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Nov. 11, 2021 - Jim Fetzer
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Farther Down the Rabbit Hole (27 April 2007) with Dr. Jim Fetzer
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Hi, this is Paula Gloria, and this show is called Farther Down the Rabbit Hole.
On this show, we're going to be going farther down the rabbit hole with Dr. Jim Fetzer, who's a professor emeritus of the philosophy of science.
So thanks for joining me again.
My pleasure, Paula.
What are some of your thoughts about that last show we just did with Nita and the scientific procedure and the importance of procedure?
Because with Stephen Jones, you were always saying his methodology wasn't correct.
And the topic's so emotional, it's sort of hard to get racing horses to slow down to think, what does Jim mean?
The principles of scientific procedure are objective in the following sense, that different scientists Looking at the same range of hypotheses using the same rules of reasoning and the same evidence should arrive at all and only the same conclusions as acceptable, rejectable, or held in suspense.
Therefore, If Stephen Jones and I have differences, it must be because either we aren't looking at the same range of hypotheses, or we're using different rules of reasoning, or we're not considering the same available evidence.
And indeed, I suspect in the case of his and my divisions in relation to 9-11, that all three may be true.
Wow.
So, we also talked about the importance of freedom in order to exercise the four steps of puzzlement, hypothesis... Speculation.
Speculation, and then... Adaptation.
Adaptation, and finally... Explanation.
Explanation.
So that the explanation is thwarted when there's not freedom.
Oh, that's absolutely right.
As I was mentioning in the Wellstone case, the NTSB, was not free to consider non-accident related alternatives such as a small bomb, a gas canister, or some kind of high-tech weapon.
In fact, the research that I undertook with several collaborators indicates that the plane was taken out by hitting it with an electrical pulse that caused the switches that control the pitch of the props to go on idle, which meant the plane had no forward thrust and was destined to come down.
It was a very sophisticated technique because ordinarily You would have no evidence that that had been the case.
However, it turns out when the independent company studied the props from the crash, they discovered they were on idle, which was something they were unable to explain.
And because of a variety of circumstantial evidence, including an odd cell phone call that was taking place about the time that this occurred, Some garage doors that were reported to be opening, even though their owners hadn't opened them.
And most importantly, a melted area at the ice level in the atmosphere that was inexplicable as a meteorological phenomenon, but that would be an expectable result of the direction of an energy weapon.
Really?
Yes.
Fascinating stuff.
I had an expert in electromagnetism working on me on this aspect of the case.
We were even tromping around at the crash scene in the middle of the winter with 35
below picking up little pieces of the plane.
Now you get how many emails every day?
Couple of hundred.
And you say that you make an effort to go through them because one of them might have
something very important.
That's quite right Paula and it's a really time consuming process so this is part of
that you know devoting that effort.
I'm not looking for items that are significant enough to add to the website but trying to
make sure that I'm not overlooking something because occasionally you get a very valuable
lead from someone who just decides that they can afford to sit down and send you an email
even if they couldn't send you a letter.
Or there must be a lot of scientists, as I was saying in the earlier show, who've had to sign off on evidence that they know is false.
False.
Or make statements and they must bare their soul to you.
I am profoundly disturbed that the evidence in the case of the destruction of the Twin Towers is so blatant and so obvious that the official government account cannot possibly be true.
Tenth grade level physics enables anyone to understand this.
That every engineer in the country who's had any dealings with buildings in any way, shape, or form as a civil engineer, as a mechanical engineer, as a structural engineer, has to know that the government account is complete and utter rubbish.
And yet very few of them are speaking out.
And in part, I think that's because so many engineering firms have massive federal contracts and they worry that they're going to be Censored, ridiculed, or even fired if they speak the simple truth, even though it's in a matter of this immense magnitude.
So do some of these people approach you, maybe even anonymously?
Occasionally you get someone who's willing to address the facts.
For example, a recent addition to our research community is a fellow by the name of Charles Pagelow, who is a structural engineer who had a lot of experience with steel and fires, working on oil rigs.
And he has Concluded, quite rightly, that in fact, as he explained to me, it's physically impossible for a redundant steel structure high-rise like the Twin Towers to collapse.
The only way that could occur is if all the support columns on each floor were to simultaneously fail.
Now you're talking about 47 core columns, 240 peripheral columns, that's 287 columns that have to fail simultaneously, Paula, and there's simply no mechanism, no cause that could possibly bring that about on the government's account.
All you have ...are these jet fuel fires.
They're actually irregularly distributed.
They don't burn very hot.
Jet fuel is basically kerosene.
The highest temperature you can get with a kerosene fire, if it were force-fed, pure oxygen, is 1,800 degrees.
Well, that's 1,000 degrees below the melting point.
If you force-fed it.
Yeah, if you force-fed it.
And because of the black billowing smoke, we know those fires were actually oxygen-deprived.
They were burning much lower.
And it turns out the NIST's own study of 236 samples Showed that with only three exceptions, none of that steel was exposed to temperatures greater than 500 degrees, which means it can't possibly be the case that the steel even weakened, much less melted.
And so the NIST to try to cover itself after saying it had 368 samples explains, well, since this doesn't reflect temperatures high enough, it must be the case that they didn't look at the right sample.
It's that blatant.
It seems when you cite all these examples, the more fascinating study is not even of the evidence of the destruction of the towers, but of why people believe what they believe.
Isn't that an amazing study?
Human psychology.
Well, there's a big difference between the professionals, the experts, who know it can't be true.
In the ordinary citizen who wants to believe their government, we're encountering a psychological phenomenon that psychologists refer to as cognitive dissonance.
All of us have certain core beliefs that we hold dear, and when we're exposed to information that threatens those, we tend to suppress it or ignore it.
A perfect example is a A woman who discovers evidence that her husband has been molesting their daughter.
That can be so difficult for a woman to accept.
Right.
That she ignores it, suppresses it.
You know, they get into court, eventually is exposed, and the question is, well, why didn't you do something about it?
And the fact of the matter is, she just couldn't cope with it.
Right.
I mean, the idea... Right.
You know, sometimes we are criticized and said to be conspiracy theorists, even though the government's own account is a conspiracy theory, Paula.
Right.
A conspiracy only requires two or more individuals acting in concert to bring about an illegal end.
So if we got 19 Islamic hijackers taking control of these planes and perpetrating these deeds under control of a guy in Afghanistan, that's a conspiracy theory!
But the claim is made that we who are critics of the government's conspiracy theory find security in our theory.
And I just say, this is an absurd complaint because there's no security to be Right.
Now, along the lines of authority that people will capitulate to if an authority can be bought out or forced or coerced into a certain position that will protect somebody in power, I was very surprised in our private discussions that Noam Chomsky is not only guilty of Not coming clean about 9-11 or the Kennedy assassination, and people give his opinion great weight.
Now, I'm not your academic equal in this field, but there will be some viewers in Manhattan.
Can you give a thumbnail sketch of why you feel even his academics aren't solid?
Well, let's separate the issues.
Using methodology?
That's what I tried in the other show.
Yes, yes, yes.
Well, research by Tom Shoneman and William Wong at the University of Berkeley, a paper they tried to get published in all the major philosophy of language journals, but were rejected in every case by preconceptions in favor of Chomsky's notion of an innate syntax that's supposed to be a genetically based property of every human being, whereas they are arguing that in fact syntax isn't innate, but rather is what is known as an emergent property from semantic complexity.
In other words, if you have nouns, pronouns, verbs, adverbs, of enough varieties.
In other words, you're capable of talking about, describing, or thinking about multiple features of the world.
You need to impose some order on it so that you don't get lost, so that you can preserve coherence of thought.
That is where syntax shows up.
Syntax is a set of principles for ordering your thoughts in a systematic fashion.
They argue, and I'm quite convinced they're right, that syntax, therefore, is not the
innate property, but rather a semantical capacity to acquire linguistic habits to stand for
concepts that you derive mostly from experience.
Let me offer an illustration.
An infant discovers there's something it can roll, it can throw, it can squeeze, it can
chew on.
It's round.
They are acquiring the properties that go to form the concept of a ball.
As they get a little older, they find they've got something they can draw with, they can draw on the walls, they can draw on the floors, it comes in different colors, it comes in these little sticks, and they acquire the concept of a crayon, or perhaps chalk.
So really, the concepts required of things are all the things that you can do with those things, or that those things can do.
Now, initially, you may have no words for those concepts, and therefore, at a certain point when you inquire the linguistic habit that that sort of thing you can roll, throw, chew, and so forth, is a ball, becomes a very simple acquisition.
But it doesn't presuppose that you have an innate syntax.
It only presupposes that you can put together concepts that have multiple properties associated That's really fascinating because Dean Loren called to my attention that the NIH is the product of the eugenics movement and that Hitler and the Nazis were actually very inspired by a lot of the work that was done in this country.
So the idea of an innate genetic predisposition to speak certain language could be related to that.
And I feel that to get rid of notions of racism is essential to create the society in which we can unleash our full potential, share, use our full potential, and not to be restricted by genetic predisposition.
Just to pursue the Chomsky business a step or two more, I've always thought it was very curious that if there was this innate syntax that's supposed to be common to all human beings, regardless of what language they speak, The Chomsky had so much difficulty sorting out what it is.
He published book after book that were attempts to figure out what the innate syntax is.
It seemed to me, if there really were innate syntax, it ought to be pretty simple to figure out what it is, since everyone uses it.
Here's something else.
If we're innate syntax processing mechanism, which is his hypothesis, then syntactical operations ought to be very simple.
Well, I've spent a huge amount of time teaching logic in my life, and that's a syntactical operation.
And I tell you, it's extremely difficult to teach your students To deal purely in terms of the form of language rather than its content.
That is to say, we're not very good at doing things that, if Chomsky's theory were true, we ought to be very good at, ought to even find effortless.
Right, because it's innate.
Because it's innate on his account.
But since we find it so difficult to do, there's reason to question the adequacy of his account.
Now most of those who are, you know, enthusiastic supporters of Chomsky in relation to his work in linguistics, In my opinion, simply haven't thought this matter through.
So my third most recent book is entitled The Evolution of Intelligence.
Are humans the only animals with minds?
And I spend some time addressing the nature of mind and supporting the thesis that Chomsky and Jerry Fodor, who goes even further than Chomsky and says we not only have an innate syntax, but we also have an innate semantics.
And since it's supposed to be species-specific and genetic and inborn, it's got to be the same for all human beings, whether they're primitive, early humans, or late humans, which means, by implication, that even primitive man had to have the conceptual resources for jet propulsion, color television, polio vaccine, which, in my opinion, is simply absurd.
So I offer an explanation of why Chomsky and Fodor both appear to be barking up the wrong tree, and this extends to a man who wrote a book called The Language Instinct by the name of Steven Pinker.
Much of my work is devoted to demonstrating the hopeless inadequacy of their approach to language and the nature of mind.
Why so attached to it if you say he's written books and books and he can't find this innate syntax?
What do you think?
I gave a proposal.
Well, Chomsky acquired a certain degree of fame early on, and not a lot of linguists have paid attention to evolution.
I mean, that's the benefit of my approach.
I'm looking at evolution and how a human mind has to have evolutionary precursors in primate mind, and earlier in animal mind.
And I'm talking about the elements that are required to have a mind at all.
And if you approach this from an evolutionary perspective, you arrive at very different conclusions.
For Fodor and Chomsky, I mean, it's as though, you know, the human mind just sort of appeared full-blown, fully equipped with syntax and semantics, which, frankly, is a ridiculous approach, once one understands the nature of evolution.
Now, the nature of evolution, as it relates to language, probably relates to how successful we are as a species, how we can communicate among each other.
Well, it certainly has something to do with it, because there are different Ways in which we can think in terms of different kinds of signs, the lowest level have to do with signs that look like or smell like or taste like what they stand for, which is a very primitive kind of mentality.
Then there's the use of mentality of using signs or things that are causes or effects of what they stand for, which is a higher level mentality.
The highest level mentality involves, of these three, involves using signs that are merely habitually associated with what they stand for.
Words like chair or desk or table, see?
Now, once you get to that level of habitual association, you can start constructing models of the world that are independent of your circumstances and context, and you can start really creating a way of thinking about the world that is not context-dependent, that is a very important benefit from a symbolic level of thought.
What about today with the 9-11 truth, where it is, how can we use models beyond what we're seeing around us?
Well, let's talk about Chomsky one step further, because Chomsky has earned this niche of being a public intellectual and by far the most influential.
And he is in the vast intermediate range of problems, you know, government, manufacturing consent, you know, all the ways in which the government abuses its power.
He's very good for the vast intermediate range, but when it comes to the profound issues like JFK, Or 9-11.
He fails miserably.
Let me offer an illustration in the book I co-authored with Don Foreros-Jacobs.
This is a Native American scholar from Northern Arizona University.
Excuse me, before you go into that, do you think that his fundamental philosophy fails miserably?
Because you were talking about not being able to find this innate syntax.
Oh, sure.
Is there a relationship?
Didn't Bertrand Russell say, if the society's connected, if your philosophy fails, so does your plumbing?
Well, there's a more adequate account of the nature of mind and the emergence of language than Chomsky's and Fodor's account, which is elaborated in The Evolution of Intelligence.
So the fact is, there is an account that can cover a broader range of evidence and incorporates an evolutionary perspective and can not only account for mentality and language in the human species, but its precursors in
the mountain gorilla, for example, and other primate species and other animal species, all the
way down the evolutionary slope to the lowest forms of life. I mean, it's fascinating
stuff.
You need this.
It's fascinating stuff, Paul. Now, see, Chomsky has this niche in society. But when it comes
to, say, JFK, Chomsky says, even if there was a conspiracy involved in the death of
JFK, he can't see any policy, significant policy issues that were related to it.
Well, frankly, this is absurd.
JFK was pulling our forces out of Vietnam.
He wasn't invading Cuba.
He was going to cut the oil depletion allowance.
He was going to abolish the CIA.
He was going to get rid of the Federal Reserve.
He'd already obstructed the Treasury to print United States notes.
He was signing the above-ground treaty with the Soviet Union.
These are all reasons, by the way, that affected different groups that came together to take out JFK.
Yeah.
The problem with JFK is he thought he was president.
He thought he was president.
Now, for Chomsky to be or feign a lack of awareness of all these policy issues, to me, is shocking and utterly irresponsible.
So that I devote several pages in American Assassination, the Strange Death of Senator Paul Wellstone, to talking about Chomsky in this regard.
And I can only tell you, based upon my research in 9-11, that Chomsky is feigning indifference, as though it weren't important, is another indication that something is terribly, terribly wrong here.
Because there are very, very important issues.
I mean, we had all these wars launched on the basis of 9-11.
We've had a restriction of our civil rights.
We had the passage of the Patriot Act.
We had this Military Commissions Act.
The whole country is under a massive surveillance.
This is the greatest assault To our freedom and liberty in the United States, in this nation's history, and it is all derivative from and justified on the basis of 9-11, and Noam Chomsky doesn't see it?
I tell you, Paula, I'm very acutely disappointed with Noam Chomsky, and I think the vast majority of Americans have to come to a point of recognizing He is not the end-all and the be-all, and there are truths that he is blind to and is unwilling to acknowledge.
I think even that might be being charitable, if you're talking about these people in Berkeley who couldn't get a paper published.
Well, that's a matter of followers, you know, the fact that the Chomskyian paradigm, this idea of innate syntax, is so deeply rooted.
That a paper that's a brilliant exposure.
I'll tell you, this was one of the... A society can't advance.
That's what I'm saying.
Well, here's what happened, Paula.
I founded an international journal by the name of Minds and Machines.
I put together what many suggest was the best editorial board they'd ever seen.
And I think that's the key to a journal.
When I discovered Tom Shoneman's work, I said, Tom, I want to publish this.
But he was concerned that it might appear to be more beneficial for his career and so forth than it appeared in one of the...
The older journals that deal with philosophy of language or linguistic issues or syntax and so forth.
And he tried journal after journal after journal, and none of them would accept it.
And I said, Tom, I want it!
And I published it, and it was one of two or three journals over a ten-year period when I was editing that publication that I'm most proud of having published.
Oh, it's a landmark paper and will eventually be recognized as such.
Well, you know, that's a good example of instead of complaining how things are, go ahead and keep following your heart and creating your own journal and get your group together.
Something rather interesting about having founded a journal entitled Minds and Machines is that I am among the foremost critics of the idea that minds are machines.
I actually deduce all the reasons why.
Minds actually aren't adequately represented as machines, and therefore it's ironic I was in that position, but of course you don't use your own beliefs to determine what papers appear.
Most of the papers that appeared in the journal were consistent with the so-called computational paradigm.
Which presumes that minds are like computers in certain fundamental respects.
You know, I think you're really poised to be a great bridge.
Having watched you and the studios in Brooklyn with other people, you have a capacity, and Webster Tarpley does also.
I think Webster was one of the first individuals I met who allowed me to get a really deep insight into the history of phenomenon.
You come more from the science.
But that we really need each member of our society to participate in our society to bring its full potential.
Now some of us may have PhDs and some of us may not even have finished high school and yet each person's perspective is extraordinarily valuable and to develop good nutrition, good health so that they can participate fully is important.
And I'm thinking That we were speculating on some shows before that those who have obstructed evidence start to have to lie and lie even more.
They get bigger and bigger because the fear escalates.
But if they know that along with understanding what really happened, we're also preparing the ground for forgiveness or for including them too, then maybe we can start to see a great meeting of the mind.
Well, those are all inspirational thoughts, Paula.
I would just say that this administration is a genius at the politics of distraction.
George Bush initially didn't want there to be any investigation in 9-11 at all.
Can you imagine?
Here's one of the great atrocities in the history of our nation and he didn't even want an investigation when eventually it was forced upon him by the political pressure from the survivors, families of the survivors, you know.
That he then ensured that a man from the inner sanctum of the Bush administration was in charge.
Initially, he proposed Henry Kissinger.
Kissinger was unwilling to reveal all of his financial entanglements, but he would have been a terrible, you know, executive director unless you want to conceal information rather than reveal it.
He wound up with Philip Zelikow as the executive director.
Zelikow ran the whole operation with an iron hand.
He came from the inner sanctum of the Bush administration.
He'd overseen the transition in the national security apparatus from Bill Clinton to George W. Bush.
He'd co-authored a book with Condoleezza Rice.
And get this, Paula, because it's so astonishing, given our discovery, that essentially nothing the government has told us about 9-11 is true.
Philip Zelikow is not an historian, and he is not a scientist.
What he is is an expert in the creation and manipulation of political myths.
Right.
And that's what he gave us, Paula, a political myth.
Right, right.
Perfectly positioned to do that.
How many academics like you understand this?
Not like you coming out, because I know you give huge amounts of time and energy and focus.
Well, Scholars has around 300 members, and we have over 100 with academic affiliations, but there are now new lists you can find.
For example, if you go to 911scholars.org, which is the website for Scholars for 9-11 Truths, The Society that I founded in December of 2005.
You can see three lists there of government and military officials who believe that the government was involved.
You can see a list of what must now be 140 faculty who take exception to the government's account.
So this is becoming a larger and growing movement as more and more people are confronting the evidence and overcoming that tendency to resist what the evidence tells us.
Exercising reason rather than being affected by their psychology of fear.
Are there academics or experts in grief work stepping forward that you also have to deal with a mass psychological shock?
Paula, that's an unexplored aspect of this, but I think it's valuable you put your finger on it.
I'd love to find those who would like to deal with the sociology and psychology of trauma.
This is a form of stress that's been imposed on the people, basically, Paula.
Our research shows that the American government has been using acts of violence and threats of acts of violence to instill fear into the American people to manipulate us to achieve its political purposes.
That turns out to be The classic definition of terrorism, which means that if our research is well founded, and I'm here to tell you that it is, then the American government has been practicing terrorism on the American people.
Right, right.
So as a process of healing, it's like Michael Elner says, he grows more and more convinced that you cannot deceive healthy people.
So you need help in good nutrition, exercise, nice company, beautiful music, painting, expose yourself to those elements which balance you.
And a little dose of logic and critical thinking.
Of course, a lot of dose of logic and critical thinking.
We have two minutes.
Do you have a favorite way you might want to end this discussion?
Well, I just would like to encourage Americans to find out what's going on in their world.
There are two new books I particularly recommend.
One has just appeared that I had the privilege of editing, where I brought together contributions from eleven different scholars, including
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