

  A little part of Science is descriptive : recording and summarizing past well-known "existing" phenomenon, with certainty (for Realists - not for Indian Buddhists nor myself). I understand that but, over simple records of existing events, the specificity of Science is trying to discover universal laws. Newton's old law of gravity is now used to calculate the required power for satellites, and it works, while Isaac Newton probably did not imagine a question like "What-if a machine could turn around the Earth, at thousand miles…" - this is why Science is magic somehow, having provided Humanity with the power to change the Middle-Age poverty into nowadays comfort: Science invents endlessly material ways, practical possibilities, to make some of the What-if dreams come true. Like instantaneous communication between continents, like Human walking on the Moon. Some fantastic What-if dreams are nowadays called Science-Fiction, meaning "perhaps future facts".
  The very principle of Science, through simplification and modeling (mathematical, not plastic!), is hypothesis /test /deduction, centered on the What-if risky prediction in artificial unknown situations. "What-if we perform this new experiment that I imagine? The normal answer is 'we will see, the result is unknown yet' but new simple calculations, in the Scientific-search spirit, pretend the result will be this figure; if that prediction fails, the considered law is honestly rejected as false (a kind of honesty that does not exist in religions, in freudism, in communism, refusing absolutely to be declared wrong no matter what the facts show), but if the new phenomenon surprisingly obeys the risky prediction, something has been discovered - it seems, till a new experiment proves it as imperfect". Thus a very powerful tool appears (among the different candidate models), that may be applied to predict the result in other possible What-if situations. And opposite: What-if we need this result ? scientific laws provide the answer, the required figures for success, without huge experiments in step-by-step tries /corrections /confirmations (so the speed of progress is high). In the purest Science domain (physics), scientific laws are always successful (they may fail sometimes, but taking into account the details neglected at first should provide success - or rejection/improvement of the laws), so asking a What-if question about an unconventional case is not at all a crime towards "the pure Science Truth deserving holy respect", it is obeying the very principle of experimental Science, yielding precedence to uncomfortable mistake-acceptance through newly considered cases.

Scientist errors

  Apart of some exceptional Science teachers (like the Nobel-Prize Georges Charpak that my youngest uncle follows), making the child brains discover the wonderful Science principle, the usual goal of scientific courses is to implant in passive brains the very detail of scientific laws (currently admitted by experts): how to apply them to find the right results, without any doubt allowed. When a pupil experiment fails, the mark is bad meaning punishment, and if ever the little guy asks "What-if the law was wrong on my desk ten minutes ago and my failure was right?", there will be deeper punishment or even exclusion from the scientific course, towards the literature course for stupid dreamers (for them to become sellers handling only lying words to appeal customers - and unobtrusive honest characters will be rejected from there too…). The refusal of any What-if doubt in scientific classes does not look like Science at all, it looks like serving in an army…
  Science is fighting a war, I know, as Darwin theory of evolution is forbidden in a part of the USA condemning everything not obeying the 'Bible Truth' - and this process brings blindness back, to build Science soldiers, applying efficiently orders without What-if questioning allowed…
  Condemned by both sides, I disagree with their war refusing other opinions/freedoms/logics, I would have liked a peaceful honest doubt to allow both of them and my agnosticism. None of them is stupid, none is proven false, according to me. The Darwinists ask: What-if the appearance of species was automatic, through wrong duplication and selection of the best-suited? my personal judgement is: yes, that could have given the World as it is now. Some Christians ask: What-if the dinosaurs have never lived and your saurian bones and C14 results are just traps brought by the almighty God to test yourself? my judgement is: yes, that could have given the World as it is now, as well. Then I ask… What-if Humanist and Christian morals required to accept the other point of view instead of crushing it? (allowing peaceful personal choice of a possible explanation).
  I know that formal logic does not define the "possible", all depending on the initial reference chosen for what is right. The logic lessons and my parental tolerant education taught me that the only sure fault is self-contradiction. As far as logic is concerned, nothing proves that the sun will rise tomorrow. To the scientist leaders, laughing loudly hearing such an hypothesis, I would precise: "What-if the laws of the past will not be true tomorrow?" They will answer that the past has proven completely that the laws do not change from one day to another, but this shows precisely the logical mistake: "Like you say 'the past sun-rises prove the sun-rise of tomorrow' you declare that 'the past success of generalization proves the success of today's generalization', you are coherent in your belief, but you give nothing to prove this belief is the good one, and that other beliefs will always be wrong. Tomorrow you will feel you have won, you are the kings of efficiency, till you become completely wrong someday, maybe, you just believe this will never happen - I respect that belief but you should respect my doubt as well. I do not condemn you assuring that the almighty God will for sure punish your pride, I just wonder 'What-if this happens tomorrow?' ". And my conclusion is not proud, just doubtful as well: What-if respecting beliefs of one another were better for both logic and moral?

Industrial civilization

  Well, calibrating an apparatus (that applies scientific efficient laws) is not discovering an uncertain law and the situation may be different from pure Science. Even if technicians are scientifically educated, the goal is only industrial efficiency here. So : What-if a manufacturing and control problem appears? the answer may be something as "it would appear once in a billion, require a triple cost to be cured, and it is better for clients to have a tiny risk of problem than a triple price". Customer/industrial wisdom is a compromise between 'avoiding a bad risk' and 'increasing badly the cost'. But the honest answer rejecting a What-if hypothesis should be "we, experts, assume the responsibility to neglect this possible case, and if it is not announced to customers, this is because we are highly paid accepting to go to jail if our decision ever leads to a huge fault, complaints and trials".
  They do not present it that way, and the new Quality certifications provide no improvement, on the contrary. For many managers, the main goal is to satisfy administrative inspectors (technically unqualified) by displaying an apparent perfection, while technical logic may detect a problem, so technical logic is violently rejected to reach better the personal goals ('management by objectives') just hoping the global company result will be good also. If a final fault is proven by the customer, intermediate bosses are protected by this clean-paper 'quality': "look, all was perfect at my level, 'proving' the problem happened after". Highly-rewarded dishonesty… that can be criminal when deadly risks are involved.
  Sometimes, we see on TV lawyers and ecologists shouting that any risk involving an innocent human death possibility must be refused (precaution principle), and the fatal-risk acceptance must be severely condemned. I agree that our human morals command that a very rich manager in a safe room should not increase further his bank account by increasing secretly the lethal risk for a poor employee or a client. But, voluntarily, deadly risks are accepted by almost everyone for comfort - home-heating and food-cooking are not refused saying a fire accident may kill, and actually kills sometimes, very rarely. Accepting a risk is not a fault, I think, it just needs to occur in a situation honestly explained, allowing everyone to decide, for a job or a purchase. Electors may vote for nuclear electricity, then change their mind when the compromise cost/security is judged as worse than announced before, there is no scandal, just a difficult balance. What-if questions may be painful, endangering comfort, peace of mind and bank account, but they are not stupid - they can be heard, accepted as questions, then taken into account or not for final decisions, honestly balancing advantages and drawbacks.

Statistic use

  To help deciding, we usually use figures about the Risk, and this involves an officially required What-ifism opposite to free personal decisions (that could be dangerous for instance): of course, it is possible that you drive at high speed without killing somebody, thus speed limitations and punishment of speed excess, classified as criminal, are very unpopular (especially in Latin countries, traditionally rebellious), though What-if a child crosses the road suddenly? What-if the driver in the opposite direction endures a heart-attack and his car suddenly crosses the road? then you would kill or be killed if you drive fast, you will have time enough to brake if you drive moderately. Knowing the precise frequency of the rare events requiring urgent braking, the braking and crash scientific laws give an estimated number of killing at each speed. This will concern the whole population of drivers, and for you that is only probability: you may encounter death, while maybe this will concern someone else. Saying that "it will not happen to me because I am protected by God" is possible, but humanist moral and prudence lead to take the probabilities as estimated frequency for everyone, for now and the future.
  In the same way: knowing that one lot of meat used to make a billion hamburgers contains 3 fatal molecules, calculations would give the probability to kill 3 or 2 or 1 customer, if these molecules are located at random (and not solidly-linked to one another, otherwise they would automatically kill only one) - this is a theoretical basis, mainly, as the usual calculation is not deductive Probabilities from complete knowledge but inductive Statistics from little experiment. This is a very useful procedure, allowing destructive tests on a little part of a production lot, leaving the main part for selling - validated somehow even if not actually tested. The principle there is also an hypothesis: What-if a million different populations, representing at random the possible cases without any preference, would produce trillions of samples? seeing the observed sample, what would be the best population candidates that could have produced it? And the answer is not a single population proven the best (as the risk to be wrong would be very high), the answer is a family of populations, a "confidence interval" depending on the risk you accept to neglect. If you observe that your sample of 10 rats among 1000 treated ones has an average weight of 200g, the conclusion may be that, depending on variability (standard deviation): for the whole population, the estimated average is 200g with a 92% risk (to be wrong), between 197 and 203g with a 50% risk, between 190 and 210g with a 5% risk, between 185 and 215g with a 0,3% risk.
  This is the logic of statistics: the answer is not one, it is a batch of possible answers, depending on the figure you select for the risk. What-if I chose another risk? the question was not forbidden at all by the mathematicians that have invented those calculations, it is just leading to a different answer. Then official experts have decided what figure should be used for tests to apply in every company, for fair comparison of rivals, preventing lies in advertisement given to the public. Objectivity requires a common rule, while special cases may be considered if more investigation is required, after the death of a customer for instance. And subjectivity is theoretically allowed at the personal level, to explore freely all cases.
  During my learning statistics at the university, I felt that the logic of those calculations seemed dubious: all was supposed to follow a 'normal' distribution defined by the Gauss complex equation, and What-if this hypothesis was wrong? All would have been infinitely more solid if the basis had been the non-parametric statistics. I have discovered that logic later by inventing myself the sum-of-orders test before being told that it was already existing as average-order test… I had tried to demonstrate that a shocking aviation encyclopaedia was skimped at mid-way of the alphabetical course: there was something as 10,000 items announced, with well-detailed items on the 8 first volumes, including approximately 5,000 items, then all changed from the 9th volume to the final 12th, doubling the speed of review; the item size having huge random variations everywhere, it was impossible to prove easily that the 'standard' has changed, but I felt it was possible to prove that such a result was not one expectable case coming from simple random: concerning both the picture and text sizes, the average /minimum /maximum values were lower in the 4th final volumes, and I asked myself "What-if the rank values have happened at random in the collection of 12 volumes?"; obviously, the situation 1st-2nd-3rd-4th for volumes No.9-10-11-12 could have happened, like any other one, but a sum of orders as low as 1+2+3+4=10 was exceptionally far away from the maximum in the bell-shaped distribution of possibilities; adding all my 6 indicators, I got a probability that was not belonging to the 99.9999999% most probable cases around the most probable one, that was a statistical demonstration that another explanation than random was infinitely more credible, all right. Conclusion: if I ask myself "What-if random alone had produced such result?", my answer is "it is possible, but I am very-very confident not believing it."
  Note: statistics are also a useful tool to introduce 'laws that work' in the imperfect domain of natural sciences (biology, meteorology...) - even if there is no certainty, with far too much factors to take into account, some improvement can be achieved in predictions.

Statistical errors

  A huge mistake, very common and maybe systematic among engineers and high-graduated, is to think that the statistical confidence interval describes what exists - it is completely wrong. The usual confidence interval is the 95% one : being inside is 19 times more probable than being outside, leading to reject the theoretical possibility "What-if we were outside?" - managers and professional-mathematicians usually have not understood the meaning of these figures: while, facing a single question, it is wise to select "inside", it is different when there are for instance 20 operations of a tool or apparatus - automatically 1 of the 20 will be outside, and laughing at the What-if question of a technician performing 500 operations a day is stupid or dishonest - even the classical 99.73% (369/370) is not enough to describe what exists. What-if the public knew the argument used everyday to make the technicians silent? they would be shocked to know that such 'graduated-brains' would 'prove' that "an airplane crash (and a car crash as well)" is not at all possible, stupid what-if hypothesis...
  Another huge doubt comes from the risk handling in parametric statistics. I have always been shocked by the pretension to know the population from just a tiny sample, as the rest can be anything, completely unknown (apart of the order list in rank-based non-parametric statistics). What-if the sample was not a good representative of the population?
  On a similar line, the deductive parametric calculations leading to probabilities suppose that the population is distributed 'normally' following Gauss law. What-if this was wrong? Usual answer: "shut up, stupid, we have demonstrated in the past that it is right on both good and bad lots". I disagree, as a manufacturing unusual problem may produce a bad phenomenon on part of a bad lot to test, so the usually normal distribution becomes bimodal (little bump on the side of the main bell), and all calculations established from past lots without such phenomenon become inappropriate.
  Very rarely, the Gauss hypothesis is not accepted automatically, but actually tested from the sample data. This test could have reassured me, but the result has been exactly opposite, revealing an incredible mistake of (almost?) all professionals: while statistic-test principle is rejecting a random hypothesis, those calculations are often used to prove an hypothesis, which is a logical scandal. I encountered that when sub-lots (morning/afternoon productions) have been gathered to make twice less tests, decreasing costs, with a 'statistical proof of equality': the mean difference "morning less afternoon" was of course not exactly Zero but Zero was included in its confidence interval (at 95% confidence, risk 5%). I said: "madam, I agree the difference is not proven different from 0%, but What-if the difference was +10% or +1%? have you proven false such hypothesis?" I faced anger: "all the experts, with the highest diplomas and experience, proceed that way, you just do not understand their high-level work, stupid low-level worker". Well, I had exceptional success in high-school mathematics exam, far above (almost) all the ones that became professional mathematicians, and I have decided to become a low-level worker hoping to please an unobtrusive low-level girl I loved (and preferred to the proud high-level talkative ones) - that does not mean I am unable to understand. I made just 2 years in University, but I have several times proven the teachers were wrong, and they have smiled and corrected gently, honestly; what superiority have got the ones listening to teachers during 5 or 8 years, and getting diplomas for having understood 60% of the content? About the statistical proof of equality, I confirm now this is a severe fault. Example : a population of 1000 morning/afternoon double-lots with an average-difference =0% would have, on a sample of 50 double-lots, a confidence interval of average-difference in the window "-10% to +10%" at 95% confidence/5% risk, so observing a sample average-difference =9% does not lead to reject the hypothesis =0% on the population - ok, but '=0%' is not proven at all on the population: the result =9% on the population is far more probable! What-if we change figures and see what is accepted and rejected? I confirm: all would fall down! Proof : when you chose 99.73% confidence/0.27% risk, the former -10%/+10% of acceptance is enlarged towards -15%/+15%, so pretending the equality proven with an even higher confidence, an even lower risk, would accept values far more away from your hypothesis =0%… Pretending to 99.9999999999% confidence with almost Zero risk, you would declared "proven 0%" awfully positive or negative values, like +45%! This is completely contradictory, yes, and this is the rule. What-if a tremendous dishonesty was hidden by statisticians, pretending to prove at low cost (except a big reward for them) what they cannot prove at all?… They do not answer mathematically, as I am right, they just condemn my 'What-if complicated argument'…
  It seems a general mistake: statistical tests' principle is to reject (as improbable) a model, not to validate it (as probable). Managers don't understand; they require "do you demonstrate 'it is good' or do you demonstrate 'it is bad'?", and the common answer "not bad" leads managers to happiness: "proven not-bad, so proven-good" while it actually meant "impossible to prove bad, so nothing is proved". Not-proven differences being judged as proven equalities is the common basis for wrong validations. For instance: the feasibility prototype gives a result 100±5, the development prototype gives 96±5 considered equal to the previous, the industrializing prototype gives 92±5 considered equal to the previous, the production gives 88±5 considered equal to the previous, and as equality is transitive ("A=B and B=C" allows to conclude "A=C"), the data gathered on the 1st prototype are considered valid on the production, which is completely wrong. What-if the 1st prototype data were compared to the production product? a very significant difference would have been proven, so pretending that the usual "simplified" way provides certainty is dishonest. Most engineers and managers refuse to see it - final failure is a mystery, most probably the technicians are guilty of bad application of the good direction, they deserve punishment...
  There is a similar mechanism in the management punishing the Quality-Control "re-checking for nothing". For instance, experts want to check 20 characteristics in 20 tests inside a lot to discover a possible default, the total being 400 answers; when a technician finds wrong one characteristic of one copy, there is a re-check: maybe the lot is good but the technician made a mistake in measuring; if the second technician confirms the problem, the lot is refused, but if the second control-technician does not confirm, the manager usually punishes the first control-technician, guilty of bad work having delay and extra-cost consequences. This may be understood if the test is non-destructive, but wherever the test is destructive, What-if the first copy was bad and the second was good? This is so obvious that the law takes that into account: re-checking on a double test the faulty parameter (twice a good result after once a bad result makes the conclusion good more probable than the conclusion bad). Though, if the problem is a random 0.25% (1/400) frequency of default, the first-technician has very normally observed 1 in his 400 results, and the second-technician has very normally observed Zero (not 1) in his only-2 results. What-if, as confirmation for a court of Justice, a re-checking had been done on 800 results and not 2? That would have given probably 2 bad results… the first-technician would have been proven innocent, and the manager would have been proven guilty (of stupidity if not dishonesty)… This What-if kind of question is thus angrily forbidden by managers, not because it is stupid in itself, just because it could prove their own stupidity and the fact they are stealing their high wages…
  Of course, it is even worse when the window of acceptance is statistically defined from a confidence interval, then both mistakes add to one another, in a "re-checking machine" that is bad for economics, not only for logics and morals... Another problem is the source of these statistical calculations, when the basis is not the definition of "good for the user" but magic figures coming from a mathematical department that does not understand the question and whose answers are not understood… Instead of rejecting the bad, all is centered on the statistical "crime of being different than usual", on a few tests not exploring all the need - which may lead to acceptance of bad products (the purchaser will be lost) and refusal of good products (increasing costs thus prices, with products not delivered in time as stocks are minimum to decrease costs too, and the purchaser may be lost). What-if the mathematicians were unable to define what is good? They are very angry when such a doubt happens, questioning their highly rewarded answers that avoided to face acute difficulties, and managers having signed stupid rules are angry too that their faults could be discovered. They have the power to make the What-if questions refused, and they use it.
  Next step: when the source of statistics defining the "usual" are three R&D lots or prototypes, not final or using a special procedure or input which will be declared facultative at last, the involved probabilities are not appropriate to depict the production, different, and the very precise limit between passed and failed is based on a complete misunderstanding.
  Last mistake: seeing the amount of re-checking, even with new technicians after the old ones have been fired, the windows of acceptance are usually extended to have less "re-checking for nothing". Hey, What-if this leads to faulty acceptance of many bad products? Instead of 50 individual tests, very much enlarged to avoid re-checking, it would be wiser to say: "What-if this and this manufacturing problem occur? What would be the consequences on the individual results?" Then a few tests on gathered additive data would provide information cleaned from individual random variations. [Each test can go up and down at random, and not to refuse something always, you must enlarge the window of acceptance, accepting very low (or very high) individual figures and refusing only the very-very low (or very-very high); however, if all the 50 tests give a very low figure, this is very-very significative of something very unusual, if you would ask the question, so this is a question that should be asked.] The problem would be solved… Yes, but there is no diploma in What-ifism, and there will probably never be one...

So bad a World

  What-if this World was a dream of mine? I would be right thinking that the other characters are just fictive and I am the center of this World, and I would be classified as paranoid. I would be right thinking this World is not Reality, and I would be classified as schizophrenic. Psychiatrists would inject high doses of medicines, and I would sleep without questioning anymore. Western psychiatrists are as much honest and moral as were the Soviet ones declaring crazy any doubt about communism supreme value... I confirm: Descartes and Bachelard and Hollywood's Twilight Zone ('The Shadow Play') have been wrong as far as logic is concerned: I can be sure that my character is not only a picture inside a dream of someone else, but he/she can be a picture in a dream of mine, and he/she should consider from his/her position that my character may be just a dreamed picture… all 'sane' people simply refuses to face this uncomfortable doubt, to face the logical need for a proof. The belief is classified as mandatory, simply, logical doubt being classified as mental illness...
  Buddha has said interesting things about being saved by a wise skepticism, and Buddhist doubt is already outlaw in France, as lacking respect towards the holy History of the Jewish very powerful community. What-if the Judaic and Christian extremists achieve dominating the World, in the name of Liberty and respect (for actual human beings - not Indians of India & America /Chinese & Muslims /humanist-atheists & mild-communists… not mentioned in the Holy Bible)? I hope this is a nightmare… See my almost desperate site AntiRacist_Logic.htm .
  Surprisingly, when a child loose its self-centered logic, this is called 'reaching the age of reason'. I disagree: it is just becoming a soldier of Western societies. Another acceptable logic is possible: What-if there was no "Real then Heaven/Hell/nothing" for everyone, but just enchained dreams of mine, without a stop ever (reminding the Indian logic called reincarnation)? I should just find peace in each dream, choosing a discreet position, respecting the other characters, according to the Christ's recipe for peace. There is no reason to declare that such a way is an unacceptable road leading directly to crime: if I don't believe there is a main Real and stupid little dreams, temporary, I will not commit crimes freely in those dreams hoping there will be no Real punishment for them - there may be no Real at all.
  What-if this hypothesis would seduce many people? they should not conclude that Tophe is a more convincing proselyte than Jesus and Buddha, this would be contradictory... If you can read this, you can be sure that Tophe was wrong thinking you were just a character in his dream. If you consider being the dreamer, I judge you are wrong (just understanding that you cannot know it), and you should consider this text as coming from yourself, or the mysterious part of you that is dreaming (God?). My character does not look for glory nor prostrated congregations nor $ millions, I just explain what I feel, and what every thinking person could (logically: should?) feel. There is no proof at all, many other possible situations are possible, but being classified as crazy or dangerous for a logical hypothesis seems so bad...
  About the wisdom of living in peace inside each dream, I understand that writing this long list of arguments is wrong. No need to fight the stupid contradictions everywhere around, I should just smile and wait the end of this little World. However, I have a problem in the current one (and the previous ones, if I would trust my memories): I feel torn by the contradictions in mandatory commands...
  Coming back to the starting point : What-if this World of violence, domination and intolerance, was just a nightmare? yes, it is possible, and maybe humanity will be honest after my (next?) waking up. I hope it will be, I fear it won't.

For a better world…

  Inside this very universe, a simple analysis may break all down, through the power of lawyers, able to make killing dishonesty condemned. Before the closure of Internet ('Evil-system allowing anyone to speak publicly without official authorization'…), I will explain. What-if a US lawyer becomes billionaire with the trials using my analysis? let him/her put flowers on my grave, simply, friendly…
  Food and Drug may kill, as they are both generally good and sometimes bad for Health and survival. If huge mistakes are recognized in official procedural directions, this may lead to severe trials, with $ trillions to pay by the US and European leaders towards the victim families. It would be sad that such a money appeal would make things change while the call for honesty was shut down. It will probably never happen, as a faulty government would pay with increased taxes, and tax payers being electors will refuse, democratically… Anyway, I give this double bomb-analysis to lawyers:
  [When a new drug is officially authorized with scientific support, it has been actually tested, honestly (with an accepted risk of refusal). For instance, 3 lots have been tested on 1,000 people and proven safe/efficient, statistically against a placebo showing spontaneous deaths/cures. This is an inductive generalization, supposing that the tested lots and the future production will be the same, and that future users will look like the tested panel - it is well known that mistakes have happened this way, for the 'proven' efficiency of antibiotics, that has disappeared when the very rare abnormal microbes of the past have became predominant, the others having been killed (Darwin-logic is forbidden only for the past described in the Bible…). Anyway, this is well known, and survey exists to be sure that the laws of the past remain appropriate. Good, but…]
1/ When a drug or food is mentioned for storage at room temperature (18 to 25°C), or fridge (2 to 8°C), for 12 months, the test follows a procedure which is not logical at all. And if the proof of safety has been based on such a wrong protocol, the victims of drug-accident and food-intoxication could make a trial to the officials… What-if the 3 lots testing "18 to 25°C" for drug X had been stored in a room whose temperature never exceeded 19°C? the answer is frightening: it would have been accepted as the temperature never went out of the window 18 to 25°C. Hey! What-if we change the figures into "-200° to +1500°C"? a test at room temperature would prove that fire and deep cold, that have not been tested at all, provide no effect on the product. This is so stupid a conclusion that… the What-if question is forbidden. So bad… Experts could argue that the important part is to test both 20°C and 4°C, with a tiny uncertainty acceptance around each, and little variations would not at all be the same as introducing freezing or boiling/evaporating/burning - I disagree: this may be often but not always, and my technical experience (if the present World is not a dream) proves that, sometimes, a completely different phenomenon appears at 29°C compared to 31°C (and 35° compared to 37°), so it may be absolutely right to ask What-if the safety after 18-19°C storage was completely different from the one after 24-25°C? What-if the parents of a new-born killed by an antibiotic injection complain? Well, the faulty protocol of storage validation will not be questioned immediately, as there are so many different hypothesis for the occurrence of this death… The main hope comes from survey teams, that would detect that this antibiotic has killed, 9 times among 10, with rather old lots, in rather warm areas without air-con. Further investigation, comparing 18-19° to 24-25°C would then prove the huge official mistake, that was evident at first reading for logical technicians, whose What-if questions had been shut down...
2/ Apart of the temperature problem, the safety-demonstrations can be destroyed, if they pretend to demonstrate statistically that the number of death with a new drug equals the one with a placebo (powder without effect). This is the logical scandal I explained above: what is called "confidence above 95% / risk below 5%" should be corrected in the frightening "confidence above 5% / risk below 95%", leading to a severe need to change all the figures of acceptance used till now. As nobody seems to care, I ask: What-if arsenic or cyanide, clearly demonstrated as poison with >95% confidence / <5% risk would be declared innocent with >99.999999% confidence / <0.000001% risk? the usual crime towards logic would have been a crime killing innocents people...

The end of my analysis

  When I was a child, I asked my father during a car-travel in the desert:
- What-if the engine fails ?
- a garage-car will come and save us
- What-if the garage-car's engine fails ?
- another garage-car will come
- What-if the bridge we have crossed and the next bridge are broken ?
- an helicopter will come.
- What-if the helicopter's engine fails ?
- close your eyes, dear little boy, don't worry…
- thanks, daddy.
  I understand it is impossible to consider every What-if hypothesis, but respect should lead to accept questions and hypothesis, even if they are not taken into account as serious issues.
  Condemning What-if hypothesis is very logic for the leaders, refusing any doubt about their superiority in the current order, commanding to be obeyed only. Most of the electors agree for hiding the questions that are uncomfortable to face. And the ones that are unable to accept this cheating are broken. Though, if the material World is rather comfortable nowadays, it is because What-if questions have brought the end of Middle-Age. And Justice improved that way too, my mother told me (remember: "What-if the slaves had a soul"?).
  Yes, I may go to the psychiatric asylum, as disturbing the order called (by its leaders and supporters) "law of intelligence and morals". Anyway, officials strongly condemning my torn craziness should not close the What-if modelers' Web-site: most of them are not at all removing guns and roundels like me, they are baptized patriots willing to serve as soldiers, they are just enjoying peace-time with a dreamy smile as a joke…

PS. Reasons to hope:

I did not want to mention here technical details, but this might lead to some optimism, so I may try a little, explaining some problems and comforting about the technical equivalent to the statistical confidence interval: the maximum tolerated error.
* 1980s. At technical school, we had started experiments with the old tools of forefathers then got modern surprising equipment, and one day, I asked :
- sir, as there is no more visual control of the delivered quantity, What-if the tool is wrong today?
- Your workload is huge, today, no time for hypothesis!
- What-if we take a minute to confirm or deny the hypothesis by a measurement checking?
- No time!
- yes, but… if I rush during 4 hours and finish all, What-if all was wrong since the beginning because the tool was out of order?
- Poor green fool! I am the teacher, and I tell you what to do!
* 1990s. For company certification, it was now obligatory to suspect any tool, and check it before and after use… as I had suggested at school (without being punished for heresy, fortunately). However, the protocol seemed wrong : I wrote to our measuring expert "sir, I cannot follow your direction: it is impossible to prove that the delivering tool operates at ±3g by checking it with a weighing device at ±5g, it is non sense: What-if you were condemned for a driving over-speed of 30km/h measured with an aviation radar reliable at ±50km/h?". As just a deep silence was the answer, I wrote again and again, till my department boss commanded that I stop immediately creating conflicts with experts. I wrote no more and just felt sad. One year later, all of us technicians were convoked to a training session where our measuring expert was the teacher, and he explained us the new rule: the capability ratio (tolerance/uncertainty) must be above 3, a value below 1 (as 3/5 or 30/50) being ridiculous and 2 being not enough for confidence. I had to sign down that I had understood the lesson… that came from myself…
* 2000s. Facing a major manufacturing problem, a brain-storming meeting was organized to lower down the variability between productions, and I proposed an idea : "What-if we do not respect the capability command for the special case of manufacturing instructions, handling 'apparent values' and not 'pretended-real values'? if the weighing device proven as better than ±5g is stable as usual (for instance +3g at +4g this day), we can adjust the quantity into an apparent ±3g (real values: +0g to +7g) and nothing forces to command adjusting at ±15g (real values: -12g at +19g), the variability in manufacturing would be lowered down greatly". The measuring expert answered that such scenario was completely wrong, and doubting of the capability law just meant a lack of understanding! Though, one young manufacturing engineer judged my idea interesting, and tried it discreetly, and it worked, solving most of the variability issue… Thanks, Sylvain.

PS.2 Misunderstanding:

A very interesting conversation occured with a friend, a Canadian what-if modeler, Barry.
* He had written to a Buddhist friend: "Specifically: in your personal opinion, what happens after you leave this existence? I had another one of those moments were a sudden realization grips you and your mind sloughs off the natural nonchalance about the idea of dying. For a cold, split second, you realize it WILL end at some point. Then what? To me, all such things must be an ultimatum (because I'm simplistic): it would be the same as before I was born (nothingness). But then I wonder what you, as a Buddhist, truly expects to happen upon leaving this world."
* I had answered:
- like you I have been told that I was born and not existed before, that I will die and will not live anymore (at all according to my atheist parents, on Earth according to my Christian wife).
- I am not convinced, the Real may not exist at all, other people may be inventions that I can see and touch but with no reciprocity at all, future and past are logically doubtful, completely.
- There is something now, this is the only certainty I have, believing more may comfort but pretending to know is not convincing at all, according to me, and maybe I am the only one (you could say the same if you exist, meaning I am wrong but without possibility for you to know that you are wrong like I know you would be)... If there is no Real nor normality, there is no insanity, just acute discomfort... Buddhism way is "relax and try to find peace", Christian way is "live in harmony with characters around, friendly", both are good, and could be followed all together. This is not a joke, even if I try to smile...
* He answered: "As a child I often wondered if it was possible that nothing behind me (or outside of my range of vision, hearing, etc.) actually existed. I think everyone wonders at some point if this so-called 'reality' is all just a dream, a fiction. Question is: is it all our own personal dream (and no one else really exists), or that of someone or something else????? And, who is to say that 'reality' itself is not the dream and the dream is more important than what we commonly call 'reality'? ".
* I answer now, seeing better the problem:
- From my memories (true or dreamed): when I was a child, I saw a World around, with nice characters and nasty characters, with pleasant logics and very frightening logics, and I have been educated by my family and teachers, saying that there are 2 kinds of Worlds. First is Reality, with bad things I must face, with evil logics I must fight; Second, there are dreams of mine, nightmares I must ignore, with awful logics I can escape from, simply by deciding to open my eyes (that seemed completely open, yes) or else, if that fails: by trying hard to change and dream another way.
- So, wondering if Reality is a dream of mine or of God, or of Mr Smith, wouldn't change anything for me: I am here feeling, seeing the other characters as pictures (and pain-providers if they box me), but there are 2 interpretations 1/ they see me like I see them; 2/ they are dreamy inventions pretending they see me, before they will fade away and disappear in a waking up 'proving' they were not seeing me (according to my comforting parents and teachers). No matter if the waking up occurs to me or to someone/something else dreaming he/she/it was the character Tophe. My experience (memory) tells me something will still be there, 'through me', and I do not understand the characters speaking of the World before my birth or after my disappearance into nothingness. I can imagine, yes, a World without me, like I can imagine there could be Nothing: what was before the Big Bang, before God? The explained Universe does not stand up by itself, 'something is', simply, through 'my' eyes - and what pretends to explain is a command, with 'threat of punishment' as only strength, not convincing at all.
- All the pretended proofs to depart 1/ and 2/ were lies, I have demonstrated that after deep analysis, they declare obligatory/holy one simple belief and choosing to ignore self-contradiction (the 'proofs of Truth' would work as well, and be wrong, inside a dream). There is no logical answer, just choices, presented as mandatory to avoid psychiatric asylum. This is dishonest, this is bad, and I hope this is one more nightmare...
- The explanation of my lost status may be that I have no child. Clearly, if I had seen the appearance of a new born little girl from nowhere and had the responsability to educate her, I would accept lies of certainty/Reality as an efficient way to direct into sleep comfort and pleasant behavior awake - while selfish logic may bring badness and final discomfort (from nightmare terror, from other characters being scorned and turning angry because of such lack of respect). For love of this little character, I would forget logics and lie. Like all characters here seem to do. So: I understand the situation, I could be right or wrong with no possibility to know, the mystery remains... Take care of your cute daughter, Barry, if you read this you have the proof that I am not dreaming your character - you cannot know that you are not dreaming, but I have the proof you are not: I am not just a name but I am actually reading you, with no ability to prove it to you - you could invent what you read back, you are not doing it but it is impossible to know it from your position... This Universe is crazy pretending it is not, and if we don't agree, we are called the crazy ones. Leave me in 'jail', take care of your little one... Try to make her blind as required, running away from honest analysis, which is a direct Road to the asylum.
* (...) This morning, I wanted to answer Barry, that posted me yesterday an interesting objection, according to my memories. I have switched on the computer, 'remembering' how to do, and found this mail I 'remembered' (or was inventing). It reads : "but what if YOU yourself are no more than a dream, programmed inherently to believe that you are in fact 'real' complete with a memory of a history, etc.??? Some people believe that is what that odd sense of 'deja vu' really is: a simple 'glitch' in the program, a Boolean loop of sorts?". I had written back : "I will think over your mail - tomorrow, I am going to sleep... maybe there will be no tomorrow, or your letter will not be in 'tomorrow' (next) World, nor even its memory...". Well, it is here now, maybe it wasn't yesterday, maybe there was no yesterday. I have never meant that memories coherence is reliable, I don't believe in my memories details. It is just the taste of coherence, a background expressing what seems to be the basis. Now, let me face the question. What if I was a machine, programmed with a fantasy memory ? Yes, it is possible, then what ? From here, I just feel I am unable to reach the one that may dream (or have programmed) what I see now. I may be wrong (Reality would exist, Barry would actually read and see differently), or it might be the very principle of this World, with another Universe dominating here as just a dust grain. I don't know. From my position here, what is 'above' perhaps seems just unreachable. I find peace doubting, I fight a little the frightening logics in case they are not a nightmare, I eat things if I believe they are pleasant (I was anorexic, and I still don't know hunger, just desire of something - eating nothing is better if available are just 'vomiting-things'), the World (or dream) just goes on…

PS.3 Seeing and rejecting “The matrix” (07/12/2011)

  I have seen (2 days ago) this 1999 Hollywood-film, “The matrix”, and I understand better now why Barry was referring to “live the dream programmed by a machine”. I dislike this film full of over violence (weapons and kung-fu), but I see the principle: people were thinking they live Reality while this was just an artificial World to fool them, while the Real is hold my machines cultivating humans to eat their energy. This is not a revival of my point of view at all, but something imagined after admitting the Reality existence dogma: Neo is the main character in this film but the story does not start with him but with the Trinity character fighting policemen and machine agents, which Neo does not see at all; this means several characters do exist, which prevents from honest thinking, as single brain looking around. That is the same after: Neo asks the right question “how to recognize if this is a dream or Reality ?”, but he forgets to remember what a dream means (as it was learned according to childish memories): something MY brain is inventing, the other characters inside being pictures not people, death inside a dream being temporary and reversible (through a change of World or time coming back).
  So in 2 or 3 hours of film, celebrating awfully the US killing spirit in the name of Zion, less than one minute is interesting, noticing it is impossible to decide if the World around is Reality. No need of such a film to think so, and this is not even a good illustration of it, forgetting to question the existence of other human souls.

PS.4 Good illustration (05/23/2019)

A (French) advertisement for free.fr (of 2017, according to Internet : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zfrvdq9Z7zI ) is funny and interesting: looking at the Earth globe, a father says that one country (whose name is written on the map) “does not exist”, his little daughter asks “does not ezigst ?”, and the father confesses “no, anyway it is not in my phone package”, the little girl frowns her eyes. The little girl’s pronunciation is cute, but most of all it is good to show how adults commit an abuse of power, claiming that something does not exist, and children (like I was) do accept this without being convinced, the parental speech rejecting without argument one part of personal experience, saying this is “dreamed, non existent”.
Addition, 06/13/2019
(A friend of mine told me he does not understand what I wrote in P.S.4, so I add a lately introduction:)
With adult language (and even childlike past "the age of reason") the world is split into "a true real" shared by all (including animals) and "false dreams" in my head (and empathy leads to believe that other dreams are in the minds of others, human or even animal). As, with my philosophy, it turns out that there is no valid criterion of Real, it is not sure that the Real exists (that the actual thought of others exists), and one of the explanatory hypotheses is that my parents have deceived me with their false demarcations "it exists / does not exist", everything existing perhaps, or as little. Illustration: (then the anecdote of the liar dad causing hint of the cute lucid little girl) ...

PS.5 False demonstration (10/14/2019)
A friend replies to me "I always blame you for the same thing, it is to situate you on the ground that suits you. If indeed the reality is only an illusion there is no debate. Otherwise we are obliged to be on a scientific basis”. My answer: the famous Gaston Bachelard wrote that the dream question never arises in a dream so if the question arises it means that we live The Real, Proven! It's so wrong that I do not even know if I mentioned it in my book "Against Reality". Bachelard forgets an axiom that he uses and that I reject: this axiom is "my experience, my memories, describe the totality of what is possible". And this is false: my personal experience, threatened with psychiatric internment for skepticism (among other things), traumatized by this, is that the question of the dream pursues me into my nightmares (volatilizing "in flight" without follow-up in a claimed Reality). There too, false-thinkers claim to be in The Real, before an awakening of the ego proves them to have been wrong. In these "dreams / nightmares where the question of the dream occurs", actually the apparent reality is an illusion, but there is a debate (Myself-dreamer has decided that way, it turns out like that). And to apply the scientific approach would be erroneous whereas the objection by hypothesis of the dream is relevant (without anything at the moment making it possible to know that it is totally right). In short, as long as I do not know if here is a dream or not (and apparently nothing allows to know), there is inability to prove the merits of the scientific approach. It is not proved wrong, it is not proven right, to have hesitant consciousness, non-knowledge, is lucidity, apparently valid in all cases since these are logically undecidable from the inside. It is not what arranges, it is pure logic. Knowledge cannot be decreed, otherwise it becomes false, misinformation. Some people practice this choice, of false knowledge, of realism claimed to be mental health, and I would say "free to you" if it were a choice of personal belief without consequence, but when this camp is armed with psychiatry and internment to impose its choices, there is pseudo-intellectual and pseudo-moral horror. Certainly, lucidity is not what makes a societal winner enriching himself fabulously, so getting the favors of many women (according to the apparent feminine logic majority), no: to be lucid is sad and lonely, it is not a choice of what provides tranquility but a wise renunciation to enjoy usurped domination, in my opinion, currently (that a possible awakening could contradict, one will see).

PS6. (02/19/2020) The same in other words
The same friend confirmed his refusal of my arguments : « I always blame you for moving from one foot to the other between reality and fiction depending on what suits you. Either reality exists or it does not exist. I do not imagine in any case a history where the war of 14 took place and not the one of 39-45. » I answered : You are mistaken in saying that I go from one foot to the other according to what suits me, in terms of realism and anti-realism. You say something like "either reality exists or it does not exist, period", but this affirmative mode would for example prohibit agnostic wisdom: "either God exists or it does not exist, period". Yes, but it turns out that between these two possibilities we do not know, even if some believe or claim to know, wisdom seems to me in doubt keeping open the two possibilities. It is not a facility holding argumentative dishonesty, it is the simple observation that one does not know, and perhaps that one cannot know, and maybe will never be able to know.

PS7. (03/01/2020) "Dogma"...
A friend told me "you call dogma what is factual reasoning, which you can dispute but it is by no means a dogma". I answer :
Your position is:
1 / The real facts are indisputable
2 / A factual reasoning is therefore incontestable
3 / A partisan dogma can be challenged
No, I challenge 1 so 2 also, that was the object of my first book "against reality", denying that realistic believers (like you) are incontestable, therefore what they call " incontestable factual reasoning" is a partisan dogma that they forget to consider such, for lack of critical intelligence or reassuring will not to ask questions.