Wealth and Power - and why it must be dismantled!

The wealthy are running 'democracy' like never before

Is Real Democracy now totally impossible?

Substantial, irrefutable evidence, finally makes it clear, that absolutely NO Democratic mechanisms still exist which can effectively counter the Wealth and Power of the Ruling Capitalist Class! Primarily, this is due to the decisions of the People having to be made without being supplied the necessary wherewithal to make them.

Indeed, as the Media are firmly in the powerful hands of the Enemy Class (or certainly those who can see no alternatives to the status quo), neither the Truth, nor any detailed alternatives are ever being made available to the majority of people.

In fact, the people are assailed on all sides with what only can be called severely biased accounts, along with blatant lies and even deliberately orchestrated incidents, intended to mislead.

And, as always with the Right, the identification of scapegoats abound!

Every distinct minority group, within Society, as long as they are suitably powerless, are targeted as the causers of the current situation. In particular, those migrants escaping from the wars - actually perpetrated by the very same wealthy amd powerful leaders of the Capitalist Powers - are daily identified as the real enemy, and the real solution being said to be their expulsion from the country.

Refugee camp in Calais

Why is all this true NOW?

It is because the long trek by those in power to discredit Socialist oppositions to Capitalism, was assisted greatly by the major recession of 2008, for it allowed a major re-casting of Employment among the Working Class, from Factories and Offices, with Trade Unions and political organisation, and into what we call the "Gig Economy", with more and more self-employed workers eeking-out a far inferior living, and, literally NO working class organisations able to reach them, inform them and organise them.

The pattern is most clearly evident in the USA.

Real wages for the Workers have stopped rising. Jobs have been exported to other countries where wages are much smaller, while immigrants were encouraged for the poorer-paid jobs - while also delivering ideal scapegoats to blame for the increasingly desperate situations facing the resident working class. This is to blame for the increased racial tensions we see, all over the western world. And these tensions are exploited by the wealthy and powerful for their own political gains.

The old Social Democratic parties, having lost their support among the People, by vying with the parties of the Right, upon literally the very same ticket, now have absolutely nothing to offer. The odd exceptions appear to be leftwards-moving Parties, like the British Labour Party, who could indeed win the next General Election. 

Jeremy Corbyn's Labour is one of the few to counter the right-ward trend

But if they do win, will the now prodigious Wealth and Power of the Capitalist Class ever allow then to succeed?

I'm afraid a left-leaning Labour Government alone won't be enough!

The Wealth and Power of the Ruling Capitalist Class has to be terminated.

So, for a Labour Government - YES! But, as a step to a Socialist State run in the real interests of The People.

Theory and Practice

Which one delivers the Path to Truth? A serious attempt at an answer!

Science presents Mankind with an amazingly stimulating promise.

But, are we really aware of exactly what that promise is, and where it resides in our thinking and our actions?

Such questions must be adequately addressed, in order to affect just how much of that promise is fulfilled. And, it is the early history of Homo Sapiens that can remove a few of the more blatant errors, in dealing with such questions, but certainly by no means all of them.

For, the vast majority if Man's existence as a separate species, there was absolutely nothing that could be called Science, but there were developments in how Mankind managed to survive, and even occasionally, to prosper! So, what were these developments, and how did Mankind arrive at them, and then, begin to think about them?

The only real evidence, for the majority of that time, resides in the varying cultures that have been uncovered, concerning the knapping of their flint tools, which can be sequenced by where they occur in layers left in the ground beneath our feet, and so still investigatable now, as sequences in the deposits accumulated in the ground. The other vital evidence, from such deposits, is to how far human beings migrated over time, and how long such wanderings took.

Now, in spite of the evidently incredibly slow rate of development revealed by these deposits, they do reveal a dextrous and intelligent life-form, but not yet equipped with the intellectual wherewithal to transcend that initial hard and limiting lifestyle.

Yet, all of these revealed cases are about exactly-the-same-species as we are now! There have been no significant genetic developments of our species since that time, so any progress absolutely must be due entirely to new social reasons.

Most of our development as a species regarded practice

The vast changes in the tempo of development, over the whole trajectory of our species, seem, initially, to be wholly inexplicable. But, really, it actually demonstrates the colossal differences within such developments, revealing seemingly impossible impasses in mind processes, which along with inappropriate Means of Life, could, and clearly did, lock our species (as with all others) into a literally almost-stationary mode for colossal periods of time, even though as later developments show very clearly, what was needed was actually there for the beginning, but was inaccessible until a particular "vital social point" was surpassed, after which, things took off like a veritable rocket!

Put into modern Dialectical Materialist terminology - an Emergent Episode or Revolution occurred.

The crucial question is then to explain why such an extraordinary Event did finally happen and changed things for good. The Transforming Event was that instead of constant wandering, as small family groups, seeking the means of Life as Hunter/Gatherers, Mankind discovered how to farm-the-land, and domesticate-animals for food, milk, clothing and even transport! They could then stay in one place in significantly larger numbers - and pool what they knew and what they found out. Language then developed at a rapid rate, and instead of a re-cycling of remembered family myths, they daily encountered different ideas and discussed with many more different people.

It was this Neolithic Revolution that vastly accelerated the tempo of developments.

Now, throughout the long Hunter/Gatherer period, developments had been occurring, but at a very slow rate, and they were all essentially concerned with Practice. The development of flint knapping Cultures identify that the developments were mainly centred around the wonderfully dextrous Hands of human beings. Indeed, though my earlier description was limited to Homo sapiens, it had also been true of earlier, non-human hominids, over literally millions of years, significantly ever since Homo Erectus, when our ancestors freed The Hands from being used primarily for locomotion, to be used, instead, in a variety of new ways. And significantly by Homo Habilis, who first began to use tools, significantly out of flint shards.

It is clear that this vast prehistory, prior to human beings, did indeed change the capabilities of the Hominid brain, but not yet to actually Think, as we do now. It was, initially, used in arriving at the best methods of surviving and manipulating our immediate environment, judged solely by Pragmatism- "If it works, it is right!", and thereafter remembering them. And, with a woefully inadequate language, even that was no mean feat.

Indeed, physical rituals were by far the best means of embodying such methods in memory, and, later, also involving chants. But, language was still, for most of this development, wholly inadequate to the task, and do-as-I-do demonstrations were far more effective.

Indeed, to this day, this pragmatist tenet - "If it works, it is right!", still plays a vital role, even in Sub Atomic Physics!

Indeed, intellectual pursuits are comparatively modern, dating only from 500 BC, with the intellectual achievements of the Ancient Greeks. They say, "The Greeks had a word for it!", but, they had to allocate them to the many wholly new intellectual ideas that were beginning to be used and argued about.

And, here's the rub!

They, and everyone ever since, didn't get-it-right. Indeed, how could we, for we aren't all-seeing and omnipotent? Indeed, to use the language of Science, what is called Absolute Truth is NEVER known, nor can it be. For, look who is attempting to describe things - we only invented the first approximations to many things a mere 2,500 years ago!

So, what is it that we name, argue about and use? It is at best a partial reflection or aspect of the Truth, that is termed Objective Content!

But, this attempt isn't pure invention: it often contains enough to be useful, but always in limited contexts. So, as we extend our studies, we will always stray beyond the locality, in which our Objective Content pertains.

Very soon after the inital Greek Intellectual Revolution, Zeno of Elea was able to list a whole set of cases in his Paradoxes, wherein the uses of the concepts Continuity and Descreteness inevitably led to logical contradictions. So, these concepts did NOT exist as everyone used them.

They were OK in certain uses and arguments, but not in others. Significantly Zeno had chosen the very area - Movement, wherein the usual meanings were inadequate and often WRONG! Yet, any sort of general treatment of such Dichotomous Pairs of contradictory concepts, was not re-visited for 2,300 years, when the German idealist philosopher Hegel was able to identify many different cases, over a wide range of circumstances, and also, and profoundly, identify the cause of incorrect use in the inadequacies of Formal Logic, which took NO account, whatsoever, of Qualitative Changes: it dealt only with things that qualitatively remained-the-same.

It is a wholly Pluralist discipline!

He then embarked, as well, upon a study of the premises for such concepts. and was able to prove his case by removing unbridgeable impasses in reasoning by correcting the premises of the involved concepts. But, he also knew that Formal Logic also had to be radically changed to include Qualitative Change - he sought A Science of Logic.

But, of course, that is an impossible aim for an idealist!

To validate the meaning and premises of anything needs a reliable, objective basis for confirming any ideas, and that can never be a mere consistency within a set of man-made ideas and their rules of relation! It can only be within Concrete Reality. For, only there can improvable Objective Content about anything be both tested and improved.

To limit criticism only to the meaning of words omits the Real World as final arbiter - for example, it does not depart from an idealist stance: that is all that Hegel could do in finding a "new way", but it still needed Marx, to insist upon a switch to a materialist basis, for the problems generated to really have any chance of being addressed.

Now, the underlying Pragmatism, which has played such a major role in Thinking throughout Mankind's History, has always emphasised Practice as the most fundamental of the joint integration of Theory and Practice, but that very History proves such a decision to be wholly mistaken.

For most of that time, Practice alone was present, and development was, therefore, doomed to proceed at a snail's pace over enormous periods of time, as the objective was merely to do again what you had successfully done before!

Indeed, it is only in what is termed Theory, that we attempt, not only to describe phenomena, but also to crucially begin to explain them too. And, perhaps surprisingly, such Theory does not have to be 100% correct to enable real progress: it only has to contain more Objective Content than was available previously.

Practice without Theory is embodied in 100,000 years of flint cultures, achieved by Homo sapiens (modern humans): they were NOT pre-human hominids - they were identical to us biologically, but they had not developed any theory.

So the Emergence of Theory was truly revolutionary!

How else can the Neolithic Revolution be understood?

Why should what had been happening all around them throughout that prior period, would then begin to be controlled by Man, and the revealed means spread like a wildfire throughout Mankind.

Theory was a new process, infinitely superior to even perfected-but-unexplained Practice.

And, it did NOT require Absolute Truth to be an adequate engine of Progress. It did, however, require Objective Content - parts or aspects of the Truth, which reached beyond a particular phenomenon to deliver a more general applicability. Indeed, such "truths" would, nevertheless, inevitably lead, in time, to seemingly untraversable impasses - yet they could, and indeed would, be transcended.

For Theory was not only about Concrete Reality itself, but could also be reflexibly applied to itself!

It isn't a mechanistic method: absolutely everything comes within its aegis!

The process is not only one-way.

The greater generality of Theory enables it to extend understanding, and even direct further Practice to proving its applicability in new areas. And its generality presses users of it to ask "Why?", in addition to only "How?"

Theory is never "absolutely correct", but it constitutes the only path to Truth.

The Family of Differently-Orientated Physicists

Physicists come in many shapes and sizes

Coming as I do from the Working Class, I was at first only aware of one kind of scientist. There were none in my immediate family, as my dad was an unskilled labourer and my mother was a sewing-machinist working for the Co-op. But, nevertheless, every street, in the district where I lived in Manchester, had its skilled technical worker, and the best (as far as I could see) were those that could make broken things work again "as-good-as-new!". They loved engines, and clever machines, and because of their detailed experiences could find out what was wrong, and fix-it!

They were actually Mechanics. But they were also part of a continuum stretching all the way up to Engineers.

Perhaps surprisingly, these types also occurred in a Science like Physics as a special breed of Experimenters, who co-existed in the same discipline as the Theorists, and also along with the application Producers: but, again surprisingly, rarely did a single individual occupy all three of these categories.

Indeed, often the Producers separated themselves off as Engineers; while the Experimenters served Theorists as actually both enabling their required Experiments, and even confirming their theories via well-designed tester-experiments.

But, such divisions also soon became legion in all the Sciences, and the knowledge-bases of these various specialisms seemed to constantly move ever further-apart from each other, so that if a mix of all three wasn't in place within an able team, the results produced became increasingly limited in scope, and also in success!

For example, a request to a theorist for help with a technical problem would rarely result in a solution. While a request for an explanation as to why something behaved in a particular way to an Engineer would also fail more often than it should.

Now, I managed to become a qualified Physicist, but was only taught Theory during my extensive education.

University of Leeds, 1960s, where I studied Physics

It was stimulating intellectually while I was at school, but if you required a solution to anything technical, you had to ask a Technician. And, this was true at every level even to when I became a Lecturer in a College.

Questions about faults in my house invariably meant a visit to the Engineers.

But, as I was to ultimately discover, these divisions of labour were not determined solely by the participants' aptitudes, but fundamentally by major Impasses generated due to important concepts in the Reasoning associated with various different areas.

Let me clarify!

Though, within certain areas, reasoning could allow some explanations and solutions to be achieved, at certain very crucial points, these impasses always occurred - effectively prohibiting lines of reasoning from traversing them, and continuing beyond them. So, these impasses became no-go areas, or boundaries, and so divided up areas of study into separate "specialisms", within which logical consequences could be traced and used: but which always terminated at each and every one of these impasses.

And, it took over 2000 years to be understood! But, a mere 200 years ago, the German Philosopher Hegel found out why they occurred. Mankind had little or no intellectual development for almost all of its time as a separate species, because of their isolated Hunter/Gatherer mode of life, so most concepts only began to be considered after the Neolithic Revolution, when people began to live together, in static communities, and in larger groups, and begin to discuss. So, our concepts were never then, and still are not, even now, exactly correct. In fact, they are all always approximate to some extent, and when used in Reasoning are therefore guaranteed to be occasionally delivering such impasses.

In fact, the Formal Logic, used in literally all Reasoning, has always had a grave fault, inherited from Greek Mathematics, which also begat Greek Formal Logic: for it treats all concepts as fixed, because they are pluralist disciplines, which actually enable most of their manipulative qualities - and hence cause their users to stick-tightly to that assumption, even though it actually isn't true. Hegel attempted to correct Formal Logic by revealing and correcting such impasses, but the problem wasn't totally eliminated, for the key disciplines used in Science are all pluralist too, and the effective extension of Hegelian Dialectics to Reasoning in these disciplines has still not yet been comprehensively addressed. And, its further application to the material World in general hasn't either.

So, the three Physics specialisms referred to earlier, have their experts, who can only deliver within their limiting-impasses as boundaries, and the only way to ever proceed MUST involve a diverse team, who "pass-the-parcel" between specialists in the hope that one can deliver what is required.

But, clearly, that is certainly NOT the best way to tackle problems is it?

Now, this Physicist, who is also a Dialectical Materialist philosopher, has recently completed a major criticism of the Copenhagen Interpretation of Quantum Theory in Sub Atomic Physics, which he had to undertake alone, as he found no others similarly-equipped to help.

But, he did come across the Electric Universe Group, who certainly had some positions in common with him - although some pretty strange ideas too.

They were, it seemed, all defined by the above-described Impasses, and came from the so-defined specialism of Engineers. They too rejected the most recently defined Group of Theorists, who have even abandoned Physical Explanation, and now deal solely in Mathematics along with the Pragmatist tenet of "If it works, it is right!", which our Engineers also subscribe to, though they jib at the Mathematics-as-cause belief, which is what Physical Theory has now become.

For, as most mathematical frigs were invented by Engineers, they know better than to turn them into Theory!

Frankly, this theoretical Physicist could do with some Electrical Universe members on his team, but perhaps only as Engineers and Experimenters. Their 'Theory' leaves a lot to be desired, even if some of the problems and gaps they highlight are true.

"If they put up with the Mathematical Theorists, I'm sure they could put up with me!"

While Wal Thornhill's Electric Universe "Theory" seems to occupy similar territory to the criticisms of contemporary Physics published in SHAPE, he never fully explains any of his ideas. EU Theory is severely lacking, perhaps because he is an Engineer, and these categories/impasses persist, unresolved.

The Diversity of Space

How the Universal Substrate and its contents vary

Plurality, Mathematics & Reality:

The concept of a Universal Substrate involves many different features, which bothered nobody when the alternative of Totally-Empty-Space was taken instead. For then, you would not need to worry about a boundary of Space, when it is Empty - for in-or-out, what's the difference?

In addition, neither would such a background ever be distorted by the presence of large concentrations of matter. For, there would be absolutely nothing to distort (leaving aside idealistic abstractions such as spacetime, for the moment)!  

And also, any projectiles, fired into such a void, would encounter nothing to slow them down: they would simply carry on forever as they are! 

So, why are we so adamant that this Total Emptiness is the case? 

It is the oldest trick that Man ever learned:- 

"Make everything as simple as possible, and you will be able to begin to understand it!"

EXCEPT, of course, that, in this case, it does leave many known phenomena totally unexplained.

So, what do you do?

You conceive of "influences" which can reach across Empty Space - Gravity being the first! But, how can they possibly do that? That question also appears to be unanswerable too.

So, to add to Simplification, Mankind devised Idealism, where non-physical influences are brought in to do the job.

And finally, we resorted to Form (Mathematics), where Empty Space itself has a "Form", and this could be curved, so what appears to be a caused-deflection ISN'T - it is merely an entity inexorably following that curvature.

Do you think I am kidding? I am not!

Mankind was faced with many inexplicable things, until they were able to hold-things-still, when certain features seemed to persist. We imagined that many simultaneous things were happening together, and that his holding-it-still removed many of those, and also exposed an "actual natural property". And though, at that early stage, it was only vaguely realised, Man had already begun to subscribe to a new principle - that of Plurality, which the scientific majority generally continues to believe-in to this very day.

It took a while to mature, but by the time of the Greek Intellectual Revolution, of 2,500 years ago, it certainly enabled a whole applicable-and-extendable discipline to be constructed, via producible and manipulate-able Theorems and Proofs.

This was Geometry, and it quickly led to what we know today as Mathematics. In this System of eminately-relatable ideas, all elements were reduced to their most minimal definitions -

Dots - of zero extension, but precise position.

Lines - of zero thickness but connecting precise positions.

Planes - of zero curvature and infinite extent, upon which Dots and Lines could be placed.

Particular aspects of the world were severely simplified to allow the study of those also-idealised-forms for further investigation. And, the idealisation of forms was taken further with Squares, Triangles and even Circles, and, in no time at all, these were extended into three dimensions with Cubes, Tetrahedra, Spheres and even such things as Dodecahedra.

Simplification was intimately-wedded to Perfect Forms, and Reality-itself was mapped-onto that artificially defined set. Yet, the biggest leap of all was also about to be introduced.

Symbolic, measureable-forms could be represented by alphabetic letters as placeholders for the full range of values of real things, and relations between them were delivered via carefully-tailored, but nonetheless perfect Equations. But, these were NEVER accurate versions of Reality-as-is!

They were only acquired in carefully arranged-for, "held down" situations: they were simplified-and-idealised versions, only available when taken from artificially-tailored contexts. Remarkably, they were from arranged-for-situations that DID indeed conform to Plurality, while the supposedly represented concrete Reality most certainly did NOT.

Now, there also developed two alternative ways of dealing with any studied part of Reality.

The first was an attempt to explain it in terms of its components and their known properties.

The second, involved the conducting of experiments in carefully arranged-for situations, allowing a series of measurements over a given range to be taken, and the results having a Perfect General Equation of the "right form", taken from the studies of mathematicians, and pragmatically fitted-up to that data.

And these were NOT the same!

The Explanation could only use what was known and its value was delivered by how much Objective Content - parts or aspects of the Truth - it contained.

The Equation would be necessarily-distorted both by its specially arranged-for context and its simplifications and idealisations which would make it both totally pluralistic, and specific to a particular context only.

Space and the Universal Substrate:

Now, having a non-empty Space also removes all those simplifying assumptions which made our conceptions of what happens there so easy to arrive at.

And, of course, instead of a uniform Emptiness absolutely everywhere (including beyond any limits to our Universe), we will have instead, maybe, a non-uniform content, actually affected by what is contained within it, while itself possibly affecting those interlopers, or even their movements through it. And, crucially, it will matter exactly what the Universal Substrate is composed of, and whether its units can relate to one another in a variety of structure modes. Finally, whether that Substrate is composed of a hierarchy of levels, providing very different components and consequent properties throughout.

Now, very clearly, as this theoretical physicist opposes the Copenhagen Interpretation of Quantum Theory, he has, within his researches, with regard to that stance, developed The Theory of a Universal Substrate, which, in contrast to Copenhagen, has managed to supply actual-physical-explanations for most of the anomalous phenomena consequent upon that interpretation.

His objectives, apart from ensuring complete undetectability, whenever such a Substrate was not active, was to address every one of the many anomalies currently totally unexplained by that consensus stance, in The Double Slit Experiments.

His objective, in the light of zero dependable evidence, was to theoretically define and construct a Substrate that could answer each and every one.

Now, before such an objective elicits the usual condemnations, by those of the consensus position, may I insist upon an important principle for such research.

It may well be a speculative leap into the unknown, but not only will the researcher be well aware of that but he will guarantee that the theories will be holist and physical, as distinct from the Copenhagen alternatives, which are always pluralist and idealist.

Jim Al-Khalili and the "Two-Slit" experiment

Al-Khalili has learned nothing on the Copenhagen Interpretation of The Double Slit Experiments

In a recent lecture (see the YouTube clip below), Jim Al-Khalili repeats the usual Copenhagen Interpretation of the ill-famed Double Slit Experiments, and his arguments have not changed one iota.

The video is captioned: "If you can explain this using common sense and logic, do let me know, because there is a Nobel Prize for you.." 

Well Jim! Have you seen our video?

Many years ago I listened to an In Our Time radio programme presented by Melvin Bragg, in which a gaggle of prestigious supporters of the Copenhagen Interpretation of that same experiment, put forward an identical account. But, neither version could transcend the contradictory accounts of particles "sometimes acting like Particles, but at other times acting like Waves".

Ever since Zeno's Paradoxes in Ancient Greece, applications of Formal Logic to certain puzzling scenarios would always end in such contradictory endpoints - entirely inexplicable in Formal Logical terms.

The problems were not trivial!

They were caused by a founding principle of both Mathematics and Formal Logic termed Plurality.

And, the reason that this crucial flaw was never addressed was because the Greeks purposely limited their intellectual disciplines to concepts and things that did not change - they remained the same qualitatively.

And, perhaps surprisingly, it proved to be an extremely empowering stance to take! For, assuming, or even ensuring, such stability in situations, certainly made them predictable.

First, this was the essential Foundation Stone of Mathematics - and legitimately established a whole new and extendable discipline, absolutely-valid for things that remained the same qualitatively: it enabled an effective Discipline of Forms and their Quantities.

But, its powerful methods of Extension and Proof, persuaded the Greeks to carry them over to a system of reasoning, later termed Formal Logic: so the new discipline could only be applied to concepts that did not change.

The logical contradiction of the Double Slit can be traced back to Ancient Greek Philosophy

This same supposition was also embedded in the initial approach to Science too.

In fact, NO real attention was given to this important disability, for about 2,300 years, when Hegel finally realised that Qualitative Changes were just NOT addressable within Formal Logic as-it-then-was, and he determined to unearth as many of these Dichotomous Pairs of contradictory concepts as he could, in order to find out their disabling bases.

He was successful in a whole number of cases, where he found that both concepts in such a Dichotomous Pair arose from the same-inadequate-premises, which would have to be changed to turn the usual non-transcend-able impasse, into a transcend-able Logical Fork.

Now, following this initial success, a great deal more has followed, enabling a major transformation of Formal Reasoning to include the tempo, processes and even the causes of truly qualitative changes.

Yet merely the application of Hegel's initial discoveries, to the Double Slit Experiments, would be sufficient to address every single anomaly of that confusing evidence. For, the mistaken premises can be both incorrect or actually missing: and the inclusion of a currently undetectable Substrate within those experiments did indeed physically explain everything!

Michelson-Morley disproved Luminiferous Aether

Now, of course, no such Substrate has ever been found, and the Michelson-Morley Experiments had seemingly banished and then denounced that assumed-to-be-present Ether, as non-existent. But, that did not banish any currently undetectable Substrate that was, nevertheless, both affected-by-and affecting-of interloping entities.

Every single anomaly was easily explained by assuming auch an intermediary.

But it had to be established that such a Universal, yet-undetectable, Substrate could both exist, and, deliver physical explanations of everything involved. It was initially undertaken to establish, theoretically, just such a Substrate - composed entirely of various mutually-orbiting pairs of Leptons, with diametrically opposite properties.

The first of these was a stable version of the Positronium, which was re-labelled as a Neutritron. This was a remarkable entity, neutral in every way, which could exist in three different modes and associations, and also be dissociated back into its separate components - one Electron and one Positron.

A very loosely-associated medium, termed a 'Paving', was possible, which could propagate Electromagnetic Energy at the Speed of Light, but could also be dissociated into its individual Neutritrons - identical to Photons, which could behave like a random Gas, or be driven into energetic Streams and even into Vortices.

A Substrate of particle-pairs like the Positronium, could be an invisible medium for EM radiation

Now, every kind of Substrate Unit was, because of their mutually-orbiting nature, also capable of carrying quanta of electromagnetic Energy via the promotion of that orbit: and could deliver such quanta by the demotion of their orbits.

And, elsewhere, it has been possible to explain the quantized orbits of Electrons within Atoms, by the dissociation of the Paving, and driving of Neutritrons into accompanying Streams and Vortices, which because of the constant return of the driving electrons, can find stable orbits wherein the net transfer of energy between electron orbit and maintained vortices arrives at a balance via stable maintained radii.

I could go on, but my sole purpose here is to counterpose the above Physics to what Al' Khalili peddles.

What do you think?

Science without Mathematics?

Explantion versus Description

People often think of Science and Maths as synonymous, but it wasn't always this way.

Let us define early Science in simple terms, from its foundation-period when substances and their properties began to be defined. Certain properties appeared to be intrinsic to a particular substance, while others seemed to be more universal - being appropriate to a variety of otherwise seemingly unrelated substances.

And, in addition, certain different things seemed to affect one another in various ways, so attempts were made to explain what happened in such interactions, usually in terms of the known properties of the participants.

Indeed the idea of Cause-and-Effect became what was sought in such interactions.

Also, the same substance, such as Water, can clearly exist in various different modes: the commonest on Earth being as a Liquid, but in extremely cold conditions, it could freeze into a Solid- called Ice. Whereas, in very warm conditions it could apparently disappear, and if concentrated heat was applied to a container of water, it would very clearly turn into a transparent Gas, via boiling.

Clearly, explanations were sought, but initially finding and expressing such things were often extremely difficult, and sometimes even impossible, at least until more was revealed about the substances being considered. The biggest gains were made by those who sought practically-useful-outcomes from their investigations: not so much asking "Why?", but as to "How?" things behaved as they did.

Mankind's remarkable Hands-and-Brains enabled them to undertake things all other animals could never even try. And, from Man's Hunter/Gatherer period these simple beginnings of "Science" were crucial. Even their ancestors had begun to "knap" Flint in a series of new ways (or Cultures) to gradually perfect the development of Spear and arrow-heads to allow hunting-at-a-distance, and Fire was also conquered, at first as found blazes due to lightning, but then made by frictional means. By only some tens of thousands of years ago, Mankind had invented Agriculture and Animal Husbandry, to use his scientific findings to totally transform its Means of Life.

All this included literally NO Mathematics, but nevertheless caused the Neolithic Revolution, with a technology based upon, and made possible by the single crucial material knapped Flint - indeed the term Neolithic indicated the New Stone Age!

Yet, it had been made possible by a new way of doing things, which we call Science, BUT, already answering "Why?" was not yet always effectively possible, the pragmatic, "If it works, it is right!" dominated the only kind of Science really possible, and even with the Greek Intellectual Revolution of 2,500 years ago, this technological-bent would continue to play a major role, especially as the key first step was in the development of a simplifying, idealising coherent and developable discipline they called Mathematics.

For, this allowed the inclusion of measureable quantities, and the revealing of relations between such measurements, which could be effectively handled by Mathematical forms.

BUT, and this is important, it did not address the question, "Why was this so?" For, the answer, "Because it obeys this Equation!" is Idealist: it is a Description and not an Explanation!

Now, people still asked "Why?" and even came up with explanatory answers, but the Absolute Truth was always unobtainable: nevertheless, parts or aspects of the Truth - termed Objective Content was usually available, AND was the only route towards Absolute Truth.

So, in spite of its inadequacies this route was indeed Science, and could be regularly improved. In contrast, the Equations extracted from measured data were then totally fixed, and this prevented their correction and improvement: they were already perfect forms!

The simplification, idealisation and the fitting up of Perfect Mathematical Forms to that data made them descriptions of a related but Different World - the World of Perfect Forms alone, which is the true-and-only realm of Mathematics- properly termed Ideality! And also, therefore, subject to the Principle of Plurality, which the World we call Reality certainly is NOT!

The role of elegance (aesthetics?) skews Mathematics again

Think of the pragmatic advantages of the Equation, though.

• It is permanently fixed: but only as long as the conditions which delivered it are never changed.

• It fits perfectly into Technology, but NOT into Science.

It defines a useable step upon a narrow path, but says absolutely nothing about the rich, surrounding Landscape.

Science insists upon establishing everything into its natural Landscape: and in so doing explains why.

Issue 61: The Implicate Order

Issue 61

This series of papers attempts to draw a definitive line between the philosophical stance of physicist David Bohm, The Implicate Order, and his rejection of the Copenhagen Interpretation of Quantum Theory, on the one hand, and the seemingly-convergent Idealist philosophy of Errol Harris on the other, and to do so from an emerging Marxist standpoint in that crucial area.

The connections between these two thinkers were brought to my attention by my namesake James Schofield, and his thesis on the “Dialectical Holism” of the latter. His PhD deals with some interesting Physics and this introduced me to concepts such as Ontic Structural Realism, and set me thinking about Bohm seriously again. So thanks, James!

It is, and has been, very important because of the total lack of a Marxist critique of Copenhagen, via a clearly explained and explanatory superior alternative stance in Sub Atomic Physics. Indeed, this key absence has been so important that is has even frequently disabled the Marxist stance too, even politically!

For, these seemingly obscure questions always were of paramount importance from the time of Karl Marx’s split from Hegelian Idealism. For, without the conquest of Science by this new Materialist stance, it would be crucially disabled in everything else that it dealt with. Marx knew it, and intended to deal with it, but he was a philosopher and an academic historian, by training, and ill-equipped to tackle such a wide-ranging discipline as Science-in-general.

In addition, his historical studies with the new standpoint immediately required the conquest of Economics, as the touchstone for the tumultuous, indeed, revolutionary changes that were so important in the developments of Human Societies throughout History. His initial task, therefore, just had to be a very different treatment of Capitalist Economics, and the change turned out to present him with an enormous undertaking, recasting the whole of that subject from an entirely different and wholly new basis. This took him the rest of his life, and Science in general was never addressed by Marx.

Materialism and Empirio-Criticism by Lenin

The dangers of this crucial omission were realised by V. I. Lenin, when key members of the leadership of the Bolshevik Party had begun to show great interest in the positivist Physics of Henri Poincaré and Ernst Mach, which was understandable because of this evident hole in the Marxist stance.

Lenin knew, immediately, that this was serious, and he immediately set about a refutation of the Positivists in his book Materialism and Empirio Criticism - which successfully pulled Lunacharsky and others back into the fold, philosophically! But, he too was no physicist, so the hole was still not filled, and hasn’t been ever since.

Clearly, to this Physicist and Marxist that vital task is the most important in contemporary Philosophy; and this is already well underway. But the long standing historical omission of this undertaking could not but encourage committed Marxists to seek a world-class physicist who strongly rejected the Copenhagen stance, and the increasingly dominant candidate was David Bohm.

Indeed, in my youth I too sought answers with Bohm’s alternatives, but the problems in Science were extremely well entrenched and surprisingly old.

In spite of Bohm’s Materialism, there was with him, as with all scientists, a very long-standing Idealism, imported via Mathematics, and a Plurality via Abstraction - yet also and surprisingly Holism via Explanation, all amalgamated via the crucial glue of Pragmatism. This uneasy mix actually underpinned the whole of Science, and Pragmatism alone allowed a switching between different areas of study, where different assumptions “could work”.

And, of course the co-existence of these directly contradictory stances was not realised by those involved: they considered a “seemingly-contradictory-appearance” as being due to as yet not-fully-understood-areas, which would, later, be removed by new Knowledge.

But, that would never be the case, whilever this unaware amalgam prevailed.

And, the differences between Einstein and the Copenhageners, and between Bohm and the rest were all due to this congenitally-contradictory, assumed Amalgam as Basis.

So clearly, Bohm has to be dealt with, as vitally as Lenin had to deal with the Positivists, but this time fundamentally.

Wholeness and the Implicate Order by Bohm

John Berger on Materialist Philosophy

Stately Homes II

Are they used socially in the best possible way?

After the success of What to do with Stately Homes?, I thought I better address the subject further.

Currently, quite small, individual families own these exceptionally lavish country houses, purely because they were left them by their parents. And, though some still have extensive "grounds", and even surrounding tenant farms, still owned by the occupants of The Big House, it is no longer the norm.

Now, most of these have permanently lost their Latifundia, and now seek to survive on inherited wealth, increasingly supplemented by the "House" earning-its-living, by hosting other peoples' weddings "in-temporary-opulence", or, maybe, grouse-shooting weekends, or even by paying-visitors getting guided tours around "maintained parts" of edifice and grounds.

It all began to decline, when the 1945 Labour Government decided to intervene by charging Death Duties upon inherited wealth. The owners began to sell off their tenant farms, and sack many of their servants. And, was it the Marquis of Bath, who turned part of his estate into a drive-through Lion Park? While another titled aristocrat assembled a Grand Collection of Valuable Automobiles to persuade paying-visitors to come to see them.

The Prize to be maintained, by all these means, was the Lavish Stately Home! But, even when most of the rooms were turned into storerooms for discarded furniture, the prized State Rooms were maintained "in the manner to which the Family had become accustomed". Indeed, some of these actually often house a family of 3, living like Kings in a few opulent rooms.

Where did their wealth come from?

But, surely, we also have to ask how were they ever even afforded, historically? The trouble is, "How far back do we want to go?"

Let us first take current ownerships. 

They are inherited from parents or other close relatives. But, clearly, the sizes of the owning-and-residing family, and the vastness of the stately home don't match!

We are informed that the size, historically, had to be large, to also house the considerable number of servants, looking after the family: but, that doesn't seem likely to be many - until that is you include the regular and large numbers of visiting families, who also stayed and needed both accommodation and servants too. Also, the hobbies and interests of the families involved often required large amounts of space, and involved many necessary serving workers, and, of course, stables for horses and kennels for the hunting dog packs. Indeed, some Stately Homes had to be big enough for Royalty, and their vast retinues to be housed when they visited too!

But, we are wrongly taking these Estates as given!

How did they actually originate?

They were initially the estates of the local Feudal Barons, achieved by force, but increasingly over the centuries confiscated and gifted-to-supporters by Royalty (who it seemed "owned everything").

What a disgusting legacy!

No wonder that Labour Government acted to dismantle such anachronisms.

Nobody should live like that, OR have the exceptional wealth to afford it: for none of it was ever earned. 

It was stolen in one form or another.

The task commenced in 1945 must be completed! Such resources must be socially available for the benefit of the whole population, and not some privileged recipients of inherited (and unearned) wealth.

Inequality in the UK

The inequalities of this distorted society, leave millions without the possibility of affording homes of their own, and a National Health Service and Elderly Care Service, both without the accommodation, physical resources, and funding that they so urgently require.

And, with increasing longevity, and ever increasing demands for supporting services, these vast edifices should be put into serving the elderly population, and People Services in general.

And, of course the demands for more affordable Housing, could also be helped by using associated Estates for building Council Houses in solubrious surroundings, with adequate Parks and Required Services.

Enough of this disgusting inequality!

Put such resources into what the People need.

Corbyn on media smears

"Closer to Truth"?

Desperate avalanche from the Right Masquerading as Seeking Truth

A large series of hour-long contributions, attempting to swing a bewildered people behind the old "solutions" under their Closer to Truth label, is everywhere on the usual Social Media sites.

I usually just ignore them, but when they imply that their overall stance is open and objective, by "considering" such a radical topic as Emergence, and then assembling a varied group of short interviews "from both sides" of the discussions upon this crucial topic, I just have to demur!

For, that isn't true!

The energetic proposers of Emergence as the true means whereby Creative and Innovative Development takes place, is principally by the Hegelians and the Marxists, but they don't get the chance to insert a single word in this "debate".

For, it is actually a carefully selected roster of usually pretty conservative academics, mostly opposers or distorters of that idea. And, NONE who deliver it as part of their developed philosophic stance.

As it is carefully and selectively erected, it is all the easier to demolish it! But, such a deceitful way of presenting it, cannot be tolerated by those who have long strived to understand its significance by swimming against the general consensus, in order to finally break through the containing enclosure of fabrications currently damagingly-restricting literally all serious intellectual disciplines upon this topic.

This contribution, in Season 3, Episode 10, of Closer to Truth, conforms exactly to my criticism: it cannot be a "debate", if both sides are not given an equal chance to put forward their main arguments.

"Closer to Truth" on Emergence

Of all the contributors, only one, Nobel Prize winner, Robert Laughlin, was able to state his supporting position upon Emergences, and he is NOT part of the coherent body of opinions on the matter, who are well to the left of Laughlin.

[Read A Different Universe by Robert B. Laughlin to get his full position]

Indeed, I am probably in the best position to comment, as I am the author of The Theory of Emergences (2010), along with many other serious and related contributions - all available for free thanks to SHAPE Journal.

The total absence of even a mention of the generally-assumed Principle of Plurality, also allows a discussion totally ignoring the "elephant in the room": for Plurality asserts that all Natural Laws are eternal, and cannot be influenced at all by any containing context. It therefore guarantees that when many are acting simultaneously, they merely sum, and hence can only produce complication, rather than-mutually affecting-one-another to deliver something entirely new.

And, when considering Systems of processes, Plurality again allows only complication and never ever real Emergences!

To totally omit even a mention, demonstrates a prior-and-blinkered agenda, just as the omission of the consistent Emergentists also does the same! Even the evident responding energies of the interviewer, betray where he stands, and picking Peter Atkins as a supporter of Reductionism was certainly not choosing a common stance upon that position. His views would generally be regarded as extreme (which the interviewer described as radical).

Emergence arose out of Hegel's criticism of Formal Logic, as illegitimately totally excluding any real Qualitative Change, and his added insistence that it was the essential component of Development.

So, when Hegel's Dialectics was transferred wholesale to a Materialist stance, such ideas led directly to attempts to explain the appearance of the totally New in Development, via a holist rather than a pluralist approach, and ultimately arrived at the Theory of Emergences, of which there was absolutely no mention in this programme, supposedly seriously addressing Emergences.

Finally, I cannot leave it there!

The study of Emergences can never be undertaken via Formal Logic, because it addresses precisely what Logic excludes.

Some types of Emergence happen all the time, as in the miraculous births of human babies, while others are one-off events that change everything, covering the Origin of Life, and the origin of Consciousness too.

Emergences are nearly always tumultuous events involving multiple Crises, but are also the only means by which the wholly New can successfully emerge.

In the Theory of Emergences, a seemingly permanent Stability starts to totter in a series of Crises, which then turn into a wholesale Collapse, plummeting down to a seemingly inevitable Nadir of Dissolutions, but then remarkably reversing into a halting, but wholly creative series of processes, culminating in a wholly new Level Stability.

The Theory of Emergences

And, such a trajectory makes the prediction of its outcome directly from its precursors, totally impossible.

Did anything of this come up in the delivered Episode 10?

Of course not!