While I am elucidating on multidimensional theory, there is one other thing I think about, and that is the connection that everything has with everything else. The weather affects people’s mood, affecting how groups of people will react. Opinions on a particular subject affect the way groups of people react. Small connections can affect larger groups and populations. The little notions change the world and shade our perception from day to day.

When I look at a problem, I see it in my minds eye as “spheres” of influence. Call them “Venn Diagrams” in three or more dimensions. I see it as a sphere of possibilities overlapping other “areas” of influence. I see facts as fuzzy options, applying to other facts in a fuzzy way. Just because a fact is a fact, it does not mean that it applies in all cases. For example, Las Vegas is a dry city. As a matter of general acceptance, this is true and would be a fact. However, today it is raining in Las Vegas, thus it is not true today. This does not diminish the legitimacy of “Las Vegas is a dry city”, but it does introduce and “fuzzy” element.  On the whole, over time, say a year the statement is true, but fuzzy 2% of the time. When we apply granularity to the statement we find there are times that the statement is not true. But generally it is.

When people argue a point, they argue generalities. Why? You can always find a case where a statement is not correct. Applying generalities is a way of eliminating extraneous cases without causing too many complications. It is harder to argue the exceptions unless you know how exceptional the case is. If it is a rare exception you may be hard pressed for your case. On the other hand if it is a common exception it may have a legitimate place in the argument. Of course it will all depend on the argument. Exceptions add a “sphere” of possibilities to a case.

Thought exercise: Think about a subject and draw a circle on a piece of paper, label it with your subject. Think of a related subject and make a circle overlapping the original subject. Over lap it as much as you think that the two subjects are related. Keep doing this. Example: Original subject: Cooking. Related subject: Heat (overlap about 85%). Related subject: Soups, overlap heat about 80% and cooking 100% (may be a small circle compared to all of cooking). From this we can see soups are cooking, and most soups require heat. See how the interactions work? You can get some very complex diagrams with relatively few subjects, thus eliminating extraneous exceptions is a good idea. In fact your could overlap Soup 100% over Heat and Cooking, this ignoring the fact that some soups are served cold or use a completely cold cooking method, thus simplifying the whole diagram (the diagram now would look like two circles side by side overlapping and a circle in the overlap.) The more overlaps and intersections in the diagram, the more complex the argument. Now turn the circles into spheres and you can imagine how I see things.

When I analyze a problem the interactions can get pretty involved and everything can eventually be related to everything. In the above example you then realize that “heat” is a lot broader subject than cooking and you can expand on it by adding subjects like “Solar Fusion” or a string of subjects “Iron / smelting / forging / carbon / swords / combat / edged weapons / knives” and so on.

It is these interweaving that can get confusing and can nullify an argument or make it stronger. It is these chains I navigate when arguing and understanding. And when you really see that everything can affect everything you realize that any argument can be made, but the most correct argument becomes clear.