Heisenberg’s Uncertainty Principle and an Undetectable Substrate

This short piece does not stand alone!

It represents a very late, yet crucial, stage in a major philosophical and physical critical assault upon the Copenhagen Interpretation of Quantum Theory, but from a steadfastly materialist standpoint, involving a very different philosophical position, and also the inclusion of a currently undetectable, yet fully-defined and explained Universal Substrate. All the technical questions have been dealt with elsewhere, but there still remains one last piece of the jigsaw -

Heisenberg's Uncertainty Principle!

The purpose of this essay is to debunk Heisenberg's excuse for the Copenhagen stance, which dispenses with the Classical assumptions about Reality, but only within the special Sub Atomic Realm, where he insists determinism no longer applies, and only an assumption of indeterminism allows Mankind to deal with the phenomena we find there.

And, consequently, in such circumstances, NO Causal Explanations were possible, and the only methods capable of delivering anything useable were Statistics and Probability.

But, this opponent of Copenhagen, having already managed to theoretically explain many currently "physically-inexplicable phenomena", by assuming the universal presence of a currently existing, yet passively-undetectable Substrate, which can be, both affected-by and affecting-of, any encountered physical entities, and thereafter, even widening that body of explanations, both extensively and successfully - it suddenly struck me how-and-why the Copenhagenists get away with their entirely formal descriptions.

The reason is Heisenberg's Uncertainty Principle coversfor the incorrect omission of the Universal Substrate as an absolutely crucial premise, within the Sub Atomic Realm in Physics!

What does the Copenhagen Interpretation smuggle in to even make a formal description possible?

It is, of course a Wave Equation!

And, where do such equations usually apply?

They apply to phenomena in Media!

Certainly, the presence of such a Universal Substrate cannot currently be detected, so, in spite of its omission causing innumerable problems, it was still dropped permanently as a necessary premise.

Now, local incidents can cause non-local (extended) effects in such substrates! And, in addition, such effects can then affect not only local entities, but also by propagating to wide areas of the substrate, hence affect more distant entities.

They can even affect the very entities which originally caused them - in reflected-and-recursive interactions, as in the Double Slit Experiments, and in various kinds of resonance.

There is new evidence to consider from current Very Low Temperature Physics - soon to be imminently extended to Gravity-Free conditions in the Space Laboratory in orbit around the Earth - plus it is also abundantly clear from my own researches into Substrates (composed of undetectable joint-particles) that these are not only several in number, but also diverse in their achievable aggregate Phases, presenting very different conditions and possible phenomena to traversing interlopers.

How on earth do you deal with such influences with NO detectable substrate?

Physically, you can't!

So what did they do?

By using forms derived from Mathematics, and previously used with phenomena in observable substrates, you can, with difficulty, also FIT-UP-TO real data just such such formulae, even with no detectable Substrate, BUT never deterministically!

All sorts of workarounds are necessary, both formally and philosophically, to achieve, and then use, these formulae. The formal tricks are no problem, as scientists have been using such rigs throughout their History. But, the philosophical contrivances are more difficult, so the New View would have to take on Philosophy - a very well established discipline! They had to remove, "physically", the bases assumed by the philosophers. And, this was achieved via the Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle - for "At the bottommost levels determinism no longer holds, indeed, a kind of indeterminism holds instead."

Plurality strikes again!

The very principle, which, along with Pragmatism, allowed all the many contradictorily-established disciplines to exist simultaneously, was again brought to bear in this incredible anachronism.

Now, quite apart from the assertions being made here, the whole Philosophical Basis, for the usual range of intellectual disciplines, has already been established by this philosopher-physicist, in his analysis and description of the whole trajectory of intellectual development of Mankind, from their Hunter/Gatherer beginnings, to the present time, which have made various past and present Amalgams of contradictory premises appear "legitimate" via that usual banker premise of Pragmatism - "If it works, it is right!", which, of course, does no such thing, though it can deliver a workable basis for technological gains and productions.

Indeed, Philosophy itself is also one of these disciplines, whereas it should be the measureof them all, and provide the means for dismantling such false separations of disciplines, intellectually at least.

But, the Amalgam of contradictory premises underpinning all the Sciences, was unavoidably adopted, historically, as the only way Mankind had discovered to Control-and-Use many contradictory aspects of Reality to their benefit. It was suggested, initially, by Abstraction, which allowed some sort of discussion of things, achieved by both simplifying and naming them, and with the increasing socialisation of Human beings via the Neolithic Revolution, and the change in their mode of Life, primarily to staying in one place and Farming. For, then Abstraction began to be used in Descriptions, by simplifying observed shapes into Perfect Forms, and studying those in place of their naturally occurring sources: they began to idealiseas well as simplify, and both of these greatly increased what could be done in studying them, and what might be done with them.

From this we arrive at Euclidian Geometry, and the developable power of its Theorems and Proofs. This became a kind of standard for all other intellectual disciplines, and in particular, for Formal Logic, and therefore all the others in which Reasoning was applied too.

But the Mathematics into which Euclidian Geometry grew, was also entirely pluralistic - in that all entities involved were assumed to be separable, and always exactly the same - that is totally unchanging qualitatively - indeed they were considered to be eternal!

All of these disciplines were hamstrung by this totally false limitation.

Now, this imposition of Plurality onto all of these disciplines, including their common Lingua Franca - Formal Reasoning, made absolutely certain that they would always be limited to situations in which nothing ever changed in any profound or qualitative way, so when applied to anything real, it would necessarily only apply to stable situtations involving such things. So, anything involving real development, would necessarily be totally excluded.

This was a crippling restriction, so when Science began to be developed upon the exact same basis, such a Principle implied that no Natural Law (which would necessarily be eternal) would be affected by any changed context. And this tenet both severely handicapped, and yet also enabled a warped-version of Science for many centuries!

It hamstrung it by banning all Qualitative Change to any extracted Laws.

And, it enabled a version of it, as long as the severely-constrained Context, necessarily arranged for to get such Laws extracted in the first place, was identically replicated for its subsequent effective use.

In addition, this also meant that though such "eternal Laws" could be effectively and productively used, they were not those acting in allcircumstances, but only those in the single contexts that alone validated its use. What is generally termed Classical Physics, was actually entirely so crippled, that it should have been termed PluralistPhysics, usable only in very limited constrained circumstances, so that any supposedly General Theory based upon that Law, would always be wrong. And, thus all findings would be both simplified, and also idealised, by taking a pluralist mathematical formula, and fitting it up to the data collected from that pluralist single situation.

Theoretically, as in generating an explanation, that formula would also be wrong: it could be legitimately be used pragmatically, but never theoretically. Indeed, a thorough-going analysis of such a "Law", would reveal it as an illegitimate Amalgam of a Materialist Stance, along with an Idealist stance, and one crippled by Plurality, so would be useless for both explanation and use within any normal natural situation.

And crucially, this was the Physics that failed to cope with Quantized Phenomena: it neither would, nor ever could, cope with such phenomena adequately in any method of experiment in a real world - which also included an undetectable Universal Substrate.

The perpetrators of the Copenhagen Interpretation did not even know of its built-in disabilities - so they kept all the errors of Plurality, and decided instead to throw out Explanation as totally impossible, due to the Sub Atomic Realm being a different world, changed by the Principle of Uncertainty formulated by Werner Heisenberg.

Werner Heisenberg at the blackboard

Clearly, the usual assumptions were indeed adequate above a certain size of the participating components being studied. But, according to Heisenberg, once that size was left behind, and a World of the extremely small was entered, the rules changed dramatically! We had entered the World of Quantum Physics, where things just behaved very differently. Below that level, things became indeterminate - acting within a range of possibilities, and the old determinate Physics could no longer be used.

Indeed, a particular Wave Equation actually delivered that range, but in a very odd way! It delivered only the probabilities of a particle being in each of the whole range of locations covered by that Equation. BUT, we already have detailed knowledge of such phenomena! Long ago, scientists conquered similar situations when they were happening within an affected and effecting visible Substrate. Some material interloper could both disturb, and, in special circumstances, be recursively affected by that disturbance.

Could such methods be appropriate in this area too?

The assumption of a currently undetectable Universal Substrate was included, theoretically, in every single one of the Double Slit Experiments, and every single anomaly was physically explained without any recourse to Heisenberg or the Copenhagen Interpretation whatsoever. It seems that, as with so many of the strange anomalies of the Quantum world, and the subsequent ‘idealisation’ of Physics, this crucial missing premise is to blame.

This paper has been recently published in my new book The Real Philosophy of Science

The Real Philosophy of Science

A complete rethinking of the Philosophy of Science is now vital. As climate change accelerates and capitalism slowly dies around us, it is no longer hyperbolic to state that human civilization now hangs in the balance. For the positivist consensus, salvation must come from science and its greater capacity to understand these problems and proffer vital solutions. Unfortunately for us all, and unbeknownst to most, science is in dire straights too. As it stands, contemporary science is not equipped to deal with these profound qualitative changes, or even its own shortcomings and failings. Physics, for example, has been undergoing a secret existential crisis for an entire century.

For the last ten years, physicist and philosopher Jim Schofield, has been publishing new theories and damning critiques of the scientific consensus in SHAPE Journal. His polemical writing largely rejects the epistemology of science as it is usually conceived, and instead poses a dialectical view of scientific history, its impasses and mistakes, and our flawed methods and assumptions.

The Real Philosophy of Science is Jim Schofield’s first full-length book on the subject, but it is long overdue. Many hundreds of papers have been published by the author. Included in this vast body of work is a final refutation of the Copenhagen Interpretation of Quantum Theory, alternative explanations for all of the anomalies of the Double Slit experiments, an extension of Charles Darwin’s theories to look at how they might apply to the evolution of reality in general, and the Theory of Emergences, which shows how Marx’s ideas apply beyond the social realm – to the revolutions which happen in nature. For Jim Schofield, it is only through real Marxist intervention in science, and scientific rethinking of Marx, that we can transcend the hidden impasses that now plague human thinking, and set the course of civilisation back on track.

This is my new book The Real Philosophy of Science. It's currently available from Smashwords and it should soon hit all major eBook distribution platforms.

The Real and the Ideal

How does The Real differ from The Ideal?

Though I doubt anyone disputes that the Ideal Forms of Mathematics are not the same as their counterparts in Reality, there is, however, a widespread belief that those Ideal Versions are still the really essential parts of a much messier and hard to cope with Reality.

And, this contradiction is surprisingly re-enforced (when it should be undermined) by the very carefully selected, and even more carefully farmed situations deemed absolutely necessary for meaningful study. For, the usual subsequent post-experimental-processes do nothing to dispel that illusion. In fact, they can even contribute to it greatly!

Take the careful fitting of a General Pure Form, taken from studies in Abstract Mathematics, to data from an experiment, which has then been subject to the Method of Differences to point towards a particular General Form, and then have that so-identified form fitted-up to sets of experimental data by substituting them into the General Form to produce a series of simultaneous equations, which when solved deliver the previously unknown constants in the general form as actual numeric values.

For, even this fitted-up-form, though it can be used very effectively, within a defined range, will never be as effective outside of that range! Indeed, it then merely produces total failures in the form of asymptotes and zeros (Singularities), which are NO reflection of Reality at all, but merely proofs of the limitations, and even total failure, of the formulae so gained.

Mathematical Singularity 

The closeness of the carefully adjusted General Formulae to real data, particularly in the hands of mere users of those formulae, unavoidably persuades them that they have the essence-of-the-situation in their hands, via that clearly valuable formula, and more generally that all situations are likely to be similarly served by other close-fitting encapsulations. It is, therefore, no wonder that such users (technicians rather than originators) will have a different attitude to those who struggled long and hard to finally achieve those results. The classically distinct standpoints of technicians, and following them, the general public, would see things differently to the actually involved, investigating scientists!

Now, such differences are, perhaps surprisingly, also extended to other scientists working in different fields, when they consider areas with which they are unfamiliar. The widely believed stance soon becomes that the formulae used DO indeed encapsulate the essence in their applied-to areas.

But, it just isn't true- and frequently confounds both outsiders and insiders alike, when results widely different from those predicted by the supposedly-appropriate formulae, are encountered.

And, the reasons are more than mere inaccuracy!

They are never exactly-the-same, for they describe different Worlds.

The maths-based forms are merely adjusted-but-fixed versions of forms from Ideality - the World of Pure Fixed Forms alone, while the actual relations in Reality are due to varying resultant situations happening in an holistic real concrete World, due to physical composite causes of many contributing factors - nothing of which could possibly be available in the pure, fixed forms of Abstract Ideality.

Yet, the mistaken slide into treating such formulae as the determining causes rather than clever, pragmatic tricks, has significant consequences outside of the Stabilities within which they are close to what happens. And, of course, absolutely everything isn't limited to such Stable situations, indeed, all Development and Qualitative Change is impossible in such circumstances.

So, as Hegel correctly insisted upon, some 200 years ago, the premises of not only Mathematics, but of Formal Logic too, would have to be radically modified to enable Mankind to tackle any of the important questions of Developmental Change. Absolutely none of that kind of relation even exists in Ideality!

And, though for centuries (or even millennia) the above described ideas and methodology did suffice, the time was sure to happen when Mankind couldn't continue to "hold things still" both to investigate them, and then to use them. For, such a purely technological approach is predicated upon achieving particular objectives only.

The more profound and far-reaching objective of getting closer to Understanding aspects of Reality, is not well-served by such objectives and methods. The crucial premise behind those technological methods is the Principle of Plurality, which insists upon only fixed ideas and laws as the bases of everything. But, the required premise, to enable Understanding of Real World phenomena, has to be the Principle of Holism, which insists that "Everything affects everything else!", and hence rejects both Mathematics and Formal Logic as being inadequate to dealing with Qualitative Change.

Now, this is definitely a Revolutionary Change, requiring a significant change in the very bases of both ideas and methods, and is nowhere near as easy as the approach that has both sufficed and dominated for literally millennia!

In spite of the major contributions of both Hegel and Marx, the changes in philosophical stance and methodology has still not been fully addressed. Indeed, their conception of Dialectics has never, until now, been applied in Physics: and that is not only to the detriment of Physics, but also to the detriment of Dialectics too! What Hegel and Marx were able to contribute in their respective areas, was not enough to establish all the changes necessary to complete the Revolution!

It will only be in the defeat of the Copenhagen Interpretation of Quantum Theory that the necessary developments will be made.

A New Path to Socialism?

Having been an advocate of Socialism all my adult life, and a dedicated and active participant in various professedly Marxist Parties, it is clear that the central objective of the Movement, which generated such means, has never been universally guided to success, by those intended organisations-of-change. Indeed, in spite of the vital theoretical contributions of Karl Marx, and the significant success of the Russian Revolution, the expected ultimate global triumph of Socialism over Capitalism has not been achieved.

And, as the future under Capitalism seems to be driving remorselessly towards an even greater calamity than the two World Wars of the 20th century, a solution to the causes of failure of the Socialist Movement has become absolutely imperative.

The generally-supposed banker methods have been proved to be ultimately counter-productive.

 

Indeed, the top-down organisation of the Socialist State, even when achieved via a successful and popular revolution, can never do it! For, it is always prone to the rise and increasing power of a centralised Bureaucracy: and, in the end, the ordinary Working People become just as powerless as those within Capitalism.

Yet, the remarkable undoubted achievements of Russia and China, after their successful revolutions, have proven the superiority of a Planned Economy: the swift developments of the Soviet Union, only to then be vastly exceeded by those of the Peoples Republic of China, clearly demonstrate that!

But, replacing the Capitalist owners with Bureaucratic directors never delivered Socialism for the People.

And, the reasons reside in the misunderstood true nature of Real Democracy! Neither Parliamentary Democracy under Capitalism, nor the Bureaucratic "Democracy" under Stalinism, can deliver True Democracy - a society run by the People. For, no matter how the Representatives of the People are first selected as possible candidates, and then voted into office - it is always achieved without:

1. Sufficient information to enable the right selection

2. Sufficient recall controls over the People's Representatives

3. Regular and sufficient interrogative access to them

But, how could all that be appropriately organised?

It should primarily be organised within the People's Workplaces and Living Constituencies, and it would need to be kept informed by an adequate and totally Free Press.

Indeed, the Principles of Democracy must be insisted-upon and instituted, not only in the organisation of local, district and national representative bodies of the State, but even within the political parties and policy-making bodies within the Populace.

And, these latter demands are also absolutely crucial!

For, there is a "leadership myth", which is always used to oppose such demands. It implies that you cannot trust the judgement of ordinary people to make decisions in their own best interests. You are, instead, supposed to find the right leader, who understands such things better than you, and get him or her to make such important decisions "on behalf of the People".

No, definitely NOT! 

The Leader might well be chosen because of an evident grasp of the most important issues (or perhaps not!). But, the policies pursued must always be those voted upon, by the majority. 

And, sometimes those decisions will be wrong! 

But how else will the populace learn and become competent at managing their own destiny? With the leadership principle, the bad decisions are always some other individual's fault! No-one ever learns it is their fault!

With True Democracy, there has also to be True Responsibility.

Decisions must be those of the majority, and implemented by the organisation and even by a leader who doesn't agree with them. For if that leader believes it will lead to a major set back, he must resign the leadership, and form a contrary faction arguing for a change in policy. Indeed, sometimes, that disagreeing leader should still march at the front of his differently-convinced members, and be defeated along with them!

That is exactly what happened in Russia in 1917 in what are termed the "July Days". In spite of totally disagreeing with the Kronstadters, who had marched into Petrograd, armed to the teeth, determined to arrest the Provisional Government. The Bolshevik leaders argued against it - it was much too soon. But, the Kronstadters would not be dissuaded, so Trotsky, who knew it was a major mistake, nevertheless marched with them, at their head, to the Winter Palace. 

It did indeed fail, and Trotsky was put in jail. 

But, the lesson was learned, and in October it was the Kronstadters, when called upon to do the same thing by Lenin, knew who to trust, and did the job. For, with that Responsibility, the people begin to understand more and more!

The preparing of the People for True Democracy has to be the primary purpose of socialists: for without that, all actions will eventually end in failure, and could lead to calamitous outcomes! Consider the rise of Fascism in many countries following the First World War and the Global Slump beginning in 1929, if you doubt it.

Let us seriously consider Democracy in the Workplace!

Both the Capitalist Workplace and those in the Soviet Union were NOT democratic: all decision were taken by managers or owners, and even in the Socialist State they were appointed by the central Government. Even there, the Workers were considered to be incapable of making the important decisions And, it was true: how could it be otherwise? You don't get born with such capabilities you are either taught them or you learn by experience! And, without the regular experience of making such decisions, you would indeed get them wrong, and never be in a position to take responsibility for them, and correct them.

There is a Workplace Democracy that takes all this into account! It is a version of a Workers Co-operative Company, where it is wholly owned and managed by the Workforce alone. And it is, therefore, part of the job, every single week, to come together to discuss problems and make decisions. Everyone is involved and the decisions of the majority are implemented by the management, who are both hired and fired by the workforce. The workers in such a company learn from their mistakes and their increasing number of successes.

Finally, the effect of the super-rich in society, whatever their political status, has to be addressed, for the current role of this group totally distorts any democratic features that actually exist, and in ways which completely negate their supposed-to-be intended purposes. For, prodigious disposable wealth can fairly easily be used to steer things to the detriment of the majority of the population and in the interests of a powerful few.

And, by far the most important of these is in the delivery of news and information to ordinary citizens, primarily via who own and run the Media, and how they select and deliver what they consider to be important.

For, what is important to billionaire owners will never be the same as what is vital to the majority of the population, and particularly the poor - the workforce exploited by those very owners. And, to take the case of the United Kingdom, at the present time, literally all the nationwide newspapers, and all the TV channels are clearly biased news-wise towards the requirements of the rich.

And, using the excuse of terrorist or even paedophile postings, even the organisers of the facilities on the web are being noticeably reduced for anti-establishment positions.

And, in the USA, where politics is majorly influenced by contributions to "election funds" and the like, staying as an elected representative can be greatly influenced by how much particular candidates, or even supporters of the same policies can spend across the media, and even the way they vote can be influenced by substantial contributions to "expenses".

Only effective policies addressing all of these aspects can deliver justice in political activity now, and help to maintain political objectives when electoral successes finally come.

The amassing of wealth, influence and power in few hands must not only cease, but be decisively dismantled and stopped from ever happening again!

Socialism will never be possible whilever the rich maintain their total dominance!

But neither will it be possible while power is held in so few hands - whoever's hands they may be.

Nader blames YOU!

Ralph Nader, in a recent public meeting in Washington D.C, including, among his audience, a surprising number of very similar-to-himself past agitators, started his contribution with a liberal criticism of the current American political and corporate systems, basically from the standpoint of the US Constitution, and the Rights with which it had "endowed The People", and, by means of which, only a tiny fraction of the population could (and, indeed, in the past did) right the wrongs, first by concerted agitation, and, thereafter, via the usual legal systems of democracy, to get laws changed to complete the job.

It was an echo from the past, and an inaccurate one too! For, it effectively gave all the credit to small groups of people, like himself, who stood up and fought politically for Justice. But, that wasn't the full story at all!

He never mentioned the Socialist and Communist parties, who, along with the vastly growing Trade Unions, had forced Roosevelt to concede to their demands "OR ELSE!"in the depth of the 1930s Depression. That alone set the tone in which the small groups of liberal "do gooders" could then, for a time, effectively "act for the people". It had never before been the case, before that near-revolution, nor was it the case since that justified "Fear-of-the-People" had subsided, following the Second World War, and the gradual re-establishment of the total dominance of Corporate Capitalism.

Nader didn't mention Capitalism once!

No, it was never liberals like Nader who re-established our rights, but the Working Class in conscious political action, and with a Socialist leadership who knew what they had to do and why! And, it was that leadership that had been attacked and destroyed in the McCarthyite Witch-Hunts that had deprived the Working Class of that vital guidance, and which instead allowed the re-establishment of their own dominance, as of old.

So, Nader's admonishment of the Middle Class liberals for their reticence in fighting injustices was a sure revelation that he would never fight the real enemy and cause of both inequality and environmental destruction - The Capitalist System - in its unavoidable lunge to the Right in response to the major and still unresolved recession of 2008.

Once again it could only be addressed by a dedicated Socialist and genuinely anti-Capitalist leadership of an increasingly rebellious Working Class.

Within Marxism?

Review: Marxism and the Philosophy of Science: A Critical History by Helena Sheehan
With a title like that you would think we'd be singing from the same hymn sheet, but sadly this doesn't deal with the real issues at hand.

A critique of Helena Sheehan's book

upon Marxism, Science & Philosophy

Part I

This paper, at this very early stage, addresses only Helena Sheehan's 38-page Introduction to her book, but such is, I have found, always a legitimate first step, as the writer's main purposes are usually clearly emphasized there, and so what will be delivered later in detail, will be usefully outlined in an Introduction to give direction to the ultimately following narrative. For then, you will have a fair idea of what you are going to get, before any other, as-yet-unmentioned diverting elements introduce any confusion, in the following detailed treatments.

This work, of almost 600 pages, attempts to relate both Marxism and Science, via their "philosophies" and their "histories", but does it from a surprisingly-claimed standpoint, namely from "Within Marxism", and this leads her to treat all of what she considered were natural, if sometimes aberrant, developments, from a supposed common-ground - established by Karl Marx in the 1840's, and including all that has been delivered, ever since, under that explicit banner.

Significantly, extensive access to the many countries, which, at the time of her extensive visits to them, and her consequent writing of this book, were still under the aegis of being "Socialist States", and still largely dominated by the Soviet Union. And, this was indertaken along with unrivalled access to their Centres of Learning in those countries. It, certainly, infers a strong connection, with one or another of the Communist Parties in the West, and having been a member of the CPGB, myself, for a time, I recognised the names of comrades from that time, within her Acknowledgements.

Sheehan personally sees her account as being about, "The story of the shifting nexus of science, philosophy and politics within Marxism", to which you have to ask, "So what is this 'container' which can include all of that?"

For, she puts that aberrant path down to "new scientific discoveries, new philosophical trends and new political formations", as the determining causes! And, that statement alone answers my question, by defining that "container" as being clearly - all those either professing to be Marxists, and, surely, also, in addition, even those defining that stance from without: that is both everyone calling themselves Marxists, and even opponents defining it, seem to be included within its inevitable trajectory of development! But, such errors are surely only later explained, while dealing with their origins within the criticisms of Formal Reasoning by the German Idealist philosopher Hegel, and his consequent assault upon Dichotomous Pairs of contradictory concepts, which always led to rationally-unbridgeable-impasses in Reasoning, and, thereafter, his consequent discovery that the problem always resided within inadequate or missing premises.

For, the origins of that crucial flaw had been there in Reasoning ever since the Intellectual Revolution in Ancient Greece, which occurred as an inevitable-consequence of the Neolithic Revolution some thousands of years earlier. What finally occurred was the beginnings of conceptual Abstractions, first in Geometrical Forms, and then in Mathematics in general, which was so productive in those idealised realms, that they were extended to Reasoning in Formal Logic too.

But, those original and highly-productive contexts were NOT about Reality-as-is, but, always, about stable-concepts-alone: where things didn't change qualitatively. And, though not originally overtly stated, such a stance was later found to conform exactly to The Principle of Plurality, wherein qualitative changes were prohibited, and entities, concepts and even Laws were considered to be fixed- it was also where the idea of eternal Natural Laws came from later in Science!

Now, this chosen trajectory colours the subsequent use of words like "rational" - for it usually implies a dependable mode of reasoning, which Formal Logic never delivers outside of Stabilities. And, in the same way, reference to eternal Laws, and even Truth has to be undermined if used loosely too.

It's not Marxism!

And, I must take issue with the "Broad Church" definition of "Marxism": for Marx's contribution was initially philosophical, and carried over Hegel's Dialectical Logic entirely, but into a strictly Materialist stance. And, thereafter, he began to apply it to his own specialist discipline of History, where he was able to explain prior Social Revolutions in terms of Crises in Stable Social Forms, progressing into total, general collapses, and subsequent creative construction of wholly new Social Stabilities. 

Marx developed Dialectics as the a more reliable way to deal with all qualitative changes , in particular with all situations in crisis, and at every possible Level.

Now, Sheehan calls it, "A story with its dark side, with retrogressive episodes, unscrupulous characters, hasty and ill-conceived projects, and superficial solutions, sometimes with dire consequences" - does this sound remotely like those involved applying Marx's Dialectics to currently happening situations?

Of course not! And such people were not Marxists, at all!

Sheehan is actually talking about the Stalinist bureaucrats, who drove the real Marxists out, or executed them as traitors, or even had them assassinated abroad. These perpetrators were trenchant enemies of Marxism who appropriated its name - and they were strong defenders of their accrued privileges and power.

Not every supporter of the Revolution, or even every member of the Bolshevik Party were Marxists, and the Civil War with the Whites, and the many armies of intervention, as well as the economic blockade inflicted upon the first Socialist State, would, and indeed did, distort the ways and the means of those running the new state. The bureaucracy became a reflection of these external forces from the capitalist states. and imposed "solutions" upon their own population, whether they liked or understood it or not!

The Marxism of Marx, or even that of Lenin was driven out by this bureaucracy, and the people's support for "Their Socialist State" was constantly eroded.

To explain all this, also required a trenchant criticism of State Ownership merely replacing Capitalist Ownership, with little or no Worker's Control of their places of work. And the same set-ups, but worse, were imposed upon the subject peoples of Royalist Russia, and the USSR's enlarged "Empire" too!

Nope. "Bad apples in the barrel" is not a Marxist analysis!

And, the many "complexities", of which Sheehan complained, were actually due to diverse pragmatic solutions isolating the Soviet Union from the efforts of the Capitalist World to destroy it. Such a struggle could have been the means of raising the Soviet People's Marxist consciousness, but, that was never the policy of the Bureaucracy.

Sheehan goes on to claim that:

"This work attempts to give an historical account of the development of Marxism as a philosophy of science as well as a philosophical analysis of the issues involved."

But sadly, the essentially-required prior-project to enable her intention had never actually happened! The 40 years invested by Marx into Capitalist Economics, was never replicated to do the same for Science, where it would surely involve a great deal more than what Marx had had to invest into a much smaller area. He had correctly concluded that he had first to become an Economist, and studied the best of the English School first, before he could even embark upon a meaningful critique of that subject.

So, with Science, the task would either involve the same sort of learning curve to be undertaken by an excellent Marxist (as good a dialectician as Marx), or, alternatively, its undertaking, along with the detailed study of Marxism, by a professional scientist critical of the consensus stances within that discipline.

It never happened, either way!

The aspiring Empirio Criticists within the Bolshevik Party, had it wrong, and had to be retrieved by Lenin with his book Materialism and Empirio Criticism, but Lenin was no qualified scientist and was pre-occupied with preparing to lead a Revolution.

The essential task was never undertaken, so Sheehan's intention also could also never be fulfilled - for the wherewithal to tackle it didn't actually exist.

Sheehan also claims that: 

"It shows the Marxist tradition to be far more complex and differentiated than is usually imagined, characterised by sharp and lively controversies for contending paths of development every step of the way."

And claims she is tracing the History of the Mainstream of Marxism in the century since Marx set out upon his colossal task. But she illegitimately confuses Dialectical Materialist Philosophy, and the Politics which both flowed from that stance, and conversely elicited a hostile incursion to those purposes from without! You cannot make those two coincident, for they never were. Each-and-every attempt at building a Workers International Organisation was betrayed by non-Marxists, largely consisting of Middle Class interlopers fearing what such an organisation would do to their intentions and aspirations.

It always occurred! And, there were always resources from defenders of Capitalism to finance such incursions.

The use of the term "Marxism" to cover all of this is certainly incorrect!

The Philosophy which Marx arrived at is has to be the engine of any consequent Politics. And the so-called controversies occurred when that wasn't the case. Stalinism was never a strain of Marxist philosophy: it was the stance of bureaucrats with State Power in the new State, which emerged from the Russian Revolution. The fights were not between groups of Marxists who honestly disagreed with each other: the two groups had very different stances and purposes.

The so-called controversies concerned with Relativity and Quantum Theory actually revealed the as yet uncompleted tasks of applying Dialectical Materialism to Science, but if the Marxists hadn't been removed from the struggle, they, and definitely not their opponents, could have completed that task. To blame the errors on the new discoveries in Science is dishonest. For dealing with these aberrations would have strengthened the new Philosophy: that's how developments occur!

The very fact that the new Idealist Stances in Sub Atomic Physics spread to Russia, showed clearly how far the Bureaucrats had strayed from Dialectical Materialism. For what they claimed was Marxism was nothing like the most important means that had been in Marx's hands, and should and would have tackled the latest Positivist inventions, if its supporters had survived the purges.

Imagine what the centres of Learning in a genuinely Marxist state could have achieved in this area!

NOTE: I must interject at this point, for the writer of this paper is both a Physicist and a Marxist, and has recently completed a real Marxist treatment of the Idealist Copenhagen Interpretation of Quantum Theory, which any real Marxist could have done long ago. And a key reason for this never happening before was the triumph of the Stalinists.

And remember the collapse of the Soviet Empire was down to them too!

This scientific undertaking has taken most of my adult life, because I had to effectively "do-a-Marx-type-job" from scratch! There weren't any Marxists to help me.

An Intrinsic Redshift: Did Halton Arp have a point?

Halton Arp

The Electric Universe brigade talk about a cosmic Redshift that isn’t caused by a Doppler Effect transforming the frequencies being observed. They assume instead that it is intrinsic to special modes of production within atoms at the birth of a new entity from out of the minor axis of a producing Galaxy (as Halton Arp has suggested, but as a purely Observational Astronomer was unable to explain). This infers that in the throes of such a birth, the state of the Universal Substrate within atoms is modified to give different “Quantized orbits” and hence affect the spectra modified by absorption and production processes by such atoms.

Now, presumably, the usual explanation of the radiation, emitted by atoms, assumes a particular Substrate context – say, in the more usual form of the Substrate contained within atoms, while that context must be temporarily modified at that birth, to only gradually be returned to normal over time! For then, distortion of that substrate in the external conditions, will definitely begin to affect the electron orbits back to the normal forms. This might be the only intrinsic modification of the emissions and absorptions in radiation, and hence will, in such extreme cases, effect the redshift too!

NOTE: As Redshifts are so common, it would seem that the electron orbits must all be at lower energies, so that transitions down to lower energy levels will also be lower – towards the red end of the spectrum.

Now, we know that Solid, Liquid and Gas concentrations of atoms do not change the characteristic frequencies of emitted or absorbed radiation, so those modes certainly cannot change how atoms normally work. To find intrinsic modifications of the characteristic frequencies, we must consider extreme circumstances not usually encountered in the normal phase modes.

But, if very special creation-conditions were involved in the production of such an Arp Entity, which dramatically affect the contained Universal Substrate within it, that would also affect the insides of atoms, whatever phase they were in, and hence deliver the effects we are trying to explain.

ASIDE: It cannot be pure chance that allows so many inexplicable phenomena to be so easily explained via the supposition of a Universal Substrate!

It could well be that normal phases are not extreme enough to make significant changes to the substrate. What must be involved will be conditions well beyond the usual ones - indeed some sort of Galactic Emergence!

It could be when stable concentrations of the Substrate are well outside the normal – where, for example Matter is very highly concentrated, as in a Black Hole, or, alternatively, very sparsely concentrated, as at, or “beyond”, the Edge of the Universe! This being the case, we can assume that, within such an entity, the nature of the Substrate inside it can be significantly changed, so that the natural quantised orbits will occur at different radii, with different energy levels, due to the changes in the nature of the Substrate and its vortices associated with such orbits.

If we also go the opposite extreme and consider the effects around the Edges of such a Paved Universe, then, once more, the electron orbits within the atom will be changed but in the opposite direction, due to the sparse nature of the Substrate.

Now, if these extreme cases are to throw light upon such things as the redshift we will have to consider very carefully, what will be changed. Obviously, when general radiation is so “red-shifted” (as seems to be the case for distant sources), we must adjust our measurements, to include the fact that we will always be looking into the past, at times long ago, as well as into the far distance.

It seems that, in this pretty well universal case, we may well be talking about the possible evolution of the Universal Substrate. It is unlikely to have always been there, exactly as we conceive of it now!

It must have changed over time, as did everything else, and therefore could not have been completely unaffected by the developments with which it had to be connected. Remember, because looking into the distance in Space also means looking into the distant past, we already have evidence for the developments of Stars and even Galaxies.

For example, if some kind of Big Bang did happen, how does the establishment of the Universal Substrate fit into that vastly-changing scenario? And, even if some form of the Substrate preceded that Big Bang, it would unavoidably be successively modified both by that calamitous Event and its following consequences, with effects sweeping outwards from that “Point of Origin”.

In addition, we have to consider a natural “Temperature” of the Substrate over time.

The Substrate could always have contained a measure of Energy, either in the internal orbits of its component units, or in “whole unit” spins or oscillations or translational travel too! Hence the propagation of other energy would be promoting the internal orbits to levels above those necessary for their establishment, and to a general energy state of a whole region – its “Temperature”!

This being the case, we have to consider how propagation would be affected.

Remember, we have assumed that the propagation via the Substrate does not alter the nature of the so-called radiation: whatever it is, it will be propagated totally unchanged!

But first, how does our unit of Substrate manage that, and secondly, how may this be changed by circumstances?

NOTE: If the theories (of this researcher) concerning the role of the Universal Substrate, within an atom, and concerning quantized electrical orbits, are correct, the vortices caused within that substrate, by the orbiting of an electron, will be changed, if the Substrate differs from the classical form during extreme circumstances.

Clearly, if, for example, the density of the Substrate units were significantly changed (for some external reasons), the necessary matching of the orbit with the rotations of its caused vortices to, thereafter, cause quantized orbits would also change, and the orbits will be at different radii (and different energy levels) though still close to what they were in normal circumstances. We must determine how the behaviour of the vortices will be affected in a more densely packed Substrate within the atom.

Now, if this caused the transitions between energy levels to be slightly lower, the energy of the released radiation would be less, and the frequency would undergo a Redshift – one that is intrinsic to the “atom plus Substrate system” in those conditions. Also, a crucial factor (perhaps within, or very close to, a Black Hole) could involve a truly massive matter density, which might well distort the relationship between the orbiting electrons and the Substrate.

The more pressing problem is to explain redshift that is merely from distant and past objects, but is internal rather than due to Doppler Shift. How could the radiation be altered either in initial production within the atom, or in transit while being propagated by units of the substrate?

NOTICE: the very different demands upon Theory, between fitting purely formal (or even statistical) patterns to measured data, and the alternative of explaining that data via physical reasons in some form of concrete analogistic model. The former method is purely formal, includes no content or context information: it is merely a quantitative form-fitting to ideal mathematical forms, whereas the latter MUST involve both content and context and explain phenomena in terms of substances and their properties in particular defining conditions.

You can find more on Redshift, Aether and Substrate Theory in the latest Special Issue of SHAPE.

Special Issue 61: Questioning Redshift

Special Issue 61

This collection of papers re-examines some of the problems and assumptions of Redshift in light of recent developments in Substrate Theory. If Redshift is not what Physicists say it is, the whole edifice of modern Cosmology and Astrophysics comes tumbling down - the Universe isn't expanding, there wasn't a Big Bang, etc. etc.

The problem of cosmological Redshift could be linked to the evolution of the cosmos as a whole, as well as that of individual new galaxies, and, most particularly, with the latter. For, the evidence of Redshift associated with these distant entities gathered by Halton Arp, cannot be explained in the usual way, because these are also intrinsically associated with “more-recently-created” dwarf Galaxies or Quasars. With various series of these, and each set presumably coming directly from a single source, Arp surprisingly found that their amounts of redshift appeared to be quantised.

Now, it could not be said that he purposely selected-out a subset of such entities from a diverse, non-conforming collection - Universe-wide, just to support his invented thesis, because they don’t do that at all! But, such evidence, also, does not gel with the usual consensus explanations of redshift either. 

But they might gel very well indeed with the alternative explanation of Quantization developed in this journal, dependant upon the assumed presence of a Universal Substrate, and its consequent evolution, as an intrinsic part of the Evolution of the Universe as a whole!

Magnet and CRT screen

How can we explain magnetic fields in space without a substrate?

Crisis Special: It's How Capitalism Works

Richard Wolff is on song in this one.

Lederman's ghostly particles

An experimental physicist who won a Nobel Prize for his groundbreaking work on subatomic particles has died aged 96. 

Leon Lederman coined the phrase "God particle", a shorthand description of the then-theoretical Higgs boson, in the title of a 1993 book.

From The Independent  

In the quote above Lederman was probably referring to bosons, but the fact the even he began to see this as a return of the aether is very interesting.

Global Capitalism: Economic Nationalism

The Sepember bi-monthly lecture by Wolff at the Judson Memorial Church in New York
is excellent. They are about to launch a Left University in New York!