Comments on _The Choice_ by Goldratt, chapter 14

I read and took notes on chapter 14 of _The Choice (Revised Edition)_ by Goldratt.

CHAPTER 14: Thinking Clearly and Tautologies

I selected these quotes as I was reading. 

Today I'm determined to squeeze from Father the essence of thinking clearly.

Quite indifferently he answers, "The key to thinking clearly is to avoid circular logic, that's all."

To clarify that, Goldratt wrote: 

He lights his pipe, thinks while releasing some clouds of smoke, and after a short while, starts. "As we have said, everything is connected through cause-and-effect relationships, and at the bottom there are only a few elements. So the key to thinking clearly is to build logical maps. You start with an effect, any effect, and dive down to the root causes by asking, 'Why does the effect exist?' The difficulty is that when we dive down, sooner or later we reach causes that are entities, the existence of which cannot be verified directly through our senses; we reach abstract entities."

“Abstract entities?"

"Entities like atoms or enzymes. Has anybody ever seen an atom or an enzyme? Has anybody talked to them or touched one? They probably do exist, but we know it through logic and not through the direct information of our senses."

"... When we deal with people, often with the first attempt to dive down to a cause, we encounter such abstract entities." Without waiting for my response he explains, "For example, take the last case we were discussing. Did you ever see or touch 'conservatism'? We come to realize that conservatism exists not because we witness it directly via our senses but because we deduce its existence through our logic.”

“It's important to be careful because it is so easy to end up in la-la land when dealing with entities that cannot be verified by direct observation. It is so easy to fall into the trap of circular logic, of tautologies. And then the road to sophisticated nonsense is wide open. Efrat, do you know what tautologies are?"

“We are surrounded by tautologies," he states, "to the extent that we are insensitive to them. They appear in almost every conversation and in almost any article in the newspapers. Take for example a sentence like, 'They lost the game because they didn't have enough motivation to win.' And in the rest of the article there is no shred of direct evidence that the team didn't have enough motivation. Now ask yourself, why do we accept it? How do we know that the team didn't have enough motivation? And the answer most likely is, 'They lost the game, didn't they?' A tautology."

That's like: PersonA says, "X caused Y". PersonB asks, "How do you know X caused Y?" PersonA answers, "Y happened didn't it?" 

“Oh, you don't?" And grinning, he raises his eyes to the treetops and says, "Some psychologist, not too long ago, told me, 'You don't feel disappointment because you repress your disappointment.' I didn't bother to ask, 'How do you know that I repress my disappointment?' Because the answer would be, 'Isn't it obvious? I know that you repress your disappointment because you don't feel disappointed.' A circular argument."

“Correct." Father is pleased. "And your last observation highlights why Inherent Simplicity is so helpful. Inherent Simplicity recognizes that as we dive down, causes converge. Convergence means that each meaningful cause is responsible not for just one effect, but for more than one. Believing in Inherent Simplicity assures us that for any meaningful cause there are at least two different effects."

“So whenever you hear or read a 'because,' and especially when the cause contains an abstract entity, be on guard. Even if the claim is expressed in total confidence, you should not accept it as correct. Don't even accept the abstract entity itself as a fact of life. You should recognize it as just a hypothesis, or in other words, a guess. Now you proceed to try and come up with a predicted effect, with another effect that must be the result of the same cause. Remember, if you can't figure it out—if you can't find another effect—it is not because there are no other resulting effects, but because you think too narrowly. And to keep yourself straight, check that the predicted effect you come up with can be verified by direct observation, and take the time to verify it. The more predicted effects are verified, the higher the validity of the cause. The more you practice, the easier it becomes." Smiling, he adds, "When you practice it to the extent that it becomes second nature to you, people might start calling you a genius."

Quoting the following paragraph solely because Karl Popper was mentioned and I might want to find this text again in the future.

“Correct," he confirms. "That is the basis of science as was formulated by Karl Popper. In science, every claim, every hypothesis, every cause is considered to be relevant only if it can be put to the test. A test that potentially is capable of disproving the claim. Otherwise we are not talking about science but pseudoscience, about witchcraft. And yes, Daughter, more often than not, once we come up with a predicted effect, we realize that it doesn't exist and therefore the hypothesis is wrong. You may come up with ten predicted effects that turn out to exist, and then you think a little more and you come up with the eleventh predicted effect that doesn't exist and that single one is enough to shatter the validity of the proposed cause. The more predicted effects are verified, the higher the validity of the cause, but there is always the possibility that tomorrow will bring yet another predicted effect, and that one will turn out not to exist. We can never be sure that something is absolutely true."

Here's an interesting part of the discussion:

“Father is not happy. He stands up and starts to pace, releasing clouds of smoke like an old locomotive. I don't move. Finally he stops and asks, "Efrat, will you at least be willing to test yourself?"

"What is the test?”

I can interpret the reply in two ways and I'm not sure which one it is yet (haven't read further):

1. Yes. What's the test? Let's do it.
2. I'm not sure, it depends on what the test is. What's the test?

I read the following text and I'm still not sure. Now I have a 3rd interpretation. Maybe the speaker said something that was designed with ambiguity builtin so that he has plausible deniability.