The Theory of Why People Get into Fights with Belligerent People

Two Defense Mechanisms: Convergent Displacement and Distraction Displacement

Convergent Displacement

People have low tolerance for the traits in other people that they don't like in themselves. For example, a person that is aggressive has low tolerance of the aggressiveness of another person (one reason why fights may occur). Another example is that a person who is highly critical of other people notices when other people are highly critical of each other, and tends to criticize this. A person who is suspicious of other people may prescribe ulterior motives to other people. 

A few distinctions: Perceiving one's own traits in places where they may or may not be there. 

  Confronting one's own traits in other people, especially when they are there.

  Evaluating the intentions and character of other people incorrectly, according to one's own traits, especially when they are actually not there.

Inferences: People have an intuitive drive to dislike things that they perceive are bad (whether they are or not) and to challenge them. (A justice principle.)

People's tendency toward the justice principle is fueled by perceived injustices directed at them, but then often re-directed toward other people.

This drive comes from an unconscious assessment of what one learns not to like about one's self, and then displaces to other people, probably to avoid anxiety. 

This learned drive to be critical comes from two possible sources: Explicit (criticism) or implicit (isolation, hardship) evaluations by others; or a natural (really unnatural) absence of some necessity. 

The reason people get in fights is not only that there are two aggressive people that dislike each other, but there are two aggressive people that see their fault of aggressiveness in the other person, and want to attack their own perceived fault; therefore there is a much deeper emotional context and emotional entanglement. 

Hypercritical people are also perpetuating the same dynamic; they are being critical of others as a way of criticizing the perceived fault of being critical by criticizing most often the inappropriate criticism of others (e.g. that person was rude!)

Distraction Displacement: Objectification and Verbalization

A person may often be critical or angry about a particular thing, idea, habit or trait of others. For example, "that person is rude", "that person is grouchy" are two verbalized objects of criticism, the objects being grouchiness and rudeness. Distracting displacement is when a grouchy person is obsessed with rude people and a rude person is obsessed with grouchy people. The person who is obsessed with grouchiness is particularly (and suspiciously) not grouchy, but for some reason always points out grouchy people. The person who is obsessed with rudeness is very polite, but grouchy in the morning. This is not to say that grouchiness and rudeness are dialectically opposed, but that personal misgivings of one's own shortcomings have a tendency to be redirected as verbalized complaints of seemingly unrelated behavior in other people. The criticism is displaced, as with convergent displacement, but it is focused on an unrelated trait, not a similar trait, unlike convergent displacement. Whatever is being criticized is probably more emotionally significant than grouchiness. 

This objectification (in terms of gravitating to a specific idea) and verbalization (in terms of both talking for a purpose that is not entirely small talk (there's a point trying to be expressed that could just as well be expressed in any other context, unlike someone's scarf or the weather)) is an example of where an individual's perceived lack of something, possibly brought about or exaggerated by other's criticism or by lacking some necessity, is redirected to something unrelated. For example, if a person lacks punctuation, he may constantly bring up the notion of poor grammar in other people, as others have told him he has good grammar. There is most likely a reason the person brings up the specific distracting topic, but it is not clear why it is that specific unrelated topic (even to the person who is bringing it up), as it is the result of complex personal circumstance. In effect the weight of a perceived fault (likely unconscious) is compensated for by something else; and since it is socially unacceptable to brag all the time, this personal strength is usually reinvented as another person's fault. This is like a person who thinks his own furniture is awful, but thinks that he owns nice utensils, and then points out how rotten everyone else's utensils are. Abstractly, the emotional strength of a person's conscious or unconscious feelings of lacking something is proportional to the extent they verbalize a seemingly unrelated object. 

The Recalcitrant Mechanism

It was during the respite of Thursday evening that the besieged engineer was able to convey his mechanism to the shop to adjust its recalcitrance. The mechanism had been recalcitrant since its purchase in 1972 and in the decades that followed, the engineer had found difficulties with his other mechanisms, leading him to think that his primary mechanism had a contagious characteristic. 

His suspicions were qualified when the error signal on his computer revealed in its binary fashion what he had long suspected: the contagious characteristic was indeed the culprit for the recalcitrance of his other mechanisms. It was at this moment on Thursday evening that the engineer increased the conviction to over the threshold for taking a mechanism to the shop.

At the shop he was met by a mechanic with a complexion. This mechanic wore a very large hat, so large that his complexion was only visible due to the hat being transparent, as it was not a hat at all, but the shield that is the requirement to metallurgists. The mechanic frowned somberly as he looked at the recalcitrant mechanism and the engineer introduced himself. 

"Are you sure that this mechanism has the primary characteristic of recalcitrance, or could it be the contagiousness that is in fact the primary characteristic?" asked the mechanic shrewdly, and he attempted to rub his chin philosophically but the transparent shield had the unintended purpose of thwarting this affectation. 

"I always thought that the recalcitrance of this mechanism was a more significant characteristic, but now I am not sure," admitted the engineer. 

"And how would you define significant?" asked the mechanic, looking down at the short engineer with an evaluative glance.

"Well, the significance would mean that in the eventuality that the two characteristics are necessarily opposed, the characteristic which perpetuates at the expense of the other is the more significant," replied the engineer cautiously. The mechanic nodded with an intentional distracted and aloof affect, banging his forehead against the shield in the process. The person in front of him was indeed the engineer that he had claimed to be. 

"But can you imagine any situation in which the existential opposition of these two characteristics could occur?" pursued the mechanic. 

"Of recalcitrance and contagiousness?" considered the engineer. This was quite the calculating mechanic. "It is difficult to say, unless we can reduce these characteristics into simpler forms. It would seem more likely that they would exist in combination, as they do in my mechanism. The recalcitrance of the mechanism's contagion leads to the necessary acceptance of the recalcitrant characteristic in the other mechanisms," concluded the engineer.

"Ah, if they are indeed combined, as in the multiplication process, how is it possible to find the relative significance as you purport," challenged the mechanic. 

"The presumption of the multiplicative process is unsubstantiated," countered the engineer warily. "The combination could retain the characteristics as in the addition combination process."

"I have difficulty seeing the relevance in your statement," disparaged the mechanic.

"There is a distinction between the generative properties of the characteristics according to the inherent distinction of combination process. For the multiplicative process, the characteristics will have the following properties: they will occur at the same time and will be together in the generated mechanisms. For the addition process, the characteristics which combine to the original amount by this addition, will appear at different times often in separation in the generated mechanisms caused by the secondary multiplicative processes upon that first amount that was calculated by the addition process," answered the engineer. 

"That is the case of the characteristics," agreed the mechanic, "but how does that further your assertion that one of the characteristics is more significant than the other?" 

"That was your assertion," noted the engineer. 

"Oh so it was," agreed the mechanic, reviewing the conversation in his head. "My apologies," he said with forced sincerity. 

"Nonetheless," continued the engineer graciously, "the question of whether the recalcitrance or the contagiousness of my mechanism is the more significant may be relevant to the successful diagnosis and eventual correction of all my mechanisms." 

"Yes, we can pursue the interaction in another way. Is the absence of the recalcitrance equal to the contagiousness of the mechanism? Or the absence of the contagiousness equal to the recalcitrance of the mechanism?" proposed the mechanic.

"Well it would appear that if there were a trait that reduced recalcitrance that was contagious, it would affect the first mechanism," replied the engineer tiredly; he knew that this was the best mechanic in the city, but he certainly asked many questions that were not obviously diagnostic, which lead to the impression that the mechanic wanted the engineer to do the work of fixing the mechanism, despite the established norms of labor exchange.

"But by definition the recalcitrance would not be affected!" corrected the mechanic, oblivious to the engineer's capitalist apprehension. 

"Yes, it is certainly difficult to tease out the dominant significance of these diverse characteristics," admitted the engineer, testily.

"The multiplicative property of their interaction seems to be the more useful," agreed the mechanic. "The recalcitrance of the mechanism can be adopted by the other mechanisms given the property of contagiousness, but the property of recalcitrance will not be altered by any contagious property," continued the mechanic. 

"Is the recalcitrance of my secondary mechanisms irreversible?" asked the engineer, worriedly.

"Aha, now we have a good question," congratulated the mechanic.

"That was my original question upon arrival at your business!" protested the engineer.

"Oh so it was," agreed the mechanic, reviewing the conversation again in his head. "My apologies," he said with forced sincerity. 

"Well can you reverse the recalcitrance of my secondary mechanisms?" 

"Even if I did, as long as the primary mechanism has the property of contagiousness and recalcitrance, your secondary mechanisms will become recalcitrant again," corrected the mechanic slyly.

"What is your proposal?"

"There are two possibilities: to isolate the primary mechanism away from the other mechanisms to end the contagious property, or to change the property of recalcitrance and retain the contagious property." 

"Won't I have to buy all new secondary mechanisms if I just isolate the primary mechanism?" said the engineer suspiciously.

"Yes, you would," said the mechanic, attempting to rub his chin behind the glass shield. "But I propose the second option: we must change the recalcitrant property of the primary mechanism!" 

"But won't the recalcitrant property of the secondary mechanisms refuse any change?" 

"Not if they become recalcitrant in terms of refusing not to refuse the tertiary characteristic."

"You are suggesting that recalcitrance does not have a self-sustaining generative property," considered the engineer. "Or that it does not have the intellectual capacity to plan its own maintenance."

"Correct on both accounts," said the mechanic. "Recalcitrance is only an unconscious reaction to the environment. In fact it seems that in your case, the contagiousness of the primary mechanism may have preceded the recalcitrance; and led to the development thereof. Then the contagiousness and the recalcitrance spread in combination." 

"So the recalcitrance is an ineffective reaction to the contagiousness," the engineer contemplated aloud.

"Yes, the recalcitrance does nothing to affect the contagiousness, but the outside influences plant and then maintain the recalcitrance," explained the mechanic. "Therefore, to fix your recalcitrant mechanism, we must add the third characteristic: that characteristic which makes the recalcitrant characteristic recalcitrant against being recalcitrant." 

"And what is that characteristic?" asked the engineer. 

"It is the mirror characteristic!" said the mechanic. He deftly added the mirror across from the recalcitrance, which already faced away from the contagiousness and toward the new mirror. Since the contagious mechanism was still in place, the mechanic advised the engineer to take the mechanism home, and let it change the secondary mechanisms on its own.  

The Worst Mystery

The mystery occurred in 1908 when the infamous goose thief had stolen a goose from the nautical area surrounding the beach. The detective to the case had been hired by the private firm to recoup these gooses to their ocean. Indeed, it was a new innovation in the law, that a private firm, instead of the state, would be the motor of justice and to this end they hired a new sort of detective, the scientist, to solve the mystery. 

This scientist was no other than Detective, who went by the pen name Detective to hide his true identity as a scientist cleverly. This Detective began work immediately on the case. Sitting in the indoor barracks of the justice firm, a cup of coffee and pipe in his mouth, he worked on the case. It was a very new theoretical process to solve the mystery as Detective realized that there could only be one perpetrator, while another person might not be the perpetrator. It was this insight that lead to his other momentous discovery, that this perpetrator might have things in common with other perpetrators. So as Detective thought about the average perpetrator, he thought of the characteristics and wrote them down. Next he visited the perpetrators that had already been established in the barracks and viewed their characteristics, and measured each one and put it in the chart.  Then he talked to his co-workers and the janitors and supervisors who were established as non-perpetrators and put them in a chart too. Months went by and the elaborate chart was growing bigger. 

However it was on the Tuesday of the month that Detective realized that many weeks had gone by and he still had not found the goose perpetrator. He used the telephone which had been invented and called the people living on the beach. He invited them all to dinner at the barracks for an interview. 

The next day two hundred people who lived by the beach showed up for the sneaky meal which in fact did not exist as proposed. Instead there was interrogation!

Detective asked the people for their characteristics and compared them to his chart. Some people's characteristics were not like those of the perpetrators and so they were released into the town that was by the beach, from which this sample had arrived. But twenty-seven people remained. Their characteristics were like the perpetrator characteristic. It was at this point that Detective used his most ingenious characteristic construct, that of goose-stealing, on his suspect population. 

Unfortunately, the first twenty-six people scored very lower means than that of the average goose-stealer. But then came the twenty-seventh person. This person's mean across the twenty questions leading to suggestion of goose stealing was higher!

Detective thought he had found the culprit. But now he had to be the prosecutor in the court of law.

The court adjourned. "Is it true that you scored within the first standard deviation above the mean for the construct of goose stealing?" asked Detective.

"Maybe, I do not know the results of that test," admitted the suspect, who was correct, never having been shown these results.

"Let me show the data now," said the detective. "Indeed, you have a score of 75! That is four points higher than the mean! And this is the mean for characteristic of goose stealing!"

"But isn't those numbers should be divided?" asked the defending lawyer. 

"Aha!" But they were!" said Detective, triumphantly. "And it is different by .056!" 

"Oooo that is really close to .05!" admitted the defending lawyer. 

"Well if you've impressed the defending lawyer, then you have impressed me!" said the judge. "The court is now ready to sentence the defendant."

"What?" asked Detective. "But that was not a proof. That just means he is likely a goose perpetrator when compared to the average goose thief, I am nearly 95% certain that this person is more like the average goose thief than the average goose-thief, according to my goose thief characteristic and 5% sure that it was just a fluke!"

"Oh," said the judge. "That will be taken into consideration duly. If this person is only nearly 95% guilty, then he will only have to pay 95% of the price of a new goose that will return to the nautical area near the beach." 

"No, no," said Detective. "I'm 95% sure he's guilty!" corrected Detective.

"Yes, you said that already," said the annoyed judge. "I order the defendant to buy 95% of a new goose."

"Do you mean 95% percent of the actual goose, or is someone going to pay the other 5% for the whole thing?" asked the defendant. 

"Either way," agreed the judge. 

Three Models of Mood: Which is Correct?

Here are three potential models for mood. They depend on whether good and bad moods are the opposite sides of a continuum, if one is simply the absence of the other, or if they are two separate generative systems:

1) Mood is dualistic and generative. There is one system for good moods and a second system for bad moods.

2) Mood is a single generative system; it naturally generates a good mood until there is a problem and this system malfunctions or is under-activated; only then do people go into bad moods (conversely people are naturally in a bad mood until that single system malfunctions and people have good moods).

3) Mood is not an efferent system in relation to the individual at all. Instead the individual is receptive to moods from outside. A person contemplates or reflects moods received externally. Negative moods would be explained by either receiving negative moods, or by neglect- not receiving positive moods (again 1 or 2 above, but from an external source). Either way, there is no internal system that bears majority of responsibility for generating mood. 

Is Thinking Commutative?

We do not have many symbols for thought. We know one thought follows another over time, and that's about it. A simple question is whether this process of chronological order, symbolized by +, is even commutative. In other words a person may have three thoughts over time, thought 1 + thought 2 + thought 3. Each thought could be considered as generative, thought 1 leading to thought 2 finally leading to thought 3. Then perhaps someone hits a baseball through your window and this process stops. My question is whether thought 3 + thought 2 will lead back to thought 1. 

If it does not, it is possible to qualify or describe what sorts of generative thought processes are occurring. Was thought 3 a generalization of thoughts 2 and 1? Do thoughts 3 and 2 lead to a different thought than thought 1? 

I do not think they do. 

Mr. Logocentrism and the Mystery of the Golden Brick

Mr. Logocentrism and the Mystery of the Golden Brick

By Lenny Logocentrism (this story is about me!)

Today was the worst day for Mr. Logocentrism. His green tennis shoes had been sprayed with a bottle of aerosol vinegar herring which he had mistaken for air freshener. This was not the first time this had happened to Mr. Logocentrism. He often mistook the two bottles, spraying the living room wall with aerosol vinegar herring along with his couch and his two sons, Martin and Edgar. Since Edgar drank too much caffeine his friends called him Edgy for short. Edgar was not amused and had tantrums, even at the age of thirty seven. He would kick up sand into the air and huff and puff and throw pillows around the room.

                It was during one of these tantrums that Mr. Logocentrism had accidentally mistaken his aerosol bottles. The loud racket had distracted him sufficiently that he forgot his habit of mistaking the bottles. All of a sudden there was a large noise as something fell into the fireplace. It was a big brick of gold.

                ‘Ooo!’ said Mr. Logocentrism. ‘I found a brick of gold!’ But nothing would calm Edgar who in the midst of his tantrum had taken all the carpets out of the house and rearranged all the furniture. At this point Mr. Logocentrism did not care. He could trade the gold for money, and then use the money to buy a new pair of green tennis shoes. The plan seemed perfect, for the moment.

                Mr. Logocentrism hopped into his ride and left the house for the bank. As he approached the foggy gray doors of the bank he realized that there were no lights on inside. He became worried, and looked at the doors for more information. Finally he found a clue. A sign on the door read ‘Closed for Columbus Day’.

              ‘Hmm,’ thought Mr. Logocnetrism, ‘perhaps the bank is closed for Columbus Day.’ He looked down at the piece of gold with remorse. Now he was never going to be able to get that new pair of green tennis shoes. Then Mr. Logocentrism gasped. Inscribed in the gold was the ancient seal of Christopher Columbus. As a historian whose expertise was Spain and its age of colonization, and a great collector of Spanish navy artifacts and treasures, Mr. Logocentrism would have recognized this seal anywhere. In fact he had a similar brick at home on the mantle. However, the coincidence was not lost on Mr Logocentrism who was a shrewd scholar. It was improbable to find a Christopher Columbus brick on Christopher Columbus day for no reason. In fact that is why he changed his name to Mr. Logocentrism from Mr Nim, to show that he was a shrewd scholar.

                Mr. Logocentrism decided that he would have to travel to Spain’s Christopher Columbus Museum to learn more about the gold brick. He embarked in his ride and drove east from Providence, Rhode Island, until he hit the sea. Warily he looked across the endless terrain of green blue waves under a gray sky. He knew his trusted jeep was not even enough in this terrain due to its lack of density. Mr. Logocentrism looked around, but the beach was uninhabited and empty of people. Then he lifted up the golden brick. The seal jumped out at him, and suddenly Mr. Logocentrism shouted that famous neologism of Archimedes ‘Eureka’, also a town in California. The three ships on the seal, showed to Mr. Logocentrism the clue. He needed a ship. Since he now had hope, Mr. Logocentrism waited for a ship to pass and climbed aboard hoping it was going to Spain. Luckily it was, and shortly after Mr. Logocentrism arrived at the museum.

                Soon he had an appointment with the curator. The curator sat across from him at a desk made of eucalyptus branches from California and mahogany from Belize. The drawers were made of rhododendron ferns from Bandar Seri Begawan.

                ‘What a nice desk you have!’ exclaimed Mr. Logocentrism upon arrival. The curator eyed him suspiciously.

                ‘Are you here to steal my desk?’ he asked, not very subtly. Mr. Logocentrism laughed uneasily, because the thought indeed had crossed his mind. But instead he pulled out the brick of gold. He handed it over to the curator.

                ‘So you want to buy my desk?’ asked the curator. This had never occurred to Mr. Logocentrism. But as he looked down at his green tennis shoes the reek of aerosol vinegar herring was no longer visible. Perhaps he could use a new desk. But then he stopped. Should he compromise his mission for a desk, or should he realize the real truth behind the golden brick? Indeed he had reached the point all adventurers reach where they must decide: trade knowledge for desk. He paused for so long that the curator became impatient and left.

                The next day the curator returned. Mr. Logocentrism coughed loudly.

                ‘I have made my decision,’ said Mr. Logocentrism. ‘I will buy your desk.’

                ‘My desk? With what?’ asked the curator.  Mr. Logocentrism looked in his hands for the brick of gold. But it was gone. He had given it to the curator. ‘You stole my brick of gold!’ he accused the curator.

                ‘What brick of gold?’ asked the curator.  Mr. Logocentrism realized his folly. In losing even momentary sight of the true search of knowledge, he had lost not only the desk, but the truth behind the golden brick and the golden brick.

The Horse and the Abacus: A Utilitarian Mystery

  The Horse and the Abacus

Because yesterday he was especially happy, George decided he wanted to buy a utilitarian abacus to turn off the machine that restricted optimizing the happiness of horses while focusing on calculating the meaning of the master's interests in becoming a fast horse and becoming excellent for the gate expert. The repute of the master and the gate expert was in question; as such it was natural for George to use the utilitarian abacus to not only turn off the machine that restricted optimizing the happiness of horses but to inquire into the relationship of the master and the gate expert to calculate the greatest good while using the least energy for the utilitarian abacus. Indeed, this was the standard and most efficient use of the utilitarian abacus by the utilitarian community; one did a significant action that would optimize happiness among a selected entity, and secondly performed a slighter inquiry; as such further actions for the utilitarian abacus could be promoted in future uses of the utilitarian abacus in response to the inquiry. Often the primary actions and secondary questions were thought to be related before their entrance into the utilitarian abacus; later their connection would turn out to be tangential. However, when George put two partially related concepts into the utilitarian abacus he would learn that the happiness of horses and the meaning of the master's interests in becoming a fast horse and excellent for the gate expert were much more related than anyone would have ever thought. This is the intriguing story of the utilitarian abacus that attempted to turn off the machine that restricted optimizing the happiness of horses but learned quite a bit about the relationship between the master's interests in becoming a fast horse and becoming excellent for the gate expert; indeed it is a story of truth and action.

The problem first arose on that Tuesday morning when George first bought the utilitarian abacus and fed it the directions to turn off the machine that restricted optimizing the happiness of horses. The utilitarian abacus seemed to be functioning well until he entered in the inquiry about the relationship between the master's interests in becoming a fast horse and becoming excellent for the gate expert and directed the utilitarian abacus to compute both action and inquiry simultaneously. The utilitarian abacus burst in flames. George, who was still in a good mood nonetheless (in part because of past utilitarian abacus deliberations on his behalf) resolved to try again. He bought a second utilitarian abacus and entered the directions once more. Again, the machine exploded. George was perplexed. The defective utilitarian abacuses now seemed unlikely to be a fault of a particular utilitarian abacus; rather it seemed that he was trying to do something that was impossible to do on any utilitarian abacus. George, who was an introspective person, turned inwards to consider this dilemma. He was a very active person who tried to optimize everyone's happiness, with or without a utilitarian abacus, as many people who were brought up by utilitarian abacuses were prone to do. Perhaps the information he would receive strictly about the relationship between the master and the gate expert would lead him to an action that would contradict that of optimizing the happiness of horses. George decided the easiest way to correct the problem was to optimize the happiness of something else, sea urchins, and try the same question. So with a third utilitarian abacus this is exactly what he did. It was mildly successful. It turned out that the master had always wanted to be a fast horse; the gate expert knew this and told him that he would turn him into a fast horse if he would run a race for him. The master agreed. But the gate expert had other plans; he had built the machine that restricts horse happiness to make the other horses sluggish in the race. He would inject the master with caffeine so he would temporarily be more energized, but after the race he would become as unhappy as the other horses whose happiness optimization was being restricted by the restriction machine of horse happiness optimization. With the money from the races the gate expert intended to build a huge horse meat factory.

This answer to the master's interests in becoming a fast horse and becoming excellent for the gate expert still left George perplexed. Everyone in the utilitarian community had heard rumors about the master's interests in becoming a fast horse and becoming excellent for the gate keeper, and this answer explained part of the relationship. But why did the utilitarian abacus explode? Surely the best way to prevent this outcome would be to destroy the machine that restricted optimization of the happiness of horses so the horses could compete fairly in the race, along with being generally happier. But apparently this was not the case. George decided he had to think of a new question to ask the utilitarian abacus. He tried several questions but none gave satisfactory answers.

Finally George reached for the phone and called Master Cheval, the man who was interested in becoming a fast horse and becoming excellent for the gate expert. He told the man about the gate expert's machine that restricted horse happiness optimization. Alarmed, the master went to the gate expert's house and injected him with what he thought was the horse dose of caffeine (intended for the master). Except he accidentally injected him with the formula to become a very fast horse. Neighing, the gate expert ran away, unhappily. The master cried in disgust, realizing that his chance to become a very fast horse had been thrown away forever, even if the machine that restricted horse happiness optimization was destroyed.

A few days later George tried to use the utilitarian abacus to turn off the machine that restricted optimization of happiness for horses. And this time it worked. In retrospect George realized that it was only the failure of the utilitarian abacus to give George direct answers about the master and the gate expert that made him talk to Master Cheval. Little did he know that had the machine that restricted optimizing happiness for horses been destroyed, Master Cheval (who cared little for horses besides himself (were he a horse)) would still have been inclined to become a fast horse and would have run the race in gratitude, leaving the gate expert with a fortune to destroy many more horses. With the destruction of the machine that restricted horse happiness optimization, at the right time, even the gate expert became a happy horse in time. Master Cheval decided he didn't want to be a horse after all and changed his name to something else.

Is this really a story about horse happiness optimization? It seems clear, but not entirely certain, that this story shows us that trying to optimize happiness is sometimes futile unless we truly know what we are doing, except in those cases where when not knowing what we are doing leads to a better result; likewise, asking questions and being introspective play an important role in this process, except when not asking questions plays the important role, whereby it seems that talking to people directly about the problem is a better solution than asking questions at all, unless you ask the wrong person (had George talked to the gate expert the results could have been completely different, maybe he would have been turned into a horse) or if asking questions was actually the better choice.