The Sane Methodology – The What, How, and Why of The Sane Asylum

2008-09-08T16:32:00.000-07:00

I’ve meant to write this for myself for some time, and now that I write it I see no reason why my readers should not also be allowed to read it. As you may have guessed, I primarily aim to explain the basic philosophy behind The Sane Asylum. In order to cut down on wordiness, I will henceforth arrogantly refer to this philosophy as Sanity.

Sanity is a mindset – a paradigm if you will, and like any other paradigm it is based on a few assumptions. The first Sane assumption is, all people, to an extent, are manipulative. There are specific reasons why people are this way. One of the reasons people manipulate others is to get them to believe what they believe. Usually, this is only necessary when someone believes something that they know to be false. The second Sane assumption follows the first: nothing can be proven to be true unless you have tested it yourself.

Do not misunderstand me – I don’t mean to say that everyone should conduct the same experiments that have been done since the history of science in order to prove the same things over and over. I don’t deal with physical science in my writings; as such these assumptions apply only to the subject matter of my writings – philosophy, psychology, sociology, theology, and politics. However, even in the physical sciences one should at least take the time to think through the things that have been “proven” by observation or experiment. One should not assume anything to be true that one does not understand to a certain extent. However, this leads to the third Sane assumption: nothing is certain.

The full truth will never be known until, some say, the end of all things. As such, it is Sane to assume only things that are known for certain. However, this is a problem since nothing is certain. To use an example given to me by a very wise, and very correct, follower of mine, "Despite all evidence, gravity is still considered a theory." This point was further illustrated to me once by a physics professor. He was lecturing on Newton's laws, and at some point he claimed that they were incorrect, but very, very accurate. The flaw, he said, was that Newton's laws do not explain everything, they only work within most conditions and predict the motion of most objects.

To apply this concept back to the topic at hand, certainty is something which is never guaranteed. It's a scale, not a dichotomy. One must ask oneself if something is certain enough to assume for all intents and purposes. Certainty is, of course, proportional to the amount of information on which the conclusion is based. The purpose of assuming anything is that it grants the ability to apply the conclusion practically, just as it's necessary to assume that words have certain understood definitions in order to speak a language.

How certain of a word's definition would you have to be to feel confident using it in a sentence? It depends on the person. I observe people using words in entirely wrong ways in about the same frequency as I observe people making decisions based on entirely wrong assumptions. For me, the lower limit of certainty is at least 90%. A little intuition on these matters helps, as well.

I suppose now would be a good time to discuss the application of Sanity, since with any philosophy there is always the problem of someone who misapplies said philosophy, usually with psychotic or sociopathic intentions, and the author of the idea usually gets a lot of flak for it.

The concept I have been discussing thus far is theoretical. In other words, it deals mainly with thought experiments, reflections, meditations, and frames of mind. This is not to say that theoretical Sanity does not have pragmatic applications – altering one’s method of thought has inherent implications on one’s actions. I would hope that none of these implications are negative, but one can never be sure. So while theoretical Sanity is based on a series of assumptions, practical Sanity is based on a series of maxims that are derived from these assumptions, and while the former can be used to evaluate thoughts, the latter can be used to evaluate actions.

Every action concerned with bringing about a particular effect should be evaluated. This maxim divides actions into two groups – serious actions, and inconsequential actions. The latter consists mainly of actions taken for entertainment and which have no possible negative consequences. In some cases, some evaluation is required to determine under which category a decision falls. The former, however, are concerned with causing one or more specific effects. These actions must be evaluated before taken, in order to assess the likelihood of the desired effect. Once the likelihood is determined, a simple analysis of the possible effects, costs, and benefits, is all that is required to make the decision. A decision that is made without any evaluation is more likely to backfire. It is therefore inSane to refrain from evaluation.

When evaluating an action, make use of your resources. There is a very low probability that you are the first to take a specific or similar action, and an only slightly greater probability that no one has documented their results. The exception here is in the physical sciences, in which new things are attempted every day. Use these resources to your advantage, and you will have a much higher chance of achieving successful results.

When using resources to evaluate an action, evaluate your resources. A common example of this is voting. Many (I hope, anyway) people who vote evaluate their decision before Election Day. The most common resources people use are the mass media. However, few people evaluate the resources they use when they make a decision. As such, groups such as the mass media often manipulate these people and their decision-making process. Always remember that the resources come from people, and all people have motives – or at least, it is safe to assume that all do. Trustworthiness cannot always be precisely determined, so many of these determinations involve probabilities as well.

When evaluating an action, evaluate yourself. Self-awareness is one of the most important principles. Knowing your strengths, weaknesses, biases, desires, and needs is integral to making Sane decisions. The big thing here to evaluate is bias – Sane decisions are free of this; however, the human mind is not. This is the one inherent flaw that cannot be removed – it must instead be compensated. Awareness of one’s biases does not remove them; it simply makes it possible to make decisions independent of one’s own biases. This is an indispensable tool in the mind of any Sane person. In a lot of ways, knowing our own imperfections is the only way we can come close to transcending them.

This is about as concise as I can come to explaining Sanity, and the methods by which I arrive at the conclusions that inspire me to write The Sane Asylum. As an act of faith, I shall attempt to refer to this essay whenever I write proper Sane entries, in order to have some sort of consistency within my writings.

Lastly, since I now attempt to take The Sane Asylum to an unprecedented level, I feel it necessary to have a channel of feedback besides the standard blog comments, which are public. Those wishing to correspond with me privately may do so now at vox.logos.the.sane@gmail.com. I welcome all questions, comments, and concerns.

Sapere aude.

NOTE: Special thanks to creativecho for his/her correction. I was deeply humbled.