In The News
Thomas Edison - Intelligence Tests and Theories
(PD) James Tissot - Going to Business - In The News
Copyright ©2021 - June 11, 2021
In recent weeks the news media has made a lot of sensationalized and hysterical fake news about alleged historical events. (In a Mark Twain slant of tone, and not fully in jest, why do the words hysterical and historical sound so similar? If 'history' implies 'his story', then does not 'heresy' imply 'her say'? And what about 'hearsay' implying the Chinese Whispers inability to accurately 'hear and say' what is heard? If a newspaper reporter is a male who repeats what someone else has said, then must not his story be hear-say, and if the newspaper reporter is a female, then must not her say be hear-say?)
Nevertheless, as always, no two news reports agree with the other, always do news reports change their alleged 'facts' from day to day, and always do the news reports exaggerate and purposefully lie for profit. A new dictionary definition for the word journalism: 'a fiction author's day job of writing fictional stories about current events'.
Out of curiosity, I spent a couple days reading old newspapers to help give me a basic background knowledge of what might have actually happened a hundred years ago. As expected, the news reports of a hundred years ago did not agree with each other either, but at least I was able to glean a general idea of the circumstances surrounding the alleged 'historical events'.
While investigating the topics related to the fake modern news stories, I came across several reports about Thomas Edison, which was the only good topic that I saw in the newspapers. The following are a few interesting tidbits about Edison.
(PD) Tulsa Daily World, February 9, 1921 - Thomas Edison
From Tulsa Daily World, February 9, 1921:
"What is education?" I asked him.
Edison had no regular schooling to speak of and has attained by methods all his own the vast store of varied knowledge through which he has worked his marvels.
The main essential" Edison answered, "is to have teachers who can explain the reason for and working of things by analogy with things which the scholar already is familiar with, instead of words of which the scholar does not know the meaning."
Personality to the Front
Personality he puts to the fore here, as in all else.
"To have teachers who can—" is the heart of the answer. His own achievements have been dependent not only upon his own intelligence and methods but upon apt co-operation of his associates and employees, of whom in his various industries there are now about a million, many thousands of whom are highly trained; and any good method is futile without good personality to work it.
"Right education would train children to right tendencies"...
Edison appears to have been an excellent example of how the act of self-thinking is of far more usefulness than the act of memorizing unknown words in schools.
(PD) Tulsa Daily World, February 9, 1921 - Thomas Edison Time Saving Device
"The accompanying interview was obtained under remarkable circumstances. Mr Edison was located at his laboratory. He was so busily engaged that he felt he could not give the correspondent the time necessary to an extended discussion. With typical ingenuity he solved the problem by demanding that the newspaper man write questions, which he, Mr. Edison, would answer by the same means. It was an Edison time-saving invention."
Time saving, or ensuring that the reporter would not 'his story — hear say — her say' misquote Edison?
Today, email has become a business necessity because far too many people say one thing one day, and then a few days later claim they said something different. I had several customers make crazy claims, but when I forwarded their old emails back to them that had the previous discussion in writing, the customers then shut-up.
Perhaps Edison's core intention was to politely keep the reporter honest.
From the same newspaper:
[Edison speaking] "If my theory is correct—that the machine called man is only a mass of dead matter and that the real life is in the millions of individual units which navigate this machine, and if on the destruction of the machine these individual units keep together, including those which have charge of memory (which is our personality)—then I think it is possible to devise apparatus to receive communications, if they desire to make them. It will be very difficult, as each individual as to size is beyond the limit of our present microscopes.
It would be a lot of fun if it were possible to discuss with Edison the details of his hypothesis. I have had a parallel question all of my life: if one cell retains an "I" self-awareness, then might all cells that duplicate from the one similarly retain their own "I" self-awareness? Big questions of small things, with infinitesimally tiny answers.
Useful for contrasts are the 'academic scientific' responses to Edison's muse:
HARVARD PROFESSOR SCOUTS EDISON'S THEORY
Cambridge, Mass., Feb, 8.— Thomas A. Edison's theory of communication with the dead was scouted at the psychological laboratory at Harvard university today. Professor F.H. Allportt, who was in charge said the present theory is that mind controls the behavior of the entire organism and is not controlled by millions of physical units as suggested by Edison. Even admitting there are millions of such units these would not have a mind with which to communicate he argued.
RATHER FANTASTICAL SAYS GEO M. STRATTON
Berkeley, Cal., Feb. 8.— Professor George M. Stratton head of the department of psychology of the University of California regards as "rather fantastical" the belief of Thomas Edison that a machine can be constructed to receive communications from the dead.
"While I am free to admit" said Professor Statton, "that we know so little about the subject that no one can say what is the limit of possibilities in that direction yet, I am inclined to regard as rather fantastical the theory that a machine may be made to carry on communication with the dead."
Science today does not know anything whatsoever about the mind, and neither did Allportt and Stratton. Harvard University employee Allportt's claim of "mind controls the behavior of the entire organism and is not controlled by millions of physical units" is outright false while it also denies the science of physics. Harvard's and Allportt's 'psychology' was philosophical psychology, of inventing wildly crazy mumbo-jumbo that does not relate to what is real in the real world.
The "communicate" and "communication" spoken of by Allportt and Stratton are nonsensical words. In keeping with its ignorance of all other things related to life, no science today so much as knows what "communication" is. It makes me want to scream the word PHYSICS, but, of course, psychology has no clue of what physics might be either.
I want to rant verbosely on this topic, verbose verbosity, endless verbosities of verbosities, but, no, if Sciencians were given the information, then it would be one less scale to laugh at and to rant at the extremus stupiditas of Sciencians'. Give me one minute, only one minute, and I can absolutely prove over 90% of all science and psychology to be primitive primate voodoo, but, since Sciencians claim of themselves to only be conscious about 10% of the time, then I would only have maybe about six seconds to exhibit the proof, and already the Sciencians would have forgotten what happened the first second.
Since the time of Allportt and Stratton, science has 'discovered' DNA, which all by its lonesome proves Allportt's and Stratton's Sciencism to have been false. Science has always been wrong, always, and always will science always be proven to be wrong. Neither Allportt, Stratton, Harvard, nor the University of California are worthy voices within any topic related to the mind and body. Allportt and Stratton were mere witch hunters, their falsely accusing anyone who did not kowtow to the men's hear-say, her-say, and his-story.
John Wheeler speculated on his "self-excited circuit", and numerous modern experiments have proven that the future does influence and 'communicate with' the past, the very same future that is not 'alive', and the very same past that is 'dead'. Communication between future and past, as well as between past and future, already exists. Edison's brief comments on the topic are inconclusive, but sufficient enough to pique interest of what his analyses might have been.
And, even the very "primitive" (as Jung wrongly accused) ancient Chinese knew that Allportt's comments were hogwash. Even little children today with functional minds know that Allportt's 'science' was his-story and her-say.
(PD) Tulsa Daily World, May 6, 1921 - Thomas Edison Intelligence Test
Edison Has Own Tests for Men About to Enter His Employment
"Thomas A. Edison, noted inventor, has a way all his own to solve the labor problem and keep his plant efficient, he revealed today. He does it by making intelligence tests of all his employees and applications for work under a questionnaire he himself devised.
"I read all the answers and mark the papers," he said. "The results of the tests are surprisingly disappointing. Men who have gone through college I find to be amazingly ignorant."
"They don't seem to know anything.
"This man went through college but I have marked his paper XYZ the lowest possible. The connection between that man's sense and his mind has become atrophied.
"When I find anyone has failed to come up to the standard I have set I give him a week's pay and fire him.
"You can take a man of 22 [ineligible] or so and if he is intelligent, he can do anything. When I engage a worker I keep a watch on him. They usually start slow but if ability is shown, the rise is rapid.
"Most employers don't know the possibilities of their workers as they fail to keep in touch with them.
"I expect to continue to attend personally to the employment of some of my workers."
Some of the dumbest people I have ever met were from Oklahoma, but the smartest man I have ever met was also from Oklahoma, and he only had a 6th grade education (the great depression era's forcing of children to work their farms instead of going to school, had a silver lining). There was nothing electrical or mechanical that he could not repair, modify, and improve. He had good commonsense, and he was able to extrapolate thoughts, as well as to continuously cross-light thoughts. At one time I had doubled the gasoline mileage of my car by making two small modifications, but the man from Oklahoma had tinkered further on his car, and he was getting over 40 miles per gallon on a V8 sedan that normally would have only gotten around 10 mpg.
A college degree does not infer intelligence nor competency. MIT graduates who cannot make light with a battery, wire, and bulb; Harvard graduates who cannot pass a 5th grade literacy test; known college graduates of advanced computer software classes who cannot copy nor rename a file; Allportt and Stratton who were intensely ignorant of their own occupations; the list is endless.
Edison did right by demanding intelligence tests. Car makers and governments do wrong by prohibiting high-mileage automobiles. If the government and the public truly were concerned of 'global warming', then we would be permitted to have cars that get 60 to 70 miles per gallon or more, which would be more energy efficient and less polluting than electric cars. The government and public are fully silent.
Although the newspapers painted an intellectual wasteland of 1921 Oklahoma, there were a few shining lights during that era: the reports of Edison, and the known smart man, who, incidentally, delivered newspapers at about the age of five or six during 1929-1930, at which time he was also given his first suit. The suit was given to him by Pretty Boy Floyd. Good and bad exists within all eras of man, with the good and bad often occurring side by side in people's lives.
(PD) The Daily Ardmoreite, May 16, 1921 - Gentleman's Agreement
Terms of Payment - A gentleman's agreement can be made by any man or woman who loves music.
Perhaps the one thing that has most changed in the past 100 years is the loss of gentlemen's agreements. Up to the 1980s it was still common for a business contract to be made with a promise and a handshake. By the 1990s it was no longer possible, and now today, most everything must be in print along with signatures and be notarized.
In every epoch of man, there will always be a lot of evil people, and a lot of dumb people, along with a few bright individuals. Within it all will always be the news media's his-story, her-say, and hear-say.