Writer: Agree, in this light, the behavior of a true believer may seem less naive, who answers the questions “why” at a particular moment, having eternal life as the planning horizon…

Consultant: Well … three levels: "HOW", "WHAT" and "WHY". But I have defined one more – the highest level of maturity, the fourth – ONTOLOGY. This is a search for answers to the question – how everything is organized. For example, we do not ask ourselves a question – why not take a step from the roof of a 15-storey building? As if everything is clear: if you take a step, you will fly down and crash to death. This is how the physical world is organized. Therefore, I am sure that once you understand the ontology, you can very easily answer all the previous questions – WHY? WHAT? HOW? This means that it can help anyone in any area. Although in scale it already looks like science. And if the answers are given only on the first three levels, on the first two, or, in general – only to the question "HOW?" – this is definitely a methodology!

Writer: “Methodology” – from Greek – the teaching of methods. As I understand it from our conversation today: science is more powerful than methodologies, which can be many different on one topic. And you, by the way, do not bother that there are also a lot of sciences? A whole Academy of Sciences was established :)

Engineer: It's getting late, can we continue next time?

Consultant: I have an answer to your question! But, in order not to interfere in a heap, I agree – let's go next time.

Engineer: Fine!

Writer: Well, good. See you again, my friends!

Consultant: I definitely enjoy our philosophical conversations with you. At first, I confess, the Writer seemed too emotional to me. You, Engineer, were too rational. And the only common thing that united us then, as it seemed to me, was that together we graduated from one "applied mathematics" at the university, there are common themes and a common language. But then our life paths diverged, and when we began to communicate again, I asked myself – "why be together again if we have become so different?" Is nostalgia for adolescence a sufficient condition for friendship?

Writer: Heartless bastard!

Engineer: I agree.

Consultant: Wait a minute, let me finish! Engineer, do you remember how we argued about communism and capitalism? I had just finished my second managerial education and was trying to explain to you that “it's easier to break than to build”. That it is possible, probably, to return the plundered factories, but then they also need to be competently managed and developed. It is wrong to make a revolution, demolish the existing organization and say that you have done your half of the work and someone else has to continue somehow.

Engineer: I didn't say that. On the contrary, we then invited you to a meeting of our cell, so that you made a presentation about management to us.

Consultant: It was during the preparation of the presentation that I understood the main idea, which now I find more and more confirmation – we do not hold the whole one at a time! We, like those sages, hold some trunk, some tail, some something else. The elephant appears only when we get together and start communicating. Remember this picture?

Engineer: Sure. Square, triangle and circle are projections of a three-dimensional object onto orthogonal planes. If we position ourselves so that everyone can clearly see only one side, then everyone will see his own figure, different from the rest.

Consultant: Everyone will have their own truth. And until we get together and discuss something in common, but from different points of view, we have no chance to understand what we are really dealing with. One lives in the world of triangles, the other in the world of squares, and so on.