The Spacing System and Probability Attractors: A Visual Analysis Methodology for Qualitative Systems Research

Analysis of qualitative systems with scientific methodologies is limited because of the inherent difficulties of transforming qualitative data into measurable real number quantitative data. An adaptation of a nonlinear complex chaos system methodological tool, Ruelle and Taken’s Theorem Protocol (RTTP), substitute’s probabilities of occurrence for realnumbers, allowing research into whole qualitative systems instead of analyses of parts of a system, which is how qualitative analysis has been done. It allows the function of a qualitative system, the way the parts of the system work together as an integral whole, to be probed,defined, visualized and manipulated in visual 3- and 4-dimensional space, as nonlinear complex systems are probed. This methodological tool is called a probability attractor and it transforms qualitative description into quantitative description, by one derivative, which study hadn’t been possible. Relationships between and among operations within a system can be studied with this methodology because it allows them to be visually tracked in space and time. It also allows heuristic developmental and comparative studies in the areas of teaching,learning, diagnostic and remedial tracking of systems, and their pathologies, as well as evolutionary development of social science systems such as psychology, political science, economics, linguistics, and sociology development. Studies of the component of Spacing,physical breaks from the formal work of learning, in the dialectical method of learning used in the Early Socratic Dialogues and in Matthew Lipman’s contemporary philosophical novels for children, have provided a way to focus on learning processes that partial texts alone mayobscure. This article demonstrates how the component of Spacing is integral to learning and how an adaption of chaos theory methodology may become a useful research tool to studylearning and other social science systems.Keywords: spacing systems, probability attractors, visual analysi