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The process of the application of the scientific method can be described as a feedback loop where in the output of one research question becomes the input of another. It has been said that with complex issues, the more answers that are found, the more questions that need to be asked. It is the important questions that are begged. The application of the scientific method is an incremental process as well.

The initial step in asking the question is the formulation of the question itself. Following the feedback model, the asking of the question begins with the answering of a prior question. Indeed the examination of prior questions is essential to proceeding without unwarranted assumptions. Also, whether by design or by default, other authorities may find a produced answer insufficient. The answer to a research question may conflict with someone’s pet theory or dogma. This will stimulate further research of an adversary own nature. Furthermore, an answer may point out unforeseen aspects of the topic to a friendly researcher. Just as any debate cannot continue without common definitions of terms, any answer to a question, define some terms in greater detail, unlocking doors to greater business, so to speak. The formulation of the question is analogous to the development of an algebraic formula; the factors must be identified like discovering the roots of any square involved. The components or terms of the equation must be isolated and analyzed to determine their exact contribution to the equation. Once the component of an unknown variable is determined, the nature of that variable can be investigated in terms of known factors. A telescope may provide information in isolation, but to determine interactions a wide-angle lens is required. The formulation of a hypothesis is the same thing as converting the original question into a format that is capable of measurement. Once the question has been translated into a testable hypothesis the collection of information can begin. Whether the information is collected with a butterfly net or a windsock the resolution of the matter depends upon the replacement of variables with values.

A question that cannot be put to the question, cannot be investigated. Its ineffable characteristics bring about a set of conditions upon which it can only speculated, this is the reason that it is the important questions that are begged, that these questions concerning ineffable concepts of a nebulous nature cannot be translated into measurable terms. The chemical composition of the soul cannot be determined because the soul cannot be put into a test tube and exposed to reagents. That it is the immateriality of the soul that resists the material constraints is irrelevant. In order to be measured, the soul must first be defined in measurable terms. While this has been said to be a limitation of the scientific method itself, this is not so. Consciousness is a construct postulated to claim the origins of behavior. While the mythology of consciousness may impede it does not preclude the study of behavior. The question of the nature of consciousness is a prior question whose irresolution does not prevent the continuation of investigation of phenomena from a black box perspective. To continue the algebra metaphor, the value of Y can be determined in terms of X without the determination of the value of X.

This does not lead to an answer as a final value, but this is why the scientific method is a cyclical process. The coming-into-the-nearness-of of that-which-regions is a product of peripatetic dialectical perception.

If I propose that there is an interactive relationship between the beating of a butterfly’s wing and wind currents, there will be someone else who will claim that the divergence in frame of reference or scale of observation between the two renders the resolution of the question dependent upon confounding variables, without the identification of potential multiplicative factors forming the bridge to any such relationship question this question will remain in the realm of articles of faith. In other words, while we may speculate about the performance of Boyle’s law as a contributing factor without common definitions in measurable terms, that remains mere speculation.

A pre-experimental study may stimulate true experimental research.

'Question begging' is not synonymous with 'question suggesting'. A 'begged' question is one in which the answer presupposes that which is questioned in the first place; begged questions are those which receive empty answers. Imagine the answer literally begging the question, trying to get something out of it for free.

The set of all things which exists is the set of being. The set of being is a single set that contains or describes more than one element. Since the set of being is composed of more than one element, it can be divided into proper subsets. However, improper sub-sets of the set of being are equal to the set of non-being. The fact that the set of being contains more than one element does not contradict the fact that the set of being is in and of itself a single set. Therefore, it is not a necessary condition of the state of being that it is homogeneous. Being does not have to be a homogeneity in order to be a unity. Being is a heterogeneity and yet still a unity. Such is the amalgamation of Unity and Diversity. Idealism is: that system of reflective thinking which would interpret and explain the entire universe, things and minds, and their relations, as the realization of a system of ideas, or as the progressive evolution of an ideal. It takes various forms as determined by the view of what the idea or ideal is, and in particular often is the antithesis of realism; but the extremes of each are obliged while denying many, to admit not a few of the claims of the other. On the other hand, while agnosticism admits the possibility of reality independent of consciousness, it denies the possibility if knowing such reality. Idealism, therefore, differs from agnosticism by refusing to admit the possibility of a non-ideal reality. However, Idealism proper is that school of thought that considers all knowledge conversant only with the affections (affect-ions) of the understanding mind, but its error is that such affections are the agents of one’s consciousness and that it states that matter and mind are of one substance (in terms of sensation) although matter and mind have a given unity, they also have a diversity of nature as previously discussed in the preceding paragraphs. Materialistic Idealism also regards both matter and mind as opposing aspects (is dualism creeping in here already?) or successive manifestations of one underlying and unknowable force. Neutral Monism is the doctrine that regards neither mind nor matter as ultimates. We necessarily consider our knowledge of matter to be direct and that that knowledge is of substance as underlying phenomena. This knowledge is a prejudice in that it identifies our knowledge of the sensations we receive from phenomena as external to the mind which experiences these sensations, with the phenomena itself. Now if they were the same thing, we wouldn’t have different names for them would we? Our intuitive judgment that matter is in fact what we perceive it to be, is itself a by-product of our perception of matter. The externality of the phenomena necessarily precludes any possibility of certainty of accuracy. Therefore since we know only our existential perceptions, we cannot know whether or not our intuitive judgments are correct. Since my mind is limited and since because of that limitation and the very identity of my mind which that limitation implies, I cannot know matter as matter. I can only judge matter to be matter subjectively in its apparent appearance. Objectively I can only know matter as ‘permanent possibility of sensation’ and not even that for even our sensations are subjective. For example, with my tactile sensation I judge this table to be solid but in theoretical atomic physics I judge it to be mostly empty space. The antithesis of idealism is that it is declared that all objects of which the consciousness is aware are realities. The theory of the reality of abstract or general terms, or universals which are held to have on equal and sometimes superior reality to actual physical particulars was first developed by Plato in his doctrine of forms, with perhaps a little prompting from Socrates but that is a debate for another page. Physical monism as seen in Naturalistic science: The primary tenet of naturalistic science is the uniformity of natural causes in a closed system. Material realism is equivalent to the statement that our perceptions of matter are intrinsically correct. Existential Agnosticism is the antithesis of Material Realism. Supernaturalism, ‘uniformity of natural causes in an open system’ is the interventionism of external causes. Universal Personality is the collective animative force in all personal units. The monistic definition of mind as a series of feelings aware of itself contradicts our intuitive judgment that, in knowing the phenomena of mind, we have direct knowledge of a spiritual substance of which these phenomena are manifestations which retains its identity independently of our consciousness, and which, in its knowing, instead of being the passive recipient of impressions from without, always acts from within by a power of its own. In respect to knowing the phenomena of mind we are necessarily prejudiced toward the view from inside. Moreover, for a mind to speak of without and within is a prejudice in that it assumes facts not in evidence i.e. that the boundary line between within and without is real and not artificially imposed upon the mind by its internal viewpoint. Furthermore, in knowing the phenomena of mind we have direct knowledge of the phenomena of mind, not some presupposed spiritual substance, if indeed spiritual substance is not a contradiction in terms

In the beginning there was Entropy. Since entropy encompassed all, it was an infinite sphere. As Entropy transcended itself through its internal identity the naval of the NON Individuality and Divergency were born, therefore this and that came to be such. As thisness came to be itself and congealed it came to be the other to that and vice versa the opposition of thisness to thatness gave birth to twins likeness and unlikeness likeness gathered, unlikeness dispersed likeness and unlikeness alike worked together to homogenize individuality and diversity likeness brought forth mass and density, unlikeness brought forth molecular agitation and rarification these two in merging created Osmosis. Now osmosis, was much beloved of both unlikeness and likeness and thus was given power over the dispersal and collection of matter and the off-ice thereof. Osmosis assumed the goal of the resurgency of homogeneous entropy, however individuality and divergency were not pleased at their plotted absorption into the world soul. they came in unto mass and density and took them by force this resulted in the birthing of form and substance. Individuality diversity and substance were absorbed by osmosis but form resisted absorption by countering with stamina static inertia and adsorption. Entropy who had transcended into evolution by absorbing substance along with diversity and individuality enspelled form with a defense against osmosis in that form without substance is immaterial and thus immune to Osmosis. The elements gathered and took counsel on this matter. It was decided that the absence of form in entropy had brought about their own existence instead of another cycle of cosmic implosion the inevitable result of a truly universal homogeneous entropy it was therefore decided to introduce a mortal into the equation in order to keep and maintain the balance to which they owed their existence. Earth provided a body water gave the body motion, air gave the body pneuma-ruach, fire gave psyche-nephesh. Thus a new thing was seen in being, a man. As Andros needed, he thought. If he hungered, he thought of sustenance. The perfect co-operation of the elements shaped his environment as he desired it. they had a grander scheme in mind. Although they knew that it would spell the eventual end of their concert, they brought forth a woman and did not bring them together immediately the counsel of individuality and diversity operated thuswise. It was desired that the humans have time to develop themselves before they were brought together, it was also felt wise to wait for the rebirth of Entropy-Evolution. They on the other hand had no wish to be reborn, contrariwise it wished to merge with mass in order that gravity might come into being who would prevail against osmosis in the tug of war over the existence of substance Then and only then with gravity and substance in existence and form not necessarily attached nor detached from them as mankind spread and grew and multiplied, evolutionary entropy saw that man was ignorant, thus provided with them with gods to lead them "Expedience" and his mate "Utility" who gathered men into groups in order to promote the general welfare and when the fruits of this divine marriage were born they were found to be twins (the divinity being highly fecund), a boy Law and a girl Order They were given dominion over the groupings of man. There does exist rumors of the alleged infidelity of utility with Social Contract or Common Consent. But those who perpetuate such slander are subversive guttersnipes who wish to degrade the honour of the gods in order to absolve themselves of their own guilt or do we evade the question do we degrade the honor of the gods when we shackle them with our limitations which are based upon mortal survival in a physical world.

In consideration of Aristotle's Categories, a definition of predication becomes even more necessary and mysterious than in Kant's critique Kart claimed that a predicate contained within The subject is meaningless, Aristotle claimed that The Two were mutually exclusive in That a characteristic, quality or condition (i. e. a subject) could not both be present in, as well as predicable of an object. Null Hypothesis Ho=P p=t V_J There is no relationship between a person's philosophical presuppositions and subsequent Value judgments e. g. A monist is no more likely to adopt string theory than is a pluralist or a dualist. Berkeley introduces a dichotomy between sensation and perception commensurate with the dichotomy between universal and particular. Hylas says that sensible things are only those things which are apprehended by sensory organs, and are only things perceived immediately and any deduction, induction or inference as to cause or occasion belongs entirely to reason. But it is it a tautology to say things like deductions belong to reason? Philonous answers with "sensible things are those only which are immediately perceived by sense.'' Hylas: "To exist is one thing and to be perceived is another." Compare this to Plot inns 'dichotomy between that which perceives and that which perceives not.

Aristotle says, in effect, that humanity (mankind) it's not "present" in a person because one person does not contain humanity. That is to say the existence of humanity is possible separate from a single individual. A colloquial interpreter would claim that this excludes the individual from participation in the class of humanity. This is the sort of quibbling that brought about the entire realism versus nominalism debate of scholasticism. Yet, in Aristotle's case it was not so much quibbling as putting some sort of brake on Platonic other-worldliness. So then mankind is predicated of the subject this man. This would seem to be a much better example of a statement wherein the predicate is contained within the subject than the statement "sugar is sweet" or the object of football is to score goals. In respect to the possibility of a priori synthetic judgments, we may be doing no more than treating words and concepts as shuttlecocks in a semantic game of badminton. The question remains whether, when we design a conceptual construct for the purposes of theory, are we ever doing anything else. From the categories of Aristotle, "Now the same relation which subsists between primary substance and everything else subsists also between the species and the genus: for the species is to the genus as the subject is to the predicate, since the genus is predicated of the species, whereas the species cannot be predicated of the genus.” First: primary substance, is this the ontological predicate? Is being a being or is being a thing? Is existence a phenomenon or are phenomena an aspect of existence? or merely its image? Which subject and which predicts which is object or, if you will, which is genus & which species? If the species cannot be predicated from the genus, where does that leave Natural Theology? Is God not present in creation because creation does not contain God? The existence of God is possible separate from creation. Creation is excluded from Divinity.

In considering the Magnus Opus of The late Rev. Alexander Hislop, The first point is that one must either accept the doctrine of cultural diffusion or postulate the agency of a grand adversary to account for convergent cultural evolution for the underlying unity of world religions is the concomitant thread of Ariadne throughout his comparison of the Roman church with the religion of Babylon to whom he ascribes the origin of all paganism and polytheism. His first Support for his Universalist contention is the dispersal of the worship of a Madonna and child. It becomes etymologically important to this universal image that The Great Mother is one who gazes and that her consort the Horned One often a serpent was “hidden”. Jacob wrestling with the angel, Beowulf and Grendel and Gilgamesh and Humbawa, are these not the same stories or the same image at least? The same shoulder. Hislop adopts an orthodox chronology that makes Job a far antecedent To Moses. But an essential underpinning to his position involves or is involved with the identification of Ninus, Nimrod and Orion, for which the construction of Nineveh as a Sumerian city in is necessary. On-The divergence between a strict monotheism and the veneration of the saints: Imagine God as a jewel and conditions arise that jewel is splintered. This would either be another exploitation of the extension of the universal into the particular in a monist pantheistic sense or a realistic materialist sense or at any point on the spectrum between. If one accepts the Veneration of the saints, then one necessarily gravitates toward either a polytheism or a pantheism. Or the congruent concatenation of the particular to construct The Universal. In the one, a gem on geometrical depiction of the formula would description ate describe an intersection not a union of the two sets (Universal, Particular a. The balefire ceremonies described by Sir James George Frazer, while more detailed, in essence agree with those of the late Reverend Alexander Hislop. Frazer identifies the Taurian Diana with Vesta. We know that archaeological evidence puts the beginnings of pattern, (and thus brick making) and agriculture north of Mesopotamia in The hilly region that was later to become the southeastern extremis of The Hittite Empire (Campbell). Velikovski identifies the Carians, The Hittites and the Chaldeans.

Therefore it becomes of paramount importance to ascertain the origins of The Sumerians. IF the technology that allowed them to build their cities is of Armenian origin, then it becomes better established that they migrated out of The Tarim basin as climate change made it into the desert it is today as climate change drove pastoralists out of The Sahara to The Nile. The key to reconciling Hislop and Velikovski is the myth of Phaethon. Syncretism was rampant in the ancient world. Tacitus and Cesar readily called Teutonic gods by Latin names recognizing the similarities in their cults. This trend continued until it was eventually used deliberately in the Alexandrine age to design the cult of Serapis. Accordingly it should not be surprising that Marduk should be called by the name of a much more ancient name "Bel". Nebo, the Babylonian Hermes was associated with The Birs Nimrod. It is interesting to note that truth and righteousness were the attendants of 'the servant' Shamash. Tammuz, the shepherd, may actually be the oldest cult. Born of incest, and also born of a tree, he is the same as Adonis. Hidden in a chest, he was also loved of Persephone. The dual association with a goddess of the upper and lower worlds mirrors the vegetative cycle as the sojourn in the chest mirrors both Osiris (also born of a tree and Perseus.

Water damage to the Great Sphinx need not indicate its greater age; it might indicate that our dating of Pleistocene and Holocene might be wrong, what? Arbitrary? The earliest Sumerian Kings ruled for multiples of 3600 years. Cyclical? Is there more than just similarity to the stories of The Caledonian Boar and the Bull of Heaven? Are the presumptions of the temporal location of the Aryan invasion of Northern India set to coincide with a Dorian invasion in order to perpetuate a myth of a Greek Dark Ages? Are there no art facts from The Dorian darks ages because all knowledge was lost or because that time corresponds to a non-existent period of history elsewhere in the world? What if those Dorians were refugees from an advanced sophisticated civilization? Was trephination evidence of an advanced state of medicine or evidence, of a particular barbarous religious initiation?

Was Karl Barth building upon a foundation laid by Schleiermacher? Upon first glance Schleiermacher appears to be a foaming at the Mouth ranting fundamentalist. But after further inspection it appears as though he was influenced far more than even he would like to admit by Fichte. And by the same Token is the development of functionalist psychology from the ashes o structuralism any mirror image of the self evolution of phenomenology from the debris of post-Kantian Idealism? But for Husserl, radical means an equivalent to Cartesian skepticism, like a red-tailed hawk gingerly picking at the marrow of his petrified bones.

Vygotsky’s theories are often criticized out of a misapprehension of his concepts in their contextual setting. He was a showpiece of Soviet science. Living and working in a totalitarian régime, he had to pay far more than lip service to Marxist dogma. However the fact that Marxist doctrine forms the foundation for Vygotsky’s thought does not in and of itself disqualify his theories. It is the economic theory of value that does not pass the acid test of empirical experience in the realm of time. Vygotsky’s theories were specific to human development and he describes them in a manner analogous to dialectical materialism. Specifically, the dialecticism which was the Hegelian foundation for the thought that Marx took in a Materialistic direction away from the Absolute Spirit of Hegel.

He introduces a dichotomy between the satisfaction of developmental hurdles by the individual and the race as to methodology. For example, the conceptual contextual background to dialectical materialism is that of the evolution of social structure in history leading to the dictatorship of the proletariat as a culmination similar to the culmination of physical evolutionary forces in the human species. This goes beyond mere phylogeny and ontogeny. In accordance with the Marxist theory of history there is an element of social development to Vygotsky’s theories. This forms a background to the foreground of individual development. This dialogue between phylogeny and ontogeny can be described in geometrical terms as there are multiple dimensions. There is an epistemological dimension, an active dimension, and more. In activity there are the implementation of tool usage and its development through practice. Signs are transmitters of meaning, but what is meaning? It is by communication that existential aloneness is transformed into meaning. It is the dialectical exchange between the individual and society.

Joseph Campbell speaks of social roles as masks in his lecture series, “Mythos”. He indicates a possibility of minimal relation between the inner and outer selves.

Once again, the meaning is found (in Marxist theory) in the dialogue. Activity consists of spectrums of development in four stages. The practice of tool usage begins with the use of the hands to insert items in one’s mouth and continues unto the construction of complicated machines.

Motivation has an additional fifth step that consists in the discrimination between ends and means. This step is primary because ends and means are the pathway to action.

There is only one demarcation for the spectrum between internal and external development because there must be a developmental foundation laid before interaction between them can occur.

The delta vectors for these values are different for history than for the child. First, Marxist theory of social evolution through history is an unsupported presupposition made in advance of empirical data. But there are also similarities such as long term interactions between levels. Interactionism is an integral part of dialectical Materialism but both individual and social development begins with tool usage. We have no soft tissue fossil evidence of laryngeal development, so we have no idea when vocal communication entered the social development of our ancestors, but it is not unreasonable to assume that the employment of hand axes preceded communication except for communication the construction techniques necessary for building a stone hand axe by example. But in the child there is no doubt that the vocal manipulation of the environment precedes the digital.

Beyond the most basic examples of stimulus-response association and cut and try techniques, deliberative judgments concerning concrete relations and tool usage as a means toward an end describe a progression away from Interactionism. Thinking in terms of concepts in the absence of sensory input whereby cultural values are internalized, and rational analysis employing mathematical and logical operations are the systems on mentation that describe us as humans and the gulf between us and beasts. The chimpanzee, who employs a stick even one of constructed length to get at a banana, does so in a flash of insight and not by any synthetic or analytic judgments. It is human thought that transcends empirical tranactionalism.

The distinctiveness of human cognition was attributed by Vygotsky to cultural history, but this is a reflection of the Marxist theoretical environment in which he operated. To state that the analysis by dialectical materialism upon human history discovers a difference between animal behavior and human in terms of the adaptability and development of animals and the adaptability and historical development adds nothing to the equation beyond humans develop through history and animals do not because humans have culture and animals do not. The difference between synthetic and analytical judgments is essential to understanding this failing of Vygotsky’s. This statement beyond that of the species does not add anything in terms of descriptions of qualities of the predicate and while this may be criticized as a positive historical error of pettio principi, one must understand that for Vygotsky’s political and scientific overlords, Dialectical Materialism was an article of faith, and his position in society, was dependent upon developing a Marxist psychology in line with the Marxist philosophy of history, no self-revelation of the Absolute Spirit culminating in human art, philosophy and religion allowed, the ultimate self-revelation of the Absolute Spirit was the development of the dictatorship of the Proletariat. Was he merely expressing the dialogue between his inner and outer self by employing active motivation to interact with his social environment?

References:

Killian, Melanie, Langer, Jonas Ed., 1998 Piaget Evolution and Development Lawrence Earlbaum and Assoc. Mahwah, New Jersey, and Killen, Melanie

Langford, Peter E., 2005

Vygotsky’s Developmental and Educational Psychology

Psychology Press, Taylor and Francis Group, Hove and New York