Mona's Sugar Arts a branch of sugar-based creations and technologies for feeding the imagination.
Topics an assortment of current technologies being investigated by the author
Technologists A discussion of technologists and what constitutes a successful technology
Picking Assumptions A discussion of how people pick the assumptions on which they build their entire belief structure
All technologies start out with an imaginative vision, however small and insignificant seeming. This can vary from picking up a stone and imagining its use as a tool, to a description of how men may fly or live and travel underwater. The key is the question "What if ..." and someone starting to look for the way to put the idea to use.
Families, societies or cultures that say "That's the way it is, don't question it!" stagnate. Groups who insist that being different or thinking differently is not to be allowed doom themselves to the "eddy currents of technology". Stopping imaginations stops innovation and exploration.
There are those who claim that "imagination gone wild" is a bad thing. The solution is not to stop imagination, but train people how to channel its energies into useful creativity. It doesn't take much to teach children at an early age to understand the difference between constructive and destructive concepts and goals. Also, never imagining the destructive concepts prevents the individual from finding ways to prepare for and avoid potential destructive events and destructive actions by others.
It is important to note that all logic is based in assumptions, and where our logic leads us is totally dependent on what assumptions we commit to. We choose which assumptions to accept and which to reject for totally emotional reasons, whether the reason is that it makes us feel good, it will irritate someone we are at odds with, or it makes our mathematical construct more capable and is consistent with our other assumptions.
All of our assumptions are based on our interpretation of observations, including our choice to take on the assumptions of others. Others may disagree on how to interpret those same observations so disagreement is inevitable among thinking people. Some will say, as Ayn Rand did, "There are no contradictions, so if you find a contradiction question your assumptions." while others will say "Life is nothing but contradictions, learn to live with it." These differences in assumptions lead to conflicting opinions and expectations. When lives and well-being depend on the outcomes of choices made based on our assumptions violent conflict can occur.
Pick your assumptions well, because all your society, logical conclusions, faith, and future technologies depend on those choices.
Those assumptions that promote open exploration of new ideas should be generally encouraged, but tempered with a bit of realization which ideas are constructive and which are destructive.
A common pitfall is the classification of many "unpopular" areas of investigation, such as alternatives to relativity and quantum theory, parapsychology, and predictive social sciences are made out to be "destructive" by the disciples who call them "pseudoscience". Other realms of possible investigation are also commonly branded with such a stigma to prevent serious investigation into these alternatives. Of course, the proclamations are based on emotional arguments and denials of well-documented observations, and there are those who truly are charlatans claiming expertise in the "verboten ideas" that they can point to when attempting to discredit each entire field of investigation.
Many of these "verboten ideas" have not been adequately compared to the current culturally accepted theories to be able to rule their practical consideration as useless. If instead of emotionally arguing one side or the other our collective imaginations should devise ways to either demonstrate the desired concepts or show that they are conclusively wrong or ineffective.
This is a site's author hopes to reveal areas of "verboten ideas" and present them in ways that make them practical for reconsideration. Some of these areas are relegated by the "priests of all knowledge" to be pseudoscience, to only be ridiculed because they violate the rules of acceptability, even though the arguments against them often violate those same rules. Instead of applying the very rules of scientific inquiry the priests invoke the gods of ridicule and belittlement to divert the attention of those without strong conviction from their forbidden paths of knowledge.