Rationale Thinking and the Scientific Method

I’ve always been interested in applying scientific and philosophical concepts to real life. Lately I’ve been reading Zen and the art of motocycle mainteinance, a book by Robert M. Pirsig, and I’ve been fascinated by the way he express his ideas.

The book has very little to do with Zen or motocycles, instead it’s full of interesting thoughts about life, science and philosophy.

One thing I’ve found particularly interesting is in the way he describes problem solving by following the scientific method. It’s not the method itself that’s interesting, but rather his conclusions on it.

The scientific method

Pirsig suggests that you can solve a problem by following these six stages of the scientific method:

1. Define the question.


2. Form hypotheses.


3. Perform experiment and collect data to validate hypotheses.


4. Analyze data.


5. Interpret data and draw conclusions.


6. Publish results.

Pirsig clearly states that when you define the question, or you draw a conclusion, you only have to write what you know for certain. For example if you your motocycle is not starting and you think the cause it’s in the electrical system, you just write motorcycle not starting in the problem announcement, and electrical system as one hypothesis. This is essential because the real problem may not be in the electical system, and you don’t want to start with the wrong assumptions.

The more you think about possible hiphoteses, the more they come out. Pirsing states that forming hypotheses it’s not the hardest part, because when you write down one hypothesis your brain automatically comes out with another one, until you solve your problem (or give up). This is what he said:

“The number of rational hypotheses that can explain a given phenomenon is infinite”

And if you know a bit about how our brain works, the previous statement makes sense. Our brain has the natural ability to provide new ideas and form new connections, that’s why for example mind mapping works so well.

Back to real life

So how can we apply Pirsig’s idea in real life? I thought about this question in the past few days, and I’ve come up with a number of possible applications (thus reinforcing his law).

Problem solving. If Pirsig’s law is true, and I believe it is, then there’s nothing like being stuck in a problem. It doesn’t matter what you are trying to solve, there’s always something else you can try. This means that unless the problem is impossible to solve, sooner or later you’ll be able to solve it (assuming your entire life as a time frame).

Improvements. This is not necessarily true in all situations, but chances are that there will always be something better you can do to improve your current situation. This means that we can always do better if we want to. Just keep in mind that trying to improve it’s not necessarily equal to an effective improvement, as you still have to consider a failure. However, there’s another law that I can’t remember the name which states that everything tends to zero, so one way or another you still want to constantly improve your situation, even to maintain similar results in time.

To understand better the second point, consider a simple example like playing chess. If you want to become a chess master you have to practice every day, once you reach your desired level. But if after that day you stop practicing, you’ll start to gradually lose your skills.

If you understand these simple concepts, then you can also understand that our potential it’s only limited by our imagination, that’s why we say that we can achieve everything if we really want to.

I also hope that you can now see failure for what it really is, that is only an attempt to validate a specific hypothesis, and not the project/goal itself. This should be enough to motivate you to pursue your dreams, despite what the current situation looks like.

By the way, if you haven’t already, I highly recommend you to read Pirsig’s book, which is also available for free online.

Posted on December 30 2009

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