A Synthetic Method For Scientific Inquiry
The Beginning of Space Age Science
“Science is born from this act of humility. Not trusting blindly in our past knowledge and our intuition. Not believing in what everyone says. Not having absolute faith in the accumulated knowledge of our fathers and grandfathers.” - Carlo Rovelli, Quantum Physicist.
Note To Reader:
Dear reader, I leave you this short document as a provocation. I hope to provoke the way you think about science and history, and ultimately reality. It seems that today we are more stupid than we have ever been. I encourage you to read this sportively, without taking it too seriously.
Do not try to judge it immediately, and do not mentally disregard its claims if certain propositions appear to you as far fetched. If you do not understand some of it, just keep reading on. Simply read it with an empty mind, and let the thoughts and processes fill your head until you cannot unsee what I write to you below. This will hopefully create the right conditions for a fruitful conversation at some point in the future.
– Michael Kelly, October 4th, 2021 - Tivat, Montenegro
Introduction to the Synthetic Method
The demand for a new method in our theoretical approach to reality stems from the overflowing amounts of information at our fingertips, the fragmentation of the sciences into unresponsive siloes, and the general state of historical amnesia present across all fields of theoretical inquiry.
Make no mistake, our time is the final act of modernity, characterized by an unprecedented focus on the self, the self’s horizon of inquiry, and the self’s fear of exposure as incompetent and lost. As a result of this setting, we are more disoriented than ever in our expedition into the unknown, the remarkable, and the fantastic. In fact, we have built towering walls of theory that seek to entrench existing paradigms in deep and unmoving dogma - as nothing more than a protection mechanism for this delicate and failing ego at the crumbling of an era.
The Synthetic Method put forward below, is a mechanism by which any curious inquirer can ground their expeditions in the theoretical sciences on a stable and reliable platform for future discovery. This method is meant to innovate, and to reveal what has been evident but not observed. In fact, many might admit that our biggest problems to date have ready-made solutions sitting before our eyes (oftentimes hidden in the plain sight of nature). But what is required is a Esprit de finesse (spirit of finesse - Pascal) to look, harmonize, integrate, and test these observations - all within a setting of world-orientation. Only then will the world unconceal its secrets to our minds.
The synthetic method is applicable to any theoretical inquiry. And unlike previous methods, it is built reflexively to constantly update and synchronize with the times of the inquirer, due to its appreciation for historical reason (Ortega). This will become evident to the reader after they fully understand this method.
The starting point of the synthetic method is grounded on the observations of Mr. Ortega y Gasset, who not only proved the historical nature of human experience, but also fought the incomplete modern paradigm put forward by Mr. Descartes. I see this method as an updated scientific method for interacting with reality, and grounding new sciences in our time and the times to come. This is primarily due to the fact that with historical reason we build upon the intuitions of the past - over many points in time - to inform our current experience - and in the process, creating the basis for a forever-updating methodology for approaching reality. This is in contrast to the current state of only utilizing select intuitions from the past that have grounded the methods already in use today. More attention is given to this exceptional claim in Section 1.
I begin with my own orientation to the reader:
Initial Orientation to the Synthetic Method
Very frequently today, we look into reality (things, nature, our world, our problems) with pre-configured paradigms and lenses of what we take to be real or accurate to how it actually is. Often, however, these paradigms are merely theoretical constructions that have been enhanced over the decades, but rarely questioned or re-evaluated themselves. At a certain moment, these theoretical constructions become so totalizing and overgrown, they no longer even purport to explain unexpected or advanced phenomena in our world - or even anomalies that are ever-present and clearly documented. Instead, they isolate and enclose reality in a negative analytic spiral. This spiral creates a false sense of security - a semblance of actually understanding reality.
Mr. Ortega outlines the full nature of the origins of this process in his book The Idea of Principle in Leibnitz and the Evolution of Deductive Theory. The interested reader can continue their investigation into this issue there. To illustrate, these negative analytic spirals result in new researchers being thrust into a discipline with a fundamental lack of orientation and integration not only within the science itself, but also with relation to other sciences:
The synthetic method is all about inverting this paradigm. With the synthetic method we seek to orient everyone practicing a particular science, by grounding them with a holistic view of the evolution of the science - its problems, puzzles, drawbacks, holes, and lingering questions and mysteries.
The steps in the synthetic method are all about providing the investigator with sufficient tools to continue their investigation in a structured and oriented manner. In this sense, the synthetic method restructures inquiry from a negative analytic spiral, to a synthetic landscape, from which analysis forms positively from a rich collection of historical data. It is my belief that this method is not only more durable for the long-term success of a science, but it also (1) makes the science more accessible to the generalist, (2) more capable of cross-communicating with other sciences, and (3) more aware of burgeoning issues and mysteries. It also is applicable to any field of inquiry.
When it comes to implementing the synthetic method into a specific investigation, there are certain steps to the method that can be followed.
These steps effectively:
Mold historical data collection and analysis to orient the investigator,
Illustrate the shortcomings of the present day with the demand for unrealized solutions,
Intuitively deduce metaphysical shifts required for re-imagining the science in question, and finally,
Test and retest the hypotheses that have emerged from this metaphysical shift, until a discovery is made or a new angle is successful in coaxing reality to perform in the expected manner.
When a researcher is in doubt, the wisdom of the synthetic method is to simply ‘zoom out’: To expand the scope of the historical data collection and analysis, expand the scope of existing science and what may or may not be possible, and expand the scope of imagination for a sought after solution. They can then apply an intuitive deduction to an even larger body of concepts and theories, in pursuit of a new mechanism for successfully achieving one’s goals of manipulating and coaxing reality for the particular problem at hand.
The wise and attentive reader will note that this structure is built in such a manner to accommodate self-correction as time goes on: If one follows the synthetic method, the landscape is ever-updating as more data is included and more information comes to the fore, and more discoveries are made. This, in my opinion, is the real innovation of this method: Once constructed and operational, it only strengthens in time as more data and hence orientation is added to the model.
In what follows, I will explain the different steps of this method from which I will provide some examples as to how this method may be deployed in the future for solving some of our most serious problems and realizing our fantasies and dreams (with reference to cancer, and free-energy technology specifically). Importantly, this method strongly inverts our existing deductive sciences, and instead proposes scientific inquiry to begin with induction - with experience, and specifically our experience or imagined experience of a reality that currently defies our understanding or dogma.
The final note on the synthetic method is that it is wholly embedded with a new sense of theoretical activity, best described by Mr. Pascal’s Esprit de Finesse. The ability to think synthetically is, like analysis, something that must be trained with an eye towards integration and unification of disparate components and intuitions:
“But in the intuitive mind the principles are found in common use, and are before the eyes of everybody. One has only to look, and no effort is necessary; it is only a question of good eyesight, but it must be good, for the principles are so subtle and so numerous, that it is almost impossible but that some escape notice. Now the omission of one principle leads to error; thus one must have very clear sight to see all the principles, and in the next place an accurate mind not to draw false deductions from known principles.” (Pensees, Section 1)
The Steps of the Synthetic Method: A Primer in Modular Theoretical Mapping
The first requirement for leveraging the synthetic method is orientation. In the field of theoretical sciences, nothing is more important. Orientation concretely means the capacity to understand one's surroundings with the phenomena, concepts, definitions, and intuitions used to approach such phenomena. But orientation is truly only complete, when one also possesses a historical appreciation for the basis of their orientation. This historical appreciation also has the unsettling effect of revealing to the observer the inherent biases and failures of their current orientation with respect to the past.
The synthetic method, in short, is simply a way of collecting these historical anomalies, aligning them with the full suite of tools at our disposal today, and then re-imagining how reality might work by approaching our tools with the historical anomaly in mind. We call it synthetic, because it collects a host of historical intuitions that challenge our existing framework, and then allows us to re-imagine a new framework that can satisfactorily integrate these intuitions.
Step 1: Historical Collection
Historical data collection takes an existing problem, and looks back to the archives for reference to this problem. The task is merely to collect information - regardless of how fantastic, unbelievable, or unsettling. More often than not, these historical investigations reveal gaping holes in our current science as well as solutions that we may not have previously considered.
Let’s use two examples: That of cancer and that of alternative energy - as illustrative challenges to modern medicine and physics respectively.
Cancer
The synthetic method uses history to identify anomalies in the treatment of cancer from the history of medicine - these anomalies create a new foundation for riveting our imaginations with the modern tools and concepts we possess in order to identify new solutions. Before investigating the record, we can posit the following questions:
Was cancer [ever, or even in one instance] successfully treated in past times?
If so, what remedies were used?
Do those remedies differ from our current medicinal paradigm?
How do they differ?
Are there emergent themes or patterns in the history of treating this disease?
Has any single remedy been found in spatially disparate cultures or extended periods of time?
What have individuals recommended as treatment over time, and on what basis was this recommendation grounded?
The result of this investigation would be a colorful landscape of well-documented case-studies of cancer cures (or supposed cures) from the past 500+ years (across as many documented cultures as possible) - and most probably involving some type of natural herbal remedy (from my own cursory investigation).
Alternative Energy Systems
In relation to Alternative Energy Systems, the synthetic method asks the reader the following questions in its historical analysis:
Have any alternative energy creation mechanisms been observed in the past 300+ years?
If so, under what conditions and in what vehicle has this mechanism been observed?
What capacities has the alternative energy system provided for?
Have these mechanisms ever been replicated or attempted to have been replicated by other humans in the past? With what success? And using what tools or methods?
Once more, the result of this investigation would be a colorful landscape of well-documented case-studies, experiments, anecdotes, and observations. Most notably with much evidence already available from different military communities around the world. For this specific topic, our recent documentation of UAP’s proves beyond a doubt that such technology exists, or at the very least, the illusion of this technology exists (in the event that the documentation is that of a mirage or semblance).
Notably, the goal of this step is to simply outline what our historical research collects: The viewer must suspend judgment and record - regardless of how outlandish or ‘backwards’ the explanation or anecdote.
[As we shall see, the historical researcher is not doing anything more than documenting information for posteriority. It matters not what the researcher thinks, their job is simply to provide the catalogs of historical data as a basis for future discovery and reflection. To record what has happened before.]
As a reminder: this is merely step one of the synthetic method. Our goal is to look to the past to explore documented cases of success in handling the problem we are currently facing today. The scope of this research, is judged by the researcher, and is increased or paused based on the satisfactory nature of the data collected: A rich and consistent historical data yield, may provide sufficient information to move to step two. An empty and lacking historical collection yield, may require the researcher to dig deeper and farther back. The decision again, is up to the judgment and finesse of the synthesizer. As stated above, when confronting difficulty - zoom out and broaden the scope of the investigation.
In more technical jargon, what this step attempts to do is to integrate deep rooted historical intuitions that have confronted the exact same reality or supposed reality we are seeking a solution in confronting today. We seek to record human observation over time, and not solely in the silo of a single science or vital paradigm (the vital reason of the time, as Ortega would say). In parallel to when we do this, we also record the anomalies, impossibilities, and surprising results from the past that may challenge our models or stretch our tolerance for what is possible.
The key factor to successfully completing step 1, is the suspension of judgment from what might appear to the researcher to be far-fetched or outlandish. While most preemptively dismiss fantastic rumors of the past, the synthetic method asks the researcher to suspend judgment and merely accumulate as much as they can - regardless of how absurd or counter-intuitive the claims might be.
Note from the author:
One of the most important functions of step one, is to resurface questions or propositions that were simply never answered. As is often the case in history, alternative theories or paradigms are not so much disproven as they are ignored. It is the job of the first step in the synthetic method, to ensure that a relevant uncontested but ignored system of theory is able to resurface on the intellectual map of discovery.
Step 2: Scientific Alignment and Our Inevitable Imagination
Step two of the synthetic method starts by looking at the massive body of historical data collected in step one. The question then is put to the researcher: How can we make sense of this data? Any student of Mr. Ortega knows clearly that in virtue of living in a certain time and place, one cannot help but make sense of things in a certain way (known as Vital Reason). In our time, that involves a pre-existent body of accepted scientific concepts and theories. Now is the time to make use of these theories. In fact, we feed our newly discovered historical phenomena into our theories and pose the question: How can we make sense of, or explain this with the framework and lens we possess today?
This process of scientific alignment, contrasts hard historical reality with the limits of our existing theory. It will clearly show the limits of our existing scientific theory, but more importantly it aligns and delimits our historical observations with a suite of ready-made tools capable of further investigation. Note: Delimitation is key as it exposes gaps in our existing models for reality.
In the case of cancer research, suppose for example that one were to identify a certain success of a combination of herbs on a number of different cancers - well documented with multiple case studies in history. In step two, the researcher dives into the historical anecdote, with the tools and mental models from their current science. In this particular example, we would be forced to ask questions that we may not be used to asking:
What properties of these herbs seem to contribute the most to the healing process?
How might these properties interact with the body over time?
What other signals, monitors or markers can we examine to understand the active and healing properties of this remedy?
How does the healing process compliment or contrast our existing methods and tactics? How does it differ?
What happens in step two, is the basis of the creative process: Rather than observing some phenomena in the world that may challenge or direct our understanding, we stimulate our understanding by observing documented phenomena from the past. In doing this, we are able to channel fresh inputs into our existing models that will hopefully rivet and ‘shock’ our existing system.
It is the hypothesis of the writer, that upon aligning the historical record with the existing scientific inputs, the imagination of any researcher, is uncontrollably riveted to posit and hypothesize how or in what manner the result can be achieved. In short, they cannot help but see new ways of approaching a problem, when a historically recollected solution is aligned with the existing scientific toolkit. In this second step, the contrast between tangible reality, and existing theory is forced into one another - revealing not only the lingering gaps, but also blazing a trail for new experiments and conjectures.
There is one final important note of this second step: The existing body of scientific theory should not be disregarded in attempting to make sense of the historical data that has been collected. Rather it should be referenced as the starting point in making sense of that data - but only the starting point. It is most likely that we will outgrow it in its current form and eventually supersede it. But that comes only after we have discovered how to synthesize our existing science with the realities we seek to accomplish and control.
A Conjecture for the Reader to Consider: Hundreds of years ago it was common to bleed a patient as a method of healing them. At first glance this may appear as madness today. But with what success did these old healers find such a treatment? Did it ever work? From where we stand today, we are starting to understand that too much Iron is a basis of disease, and degeneration of the body. And what in fact is the fastest way of curing an excess of Iron in the body? Donating blood. These are simply thoughts for the reader to spark the imagination in the connections between the past and the present.
Step 3: The Intuitive Deduction
In step three, we witness the only part of the synthetic method that contains an element of its forebearer: the analytic method within it. Specifically, what this third step involves, is the dilution of new intuitions from the suggestions and imaginations that arise from the second step. Perhaps the best example of an intuitive deduction, is the case of Einstein and his discovery of general relativity:
Saturated in Kant and the limits of human experience from the Critique of Pure Reason, Einstein re-conceptualized the nature of time and space by changing the reference object from the human, to another object. It was this intuitive shift that grounded his exploration into general relativity. The underlying presupposition that made his investigation possible, was that human experience of phenomena may not be consistent between phenomena itself when the human observer is removed from the equation.
“As he reflected on the problem of simultaneity, Einstein adopted Kant’s challenging new worldview, one that acknowledges the perspectival role of the observer in all knowledge while resisting the temptation to identify such knowledge with the deepest nature of reality. This worldview was a necessary prerequisite for Einstein’s great revolution in twentieth century physics.” (The Kantian Grounding of Einstein’s World View Pt. II).
In step three of the synthetic method, the researcher must posit how the new conceptualizations and pathways identified in step 2 may challenge our existing intuitions. It would be fair to call this a metaphysical deduction because what we are doing here is reconceptualizing how we understand the framework for approaching the physical world.
For those more image oriented, the soil of historical data, may allow us to re-imagine how a specific historical data point helps a current theory or paradigm expand, evolve, or enlarge.
In the case of alternative energy technologies, step three may result in researchers changing their view of the physical world from one that is Euclidean to one that is non-Euclidean. This intuitive shift, then changes the way the fundamental phenomena and pathways from step two are understood. It also clears fresh ground for a host of new experiments.
Once more, I emphasize the need to not dismiss or deny a specific theory from the outset. Modern science loses its scientific value when it does this - and it does do this unfortunately far too often - space age science starts from the suspension of judgment and the underlying belief that nothing should be dismissed outright or denied a hearing. In the final analysis, any outlandish theory must eventually be connected to reality with demonstrable results from experimentation over time. There is only so far a theory can go before reality decides to either obliterate it, or encompass it.
Step 4: Experimentation and Discovery
Science, most fundamentally, is the process by which we repeatedly utilize conceptualizations and models to manipulate and alter reality. Galileo did this through the imagination of a surface plane that was then imposed onto the world (see Chapter 1 of Man and Crisis). Descartes did this by projecting a mechanical and corpuscular operating system onto a seemingly unknowable reality under the imagined belief that the world was like a machine. In all cases, science is the process by which we seek to manipulate the world using a theory or set of concepts that attempt to document and replicate how the world can be manipulated. Science starts with reality, but is built around our own concepts and definitions from what we observe.
Modern science has failed since Descartes, because it has forgotten to look at reality as a starting point, in the creation of its theoretical models, concepts, and intuitions. Instead, and due to Descartes underlying belief that Mundus Est Fabula, modern science has always started by projecting onto reality preconceived models and concepts. Many may say this is due to the fundamental starting point of Modernity in the self - and the ideas of the self - as the beginning of being. Mr. Ortega has definitively put an end to such nonsense in Historical Reason by methodically showing that in fact, it is both I and my circumstances that beget Being.
Nevertheless, and notwithstanding Mr. Ortega’s work, today we still look at what works or what has worked before from the starting point of ourselves. We unscrupulously accept at face value the behavior of certain visible phenomena, and super-impose our theories onto this. As was stressed at the beginning of this short document, we are still stuck inside of ourselves.
The fourth step of the synthetic method, is the basis from which we can begin to practice real science: Science that observes and looks at the world, first and foremost - that looks at the wonders and mysteries of the world and then attempts to use our tools and concepts to outline, define, and structure these observations. In short, science begins by taking reality at face value, and reverse engineering its secrets into our minds by creating concepts and definitions for the different pieces and networks of a specific process. Science begins by considering evidence from the past, and not disregarding any information in the pursuit of its object. In this sense, the synthetic method lays the groundwork for a fully integrated and unified science - especially as it relates to the natural world.
In this fourth step, the new non-euclidean framework is used to attempt to test reality with this new lens - and in light of the discoveries or efforts from the past. It is the pinnacle of the synthetic method as it harmonizes the collection of data from the past, with the best tools of the present. It allows the researcher to approach their problem with renewed focus, curiosity, imagination and understanding. It jolts their imagination to restructure their intuition in a way that can accommodate the new historical evidence and the shortfallings of existing theory. When implemented over time, new historical data creates a constant stream of reflexive data inputs for the theories to feast off of, and work to self-improvement.
Conclusion
The synthetic method strengthens the scientific method. It is not about viewing reality at one point in time. It is about viewing reality with the insights and understandings of the past in our moment of time. The synthetic method builds upon the discoveries of Mr. Ortega, to challenge us to consider history and historical data in our understanding of what is possible - and what should be the focus of our scientific investigation. Furthermore, it argues that we ought to not dismiss the historical record, anomalies to our existing theories, or what we perceive from reality.
Until we are a multi-galactic species, inhabiting a diverse array of planetary systems and traversing the universe as casually as we drive cars today, we will continue to remain an immature and infantile species that must crawl forward with the help of our historical method. Until we can master the secrets of clean energy, the secrets of nature, and better maneuver in the universe itself, we are unfit for thinking of ourselves as qualified in the art of the exploration of reality. In the final analysis, our imagination is the horizon of possibility in our world - and so long as our science lags well behind our imagination, we have no place to stand confidently with ourselves and our capacities.
Postscript, 2021: Implementing the Synthetic Method - A Teams Approach
I date this postscript, because it relates to the most fascinating and interesting problems or discoveries for our time today. Below I put forward an outline of how one might go about structuring a series of teams to approach these problems or questions:
A Cure for All Cancers.
The Secrets of Clean and Unlimited Energy.
The Secrets of the Genome, Epigenome, and Microbiome.
Ancient Archeological Findings and its relation to the cosmos.
Moon Science and Observation over time (Planetary science for that matter).
Remote Viewing and Telepathy as it relates to Alien consciousness and the paranormal.
For each of these massive problems, I would employ the synthetic method using a team of historians, scientists, philosophers, and communicators:
1 - 2 Historical researchers, to not only document but also visualize the data from the past.
1 - 2 Scientists, to align past data with the domain and findings of the current science.
A philosopher or generalist to restructure the way we approach this data by fundamentally reimagining the nature of the world.
Side note: In line with our times, we should seek to move from the Euclidean to the non-Euclidean. To make dynamic what is static - to make atomic variables into networks - and networks into interconnected systems.
A series of case-studies and trials to test and iterate the progressions of our theories using this method.
Science does not require huge research teams, or infinite budgets. It requires devotion and commitment to understanding and theoretically defining the challenge at hand. It requires clear orientation as to the nature of the problem and how it has presented itself to us over time. Science should not be so much about torturing the truth out of reality, as much as it should be about coaxing it out gently and peacefully.
MK.