Proverbial Knowledge: Clinical Wisdom in the Art of Living as a 'Patient of One'

An epistemocrat is a 'Patient of One' clinician in the practice of 'n=1' philosophy, in the bricolage (and meritage) of self-experiments (clinical trials) with lifestyle design and 'm=1' my-thology.

It's ancestral, proverbial knowledge in the clinical practice of leading lives (not careers): taking general (meta) rules--like the Golden Rule (see Karen Armstrong's Charter of Compassion, for instance)--and applying them to specific situations, under unique circumstances, in the face of uncertain novelty.

It's an evolving cloud of sayings, slogans, mantras, etc. that embed hard-learned wisdom in the practice of living:

• Primum, non nocere
• Don't just do something, stand there
• Nullius in Verba
• Physician, heal thyself
• Epoche

And the list goes on.

The art of applying these insights is what real-world experience is all about. Capturing feedback from these (often stochastic) tinkering efforts requires a reference frame. Epistemocrats elect for a deductivist decision-making framework (thanks to Dave Lull), choosing to approach trial-and-error from the falsification perspective. The inherent asymmetry of uncertainty in this world creates a situation where we know what is bad for us much more clearly than we know what is good for us; hence the reason for defaulting to negative empiricism as the epistemocratic modus operandi for balancing searching and acting each and every day.

Yet the reality remains that, in light of the Black Swan thesis, there are no universal facts; there are only yet-to-be-falsified components of the working stories (working drafts) that we tell ourselves--our personal narratives--to make sense of, filter information in, and operate within this ever-increasingly complex and recursive world that we call human ecology. In fact, one of Karl Popper's most far-reaching gems of proverbial knowledge suggests this much: "In point of fact, no conclusive disproof of a theory can ever be produced." Ergo, we live by fiction.

Here's where Dave Lull's sage clinical wisdom steps in: "In order to avoid Platonicity, you're skeptical of even the notions of 'human nature' you make (careful, tentative) use of."

And this is where I suspect Nassim Taleb would default to epoche: suspend belief in the existence of the notions of 'human nature' on one hand, but then, simultaneously, search through falsification-spirited tinkering (Barbell diversified, of course) as if such realities could/do exist.

You hedge your bets that way--and you overcome the justificationist addiction along the way.

It's like my mentor Fr. McCurdy (a Jesuit priest) used to say: "I don't need to know whether God, truth, and love exist--following them helps me lead a fulfilling life either way."

Why? Because in doing so, we perform well in our local clinical settings: the proverbial knowledge we glean from these ancestrally-derived concepts informs, molds, and supports our efforts to be bricoleurs in the art of living.

As Dave Lull likes to say:

"In speaking like the virtuous--in telling a virtuous, a true, story--though we aren't really virtuous, whether knowingly and thus hypocritically or unknowingly--aren't we--especially if this homage to virtue is performed repeatedly--opening ourselves up to the influence of virtue through the power that stories can have over us?"

It's like the Ancestral Fitness Epistemocracy (AFE) emerging from the bottom up in the Blogosphere: it's a community of tinkerers in 'n=1' philosophy, lead by individuals writing, reflecting, questioning, speaking, and cross-communicating in hopes of "opening [Patients of One] up to the influence of virtue [in all things 'health affairs'] through the power that stories can have over us."

It takes a diamond to cut a diamond; a narrative to displace a narrative.

We need healthier narratives to displace falsified ones.

We're crafting dynamic 'story systems' in the AFE that help us survive and thrive.

But we must first open our hearts and minds.

Keep an open mind.

Because Dr. Jerome Groopman always reminds: "While knowledge and understanding are necessary for wisdom, they are not sufficient" (hat tip to Dave Lull).