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The
successful con artist, like all successful artists, have
mastered the skill of cognition manipulation. Using her
tools of the trade, she forges sets of cognitions forming
a 'reality' for the naive that causes willful action at
the gain of the con artist. The con artist is a master at
controlling the cognitions of others. But notice that the
expression 'con artist' uses the term artist, implying that
the skill requires some degree of art. What then could this
'art' be if not cognition manipulation. Controlling someone's
awareness, via cognitions, is simply the trade of the artist.
For what is not the painter, filmmaker, or poet but one
who uses his respective tools to control what his audience
is aware of during that brief period of interaction? To
be an artist is to control someone else's awareness.
What
then of the scientist, is he an artist? Scientists trade
in effects. They set out to find the set of conditions necessary
to consistently bring about some type of an effect. In the
case of chemistry, Le Chatelier's Principle tell us that
the when pressure, temperature or concentration changes
then the equilibrium point will alter so as to restore balance.
Simple enough, when one effect, such as an observable change
in mercury level occurs another effect occurs, either observable
changes in the fluid of a manometer, or changes in plotted
graph of the HPLC analysis. Or in the case of immunochemistry,
a successful blot results in the observable appearance of
a black line. All of these things, changes in mercury, fluid,
graph, or appearance of black lines are effects. The scientist
is adept at developing methods capable of consistently bringing
about these effects. Closer inspection of an effect yields
the observation that all of these effects are easily and
rapidly apprehensible in the mind of any observer. Any human
capable of vision is rapidly made aware of the changes in
mercury or appearance of a black line with a cursory glance
at the effect (1). The fact that a scientific method must
forge a directly apprehensible cognition, a mental image,
is crucial to the scietist's work.
Applying
austere empirical restrictions on the methods uses to generate
effects prohibits most effects leaving only a certain set
to remain. This set is the swiftest and most effective way
to bring about cognition manipulation. For what better way
to make one aware of something then by pointing to it and
instructing them to examine the effect? Ostensive definition
is the most effective and certain way to insure control
over someone's cognitions and for this reason is the most
common means to teach someone the meaning of a term. Children
learn what colors are by refering them to exemplars that
exhibit said color. In science, austere restrictions insure
that effects are mediated through ostensive definitions
guaranteeing immediate and directly apprehensible effect
when they are presented to the observer.
It
should be clear that science employs a set of restrictions
of allowable effects and those that are unable to reliably
elicit a cognition are prohibited. This restriction eliminates
methods unable to control an audience's cognition reliably
and or directly. Thus, science does not have room for the
sketchy prognostication of psychics, the zealous faith of
the priest, or the unreliable effects of the charlatan.
Such effects are unable to elicit cognitions within the
awareness of the scientist, that is, the scientist is resistant
to such manipulation and denounces their veracity.
Since
scientists employ austere restrictions to guarantee cognitive
control the scientist is simply an artist bamboozling the
audience by generating the 'true' effects of the natural
world. The painter employs paint and canvass and the con
artist employs guile and deception to manipulate the cognitions
of observers. Science employs experiments to generate effects
that manipulate the cognitions of his audeince. Unlike other
forms of art, science permits only ostensive effects to
be 'legitimate', thereby enhancing its ability to control
the cognitions of others. The Ostensive restriction also
grants science the right of objectivity since its effects
are guaranteed to occur in the natural world. But I choose
to preferentially select science as subjective since it
preferentially selects one effect over another based on
a simple bias. Does this mean my effect is objective just
like science is? |
