Relation: Level-5 in Inquiry

Formulation

Relating is a necessity to complete the goal of representing the world. Relating may be a matter of specifying interaction or an association. It involves generating a formulation that can stand as something meaningful.

Examples: A rate like an incidence or a prevalence, a 2x2 contingency table.

The practical significance of a relation is that it offers a proposition for how things fit together. That is necessary before any sensible action is possible. A relation may connect other relations, or already formed (i.e. lower level) representations.

Function: To enable understanding that supports action.

Mechanism: Postulate an association or influence between two or more inquiry entities.

Formulae and formulations symbolize, summarize and promote further investigation of phenomena. Any relation can be immediately used to generate conjectures that purport to explain it.

Cumulation: A relation typically connects (ranked or standardized) quantities of categorized phenomena. However, relating can by-pass or ignore quantification by simply juxtaposing observations (i.e. concepts plus data).

Features

Uncertainty Puzzle: How does it fit?
We assume that everything in reality must fit together. The question for inquiry is 'how?' and relating gives an answer. Relations require plausibility. However, plausibility is no guarantee of validity. Valid relations may be extremely surprising. Because there are so many possible relations, statistics are often used to get confidence.

Using Statistics

Rigorous inquiry involves gathering data to test a hypothesized relation. Doing the reverse, i.e. looking for a relation in collected data, is always liable to mislead. Nevertheless it is a common practice for non-professional inquirers e.g. investors in the stock-market, government agencies with access to data collected bureaucratically.

Inherent Error: Missing the main point.
Relations create a sense that enough is known for action to take place. However, that is misleading. Associations do not necessarily indicate causation because they may be based on a common factor. It is also never known whether the most relevant relations have been identified.

Use of Numbers: No new numerical method emerges here, but numbers are used to formulate relations. Numbers are assigned from calculations e.g. as a correlation or rate or function like y = f(x). Calculation is ancillary or supportive and uses lower level representations involving labeling, counting, ordering or measuring.

Locus of Control: Internal-personal-subjective
Perceiving patterns and making connections is under personal control and inherently subjective. The more plausible the relation, the more are others likely to share it or at least be interested or intrigued. However, there is no possibility of social control over the making of relations. Even in scientific work, the choice of variables to relate is a matter for the investigator; and, when findings are being critiqued, any plausible alternative relation can be suggested.

Relation to the Communication Domain

Relating involves an imposition of our human perspective on some particular situation. Phenomena or entities are selected, extracted as it were, and construed as connected in some fashion. Construing reality is about assigning meaning-PH5L6, typically by inference, deduction or interpretation. So constructing a relation entails communication-RL5.

Relations are of great interest to those seeking to manipulate others. Advertisers and propagandists, for example, deliberately construct and publicize relations in a misleading and self-serving way, often making it look like the result of careful research.

Professional inquirers construct relations because they are concerned to establish validity, causation and implications.

Constructing a relation is similar to developing a conception. Both involve communication-RL5. However, a conception-RsHG2⁴ taps into inner experience-RL4 to answer the question: «what is this about?», which is essential for creative effort. By contrast, during any inquiry, a relation is formed by selecting and connecting entities with no certainty that this makes sense.

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The 5 levels to this point have contained the building blocks for knowledge. However, they are all potentially problematic in one way or another. Relations, in particular, are liable to tempt or provoke action based on flawed plausibility. An adequate system for inquiry must contain within it a way to deal with these issues.

• To reduce uncertainty, introduce judgement by moving up a level to L6.

Originally posted: 23-Aug-2015. Last amended: 31-Oct-2026.