Week – #11 Induction Myths and More!

Haanel this week offers, Your life is governed by law – by actual, immutable principles that never vary. Law is in operation at all times; in all places. Fixed laws underlie all human actions.

I wish he provided an explicit example of at least one ‘fixed’ law.  He could use deduction.

It is well, however, to remember that while every effect is the result of a cause, the effect in turn becomes a cause, which creates other effects, which in turn create still other causes; so that when you put the law of attraction into operation you must remember that you are starting a train of causation for good or otherwise which may have endless possibilities.

This suggests that essentially there is only effect, effect, effect… for nearly all events!

…like attracts like in the mental world, and that the thought which we entertain brings to us certain friendships, companionships of a particular kind, and these in turn bring about conditions and environment, which in turn are responsible for the conditions of which we complain.

We not only complain but praise!… This belief is on thin ice in my view. Useful to entertain because it puts me in control, however as the observer I may be making an error!  Now that Haanel has declared the law is exact, he offers a red herring.

1. Inductive reasoning is the process of the objective mind by which we compare a number of separate instances with one another until we see the common factor that gives rise to them all.

I wish he gave this the short straw it deserves. We make too many assumptions about our powers of observation and our ability to sort and sift out the ‘common factor’!

2. Induction proceeds by comparison of facts; it is this method of studying nature which has resulted in the discovery of a reign of law which has marked an epoch in human progress.

Saying so does not make it so.  One person’s facts are likely pure myth or fabricated opinion to another.  How often are the ‘facts’ in evidence wrong?  How many facts change from a new point of view?

3. It is the dividing line between superstition and intelligence; it has eliminated the elements of uncertainty and caprice from men’s lives and substituted law, reason, and certitude.

Haanel is convinced of this and essentially leaves us to believe that only recently have we discovered the line between myth and reality… Were it only so!?!!  Conviction is the real key in all of this in my view.

What convinces is conviction. Believe in the argument you’re advancing. If you don’t you’re as good as dead. The other person will sense that something isn’t there, and no chain of reasoning, no matter how logical or elegant or brilliant, will win your case for you. – Lyndon B. Johnson

With the power of conviction, there is no sacrifice. – Pat Benatar

There is a serious problem with inductive reasoning.

5. When, by virtue of this principle, the world to which the senses were accustomed had been revolutionized; when the sun had been arrested in his course, the apparently flat earth had been shaped into a ball and set whirling around him;…

You should carefully study the Art of Reasoning, as it is what most people are very deficient in, and I know few things more disagreeable than to argue, or even converse with a man who has no idea of inductive and deductive philosophy. – William John Wills

David Hume railed against the validity of induction a hundred years prior to Haanel.   Please read Walt Whitman’s excerpt, OF the terrible doubt of appearances,  on the page as well.

Almost everyone uses induction to arrive at pure myth and falsehoods one time or another.  Just because enough people, even every one you know, believes it to be true, does not make your inductive reasoning a truth. At best, you have a working theory.

We live on a ball of a planet and you still believe in your mind that it is flat! Yes you do!! When you say with complete belief that the sun rises in the east and sets in the west your inductive reasoning is the flawed power of observation.

The sun does not move!  YOU move relative to the sun attached to a globe spinning.  The earth moves around the sun at about 67,000 miles an hour.  Depending where you live on this globe determines how fast you are spinning toward or away from the sun. At the equator we move away from the sun about 1000 miles an hour after the sun is directly overhead.  I live just above 6000 feet looking west able to see two more mountain ranges. As the daylight becomes twilight into night, the sense that the earth moves is apparent.  Sorry but the sun does not set!  Saying so or believing it, doesn’t make it true either.

The art and seductiveness of inductive reasoning is part of everyone’s schooling.  I discovered the falsehood of it the summer I turned twenty.  I was arrested and charged for stealing $18,000 from my employer. They had proof! A daily tally of who was working, when the money ‘disappeared’ and the logic of their argument was sound.  The only problem was I didn’t take the money!  Naturally, they didn’t believe me. They had enough ‘proof’ to put in me in prison for a long time.  I had a great lawyer too.  Once charged and arrested you are guilty unless you can prove yourself otherwise.  I refused to plea bargain.  I should take the plea was all based on more inductive reasoning.  Sorry, I was not going to admit guilt to something I did not do. Many have by the way.  Many people ‘wanted’ to believe me; none did until the day I was supposed to go to trial.  The real thief robbed a liquor store the night before my trial began. One police officer who kept open the possibility I was telling the truth asked the person who still worked for my previous employer, if he had taken that money too. He confessed he had.

The system apologized of course at no cost to them.  I had a great learning experience.

Conviction by induction is nearly always FALSE!

8. It is our privilege to become conscious of the principle and act in accordance with it. Cuvier sees a tooth belonging to an extinct race of animals. This tooth wants a body for the performance of its function, and it defines the peculiar body it stands in need of with such precision that Cuvier is able to reconstruct the frame of this animal.

Cuvier objected to ANY notion of evolution. Could be why you have never heard of him.

12. As the interests of the individual are protected by the arms of the country, added to his own; and his needs may depend upon certain supply in the degree that they are felt more universally and steadily; in the same manner does conscious citizenship in the Republic of nature secure us from the annoyances of subordinate agents by alliance with superior powers; and by appeal to the fundamental laws of resistance or inducement offered to mechanical or chemical agents, distribute the labor to be performed between them and man to the best advantage of the inventor.

The ‘right to bear arms’ has changed significantly in the last 100 years and perhaps so has the view of much of the ‘fundamental laws’.

You must stick to your conviction, but be ready to abandon your assumptions. – Denis Waitley

Knowing the difference between your convictions and assumptions makes for a very interesting life.  Most people have no convictions, only assumptions that change with the circumstances.

18. We are first to believe that our desire has already been fulfilled, its accomplishment will then follow. This is a concise direction for making use of the creative power of thought by impressing on the Universal subjective mind, the particular thing which we desire as an already existing fact.

There is one small, but essential particle, missing in this formula.  Do you know what it is?

23. All truth is the same, whether stated in modern scientific terms or in the language of apostolic times. There are timid souls who fail to realize that the very completeness of truth requires various statements — that no one human formula will show every side of it.

The caveat is language cannot identify or scribe the truth but only point to it.  The various formula all being a bit insufficient and incomplete depending upon the time and circumstance. Even Haanel has his experience only to describe as best he can after it occurred.

24. Changing, emphasis, new language, novel interpretations, unfamiliar perspectives, are not, as some suppose, signs of departure from truth but on the contrary, they are evidence that the truth is being apprehended in new relations to human needs, and is becoming more generally understood.

Constant repetition carries conviction. – Robert Collier

This is even true when the repetition appears different to all observers!

30. You ask in what does the creative power of thought consist? It consists in creating ideas, and these in turn objectify themselves by appropriating, inventing, observing, discerning, discovering, analyzing, ruling, governing, combining, and applying matter and force. It can do this because it is an intelligent creative power.

You are an observer, just an effect or a participant in the cause. Pick the later if you dare. The default is observer.

34. We all know many who have achieved the seemingly impossible, who have realized life-long dreams, who have changed everything including themselves. We have sometimes marveled at the demonstration of an apparently irresistible power, which seemed to be ever available just when it was most needed, but it is all clear now. All that is required is an understanding of certain definite fundamental principles and their proper application.

Read that last sentence repeatedly. Let it sink in.  Proper application is the key. You will have to get on the ‘bicycle’ to discover how. You must leave the safety of the stands and put yourself on the court. Aligning your ‘self’ with the Universal Mind suggests failure until you do.

Our intention creates our reality. – Wayne Dyer