A SEASON(ING) FOR YOUR REASONS(ING)

Adam -- First STEWARD of Eden -- NAMED all the ANIMALS and topographical features of EDEN, and Eve NAMED its FLOWERS and TREES.

Then The Archangel -- First STEWARD in Heaven -- combined these NAMES (a.k.a. NOMINAL MEASURES) into more complex MEASURES or STATEMENTS to translate (from Heaven-lanuage) THE MANUAL FOR OPERATING EDEN PLANTATION.

In forming more complex STRUCTURES, The Archangel used the FORMAT known to COMPUTER PROGRAMMERS as the closed loop. (In LOGIC, we call this an eduction, in contrast to induction and deduction.) As a ferinstance, I'll describe how a friend, Della, programmed her small son, Roy, to wash his hands and face.

"Go to the bathroom door. If door is open, and no one inside, go in. If door is closed, knocked gently, and politely ask if it's occupied. If no answer, and door is unlocked, open door and go to the bathroom sink. Turn on water faucet. Wet hands. Put soap on hands, soaping hands briskly. Check both hands now and then for improved color. When no change in color, rinse hands in water. Tightly turn off the faucet. Dry hands on towel. Hang up towel. Then come out of the bathroom and show hands."

(During World War II, serving as an Army Air Force weather forecaster, I once waited for an observer to read the barometer, so I could enter the altimeter setting on a clearance for a pilot to take-off. Finding the observer still standing before the barometer, case unopened, I demanded explanation. "Sorry, Sarge. But, at Weather Observer School, I learned to do this by Steps, and I've forgotten the First Step." I snapped, "I don't know what those Steps are, but I suggest that you open the barometer case." "That's it. The First Step is open the case! Thanks, Sarge.")

Della wasn't the only one to use programming for guiding a family member. The wife of a great American mathematician did similarly. Norbert Wiener (x-y) was one of our greatest mathematicians. Wiener invented the word "cybernetics", the title of his monumental 1948 book, Cybernetics. Wiener taught at M.I.T. in Boston. One morning Wiener's wife said, "Norbert, 30 days from today we're moving from this apartment to a house we bought. This morning, take the No. 1 Bus to MIT, and the No. 2 Bus to return home in the evening." "Yes, dear." The next morning, "Norbert, 29 days from today, ...." And so it continued each day, until, "Norbert, today we're moving from this apartment to our new house. Take the No. 1 Bus to MIT. But, at the end of the day, don't take the No. 2 Bus here. Take the No. 3 Bus and get off at ...." "Yes, Dear." But at the end of his day, Wiener forgot his wife's program and took the No. 2 Bus back to their former home. Finding it empty, Wiener said, "Oh. We must have moved." Not knowing what to do, Wiener took the No. 1 Bus to MIT and walked around the campus, trying to remember, when a thought about "No. 3 Bus" came up. Riding on the No. 3 Bus, Wiener watched anxiously through his thick-rimmed glasses, trying to remember where he was supposed to get off. Thinking that he recognized a corner, Wiener got off the bus and went up to a child standing by the street sign. "Little girl, do you know where the Wiener's live?" The little girl took his hand, saying, "Oh, come on, Daddy, let's go home."

Insructions such as Della's must proceed in rehearsal stages. But where's the loop? In repetitive hand washing -- naturally!

And this is how The Archangel programmed Adam and Eve to perform some Edenic chore -- given the NOMINAL MEASURES for MEASURING OUT EACH STAGE OF THE PROGRAM. (With a kitchen measuring cup, or laboratory beaker, you can execute fairly complicated actions, as programmed by cookbook or lab manual. Similarly, given requisite NOMINAL MEASURES, you can write a fairly complicated PROGRAM in terms of those MEASURES for performing various OPERATIONS.)

For example, instructions for Adam to fetch water proceeed: "Start from the big oak tree. Walk to the rose bush. Turn right at the big anthill.... You've reached the river...."

Please note presence in the instructions of NOMINAL and TYPOLOGICAL MEASURES: "oak tree", "anthill", ..., "river", and such. Also, the ORDINAL MEASURE "big" for "oak tree" and "anthill".

Then, just friend Della made the handwashing a SUBPROGRAM, so The Archangel sketched a SUBPROGRAM for scooping water in a shell and drinking it. Then, SUBPROGRAMS for returning without falling into a mudhole, or tripping over an allegator napping on the bank, or provoking a similar crisis.

But where's the closed loop in this? The eduction?

The loop above covers repeated dipping for water and repeated slurping. Also, any sequence of STAGES (or OPERATIONS) is "closed" if it COVERS ALL POSSIBILITIES. But an separate section of a CLOSED LOOP is, in itself, OPEN.

For example, suppose friend Della had said to son Roy: "Stand at the bathroom door and ask yourself if some one is in there -- yes or no." This format suggests one action for confirmed "yes"; a different action for confirmed "no". But exactly what action follows a given answer may be left open. The PROGRAM resembles a TV set whose "closure" is disrupted by disconnecting some wires.

As for "eduction", by that term I denote a relationship of statements each allowed equal "weight" or verisimiltude. This contrasts with induction: from special to general, a "chain with links of increasing weight". It also contrasts with deduction: from general to special", a "chain of links with decreasing weight". Reformulating, an eductive form is monotonic in "weight".

For example, Eve and Adam go down to the meadow. But Eve slows, hesitantly. "Adam, I --."

Adam interrupts to ask, "Why do you keep saying 'Adam'. Who else could you be talking to?"

"Don't bug me, Adam. Adam, I don't like the looks of those animals in the meadow!"

And she persuades Adam -- with a hearty shove and whack on his (nekkid) backside -- to scout the bystanders.

Adam returns to report, "The giraffes are friendly."

But Eve demanded, "What about the others, Adam?", again shoving and whacking his nekkidnesss toward the meadow.

Again, Adam reports, "The lions have eaten and are friendly."

But Eve isn't pacified until Adam again scouts and reports, "The baboons are mating and said, 'You mind your business, and we'll mind ours!' But they're not hostile."

Only then did Eve enter the meadow to gather pecans.

Due to Eve's limited experience with animals at this particular time (she'd accumulated no such experience as Adam's rib), Eve attaches no more (but no less) significance (or weight) to assurance about the baboons than she did about the giraffes. The three assuring statements, taken separately, carried equal "weight" -- like three rungs on a ladder, "reaching higher" only by their succession in an ordering.

This is, of course, a rather simple example. And Eve is capable of reasoning eductively, inductively, deductively in simple cases. But neither she nor Adam is aware of doing so. (Are you thus aware -- in your daily life?) Hence, Adam and Eve did not realize how to IMPROVE such skills in reasoning.

As long as Eve and Adam reside in Eden, they easily use eduction, not only in actions, but in daily discussions: "and so I said"; "and then"; "apples or plums or bannanas". Undaunted by open dangling loops words or action. They unwittingly use ostensive ("pointing") definitions and intensive ("essence") definitions. And these few seem to suffice for daily living, for their mutual communication, for communication with the animals, flowers, trees, plants, and other citizens of The Garden of Eden.

But in the foolness of time, AdAM and Eve are exiled from Eden and become responsible for nursing, rearing, communicating with their children. Then arise need to articulate new linguistic tools. For exmple, the extensive definition or process.

No, the extensive definition is not more complicated than the intensive defintion. In fact, once formulated, for a given case, the extensive definition is usually easier to apply than either the intensive or intensive types. For, existence of nouns and pronouns (a.k.a. nominal measures) makes possible (in a very simple way) the extensive process. Alternatively, we may think of NAME as "a two sided coin", with "intensive" on one side, "extensive" on the other side. The intension of a NAME is the property (a.k.a. quality) by which the CARRIER OF THE NAME may be RECOGNIZED. (Equivalently, A TEST FOR THE POTENTIAL CARRIER.) The extension of a NAME is the set of all nameables so named.

Both intension and extension are IMPLICIT in a NAME. But exploitation of both aspects requires bypassing NOMINAL MEASURES for a somewhat richer MEASURE, employing both intension and extension.

For example, consider the NAME: president of the United States, 1794-2001. This NAME, with many REFERENTS, correlates with PROPERTIES for IDENTIFYING or TESTING candidates for NAMEHOOD: adult; "native born"; (chauvinistically) "male"; "30 years or older"; etc. These restrictive properties constitute the INTENSION of the NAME ("president of ...). Its EXTENSION is A LIST OF NAMEABLES QUALIFYING THIS NAME.

Before Exile, Adam (extensionally, but unwittingly) calls the roll of Eden troops -- the set of cows, set of roses, set of ladybugs, etc. After Exile, Adam or Eve, with greater understanding and purpose, must use both extension and intension to teach their children what is a whosit, and why to be wary of a whichit.

Adam learned to do that in the first presentation of the Edem troops to the newly-ribbed Eve. Instead of addressing Eve in his "Ole Massa on The Plantation" voice, and jiving that jazz about "the animal I called 'cow' on the way over here", Adam simply sweeps his hand along the chorus line and shouts "cow". (The impressionable newly-ribbed Eve was henceforth enchanted when he played this role of "Heathcliff-on-the-Moor".) Then Adam snaps the class photograph, develops it, and sells copies. Later, by easy reference to The Eden Yearbook, 000001, "cowness" is readily identified. (Ettsettery for other ness-es.)

But in Exile, as parents, communication and reasoning problems about cows and such become complexified. Still more so, when their descendents disperse into different tribes and dialects.

Theoretically, you can initiate communication by the method The Archangel first used with Adam: ostension (a.ka. pointing-and-naming). But ostension can be risky with strangers: what you consider a friendly handwave may be interpreted as insulting; a word you think pedestrian may resemble obscenity to the stranger.

(I discovered this in First Grade. My made-up nonsense words were to make the girls laugh. But sometimes "a word" I improvised resembled, to a little girl, a baby-name for a private part or a private act. "Oh, Teacher, did you hear what Sonny said?" Whisper, whisper. "Did you say that, Sonny Hays? Go sit in the corner!" Later, a friend would use the excuse of pencil-sharpening to get near me. "Hey, Sonny. What did you say?" "I don't know what I said, but it must have been awful!")

Clearly, the demands of communication tax human ingenuity for sign-making/using. Especially invoking that triune: ostension, intension, extension.

To designate or explain to each other -- later, to little Cain or Abel -- Eve and Adam play "charades", except that, in their version, the performer speakes the word and mimes an introduction to the carrier of that word as NAME. And, to develop themsleves as "social animals", and to transform their babies into "social animals", Eve and Adam TUNE THESELVES into more effective INSTRUMENTS OF INTENSITY.

Thus, when given a singing telegram of some import, either of them can proficiently broadcast it -- and, if need be, deliver it all along the route -- dispatching the message:

"To whom it may concern, if you see a wandering child -- or ambling animal -- or creeping vine -- or leaning tower -- whatever -- of the description that's posted, please immediately notify Adam and Eve, Second Tree from the Corner, East of Eden. Thank you."

(Posting might consist of drawing on the wall of a cave; carving on a tree; chistle on a stone tablet; etsettery.)

Hence, if we permit ourselves the abuse of language in saying that the terms are what they represent, we may simplify our gleanings in this fashion: