Method of Ontogenetic Thinking

The method of ontogenetic thinking is a heuristic that can be helpful when analyzing a system.

The hallmark of a good theory is that it can capture and adequately explain as wide a range of phenomena as possible. Thus, when faced with the task of understanding an unknown system, the first step should be to observe the properties of the system as comprehensively as possible. This sounds like an easy task. However, it is much more difficult than most people realize. Everyone will have experienced in school experiments that it is not so easy to pay attention to the right aspects of an unknown experiment and to record them in the experiment protocol. It is easy to focus on phenomena that turn out to be irrelevant in the end and to miss the essentials that the teacher was aiming at.

On the other hand, if you already have a clear idea of what you are facing, you believe that you already know the essential phenomena - just like the doctor who makes the diagnosis before the patient has finished describing his symptoms. In this case, you quickly open a mental drawer and stop paying attention to other phenomena that do not fit into the chosen drawer. The old saying applies: "He who knows only a hammer as a tool sees nails everywhere." Our sensory perceptions are not unbiased impressions, but depend on our ideas about the world. Or as Albert Einstein put it: "Theory determines what can be measured." Therefore, it takes a trained and alert eye to describe a system phenomenologically as fully as possible.

Properties of a system (phenomena)

To make it easier for the reader to describe a system as comprehensively as possible, we would like to give some practical tips at this point: When you are dealing with an unknown system, you should try to get a rough impression first, rather than immediately focusing on selected aspects in depth. You should consciously focus your attention on very different areas of phenomena in order to capture as wide a range of properties as possible. Particular attention should be paid to unusual features that have never been observed elsewhere, as well as features that the system shares with other known systems. To avoid drowning in a flood of equally important observations, you should also pay attention to which properties are immediately obvious and which properties only become apparent under special circumstances. In the case of conditional properties - i.e., properties that only occur under certain circumstances - the accompanying circumstances and their influence on the expression of the property should also be recorded as precisely as possible. When a system has conditional properties, it is often not enough to simply observe the system; experiments must be conducted to learn the full range of the system's behavior.

When recording the properties of a system, however, we should always keep in mind that the properties of a system only become apparent in interaction with the system's environment. It is therefore possible that the properties of the system are influenced by our observations, that some properties of the system cannot be recorded at all with the observational tools available to us, or that certain properties only come to light because we force the system to do so in an experiment. It is therefore a bold conclusion to assume, on the basis of an observation, that a system possesses the property in question per se. In this context, it is worth recalling the distinction made by Galileo Galilei (1564-1642) between primary and secondary properties. Primary properties are attributed to an object itself, whereas secondary properties are acquired by an object through its interaction with the observer.

In principle, however, all properties of a system are secondary qualities that arise only through interaction with the observer. In some cases, however, it may be justified to attribute a property to a system even if it is not observed. The extent to which this assumption is justified cannot be answered by empiricism alone. To do so, we must have some idea of the internal structure of the system and its interactions with the environment, through which we can observe and experimentally manipulate the system.

Structure of the system (structure)

This brings us to the second step, the study of the inner structure of the system from which the observed properties of the system result. While the first step involved the empirical recording of the properties of a system and thus took place at the phenomenological level of observation, the second step is theoretical in nature. This is because the internal structure of a system cannot usually be determined by mere observation. If you have the opportunity to do so, you should break the system down into its components and study the properties of the elements and their interactions. If you do not have this opportunity, you can compare it to other systems that have similar phenomenological properties and whose structure you know better. The goal is to create a mental model of the system from which the observed properties of the system can be fully and accurately derived. The guiding principle for creating this model should be our generalized knowledge of the structure of the world, which should be applied here as well, so that the model does not contradict our general views. Nevertheless, a good dose of imagination is always needed to create a suitable model.

Delopment of the system to its current state (evolution)

To find an appropriate starting point for modeling, it can be helpful to look at the evolution of the system over time. The internal structure of the system must have emerged somehow. Looking at the development history can often provide clues about the structure of a system. Unfortunately, the past does not lie before us like an open book that we can leaf through at will. Evidence of the past becomes scarcer the further back in time we look. Fortunately, in reality, most systems do not have a single specimen, but a large number of them, so that knowing the evolutionary history of one individual allows us to infer the evolutionary history of other individuals of the same species.

It is not necessary to have observed a bird continuously to know that it hatched from an egg-it is enough that naturalists have observed this in other birds and we have learned this knowledge. The assignment of systems to higher genera helps immensely in recording their evolutionary history and in modeling their internal structure. On the other hand, the duality of individual and genus duplicates the question of temporal developmental history - in addition to the individual, the genus also has a developmental history, which is also important for understanding the system, but is often more difficult to grasp because it extends over a much longer period of time than the developmental history of the individual.  

Altogether, therefore, three steps are necessary to adequately grasp a system: First, the empirical-phenomenological recording of the system's properties; second, the theoretical-ontological explanation of these properties on the basis of the system's internal structure; and third, the historical-genealogical description of the system's path of development. We call this triad the method of ontogenetic thinking. The following table summarizes the three steps.