Colour cycling reveals form in tessellations

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I have been researching Tessellation since the 1960s, and will be publishing much of my work in this area on Shape Addendum, watch that space for more...

Issue 5 of Shape

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Forms & Causes - What's the Difference?

In identifying things in Reality, we first notice their Forms!

Forms are frequently recurring patterns, which appear in all phenomena, and seemed to be the crucial indicators of the nature of these happenings and their involved entities. All our earliest characterisations of things were unavoidably on the basis of their Form, and things with closely similar Forms would initiallyalways be inevitably grouped together as “closely related”. But, this didn’t usually hold up, as many members of such “groups” later turned out to be hardly related at all: they merely had the same Form. So Forms are not particular and fundamental, but universal: the same forms appear in many different, andcertainly not causally-related, situations. So, though common patterns do recur, and hence need explaining, they are quite different to the more physical causes: they can be common to many unrelated, and differently-caused things.

Now, in addressing why this is, and how Form is characterised by it, we have first to address the other, indeed the primary, consideration, which is what actually physically causes the identified phenomenon!

It is clear that quite different causes, in widely separated areas can display the very same Form, but that this is almost never because they all have exactly the same actual cause. Yet, this being true, why are the Forms themselves so recurrent? They must reflect similar patterns, weights and conjunctions of contributions. (Notice that the conjunctions themselves are not directly involved. It is the MIX that determines Form. Forms must be the natural shapes ofrecurring types of mixes, even if the physical causes of the involved contributions are unrelated. This feature of Form can make it extremely valuable in predicting what is likely to happen next. But, we must also notice that to “follow the Form” in this way does NOT mean that we understand the producing causes, but only the shape, or pattern, of what follows.

These questions are very important because, when asking those who address them what they think, alarge fraction of them insist that the Form is primary, indeed they tend to consider each Form as a kind of immaterial Essence, the makes things the way that they are. Consequences are considered to be driven by Form! Now, this is important because the physical causes can be missed in the worship of assumed Essential Form, and actual causes are not then directly sought for: they become unnecessary if the essential driving forces in Reality are just the Forms. Why do we need more?

Mankind has developed a powerful set of techniques for dealing with Form, and perhaps the most significant stage in its progress has been their distillation into Formulae – into general equations which are abstract mathematical representations of measurables within given Forms.

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My Mind to Me A Kingdom Is

The myth of the philistine scientist is not about experience, it is about prejudice. And the sentiments of Sir Edward Dyer express Mankind and not merely the artistic subset...

In Praise of a Contented Mind

My mind to me a kingdom is;
Such perfect joy therein I find
That it excels all other bliss
That world affords or grows by kind.
Though much I want which most men have,
Yet still my mind forbids to crave.

No princely pomp, no wealthy store,
No force to win the victory,
No wily wit to salve a sore,
No shape to feed each gazing eye;
To none of these I yield as thrall.
For why my mind doth serve for all.

I see how plenty suffers oft,
How hasty climbers soon do fall;
I see that those that are aloft
Mishap doth threaten most of all;
They get with toil, they keep with fear.
Such cares my mind could never bear.

Content I live, this is my stay;
I seek no more than may suffice;
I press to bear no haughty sway;
Look what I lack my mind supplies;
Lo, thus I triumph like a king,
Content with that my mind doth bring.

Some have too much, yet still do crave;
I little have, and seek no more.
They are but poor, though much they have,
And I am rich with little store.
They poor, I rich; they beg, I give;
They lack, I leave; they pine, I live.

I laugh not at another’s loss;
I grudge not at another’s gain;
No worldly waves my mind can toss;
My state at one doth still remain.
I fear no foe, nor fawning friend;
I loathe not life, nor dread my end.

Some weigh their pleasure by their lust,
Their wisdom by their rage of will,
Their treasure is their only trust;
And cloaked craft their store of skill.
But all the pleasure that I find
Is to maintain a quiet mind.

My wealth is health and perfect ease;
My conscience clear my chief defense;
I neither seek by bribes to please,
Nor by deceit to breed offense.
Thus do I live, thus will I die.
Would all did so as well as I!