Open Comparison

An Unbiased and Complete Search for Truth

<=X=>

I use the above symbol to mean 'open comparison.' Fairness to all concerned is a central element in the idea of 'open comparison.' A concerted effort to discover and thoroughly explore as many alternative possibilities as can be formulated is another. There are always many more than two! Open comparison is not a linear pattern of thought. It is of necessity an integrative pattern, which among other things, means everything is compared and balanced with everything else. <=X=> is an explicit rejection of the traditional 'Opposition Model as misleading and unfair whether that is the intent or not."

Open comparison is the search for all possibilities and the attempt to evaluate their potential value without prejudgment due to one's own personal and cultural assumptions. This, by the way, is also one of the criteria that results in both integrative thought and the somewhat similar patterns of creative thought. These two thought processes have in common the search for valuable possibilities. Creative thought selectively drops the concern for truth and this must be made clear.

<=>

I also use <=> as a symbol for open comparison, but it only means unbiased comparison. It makes no claims to ferret out all who might be affected by the action under consideration. It does claim to avoid known unfair practices and methods. Even this is challenging.

Truth by definition is an ideally conceived concept and any deviation is no longer truth. The proposition must be renamed in some way to be honest. It may contain some little truth, partial truth, half truths, spin-doctoring, corrupted truth, distorted truth, deceptive truth, miss-stated truth, misleading truth, out of context truth, and an extremely long list of methods of highly refined variations of deception. Of course, the intention of deception is not to be honest in the first place. Methodologies of deception were sophisticated in the first instances of writing thousands of years ago. They have evolved continuously until the present. The ubiquitous acceptance of 'deception if you can get by with it,' worldwide necessitates an explicit linguistic rejection of the norm.

Integrative thought includes the criteria of truth and functional value.

Creative thought loosens the constraints of known or provable truth and functional value. Creative thought is exploratory, challenges accepted patterns of thought whether linear or integrative. It may even investigate the impossible, the socially taboo, challenge the scientifically proven, and delve into partial or total fantasy. Creativity maximizes the criteria of thorough exploration. Social considerations may or may not be temporarily suspended for the purposes of exploration.

Integrative thought requires open comparison of as many possibilities as may be conceived of but expects serious testing for truth and functionality in a socially fair framework structure, while creative thought allows anything as available for challenge and exploration. The creative thought process is playful by nature which usually tempers the dark side of testing and usually results in exploration of evil being relegated to the challenges to more heroic intentions. Deep looks into what is considered evil sometimes reveals prejudice in evaluation rather than actual evil.

To the degree an intended search for truth strays from a commitment to open comparison, whether by accident or on purpose, 'the whole truth' is not going to be the result. Even then it may not be. To the extent abandoning openness in the search for truth is allowed intentionally, whether admitted or not, it is a false justification of a predetermined agenda that is the actual intention. The search for truth, to that degree, is a pretense and a deception. It may be a self deception as well as an attempt at deception of the 'opposition', but it is not an open search and has allowed the opposition model to corrupt the stated intention of a search for truth.

<=X=> replaces VS.

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