Ontological Research
From The Unicist Wiki Library
The purpose of this synopsis is to provide a list of actions (an action guideline) to design the research that would permit to diagnose complex problems.
The final goal of all diagnosis is to influence upon the reality under study. To do so the researcher needs to explain it, but the explanation is only a comprehension framework to exert influence on the environment under study. The research that merely tries to explain a situation becomes an end in itself and therefore tends to be fallacious.
Contents |
The “unified field” to study
All reality that operates as a complex system needs to be approached as a unified field. The unified field is not susceptible to division into variables. Division is only possible when dealing with a non-complex system. A complex system can only be studied as a unit.
A very strict methodology, forecast and validation/falsification are required to avoid falling into fallacies that will lead into erroneous diagnoses.
The researcher needs to know the unified field to be studied directly or through homology. If it is not understood then neither its amplitude nor its depth can be acknowledged. Both elements i.e. amplitude and depth, tend to be known generically as amplitude.
The understanding of a culture when making a country diagnosis calls for a depth that allows reaching the concept of the culture and an amplitude that permits to encompass economic, social, political, technological, religious, cultural and linguistic aspects.
To understand a global scenario implies, on the other hand, enlarging the unified field to understand the relative functionality of several cultures. The unified field is a Unicist anthropology research topic.
The risk of falling into fallacies
Fallacies are mechanisms used by the human being to see the facts of reality and build ideas on it in a way that these would satisfy his/her own beliefs or needs.
This graph shows the different types of fallacies that individuals fall into in the research process. Everybody can fall into any type of fallacy although the prevailing ones are those corresponding to the strategic stereotypical style that each individual has. Fallacies are avoided in the processes of experimentation and pilot application to each reality in order to prove a diagnosis valid. In addition to the fallacies that individual fall prey to, there are fallacious myths in the culture that operate as “secure knowledge” (axioms) of the said ones. These fallacious myths exert a significant influence to the extent of destroying research. Research cannot be carried out in a culture that has created fallacious myths because the conclusions drawn of the diagnosis or the resulting foundations break up these myths and the researcher and his/her research are rejected or “denied” in such environment.
Research design
In order to design research it is necessary to define the following:
1) The object of research
2) The secure knowledge or axioms one count with
3) The experimentation fields, be them analogous or homologous.
4) The research protocol
5) The conclusions’ field of application
6) The research team
7) The inference rules and logical derivation
The objective of research
Complex systems, by mere definition, are those whose variables are not susceptible to being individualized and therefore escape the possibility of being influenced.
Research on complex systems seeks to transform a complex system into an operable one. To transform it into an operable one implies finding a simple solution. Simple means that both the variables and their operation are known.
Complex systems are very hard to limit. That is why their limitation is functional and somehow arbitrary.
Let us consider the following cases as examples:
A) Attempt at carrying out research on men’s behavior regarding their relationship to addictions.
B) Attempt at carrying out research on men’s and women’s behavior regarding their relationship to addictions.
C) Attempt at carrying out research on adults’ behavior regarding drug consumption.
All these definitions are different and bear direct consequences on the research design. It is precisely these definitions the ones that determine the possibility to have secure knowledge to start the research.
