Abstract: As observation and empirical frameworks remain fundamental for ecological and field scientists, scientific realists and Non-epistemologists suggest for ‘abstract’, ‘unobservable’ entities to be treated equivalently and non-dialectically with ‘concrete’, ‘observable’ and empirically sufficient entities used in such frameworks. In order to pursue study from ‘unobservable’ entities equivalently to observables without necessary observational predication and possibly subsequent observer effect bias, a methodology was needed in order to fulfill such experimental criteria. Thus, an empty sampler was deemed methodologically germane to ‘inoperably sample’ two independent and unobservable experimental units from natural experiments: dramaturgical numbered Acts and Scenes from Stein (1922) and Extinction from Brassier (2007). Each natural experiment deployed anthropogenic perturbation and similar execution of ‘treatment’ application via nonrandomized block designs. Insofar as empty sampler was unable to collect, store, and subsequently observe and measure the interaction, variance, or experimental effects of and between each unit, our study remained without results. Future research and implications for both synthetic and non-synthetic transdisciplinarity are discussed, addressing experimental ecology, dramaturgy, and philosophy.

Keywords: empty sampler, extinction, Acts and Scenes, observer effect, scientific realism, transdisciplinarity, Non-epistemology, Ray Brassier, Gertrude Stein