Entrepreneur
“Keep an open mind,” “I’m impartial” and “I have no dog in this fight” each say the speaker stands at no angle. Derived from the foundation’s result that every idea is biased toward itself, read at its quantifier — orientation and prejudice, always together — an open mind cannot be the absence of a lean. It can be a lean that has been named, and a response that is still revisable. … readWhat Is an Open Mind
“Lower your expectations” sounds like an instruction you can carry out. Derived from the foundation’s result that every artifact is a miss, read at its middle clause, the expectation is not yours to command: it moves when what you read changes, not when you tell it to. The same clause clears the person who blames herself for hoping. … readWhat Is Managing Expectations
“It worked” sounds like a verdict on the work. Derived from the foundation’s fidelity result, it is two readings in one sentence: the outcome against what you expected, said of a mark that answers to what it is for. Results speak for themselves, and only for themselves; the outcome trains your forecast, not your reading of the work. … readWhat Is “It Worked”
“I’ve thought of everything” sounds like a finished search. Derived from the foundation’s first primitive — no enumeration closes the circle of conditions — it is a report on a list and on thoughts that have stopped arriving: care makes a list better but no nearer to everything, and only a provision that names nothing covers what a plan has not named. … readWhat Is Thinking of Everything
“I have proof” sounds like a window onto what happened. Derived from the foundation’s result that the Past is inaccessible and that present records make it look otherwise, a proof is a present mark read against other present marks: it settles the reader’s expectation and does not reach the event. … readWhat Is Proof
A precondition gets set on Monday and dropped on Wednesday. Derived from the foundation’s primitive that a condition does not happen, the dates in that sentence belong to marks, not to a condition — so the word names two things: a prerequisite nobody can set or drop, and a stipulation its maker answers for. … readWhat Is a Precondition
“Who is to blame?” is two questions welded together: whose was it, and who made the mark. Derived from the foundation’s result that ownership is a category error and the manifestation is accountable, the first has no answer and the second has one — so “it was the idea” is true, and excuses nothing. … readWhat Is Blame
Set in stone is said of plans, dates and rules to mean they cannot change. Derived from the foundation’s primitive that to exist is to vary, the phrase is literally true only of the Past, which is real and does not exist — said of anything present, stone included, it names a rate of revision somebody is keeping low. … readWhat Is Set in Stone
The whole story is usually pictured as the longest honest telling, the one with nothing left out. Derived from the foundation’s primitive that the Past is one settled totality and not one branch, the phrase turns out to weld two things together — and no telling becomes the whole by getting longer, because the difference is between a branch and the totality, not between less record and more. … readWhat Is the Whole Story
A requirement is usually read as a share of the outcome — meet them all and the rest should follow. Derived from the foundation’s definition of a condition, a requirement names what an outcome needs and nothing about what it will yield: necessary by definition, sufficient by nothing in it, and able to decide an outcome only by being unmet. … readWhat Is a Requirement