Conceptual momentum of one-dimensional push–pull dynamics

Current theories presume based on one-dimensional push–pull dynamics. Yet, the phenomenology is not consistent with such dynamics. Current misunderstandings derive from presumptions of linearity in the instrumentation, experimental design, statistical analyses, and methods of inference. But why did these factors came into being and persist? The fact is that linearization of phenomena historically has been the primary approach since the ancient Greeks. These presumptions can be found in Aristotle’s notion of the Contraries, Galen’s notion of imbalances in the four humors, John Hughlings Jackson in the attributed notion of symptoms and signs as relative paucity or excess of normal physiology, and the excitation versus inhibition in the applications of the Neuronal Doctrine. The value of reducing complex dynamics to linear functions is seen in the mathematics of difference functions and ultimately, differential equations. A great deal of intellectual momentum is behind current theories, even though the theories are unproductive.