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A. G. Maisey · 23rd September 2021, 02:42 AM

Ariel, you have asked what we think of your musings.

My opinion must be a non-academic opinion, since I am not now, and never have been an academic, but my short opinion is that , yes, I think you're close enough to reality to be taken seriously.

However, if I consider a matter I go about it in a slightly different way. I try to frame the question I want answered, this might take a long time. When I have the question clear --- or maybe "clear enough" is better --- I then try to identify my objective.

All this takes a very long time, and really, it never stops, its always there niggling away in the back of my mind, and that objective can always be amended as enquiry proceeds.

When I have what I think might be a satisfactory objective I then start to do things that might get to a point where I start to produce what I like to think of as "good ideas". To get to the "good idea" point can take a very long time, it is mostly thinking and with fairly random inputs. In one case it took me around 20 or so years of this before these "good ideas" more or less solidified into something that I thought I might be able to make into a hypothesis.

For me, this is the point where I start to look at supportable evidence that can contribute to the hypothesis. I'm not talking testing and supporting argument here, I'm talking evidence in one form or another that can contribute to, let us say, a story line.

I doubt that I've ever taken things further than that. For me, the hypothesis is sufficient. Others can, if they wish, prove or disprove the hypothesis. I tend to be a little bit dubious about theories, especially if those theories begin to be accepted as truth. You can construct a theory, and by clever argument, you can get a lot of people to accept that theory, but sooner or later the Matchlup/Arbesman effect kicks in, you look back and you find you spent a whole lot time on something that was either not relevant, or straight out wrong.

There are a lot of ways to look at that wasted time, and most of these ways present a much more pleasant outcome than 5 minutes of the half-life of fame.

In my non-academic opinion, I feel that the most important, and also the most difficult thing is to ask a relevant question.

Answers can be pretty easy to construct, relevant questions can be exceedingly difficult to construct.

23rd September 2021, 02:42 AM	#7
A. G. Maisey Member Join Date: May 2006 Posts: 6,697	Ariel, you have asked what we think of your musings. My opinion must be a non-academic opinion, since I am not now, and never have been an academic, but my short opinion is that , yes, I think you're close enough to reality to be taken seriously. However, if I consider a matter I go about it in a slightly different way. I try to frame the question I want answered, this might take a long time. When I have the question clear --- or maybe "clear enough" is better --- I then try to identify my objective. All this takes a very long time, and really, it never stops, its always there niggling away in the back of my mind, and that objective can always be amended as enquiry proceeds. When I have what I think might be a satisfactory objective I then start to do things that might get to a point where I start to produce what I like to think of as "good ideas". To get to the "good idea" point can take a very long time, it is mostly thinking and with fairly random inputs. In one case it took me around 20 or so years of this before these "good ideas" more or less solidified into something that I thought I might be able to make into a hypothesis. For me, this is the point where I start to look at supportable evidence that can contribute to the hypothesis. I'm not talking testing and supporting argument here, I'm talking evidence in one form or another that can contribute to, let us say, a story line. I doubt that I've ever taken things further than that. For me, the hypothesis is sufficient. Others can, if they wish, prove or disprove the hypothesis. I tend to be a little bit dubious about theories, especially if those theories begin to be accepted as truth. You can construct a theory, and by clever argument, you can get a lot of people to accept that theory, but sooner or later the Matchlup/Arbesman effect kicks in, you look back and you find you spent a whole lot time on something that was either not relevant, or straight out wrong. There are a lot of ways to look at that wasted time, and most of these ways present a much more pleasant outcome than 5 minutes of the half-life of fame. In my non-academic opinion, I feel that the most important, and also the most difficult thing is to ask a relevant question. Answers can be pretty easy to construct, relevant questions can be exceedingly difficult to construct.