C-120.“X/Y>1”: A Behavioral Universal

Behavior is a difficult, tricky business. There’s more to making moves than the step’s direction in B-spacetime. See the behavioral problem (I:Pbeh) of self-control. As we compose the behavioral molecules that constitute our life, making the steps we will take (making a difference to make a difference in order to make a difference: what is called for [C-110]), we must bring about change smoothly, as some might say … or balanced as we would say (XI), thereby bringing the constituent step contributors together (II; C-81) for maximum interdependent (<=>) effectiveness.

Thus we deplore “>1” ratios of behavioral conditions and even, sometimes,of conditions which our steps Grasp to Involve (x,y). We have seen scores of these “>1” ratios (XI; App. XVII; and scattered Comments) that figure in dysfunctional behaviors. Each “>1” is a Tell. Formally, each can and should act as an elicited criterion (VIII), telling us to stop.

Stops have antecedent reasons and consequent reasons. A “>1” ratio affords the antecedent reason. We can speak loosely of needed correction as the consequent reason, such as to redress an obvious imbalance (e.g., an overemphasis of prediction relative to explanation AT and IN the Frontier [C-118]).

But a far more important consequent reason obtains, a reason that also increases the importance of the antecedent reason – i.e., the use of “>1” as an elicited criterion (VIII): a universal stop signal. We have seen this introduced earlier (C-71): Any imbalance decreases the possibility and degree of interdependence (). And interdependence figures in everything behavioral, especially human behavior, as can be seen in the advances of CEM-history (App. XVI). For instance: body step (III); minding moving (VII); valuation Realization (C-111); capacity capability (VII); communication cognition (App. III, XX).

(And see the need for a Dynamic Profile Analysis [App. XVII] for policy making and investment.)

This is all about strength and effectiveness. Suffer imbalances and you weaken your behavior. Strengthen interdependency, in part at least by maintaining balance (the step’s neutral equilibrium), and you strengthen behavior and improve your consequentiality in process as well as product (C-16). See HAS discipline (humanity art science) to correct imbalanced independent emphases and work toward a more productive interdependency (App. VIII). Also see community’s need for developed Union – i.e., — functionality (C-112) if it is to solve our most vexing problems (0:S-P and 0:P especially).

AT and IN the Frontier, advancing forward into this World of Possibility (dubiously characterized as “the unknown” in light of an overemphasis on after-the-fact knowing!), we can surely appreciate the usefulness of “>1” as a universal elicited criterion. As falsifiability serves criterially for knowing after the fact, “>1” helps serve knowing before the fact when we are venturing forth so as to come to know (C-93: Two kinds of knowing).

(c) R.F. Carter
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