Percy:   So, Red, what state dominates the power cables of international trade today?

Red:  Well, clearly, the most powerful state.  The U.S.A.

Percy:  But how do you know the U.S.A. is the most powerful state?  More importantly, as per the Incompleteness Theorem, is there a way to determine this without grammar?

Red:  Honestly?  I have no clue.  You've thrown me into the deep-end Percy.  I have never, ever contemplated meaning without grammar.  It's been drilled into me since first grade.   Go easy on the pseudo-Socratic crap.

Percy:  O.K.  Sorry...I define superpowers -- or Empires -- by their control of international trade lanes.  For example, the long-standing Anglo-American management of Persian Gulf shipping.  So based on that, how do you determine who controls a trade lane? 

Red:  Well.  Clearly if their military protects it.  The Navy's Fifth Fleet, protects the Gulf, right? 

Percy:  Yep.  The Empire's military is the hard power, which protects the commodity transportation routes -- the original long-distance communications channel between states.  I categorize this as the medium of movement.  Any soft power to go with it?  Like wealth extracted from trade?

Red:  Sure.  The U.S. dollar is the global reserve currency.  So I suppose the superpower's national currency?

Percy:  That category is the medium of money, which lubricates the trade circuits.  Anything else?

Red:  There are all kinds of international trade laws orchestrated by the U.S.  

Percy:  But how do you determine that without grammar?  Think more basic. 

Red:  Oh, right.  The language.  And the language of trade is English. 

Percy:  The medium of messages.  And there you have it.  The mediums for the movement, money and messages of commodity trade.  This is an Empire's M3 Power Supply.   Slice one of these high-voltage cables open to find the imperial signature without sentence grammar.   Here's a graphic up on the Big Screen. 

Red:  Huh.  O.K.  Perhaps explain the color coding?

Percy:  The cable sheath is orange because it's wrapped in the legal superstructure of the Empire's trade laws.  But they require sentence grammar to interpret.  So we look at the mediums, which are like the internal wires -- or conductors -- in electrical cables: the green movement, the blue message and the yellow money.  They should reveal the name of the controlling Empire.  Those mediums can, in turn, be deconstructed into smaller components.

Red:  What about other commodities, aren't they important?

Percy:  Absolutely.  The movement medium can be deconstructed into separate commodities.  But that's later.  For this maiden round we are only interested in the commodity that prices all other commodities.  The one that values the Empire’s reserve currency.  Which, of course, is the medium of money.

Red:  Does any commodity value money today?  The gold standard ended in 1971.  So the dollar is a fiat currency.  Right?  Priced against other currencies and based on...you know, the state's economy and demand for its goods and services...

Percy:  Or you can say oil prices the dollar.  It’s a base assumption for our predictive modelling.

Red:  I think many people will disagree. 

Percy:  We aren't getting into a debate.  Let’s just see what happens in the currency markets when oil is no longer the world’s most valuable commodity.  That’s a predictive cornerstone of our monitoring.  For now, do you agree we've established a non-grammatical way to identify an Empire?

Red:  Um, I guess so.  Again.  I've...I've never thought about meaning without grammar, so it may take time.

Percy:  Yep.  Not easy...onto the next tool, the Propaganda Portal, core component of the Inertial Frame of Reference. As the name implies, it opens a gateway through the Screen.  What you see now on the Big Screen contains the tool and operational steps for building one.  

Red:  Looks methodical.  You have been practicing for a while?

Percy:  Not really...the Propaganda Portal is my attempt to externalize how I instinctively filter public information.  Just like you don't think about the grammar of a sentence when reading it.  Please also bear in mind that these steps are integrated: they overlap and are mutually reinforcing.

Red:  Which is why you call this a criteria circuit?

Percy:  Yep.  A criteria circuit for choosing a viable Concept/Object pair to decode.  Criteria One is that the Concept must be a live propaganda campaign.  Meaning a binary story -- right vs wrong -- on today's Screen that is directed toward change in a law or management of the Superstructure. 

Red:  Curious word, "directed."

Percy:  Yeah.  Well there is propaganda that seeks change, and propaganda that seeks to protect against change.   That includes specific laws, or the placement of humans into positions to manage them. 

Red:  You mean elections?

Percy:  Or executive appointments.  Think of all the Supreme Court campaigns dating back to Bork and Clarence Thomas.  

Red:  Duh...But why must it be active on today's Screen?

Percy:  We need a direct reading.  And by today, I don't mean this very day.  My general rule for the U.S.A., which has very predictable elections, is any propaganda campaign within the current or previous governments.  Or four to eight years.  Another reason it must be active today is reversability.  We must emerge where we started.  Today.  The only reality we know.  

Red:  Reverse?  How?

Percy:   Retrace your steps.  If you cannot navigate back to the Screen by the path you took, you made a mistake in the dialectical process -- like an assumption that uses received knowledge or sentence grammar.  My synthesis of the concepts HyperFlow and Outside Mind, for example, is reversible. 

Red:  O.K.  I get that.  Actually.  Who am I kidding.  I understand the word, cannot see how it works.  But I do get the idea that we must connect everything to the present Screen. 

Percy:  And since this is big picture mapping, we want to go back as far as possible in history.  Find the oldest frozen particles of writing still active on today's Screen.  What do you think is the oldest?

Red:  In America?  Hmmm.  The Declaration of Independence?  No.  Oh… wait.  Some Roman laws or Greek philosophy?  No...of course.  The Bible.  At least I think it is.  It must be.  Oldest book in the world, right?

Percy:  Let’s run with the Bible and test it against the other criteria.  Like Criteria Two: the Concept must satisfy the Incompleteness Theorem.  In other words, does the Bible have broad public meaning without sentence grammar?

Red:  It is filled with meaning.  But don't all words -- by definition -- have meaning?

Percy:  Yeah.  But we are looking for concepts that describe the human causality behind events in reality.  For example, the names of wars -- which don't require complete sentences for cognition.  Crucially, these do not need to be current events.  In fact, almost all propaganda channels historical events to impact current events.  So do you agree the Bible provides causality of events without grammar?

Red:  Yeah, but people do interpret it very differently.

Percy:  Exactly!  Now Criteria Three: can the Bible be deconstructed into smaller components -- that is, more stories with human actors. 

Red:  Well, obviously it can.  The Bible is a compendium of famous stories...but why is this required?

Percy:  The GT Engine is fueled by deconstructing concepts into components -- and those components into smaller components, and so on.  Within this disaggregated set of components we look for patterns, and from them synthesize new concepts for testing. 

Red:  Oh yeah.  Of course.  The ADHD Torus took us down through Hyperfocus and up through HyperFlow to the Outside Mind...which you are now testing...

Percy:  Uh huh.  And that also touches on the recursion I've sensed within the fabric of abstract energy.  Now Criteria Four:  the dialectical frame.  Is the Concept paired with an Object in reality? 

Red:  Aren't all concepts matched with objects in reality?

Percy:  Yeah.  Well perhaps in some idealized world.  But I think you will find a lot of the state's lexicon lacks any connection to reality whatsoever.  Freedom?  Democracy?  Rights?  Security? Equality?  Justice?

Red:  Enough said...I get your point loud and clear.  So I suppose the Bible...well, does it have an Object?  It all takes place in the Middle East, so...

Percy:  Indeed.  But it wasn't called the Middle East back then. 

Red:  Well, I guess it was...oh, right.  God rested on seventh day after creating the World.  So Planet Earth.  The Concept/Object pairing is the Bible/Earth.

Percy:  Yep.  And there's a second part of this criteria, based on the Uncertainty Principle: is the Bible smaller and more precise than its paired object?

Red:  Yeah.  Well, of course.  But why does that matter?

Percy:  If a Concept directly matches the Object, you can't compare and contrast.  For example, the concept of a state matches the object of its territory.  Nowhere to go in that dialectic.   Same with my name and body. 

Red:  Percy is as Percy does!

Percy:  But compare a more precise Concept to me, lots to work with -- dialectically speaking.  Like the concepts and activities in The ADHD Torus:  ADHD, Hyperfocus, backcountry skiing, motorcycle riding, combat journalism.  And this leads to Criteria Five:  does the Concept explain the human causality of changes in the Object over time?  This is the heart of the portal and how the flat Screen aquires the depth of time.  Look at this graphic on the Big Screen.

Red:  So, yeah...more of this dimensional switching. 

​Percy:  Yep.  Propaganda campaigns are stories.  Beginning, middle, end -- with drama, tension and change.  In other words, causality.  The campaign always has a Goal: the object of change that the actors are fighting over.  And there's a clear pattern, at least in Anglo-American campaigns: that debate is tied to a past event -- or spectacle -- and hypothetical future one. 

Red:  O.K., I can definitely see that within American election propaganda.  And clearly the Bible plays into it -- among Republican Evangelicals anyway...but the Bible itself?  How? 

Percy:  Remember we look for an attempted change in the Object.  In this case Planet Earth.  Think big picture.  Does the Bible describe fundamental past and future changes in our home?

Red:  Well.  The Book of Genesis describes God’s creation of the world and...um...the Book of Revelation predicts his destruction of it.  The Apocalypse.  Hey!  Boyd's destruction and creation. 

Percy:  Exactly.  As important, we need stories with human agency.  Because propaganda is all about human causality...let's continue the deconstruction.  Do Genesis and Revelation have any famous stories that point the finger at human causality within the creation or destruction of Earth?
Red:  There's the obvious from creation.  Adam & Eve.  And the world's destroyed by...well isn't it the sins of mankind and false gods and stuff that ultimately bring about Armageddon?

Percy:  Sounds good to me.  Can we now find any Concept/Object pairings within those stories that are active on today's Screen?  Here we need to deconstruct the stories into standard dramatic components.  I have a detailed model based on the Dramatistic Pentad of literary theorist Kenneth Burke, which is covered in the next circuit.  But for perimeter mapping we can use the old journalistic standard of 5W&H.  I grabbed the info for our two stories from Wikipedia, here on the Big Screen....So, is either active in American propaganda today? 

Red:  Well, yes, one hundred and ten percent.  Armageddon.  The bulk of Trump's Cabinet claimed to believe in the prophecy of Revelation.  It permeates the Evangelical wing of the Republican Party.  This is one of the key propaganda angles I was researching.  So totally with you here...

Percy:  And are we able to create a Concept/Object dialectic from a component of the Armageddon story?

Red:  Let me see...Armageddon looks to be an actual locale.  Har Megiddo?

Percy:  Yep.  It's in the Jezreel Valley.  The small plain that separates the Galilee from the West Bank.  The general consensus is that Armageddon is the Greek translation of Har Megiddo, which means Mount Megiddo in English.  It's really just a mound, layers of human settlement at a strategic position on the western side of the Jezreel Valley.   Your tablet has a map.  So, Red, what state concept is the Jezreel Valley paired with today? 

Red:  Israel.  Obviously.

Percy:  Is Israel a symbol on the American Screen today?  Meaning, like the Bible, does it come to life in propaganda campaigns designed to impact the state's Superstructure?

Red:  Well, yeah, obviously.  See Sidebar: Israel/Palestine.

Percy:  To determine this without sentence grammar, let's see if any actors in the HQ of the Anglo-American Empire use Israel as a symbol in their domestic propaganda campaigns.  The GOP, as you noted, is the obvious choice.  Deconstruct its platform and we find the component called Israel.  A key word search of the PDF document returns eighteen hits.  

Red:  Eighteen?  I'd love to do a comparative key word search in that platform. 

Percy:  That's exactly how we do non-grammatical research Red!  By the way, did you spot the new addition to our Panel of Ellipses on the right side of this room?  The Annex.   It holds anything we leave behind in a Room after mapping.  Starting with a list of sources.  They should only be Wikipedia pages or primary sources traced from those pages.  It's absolutely crucial you leave evidence of where you found information while plotting.  Get lost?  Follow those breadcrumbs back out of the thickets.  It also enables others to double check your work.  This builds reversibility into our dialectical mapping. 

Red:  Fastidious.

Percy:  It's the only way to protect yourself from yourself -- meaning the biases of received knowledge and self-consciousness -- as well as the linear arguments of the well-read, never mind the emotional backlash of the ideologues...so on that note, search Wikipedia for the concept of Israel within the U.S. laws and we find it listed under a government program called Foreign Military Financing.  The source is the official Congressional Research Service, which states that Israel has received more such funding than any other state.  In 2020 this was $3.3 billion, approved by the House of Representatives in law H.R. 7608.  The Annex has the first page of that report.  

Red:  Huh.  I get what you just did.  So what does this tell you, Percy, non-grammatically speaking...?

Percy:  Israel.  Vassal.  Anglo-American Empire.  Do you think we can use its Jezreel Valley as the trade infrastructure anchor for plotting our initial set of coordinates in Abstract Space?

Red:  I don't know.  Is the Jezreel Valley considered trade infrastructure?  See Sidebar:  Percy's Jezreel Valley Moment

Percy:  Well, if we accept that oil is the primary resource exploited for wealth creation in the Anglo-American Empire, then we need to look for recent propaganda that includes both oil and Israel. 

Red:  But everyone knows Israel doesn't have oil.  Its near-neighbors do...

Percy:  And as recently as 2020 we can find Israel connected to White House propaganda on potential war with Iran, as well as new peace with the Persian Gulf sheikhdoms. 

Red:   But that doesn't necessarily mean Israel is directly involved in the oil game.  That it is part of oil's trade  infrastructure.

Percy:  Red.  Such ruminations are exactly what you must avoid in the GT Engine.  We are just identifying and deconstructing propaganda, and then linking it to commodity trade.  And from this perspective, Israel appears central to the Anglo-American financialization of petroleum.  Again, we can always adjust later...but for now, look on the Big Screen.  It shows a viable portal through the Screen.

Red: Is this the rabbit hole?

Percy:  A rabbit hole...and Room 5 introduces the tools for extending it into three-dimensions.

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