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8.6 The Scientific Method for the Study of Life

A. A Little More: Life & Matter, Orthogonal Vectors

The Teutonic warrior, cooling off

A Teutonic warrior, who has been in battle, and has been so heated up that they throw him in a tub of water, which immediately turns to steam. He is cooling down, but not that much. He has a few more things to say before signing off. This is what he says.

Predictable vs. Unpredictable

God created the Universe and willed that some of it shall be predictable and that some of it shall be unpredictable. The predictable part we call Material and Dead. The unpredictable part we call Live and Spiritual. He let these parts mix and called it good. There has been much Scientific study of the Material side of the Universe, with unimaginable success. This is the study of Dead Data Sets, which are predictable. This present study is all about Live Data Streams, which are unpredictable. The study of Dead Data Sets has yielded such fruits that its techniques have been applied unsuccessfully to Live Data Streams. This has been partly because they have confined their scientific attention to predictability and partly to do with assumptions of homogeneity and repeatability. These series of notebooks develop techniques for dealing with unpredictable, growing Data Streams. Predictability deals with Dead things. Unpredictability deals with Live Things. The study of predictable functions is doomed when applied to living things because one of the features of Life is unpredictability, (whether it's carbon-based life or not).

B. Unreplicable Ends, Repeatable Trends

Replicability

One feature of unpredictability is its resistance to replicability. Life responds to context. The context is always changing. Thus Life's responses change. Simply speaking Material does not respond to the context of experience. It responds to the content of the cause. Material does not modify its response based upon memory. Its response is immediate and based upon the physical laws of the universe. These laws are predictable and never changing. Hence replicability is a feature of the Material world while replicability is not a feature of the Living, unpredictable world.

We're just having fun

Underlying the above paragraph is the assumption that Life is based upon unpredictability. Most scientists would argue this assumption. As stated before most scientists start with the assumption that all phenomenon are ultimately predictable. Most scientists believe in a god of predictable functions and spend their life studying His Nature, a worthwhile endeavor to be sure. We, here, believe in a predictable God but we also believe in the Unpredictable side to Mother Nature. Therefore we call her greater self, She. But if it bothers you to assume that unpredictability is a feature of Life, then take a step back and replace Life with Living Data Streams. Living Data Streams lack replicability because they lack predictability.

What are we studying then?

If our studies lack predictability and lack replicability then what can be said? There is no more scientific method. It has all disappeared before the God of Predictable Functions, Him. Don't Worry! He can't see us because we have turned sideways. We have disappeared into a line, when in actuality we exist in a dimension of which the line is but a crack into a multi-dimensional experience.

Process not Product

The study of Living Data Streams is the study of Process, not product. Although nothing can be said about the end, volumes can be written about the road there. We barely know that the end exists, as we are so immersed in the process of getting there. So we are studying Mechanisms not Laws. A law is absolute, unyielding. A mechanism is a description of the process, a tendency, an inclination, nothing absolute, however, because of the Unpredictability of the Subject, Life, (Living Data Streams, if you prefer.)

C. Another byproduct of unpredictability: Free Will

A Spontaneous Mother Nature

One of the byproducts of Unpredictability and Unreplicability is Free Will. The assumption that the God of Functions rules all, leads to the idea of Predestination. Conversely the idea of a spontaneous Mother Nature leads to the idea of Choice and Free Will. Within the Unpredictability lies the Choice. Beneath the Uncertainty Principle lies Decision-making. If you prefer Beyond Freedom & Dignity, this is not for you.

Not Subatomic: Laws out; Mechanisms in

This Free Will foils the predictability and replicability of Laws but it does not foil the tendencies of mechanisms. Although this language sounds subatomic on some levels, it differs on one crucial point. Both deal with probabilistic tendencies, but the subatomic level is ultimately predictable, while Living Data Streams are by definition unpredictable.

The Enlightened, Modern View: We are governed by laws, physical or divine

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