So far I have treated the sensation data at a fairly basic level in order to make the metaphysical principles clear. However, this is very verbose for situations in which we are dealing with 100% or near 100% correlations. This is the case for classical science, which really boils down to:
- Objects exist
- Something happens to objects deterministically, which causes them to change their position, break, grow, aggregate, or change into other objects according to well-defined rules
- With the exception of processes such as rust, drying out, etc., objects not acted upon stay the same or change according to their nature (for example a tire loses air or a kitchen timer goes off).
From the perspective of the metaphysical sensation constructs, this is represented by:
- A particular sensation (or set) exists
- The same sensation may be repeated at a different point in time, with changes in the overall situation (such as a change in the field of view relative to other sensations)
- When a certain set of sensations (possibly just one) is present, there exists a very high probability correlation that another sensation (representing the new state of an object) will occur.
However, a classical scientific view asserts the reality of an outside world, where objects exist even if they are not being measured. I cannot judge the ultimate validity of this assumption one way or the other since I only know what sensations I know. Thus, this may be a helpful construct in organizing data and so forth, but it is not metaphysically guaranteed. Accordingly, from a metaphysical standpoint, I must bear in mind the possibility of conflicts between these views such as:
- More complex/harder to distinguish correlations may not be apparent even though they exist, due to lack of data that can isolate them.
- Some phenomena do not correlate 100%, which puts us outside of the scope of the classical scientific view for practical purposes (whether or not theoretically the classical scientific view is still valid). This could be due to limitations of measurements, complexity of scientific model used, and so forth.
- The same sensation might or might not represent the same classical scientific object, because once the object has all the measurable characteristics, from my perspective, it is ambiguous whether it is really the same.
- Incompleteness of data means that the classical scientific correlations might not be 100% – it just so happens that for my data set they happen to be 100%. I’m not seeing what happens everywhere in the world.
With that said, when analyzing the value gap, these limitations do not impact the validity of compressing to the 3 metaphysical analogues, since the following considerations apply:
- I can only operate on data that I have. That there may be other data that shows a different correlation only helps if I can recognize its existence. Further, the correlation of additional data I don’t know to an impact to the value gap analysis has to be considered as well. That is, there is a low probability that the additional data will result in a new correlation which in turn supercedes the other correlations which in turn impacts the prediction which in turn changes the value gap analysis. (This is one constituent of the 5-10% fudge factor guideline in predictions.)
- The phenomena that do not correlate 100% in given situations can be discarded according to the guidelines of the prediction limits and priority until such time as they are contradicted. (Another part of the fudge factor.)
- Whether the same sensation is really the same object does not matter as long as the effect on the value gap is the same.
- As previously stated I’m powerless to do anything about anything I don’t know regardless of determinism vs. free will being applied to the problem.
Accordingly, when dealing with high probability correlations, we can change the terms of reference to:
- Object
- Change in position of object
- Transformation of object under certain conditions
with minimal impact to the value gap analysis.