LOGIC 18 AND TESTING WORKABILITY
by Frank Gordon USA

Sometimes it's helpful to actually use what one is told, and see how useable it is. Let's do this with Logic 18:

Logic 18. A postulate is as valuable(1) as it is workable.

First, it might be well to consult the English Code-Book (Dictionary) for the usual meaning of postulate(2):

Postulate: a hypothesis advanced as an essential presupposition, condition, or premise of a train of reasoning.

Hypothesis: a tentative assumption in order to draw out and test its logical or empirical consequences.

Let's re-state Logic 18 for this test run:

Logic 18: A tentative assumption taken as a start to test its consequences; is as valuable as it explains or predicts something, i.e., as it is workable.

On the Causes of War
OK, let's practice on Logic 18 by testing an assumption for workability: "All wars are religious wars."

It seems true. The Crusades, Hitler pitting the old Aryan Gods against the Jewish Yahweh, Moslems vs. Christians (even back to the Crusades), Fundmentalists vs. Unitarians, etc.

As a test of workability, we can see if it helps look for the sources of war; and if it's better than economics or over-population, probably its chief competitors as a postulate.

On Time-Event Quality
Let's consider three possible feelings towards time quality.

   Rushed: things are going too fast
   Comfortable:things are going about right
   Bored:things are going too slow

Test Postulate: A feeling towards a time-event arises from how self-determined one feels about its rhythm (timing) and tempo (its speed of change).

We can follow out the consequences of this hypothesis. But first, it would help to have a comparable(3) language to express what is going on.

Music has such a language. Let's try it.

For overall rhythm, we have time signatures like 2:4, 3:4 and 4:4 time, amongst others. This establishes the beat or timing of the measures. Within these, we can have iambic (.-), dactylic (-..) or the patter of many other kinds of little poetic feet.

For tempo, we have the various musical terms for these(4) and can try matching them with the feeling-states given above and get this trial matching(5):

presto      rushing (rushed)
andante     comfortable (too brisk)
largo       stately, relaxed (bored or sad)

These comparisons have been expanded, because in each case, self-determinism enters in. I.e., if one has decided to have a presto tempo, then he is rushing, if not, he feels rushed or pushed.

Other Factors
Manfred Clynes, in his book Sentics, demonstrates the connection between "pressure waves" (found by pressing on a sensor connected to a graphic recorder) and emotion. There are characteristic waves correspondng to courage, hope, love, grief, etc. He found that the love and grief waves are very similar; and that to express joy, the sensor must be inverted. Bach's Jesu, Joy of Man's Desiring expresses joy musically. Laughter has about five pulses per second.

Clynes then goes on to examine the characteristic pressure waves of several composers. For two examples, Beethoven's is ethical, and Chopin's is dreamy and erotic.

Music for Social Bonding & Education
Alfred Lord in his Singer of Tales, examines the oral transmission of tradition in music, as in Beowulf and the Iliad. In these, formulaic expressions like "fleet-footed Achilles" are used to maintain the rythymic structure, and in the Greek Odes, a standard dactyl/spondee (-../--) is used to end each line.

The tempo and rhythm of these songs undoubtedly arose from and expressed the common social tempo-rhythmic patterns, and served as a kind of educational system.

The tempo and rhythm of work songs, such as those used by sailors and lumberjacks served to help them work harmoniously together with a kind of group-determinism.

Music as Other-Determinism
Presently, the other-determinism established by machine and production lines can be seen in many popular songs with their repetitive and unvarying chunk, chunk, chunk, Clunk, chunk, chunk, chunk, Clunks. A tone level of monotony unlimited without the orgasmic tension and resolution of classical music.

Another form of other-determinism is the requirement that one sing at a pitch established by a musical instrument, usually a piano.

It is likely that in earlier times, this pitch was established by the singer's natural body resonances. For example, The Parable of the Sower in Greek begins with Akouete (hearken). If this is sung, then the first two sounds, "Ahhh" and "Oooo" correspond to the natural chest and mouth tones. This enabled the singer to maximize and establish these tones, and thus be more self-determined.

The test of the Postulate
The next step is to correlate the level of self-determinism with the tempo and rhythmic structure in the person's speech patterns.

This can be done by making sound recordings of these speech patterns when one is active and interested; and compare them with the patterns when one is rebelling against the pressure of other determinism.

In this way, a person's native tempo and rhythm and it's quality can be established. That is, "the drumbeat to which one naturally marches." This would be nice to know.
 

1 Note how often value, valuable, or evaluate occurs in these Logics. Very likely, value as used here means how helpful it is to us in the creation of a mental model or a science (an organized and aligned body of knowledge).

2 Hubbard has a half page of definitions in the Tech Dictionary for Postulate. Briefly, here are a few abridged samples: noun; 1. a self-created truth. He puts something up, and that's it. 2. a directed desire, order, inhibition, enforcement as an idea. verb; to conclude, decide, or resolve a problem; to set or nullify a pattern. 3. it has a dynamic connotation.

3 See Logic 8: A datum can be evaluated only by a datum of comparable magnitude. I'm assuming here that a time-experience and music are comparable data. Sounds reasonable.

4 E.g., tempo: rate of speed of a musical passage. Presto: quickly, immediately, hurry up. Andante: moderately slow, but flowing, a comfortable dance. Largo: very slow, (broad and stately for funeral marches), boring, stately boredom, sad.

5 Logic 7. Gradient scales are necessary to the evaluation of problems and their data.