ESSENTIALISE, SIMPLIFY, ORGANISE
Contents:
Essentialisation is the process of identifying the essential characteristics in an object of focus (e.g. an entity, a person, a project, a subject, etc.). Given a purposeful context (i.e. a context involving one or more purposes), the essential characteristics of an object of focus are the smallest set of its characteristics that together integrate (i.e. causally and/or logically necessitate) everything within your context that affects or can potentially affect the pursuit of your purposes.
NOTE: Arbitrary claims and irrelevant considerations:
Note that to claim that something can potentially affect your pursuit, there must be evidence for it, not merely a lack of evidence against it; if only the latter holds and not the former, then the claim is an arbitrary claim. Note also that if the effect of something on the pursuit of your purposes does not change your ability to pursue them, as per your knowledge and within your context, then it is an irrelevant consideration. By contrast, the essentials, being the causal and/or logical basis of the purposeful context, are the most relevant considerations.
For more on evidence, arbitrary claims and irrelevant considerations, see: “Identifying evidence” from Knowledge and Certainty from Epistemology from Philosophy.
Simplification is the process of omitting irrelevant or less relevant details so as to sharpen the focus on what is most relevant within a purposeful context. The need for simplification arises from the finite capacity of consciousness. To elaborate, in order to consider something as per the context, you must be able to hold this context in focus. However, to do so, you must be able to sufficiently condense this context to let it fit into your focus while also letting you take in other considerations.
Now, we can see why irrelevant or less relevant details must be omitted to simplify. To be able to take in other considerations based on what is most relevant at a given time, and to be able to work on these considerations (which may have their own complexities to deal with), we must sufficiently clarify our focus. This often needs the omission of details, and logically, it is the details that are irrelevant, least relevant or that would become relevant at a later time that must be omitted.
Organisation is the process of ordering a set of items (e.g. objects, topics, tasks, etc.) based on some kind of logical relationship. A logical relationship is the identification of one or more mutual characteristics between items. For example, a causal relationship between entities is the identification of a mutual interactivity between the two entities, a hierarchical relationship between concepts is the identification of one concept’s referents as a subset of the other’s (thus having mutual identities on some level), a categorical relationship between two topics is the identification of shared essential characteristics that unite them into a broader topic (thus having a mutual genus), etc.
A set of items ordered based on some kind of logical relationship lets us consider the items in a logical progression. For example, organising tasks based on relevance to a goal lets us consider items from the most to the least relevant, organising topics based on the hierarchy of their concepts lets us consider them based on how one builds on the other (making sure we always have what we need to understand each topic), etc.
To pursue a purpose effectively, we must organise both knowledge and objectives based on relevance and complexity. To do so, we must first essentialise the purposeful context to reach the essentials and thus the logical relationships between various parts of the context. Then, we must simplify our considerations in order to apply our focus on each one effectively. Finally, we must organise our considerations so that we can progress with them effectively. Hence, essentialisation, simplification and organisation (ESO) are the three pillars of purpose, especially for long-range purposes or complex goals.
There are two principles for concretising ESO:
Integration is the process of uniting multiple units into a single mental unit by (1) retaining their logical and/or causal relationships, and (2) omitting non-purposeful details (e.g. differences that are irrelevant in the given context). Hence, to integrate, we must have the units first, the most basic units being percepts. Hence, it is key to gather enough material before trying to essentialise, simplify or organise it.
Logically, the basis of reality is the existence of entities whose identities are independent of any consciousness, i.e. particulars or concretes. Abstractions, properly, are the results of selective focus on concretes, i.e. they are a means of integrating, organising and examining concretes. They are objective, but they do not exist indepedent of consciousness. Knowing this is crucial, because it tells us two key things with respect to values and knowledge:
The principles of ESO lay out the essential steps in effective action. However, these principles are conceptual, i.e. they apply to a vast range of specifics while omitting a host of details that would be relevant to deal with specifics, e.g. the domain-specific methods, the time and resources available, the level of simplification needed for the context, etc. But note also that details of method are also omitted by ESO, as ESO gives a framework for only what to do, not how to do it.
Now, method refers to the organisation of tasks and/or sub-goals to achieve a goal. Since any real goal has a real standard for success, i.e. a set of real-world requirements that must be met through tasks and sub-goals, so does the goal of applying ESO in practice, not just to one specific situations but to any situation one may face. In other words, any goal has a method to achieve it, no matter how broad or narrow the goal is. Now, to tie this to the title of this text: the method of essentialising, simplifying and organising (ESO) the elements and aspects of a problem in order to realise a solution is planning.
Read further: Planning