MY MENTAL SUBWAY TRAIN
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==THERE MUST BE SOME SORT OF MAJOR LINK BETWEEN THE MENTAL AND PHYSICAL REALITIES==

We can make a general assumption about this or that, but whatever the assumption is, we must then take time to prove that the assumption is totally correct. This is an assumption some would make:

–There is a finite amount of any sort of empirical data in the Universe.–

Now, I would have to differ. You see, there and all sorts of scientific fields; biology, physics, chemistry, biochemistry, biophysics, psychology, sociology, anthropology, ethnology, cultural studies, archaeology, paleontology, geology, immuno-biology, molecular biology, cellular biology, quantum physics, relativity, engineering (chemical), and so on and so on.

All of these scientific fields pervades some sort of physical space, and seeks to explain it as fully and entirely as it can. This is done through the scientific method:

1. Make sure you are aware of the problem at hand that you are seeking the answer to.
2. Research/discover the topic searched for.
3. Make a hypothesis.
4. Test this hypothesis and make the attempt to see if it is accurate.
5. Analyze the data compiled and check it to find whether the hypothesis was correct or ill founded. If ill founded, then the process must be restarted with a different theory and (possibly) different tests.

So, as you can see, this is a very rough outline of the general scientific method. There may be some small discrepancies found among different doctors and scientists, but this is the general idea.

So, as Robert M. Pirsig, in his philosophical doctrine, Zen And The Art Of Motorcycle Maintenance, pointed out, there can be an infinite number of hypotheses in any situation, and they must all be tested to find out whether they are correct or not, in order to balance both sides of the process. He talks about, in his book, how he had cracked the egg and how the scientific method was flawed. But I don’t believe it is.

You see, the information which some would argue is finite cannot truly be finite. Simply because, as time wears on and more is discovered, the ideas become more and more exact and smaller and smaller. What this then does is simply opens up more and more holes for knowledge, this knowledge being more and more exact to a specific point of reference.

And with that comes a better understanding of the ideas provoked in sciences. But, these ideas do not have to be the end goal using the scientific method.

As Pirsig pointed out, there are an infinite number of hypotheses. If there are ways to document more and more information, then the information, base empirical data, can always be recorded and recorded and recorded. And if this happens, then the sciences would eventually melt down into a mess of steaming crap and ridiculous data collecting, even if the data means nothing toward the sciences’ end goal.

Now, we must then ask why we use it then, why we can possibly stand to have a method, which, under any circumstances, is flawed to begin with, as our main way of obtaining data? Especially if the data in the universe is infinite anyway?

Well, no offense to Pirsig, but his idea was slightly flawed. You see, he was examining something in the scientific method that may have been overlooked. He seemed to assume that the method was there to obtain the information of the “what” parts of science. He thought that the scientific method would be used to ask “Does an apple fall onto the ground if I throw it up into the air?”

But what scientific method would be asking, instead of the “what”, would be the “why”. It would be asking “Why does the apple fall to the ground when I throw it up into the air?” “Why do human beings create group and predominance in society?” and so on. This is the major classifications of knowledge found by epistemologists; the difference between those two. I would like to make a more specific derivation of the what’s and why’s.

So, when looking at the scientific method, we obviously now see that it was there to explain why things are, not the fact that they are. And the infinite knowledge we found? It is simply a byproduct, something to be written in science textbooks for the reasoning to begin again through fresh minds and new students of whichever science is being studied.

The differentiation I would like to make between these two different forms of knowledge is this:

1. In sciences, we have a bit of knowledge, the knowledge that must come first, that says “what” something is, or “what” something does. This is usually referred to by the term “scientific fact”. It is a fact that, generally associated with the sciences, seeks to tell people what something does or what something is.

2. Also, in the sciences, there is a form of “why” knowledge. I would hereby like to call this branch of scientific knowledge “scientific truth”. It seeks to truthfully and fully explain why things are there or why they do what they do. This is what the scientific method seeks to explain; the scientific fact is simply a byproduct of this search, and is not to be sought after by the scientific method.

This sought after scientific truth, this ultimate goal of the sciences, is a product of two things: The scientific fact and human understanding. The human understanding interprets any facts found through the method and analyzes them and finds the hypotheses to be true or untrue; this becomes a small piece of scientific truth, and brings the researcher one step closer to finding the true answer, if they have not already, to the main question.

Then, there is one more inference to make toward an end conclusion:
That sciences, physical, hard sciences, are here to try and explain the universe to us, and that this explanation comes through a mixture of human understanding or interpretation and hard fact.

I would like, now, to divert the readers’ attention to the speculative sciences, ones that have no tie to the physical world.

There are many different philosophies and religions to choose from; existentialism, Christianity, absurdism, objectivism, Hinduism, Catholicism, atheism, agnosticism, Gnosticism, hermetic, Wicca, Buddhism, and so on and so on and so on.

There is one not thought of very often as an abstract science: Mathematics.

Now, mathematics would have first come about to find out certain things, such as how many elks Shu Shu needs to survive the winter, all the way to the fact that F=MA, and so on, and will be an explanation for many things to come and go.

But, quite often, mathematics is used as an abstract philosophy, with no physical bearing. I would like to use this as a speculative science for now, so as to avoid any sort of clash with the faith of major religions, or to cause any upheaval among different interpretations of philosophies, or anything like that.

But, there are many speculations that have to be made in order to try and make the entirety of mathematics sound. Pirsig, again, used a similar argument with mathematics:

He had found a philosopher who tried to let every theory have room.

Early in the course of geometry, Euclid became the top dog of the mathematic. He founded, in fact, Euclidean geometry, the style that is the most commonly used today in highs schools around the world, because of the way it explains and creates ideas. But, among several centuries, mathematical philosophers were able to find that there were different ways to practice geometry, and that these ideas, when put in contact with Euclid’s, ideas, were conflicting with his ideas and thus were not compatible, although they came to the same conclusion.

A philosopher named Jules Henri Von Poincare thought that two conflicting ideas could be present and equally powerful, so long as they are not used interchangeably. He said that as long as you don’t mix Bob’ s geometry form down the street with Jill’s form up the street, but used one or the other in every situation, and they both came to what is generally regarded as the correct conclusion, that these two different types were totally okay, but incompatible.

This was not enough for me, though. I had to try and find exactly why these abstract philosophies can be totally correct, even within the same field of study, and why they can still contradict each other. But I couldn’t, until I thought of this:

That the scientific method constitutes a serious connection between the mental and physical worlds, a connection that needs to be there for any sort of knowledge to exist.

Without the method, any abstract philosophy had no two feet to stand on. Even through sound logic and universal truth, one could not prove abstract or speculative philosophies. Without the physical world and the physical bodies to find the answers, the answers did not exist in the universe.

This sounds a bit solipsist, but it seems to hold water. So, then, it comes time to classify the sciences:

1. Political
2. Physical
3. Mental
4. Speculative

A short list, I know. The political sciences and mental sciences still have to be covered.

Political: These require a very short explanation. These are the studies that are only there to try and create a way to live. In the evolution of any civilization, these must come first. These include basic language skill, legal studies, and politics, all involved in the creation and basic ordering of society. I put these first, because, in the long run, these sciences are the first to emerge.

Mental: These science include the likes of psychology, cultural studies, and sociology, and are here to try and find why the human brain is the way it is and why humans act the way they do. I put these second to last on the list because they always seem to be halfway between the physical and speculative sciences. If we take, for example, psychology, it seems like many philosophers in this area are always disagreeing on ways to treat a patient, and even treat them different ways, and some ways seem to work but others work also. Yet, there is still some hard fact present in these sciences, and this hard fact presents itself on a point of view through the physical sciences.

It was here I encountered a bit more trouble.

You see, I decided, then, to try and reason what might have come first, in the case of any of the above sections of study. There was one that every subject of physical science has always needed, one that every speculative and mental science needs: Communication. So, I reasoned that language, a political science, must have come first.

With this idea would have come the thoughts about religion and the structure of society; thus, religion and legal sciences would have been practiced secondly; this was also political.

But.. Wait. Religion isn’t political. It’s speculative. You have to speculate about whether God is there, whether he created us and interferes. So, it’s obviously speculative.

But religion created order and stability. It even led to the first understanding of the Universe. And it was here that I understood.

Ideas in speculation, theories made in the sciences, weren’t always theories. And so, every science made an evolution through two stages.

First, they always were speculative and always came out in theory. But, as this theory was proved to be correct, then, they settled into either mental or physical or political sciences. And, thusly, sciences would always be changing slightly, because of more and more specific information.

And these speculative sciences were the last link I needed. The last piece to the puzzle.

The subtitle explains that this began as a quest to try and find a single strong link between the mental and physical worlds, in order to try and understand why there are two different pervading realities. I believe I have found it.

The physical reality is present in the first three listed sciences; political, physical, and mental. They are truths found all in the physical world, all around the world in which we live. They explain the reasons why something falls when it hits the ground, or why something falls faster. They explains why each frog has eyes this far apart or doesn’t. They explain the reason why some children develop more quickly than others. They create a method of explanation and explain why order is needed or why it is not.

There are also speculative sciences; basically, anything that is not yet proven or holds water only in a strictly logical sense. This is the mental reality, the reality that holds water in our minds, but has been yet disproved or is not totally accurate within the boundaries of the physical sciences. This is, generally speaking, the spirit of reason within human beings.

And there is one link between these two, one very small link that connects the two through paths of study. The scientific method takes the speculation and shows what it truly is.

This is not to say that all speculations will be found to be true or false, or that any more will in the future. This is simply to show how the connection is and why it exists.