Is it really 4D chess?

You may have heard the comment in reply to someone criticising DJTs decisions or actions, “He’s playing 4D chess”. The implication being that what is happening is beyond the original persons ability to understand.

I’m wondering if this is a case of the phenomenon known as the “Pre/Trans Fallacy”.

I first read about this phenomenon when reading Ken WIlber’s “Eye to Eye” years ago, and if you want an official description of it you can read that at Integral Life.

The way I see it applying to this scenario is as follows.

A person of average or normal intelligence encounters someone acting in a way they can’t comprehend or understand. In order to explain the behaviour there are two possibilities:

• The subject has a more developed intelligence and is seeing things and understanding things that is “over the head” of the person of average intelligence. Since they don’t see things in the same way the actions and decisions appear illogical or don’t “make sense”.
• The subject has not developed intellectually in step with their physical development thus their behaviour is unexpected and also doesn’t make sense.

Since the behaviour is not normal, it calls for a careful look to determine whether it then falls into the pre-normal category or the post-normal category. The problem, though, is that many people are not aware of the pre/trans fallacy and so allow their preconceptions and biases dictate into which side of normal the abnormal behaviour fits.

One way to discern the difference is that someone who has developed to the trans side of normal/typical/usual still retains the ability to operate from this mid-way place. They will do so in order to be understood even if it means simplifying their own way of thinking and understanding in order to connect. The person on the pre side does not have that ability since their development has not progressed enough to allow that.

I don’t see signs of 4D chess.