And the first and fundamental presumption of Formal Inquiry is the accepted convention, the unstated conviction, of the presence of an inquiring Subject ‘Independent’ [hence separate] from the investigated Object.
It is meaningless to talk of ‘Inquiry’ if the Subject is conjoined with the Object of Inquiry. But then, the word ‘Meaning’ itself is predicated on the presence of a ‘Me’.
As before, the issue is the cardinal claim of ‘Independence’. It is nearly impossible to find a zero-correlation [i.e ‘Independent’] state in Nature. But we begin all Inquiry by claiming this majestic status for ourselves.
We can spend decades testing an academic assumption that underpins a trite theory. But skip out on testing this first presumption that precedes the posit of Theory itself.
If you decide to proceed with the Inquiry, I’ll add a second [among several] which you might find helpful further down.
The Tradition of Formal Inquiry declares that among equally valid explanations and outcomes, the one with the least assumptions wins: Entia non sunt multiplicanda praeter necessitatem.
And he who needs the additional assumptions gets to defend them. The burden of proof rests with the claimant. But we shall not quibble. And we shall not whine.
[This has numerous variants: Falsifiability, ‘Russell’s Teapot’, ‘Occam’s Razor’ and so on, much of it relevant to investigating the wild religious claims of visiting overnight prophets and gurus.]
Not-Two 