Equilibrium

When nothing much is happening?

When postulating all Stabilities as temporary, and all real Qualitative change as emergent, to a lesser or greater extent, as I most certainly do, then the undoubted objective of obtaining Equilibrium in experiments, before ever taking any measurements, must surely require clarification!

First, what is going on in such situations, that initially prevents that Equilibrium, and what is happening in the Nirvana of it finally-being-achieved?

The scenario described is both that in the school chemistry lab, and that confronting all early scientists.

First, whatever were our prior actions, and about which reliable results are required, and having done everything that was necessary, nevertheless, any immediately taken measurements would still be totally useless!

Why?

The reason is that they would be different, not only to everyone else doing the same experiment, but even your own re-measurements taken immediately after the first!

You have to wait. 

Because the thing you are trying to measure is clearly made up of many parts which can have individual properties of their own. So, all your initial problems are because what is sought, isn't everywhere fully there yet!

In fact, it will only be there when all the unavoidable changes caused by our actions have communicated themselves throughout what it is that we are measuring - so that the many different parts settle down to a similar state, and that is not only never immediately achieved, it is also NEVER finally achieved either.

So, even after an initial thorough stirring-or-shaking, and a further wait, a single measurement can never be trusted as accurately describing the entity as a whole.

So, many re-measurements will be essential!

And, they will be similar, but not identical.

So, what is going on, and how do we finally get our required result?

All of these experiences demonstrate that our studied thing is NOT a single totally-homogeneous-entity: it is a collection of entities in close proximities to one another. And, we want them to "become-the-same", and they do gradually approach a common state. But, their modus operandi isn't simple: they are all vibrating, and affect one another, and only very slowly, does a sharing of what we are trying to measure, gradually approach what we might call Equilibrium!

So, we take a number of measurements - at the right time, and take the average of them all! 

Indeed, if all the parts, making up our overall entity, were separated, then they would all have different values for what we want. Indeed, we will ONLY get a single answer when they are all in causal-contact and have maximally shared the thing being measured,

It can only be a measurement of them all together.

The measurement achieved can even be something which is meaningless when applied to any single part in isolation, it can only be of the aggregation of all of them together: it will be of something like Temperature or Pressure!

Such measurements occur at a given Level.

So, if we go down to a lower level, they will vanish as such, so the causal descent through many such levels leaves behind prior quantitative measurements, and look, instead, into new ones. Yet, each level delivers a similar situation - always presenting something with key entities composed of lesser components.

And totally unfettered nature is even worse!

Indeed, to have any hope of extracting anything at all, we have to impose an Artificial Stability upon a situation, as well as carrying out all the above methods to get anything useable at all! We remove as many affecting factors as possible, and hold others constant, in order to be able to target a single and extractable relation. This is the same in practically all experiments.

We have to do this because Reality is Holist- a multi-factor World, with everything potentially affecting everything else. That is why nature evolves- producing the wholly New, like Life and even Consciousness.

Yet, we "hold it still"! We stop any natural change occurring. We never study the real Holist World, because we don't know how to!

We not only impose Stability, before we investigate, but actually believe that this reveals the Essences of Reality!

But, it doesn't!

So, to justify this fiction, we sanctify the Principle of Plurality, which has all active components independent of one another, and hence simply summing in various mixes to produce all the many different phenomena. And, this Pluralist Science aims only to reveal "Eternal Natural Laws",which alone are considered to deliver that Fictional World - fictional because Formal Relations, as such, can deliver absolutely nothing in the concrete world, for they are only abstractions of really-existing influences and effects.

And, real entities with their properties and influences must be the actual causes behind such purely formal descriptions.

Now, this aberrant path does not lead into mistaken subsequent actions, because the exact conditions achieved for extractionare always replicated for use! So, Technology is well served, while Explanatory Science is certainly not!

So is that elusive Equilibrium sought to reveal the defining Stability of Reality?

NO!

Indeed, though Natural Stabilities are very common, they actually hide the complex of mutually-affecting causal factors that always can find a temporary, if long-lasting, Stability in a balance of those contrasting and even opposing elements.

And, to Understand, rather than merely Describe and even Use, Explanatory Scientists, as distinct from Applying Technologists, must seek out the Causes for all the Qualities evident in our remarkably rich World - and they are NOT revealed in formal descriptions of Stabilities whether Natural or Arranged-For (in experiments and technology).