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Chapter Two: Counterinduction

We may (and necessarily must) make use of contradictory axioms and theories to advance Science.

To examine this, we must observe the effect of counterinduction. Consider that experience, facts, or data, measure the success of our theory, whereas disagreement maligns it: this is the empirical process at work. Counterinductively, we confidently elaborate theories and axioms that are in conflict with scientific orthodoxy.

This gives rise to the following questions:

Is counterinduction more reasonable than induction?

Are there circumstances favouring its use?

What are the arguments for it?

What are the arguments against it?

Is perhaps induction always preferable to counterinduction?

Evidence that contradicts a theory, usually requires an incompatible alternative to generate that evidence: to use alternatives only when they've discredited mainstream beliefs defeats the purpose.

Additionally, contrast, as well as analysis, is a tool needed to expose the pure structure of a theory, requiring a scientist to assume a pluralistic methodology, a number of competing theories with which he can sharpen the one he's pursuing.

The scientist must compare ideas with ideas, as opposed to ideas and evidence.

Currently physics is a pluralist (dualist) field, if you think about the The Standard Model and General Relativity.

Because of this, the forward march of progress is no single, unifying path, where all the conflicts of theories are dissolved, but rather a number of interwoven paths that exist simultaneously and rightfully.

Every theory is assigned a point in theory space, and and the connection between them through resolutions is called the flow of the theories.

In theory space, Naturalness means a low level theory shouldn't sensitively depend on a high level theory.

We should be able to start at any high level theory, and work our way down to the standard model, but if we have to pick a certain theory at high resolution in order to get to the standard model, then we have to fine tune the start.

The other fact at hand, in support of counterinduction, is that there exists no theory which wholly agrees with or accounts for the facts of it's domain: the question at hand is how should existing discrepancies between theories be handled, as opposed to whether or not they should be acknowledged at all.

It is important to remember that reports either contain assumptions, or assert them, due to the manner in which they present their findings.

The issue is that our senses, can be deceived, and the medium by which external stimuli are communicated to consciousness, can influence the nature of the perceived stimuli: our senses do nothing to clear up discrepancy between the real world and our perceptions of it.

I believe this is leading to the point that we can never truly be sure if our measurements are untainted, and unbiased.

Assumptions about the quality of the information we receive, requires something to stand in contrast, if we are to prove that information to be accurate.

Tools that scientists use to do their work, are afflicted by the same assumptions with regard to our sensibility.

The capacity for receiving representations through the modes by which we are affected by objects, is sensibility.

By means of sensibility, objects are given to us, and it (sensibility) alone, furnishes us with intuitions; by understanding, they are thought, and thus give rise to conceptions.

We usually do not realize it, but the scientists theories and techniques work in the same way as light do, and thus may contain similar prejudices.

We cannot often observe these without some external force or standard, that we can contrast our current beliefs against.

Prejudices are found by contrast, not analysis, and we are not usually aware of these until alternative cosmologies or theories make them apparent.

Quantum Mechanics and Relativity theories, have made obvious how peculiar the nature of time, leaving nothing but paradoxes left in some cases.

Opposite of this, the entirety of Calculus has built upon an assumed understanding of time, where an objects position at time tt, is given by f(t)f(t), and it's velocity is dxdt\frac {dx}{dt}, the derivative of f(t)f(t) with respect to time, and the acceleration is the second derivative.

This forces us to treat time as continuous, with any given interval of time being divisible, whereas QM implies that time is quantized (or quantizable), creating conflict between the time of mathematics and physical theory (which relies on mathematics to get it's point across).

Furthermore, making measurements in QM, results in the collapse of Wave Functions, which makes time asymmetric, as the state of the location of observables are markedly different on either side of this collapse event.

At the quantum level, there are events that *distinguish* the past from the future, such as the collapse of the wave function, which makes the past and future around a measurement asymmetrical, and thus represent an irreversible change (or rather, a change that removes the reversibility of the system being observed).

We feel as if we travel through perched exactly on the border between past and present, yet the present has no definite or specific structure within the laws of physics. Einstein combined time with space, as an extra dimension, with the three dimensions contained in the latter.

Thus we see counterinduction, the acceptance and exploration of theories that conflict with contemporary truth, is necessary to increase the quality and range of scientific knowledge.

The emphasis on comparing theories in order to sharpen them reminds me of hormesis in a way.

"......we need a dream-world in order to discover the features of the real world we think we inhabit."

"...all methodologies, even the most obvious ones, have their limits"

Referenced in

**Chapter Two: Counterinduction**