Three Remarks (Postscripts)

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1. Society and Pattern  Based Reason  

Rules and patterns need to be read and written with precision.

• If you do not read precisely what is meant, how will you understand?

• If you do not write precisely  what you mean, who will understand you? 

Volume 1A, Pattern  Based Reason, read slowly, will test and develop precision reading and writing while pointing to the benefits, origins and limits of rule and pattern-based methods in thought and deed. Not all is certain. The question of what rules and patterns are reliable remains open.  But in daily life we do assume or rely upon many rules and patterns. There is no escape. 

2. Science and  Pattern  Based Reason

In science and technology, rules and patterns range from being reliable to speculative.  Engineers and scientists need to know the benefits, origins and limits of their rules and patterns, that is, when they may be applied  or not. 

Mathematics offers the most certain area of rule-based thought. Physics, chemistry and biology include rules and patterns that can be tried and tested in lab work (experiments).  Biological descriptions of anatomy can be verified in the lab via dissection - direct verification. . In contrast, quantum physic and cosmology offers speculations on the origins and evolution of the universe at the subatomic and macroscopic level- these speculations provide  calculations that sometime work regardless of justification. Finally, evolution theory in biology is based on or the fits the clues that come from geology, the dating of fossil layers and fossils,  and the similarity of organisms, adult or embryonic, at the anatomical and microscopic level.  If you accept the dating methods or how they were established, you will come to a conclusion that the earth is old and that life did not appear quickly.  

There was a dream that empirically discovered rules and patterns would provide answers. But such rules and patterns have their limitations.  

In society, religion, commerce and science, the follower of rule- and pattern-based thought and methods needs to the know the origins, benefits and limitations of those rules and patterns, and so see when to apply them and to when further thought is required. 

3. Scale Factors in Science and Society - Ecology and Pattern  Based Reason

Questions of scale appear in society, science and technology.  Processes that appear beneficial and harmless on a small scale may on a larger scale bring ill-effects.  Think of towns on a river.  Untreated sewage may leave river waters drinkable when the towns are small. But the growth of towns and population may pollute the waters and require remedies.  City planners and designers of industrial processes need to consider the effects of scale.

The unchallenged right to pursue methods or processes that do no harm to others and yourself, may need to be revisited when a method or process is practiced on a larger and larger scale, as side effects initially considered harmless accumulate. Ouch