Countering "Give up now you'll never do it!"

London 2003 saw the largest protest in its history. Over a million people took to the streets to show their opposition to the invasion of Iraq. The war went ahead anyway...

Outflanking the Wealth-Dominated Authority and Opinion

In my professional life I have often had to succeed in spite of seemingly unconquerable odds ranged against what I knew to be necessary. What I wanted to do was dismissed by all the authoritive voices, and even by literally all those who actually agreed with me! The informed consensus was:-

"Give up now, you'll never do it!"

Indeed, all alternative actions, suggested from bothsides, but for obviously very different reasons, was to, "Do what you can, and where you can!", and be satisfied that: you had, at least, made a justified, if token, effort.

Not good enough!

For, while you are making minor changes for a handful of recipients, the powers that be are changing things for thousands and then millions. I'm afraid that such tokens amount to letting the wealth-organised authorities do it their way, and in doing so, turn your well-intensioned tokens into betrayals.

For, those tokens promise great possibilities, which are not only never delivered, but just persuade those who had temporarily benefited from them that, more generally, "Absolutely nothing could be done!"

But, on two crucial occasions, a way was found to implement changes beyond a temporary token contribution.

An appeal, via the man whose name was attached to the institution in which I was working, managed to acquire two obsolescent Mainframe Computers from a local major firm, who were upgrading, and these were identical to the one on which I had been doing extended research at a local University. And, all this also came at a time when the Government were suggesting Link Courses between Further Education Colleges and Local Schools - to give pupils experience of what they would need in their future workplaces. Clearly, I was in a position to connect these "token, costless" ventures into something very different!

Within a short period we had built a Computing Section doing several quality courses both in-house and via Links with local Schools. It was on a shoestring, but we knew what we were doing, and backed it up with an independent organisation for doing the same for other Colleges across the Country, as well as getting more equipment for our own institution and maintaining a sufficient standard.

Now, I did mention two cases!

Years later I was working with a Researcher in Dance Performance and Choreography, who had major problems using exemplar materials on video, for use in teaching the principles involved in both of these disciplines. We got together and solved her problems using computer controlled Laser Discs, and within a year had won a British Interactive Video Award for Excellence, with our first product "The Dance Disc".

But, our revolutionary methods were still rejected by the Dance Education Authorities, and for a whole decade we were unable to proceed further. But, this was the 1990s and the internet was looming!

We decided to sell over the internet, via, initially, giving away free Demo Discs (usable upon the then numerous desktop computers), which we had taken from our first product, or were cut-down versions of potential new products. We managed to totally by-pass the Dance Establishment, and, via the Internet, and, in the end, produced a dozen titles, including one translated into Dutch, and with both known-contacts and supplied-users in over 100 countries, worldwide.

Clearly, the Authorities are dominated by people with very different priorities to the majority of people working in that given area.

So, the policy must be to outflank them, when they hinder necessary progress!

Now, admittedly, this isn't as easy as it sounds, because things-move-on, and a possible outflanking, at one time, can be impossible later-on!

For example, the increasing interventions by Governments and their agencies into the Internet, which, let's be crystal clear, is no longer run by enthusiastic, principled and committed amateurs, but by multi-billion dollar Corporations, whose interests are allying, ever-more-closely, with pro-wealth Governments. The bypassing solutions of the future will have to be different from those of the past!

And, of course, for those of the Left with a political agenda, these arguments are even more crucial. Are the methods of the past up to the problems emerging daily as World Capitalism repeatedly fails to counter the devastating effects of the 2008 slump? Of course not! For, with the newspaper and communications media in their pockets, Capitalist Governments are finding scapegoats, everywhere, to hide the real causes of the continuing crisis.

As happened with the 1929-1941 slump, the same methods led to Fascist Governments in Germany, Spain, Portugal, Italy, Japan and even Finland: and similar Right-Wing movements are now growing literally everywhere. And, to up the ante still further, War is now endemic for the USA, as they intervene all over the Globe in attempts to maintain their prior dominance, but now, more and more, by Force!

But, the biggest demonstration ever, in the UK, as was marshalled against the War of Intervention in Iraq, still achieved nothing!

The resources were there, but not the necessary Organisation!

The past strength of the Unions has been drastically diminished by Capitalist Governments; and the nature of the new jobs to "replace" those lost in the 2008 Slump are "zero-hours", self-employed, or part-time, with neither security, protection or the organisations to fight for such things, for the workers involved. But, the only real weapon of the Working Class is, and always has been, Organisation: it is all they can have!

So, what new forms must this take in the current period to provide that crucial and deciding power to WIN?

We are, after all, the Many, and with joint steadfast action we can (and must) defeat the Few!

To answer these questions constructively, we must define exactly what is lacking, and change our current activism into a questing, seeking, informing and empowering agitation, primarily supplying what the Working Class "both need, and need-to-know!", and, "to effectively organise!". And, such information should no longer be a ready-made series of policies - arrived at only by distant leaders and handed down to be used by activists, everywhere, and in the same way. Instead, they must be finding out what is, locally, both required and demanded.

And formulating demands and arguments to be used with other, as yet, unconvinced workers - and in so doing constantly empowering the theorists too!

And, as always, the necessary forces will be found within the Youth! Primarily, because it is they who are the hardest hit, yet unencumbered by the old, now useless, methods of the past. It was the youth who literally "did everything" after the Grenfell Disaster, to help and organise for those affected - Did you notice how young, committed. intelligent and energetic they were?

Those must be the forces to be won!

And, in addition, all those, who are qualified, should be communicating their expertise to such workers: Not as it is done on the Radio, Television and Films as "Entertainment", but as enabling-possibilities for our Class! Teachers and experts in particular areas should be explaining what they do to workers as exciting, valuable and worthwhile occupations.

For, Education as it is usually inflicted upon the children of workers - "to fit them for work when they leave", must be given a vastly wider remit, and introduce them to the excitement of all aspects of human activities. The polar opposite of what is currently happening in education under the Tories.

Now, one more personal experience of the writer, must be related to negate the Nay-Sayers for such an approach. Years ago, I was working in Glasgow, where we started a "Youth Training" initiative in Bridgeton (a poor-Working Class area). At that time, there seemed to be only myself, who could offer anything both useful and exciting - I was an established Computer Programmer, so I taught unemployed Working Class Youth to program computers. They loved it, and wanted more, but the next level-up required more expensive equipment, and we didn't have the resources to supply one-each! I contacted my old comrades from one of my previous posts, which was carrying on with what I had started over a decade previously, and asked them to get me a redundant Mainframe Computer, which they did, and we installed it in a warehouse in Bridgeton.

Sadly, soon after, I terminally fell-out with my employers, and had to get another job in England, so I personally was unable to carry that project to completion. But, it again showed what could be done! Who could gainsay such outflanking! It had bypassed both all the usual provision of such facilities, and their usual intentions

Notice though, I was the only academic I knew who was doing such things!

Clearly, there are many such provisions that committed and competent professionals could make, as well as other services that are vanishing from situations such as we are suffering at present.

Communal services like Libraries are closing down everywhere!

What can you do?

Abandoned library in Blackpool

Postscript:

Years ago, the city I was then working in were due to demolish a row of ancient shops, but there was a delay! They agreed to allow a temporary use, rent-free, if those taking one on looked after it. Myself and my partner, applied and got one of these shops, and turned it into an Art Gallery. It lasted for a whole year! People who care can rally communities to run such things themselves if needs be...

The Fractal Myth

The Fractal Myth of Scale Invariance

and the conclusions it reveals for Natural Law

Look carefully at the following animation and extract what you think it demonstrates.

via GIPHY

It is in fact a movie based upon a Fractal Form resolutely chased, level-below-level, as far as you might want, which, in this delivered world, can be repeated literally forever. Can we draw any conclusions from this demonstration? Does it make us think differently about our World?

Yet, it is certainly NOT about our real World!

It is, instead, an exploration of another physically-non-existing and, indeed, a wholly non-exist-able World, which we can artificially construct, and even display dynamically, entirely from formal elements selectively extracted from our World, but, absolutely-crucially, under a set of majorly affecting constraints, and extensively carried through a range of formal changes (totally unobtainable in our world, but achievable here) to deliver this video.

It is possible in that World, allowed by such a construction - the World that we term Ideality- the World of Pure Forms alone, which is, of course, the realm of all of Mathematics!

Now, the viewer may well be wondering why I am delivering this piece: what on earth is my purpose? Surely no-one would consider that the above clip, in any way reflects Reality-as-is: it is clearly an entertaining infinite construct - a journey into a constructed world!

But, it is, nevertheless, based upon a formal equation.

And, in our world we depend, all the time, upon such formal equations as the valid embodiments of eternal Natural Laws, extracted from our world in highly constrained and controlled situations.

There can be no doubt that these too exist-as-such only in that World of Ideality. And, Reality and Ideality are very different Worlds! Though Ideality contains Forms, and Forms alone, Reality also contains Everything Else, including all the physically existing Causes for how things behave within it. So, can formal equations from Ideality alone be sufficient to predict real world developments?

The answer surely has to be a resounding ,"NO!" Yet technologists, using such equations, can make it happen!

Do they just go into the real world, get the required stuff, and apply their equations to it? Of course not - for it would always fail!

Embedded in any production process is a great deal more than a formal equation - everything else, in a series of separate processes all with the correct substances, conditions, processes and their requisite equations, must be involved in each tightly controlled stage, to finally produce something like the proginal intension.

YET, what do theorists use to extend their theories? They stand at their blackboards, or scribble on paper, using Formal Equations alone!

Benoit Mandelbrot at the blackboard

To explain it to you, they just give you their equations - as the Laws-determining-what-will-happen! They manipulate their Laws to predict new possible outcomes, which they could never achieve without the technicians discovering all the concrete requirements absolutely essential to RESTRICT the real world outcome to that "required theoretical objective".

But, and here is the crucial difficulty, in Sub Atomic Physics and Cosmology, the theorists have abandoned physical explanations as self-kid, and now rely solely upon their Formal Equations alone.

So, what has this done to their "Science"?

Now, these words are not those of some uninformed outsider, indulging in his profound ignorance of what the fully qualified experts can do. On the contrary. I am, primarily, a qualified physicist and mathematician. I can do all this stuff, and have been doing so for many decades.

But, my many involvements extend greatly wider than these currently severely-restricted areas, and, crucially, include significant work, in many other disciplines, where I contributed expert understanding and skills in Computer Science and Systems Analysis - finally ending up as an expert in Computers-in-Control.

To pull all this together I have spent the last decade studying and contributing to Philosophy, so rather than an uninformed outsider, I am a very well-informed insider. And, have also been involved in a trenchant, philosophical evaluation, and, indeed, criticism of my professionally qualified areas of Physics and Mathematics. And, to cap all of this I spent a very profitable time assisting the excellent mathematician Jagan Gomatam with his investigations of iterative forms of specially adapted versions of Van der Pol's Equations applied to the beating of the Human Heart, and involving the Mathematical Chaos - closely related to the Fractals at the beginning of this essay.

Van der Pol style oscillator

So, my purpose is to accurately-position scientific investigations, AND their claimed-to-be eternal Natural Laws, in their true relation to actual Reality-as-is, and how we get them to both deliver our objectives, and allow us to interpret what they deliver.

Surprisingly, we neither investigate Reality-as-is, 

nor use our extracted Laws in Reality-as-is!

For, our objective is to somehow extract, from a Complex and Real World, individual, separated-out and entirely formal (i.e. quantitative) relations, and then apply them to some desired end.

And, neither of these are possible in Reality-as-is!

The relation only actually exists, as such, in Ideality- the World of Pure Form alone! So, it is clear that a location in Reality will have to be significantly transformed to become as close as possible to Ideality.

And, this is achieved by:-

• the isolation of that location, 

• and the removal of as many factors as possible,

• along with the holding of certain others constant,

• while leaving only the relevant variable savailable,

• for the variation of one, and the measurement of the other.

This approximates that purposely-farmed-locationto what normally only occurs in Ideality, which we term - a forced conformity to the Principle of Plurality.

And, in such a situation, the relation, between the two remaining variables, is usually immediately evident, and can have a purely formal ideal relation, acquired from Mathematics, fitted-up to the obtained data set, to deliver a formal equation, designated as an eternal Natural Law!

But, there is a problem. It will never work in Reality-as-is! It can be made to work, but only if the exact conditions of its extraction are replicated for its use.

So, Fractals, and all that jazz, do not, as such, extend our reach in Reality, but only in Ideality: what they do is extend what we have in Mathematics, and are therefore merely extensions to that discipline alone. They have nothing to tell us about reality.

Issue 59: Meta Forces

Issue 59 of SHAPE Journal

The problems addressed by this theorist are many and varied, all arising primarily out of the inadequacies and contradictions which have arisen as consequences of the now dominant Copenhagen Interpretation of Quantum Theory. But, in addition, the problems are also due to much longer-standing compromises and alternative stances, that have plagued Science, and existed for millennia.

So, let us start with the problem of communications throughout vast regions of totally “Empty Space”, and fields of truly colossal size existing within there too.

Now, the reasons why such anomaly have been accepted as O.K. in spite of the inability to detect any sort of means for supporting such features, is simply because the Formal Equations describing such phenomena seem to work very well.

First, the fact that we cannot explain why things occur as they do is ignored, because we have those useful equations. And, second, it is because Modern Science has finally switched to the totally idealist position that assumes formal relations actually drive concrete Reality.

Such an idealist/pragmatist stance is anathema to this physicist, and led to an attack upon that position, via a purely physical attempt to explain the whole range of phenomena abandoned by this approach.

Effectively, it was soon clear that the task had to be a wholesale assault upon the Copenhagen stance, at the very heart of which, were the conclusions drawn from that cornerstone of the Theory - the Double Slit Experiments!

Now, as it turned out, every single one the anomalies of that set of Experiments, could all be totally removed, solely by the presence of a currently undetectable Universal Substrate, acting as an intermediary, and providing the Waves, while the missiles aimed at the Slits, actually provided the Particles.

The only conclusion one could draw from that success, was that such a Substrate must indeed exist, and, this theorist began the task of defining appropriate Substrate Units to deliver all the involved phenomena.

The research was primarily determined by the essential undetectability of such a Substrate, and inexorably led to the idea of the units being entirely composed of mutually-orbiting-pairs of Leptons - especially chosen to deliver all the phenomena when active, but to be totally undetectable when inactive (see above).

Slowly-but-surely, such effective units began to be devised, but turned out to have to be very different ones, for each type of phenomena:

The Double Slit, EM propagation and Wave/Particle duality were solved using: Neutritrons

Electrical & Magnetic Fields in empty space with: Magnetons

But the substrate for Gravitation Fields was with Gravitons; and this proved to be the most difficult of all!

The overall ambition was to explain everything via this multi-layered and undetectable Substrate, and it was finally achieved by assuming a Meta-Gravity Dipole Effect in Gravitons, similar to the Magnetic Dipole Effect in Magnetons. But what could this new meta force mean for physics - and how could we possibly detect it?

What Happens in Interstellar Space?

Certain questions just have to be asked, in response to the current total absence of any physical means of communication in so-called Empty Space.

Of course, Einstein's Space-Time continuum provided a non-physical, yet somehow effectible, Reference-System, as a means of formally fitting patterns to what occurs there, but only by taking that basis completely out of physical explanation and endowing the "stage" itself with the necessary formal wherewithal, entirely independent of any physical causes.

So, for gravitational forces elicited directly by Matter, we have the contradictory explanation of a non-material context both being affected-by, while itself affecting, what happens within its aegis.

We, in the past, used to term such inferred intermediaries to be physical Substrates, but as none were ever detected, the substitution of that non-material-framework, justified the purely formal definitions that were already-and-everywhere else erected as parallel alternatives, to the previously always-required physical Explanations.

It fitted-in, directly, if not perfectly, with the positivist stance of Poincaré and Mach, and what soon after became the dominant position of the Copenhagen Interpretation of Quantum Theory.

Purely formal pattern-fitting was rapidly ousting all Physical Theories, as the true bases of Science, and of the Concrete Reality, which it previously purported to explain in purely physical terms. Truly, a purely idealist-and-pluralist mathematical form of "Theory", along with various, frigged-up "philosophical" justifications, cheek-by-jowl with isolated physical tokens, has totally replaced Science as it used to be considered.

And, the fact that there were many things wrong with the old conceptions, doesn't make this transformation anything other than a major, and ultimately debilitating Retreat! At least, the old contradictory amalgam of stances did enable alternative routes to be taken, with difficult problems, while maintaining Physical Explanations as paramount.

But now, that absolutely crucial banker-component had been jettisoned, and replaced by a totally idealist-and-pluralist discipline, not only as a means of describing Reality, but also as the means of driving it too!

And, this purely form-based approach was highly attractive for several reasons.

First and foremost was the fact that increasing knowledge allowed to-be-investigated situations to be farmed and controlled to such an extent, that formal relations could be fairly easily extracted, and then matched to fitted-up general forms from Mathematics. And these, in turn, allowed achievable predictions to be made, and then successfully implemented - as long as the conditions used in extraction were replicated exactly for use in productions.

In addition, these equations were legitimately pluralist (while the Reality-as-is that they were supposed to represent, most certainly wasn't). And, this allowed the pluralistic rules of Pure Form to be used in developing further, more extensive "formal theories". as if they were Real World generalities.

But, of course, the clearest gains were achieved by the Technologists, whose main motto was still, "If it works, It is right!". and whose extensive Knowledge and pragmatic skills enabled them to always construct the appropriate contexts for effective use!

And, finally, "Space", itself, never ever available under such farmed and controlled conditions, was not only seemingly much closer to the ideal pluralist conditions, but also was beyond our experimental investigation: it could only be passively observed, so the earth-based means of confirmations were unavailable.

The situation was tailor-made for formal equation-fitting PLUS speculation!

Now, an early assumption, attempting to explain phenomena that evidently occurred in "Space", was that it was filled with some invisible Substrate, usually termed The Ether (or luminiferous aether), which both allowed the Propagation of Electromagnetic Radiation, and communicated evident Actions-at-a-Distance, such as Gravitation.

But when it was discounted by the Michelson-Morley Experiment, it was replaced by absolutely Nothing - the ubiquitous Natural Vacuum of Space.

The phenomena still occurred, and have mathematical formulae. which they obey, but as to why they were possible - that was left unaddressed.

Now, it very soon became an untenable stance, so while maintaining the total absence of anything resembling a substrate, there was one kind of interloper that it was considered could be relied upon to deliver everything! It was energetic particles fired into the emptiness of Space, and capable of carrying on as such until they hit something.

Even Electromagnetic Radiation was conceived as coming in quanta - individual gobbets of energy, so they too would also fit the bill: no longer would a propagating substrate be deemed necessary.

But, how do you expand Nothingness?

With the deemed-to-be-essential, faster than the Speed of Light, Inflation, early in the Universe, what exactly was expanded, and how? Forgive me, but this isn't Physics: it is crystal-clear, as a purely mathematical process applied to a Form! It is a purely formal, non-physical solution to problems, which the Universe, as we conceive it, sets for us.

And, how about the Red Shift in light from distant objects?

We infer a Doppler Shift as occurs in sound on Earth, but that effect assumes a physical spatial-or-time dilation or contraction, so how would that occur in Light Quanta? What indeed is the physical form of a Quantum?

How can you stretch a wave without a medium!?

It is conceivable when an electron orbit in an atom is promoted to a higher level by a descrete amount of energy, embodied in an electron going around the atom at a particular radius and speed: that embodies the future quantum = produced when the orbit is demoted again releasing a precise quantum of Energy.

But as what?

I can conceive of a transfer to another receptacle, similar in form to an atom, with and internal orbit. But neither of these seem susceptible to Doppler Shift modifications! And data recorded from observations by the astronomer Halton Arp seem to directly confound the usual interpretation.

And, yet another problem is in the transit of Birkeland Plasma Currents between, say, the Sun and the Earth actually find their targets through supposedly entirely Empty Space? For these have two strands, in close intrinsic proximity to each other going in opposite directions to one another.

How do these actually occur?

Now space rockets and powerful space located Telescopes have revealed Boundaries of the Solar System in supposedly Empty Space causing the Kuiper Belt and the Ort Cloud to take very different forms. And, the Voyager Spacecraft has actually measured these boundaries - begging the question - boundaries in what?

What is the Interstellar "Medium"?
It sounds suspiciously like a Substrate!

This is not by any means a fully worked up answer to the problems posed above: but this theorist has elsewhere developed a definition of an undetectable Universal Substrate - existing in so-called Empty Space which not only addresses the above problems but also all those appearing in the famed Double Slit Experiments credited with delivering the Foundation for the Copenhagen Interpretation of Quantum Theory - the current consensus in Modern Sub Atomic Physics!

The latest developments in this new Substrate Theory of Physics can be found in the latest issue of Shape, which looks at the possibility of a medium of Neutrino-based Gravitons, pervading all space.

Issue 59 of the SHAPE Journal

Meta Forces