19 December, 2018

Who delivers the News?



Graphic from Another Angry Voice


Without the facts, how can the People understand whats going on?


Can we really have a Democracy, without also having the necessary information to make informed decisions at the ballot box?

Who actually owns the Press and other Media? Who now organises the Social Media Platforms, and prioriotises their content?

It is always the Tories of this world, and their penumbra of "privileged-service providers"!

And it is clear what cause they serve - PROFIT!

Did the Working Class cause the Slump of 2008?

NO, it was them - the Profiteers and Bankers, extending the profit-making reach ever deeper into the poor, and then blaming them for their inability to be sucked any drier, and even shutting down the social services that are there to aid them: the completely disingenuous project known as Austerity.

And where in the Media is this truth exposed?

Absolutely nowhere.

Can the informing of the People be left in the hands of those whose sole purpose is to exploit those they are supposed to be informing?

NO! 

Of course it can't.

We have a National Health Service - so why not a National News Service? It could be independent of government - as an extension of a Real Library Service perhaps, financed through taxation, and NOT advertising. Local Papers would be produced by Local Libray News Servvices, which would also include a major presence on the Internet. And National Newspapers would come out of regional hubs in major centres throughout the country.

And why stop there? The publishing of books currently only survives if it makes a profit for the owners. A Public Publishing Service under the democratic control of its employees, would be very different, and it would also transform publishing on the Web. Indeed, the publishing of Music and Recordings, and the organisation of Concerts and Gigs, without the money making parasites, would benefit everybody involved. And, clearly, such would also be the home for Film Making - for writers, performers and artists would all be involved.

But, it would certainly NOT be as a top-down hierarchy, a bureaucracy as was established in "Soviet" Russia! It would be built out of grassroots Worker Co-operatives - today's real "Soviets", so that Democracy would dominate at every level.

Clearly, this would never be allowed under a Capitalist System, but would be ideal in a truly Socialist State. For, the fight for Socialism is never merely the switching of the Ruling Party of Government: it has to be far more fundamental than that!

Here is the key question:

If Corbyn's Labour Party win a General Election, what will the rich do to undermine it? 

And will we let them do it?

10 December, 2018

Dark Matters Loom



Anish Kapoor, Cloud Gate (2006) made of light-absorbing Vantablack


In a recent New Scientist (3206) article on Dark Matter, we are presented with what passes for Sub Atomic Physics today, namely:-
Particles crossing to our world could open a portal to the dark-matter realm
We've identified particles that could secretly cross from the regular world to the shadowy realm of dark matter.
No, you are not reading a treatment for the latest far-fetched Science Fiction blockbuster, but the introduction to the musings of several leading modern physicists worldwide.
WE KNOW it is out there. It makes up the bulk of matter in the universe and sculpts its grandest features with a hidden gravitational hand.
And yet, despite a long campaign to expose it, the mysterious cosmic architect known as dark matter continues to evade detection.

New Scientist (3206) - this publication is really starting to read like a comic 

So.... How did they get to this point, and what is it that is determining their problems? Well, it is a very long story, which is far too voluminous to include in a short review such as this (as I have discovered to my cost).

But, it IS a major crisis, and if it isn't remedied immediately, it will join the current Economic and Political Crises in danger of somersaulting our World into oblivion! And, these increasingly desperate Crises are not as unconnected as they seem.

We forget just how recently Mankind began to construct their modern intellectual disciplines, and how certain it would be that many wrong-turnings would definitely be unavoidable, in that endeavour, and their correcting would never be easy, or even fully achievable. For, Mankind was not designed, beforehand, for any particular purpose (certainly not for understanding the universe), but actually evolved within circumstances that were wholly independent of Mankind's existence. Any actual development was not a matter of decisions made by anyone, but the Natural Selection of that organism within the conditions it encountered.

But, NOW, with all these crises happening together, especially when Money and Power are steering the ship, it means that vested interests will oppose vital solutions, if they can be found at all, for such changes will inevitably be to their total detriment.

In past intellectual crises in Science, they were still painful and difficult to resolve, but progress was usually made eventually, unless, of course, they were also bound up with political power, as with the Church in certain historical cases. 


Galileo made crucial scientific discoveries that upturned the entire discipline and upset the powerful Catholic Church.
He was charged with heresy and spent the rest of his life in prison.


So though, as a scientist and philosopher, I will be attempting to deal with the total mess that currently confronts Science today, I may not be listened to, as other cataclysms may dominate, and the path I indicate may be made impossible to pursue in the ensuing circumstances!

Two different contributions have determined this current crisis in Cosmology.

First, there is the relative inaccessibility of the Cosmos we attempt to study: we cannot experiment upon it, as we can with many other more accessible parts of Physics.

And second, the primary tool for Cosmology - Physics, has now finally abandoned Explanation for the supposed Essentialities of Formal Mathematics.

It has, therefore, switched from Materialism back to Idealism (did God write this Math!?) - and switched from investigating concrete Reality, to studying abstract Ideality- the study of Pure Forms alone, presumably as the sole determinators of Everything in the Universe!

And, if that wasn't bad enough, the key intellectual disciplines of Mathematics, Formal Logic and Science are all wrongly-based upon the Principle of Plurality, which deals only with qualitatively-fixed components, and their quantitative variation. So that Science, for example, is supposed to be determined only by eternal Natural Laws. And, therefore, Real Development is replaced by a mere Complexity of pre-existing Laws.

And, Contradiction always and only ever spells Falsity!

But, the achievement of Plurality, for it surely was a step forward 2,500 years ago, is now becoming a major liability, and actually prohibits any real Understanding of Qualitative Emergences, such as those of Life, and then much later, that of Consciousness.

And, in the current topic of Cosmology, with its extremely slow tempo, and yet its breathtaking temporal scope, we cannot avoid the noticing of clear qualitative developments: they are everywhere. Indeed, remarkably, laid out, surrounding us out in Space, is a veritable History of the Universe, caused by the finite Speed of Light, as the further we look into the distance, the further we can look back in time. 




In addition to which, occasional Cosmic cataclysms, like Supernovae, and different stages in the evolution of Stars, are also available from various times in the past (but seen now).

But, and this is important, only snapshots of instances in the past are available, so as with the fossil record and the genetic record, all the involved actual processes of change are NOT directly available, so the interpreting trajectories are always, to some extent at least, purely speculative (leading to the sorts of quotes we saw earlier). 

The actual material determinators happened both somewhere else, and at a time no longer available.

The other source of data which skews our understanding is the modern, massive experiment machines like the Large Hadron Collider (LHC), where high speed collisions of "Elementary" Particles can be arranged-for and then observed and analysed.

Now, unsurprisingly, this latter evidence is considered to be "exactly" what may have been the case in the early moments of the Universe. So, overall, astronomical observations, plus accelerator experiments on Earth, as well as Mankind's discovery of how to cause Nuclear Fission and Fusion, were all used (along with Pure Speculation!), to construct the supposed Early History of the Universe - in particular commencing with The Big Bang.

But, totally unavoidably, too many premise-errors would necessarily scupper the possibility of those speculations being at all well-founded:

First, Plurality decreed that the Natural Laws would be the same throughout that whole period of Development, which is certainly NOT true. Second, all the components used in relating those developments are always the exact-same, or closely-related to those we know now. Third, the strictly pluralist view would also be unable to reveal, at the right key times, the creation of the wholly new, via Emergences, without which no real understanding of the trajectory involved could ever be possible. Fourth, the full richness of a true holist mix of simultaneous factors would not be even contemplated, nor are their consequent productions of Stabilities, Crises and even Total Collapses, not-to-mention the concluding crucial creative-constructive-phase producing the entirely new.

With such a constipated premise as Plurality, the true glory of the actual trajectory of Change could never ever even be approached.

Now, as a "review" of this New Scientist article, you might have expected a comprehensive account of all the current positions upon this "area of study". But, if I did that, I would only be perpetuating this pointless discourse. For, as those involved have already shot themselves firmly in the foot, and are hobbling away in a doomed-to-fail direction, I have, unavoidably, had to address two key things only.

First, the mistaken premises and methods of all current Physics, and second, the possible Nature of Dark Matter! So, having briefly dealt with the former, there remains only to establish an alternative explanation for the Nature of Dark Matter.

The answer may well lie in Substrate Theory.

I have spent some considerable time demolishing the Copenhagen idea of Wave/Particle Duality, by explaining-away all of its consequent anomalies with a simple idea. Wave/Particle duality is clever workaround for the fact that we can't detect the Substrate - merely by the re-introduction of a material Particle moving within an undetectable Universal Substrate, with the disturbances caused by that Particle, delivering the wave-like aspects via actual real Waves in the Substrate, and changing the whole set of phenomena into both initially direct and later recursive interactions between the two.

The main problem, in delivering this Substrate, was to define joint particles that would be so undetectable, yet entirely capable of delivering the full set of observed effects: and this was ultimately achieved using mutually-orbiting pairs from the full set of Leptons.







Now, without also delivering the full results of that extensive research here, we can still, at least, consider what impact that research has upon the possible Nature of Dark (which means undetectable) Matter!

For the Substrate could, itself, BE the fabled Dark Matter, or alternatively, if that doesn't work physically, the same sort of research that was applied to defining the Units of the Universal Substrate could instead be directed to other possible mutually-orbiting pairs of Elementary Particles, similarly undetectable. 

Dark Matter needs investigating properly!

Finally, it must be made absolutely clear what "modern"  Sub Atomic Physics has done to this once superb discipline.

In their reductionist commitment to the bottommost units of Matter as the basis for explaining everything else, Physics was committed entirely to the study of literally invisible so-called Elementary Particles, and studying them almost exclusively via Accelerators and Colliders. 

And this had deleterious effects. The abandonment of Physical Explanation, and its inadequate replacement by Mathematics, which because of its pluralist, simplifying and idealist nature, could only act as a means of revealing the Nature of Ideality, and NOT of concrete Reality - or its seemingly hidden matter.

09 December, 2018

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Too late to Remain? Why Corbyn is pushing for Lexit...



Richard Wolff on why Remain or People's Vote would be political suicide for Corbyn

08 December, 2018

Is Lexit really possible?






Contradictions in current attitudes to the European Union


Both the supporters and opponents of the EU, and the arguments they have pressed on to the crucially uninformed populace, have long profoundly misled the latter into a false dichotomy of options, which could never enable a real understanding of the actual issues, because the real imperatives were and are never revealed.

Both sides of the original Brexit argument came from different wings of the Ruling Capitalist Class, internal struggles in the Tory party, and sadly most of the current leaders in the Working Class took sides in that argument without establishing any thought-through Class position at all!

Just a few, on the Left, long ago, realised that the European Union was essentially a pro-Capitalist Organisation, and that it would be used to undermine the usually nationally-arrived-at policies of most Working Class organisations, Trades Unions and even Parties. But, the most common reaction was that Tariff-free Trade would help workers as goods would be cheaper.

Now, contrasting strongly with these ideas were those of the Ruling Class, who had split into two warring factions.

The pro-Europe wing saw the advantages of switching production to cheaper or less well-organised areas of the large economic area, and that the free movement of labour and goods would benefit the profit margins of businesses and corporations.

The opposite wing of the Tories didn't relish the possibility of a Europe-wide organisation of the Working Class, and the possibility of worker protection legislations (and other regulations designed to keep business in-check) getting through the European Parliament, via the preponderance of Social Democratic Parties common all over Europe.



The Left case for Remain is that the Tories will have a regulation bonfire after leaving the EU
damaging workers rights further, and emboldening the far right.

And, of course, the major and enduring economic slump of 2008, pressed the Nationalist wing much further to the right - just as had happened with the great depression of the 1930s.

We see a new rise of the Far Right across the globe.

The Ruling Class had immediately used the current economic difficulties to drive down wages and conditions, and desired to turn-back-the-clock even further - with a no-deal Brexit they could push austerity without possible restraint from Europe-wide Labour and social democratic parties via the European Parliament.

But, the "social democratic left" in Britain had major problems!

There are pro-Labour laws and protections in place in Europe that are now threatened, but all the policies outlined for the next Labour Government in Britain, for extensive Nationalisation, are currently prevented in the EU.

Now the situation is serious because Leaving Europe has long been the chosen ground for the Right Wing in the Tory Party: it isn't their main purpose at all - which is for the Right Wing to take control of the Party - to become its leadership and frame its policies! And the increase in both refugees from the Middle East and North Africa, along with Free Movement throughout Europe, gave the Right its usual chance of both exploiting and fanning prejudice as a means of mobilising the yobs and pushing the Overton window rightwards.

Believe it or not, the Labour leadership have the correct policy for the British Working Class - namely, to remain in a Tariff-Free Trade relationship with Europe without being a full member and having to abide by anti-socialist laws and policy! 

The case for Lexit.

Outside Europe, a Labour Government could begin its policy of re-nationalisation, and this time, as their policies seem to reflect, with a measure of Worker Control, as in their stated policy of Workers Co-operative Companies.




It isn't either obvious or automatic, but the Labour Party as a whole could be moved further to the Left, and the fight for Socialism really set in motion with real "momentum"! For, in spite of its evident Labour militancy in certain parts of Europe, the only generally-agreed policy seems to be limited to getting worker-friendly laws through the European Parliament, and NOT the overthrow of Capitalism and the establishment of a Socialist Europe.

And, this isn't just an alternative to the Social Democratic objective: for that has NEVER worked. It is an alternative to extreme Right Wing, or even Fascist solutions, and as was the solution in 1939, World War!

Do you doubt it?

07 December, 2018

Socialist Society: How do we get it...?




In 1945, with a landslide victory in the General Election, a Labour Government was elected with a Socialist Agenda. The Electricity, Gas, Coal, Steel and Railways Industries were all nationalised - taken into Public Ownership, to be run as part of a Planned Economy for the benefit of the People. And, the National Health Service was set up, as a service for all, free at the point of use. Education was reorganised to provide different kinds of instruction, with places allocated solely upon the basis of ability alone.

BUT, the Wealth still remained substantially in the hands of the Owning Class! They were even given substantial Compensation Payments for their now Nationalised Industries, which actually made them even richer in terms of actual spendable money.

And, they still owned the whole printed Media Industry - the Newspapers and Magazines, and the Book Publishing Organisations. 

In addition, all their Private Schools and Charitable Foundations and "Research Organisations" continued to provide privileged education to their children, and energetically peddle their views totally unrestricted. Generous donations to like-thinking organisations, and even individuals with political ambitions, actually increased.

So, ranged against the Labour Government, attempting to build Socialism out of the Ruins and Debts of the Second World War, were the still very well-heeled rich, totally determined that Labour should fail, and they would regain their property, their wealth and their power.

And they succeeded in just 5 years! 

The Tories were back in power after only a single Labour Administration, despite the fact that Clement Attlee's Labour government had been elected with the largest swing ever achieved in the country.

In other papers in this series, the myths of supposed Democracy have been spelled out, to make very clear that a great deal more than just "The Vote" is required to establish a truly Democratic State. Money will always undermine true democracy.




Now, Corbyn's Labour Party is ready-once-more with a somewhat similar agenda to 1945! But, after years of Blairite degeneration, he has a Party apparatus saddled with anti-socialist neoliberals and pro-capitalist elites. Yet, by a successful recruiting drive, he and his colleagues have established a pro-socialist majority within the rank-and-file.

So, without the victory of that majority, inside the Party, that Socialist Agenda will be betrayed from within!
Clearly, both the lessons of 1945, and the transformation of the Party simply MUST be achieved, or the next Labour Government and the People that elected them will again be defeated.

Are you clear what must be done?

For example:

  • What are the important lessons of 1945?
  • Do we give the rich any compensation?
  • Can we leave the Media in the hands of the Ruling Class?
  • And, if not, who should take on that vital responsibility?
  • Can we leave the Banks in private hands?

Now, these questions should clarify why these papers have been about:

Achieving Real Socialism!

For, without true Socialist Democracy at every level, the 1945 mistakes such as both Socialism-from-above, as well as leaving the Enemy Class adequately equipped to reverse any gains made, will undoubtedly re-occur.

Can you see what will be necessary?

And, will the Capitalist Class ever allow it?

I am sure you can guess the answers to these questions! Remember what happened with the Slump of 1929-1939? Will those solutions be tried again?

29 November, 2018

Socialist Society: How we could live...




The objective is surely a society serving the needs of its People, and certainly not the ever-growing power and luxuries for a small group of the Super rich. For now, and increasingly, it is becoming Credit with ever-climbing interest rates that is replacing adequate wages, and which is certainly never the way to deliver either a productive or a fair society. It replaces earned capabilities, with heavy and onerous responsibilities: it replaces confidence and energy, with ever mounting difficulties and uncertainties.

Capitalism is not a planned, nor is it an adequate system! It has crises every few years, and calamitous, decade-long Slumps, and even World Wars - all to serve moneyed investors with ever bigger Profits.

Yet, such a system is not inevitable! In fact, it took a series of popular Revolutions to terminate its Feudalist predecessor, carried out with the universally supported slogans of:

Liberty, Equality and Fraternity


The role of revolution in establishing capitalism as the dominant system is often overlooked

...but, even with its success, these revolutions ultimately only greatly empowered a particular small section of the new Society - the owners of Land, Property and Wealth. And, whilever that systemic inequality remains, so will the continued rule of the rich!

A Society for all-its-people has to be very different indeed to Capitalism: for privilege and inequality guarantees a divided and unstable social system.

The lessons of the 20th century must be learned or we will all perish!

But, let us be absolutely clear what it is, at this time, that we desperately need. Instead of just the profit motive determining everything else, we must start with what the People need in order to live, and will work in order to achieve. And, to effectively deliver that, we must have the means to determine those needs locally, then nationally, and finally globally! For only then can we have a Planned Economy- supplying what is actually required to everyone that needs it.

And, clearly, that cannot only be about sustenance, resources and the wherewithal to achieve and distribute it all, but also the essential services to facilitate it too - such as Shops and Stores, Education and Health Services, as well as Leisure facilities, and adequate support for all those in need of extra help.

In this new world the "entrepreneur" is no longer the Hero, but the Enemy - shown to be a parasite rather than a creative.

Policies will have to be socially arrived-at, and then cooperatively delivered.

Democracy must exist at every level of Society, and always be superior to individual power: even elected representatives will be subject to instant recall and replacement if they fail those that they represent.

And, what could be achieved by all of this?


Without the profit motive governing everything, our cities may begin to look very different.

The congenital instability of Capitalism would have to be terminated! The benefits of invention and new technology would be available to all. All industry would be addressed to the needs of Society, including protecting our environment. No one would be rich enough to buy privilege or own the means of production or the means of communication. All Education would be free to all. All Health Services would be free to all. All Stately Homes will be converted into precious Communal Facilities, such as Schools, Hospices, Colleges, Research Centres, Sports Centres, Retirement Homes and many more. High Quality Council Houses would be the main form of Public Housing. Public Transport would be both cheap and sufficient everywhere. A great increase in both City and Country Parks would be instituted; and participation in the Arts made available to all!

And to safeguard all of this:-

The Banks would be Nationalised! As would all the major nationwide Services such as Electricity, Gas, Water, Railways, Air Transport and Roads.

But though planned nationally, they would be run Democratically, and not by an unaccountable  central bureaucracy. 

26 November, 2018

Socialism?




Rule by the People and for the People?

What about Democracy in the Workplace?


Can we really have Democracy when the workers in a workplace have absolutely no say in what they do there? Should the "bottom line" of profit for an owner totally and always outweigh the needs and interests of the workforce?

It certainly depends upon who owns the business! To make any real change they would surely have to be socially-owned.

Now, of course, the status quo is usually argued-for very differently. For, management insists that only those who now make the decisions are the only ones competent to do so: while the workforce just don't know enough to even be involved. And, when no one is informing the workforce, or even making available the necessary knowledge, that may well be true.

So clearly, as with Political Democracy, so must it also be with so-called Democracy-at-Work! All information must always be made fully available for everybody to be involved to have access and discuss what they are attempting to achieve. And, sufficient resources to overcome any advantage to the privileged, must be fully available to the workforce too.

Currently, the workforce is always totally deprived of such information. But, if full access, along with requisite time, were allocated to such information, the workers, being intimately involved throughout their worktime, will soon learn to handle it, and crucially, with very different objectives to either owners or managers. Indeed, it will amount to a revolution in the efficiency and creativeness of both the work processes and their organisation. How could it be otherwise - the motivations involved will be very different!


Prof. Richard Wolff and his colleagues have written and spoken at length about the need for democracy at work. 


Just compare a Steam Railway Charity run by unpaid, and fully-involved enthusiasts, with the current chaos in our de-nationalised, run-for-profit rail services in Britain today.

What we are talking about, has never been fully achieved anywhere! For, in spite of the clear advantages of Socialised State Planning in Russia and China, after their Revolutions, the workplace was still relatively unchanged from prior Capitalist organisation. For the managers were appointed by the central government. There was NO Democracy-in-the-Workplace!

Clearly, "Socialism" is not what they actually had in those countries, and it was easy for a privileged bureaucracy to emerge, who did not put the working conditions, or the opinions of the workers, high on their agendas at all, and absolutely never delivered any decision making into the hands of the workforce themselves.

Indeed, Democracy-in-the-Workplace would not only transform that institution, but also significantly transform the Working Class involved, because they will, themselves, not only make the crucial decisions in what they are involved with every single day, but they will also discuss and even argue with their workmates, as to what policies the company should be employing. Instead of being excluded from the decision-making that affects their lives, and the wherewithal to make those decisions, they should instead be fully involved in both, and will therefore learn by their successes and their mistakes.

Socialism has to involve real Democracy at every level, in a Society in which Inequality and Privilege have been permanently terminated.




Indeed, the whole approach to the education of the working class, whether they are to be skilled or unskilled, absolutely must transcend mere work-based training and crucially disseminate critical thinking and real Understanding too!

I have worked in every level of Education from Schools, Further Education Colleges and Universities, and even in teaching unemployed youth computer programming, via Youth Training. And, from that wide experience, it soon became clear that the usual separate approaches did not deliver.

20 November, 2018

A New Holistic Iterative Method?


Henry Moore in his studio. The best artists seem to use a form of Holist Iteration as an investigative method.


Prelude:

What absolutely must be included here as the basis of a determined Holistic Stance, is to replace the most often assumed yet always-significantly-misleading consequences of the usually unconscious Pluralist Stance in all our methods.

And, that inevitably means removing any assumption of eternal Natural Laws, and instead, recognising the alternative of a whole set of multiple, mutually-affecting factors, which are not only changed individually by their accompaying-context, but reciprocally by also modifying that context too.

Permanently-fixed, natural kaws were an historically- necessary simplification, in order to even begin to understand Reality. Clearly, Plurality was an attempt to adjust Reality to get a handle on it - to get approximate values, from a simplified law.

But now, we absolutely must adopt new techniques to better reflect the true interconnected nature of Reality - one of these must be Iteration.


Iterative Methods:

There is a key problem in attempting, as I do, to develop an Iterative Method, from a measured data sequence alone, especially if we attempt to do it without any assumed form of model, for a relation supposedly- connecting those data points, as has always been the case in the usually-employed iteration techniques. For, without some sort of model, there seemed to be no way of reflecting the nature of the factors that cause the trajectory revealed in those data.

Now, in dealing with this situation, it is essential that several things have to be made absolutely clear about the usual iterative methods.

They always use an Ideal Form, taken directly from Mathematics, as a basis, which had then been fitted- up to those data, by multiple substitutions of them into it, to give a set of simultaneous equations, in the constants of the general form, which can then be solved. The result is still the same general Form, but persuaded- to-approximate to Reality, BUT only within-the-range from which those data were taken.

They then “re-structure” that equation geometrically- upon-a-graph into a set of iterative-forms. Now, such a re-structuring involves a major geometrical and transformative use, because, it isn’t merely a manipulation of the ideal equation. It is actually the use of that formula in geometrically-finding a consequent set-of-forms - one for each variable, that can use a single-known-point, and substitute from it into these derived iterative forms to find another single point, and, thereafter, further points, with each one derived from its predecessor.

And, the iterative forms so derived never change!

Being based upon Geometry-in-Graphs, they are unavoidably pluralistic: for the separation of variables into distinct directional dimensions, necessarily excludes any mutual influences they might have upon one another. So these iterarive forms also perpetuate Plurality.

They are fixed, but their repeated-use always gives new points, but always some distance from the “known” point used, so that the action moves rapidly across the whole range of the “driving” function’s possibility space (along with the usual drift as with all such iterative techniques).

Remember, absolutely nothing new has been added to the original source equation, only-the-means-used to access the sequence of generated points, delivered one-at- a-time. And if, as I am convinced, that original formula is NOT the deliverer of the sequence, but a simplified and idealised approximation, then all its short-comings MUST inevitably be carried over into the iterative forms derived from it, and added to by the effects of iteration itself!

Now, the reader is certain to ask why do these forms sometimes deliver things closer to Reality than the original source formulae? It is indeed an important question!

But, as the only significant change, in the actual plotting, has been the zigzagging-about the whole range of that ideal function, then that, plus the iterative drift, must be what is adding something extra, which can reveal something that was not there in the original idealised equation.

But, that method can surely only be some sort of purely- pragmatic trick. It certainly isn’t here taking us ever- closer to a definitive set of actually occurring situations, but just others in similar-but-different positions, in well- scattered general areas. They are certainly not due to the real physical causes (which are never even mentioned, never mind considered, but only due to our chosen strictly formal methods).

Clearly, though pragmatically, it is also only when our purposes can be at least partially fulfilled by such frigs, that we will use them. But, if our purpose is instead to better understand WHY things behave as they do, then it can only mislead us away from that valid, and indeed, absolutely necessary intention.

Let me re-emphasize, there is the important point that current iterative methods are always pluralistic – just like the original equation from which the iterative forms were derived, it assumes the same additively-arrived-at formal “cause”! And, such will be, for the very same reasons, significantly misleading.

But no Real World phenomenon is driven by a single factor: the general situation will always include many different factors, and crucially, if a holist stance is taken, instead of a pluralist one, then these factors will all affect and, indeed, change, one another to some extent.

Absolutely no other factors are included in the usual iterative methodology – it uses only ONE. So, what should be down to the hidden mutual affects of all the other factors involved, is here due instead to a rigged-up version of the usual method.

And, here it isn’t the actual-contributions, but something- else that may deliver something “similar”.


The Alternative:

So, it is suggested that we address these problems, instead, through the use of Recursion, in addition to the use of real points, and absolutely none of the usual pluralist and iterative methods of the past.

With each new measurement, we start by using Difference Methods (or something similar) to reveal what powers of variables are appropriate in the most general polynomial Model. Then use our data again, but now in the usual way to find the still unknown constants of that model.

So far, this sounds like something already used in the past, but there is a significant twist! We do not stick with that form throughout.

So, instead, we now recursively do the steps all over again, including the next measurement made, and repeat the full set of processes, not only with this, but thereafter with every single new additional measurement made.

What will happen is an evolving form, changing with each new addition.

Exactly what the most general form would be, may begin with the assumption of a polynomial. But, if the evidence is against that model, we could add further non-polynomial terms. The crux of the method then becomes the comparison of a predicted location with the real measured one, and a subsequent judgement as to what changes in the adjusted general form might be required.

The original idea for this method was conceived of as the measurements being taken as the body in question was moving (as if we were the riders on a rocket in Space). But, of course, a full, extended set could be achieved, before any fitting up was attempted, and in some complex circumstances, where many dominant influences could regularly come-and-go, for then this method will come into its own.

Indeed, the processes of the method could be carried out completely after the Event, and once sufficient had been processed to get some sort of form, all subsequent positions could be associated with its own version of the form. Also, each new, as yet unprocessed position would be predicted from the current version of the form.

Studying the varying forms could tell us more about the changing-real-influences affecting an overall form, than one that is both always simplified and idealised.

Postscript:

Now, the reader must appreciate that what is being attempted here is entirely new!

First, it rejects Plurality as the current basis for such pragmatic manipulations.

Second, it is attempting to indirectly include aspects of Reality that are usually excluded.

Third, it is purposely recursive, as in the Buddhist Loka Sutta, as a means of constantly checking upon its own validity.

It will most certainly NOT be the last word in this area: it will take some time to break ourselves from “If it works, it is right!” - the credo of the farmed situations that perpetuate Pluralist Science.



This paper was published as part of Issue 62 of SHAPE Journal entitled The Whole and the Part.

19 November, 2018

Issue 62: The Whole and the Part




Read the latest issue of SHAPE Journal on The Whole and the Part: a loose collection of recent papers aiming to develop a nascent Science of Holism, by looking closer at the crucial oppositions involved: Plurality and Holism, the Whole and the Part.


The Whole and the Part

The Hermeneutic Cycle

Thought for Today

Bringing Holism into the Methods of Science

Why Holist Science and Iteration?

A New Holistic Iterative Method

Plurality & Holism, Mathematics & Reality

Multi-variable Relations

Dialectical Emergence

Socialism!




Rule by the People and for the People = Real Democracy!


Capitalism is not rule by the people, it is rule by the rich. 

It goes to war only to safeguard their Wealth.

The Working Class are sent to their injury and death to maintain or extend the dominance of their rulers. And, yet it never benefits the People.

Capitalism still has its regular Depressions and Major Slumps as in 1929-1940 and 2008-now, and it is always the People who suffer.

Yet, the current Slump, as usual, delivers for the Bosses the very best circumstances for reversing what gains the Working Class have made, and even promises the rich a return to their good-old-days of rule, and the old debased standards of life for the majority of the People. This makes them easier to exploit and makes greater Wealth for the Bosses.

Employment is UP, but only at lower wages and in insecure jobs.

But, what was it that the Working Class expected? What was this "Socialism" that they aspired to?They constitute the vast majority, and produce all of the Nation's Goods, Wealth and Services.

And, they do have the Vote.

If their needs and wants were paramount, the World would be very different indeed! Not a single Stately Home would still be occupied by the rich: they would ALL be used where they are needed most, for the old, and the ill, and for the young too! The enormous magnificent landscapes, surrounding those Stately Homes, would be for the People, in Leisure, Recreation and Sport, and even for Housing.

Making the rich even richer, would have to be totally terminated and reversed! Why should anyone have such Wealth, Privilege and Power?

You may well ask how the current imbalance was able to establish itself in spite of "Democracy"? It's an excellent question! So, here are a few more:-

  • Is this Democracy independent of Wealth?
  • Are the means of informing the People independent of Wealth?
  • Can the Electorate sack their MP for not serving them?
  • Are the largest Political Parties independent of Wealth?

I think you know the answers! So, do we have Real Democracy? You know the answer to that too!

Whilever Wealth can always intervene effectively, there will never be Real Democracy. The name for the only truly Democratic System which has been strived for, for centuries, and something we have so far failed to achieve, is Socialism.
To append what we currently have with the description of it being a Democracy, is not just a bad joke, it is a downright lie.

Chris Hedges: "Democracy has become a facade"




Hedges may not be a real socialist, but he hits a few nails on the head in this speech

18 November, 2018

Haunting Henry Moore





The different meanings of "socialism"



Richard Wolff strikes again! Have a look at the last third of the video for a debate on socialism, what it means to different people, and what it has meant historically. 

15 November, 2018

Real Remembrance




As the Tories and their clerics continued to celebrate the First World War on Sunday, only one moment reflected its real Truth and Horror.

(Two of my uncles perished in that mangle of mud and blood, and it killed my illiterate Grandma when she heard.)

That moment was the tribute to Sassoon and Owen on Sky Arts. And their words simply must scream SHAME on our horrendous Ruling Class, who never gave a damn about the Working Class soldiers they condemned to death, and still don't.

Here's some real remembrance.


Dulce et Decorum Est 

Bent double, like old beggars under sacks,
Knock-kneed, coughing like hags, we cursed through sludge,
Till on the haunting flares we turned our backs,
And towards our distant rest began to trudge.
Men marched asleep. Many had lost their boots,
But limped on, blood-shod. All went lame; all blind;
Drunk with fatigue; deaf even to the hoots
Of gas-shells dropping softly behind.

Gas! GAS! Quick, boys!—An ecstasy of fumbling
Fitting the clumsy helmets just in time,
But someone still was yelling out and stumbling
And flound’ring like a man in fire or lime.—
Dim through the misty panes and thick green light,
As under a green sea, I saw him drowning.

In all my dreams before my helpless sight,
He plunges at me, guttering, choking, drowning.

If in some smothering dreams, you too could pace
Behind the wagon that we flung him in,
And watch the white eyes writhing in his face,
His hanging face, like a devil’s sick of sin;
If you could hear, at every jolt, the blood
Come gargling from the froth-corrupted lungs,
Obscene as cancer, bitter as the cud
Of vile, incurable sores on innocent tongues,—
My friend, you would not tell with such high zest
To children ardent for some desperate glory,
The old Lie: Dulce et decorum est
Pro patria mori.








09 November, 2018

A Crucial Turning Point


Turning Point by Philip Johnson


When major redefinitions are both necessary and difficult


After almost a decade, as a full time writer upon Science and Philosophy, it was becoming increasingly clear that the wherewithal to fully address all the regularly-occurring, and clearly-evident problems, was still not yet sufficiently defined to enable me to "Make the Necessary Turn!". I had published almost 1,000 papers, and written a further 1,700, and most were sound in reasoning. But the core objective, which had gradually become clear, was still far from having been coherently presented as an integrated whole.

It would have to include a total demolishing of the Copenhagen Interpretation of Quantum Theory, in Sub Atomic Physics, and also a much wider-ranging definition of a fundamentally different philosophical Stance, which would have to be Holistic.

The difficulty was, and still is, that literally all intellectual disciplines since the Ancient Greeks have been entirely Pluralistic, and have become intrinsically imbued in all the available and acceptable methodologies for all of my professional career in Universities in three different countries. Indeed, I had usually succeeded in academia largely because I could do the pluralistic stuff, and would still unavoidably commence any new problem via the old ways first.

But, so many attempts have come-to-a-stop resulting in classic Hegelian contradictions, and their unavoidable impasses, that I had to attempt to take his Dialectical Logic much further than Hegel had ever managed to do, and even Marx had not developed his Dialectical Materialism deeply-and-profoundly enough to tackle many Scientific Conceptions and Reasoning, such as occur in Mathematics and every single one of the Sciences.




As a competent mathematician, I naturally read Marx's Mathematical Manuscripts, but they did not help, so I had to begin to address the problems myself.

I soon began to unearth holistic truths within my usual professional researches into providing Computing assistance to a wide range of professionals studying in many very different disciplines. The Key Revelations finally occurred in addressing real, complex and expressive movements in Dance, in order to enable both the teaching of accurate Performance, as well as that of Choreography too. And, ultimately, I devised the first effective way of successfully delivering what the Dance expert required, with appropriate Access-and-Control, using computer controlled Multimedia of recorded resources.

Surprisingly, the main problems were caused in the very same way that both Zeno and Hegel himself had noted in dealing with Movement, and the latter had even begun to understand, and then concentrated upon, but, with him being an idealist, the sort of impasses I came up against were not what he would ever have encountered, never mind tackled.

Though this work certainly greatly enabled my necessary assault upon the required Philosophy to address Reality-as-is, there was still another major problem to do with the premises underlying any Coherent, consistent and comprehensive methodology in pursuing such a path.

The problem resided in the omission of an absolutely vital premise in Physics!

Towards the end of the 19th century, Michelson and Morley had conducted an experiment which "proved" that there was NO Universal Substrate involved in the propagation of light - no Ether, as it was then called, and a whole significant branch of Physics based upon the assumption that such a Substrate existed was dropped as untenable.

It most certainly couldn't be detected, but the formulae based upon assuming that it did still worked.


Maxwell's theoretical aether


Indeed, James Clerk Maxwell had devised his brilliant set of Electromagnetic Equations developed upon his now-discredited Model of the Ether, so I had to re-institute the Universal Substrate as an existing, but currently undetectable entity, and applying that concept alone, to all the Double Slit Experiments, enabled me to dispense entirely with all anomalies of those experiments, and all the assumptions of Copenhagen that had been devised to deal with them altogether.

But, that wasn't all that was required! There just wasn't a useable Holistic Methodology in Science at all. There was, however, a kind of holistic stance, but applied with a pluralistic Logic.

Clearly, I should explain.

Science, since the Ancient Greeks, had been an Amalgam of several contradictory stances, but always using the still-agreed-to basic tenet of Pragmatism - "If it works, it is right!", those involved in dealing with such things, simply switched between stances, until they found one which worked.

So, a "holist-component", within this approach, attempted to explain phenomena entirely in terms of the known properties of the components involved (it was that aspect which persuaded me to become a physicist). But, also severely modifying that sound stance, was the universally adopted Principle of Plurality. which insisted that all causative Laws were wholly independent of one another: they were fixed- everything could be explained merely in terms of the summations of eternal Natural Laws.

So, clearly, this severely disabled that stance from effectively coping with a clearly holistic and developing Reality. And, finally, those laws could be "correctly-encapsulated" in the Perfect Formal Equations of Mathematics - which is, of course, Idealism!

Now, believe it or not, this Amalgam was considered to be "The Scientific Method". It was neither consistent nor coherent, but it appeared to be "Comprehensive" due solely to the ubiquitous Pragmatic Tenet.

And Holism without Plurality and Pragmatism seemed to be totally impossible to apply, as its tenet was "Everything affects everything else!": and the key unanswered question was "How?" Just how, and in what ways, did the many affecting factors change one another?

Hegel called his solution to a complex changing reality, Dialectics, but he was only concerned with Thinking. Marx recast it as Dialectical Materialism, but never comprehensively addressed Science.

And, here's the rub, not only did Science need Dialectical Materialism, BUT Dialectical Materialism also needed Science.

And all this still had to be systematically addressed. Literally nothing had been done!

So here goes.......


29 October, 2018

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