Perimetric Analysis
Perimetric
shouldn't be confused with parametric.
Perimetric means to measure an object by measuring the surrounding
system. In other words, the system at
the perimeter. For example, suppose you
believe that to move up high in US politics you need to essentially be a puppet
to the policies of the rest of your political party. In other words, your party wouldn't have given you the funding
and campaign support you needed to win your position unless they felt certain
that you'd carry out their orders once you got in office. So, if you see this person, say, a
president, acting nice or mean, smart or dumb, should you accredit this to the
president's personal character? If you
believed the above, you wouldn't. You'd
figure that whatever he does was essentially handed down to him via his
advisors and interests.
Suppose you
wanted to determine if simple organisms like insects were conscious, something
you can't directly measure. However,
you notice that you seem to be most conscious when you're learning something or
realizing something. You decide that
it's likely you're only conscious when you're changing your current mental
connections. So, since insects don't
have the capacity to learn anything that's not genetically programmed into them,
you might conclude also that they aren't conscious.
John LeFlohic
February 10, 2003