CONCLUSIONS
The common approach to a book or paper on the subject of the World Trade Center collapses is to assume a level of certainty to which the claimant does not have access in reality. Premature efforts along such lines are sure to end in failure, since claims are made without the claimant having a comprehensive understanding of what they are looking at. What the author has found from experience is that almost nobody he had observed had a real understanding of what they were looking at when observing each of the 3 WTC collapses, including the author himself.
Over time the author has watched people of all levels of technical skill make incorrect claims, sometimes quite blatantly, about global attributes of each collapse. There can be no doubt that those with PhDs and higher levels of technical education have made some bone-headed blunders, often in a state of fixed certainty.
In retrospect, the single biggest obstacle for many participants within such discussions, including mathematicians, physicists, chemists, engineers, computer programmers and journalists, was their own head-strong vanity which led to premature states of false certainty. The evidence for this is everywhere one looks within years of recorded posting histories, published papers and articles written about the collapses. It became quite obvious that the less humility and caution one has when approaching these issues, the more certain that individual was to state blatantly untrue information and defend it to the point of absurdity.
This pattern still continues today. It will probably never end with respect to these events. But while observing the contradictions and confusion, the author began to understand why this is the case. As a result the book attempts to not blame people for being so confused, or rather blame some for their extreme stubbornness but not for their confusion.
The author came to understand that each individual was left to guess on their own as they had no common pool of technical information from which to draw understanding. This is because the public was never given an intelligible description of what they were looking at. This is the fundamental starting point from which one can begin to understand the buildings being observed as well as the reactions of those observing them.
Now, there is a way out of this predicament, and the information needed to escape this trap, the author believes, is given in parts 1 and 2 of the book. First and foremost it is necessary to recognize the confusion surrounding the collapses which exists on all technical levels. For many people this is very hard to do. Many will not recognize this within themselves, but perhaps they can recognize it in others as it is quite visible if one makes the effort to see it.
The 3 collapsed buildings are physical systems. The purpose of the first half of part 1 in the book is simply to point out that observations and measurements are the anchors around which the physical sciences are based and physical systems are studied, and physics is used as an appropriate example to demonstrate this.
A key Achilles heel in study and discussion of these subjects over the last decade can be spotted simply by observing the different attitudes people have toward collections of observations and measurements. If one does that, it can be seen the subtle ways many people have reverted to the study of physical systems by using their feelings or simply by believing what authority figures tell them.
A second key Achilles heel is this; when observations and measurements are discussed, each observation is treated as a separate fragment. There is rarely any effort to put these separate fragments of knowledge together to gain a wholistic understand of what one is observing. This is how many technical discussions and published papers and reports seem to be constructed. They are broken up into small, highly idealized component parts. People substitute the highly divided, fragmented ideas for the highly complex objects under study without making the effort to see how each element fits into a larger whole.
In this book the author assembles the most comprehensive and detailed mappings of each collapse event available to the public. It is highly illuminating to observe how many people have responded to such efforts.
A BRIEF OVERVIEW OF THE BOOK
A review of the subjects covered and the order in which they were presented:
Part 1 introduces a general overview of science, physics and mechanism. In part 1, science vs subjective viewpoints, the author gathered some basic information which is useful to help distinguish what we generally call "science" from personal views or beliefs.
Part 2 introduces accurate, detailed and comprehensive visual mappings of the collapses as witnessed.
Part 3 introduces contradiction between the direct visual record and claims made by various official and non-official sources. Part 3 introduces contradiction between what is verifiable within the visual record and what appears in the written records over a period of one decade after the collapses.
Part 5 re-evaluates the controversial question of demolition, but this time through the lens of accurate, detailed and comprehensive visual mappings. In part 5 the author uses the lens of the most accurate visual reconstructions of each collapse developed in part 2 to approach the subject of demolition. Needless to say, without a verifiably accurate and comprehensive lens through which to view, there is no way to approach the taboo and controversial subject of demolition in a remotely informed way.
Part 6 demonstrates the extreme confusion which invariably results from the current vacuum of accurate, verifiable information on all social levels, from technical journals to news message boards.
THE UNDERLYING THESIS OF THIS BOOK
This being said, The stated thesis of the book is reviewed.
THESIS STATED
There is no fact-based technical account of the World Trade Center collapses. This is verifiably true beyond doubt. The true collapse modes of the Twin Towers are not accurately determined within any academic, professional or government literature.
Direct measurements and observations extracted from the visual record of the collapses grossly contradict descriptions of the WTC collapses as they are generally presented through government reports, professional publications and journalistic sources.
David Bohm, from part 1 of the book:
"A theory is to make you understand what is going on, to make it (the process under study) intelligible."2
(0:59, part 4 of interview)
Recall a portion of Albert Einstein's introduction to his book "Relativity; A simple explanation that anybody can understand", quoted in the introduction of this book:
The author has spared himself no pains in the endeavour to present the main ideas in the simplest and most intelligible form...3
This book demonstrates that the public was never offered a coherent, intelligible explanation for the World Trade Center building collapses.
The events of 9/11 present a unique opportunity to catch a glimpse of science being applied to a complex physical and highly charged political event. A considerable portion of the collapse events were captured on video, which allows independent fact-checking of verifiable claims.
From these quotes and the stated thesis, it is the author's hope that the reader can understand in no uncertain terms, why, underneath the artificial crust of false certainty presented by many figures of technical authority, so many people remain confused and will always remain confused about the collapses witnessed on 9-11-01.
There are two core underlying claims within this book:
1) There is no accurate technical collapse history for any of the 3 WTC towers (demonstrated in parts 2 and 3).
2) Questions and concerns about the technical aspects of the collapses of the WTC towers appear only in the form of artificially narrow false choices. Neither choice represents the collapse modes of the towers in a realistic way that is consistent with the visual record (demonstrated in parts 6 and 7).
In short, the collapse histories in the form they currently exist are false, and resulting dialog surrounding the controversial question of demolition structured around these false collapse histories is false, too.
These 2 points are inter-related on a fundamental level, since without an accurate technical history, any debate about demolition is guaranteed to resemble a type of simplified cartoon. This is why after more than a decade, there is no accurate and consistent set of descriptions of the collapse modes of the 3 largest structural failures in memory within government, academic or professional literature.
The "peer review" process has failed with respect to the WTC collapses. The technical histories of the WTC collapses mark a breakdown in the basic process of review and fact-checking. The two core underlying claims demonstrate a collapse in the process of academic and professional constructive feedback. Even though the collapse histories as written are little more than cartoon representations, few people seemed to notice or check facts directly from the visual record of events. A loose parallel with the Milgram experiments cited in part 1 can be seen in how highly susceptible large numbers of people are to false technical claims. A natural instinct of skepticism that one may assume exists within the academic community is found to be almost completely lacking.
The author has attempted to give the reader the tools necessary to understand why so many people remain so confused over the WTC collapses. Sizable contradictions exist within the visual and written records of building behaviors. If one were to avoid utilizing these tools or the work of researchers independent of the academic establishment, they would have no access to an accurate and detailed description of the collapse initiation or progression processes for any of the 3 collapsed WTC buildings. Not only that, but they would have no independent means through which to assess the validity of any claims.
Such a person may tend to inevitably prefer verifiably inaccurate descriptions of the towers as "crushing blocks" and tilting blocks, not because these descriptions are true, but because they was peer reviewed and appear in academic journals, hence they carry authoritative appeal.
The author describes the situation as seeing the collapses through various lenses. One will interpret what they are looking at through the lens through which they are observing. When given contradictory and verifiably incorrect information, it is natural to be confused. In that case, confusion is a natural and healthy state.
TECHNICAL AND PSYCHOLOGICAL FACETS OF 9/11 RESEARCH
The technical limitations to careful observation and the construction of accurate mappings were considered to be the blanket of impenetrable dust that blocked the collapse processes from view. They were found to be surmountable. The psychological limitations obstructing the ability to process such information were not surmountable. It is as if the minds of people still remain shrouded in the dust, even though careful reconstructions of the physical processes reveal identifiable patterns of material flow.
Mappings and reconstructions were possible that shed much light on technical aspects of the collapse progressions and initiations going far beyond the understandings available through government, academic or professional literature. On the psychological side, however, an insurmountable wall is encountered everywhere. It is a combination of false certainty, stubbornness, and technical ignorance. It was found that people on the whole place low priority on technical accuracy. In order to accept the collapses through either the NIST lens or through the AE911T lens, it is necessary to turn a blind eye to gross inaccuracies within their respective claims.
As stated about the Milgram experiments in part 1,
"The results of the experiment are disturbing not only due to the percentage of people demonstrating such susceptibility, but because so few people could have predicted the results beforehand. This unawareness of the true degree of vulnerability to blind obedience is what makes the subjects all the more vulnerable. Once again, a false sense of certainty in ones powers of objective reason left the subjects unprepared to act as individuals with a healthy degree of skepticism."
In parallel, reactions to NIST claims are disturbing not only due to the percentage of people who embrace verifiably incorrect claims, but because of how falsely certain such claims are defended even a decade after the collapses.
"A subject who has neither ability nor expertise to make decisions, especially in a crisis, will leave decision making to the group and its hierarchy. The group is the person's behavioral model."4
Virtually all media outlets and individuals featured in part 6 framed arguments in terms of 2 distinct groups, the NIST vs arguments put forward by STJ911, AE911T, Jim Hoffman, Jim Fetzer or those of a similar viewpoint. Interestingly, both point and counterpoint describe the global mass flow incorrectly. Neither viewpoint recognizes evidence of progressive floor collapse within each tower.
per Milgram, "the essence of obedience consists in the fact that a person comes to view themselves as the instrument for carrying out another person's wishes, and they therefore no longer see themselves as responsible for their actions. Once this critical shift of viewpoint has occurred in the person, all of the essential features of obedience follow"5
The "critical shift in viewpoint" is similar to what David Bohm in part 1 called a "world view". The world view of such a person may take the form of an over-reliance on "experts" while lacking the ability or unwillingness to cross-check what those experts claim, and a tendency to view issues in an artificially narrow point, counterpoint perspective. In reality, both point and counterpoint present verifiably incorrect information as proven fact.
THE SKEPTICAL MIND: WHERE DID IT GO?
What is Skepticism? Link here6
"In ordinary usage, skepticism (US) or scepticism (UK) (Greek: skeptomai, to think, to look about, to consider; see also spelling differences) refers to:
(a) an attitude of doubt or a disposition to incredulity either in general or toward a particular object;
(b) the doctrine that true knowledge or knowledge in a particular area is uncertain; or
(c) the method of suspended judgment, systematic doubt, or criticism that is characteristic of skeptics (Merriam�"Webster).
In philosophy, skepticism refers more specifically to any one of several propositions. These include propositions about:
(a) an inquiry,
(b) a method of obtaining knowledge through systematic doubt and continual testing,
(c) the arbitrariness, relativity, or subjectivity of moral values,
(d) the limitations of knowledge,
(e) a method of intellectual caution and suspended judgment."
"Scientific skepticism
A scientific (or empirical) skeptic is one who questions beliefs on the basis of scientific understanding. Most scientists, being scientific skeptics, test the reliability of certain kinds of claims by subjecting them to a systematic investigation using some form of the scientific method.[8] As a result, a number of claims are considered "pseudoscience" if they are found to improperly apply or ignore the fundamental aspects of the scientific method.
"
Reactions to the WTC collapses can serve as a large scale indicator of human gullibility or susceptibility. From the Robert Parry article:
"Indeed, if you were to teach a course on sophistry, you might wish to make a case study of the “truther” movement, which has deployed nearly every imaginable example of false logic..."
The "truther" movement, as he calls it, may make a good case study, but so would those who uncritically embrace the NIST conclusions as a counter-reaction to truther claims. Reactions within the professional community to the Bazant papers BV, BL and BLGB may also make an excellent case study of sophistry. It is safe to say that nobody in the truther movement made people embrace false claims of the NIST. The truther movement is not responsible for the lack of an accurate description of the collapse progression modes of the largest structural failures in memory. Truthers are not responsible for the falsification of the technical history of each collapse found within technical literature.
The reactions to the WTC collapses certainly do qualify as one of the best modern day examples of sophism, or more specifically, as a study of human susceptibility and the lack of a healthy degree of critical thought of a historically pivotal and highly charged contemporary event.
The reactions also serve as an excellent example of the relation of the current state of subjectivity to scientific inquiry. It is enlightening to observe how observations and measurements of the collapsing buildings under study were overlooked within a loudly reverberating echo chamber of verifiably incorrect claims and false certainty. Accurate technical information was effectively drowned out in an atmosphere where false certainly, exaggerated claims and pure human subjectivity and ego ruled the roost. Within this environment, a type of authoritative pseudo-history or historic revisionism emerged the dominant element within an artificially narrowed false choice between bad and worse.
Parry, like so many others, correctly identified the degree of misunderstanding within a particular set of narrow arguments. But he also, like so many others, reacted within a narrowed point, counterpoint false choice framework, uncritically embracing the NIST conclusions as a result. The uncritical embrace is so extreme that official sources could describe the collapses in terms of cartoon caricatures such as giant blocks, and such information would be accepted without question.
EMERGENCE OF A PEUDO-HISTORY
A barrier of self-certain experts and the glass wall of denial has created a type of pseudo-history, a looking glass history, in which the NIST basically fabricates descriptions of early building movement and claims their proposed initiation mechanism matches all observables. Various people then rally behind the NIST reports with a zeal similar to what one might observe at a sporting event, but lacking the capacity or willingness to critically fact-check claims independently. Meanwhile, the actual video record of the collapses shows a quite different behavior. This behavior, which is the actual technical descriptions of the collapse processes, is virtually ignored by those who claim to offer expert commentary on the collapses.
The many people who claim to offer expert commentary on the specifics of the collapses give the illusion of having the answers; the illusion of certainty. After all, that is what the title "expert" implies. And when groups of experts superficially appear to be in agreement, the reader naturally assumes the groups have made efforts to independently fact-check specific claims. In the case of the WTC collapses it can be easily verified that few if any of the proclaimed experts were able to notice numerous gross mistakes and omissions in the NIST claims.
People pretended to be thorough without being so. They pretended to use the scientific method without using it. They pretended to be certain while exuding contradiction.
Journalists, on the other hand, seem to simply assume that those claiming to have scientific expertise actually do check their facts. They perceive a type of consensus of agreement among those who they perceive to be technical authorities and proceed to echo the false beliefs through the media as if they are verified fact.
Meanwhile, the actual initiation mechanisms remain unidentified, without any serious investigation or explanation yet few people notice.
In this light consider what William James writes about the evolution of thinking:
" All our thinking to-day has evolved gradually out of primitive human thought, and the only really important changes that have come over its manner (as distinguished from the matters in which it believes) are a greater hesitancy in asserting its convictions, and the habit of seeking verification for them whenever it can."
But in the present complex case there was little hesitancy in asserting convictions as proven fact and there certainly was little effort to verify claims whenever possible. Those features, which according to James can be considered to be the anchors of rational thought, were noticeably absent within misrepresentations of the collapses.
WHERE DID ACCURATE DESCRIPTIONS OF THE COLLAPSES GO? QUESTIONS, QUESTIONS...
How has scientific consensus and the peer review process fared in deriving factual statements about the collapses of the 3 WTC buildings?
Not very well. The "how" of collapse progression of 2 of the largest structural failures in history goes largely unidentified.
The collapse initiation mechanisms, the "how" of the collapse triggers, fare no better.
How have skyscrapers been made safer by learning from the technical histories of the largest structural failures in history?
One of the stated purposes of the NIST reports is to determine the how and why of each collapse in order to recommend changes to building codes. If they do not recognize the actual collapse modes of what seem to be the largest progressive floor collapses in history, how can they make appropriate code changes regarding collapse progression to make buildings safer? Also, if the proposed collapse initiation mechanisms of all 3 buildings are provably incorrect, how can code changes based on such faulty information lead to safer high-rise designs in the future? If the collapse modes of the Twin Towers remains unidentified within the NIST NCSTAR reports as progressive OOS floor failure, it seems obvious that effective codes cannot be rewritten to avoid another OOS progressive floor collapse.
How have journalists fared in checking technical claims?
Frankly, they didn't have a snowball's chance in hell, which is understandable.
If journalists do not have the skill to check technical claims directly, what do they rely upon to determine which claims are true or which are false?
Technical experts.
What if a journalist assumes technical arguments originate from one of only 2 sources, but both sources are incorrect? What independent fact-checking resources to they have available if both sources are feeding incorrect information?
None. Basically, an echo-chamber of false beliefs are repeated as if they are certainly true. The same false beliefs echo through different media creating the illusion of verified truth. In reality, they are merely echoing the same verifiably incorrect information.
This echoing process becomes more noticeable when the source information is verifiably incorrect. It is interesting to watch the same verifiably incorrect information echoing through various people who claim to have independently verified the information. When a person claims to have independently fact-checked claims, and then is found to merely be echoing information from a perceived source of authority which is verifiably incorrect, the claim of "expert" can be seen for what it is. The claim of expertise and the tendency to jump to verifiably false conclusions seem to go hand in hand in the case of the WTC collapses.
How did professional consensus manage to form around a body of incorrect information?
There seems to be a strong tendency to accept second hand knowledge as true without critical thought. Obviously, correct conclusions can only be arrived at using accurate observations. If one forms a false sense of certainty in verifiably incorrect information, it will be quite a challenge for an outside source to introduce correct information.
How can a very small number of independent researchers map and identify the collapse movements of the WTC towers better than the NIST?
This may be the biggest mystery of the collapses. This in itself should serve as a huge wake-up call to an impartial reader.
Where did the technical records of the collapses go?
The main thesis is that there is no fact-based historic record of the collapses. The true collapse modes of the Twin Towers is not accurately determined within any academic, professional or government literature. It is described incorrectly within history as it is being written. There are, however, millions of people that are falsely certain they know what happened because they believe verifiably incorrect authoritative statements and their own pre-conceived beliefs.
Direct measurements extracted from the visual record of the collapses grossly contradict history as it is generally presented. A record of measurements and documented observables of all 3 collapsed buildings on a level far more intricate than that which previously existed has been presented. The record is verifiably superior to and grossly contradicted by the record provided by U.S. Government agencies.
In reality there is no scientific approach and, therefore, no technical history of the collapses at all. This is a verifiable statement.
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