There is an ironbound rule in handling things:
If several outpoints come to view in any scene (or even one), if you look further you will find a situation.
There is not any real art to finding situations if you can see outpoints.
The sequence is simple. (1) You see some outpoints in a scene, (2) you investigate and "pull a few strings" (meaning follow down a chain of outpoints) and (3) you will find a situation, and (4) then you can evaluate.
Statistics are leaders in pointing the way. They should be X, they are not X. That is conflicting data. Behind that you will find a situation.
If anyone has any trouble finding situations then one of three things is true (a) he cannot recognize outpoints when he sees them, (b) he does not have any concept of the ideal scene or want it, or (c) he does not know how to pull strings, which is to say ask for or look for data.
On the positive side, to find situations one has to (A) be able to recognize outpoints, (B) has to have some idea of an ideal scene and want it, and (C) has to be able to "pull strings."
Evaluation is very much simpler when you realize that the art lies in finding situations. To then find a Why is of course only a matter of counting outpoints and recognizing what (that can be handled) is retarding the achievement of a more ideal scene.
One often wonders why people are so "reasonable" about intolerable and illogical situations.
The answer is very simple: they cannot recognize outpoints when they see them and so try to make everything seem logical.
The ability to actually see an outpoint for what it is, in itself is an ability to attain some peace of mind. For one can realize it is what it is, an outpoint. It is not a matter for human emotion and reaction. It is a pointer toward a situation.
The moment you can see this you will be able to handle life a lot better.
The human reaction is to REACT! to an outpoint. And then get "reasonable" and adopt some explanation for it, usually untrue.
You can safely say that "being reasonable" is a symptom of being unable to recognize outpoints for what they are and use them to discover actual situations.
It may come as a surprise or no surprise at all that the ability to evaluate as given in this Data Series is not necessarily native to a being.
In a native state a being detests illogic and rejects it. He seldom uses it for any other purposes than humor or showing up a rival in debate as a fool or using it in justice or a court of law to prove the other side wrong or guilty.
A being is dedicated to being logical and he does, usually, a wonderful job of it.
But when he encounters illogic he often feels angry or frustrated or helpless.
He has not, so far as I know, ever used illogic as a systematic tool for thinking.
Certain obsolete efforts to describe Man's thinking processes stressed "associative thought" and various other mechanisms to prove Man a fully logical "animal." The moment they tried to deal with illogic they assigned it to aberration and sought drugs, tortures or executions that would "cure it." None of them ever thought of using illogic as a tool of rational thinking! Thus they did not advance anyone's intelligence and conceived intelligence as unchangeable and fixed.
The only Greek school of philosophy that dealt with illogic was the Sophist school. But even they had no real idea of the illogic. They were employed by politicians to make their political acts seem reasonable!
Even humorists have no real idea of illogic. Reading their ideas of the theory of humor shows them to be off the mark. They don't really know what is "funny."
Laughter is rejection, actually.
And humor you will find usually deals with one or another outpoint put in such a way that the reader or audience can reject it.
The groan of most humorists is that too often their hearers go reasonable on them. PAT: "Who was that hobo I saw you with last night?" MIKE: "That wasn't no oboe, that was my fife." LISTENER (puzzled): "But maybe it was a very slender hobo."
The tendency of a being is to try to keep it reasonable, logical, rational. And that is of course a very praiseworthy impulse or all life's endeavors might unhinge.
The fear of being illogical is a secret fear of being crazy or insane. (Not an idle fear when psychiatry was roaming around loose.) Or at the least being thought a fool or dullard or at the very very least, unworldly and uneducated.
To evaluate and be a fine evaluator is to be able to prevent a slump toward a painful collapse. And to be able to steer the way from the non-ideal present to the ideal future.
A person who feels queasy about his sanity really doesn't dare look at outpoints or confront and use illogic. Yet it is the way to full sanity itself.
The ability to evaluate puts one at cause over both the mad and ideal. It places a being at a height it is unlikely he has ever before enjoyed in the realm of commanding the situations of life.
Evaluation is a new way to think.
It is very worthwhile to acquire such an ability as it is doubtful if it ever before has been achieved.