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Dianometry Your Ability and State of Mind L. Ron Hubbard Presenting a little different approach to the problem of a man’s worth to Man. Consider two intelligent, extremely able men, for instance—Adolf Hitler and Thomas A. Edison. Both brilliant, both highly successful. . . but there’s more to a man than intelligence and drive! Dianometry is that branch of Dianetics which measures thought capacity, computational ability and the rationality of the human mind. By its axioms and tests can be established the intelligence, the persistency, the ability, the aberrations and existing or potential insanity of an individual. Dianometry is “thought measurement,” derived from the Greek for thought and, unscholarly enough, the Latin for mensuration. It has the virtue, as a word, of being swiftly understood. It has the virtue, as a part of Dianetics, of answering such questions as the following: 1. Are you “sane”? 2. What is your native and inherent ability? 3. How long will it take to restore your native ability by dianetic processes? 4. What will be your status when cleared? By archaic definition, sanity was the ability to tell “right” from “wrong.” In the absence of precision definitions of what was “right” and what was “wrong,” many Homo sapiens have been imprisoned or executed for crimes which were “virtues” in one society and “criminalities” in another. The confused “definitions” in law were exceeded only by those classifications which existed for “insanity” in the field of medicine. Over fifty widely variant codes of classification exist for the definition of various “insanities”; each one is simply a description;* for not knowing the source, and with scant knowledge of the nature of mental function, those working in the field of insanities were, like those engaged in law, involved in continual controversy. Insanity can be of two kinds: acute and chronic. An acute insanity we can think of as one which flares into existence for a few moments or a few days and then subsides, leaving a relatively normal person. A chronic insanity is one which, having appeared, does not subside but holds the individual in an abnormal state. Each has the same genesis, the engrams, and each is decidedly harmful to the individual himself and to society. The acute insanity is most commonly seen in a rage or a tantrum. It is no less an insanity because it subsides. An engram has been momentarily restimulated so that the individual is temporarily bereft of his analytical mind. When so bereft of analytical power he may do numerous things, as dictated by the engram in restimulation. He may even murder or commit mayhem which, afterwards, will cause him to be punished by society. The chronic insanity is an acute insanity with the time factor lengthily extended. Most chronic insanities are, of course, complications of several engrams. The more * “. . . the work of the psychiatrist was taken up mainly with describing and classifying symptoms. This procedure has been strongly criticized by some students on the ground that it leads nowhere and encourages a false pretense of understanding where there is none. Giving a name to something does not increase our understanding of it.” Introduction to The Psychology of Abnormal People, John J. B. Morgan, Ph.D., a standard pre-dianetic textbook. [This article first appeared in Astounding Science Fiction magazine, January 1951.] Copyright ©1951 by L. Ron Hubbard. All Rights Reserved. often these insanities are restimulated, the more chronic they become unless they are more or less “permanent” (pre-Dianetics). Here we have a spectrum at work. Measured by time of restimulation and degree of harmfulness to the individual himself or society we have gradations from intense and perpetual restimulation of engrams, through occasional restimulation— normal—through the dianetic release and to the dianetic clear, the optimum level of rationality. The clear is not subject to “restimulation” because he has no engrams which can be activated. Degrees of sanity are possible. The term is very loose, however, and is not susceptible to the exact formulation desirable in an exact science. Sanity is too highly relative even for scientific use. For instance, a sailor who, in battle, functions well, obeys orders and kills members of the armed forces of the enemy is sane in battle. He may, however, be so insane ashore that he earns countless courts-martial, creates enormous trouble and may even have to be incarcerated to protect himself and his society. Another sailor may be so eminently sane ashore that he is rated up to petty officer, is given responsibilities, is depended upon by his superiors utterly and is generally looked upon as a model for all recruits. In battle this sailor may take one look at the Kamikaze, desert the gun which might have saved his ship, dive into a magazine full of explosives and be found, some hours later, when people are trying to get the vessel under way again, smoking chain-fashion and lighting his matches on lead azide fuses. The second sailor is sane ashore and insane in action. It depends, when one deals with aberrated persons, what kind of sanity one requires and what kind of insanity will not be detrimental to the job. In a navy which is meant to fight battles, the first sailor is infinitely more valuable than the second, swivel chair bureaucrats to the contrary, but it is the courage, not the aberrations of the first which made him of worth. Unless one has some idea of mental function, the problem of sanity is a tangle of unpredictable factors. A person who is aberrated may be restimulated into acute insanity in the very environment in which he is ordinarily sane. Viewpoint and changes in the environment itself shift. When one knows mental function, the degree of sanity of a person can be established. In any case, sanity, where one deals with any normally aberrated person, is a relative term. There is a dianometric definition about this: Sanity is the degree of rationality of an individual. Rationality is defined as follows: Rationality is the computational accuracy of the individual modified by aberration, education and viewpoint. Complete rationality could then be defined: Optimum rationality for the individual depends upon his lack of aberration and his accurate resolution of problems for which he has sufficient data. By computation is meant his ability to resolve problems. The resolution of all problems is a study in rightness and wrongness. Dianetically speaking, there are no attainable absolutes. The formidable Absolutism of metaphysics— which the grammarians with their absolute definitions for “accuracy” or “true” attempt to compel us to use—is a scientific outcast of some duration. The entire problem of getting right answers and wrong answers is a problem of degrees of rightness and wrongness. Old Aristotle reputedly held out for two-valued logic—at least that is the way he is interpreted. However, the world received quite an advance when Aristotle resolved and formulated some of the problems of logic. Before Aristotle there was one-valued logic, the will of the gods. Man acted because he was forced to act. Aristotle, a wildeyed radical, came along and insisted Man had a right to be right or wrong according to the dictates of circumstance. Man had a choice. If Aristotle went off into that mathematician’s land of Never-Never, the syllogism which, in abstracts, seeks to evaluate concrete entities and proves only what it assumes, he still advanced ideas about thinking. Lately Man has considered logic to have three values—right, maybe, and wrong. None of these systems of logic begin to encompass what the fabulous computational ability of the mind encompasses minute by minute. Logic could best be explained in terms of an infinity of values. From the theoretical but unobtainable ABSOLUTE WRONG, solutions can be graded through a theoretical midpoint of neither right nor wrong to a theoretical but unobtainable ABSOLUTE RIGHT. (See graph.) The mind computes on the yea-nay principle. It resolves numbers of simultaneous equations by running each one, evidently, on at least three computers at once. It runs as many as a thousand factors at once. And it does it, apparently, upon the simple formula A> B = A, B >A = B. Thus if eating an apple is less right than not eating an apple, the decision is to not eat the apple. If not eating an apple is less right than eating an apple, the decision is to eat the apple. There is no ABSOLUTE RIGHT or ABSOLUTE WRONG about eating an apple. On the sole consideration that a worm might be in the apple, a two-valued, right, wrong equation breaks down. Around one simple act the mind may run fifty or a hundred computations or may draw upon a past computation’s conclusion which, however, was once run. Acts or solutions are either more right than wrong—in which case they are right. Or more wrong than right—in which case they are wrong. Right and wrong greater-than less-than computations are run off on hundreds or thousands of variables by the mind to make up one solution. Life is a complex affair. Computation has to be close to as complex as life or survival would long ago have ceased for Man, that high organism who depends for progress and weapons upon his mind. Thus his mental processes are constant evaluations of data in relation to their importance to the immediate solution, and constant evaluations of these conclusions to formulate decisions. Thus his computer is in constant action, thus he is continually involved in re-evaluation of both old data and old conclusions in the light of new data and new conclusions. The principle of how he thinks is simple. It is only that he handles so very, very many computations at once that makes the principle seem complex. Now the only reason we take account of logic here is to orient the problem of rationality and how one goes about determining whether or not a man is rational. An ultimate wrongness for the organism would be death, not only for the organism itself but for all involved in its dynamics. An ultimate rightness for the organism would be survival to a reasonable term for himself, his children, his group and Mankind. An ABSOLUTE WRONGNESS would be the extinction of the Universe and all energy and the source of energy—the infinity of complete death. An ABSOLUTE RIGHTNESS would be the immortality of the individual himself, his children, his group, Mankind and the Universe and all energy—the infinity of complete survival. Ultimates, in this sense, are attainable and there are various ultimates of greater or lesser importance. Any ultimate would contain some destruction or some construction. 0 Viewed in this way, the problems of logic compute easily and well. A scientific truth would be something which was workably and invariably right for the body of knowledge in which it lay. One of the reasons very right, slightly right, very wrong, slightly wrong, very true, rather true are used here instead of circumlocutions with new words—such as, for very right, “containing more right factors”—is that the scientist who, after all, fairly well runs this present world, has long since cleaved from metaphysics. Hegel, great man though he was, and Kant, with their metaphysical ABSOLUTE went so far as to deny Piazzi’s discovery of the eighth planet, inhibited the acceptance of Ohm’s law, proved Newton “wrong” and generally did things which, if they were necessary to maintain the Great God Absolute, nevertheless hindered scientific progress. “Truth beyond the realm of human experience” sounds well and is an authentic route for some things, but it doesn’t make washing machines run or raise better chickens or send any rockets to Mars: in short, Absolute Truth is a foreign substance in this highly integrated scientific society. Grammar lags back with the metaphysician’s Absolute Truth. The modem scientist is prone to apologize because his data is workable, rather than true. If the data is uniformly workable, it most certainly is true. Grammar, in trying to hold with metaphysics, impedes, as did metaphysics, science. So there are things very right, very true, very real, very accurate and very variably relative in general. Until a bright mind discovers a way to obtain and use data which cannot be sensed, measured or experienced, grammar had better regulate itself to the driving force of the society, science. So here we have the formidable article, logic. It is computed, not dreamed and intuitively plucked from some ether. If a man, a group, a race or Mankind does its thinking on a sufficiently rational plane, it survives. And survival, that dynamic thrust through time toward some unannounced goal, is pleasure. Creative and constructive effort is pleasure. Some pleasure destroys more than it creates and so it is “immoral” (and by future prejudice becomes irrationally immoral, traveling as a social aberration; superstition is a parallel channel with immorality, no other proof of harm than prejudice). Some pleasure creates more than it destroys and that is “moral” or good pleasure. If a man, a group or a race or Mankind does its thinking on a sufficiently irrational plane—out of lack of data, warped viewpoint or simply aberration—the survival is lessened; more is destroyed than is created. That is pain. That is the route toward death. That is evil. Logic is not good or bad in itself, it is the name of a computation procedure, the procedure of the analytical mind or collective analytical minds in their efforts to attain solutions to problems. The process of logic consists of: 1. Finding out what one is trying to solve. 2. Formulating the question for solution. 3. Obtaining or recalling the data for the question and solution. 4. Evaluating the data to be used in the solution. 5. Comparing data with data, new conclusions with old conclusions. 6. Evolving a new answer or confirming an old one or deciding there is no immediate answer. All answers in terms of relative rightness or wrongness. 7. Action or conclusion. As outlined above—and on the graph—in one problem, the arrow of decision swings back and forth, back and forth until, by greater-than and lesser-than computations, it finally comes to rest with an answer. Here is a problem: “Shall I pull trigger of shotgun?” Formulation question: What will happen if I pull the trigger? Formulation of questions for solution: Is it right or wrong to pull trigger? Obtaining data: Gun is cocked. I am in closed room. I am in a hurry to get to dinner. Leaving gun cocked weakens spring. It will take over a minute to open breech. Evaluating data: Gun is cocked—arrow moves far right. I am in closed room and guns go off sometimes—arrow moves far left, but is restrained by already having moved far right. I am in a hurry to get to dinner, been duck hunting all day and I’m starved. (Arrow moves to right but restrained again, two evaluations having been computed.) Leaving gun cocked weakens spring and this is a good gun—arrow moves a little farther to right. Breech in poor shape. New data: Footfalls in room overhead, calling attention to existence of other persons in house. (Arrow moves left.) New data: Got to clean gun anyway after supper. Can inspect its chambers then when I’ve got time to look. (Arrow moves to left.) Answer point of arrow is well to the left. Solution: Lay gun on bed, cocked. Action: Goes out door. New data: Little boy laughing down hall. Evaluation of data: Boy very inquisitive. No lock on door. New formulation of problem: Is it right or wrong to leave gun unsecured? New data: Wife’s voice urgent from dining room. Stomach growling. Meat frying. Evaluation of data: Wife’s voice—small motion of arrow to right. Stomach growling— another motion to right. Boy in danger—surge of arrow far, far to left. Action: Returns, wrestles with faulty gun breech—whole new set of right-wrong series. Finds breech was empty. Puts cartridges on top shelf, moves chair away from shelf where boy can’t easily get it, hangs shotgun out of reach on wall. Goes to dinner. This is a simplified solution. Actually each datum was evaluated for the problem by a separate computer! There were many other data and conclusions and computers used in the computation. And it was all completed in a few seconds and the action fully accomplished in two minutes. The solution was based on a datum which made the problem, as formulated, so wrong that additional precautions were taken. Thought goes on a network of such computations. Almost none of the computations are examined by “I” no matter how stylish it has been to ponder and vocalize and stew with datum after datum. (This adage that slow thought is good thought stems, most likely, from the propaganda of some fellow who wanted an excuse because he could never think fast. The mind works solutions in milliseconds and then aberrations snarl and alter transmission so that hours and days are required to get the solution from some part of the computer to “I”.) The mind can compute in any terms, real or abstract. In dealing constantly with data which can be sensed, measured and experienced—real data—the mind is fundamentally acquainted with the nonexistence of Absolute Precision. It handles problems about the bigness of big bicycles and the warmness of a drink and the prettiness of beauty and the quantity of companionship in a dog with swift and relatively accurate evaluations. It measures time, distance and space and energy interrelationships as handily as it weighs the thoughts, ethics and potentialities of other minds and all these things are qualitative and quantitative measurements and evaluations which are and cannot be otherwise than approximations. The mind only requires, like the scientist, a workable accuracy. The plus or minus margins of error in finite analysis must be kept within bounds of usefulness. Precision, then, can be defined as the maximal accuracy required for the problem’s solution and demands a minimal margin of error which will not make the solution unworkable. No instrument of Man, including his mind, no matter how cunningly or delicately constructed, can measure time, space, thought or energy with Absolute Precision. There exists in any sensing, measuring or experiencing minute errors. And even if these errors are so tiny that Absolute Precision apparently exists, the errors are nevertheless present. Absolute Precision might occur by accident in the evaluation of an electric current, a temperature or the weight of a flake of gold but no instrument exists fine enough to detect that the Absolute Precision had existed, thus it could not be repeated. Understand that such errors can be so minute—and generally are—that they exceed the requirements of the problem in which the evaluation is needed, but this does not make them any the less errors. There is the story of the navigators. A ship had, amongst other officers, an assistant navigator, a senior watch officer and a navigator. The admiral came into the chartroom and desired to know the ship’s position. The assistant navigator was present; he was very young, fresh from school and lacking in any experience. He eagerly plotted the dead reckoning, sharpened his pencil exceeding fine and made a tiny point on the chart. “Admiral,” he said, “we are right there!” At this moment the senior watch officer, a grizzled lieutenant, came in and had the question put to him by the admiral for confirmation. The senior watch officer figured for a moment, running up the dead reckoning, and then drew a small circle on the chart. “We’re right about there, sir,” he said. The navigator, hearing the admiral was in the chartroom, came in and in his turn was asked for the position. The navigator had been to sea for a long time, he had navigated many ships. He glanced at the course changes in the quartermaster’s notebook, looked at the chart and then, slapping his huge hand down upon it said, “If I’m not mistaken, admiral, we’re some place around there!” The margin of error allowable for a problem can be very wide or very small. It has its self-limiting factors. In navigation, the young assistant above might have been expected to take a sextant sight and then go below to calculate down to the last foot his ship’s position. That would be unnecessary accuracy. First, the position of the ship is not needed in terms of feet when off soundings but is “accurate” with a margin of error of a mile or two. Second, the sight cannot be more accurate than the error in the sextant and the chronometer. Any sight so taken can be calculated with a precision much greater than it can be shot. If the required accuracy of position is a mile or two, if the sextant sight is accurate within a quarter of a mile, there is no use calculating it down to feet. To do so would be to introduce a new error, the error of the Delusion of Accuracy and that can be the most dangerous error of all. One has to know, reliably, the margin of error. If it is falsified by an enthusiasm to make data look good, the data may lead to serious mistakes. The most serious observer error which can be made is to enter in a Delusion of Accuracy for those who depend on the data are thus led astray and they cannot know in which direction or how much the data was wrong and are not informed that it was falsified. The Bureau of Standards, for instance, gives methods of measuring power at radio frequency and the error of each method, announcing it to be two, three or five percent in certain ranges as the case may be. This is reasonable accuracy; greater precision may sometimes be desirable but is not generally used. In the real Universe, then, the entities of time, space, distance, energy and thought cannot be computed with Absolute Accuracy. All data is evaluated with the precision necessary or attainable. Good data is usefully accurate data. Even when the margin of error is so tiny that no known instrument can measure it, it still exists. In abstract terms only can evaluation be Absolutely Precise. If, in the real Universe, Absolute Precision is unobtainable, Absolute Precision can be assumed and is a useful analogic tool for computation. The mind computes in various ways and one of those ways is to set up analogues. Arithmetic is such an analogue. The schoolboy writes 2 + 2 = 4 and is satisfied that this is a real evaluation. It is not. It is an abstract evaluation. Absolute Precision has been assumed where none exists. This does not invalidate the equation by any means. The mind uses and needs such equations in its computations. To say that two apples plus two apples equals four apples is of great help to the shopper and the grocer. They accept the equals because they do not need any accuracy greater than two apples plus two apples equals four apples. But both the shopper and the grocer would admit, if the problem were presented to them, that two Winesaps plus two Delicious did not equal four wormy crab apples by any means. The shopper on the receiving end of this equation would object and, getting no redress, would take his trade elsewhere. Two apples plus two apples are the same four apples and in this alone is there an approximation between the real and the abstract. Nothing equals anything with Absolute Precision. Two Winesaps, ever so carefully measured and weighed could be shown to be similar to each other even if they “looked” exactly alike. No two Winesaps in the world are exactly alike save by an accident which, again, would not be a detectable Absolute Precision, since nothing weighs that fine or measures that close. As an abstraction, arithmetic is useful. The mind uses many abstractions. The retired colonel, telling of his battle, grabs some walnuts, some napkin rings and the sugar tongs and says, “Now here was the Seventh Foot”—lining up the walnuts—”and here”—picking up and laying down the napkin rings—”was the enemy artillery. And here”—putting down the tongs with a clang—”was I, mounted on my charger. Now ....” He has done a mathematical analogue of the problem of the battle and he is saved much reidentification, as he tells his tale, for his listeners know that walnuts “equal” the Seventh Foot, napkin rings “equal” the enemy artillery, and sugar tongs “equal” the colonel and his horse. Einstein working out new equations of relationship amongst time, space, and energy forms and manifestations may be telling more truth than the colonel and is serving a higher usefulness by far, but the colonel and Einstein are both dealing in analogue computation. Users of the data of either the colonel or Einstein must allow for a reasonable margin of error when real entities are substituted for the abstractions in the equations. It would be far better, of course, in mathematics, if the word “equivalent” or “represents” was substituted for “equals” in all mathematical equations. The actual function of mathematics would then be preserved. The word “equation” should be changed in meaning—for it means “act of making equal”—or should be exchanged for “abstraction” if mathematics are to be better understood. For the mind, by establishing the abstractions which we call mathematics, sought only to improve its ability to handle real entities. The abstractions are nothing in themselves but assistants in mental process. A skilled mathematician has, in mathematics, a part of a servo system in which his own mind is the chief agent. He evaluates by abstractions real entities of the real Universe. Then, by processes exterior to the mind—scratch pad or electronic computer—he computes with abstractions alone until he achieves a solution. This solution he then “translates” back into the terms of the real Universe. So far have mathematics strayed from their intended purpose, from time to time, that they seem to possess entity value of their own. Some esoteric mathematicians have in the past so far departed from the fundamental purpose of mathematics that they have, like priests around an idol, sought to deify their servo systems, declaring them to be beyond all human experience. And so they can be! In metaphysics, Absolute Truth, Absolute Mensuration, and Absolute Thought became a sort of mathematics by which some men tried to locate data beyond the realm of human experience. In German Transcendentalism, Absolute Truth was considered to surpass all human experience. This is quite valid since it is very definitely the case. This was a mathematics, an effort to reach, by abstractions, a higher set of data. It became abhorrent to the scientist because metaphysicians seemed to use this mathematics as a height from which they could assail and snub human experience with impunity; by using wide and obscure terms and being rather grand about it all, the metaphysician so snarled the wits of his attackers that these have not taken metaphysics for what it is, a species of mathematics. The metaphysicians themselves would hotly deny this, as would the mathematician, that he uses daily some of the fruits of metaphysics. There is a battle there; meanwhile evaluations both in abstract and real terms go on, not only in the giant electronic brain in some university but in the grocery store. The mind simplifies its problems by posing abstractions to represent them, retranslates the answers back into real terms and so computes the solutions of existence. It computes in various ways, is a computer in itself; it invented numerous mathematics to assist in computations and today it builds gigantic computers to relieve it of some of its burdens. These two processes of computation, the comparison of real data with real data and the approximating of real data by using abstract symbols, combine into a multitude of manifestations of thought processes. By such combinations of computation the individual mind derives the highest attainable correctness possible for it in its answers. It allows its admissible margins of error and places the solutions into action or a file for future use. The basic principle of operation is relatively simple. Two things, however, are not simple—the power of the mind to evaluate data and resolve problems and the structure of the mind which permits such magnificent computation. If one does not believe the mind capable of handling large numbers of very variable variables and achieving swift solutions, let him plot out all the mental computations—as contained in the seven steps above—for one mile of automobile driving on a crowded highway: and in addition to the computations will be the execution of the solutions. One cannot dismiss all this as “training pattern” for if a training pattern were all that was required to drive a car, then any automatic pilot could navigate any stretch of complex and crowded roadway; but automatic pilots cannot be made at this time which would perform the feat which any “moron” considers ordinary. The structure which two billion years of biological engineering evolved can be understood, with Dianetics, in its functional aspects. No adequate technology exists today to explain the structural blueprint of the mind. Knowledge of structure can be expected to develop in any field only after a knowledge of function and purpose is acquired. But structure or no structure it remains that the mind operates with a precision which is fabulous, well above that of the machines it builds. Thus the processes of rationality. Good reasoning is good computation. The better the computation, the better rationality; for rationality, after all, is a synonym for right answers. There are, however, as delineated in the broad field of Dianetics, ways of reducing the computational accuracy of the whole mind. All these ways sum into the one generality of bad evaluation of data—disregarding, of course, the organic reductions which delete parts of mental equipment, occasioned by pathology or accidents or psychiatric surgery. Looking at the logic graph, it is easily seen that erroneous evaluations of data interfere seriously with rationality for they give improper weightings to factors used in mental equations. If the analytical mind cannot properly re-evaluate or check the evaluation or establish the weight of the data it uses, then its answers are liable to considerable error. This error is not limited to computation alone but extends into the execution of solutions. Errors in time and difference can be extended to include all the errors possible. And as time is only poorly evaluated when its differences are improperly established, then all error can be lumped into the major error of difference. When an abstraction is mistaken for a reality, as in the case of metaphysics, many errors are then possible in the computation. The belief that two plus two equals four is a reality and is always the case can lead to some astonishing misapprehensions. Reversely, a belief that a reality is an abstraction can also produce errors. Aside from mathematics, considering those to be precision abstractions, the mind handles problems in terms of loose symbolisms. Amongst the most indefinite symbolisms are dreams. The dream has an entirely valid place and purpose in computations. It recombines data into new entities and is an important part of imagination. Imagination is vital to computation for it recombines for the purposes of creation, construction and prediction. Creative imagination can be such a complex computation and can be accomplished on such thin data by a good mind that it can assume an aspect of divine inspiration. Just because one can understand the functional process of imagination does not mean that one can thereby detract from its value, for it is the highest echelon of computation. The errors to which the mind is liable are not computational. They can be listed under the headings of observational, educational and aberrational. Observational errors come about when the individual believes he perceives something which he does not perceive. A meter can be subject, for instance, to an undetected error and can be read and the reading used in a computation with the result of a wrong answer. Or such a thing as a letter one finds in his wife’s dresser may indicate a conclusion, such as infidelity, which is not justified. Misobservation introduces error into the computation. And one of the major sources of misobservation comes under the heading of a Delusion of Accuracy. Educational errors can be cultural aberrations. But the major source of educational error is lack of data. Lack of data, for instance, added to false data, makes it possible for the citizens of one nation to believe that the citizens of another are dangerous and that a war must be fought. Lack of data is a primary source of error in all mental computations. It is not true that quantity of data is the most vital requirement for an accurate computation; many researchers operate on this false assumption and swiftly swamp themselves by the sheer weight of imponderables. Quality of data, its weight in relationship to associated data, is a much more important thing. Ability to evaluate is much more important in any formal or informal educational process than ability to memorize; for an unaberrated mind memorizes at a glance and the memory cannot be trained; what passes in current formal education for memorizing of facts is a poorly directed operation of reassociating facts with new things. Education has been made into a contest of recall in contemporary schools. The data is forced into the student with a value welded to it. It is worth little thereafter to a computer which must be able to re-evaluate data for any and all problems. Education is mistakenly identified with schools in most minds, this datum having been forced upon these minds along with much other stet-valued bric-a-brac. Actually, education begins long before speech and ends only with death; the bulk of the data used by any mind is derived from its own observations of the environment. The computer uses freely only that data which it itself has observed and aligned with its purposes. Without purpose and alignment but with stet-value, formally “taught” data is a large percentage worthless. Aberration, as covered in Individual Dianetics, is data which is unknown to the analytical mind and its standard banks and which has too much weight. False data, lack of data and misevaluated data cause the errors of computation. In dianometry we are establishing, for purposes of therapy, the errors of computation to which the mind is liable and weighting the worth of the mind when freed from errors. There are various classes of minds. First, minds can be classified from the standpoint of false data and lack of data and misevaluated data. And second and most important, from the standpoint of inherent worth. There are many types of minds. All operate on the same principles but all are not equal in their power and worth. In Dianetics we consider the worth of the individual to himself, to his group, to Mankind and posterity. With dianometry we are seeking to measure that worth. For these equations of worth, we use ability to think, power to execute and the vectors of purpose. Ability to think is more than intelligence. Intelligence would be the complexity of the mind in computation, its agility in the matter of perceiving, posing and resolving problems. The ability to think includes intelligence and the training, experience and data stored in the mind. The ability to think is not a structural potential of the mechanism but the actual capability of the experienced and stored mind. THE ABILITY TO THINK IS THE CAPABILITY OF THE MIND TO PERCEIVE, POSE AND RESOLVE SPECIFIC AND GENERAL PROBLEMS. But the fact that a mind can resolve problems is no reason to suppose that it will. One is confronted continually in life with individuals who obviously possess relatively little ability to think but who accomplish far more than those who are patently their intellectual and educational superiors. This introduces into the equations the dynamics. These are the dynamics of Dianetics, of course, four in number, stemming from the central dynamic of survival. THE DYNAMICS ESTABLISH THE PERSISTENCY AND VIGOR OF THE MIND AND ORGANISM. Measurement of the dynamics is difficult and can be done at this time only on an arbitrary basis. Experiments have been outlined to be conducted to establish and identify Life Force which is, of course, the principal dynamic itself. The dynamics are widely variable because of aberrations which obstruct them. In the dianetic clear, the dynamics are free of mental obstruction and are found to be much stronger. Mental and physical exhaustion tests on aligned—freely chosen—purpose establish the value of each of the four dynamics. The summed value gives a relative figure for any individual. The power of the individual is his ability to initiate the resolution of problems and execute the solutions. No matter the complexity of the mind, its experience or the data with which it is stored, unless it is prompted by power, it resolves little and, again, unless prompted by power, it executes little. Application of physical energy in such a routine matter as ditch digging would, of course, be accounted for as the physical side of power. The potential of delivering a sharp blow or enduring long punishment are both accounted for under power. A “brilliant” mind may occupy itself doodling unless it is prompted by power to align its purposes and perceive, pose and resolve problems. A “genius” may perceive, pose and resolve problems by the carload lot and yet lack the extra power to execute the solutions. A mind with a low ability to think may have enormous power in initiating the resolution of problems and enormous power left over with which to execute those solutions and so may rule the world. A mind with enormous power to initiate, a high ability to think and enormous power to execute solutions might well shake the ages. The potential value of the individual is derived from his ability to think and his power in the following fashion where PV equals potential value, A equals ability to think and D equals power: PV = ADX The potential value of an individual would be in four lines. First would be his potential value to himself, second would be his potential value to his children both as to their creation and their future and thus to future generations, third would be his potential value to groups ranging from a club to a race and nation, and fourth would be his potential value to Mankind. Therefore the above equation would have to be executed for each one of the four dynamics of self, sex, group and Mankind. The sum of the four equations would give his total potential value. The worth of the individual would, however, be found to be different than his potential value and could be determined by means of vectors. His worth would be his net. His alignment of purpose with the optimum purpose would not necessarily be perfect. In the case of a dianetic clear it would be near the optimum purpose, but dianometry does not have as its first duty the measurement of clears but of aberrated individuals. A single example will serve to illustrate this. In France a counterfeiter was so skilled that he engraved old postage stamps so nearly approximating the genuine stamps that experts could not differentiate between the two. This activity required strong power to initiate, good ability to resolve problems and strong power to execute. He did his work well and had the additional power and ability to so dispose of his product that he could not be indicted by law. Thus his potential value to himself and group and Mankind must have been high. But aberration rotated his vector of application out of line. His purpose was so misaligned with the purpose of the group and Mankind that he not only canceled his potential value but posed a mild threat to self, group and Mankind. As a childless bachelor his second dynamic was a zero. With high potential value his worth was negative in some units. In the case of Genghis Khan, potential value was very great. His ability to think and power to initiate and execute were very high. On the first dynamic his actual worth was exceptional. On his second dynamic his potential value was extremely high but the worth was shortened by the precarious heritage he left his many children. On his third dynamic his worth was enormous for he unified not only his personal race unit but consolidated into it other units which had been at mutual war on the steppes. On the fourth dynamic, Mankind, his worth was so far negative that it not only wiped out all gains in the first three dynamics but made the total worth of the man more negative than any other for centuries around him. Into the equation which was Genghis Khan might have been added artistic or beneficial knowledge for the world had they been present and these might even have overweighted the equation back into positive worth, but Genghis Khan initiated and contributed no such thing. In the case of hypothetical B. G., the engineer, we would take the PV equation somewhat in this fashion. He has had a formal education, has received his degree, has worked in routine company jobs for fifteen years. In this time he has become married and has three children who are happy and will be given the highest formal education available. B. G. has medium power to initiate and execute and medium ability to think. However he has aberrations to the effect that he must do precisely what he is told and no more. His worth on the first dynamic is a short positive. His worth on the second dynamic, because of his children, is a long positive. His worth on the third dynamic for his company is a medium positive, for his state a short positive since he takes little interest in it. His worth on the fourth dynamic is a very short positive. His worth is a medium positive. The relief of his aberration and general clearing not only frees his stet-valued education to permit him to engage upon projects requiring newer evaluations but also raises his power to initiate thought and execute solutions. His value to himself lengthens to a long positive, his value to his children lengthens, his value to his company lengthens to a long positive and to his state a medium positive, his value to Mankind, because he is no longer a cog but may initiate new ideas in engineering, lengthens to a medium positive. The worth is now a long positive. All worths are, of course, in terms of potential survival, the dynamic principle of existence. These equations are not, however, in solely “cold, calculating” terms. For survival is no hard-headed, “cold, calculating” proposition. It is found that when the dynamics are freed, the amount of “free feeling” available for the enjoyment of life is enormously increased. The advance toward survival is pleasure, the reduction toward death is pain. Happiness can be defined as the overcoming of not unknowable obstacles toward a known goal or the contemplation—for a brief space—of attained or envisioned goals. As covered in Dianetics, pleasure is “immoral” only when it is also overweightedly injurious: all moral codes find their origin in the denouncement of some activity because, no matter how pleasurable it may seem, it is destructive; moral codes tend to become aberrations in a culture and, as aberrations, may well outlive their practical use, remaining as prejudice, not as reason—hence the arguments about morality. Hence, survival activity is creative and constructive. All creation and construction, however, by the laws of the cycles of change, is accompanied by some destruction. So long as Man’s equation of creation and destruction progresses in favor of survival along all four dynamics, Man can continue to win. Thus worth can be established by the attainment of pleasure which is the reward of better than average survival. A painter can have a worth greater than B.G.’s if he is a good painter, for he adds the stuff to life which may make life more beautiful, thus more pleasurable. A politico filling the press with the rush of heated air, a declared power in the land, a possessor of wealth and influence, when graphed in terms of worth on the four dynamics, might be so aberrative to his children, so dangerous to personal freedom for all his cant of freedoms, so unskilled in foreign policy despite his pronunciamentos which sound so brave, and so dangerous to Mankind by his posing war for it that for all huzzahs he might fall far, far, far short on the vector of worth and be of much less value than some poor and unskilled dancer, much, much less value than even aberrated B. G. and certainly far less value than the painter. Here we deal with relative values. The mind is capable of handling them without their being graded into abstractions such as mathematical numbers, for the grading of worth in mathematical terms would be to introduce a Delusion of Accuracy error. Any person must be measured in relationship to his environment, his associates, his society and with a consideration of his age and physical status. The mind hourly accomplishes much more staggering approximations than this and comes forth with highly workable answers. A graph similar to that of the logic with its movable arrow will resolve the problem visually as a servomechanism to the mind. Now it happens that there are three types of minds. We assign all minds into these three types for handy approximation and by so assigning minds to these types we advance our understanding, which is all the reason needful for the creation of these classes. In days of yore it was customary to classify aberrations into enormous lists. In dianetic therapy, however, we are concerned with only three major manifestations. These three manifestations are possible in any of the three types above. The three cases Dianetics considers as separate classes for therapy are the cases which have sonic recall, the cases which do not have sonic recall and the cases that have “dub-in”—imaginary—recall. These cases are listed in their order of seriousness in therapy and the seriousness is considered only in time required. The sonic recall will take less time than the non-sonic, the non-sonic will take less time than the dub-in. But there are other difficulties encountered by a mind trying to think. There is lack of visio recall, there is “dub-in” visio. There are the shut-offs of emotion and pain and the “dubin” of emotion. (There is no pain “dub-in.”) The aberrative pattern of the individual is not much considered in therapy and can be anything from psychotic to “normal” without enormously changing the time in process of a preclear—patient. Now any of these conditions can be present in any of the three types of mind listed below. Each one has some value as an inhibition to optimum thought processes. They are the mechanical aberrations which we consider. They influence an individual’s position in the types below. The worth equations above also influence the position of the individual in these types for when these equations are worked out one can see approximately how badly blocked each dynamic is. The influence of mechanical aberration and the worth equations on the position of the individual in the below types is very great, as will be discussed. The three types of mind are as follows: CLASS C. That mind which is aware. It neither adjusts to nor attempts to adjust its environment. CLASS B. That mind which is aware it thinks. It adjusts to its environment. CLASS A. That mind which is aware it thinks and how it thinks. It adjusts to its environment and adjusts the environment to it. It will readily be seen that these classes provide a graded scale which can include, each one, a large number of mental manifestations. The test of each upward grade is in terms of greater survival potential along all four dynamics. First we have those who, through lack of worth, have slight chance of personal survival, small chance of survival through progeny, some chance of survival in a group out of tolerance or charity and as scant chance as Mankind. Next we have those with survival chances in the dynamics from short to medium but who provide the hewers of wood and the drawers of water and as a class have value. At length, by increasing gradations of survival potential, we have the Class A individuals whose inherent PV would place them, as it rose, higher and higher until one came to the few whose topflight creative powers affected the whole environment and the future of Mankind. The Class A minds are invaluable as individuals for the progress of the society depends upon them as they function as greater and greater self-determined organisms; their freedom is essential to the survival of all. The argument between whether a state should be organized on a corn-and-games welfare basis or on a free enterprise basis is resolved by the consideration that Class B cannot exist without Class A and that Class A cannot exist under the restrictions codified to fit only Class B. These three types are not types of inherent minds only. They are also used to classify in terms of mechanical aberration and worth. We cannot advance an arbitrary classification unless it has application and has some approximation of reality. In terms of aberration, which can be tested by the various occlusions or lack of them as listed above, minds can be seen to shift, when aberrated, down the scale toward or into Class C. While these tests are rule of thumb, they give some index of the aberrative content of the mind and thus some idea of how high it may be expected to rise and where it belongs on the scale. When these occlusions are considered with the worth, which also gives an aberrative index, an approximation of the proper classification may be obtained. If we take an apparent Class B, which is the largest class in numerousness of the three, a man who has a routine job sorting laundry, and examine him, we may discover the following: He has sonic “dub-in” which, we will say, indicates that he carries serious emotional charges and a heavily aberrated mind in general. He has occluded visio recall. He has an emotional shut-off. These would indicate that he at least belonged higher in his class and should be directing those engaged in routine tasks. Now we will investigate his dynamics. We find that he believes himself to be very ugly and detestable to people. He is inhibited sexually and abuses his one child. He is churlish to the people with whom he associates at work and he belongs to no organization of any kind. He says he hopes the H-bomb will finish off the human race. The result of this investigation is that we have here a potential Class A, probably very low scale, but certainly Class A. For when we look at the dynamic vectors to place an aberrated individual into a mind class, we consider how much must be holding down the dynamics and how far they will spring free when the aberrations are removed by Dianetics. In terms of modern society, this man is, of course, something of a liability for he has aberrations and by contagion he is “infecting” associates as well as a member of the next generation. Now let us take a “feeble-minded” child, an apparent Class C. She is very dull and listless. She is compliant. She never becomes angry or excited. She has learned speech but she talks little. She never brings anyone a present. She has no bad dreams. She can dress herself with some help. On investigation of her recalls and shut-offs, there are found to be none. The apparent Class C is evidently a Class C. Let us take another Class C, a young man. He is sullen. He occasionally sings boisterously and then laughs foolishly. He has a woman to whom he brings presents and around whom he seems worried. He can be calmed by reassuring words when he glowers. On investigation of his recalls he is found to have no sonic, no visio, a pain shut-off and a violent antipathy toward taking a look at anything in his past. 0 The apparent Class C is an actual Class B. Unless some vital portion of the nervous system can be shown to be unmistakably missing and unless his condition has continued so long that his body has passed a recovery point for any physical disturbance—and he would have to be old for that—he could be salvaged. Let us take now a “normal” schoolboy. He is an apparent Class B. According to his teachers he wastes most of his time, gets bad grades, knows the lesson if effort has been made to attract his attention, to it, spends most of his time at recess fighting and always getting licked. If he keeps on this way it is certain that he will fail in school. On investigation we find he has sonic and visio recall but a pain shut-off. Despite the fact that he has recalls except for pain, here is a Class A mind. Cleared dianetically he would probably change and improve the whole class. Take his classmate, the boy with the always-clean shirt, the never-deranged tie, the perfect grades, the most quietly pleasant and orderly boy in the whole school, the model student. We examine this boy’s recalls. He has sonic recall, visio recall, pain recall, emotional recall, tactile recall, kinesthetic recall, olfactory recall, organic sensation recall, with no psychosomatic disorder. Preserve this boy well. He will become the backbone of some routine office. He will be the darling of the welfare state. His total worth to humanity is nothing to get excited about. The latter boy is an apparent Class B. He is also an actual Class B. The point here is not that abuse and aberrations make for an increase in ability for that is not the case. Experience and hard knocks will vastly add to one’s educational store but these are not aberrations. The former boy was a Class B because of an aberrational pattern, the latter boy was a Class B in the absence of a strong aberrational pattern. The total question here is change. The Class B can be forced to or willingly will adjust to his environment. The Class A does some adjusting but he changes the environment. The conqueror who changes the environment by exterminating a race is no less a Class A mind. Education and aberration dictate the wrong vectors. The conqueror cleared would still change the environment but he would orient his vectors along the dynamics. It is an astonishing fact that the criminally inclined, while they are in some part actual Class Bs, contain, as a group, a large number of Class As. A society dams up their aberrated and destructive channels of effort by putting them behind bars. In the light of Dianetics this is an appalling waste of manpower. The insane asylums, on the other hand, provide no such percentage of Class As. An individual whose dynamics are so weak as to collapse on him to the point of actual personal incompetence in the teeth of any aberrative cargo is usually a Class B who has dropped into Class C. While this is a generality, it is a valid statement based on the scientific evidence that a truly strong Class A mind can usually batter through any cargo of aberrations. The brain may have to learn to function in a more complex fashion because it has received engrams which occlude some of its engrams. It may then function more complexly despite those engrams. When those engrams are processed out by therapy, the PV of the mind on all four dynamics soars. Ten thousand cases carefully tabulated may resolve the precise relationship between initial aberration and eventual brilliance if one exists. It is known definitely that the aberrations only inhibit mental function and that the man who prides himself on his neurotic condition on the grounds that it proves him “sensitive” falls into the error only because of a “desire” to justify his disability. The fallacy of the belief that neurosis is responsible for ability is easily indicated by pointing out the paradox of the theory. The theory attempts to tell us that one is more rational when one is less rational, that one is more able to think the less one is able to think. And in terms of fantastic imaginings, the very aberrated do not dream, they have only nightmares. One ex-painter of wildly imaginative pictures, when cleared, not only regained the ability to paint which had ebbed away but could paint even more wildly imaginative things than before. Imagination is a form of computation, the highest form. Spoil computation with aberrations and one spoils as well an active imagination. A hard life may teach a man he has to be a top dog, but that’s experience. His engrams only teach him to go mad or lie down. The tests which dianometry applies so that Dianetics may be begun include the following: RECALLS: Easy Case 20 hrs each item sonic visio pain emotion good memory demon circuit no chronic psychosomatic ill good humored medium dynamic loves parents interestedly high ability to think Difficult Case Very Difficult Case 50 hrs each item non-sonic non-visio pain shut-off emotional shut-off poor memory 2 demon circuits mild psychosomatic ills angry high dynamic named after family member dislikes one parent 100 hrs each item sonic “dub-in” visio “dub-in” medium ability to think emotional “dub-in” no memory more demon circuits severe and chronic psychosomatic ills apathetic low dynamic named after parent dislikes both parents and is propitiative to them. Prenatal area in foreign tongue low ability to think You will notice that each list has a figure at its head. Anyone can select out of this list his mental abilities and disabilities and add them up and he will get some idea how long it will take him, working with some friend, to become cleared dianetically. This is, of course, an approximation for one cannot tell how skilled the new auditor will be or how much content the individual actually has in his engram bank. To test for the above, sit down, shut your eyes and go back to any recent period in time. Listen for the things that were being said then. If you hear them but your friend says that wasn’t what was said, that’s “dub-in.” Look at a book. Then half an hour later sit down, shut your eyes and “look” at the book by going back to the time you saw it. If you see it and it’s right, that’s visio. If you don’t see it at all, that’s non-visio. If you see something that wasn’t on the page, that’s “dub-in.” Pinch yourself. A few minutes later, sit down, shut your eyes and go back to “feel” the pinch. If you can’t feel it, it’s pain shut-off. If one is always apathetic, that’s apathetic. If one is always angry, that’s angry. If one is usually good-humored, that’s good-humored. The demon circuit is any circuit that vocalizes your thoughts for you. That’s not natural. It’s an installed mechanism from engrams and it slows up thought. Sometimes people have two or more demon circuits, which is to say, they have “voices” which advise them: they talk to themselves inside their heads and answer themselves. Sometimes they have demon circuits that talk out loud at them. Demon circuits mean in any case, a rather high degree of aberration. To compute your dynamics evaluate on the basis you have desired to change or benefit one dynamic’s field or another. If you want to change yourself, that’s a fairly long One; if you get angry about sex or children, that may mean an average Two; if you are promiscuous, that is a badly blocked but a highly active Two. If you want to run clubs or change clubs or abolish clubs, that’s a high Three. If you think it’s dumb worrying about atom bombs, Dynamic Four is not only blocked; it probably is infinitely short in the first place. To get your inherent mind Class, re-examine your dynamics as listed. Then see how docile you are, or how rambunctious. Then look at the job you are filling or mean to fill. If your estimate of dynamics said you were a low dynamic, if you are docile and if you are content to be a servomechanism and work without initiative, that’s a Class B, apparent and actual. See some of the examples to compute a Class A and the level of Cleared, unless one has been operated upon and had part of his brain removed or burned out by a psychiatrist or accident, the various recalls and all data ever recorded will return to you in their entirety. In Dianetics it is possible to recover the full force of the inherent dynamics in the mind and all computational ability. Thus, if you start for clear, keep a log of your dianometry. It is a system of approximations, just as the mind evaluates and computes on approximations. But, used by a human mind, it will make sense.