ONTIC AND EPSITEMIC BRAIN SCANNING
YOUR BUDDIES, NEAL, JOE, AND WOOD
Of course! you know Neal, Joe and Wood. How can you deny your old pals? They're THE METAPHYSICAL THREE:

Using the notion of probability, I can explain ONTOLOGY, EPISTEMOLOGY, AXIOLOGY to you -- that is, the part Neal, Joe, and Wood play in your life.

One of the most famous of debates among great physicists during the 20th century was that between Albert Einstein and the great Danish physicist, Niels Bohr -- who first became known for his "solar system" model of the atom. The debate concerned THE NATURE OF THE PROBABILITY COMPONENT IN QUANTUM THEORY -- the most successful physical theory of all times.

Any "quanton" has associated with it a wave. The great German physicist, Max Born (x-y), hypothesized that this is "a probability wave". Its value tells us the probable "location" of a quanton at a given time.

This provoked Einstein to say, "God does not play dice with the Universe!" Einstein accepted the fact that Born's idea led to extremely good predictions. But Einstein argued that this is necessary because of LIMITS IN OUR KNOWLEDGE. Einstein argued that HIDDEN VARIABLE EXIST IN THESE PROCESSES such that discovery and use of these VARIAABLES would preclude the RANDOMNESS presently tolerated. Thus, Einstein was saying that QUANTUM PROBABILITY IS EPISTEMIC ("Whaddya know, Joe?")

But Bohr argued that QUANTUM PROBABILITY IS ONTIC -- that is, "built into Nature" ("What's real, Neal?").

Later, Einstein and two colleagues formulated a "thought experiment" to expose this aspect of Quantum Theory as INCOMPLETE. However, over the years, this has led to confirmed experiments that not only show Einstein to be wrong, but that "Nature is much stranger than we thought".

The Einstein-Bohr debate evokes the ONTIC and EPISTEMIC aspects of some processes. However, it is DECISION-MAKING that brings out the AXIONIC aspect.

A common error is believing that PROBABILITY MEASURE is DETERMINANT in DECISION-THEORY. NO! EXPECTATION (PROBABILITY TIMES VALUE OF EVENT) IS DETERMINANT!

Example. Suppose 1000 lottery tickets are sold. If the lottery is "fair", the PROBABILITY OF WINNING IS 1/1000th. Suppose the PRIZE is $500. Then THE EXPECTATION OF THE LOTTERY IS ($500) · (1/1000) = 50 CENTS. (This is also THE ARIMETIC MEAN -- THE PRIZE SPREAD EQUALLY FOR ALL 1000 TICKETS.) Given two lotteries with the same EXPECTATION, the one whose ticket is cheaper is the better deal.

Thus, the AXIONIC factor makes the difference here.

Failure to understand this apparently made a big difference during The Undeclared War in Vietnam. Robert MacNamara was our Secretary of Defense. MacNamara had been known as "The Whiz Kid of General Motors". But now he reasoned that our cause would win in Vietnam because there were 10 times as many South Vietnamese soldiers as opposing Vietcong. But some one asked: "What if those 10 South Vietnamese soldiers won't fight and that one Vietcong fights like hell?" That is, if the VALUE of the VIETCONG is so much greater than that of the South Vietnamese Soldiery, then the "odds" were against McNamara. (You can read about this in David Halberstam's, The Best and the Brightest.)

I've reminded you of your buddies, Neal, Joe, and Wood, to make you aware of the "metaphysical" aspect of whatever your system represents. The following is an example which you'll FIND ONLY HERE!

Biological experts say it's becoming possible to know, from DNA analysis, that a given person has "a genetic predisposition" to a disease -- say, breast cancer.

The problem is that INSURANCE COMPANIES ARE USING THIS INFORMATION AS AN EXCUSE TO CANCEL INSURANCE POLICIES WHEN THIS BECOMES KNOWN.

But INSURANCE COMPANIES (ONTICALLY) BASE THEIR RATES ON STATISTICS DRAWN FROM THE GENERAL POPULATION. THE NUMBER OF "PREDISPOSED" DOES NOT CHANGE WITH INFORMATION THAT A PARTICULAR INDIVIDUAL IS ONE OF THEM. THE COMPANIES ARE WORKING WITH ONTIC PROBABILITY, AND SHOULD NOT BE ALLOWED TO BRING EPISTEMIC FACTORS INTO THEIR DECISION-MAKING!

However, people don't know this and have no recourse.

Don't lose touch with your buddies, Neal, Joe, and Wood. They play a role in what goes into your reasoning! The following shows this.

A famous problem in logic is "The Paradox of the Morning Star". The problem is stated as a logical syllogism, modeled on the syllogistic prototype that proceeds:
                                  All men are mortal
                                  Socrates is a man.
                                  Therefore, Socrates is mortal.
The first statement or premise is called "universal positive", since it asserts that a property is shared by all of a given set. The second statement or premise is called "existential positive", since it asserts aa at tribute about one member of a set. The third statement is the "conclion" deduced from the two premisis.

The first premise says that the set "men" or "humans" is included in the set "mortals". The second premise says that the individual "Socrates" is a member of the set "men" ("human"). Hence, it follows that this individual is a member of the superset "mortals", and this syllogism is voluminously cited as an exmple of good or correct reasoning.

However, consider the following "syllogism":

                     John Brown knows that Venus is The Morning Star.
                     The Morning Star is The Evening Star.
                     Therefore, John Brown knows that Venus is The Evenig Star.
Maybe he does. And maybe he doesn't. What is ignored in most discussions of this "Paradox" is that Aristotle (384-322BC), who developed syllogistic logic, also discussed modal logic . For example, Aristotle discussed instances of temporal logic, involving statements which can be made true or false by events in time, such as "Ronald Reagan is the current President of The United States". That stateent was true 1980-88, but false before and after this period.

Standard logic belongs to the aleuthic mode, involving tautological truth. But the first premise above is in the epistemic mode, saying what a particular individual knows. The second premise appears to be in the ontic mode, claiming that any perceiver of reality perceives this also. You cannot combine two different modes to argue a conclusion! The "Paradox" then disappears.

We have a critical need of methods which distinguish between ONTIC and EPSITEMIC and AXIONIC factors in brain process!