On The Nature of Hypothesis
What is the Empirical basis for the use of Hypothesis in modern science and positivistic philosophy? Is there one? What technique have we to determine the origin of hypothesis which does not make use of hypothesis and therefore rest upon it? What logical mechanism do we possess to create or fabricate the act of hypothesizing within a meaningful context? Does a logical system exist which can create meaningful hypotheses? That is, hypotheses which relate in a meaningful way to their subject matters?
Can a logical program ever answer the question why it itself works? Why its own methods can possibly be or must necessarily be true? No. Gödel proved this conclusively. Every logical system ultimately rests upon one final axiom, the principal axiom of all logic, which is the relationship between "if" and "then". Ultimately, all logic boils down to a relationship, but relationships cannot have an Empirical basis. They are infinite in nature. What is the relationship between an atom and the atom next to it? What field equations interject, what fluid forces compel them to dance when close and draws them together when they are separated? Through what medium do they relate, and if it indeed exists, is it truly a medium or merely another substance whose relationship must in turn be analyzed?
There is no true vacuum, no such thing as nothing. And so, relationships have themselves no physical basis but only a basis in concept or reason. Number is one expression of such a relationship. Differential another. Hypothesis a third, consequence, origin, all of these combine into a patterned whirlwind of relation. What empirical basis is there for any of it?
None. No logic or mechanism may capture it, as it exists prior to both. The faculty of apperception, which permits an infinite circle to share an identity with an infinite line or infinite triangle, the faculty of metaphor, which permits one thing to share in unity with another in spite of their differences, these are the domain of reason. Hypothesis binds them together, points out the possibility of their union as a determined imagination suggests the possible flow of a darkened path so that sense perception can flail thanklessly forward, dragging the body's feet through the sand of discovery, in fear of roots and deviation, and assuring itself of its dominance and safety when by luck no such roots happen to challenge its forward progress.
No, the imagination is a vital part of the process of discovery in that it suspends disbelief long enough to interject possibilities which might lie outside the scope of the senses. It can reveal paths of action which lie outside the domain of our current species of action. And even so-called "positivistic" or "empirical" science is caught in its thrall, for as logic binds these sciences together, mere hypotheses and axioms bind logic. Without hypothesis, science built on logic would stand as tall as towers built with bricks and stone but without mortar.