Framing Tool - Causal Reasoning

Question 1

Central(Present moment)

Answer 1

• Present moment as expressed through description made by a speaker. More than one statement can be there, as our ideas, thoughts and feelings often require elaboration to make ourselves understood
• It can described as issue, problem, change, idea, goal, etc under consideration but what it represents are conclusions that the speaker has reached, so far, given specific referents(given what speaker is using or referring to in making their language choice)

Question 2

Left axis(Precedents, Influences, expectations)

Answer 2

• Change how someone draws their comparisons and references; you change what they can think/feel
• Wherever we go in the world, we carry with us the conclusions, habits, expectations which we have acquired and developed in the past
• Those habits of thinking, feeling and behaving set the foundation for our reactions to new situations and environments
• Emotions and habituated response do not just magically descend out of a purple cloud. They must be ‘triggered’ by specific aspects of situations we face
• Problems don’t just happen. There are sequences of specific events leading up to whatever is identified as “The Mess”, “Crisis”, “Situation”.
• When you are listening to another person describe anything at all – problem, goal, desire, anecdote or narrative – you are hearing the result of those processes as influences (“filters”) or triggers and the conclusions that have been made about them
• Through every statement and every following elaboration, there are inferences you can draw about what must be true and what cannot be true; what must have occurred and what could not have occurred; the classes or types of event that happened and those that could not have happened; and even, at times, the specific events or conclusions that must have occurred – and all from the presuppositions in what someone else is saying, and what is missing from what they are saying.
• The Key question for these past influences carried
  forward is : What must be true if what they are saying is valid?

Question 3

Future(The right axis)

Answer 3

• For many people the boundary or limit of their Frame of Reference goes to the hope, demand or prediction that only certain effects will occur
• Every choice has both future benefits and future consequences, many of which are not seen
• If you change the scope, in terms of time, and the range of impacts a certain behavior will have; almost every Frame of Reference will change.
• Consider the consequences of staying on the present course, with the present behaviors, and the “problem statement” unresolved… and you will get one possibility.
• Consider the consequences of changing the present course, modifying the present behaviors, changing or resolving the “problem”… and you will get another possibility.
• Consider the broader impact that the issue, challenge or problem is creating and you have… a vast range of possibilities.
• The questions you must connect from the past precedents, through the present “issue statement” into the future is:

= What will the most likely consequences (or benefits) be if the present situation is unchanged?
= What will the most likely consequences (or benefits) be if the present situation is changed in X manner?
= What else is the present situation likely influencing or effecting which is not part of the “issue statement?