In Episode 2 of "Escape from Caloriegate," I go completely off the rails and introduce an idea that I believe may be my greatest legacy to humanity -- a grandiose but hopefully compelling concept called "The Tensor." This represents the beginning of an attempt to place Caloriegate into some kind of context, so we can understand its larger repercussions and possibly learn more than simple lessons like "most people likely need to watch their carbs more."



What do you think? Have I totally lost it? Have I gone off the grid?

•    “No one can be told what the tensor is… you have to see it for yourself”
•    The Tensor is a framework to describe the pathology that’s infected science that has allowed Caloriegate and similar events to occur
•    In the movie, The Matrix, Keanu Reeves's character, Neo, awakens to a different reality than the one he knew
•    Like Neo, we’re all stuck in "false realties" in certain areas of our lives
•    Shifting your perspective changes your reality - the Buddha knew it!
•    Perspective shifts come in all sizes - tiny, big, life-changing
•    Shifting from "calories count" to "carbs count" = massive shift
•    We're not stuck in just one Matrix, in the Keanu Reeves' sense
•    We and all our institutions are all trapped in a multitude of diverse false belief systems - like a multidimensional "Matrix"
•    Mathematicians call a multidimensional matrix a "Tensor"
•    Escape from "calories count" = escape from The Matrix
•    Escape from all the diverse false beliefs that hold us back = escape from The Tensor
•    Caloriegate taken in a vacuum makes no sense
•    Some profound pathology must be at work in multiple disciplines of science
•    How can The Tensor concept help us?
•    Caloriegate cannot be an anomaly - but what are the other ideas like it? My suppositions…
•    Judith Rich Harris’ assault on a proposition called the Nurture Assumption
•    I kick the hornet's nest of anthropogenic global warming
•    the Shakespeare authorship question
•    the problems with string theory in physics - critics say theory is "not even wrong"
•    If The Tensor exists, how do we tell quackery apart from legit insights?
•    The Tensor is way, way, way more radical than assault on calories-in-calories-out
•    I’m saying CICO debacle is just a small manifestation of a much larger, diversely embedded problem preventing us from understanding the truth about nature
•    I'm not saying I have all the answers!
•    Nor am I saying "all counterintuitive ideas are right"!
•    But something "rhymes" about all these debacles in science and beyond
•    These are not just errors like "forgot to carry the two"
•    Can there be a general study of The Tensor?
•    Debacles could be different instantiations of a much bigger and encompassing phenomenon
•    Tale of the Blind Men and the Elephant: there's an 'elephant' we're all missing
•    Calories vs. carbs is its tusk
•    Global warming debate is its trunk
•    The debate over string theory in physics is its leg
•    The whole elephant is The Tensor
•    Saved the most radical portion of the show for last
•    I'm a fan of a genius physicist named Stephen Wolfram, author of book A New Kind of Science
•    Wolfram's ideas may hold beginning of solution to The Tensor
•    Wolfram's "4 Classes" catalogue all complexity in nature
•    Class 1 = homogenous states (simple systems)
•    Class 2 = simple-stable states (structures change but ultimately stay simple)
•    Class 3 = chaos, with no real patterns
•    Class 4 = dynamic interplay between order and chaos (Structures propagate within a chaotic environment, like The Game of Life from comp science)
•    Per Wolfram, scientists and mathematicians have all been making a big error
•    Traditional science concerns finding reproducible patterns in nature: repeatability!
•    But this thinking confines us to Class 1 and Class 2 problems - very hard to use science/math to "tackle" Class 3 and Class 4 problems
•    Science is the search for regularity in nature, but nature ain't always regular!
•    We shoehorn problems that are really Class 3 or Class 4 into Class 2 problems
•    We smash square pegs into round holes and then throw a proverbial tantrum when our toys break
•    The quest for "truth about diets" is hampered b/c we're often dealing with Class 3 or Class 4 questions.
•    Our reaction to the frustrating complexity is to come up with simplifying "rules of thumb" like count calories or count carbs
•    Look, I'm a BIG fan of science - not saying abandon science for astrology or anything!
•    But when we look at the mess we find ourselves with respect to diet, obesity, etc, we think better science holds the key.
•    It might, but there is this other element that’s working in the background that makes our situation far more difficult -- and ALSO far more interesting