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What Pseudo-Masters Fear (page1)
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Many pseudo martial art masters claim to be fearless, but they all fear one thing—the truth. They do not want their martial arts or their concepts and theories exposed to public scrutiny. True masters do not fear public scrutiny since it only strengthens their arts and teachings. True masters are able to defend their statements with clear, logical reasoning, and verifiable facts. Pseudo-masters will attempt obscure the truth with mumbo jumbo, attack the accuser, and use misdirection to avoid the truth.
When presenting information about a martial art, instructors or masters make statements that may be:
Provable, verifiable facts
Theories
Hearsay
Speculation
Lies
When an instructor or master makes a statement he or she claims to be true, then you are permitted to form a corollary to that statement. Pseudo-masters fear corollaries for the point out problems with the validity of their statements. Corollaries are explained more below.
When you are analyzing information presented by an instructor or a master, here are some things to consider.
Facts
Facts are statements that have been proven true and may be verified by the proofs used to prove them. When an instructor or a master states that what he or she says is a fact, he or she should be able to present the supporting proof, or furnish information as to where the proof may be reasonably found. Some say they believe what the master says because what the master says is true. For example, when asked how they know that what is said in the Bible is true, Christians say because the Bible says its true and what the Bible says is true; therefore, the Bible must be true.
Do not accept an instructor’s “word” as proof that what the or she is saying is true. Ask questions of the instructor and see what kind of answers you get. Are the answers evasive; do they skirt around the subject without dealing with it directly? Are the answers just more of the same mumbo jumbo or are they clear and to the point? Are you attacked for asking the questions and made to feel as if you were a bad person for having the audacity to question the master? Does the instructor put you down for asking questions and make you look bad in front of your classmates. Does the instructor punish your for asking a question by telling you to research the question and write a paper on it; and then, when your paper disputes the instructor's claims, it is rejected.
Searching for the truth can be confusing. For instance, if I say I am a liar, then I may be lying when I say I am a liar; so I may actually be telling the truth, which means that I am in fact—a liar.
Theories
Theory has a number of distinct meanings in different fields of knowledge. In common usage, theory is used to signify a conjecture, an opinion, or a speculation. In this usage, a theory is not necessarily based upon facts; while in science, a theory is collection of facts that may be empirically verified.
A theory may be said to explain a fact. For example, it is a fact that if an apple is dropped, it will fall towards the center of the planet; the theory of gravitation explains this behavior. A theory is different from a theorem.
Theorem
A theorem is a formal proposition that has been or is to be proved on the basis of explicit assumptions.
A theorem has two parts: a statement of what is to be proved and a list of assumptions. The assumptions prove the statement by offering proof; but he proof is not considered part of the theorem, so a single theorem may have more than one proof. Informally, an assumption may be presented without showing formal proof if such proof could be reasonably assumed. A statement with a trivially simple derivation is not a theorem.
Every theorem must be proved using axioms, postulates, or other theorems, such as lemmata, corollaries, or propositions.
The following types of statements are not theorems and are typically offered without proof:
Axiom. An axiom is a statement that is considered "self-proved”; it is not dependent on the conditions of any other statement.
Postulate. A postulate is a statement that is accepted without proof in a certain context. Every axiom is a postulate, but theorems may be used as postulates in certain situations.
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