Developments in the Human Brain

Elsewhere, recently, I have found it necessary to consider the Effect of the Emergence of Language upon Human Development and Understanding. And, in those studies, it clearly is significant just how the Patterns of Thinking seemed to change profoundly whenever a particular Form was also given a Name, and then discussed, along with other things, and in the same way as everything else. And, this was unavoidable, of course, because within Language, a Name must be totally-fixed, to thereby allow Language to both effectively and unambiguously deliver any ideas involved!

For, whereas, a Form is never once-and-for-all uniquely determined - they most certainly-and-importantly DO change, into various other and significantly different Forms as Development proceeds - Names, on the contrary, cannot do this, for a mutually understood definition must hold, in order for it to play a meaningful role within communication.

This is both mostly unacknowledged epistemologically, and highly important, as Language is our only means of Explaining Things. Such a limitation can often be wholly incorrect when applied to dynamic Forms and Systems in particular, as it is often not immediately evident, as profound Change doesn't happen most of the time, in many areas. They are then regularly used as just another normally-unchanging (constant) elements of Language, Words: and this can cause major errors in Explanations, when those Forms suddenly change into other quite different Forms, in Emergent Development. 

But today, I came across another See The Pattern video on Toutube, by the creator and presenter of that series, Gareth Samuals, in which he considers a study from a US University, in which the actual Shrinking of the Human Brain, generally, has been clearly established! 

Now, I gave been engaged for some time upon the Emergence and putting the Effect of the restrictions of Language, above those nrcessary for Human Thinking, which has seriously affected it, in both some great advantage, as well as also, other clearly disbling ways.

For, the direction that The Sciences have taken since the Greek Intellectual Revolution of the 5th century BC, there has been been an effort to take the Forms, along with all other elements as being totally constant, by putting the needs of the Consistent Language (in Explanation) well above the need to the development of the Forms, thus vastly distorting all supposedly Scientific Explanations, by the needs of Language over those required for Forms.

Now, in addition to the above point crucial other changes are involved. For, something about the processes involved in Thinking about Things generally, must surely have significantly changed the structures and processes involved in a major qualitative changes in the forms of wholly new features that were recently necessary that were NEVER necessary previously, and some replaced those left over from a majorly different System, no longer relevant!

It would seem that whatever changes happened (and remember they actually were NOT universally implemented) still involved a shrinking of our Brain size.

What could possibly have caused it? And did it mean a reduction in the processes necessary,  caused by   simplfied Thinking techniques!? And, if so what exactly were these changes?

We have long been aware of physical changes due to excessive exercise: but this discovery is undoubtedly significant - for it seems to link a Loss-in-Structures, coupled with a significant Gain-in -Performance!

For, if this is a rare if General Rule, it infers a very different - nay revolutionary - relation between Structure and Performance, and a significant re-writing of Development and Evolutionary Changes!

But, it shouldn't surprise us, if we are already committed to the Revelations delivered by Dialectical Materialism! For, though, most of the time, things do remain unchanged, we are beginning to address the Clear Fundamental Interludes of Significant Qualitative Changes, AND the significant Role of Contention in the creation of the Wholly New! So, it cannot be avoided that the Material World changes too - And NOT just incrementally - they also happen in the thinking abilities and even physical capabilities of organisms, which can only mean that these developments must also reflect the capability of physical Changes in those organisms too!

Thought-and-Language simply must have some physical manifestations - for, indeed revolutionary transformations in Thought cannot merely be a mere new arrangrmrnt of a totally unchanging physical entity!

For, we must remember, the relatively short lifetimes of individual people, and their only way of passing physical capabilities on being via Sexual Reproduction between different individuals, in a definitely clearly dialectical development of the production of a Single Egg (synthesis) - formed from both contributing (and contending) parents, but thereafter wholly contained within and automatically sustained by the Mother! Until finally, in a cataclysmic change termed Birth, suddenly becomes a separate and unique individual - having to breathe and feed for itself! If that isn't a Revolutionary Physical Change, I don't know what is!

And, these constant renewals, many thousands per day, alongside the inevitable terminations, ultimately, of both parents of the prior generation, SIMPLY MUST involve other major changes too, also significantly sometimes including, the creation of the Wholly New! Yet, exactly how all those changes in Thinking, physically emerge-and-modify what happens in the Brain is NOT known.

There is no developing Physical Model of the Brain: it, instead, is conceived-of, as an eminently-flexible organ, with potentially infinite capabilities - to which I must profoundly disagree! For, what could possibly have given this matter such capabilities?

You can see why a God had to be considered as The Prime Architect with these assumptions - but it has long been just a necessary Myth!

And, with the usual regular errors imposed upon all discusions of causes, due to the confusion about Names, especially when they are applied to things such as Forms, as explained earlier in this piece - so that NO meaningful conclusions are arrived at, and making regularly sound conclusions impossible to achieve, and the consequent generated problems are thereafter rarely, if ever, addressed.

Yet, surely, it must be possible, from a real understanding of how Forms do ultimately-transform, via explicable processes, into something quite different, without letting the basic rules of supposedly intelligible Language, forever lead us into the mire!

Of course, to be able to do this, one must have seriously embarked upon a dedicated journey into The Dialectics of Change, which is NOT the accepted wisdom currently, though there are increasingly many areas where that is the only worthwhile Approach.

 

Invisible Media

Substrate Theory proposes that an invisible medium of Leptons permeates all known space - a Materialist and Holistic explanation for all of the strange phenomena at the Quantum level, that somehow seems to lack accessible Causality. Here we begin to consider whether such Invisible Media could be operating at other Levels of Reality too.

Recent work designed to reveal the full, and yet often hidden motive forces within Reality-as-is, has begun to founder, upon certain important Effects, seemingly without evident Cause. In Sub Atomic Physics, they were the latest excuse for theorists to drift ever deeper into an out-and-out Positivism, by substituting purely-descritive Mathematical Formulae instead of Causal Explanations!

Indeed, actual Causal Chains have been traced downwards through increasingly evident, yet relatively-independent, Hierarchical Layers involving multiple, diverse Effects, and their often Unknown or unavailable Causes, until, finally, an Invisible Wall appears to totally halt that process! And, which, therefore, effectively permanently terminates these investigations, and, indeed, stops-dead in continuing to supply both the culprits and their actual physical Effects: the investigations seem to encounter a Final Limit - as an evident inability to reveal exactly what needs to be changed further, in our descriptions and explanatoions, to fully deliver an adequate theory of the event.

Of course, much of this can be put down to loudly trumpeted misdirections by those who benefit most from such terminating advice to any campaigning oppositionists to the current Status Quo. But, not everything is down solely to such imposed difficulties!

Indeed, many of them seem to boil down to incomplete and hence wrong-and-misleading usually generally- accepted definitions, and consequent “Wrong Theories”, by supposedly independent, or even seemingly fully- committed and serious prior researchers. Even the “experts” on our side can be the unwitting culprits.

It is always worth remembering that we do not have totally unhindered access to Reality-as-is! It is always insufficient and structured in the the easiest-to-grasp- way, due frequently to historically effective precidents. And these established ideas, as well as their clearly useful side, are also-and-inevitably misleading, when confronted with the Wholly New!

But, recent extensive investigations in entirely new approachess (by this reaearcher) have begun to uncover wholly new definitions of previously-unknown, active causal elements, which seem to quite wrongly prematurely terminate investigations, as being incapable of further necessary revelations, as the currently involved elements appear to have exhausted all possibility for further change. And this is not the usual kind of added contribution, as it is subtractive rather than additional.

And, the reasons for these premature terminations seem to reside elsewhere in an extended overall set of limitations, only now making themselves felt, additional to the previously supposed only important causal factors.

And these are NOT, as you might think, as being due to purposely ommitted factors built into the usual inadequate definitions, but instead, actually due to a running-out-of-possubilities, due alternatively to wholly Invisible factors, that have become so, caused by the wholly Pluralistic-and-hence-truncated definitions, instead of the Real and much more widely-defined Holistic definitions, which alone can enable certain factors, entirely from outside-of the usual, to both change, and even, sometimes, switch to different, and even Wholly Opposite properties, when the conditions pass certain significant thresholds elsewhere.

The actual Hierarchy of related Levels is not considered!

These occur because apart from embedded effects, due to the presence of certain agents - for in a truly Holistic World, collections of mutually-affecting factors can be simultaneously present, but usually in most circumstances only allowing a limited selection of possibilities, but can, if an unusual mix is arrived at, which implements the exact opposite of what had previously seemed to be always the same, and also delivering a very different outcome.

Finally, and perhaps most importantly, the Multi- Layered-Hierarchy of the semi-independent layers of causality is NEVER usually considered, and that is precisely when the causality originates in a usually correctly ignored Layer, so that the New Cause seems to come from Nowhere!

The Invisble Walls can be breached and Explanations from without are validly brought in!

NOTE: Inklings of such events were seen millennia ago by Zeno of Elea, and formalised very much later within Hegel’s Dialectics, but a systematic revelation required the revolutionary changes implemented by Karl Marx in his own Dialectical Materialism, which he predicated on his new Holistic and Materialist approach to History!

Indeed, the very essence to Holist Situations involving a number of interacting and mutually-affecting factors, is, first, that they don’t merely add-up, but, acutally to widely-varying degrees affect outcomes, and even in rare cases flip to the exact opoosite of what pertained in seemingly all other cases!

NOTE: In the classic “if-then” clause in Programming, not only is there no Causal Reason ever given for the usual outcomes considered without any full explanation, but the third option (evident if the elsewhere factors are considered), actually adds adds “neither” as another outcome, which can also actually terminate a causal sequence also, with no-one being the wiser!

And this was previously taken to be a totally unchangeable thing, but, in fact, in this precise context, at least, could only flip to the opposite.

And this takes Holist Studies into a wholly new and usually totally unanticipated realm, which I have termed Systems Approach Processes, opening-up vastly extended, if also, rare ranges of options that initially are always deemed impossible!

This paper is taken from the latest issue of SHAPE Journal on Holism and Subatomic Physics (Special 75)

 

Special Issue 75: Holism and Subatomic Physics

Read Special Issue 75

This edition continues this journal's exploration of a nascent Holist Science.

Though I have been approaching the mysteries of the Subatomic world for a very long time (see Substrate Theory and The Theory of the Double Slit) - I now must tackle the many anomalies of this area of Physics, Philosophically, to have any chance of establishing a new Holist approach, before Physics effectively destroys itself, with its increasingly generated contradictions.

These papers bring together findings from Substrate Theory, The Theory of Emergences and the new Systems Approach to Science, to make the case for using Dialectics in Physics and the search for further "Invisible Media" across the Sciences.

Thought, Action and Theory

What? How? Why?

After struggling through a 9,000-word set of essays upon these questions, within A Study of The Philosophy of Reality, so many surprising aspects arose that I was sorely pressed to extend the discussion to Theory-in-General - and particularly into what is often termed "Truth" - with regard to Subsequent Purposive Action: for the relationships turn out to be nowhere near as obvious as I (and it seems everyone else) had initially assumed to be the case. The descent to an underlying Universal always beckoned!

Nevertheless, your immediate Objectives (and also The Local Context), clearly change Everything, so that General Conceptions, wholly independent of such purely local considerations, are clearly bound to lead one astray, if they differ: and they most certainly always do.

Now, this latter point may well arouse a committed and energetic opposition, but "Truth", when defined solely by the subsequently-achieved success in producing those desired objectives, accompanying, as they do, a whole range of such achievable Contexts, quite definitely, removes that world from its assumed Absolute Context, and places it into a much more limited one. Indeed, the vast majority of such intentions, will do likewise, making the Absolute View of the Context always, at least locally, totally wrong.

Indeed, what soon became clear, in that prior collection of essays, was that very many such contexts have their "Own Truths", validly restricted to that particular limited Context, to facilitate its correct analysis, and guarantee its consequent outcome.

All Truths dont have to be Universally True! Indeed, MOST Truths are of this context-limited-type.

And in a Holistic World, such as we definitely inhabit, with literally Everything affected and Changed by Everything Else, to some degree, rather than throwing up our hands, and giving up, we have long learned how to deal with Local Cases, where local circumstances do not substantially change over time, or are maintained as such for the duration of investigations!

The whole of Current Science was, from its outsets, consciously built upon such Qualitatively Unchanging, Controlled Situations; which naturally deliver Fixed Pluralistic Solutions - so problems arise if situations legitimately stray into The New, where the old assumptions no longer hold. Indeed, the usual Overall Premise is that situations can and indeed do change, NOT to be delivered by a Single Permanently Fixed Natural Law, but to yet another Locally Fixed and very different one.

Yet, at the same time, Generally Everywhere Applicable relations SIMPLY MUST be used when substitutions between formulae, in order to build a legitimate valid Science Discipline, as a single whole! So the evident mismatch between given relations in Local Maintained Stabilities, and the Formulae developed solely from the valid equations of the Discipline as-a-whole, trigger off a multitude of regular problems.

You cannot do that!

Not least, when the wrong, usually Local, equations are used, substituting from Local relations into others to illegitimately extend the Discipline as a whole. Very clearly this will cause problems!

Why?

It is because we trust our Formal Repredentations and Methods more than any others - and you can see clearly why we do! It is because we have discovered a Purely Formal Method of bringing relations together to deliver "more relations"! Once we have such a combined-formal-representation for the new combined feature - entirely defined purely in terms of quantitative variables, which can take a range of values, and which when inserted into the combined Formula by their values, for delivering the new feature, evaluating the result delivers a new value for the new feature: but it is, and can only be, entirely quantitative.

But, what Quality does it refer to?

No description, or even mention, of any Qualities of the New Feature are evident anywhere in this process. As such, new Qualities cannot be represented Quantitatively or using Formulae. 

So where are any qualitative changes defined?

It has to be Wholly Elsewhere, usually from detecting New Qualitative Effects via Experiment and/or from mere Observation.

But they are NEVER explained causally!

Can changes in quantities alone explain NEW Qualities? NO! Qualities were traditionally causally-explained, but now have been increasingly abandoned as an integral Part of Science, to be replaced solely by Mathematics, which are significantly Philosophically compromised, in that demanding role, so, along with mere Association, for a wholly unsatisfactory attempt at "explanation"!

NOTE: You can see their difficulties in Public Lectures, where they are often forced to once again rely upon long-abandoned causal explanations of the past! For otherwise they would conjure up absolutely no belief in such an audience.

Elsewhere I have comprehensively dealt with the consequences of this wholly illegitimate abandonment of Causal Explanation, within Physics in particular. But, the disease has entered into the very Fabric of all the Sciences, as is increasingly evident from the many proliferating problems, which currently beset them all. 

And, as I have begun to expand things generally into what I term Systems Causality, which is almost totally unknown in any of the Sciences, but has significant largely Causal Effects, which are also not recognised as such either! Indeed, it appears to be only in the Systems Effects that address the causal changes which can be ascribed primarily to Number.

Indeed, the most important, appears to be what I have termed Selective Elimination of certain processes usually brought about by the same distortions, which could also lead to significant Qualitative Changes, and which are often terminated as possibilities by such removals...

Crisis in Cosmology: Big Bang or Big Bust?

 

Jonathan Cook: Externalities and Capitalism

We've been very impressed with Jonathan Cook's writing recently...

"Inherently violent

Externalities are not incidental to the way capitalist economies run. They are integral to them. After all, it is a legal obligation on private companies to maximise profits for their shareholders – in addition, of course, to the personal incentive bosses have to enrich themselves, and each company’s need to avoid making themselves vulnerable to more profitable and predatory competitors in the marketplace.

Companies are therefore motivated to offload as many costs as possible on to others. As we shall see, externalities mean someone other than the company itself pays the true cost behind its profits"

 

Read more here: https://www.jonathan-cook.net/blog/2020-10-25/capitalism-double-billing/ 

Issue 75: The Origin of Systems

The Origin of Systems 

by Jim Schofield

Issue 75 Editorial:

The Origin of Systems is a new series of papers by philosopher Jim Schofield, exploring several options for a complete overhaul of both Science and Materialist Dialectics.

We must turn our efforts to the holistic study of complex systems and what Schofield calls “Systems Effects” via the “Systems Approach”, if we’re to turn a corner in our understanding and finally break free from the shackles of reductionist Pluralist thinking.

It soon becomes apparent that we know very little about how natural systems actually come to be, how they evolve over time, what keeps them going over hundreds or even millions of years, and what finally precipitates their collapse. Only a Holist approach stands a chance of answering these vital questions about Reality.

And as the vast systems of Capitalism and our Global Climate begin to collapse, a Holistic understanding of Systems in general, will become vital for our survival as a species.

As Schofield writes in this issue: “Our so-called Explanations, are often far from the mark, due to their being totally unaware of the Real Full Processes of Development, behind Reality. And this leads to many mistaken conclusions, rarely addressing the absolutely vital, self-made and inevitable mounting Crises of our remarkable History, in all its causes, both positive and increasingly dangerous! So without, the Key Revolution in Real Understanding, that we await, this remarkable Development, this unfathomable work of the Evolution of Matter - culminating here in us, in Human Beings, and in this society - could easily end in an existential catastrophe.”

The Origin of Systems, as a piece of theoretical writing, is extremely ambitious in scope, but ambition is certainly needed now, when a Revolution in how we think, is needed for our survival.

Art Director’s note - Tomás Saraceno

This month’s issue deals with the complexity and interconnectedness of natural systems, and our worrying inability to understand them through current scientific methods. As always in SHAPE Journal, we try and chose the work of great and thought-provoking artists to accompany the theory text, not to illustrate the ideas discussed obviously or directly, but to form a parallel but relevant narrative on the core concepts involved.

For The Origin of Systems we chose the work of installation artist Tomás Saraceno. He originally trained as an architect, and his intricate and immersive works seem to literally build bridges between science and art. Saraceno certainly sees the Earth as a complicated and vast system, we must try and understand, describing it as “the fastest vehicle that ever existed”. His work is concerned about the threat to natural environments and ecosystems, also taking inspiration from neural communication networks, origin theories, sub atomic physics and spiders.

Read Issue 75 of SHAPE Journal here... 

Employment Post-Covid

The Covid-19 pandemic has transformed the situation in many important and devastating ways for The Working Class - all of which are strongly and consciously Anti Working Class, and primarily to the great advantage of the wealthiest Groups, at the top of this Society.

Changes have been made, and are increasingly being implemented, that the Ruling Class have desired, but never dared implement for a truly vast period of time. And, the changes are many and various, and are being pursued at an accelerating rate, as all the many layers within the Employing classes, increasingly realise the favourable conditions now emerging for them all - but only as long as they quickly implement all their many opppurtunities for maximising their ever greater advantages over the Workers!

Don't get me wrong! Most of the Employing Class were, at first, increasingly terrified! But the Government kept many of the Organised Workers quiet with Furlough Pay and their prodigious Loans to the bigger Companies to help see them through.

BUT, the promised "return to normal" has not only failed to materialise, as promised, but has also engineered a vast series of detrimental changes ALL OVER SOCIETY - especially to the detriment of Workers, but also to the disabled, the old and even radical changes in the vital Nationalised Services of the People.

And, as more, and indeed most, of the power echelons of the Employing Class began to realise their advantageous opportunities, they are now pursuing them with increasing vigour!

In the UK, because of the Shut-Downs, the increasing diminution of the Possibilities and Efforts of Working Class Organisations, such as The Trades Unions, and the Left around the dismissed Corbyn Leadership in the Labour Party, the rump of that Party in Parliament have moved ever much more to the Right, including installing a Knighted ex-National Prosecutor as Labour Party Leader!

And as the "NO CASH" transactions increasingly replace cash means of paying, everything moves inexorably OUT of people's direct control into an all embracing IT System fraught with possibilities for the dishonest!

And have you noticed Inflation, beginning to mount?

That is yet another way to move more and more day-to-day financing into being covered by Credit, while at the same time house prices soar - but sold as a means of making house owners richer without doing anything, but in the end ONLY really benefiting the money-lenders and Mortgage providers!

As furlough comes to an end and the economy struggles to recover, millions will lose their jobs, for automation will add to all those NOT re-employed after the end of Covid: and the banishing of the Eastern European pickers and temporary Farm Workers will usher the newly unemployed into those low paid jobs, unorganised by Trades Unions - clearly ideal areas for the Employers!

And the real major hits, clearly unavoidable in the coming period, have not yet clearly established what they will mean for the Working Classes. But, it wont take the experienced commentators on the Left very long to realise the full consequences of the wholly new changes, and if they too Sell Out, as has been the norm in such circles in the past, the necessary Cataclysm of Country-wide Action, involving all the hardest-hit Groups - including the Unemployed, the newly created indigenous Poor of Farmworkers, the disabled, the old, and the students, will not elicit the necessary Fight and a New Dark Age will increasingly establish itself Worldwide!

Special Issue 74: Flawed Logic

Special Issue 74 of the SHAPE Journal

This edition collects together several recent papers by Jim Schofield, looking more closely at the fundamental problems with Formal Logic, and Schofield's theories on how Mathematics became a corrupting influence on the Sciences. 

This fascinating journey takes us from Stephen Wolfram trying to explain the Laws of the Universe using little black and white squares, to Troika's mesmerising visual art using Wolfram's Cellular Automata, to Sabine Hossenfelder's critique of "beauty" in Mathematics, to the Buddhist Logic of the Tetralemma. 

Along the way we discover that we cannot transcend the straightjacket of reductionist formalism until we appreciate the logic of evolving natural systems.

Read more...

Theory and Cosmology

 

Addressing the impossibility

 

of its Experimental Confirmation

The performance of cosmological theory over millennia has taken an unavoidably distorted trajectory, due entirely to who were involved in both initiating and then developing it. They were, most certainly, NOT in immediate, detailed possession of what they needed, to begin to interpret the Night Sky, which was where they sought answers, to what it displayed, as the context for where-and-how they then were. And, in spite of the clear evidence everywhere else around them of almost constant change, The Heavens above seemed different - while they were seemingly in constant movement regularly across the sky, they were otherwise fixed (or highly predictable) in content, displaying an intricate-but-unchanging order to the Universe!

Surely, the clear unchanging order of The Heavens must also underlie the complexities of things down here on Earth?

So, a general Ordering-Mythology was constructed, in the image of the observers - Mankind - by those who resided up there in the Heavens, and consciously-directed things down here, like pieces within a game! It wasn't very effective in influencing things down here on Earth, but it satisfied the majority - by reflecting those evidently occupying positions of power on Earth - while justifying largely what those Rulers did also.

But, it could not suffice, as clear causes and effects were increasing evident down here on Earth, and certain privileged individuals, with both the time and the resources, began to look for analyses, not only for what happened here, but also for the Nature of The Heavens, as they were increasingly observed in ever greater detail.

And, even more damning, there were increasing numbers of ordinary people, certainly not of the privileged class, who were intervening ever deeper into Nature, down here on Earth, with regularly increasing success, even if it was in the areas that were restricted to the privileged classes, such as those who planted crops, and both tended them, along with their captive food animals, built wheeled carts, and even smelted iron from naturally occurring ores.

The increasing intellectualism of the privileged classes, more and more, had to include these real concrete achievements made by those who had to successfully build things using natural resources, but always somehow-and-necessarily subordinated to the overall Philosophy that justified the current Political Order, down here on Earth!

The discoverers certainly weren't what we would now call scientists, and so their devised incantations were just as important, if not more so, than their sequences of appropriate material processes: for at that stage they only knew How, but never Why, things worked as they did.

Their basic Principle was Pragmatism, and this worked very well for many thousands of years.

And, the early attempts of the philosophic wing of the privileged classes did nothing to throw a revealing light upon these Pragmatic Discoveries. But they did, ultimately, in the Greek Intellectual Revolution of the 5th century BC, impose the general Principle of Plurality.

They imposed Plurality, first legitimately upon the Emerging Discipline of Mathematics, and, thereafter, wholly illegitimately, upon both General Reasoning and all of the emerging Sciences.

But, literally from even before the Bronze Age, Mankind had been observing both the Heavens and the varying times of sunrise and sunset, the Moon's rise and set: and also crude means of measurement of both Heavenly events and their Times, all slowly-but-surely related to measurable things, and these were purely for crucial prediction purposes - such as the planting and gathering of crops. The most advanced of these early cultures were always connected with rivers, due to their flooding, and then with primitive irrigation. But, as to any overall Explanatory Meaning to all these observations: that was only present in the form of being the controlling Decisions of the Gods!

It was only by the time of the Greek Intellectual Revolution, that they arrived at the entirely Pluralist Conceptions of Mathematics, and also linking their measurements to Causes, and these were, always, wholly idealistically, arrived at, with Number itself, being given Causal Weight, when it could, while all the rest still being due to the Will of the Gods.

Indeed, several millennia were dominated by such "explanations", and it was not until the early Middle Ages that Mankind added Investigative Experiments to the crucial means of developing the first real attempts at Causal Explanations, independently of Mathematics, though that continued to be a major means at the Scientists disposal! It was only when supposedly Explanatory Equations were developed, that Plurality was imported along with the increasingly dominant Mathematics, making all of these "Laws" also permanently fixed.

It must be emphasised that literally all Explanations were originally wholly independent of Mathematics, and always involved concrete physical Causes, which NEVER DID gel completely with the Equations formulated by the inclusion of Algebra and its evident Rationality into the System. They were similar, or even close, but as accuracy gradually improved, they increasingly differed ever wider from each other.

So, to cap it all, the technicians and engineers, who established the practical conditions for these Experiments, became supremely adept, by drastically limiting the context and content delivered, so that what went on was artificially converted into a wholly-artificial Pluralist State, in which the Pluralistic Equations DID reflect exactly what happened there! Yet, a further wholly WRONG assumption, underlying this whole process, was that, even in the World of Reality-as-is, the many naturally-simultaneous, individual Laws acting together were definitely NOT exactly-the-same as the artificially Pluralist Equations obtained from such Experiments.

For that was wholly UNTRUE!

And that has major implications for a supposed Generally Applicable Science, developed wholly-mathematically from a collection of uniquely constructed experiments, each strictly pluralised for that situation alone, yet here merged illegitimately into a "generally-applicable set of coherent Laws", achieved wholly by algebraic substitutions between its actually unique, individual, Pluralist Laws.

Now, in spite of these wholly damaging effects theoretically, yet technologically, as a whole sequence of wholly separate processes, they could be successfully marshalled into an overall Successful Production. And what had been the perennial, justifying tenet for many millennia?

"If it works, it is right!"

But Real Laws DO NOT remain exactly the same in all circumstances: they ARE affected by both context and content of their situations! Pluralist Fixed Laws were always a simplification: a "holding still of Reality", in order to tightly restrict its natural relations, and substitute a Single Fixed Law as a step towards understanding a situation.

Sadly, it Absolutely NEVER does that! It is, at best, a crude approximation, that, along with others of the same ilk, takes the overall theory ever further from the Truth, while in experentially demonstrated sequences can still achieve desired objectives. But, it is NOT an adequate means for extending our understanding of Reality-as-is, for it uses only Fixed Laws, which, at best, move in and out of Dominance!

To illustrate just how lame this is, it cannot ever predict-and-explain any Qualitative Changes at all: and the absence of predictions of the Emergence of the Wholly New are because they are always totally impossible, and even when such do happen, they can NEVER be explained!

The whole Dynamical Trajectory of Evolutionary Changes, were-and-are wholly unobtainable, because so-called Science hasn't ever addressed such things!

The most important, and really-existing Natural Laws are all to do with how purely locally-defined-laws can relate to one another: in fixed ways, and even then it isn't simple addition: nor should it be replicated by Overall Randomness, and Probability Theories, especially when Qualitative Changes occur, and remove the situation from its wholly Pluralist conditions... It is then, on the contrary Holistic!

For, in Reality-as-is, absolutely NO law exists or acts either alone, or in such simple relationships as occur in all cases in Plurality. All results involve a number of contributions, that always affect one another: and all the involved qualitative changes, which can only be addressed in some sort of Holistic way.

But, the Laws governing these interactions are largely, wholly unknown, and never sought, because they appear to result in endlessly complicated, and forever varying results! And, though that is almost true, it isn't entirely so - for these seemingly un-analysable complexities DO indeed settle into regularities, but with frequently initially-totally-unpredictable outcomes!

Perhaps, the very best illustration of the difficulties involved in Holist Science, was demonstrated by Stanley Miller's famous Experiment upon the Origin of Life on Earth. He set up a sealed System, containing all the known components of a pre-Life Earth, with the elements of a primitive Atmosphere, Water and the application of Heat, with a condenser to deliver Rain, and electric Sparks as Lightning, and set the System in Motion! Within a week, he opened it up, and analysed the Reddy-brown liquid that had been formed, and discovered that it contained Amino Acids - the Key Building Blocks of All Life, which had been produced. But, he had no idea, and could not discover, just how it had all happened: as well as no idea how, then, to proceed further with his investigations! The Experiment was abandoned as impossible to achieve anything further that would be useful.

But, as this physicist has discovered, developments since Miller's time, along with, instead, a required whole sequence of experiments that would be necessary: each one determined by questions arising within prior-produced versions. And also, the included provision of inert channelling barriers - devised, to allow alternative simultaneous paths of development, along with non-intruding monitors - built into those barriers - gathering a great deal of information that could be gleaned, in detail, about what exactly was going on.

Clearly, such means simply must be a major part of the Holistic Experimental Procedures, for what, generally, needs to be revealed are NOT Single Fixed Pluralist Laws, but whole sets of related circumstances, with their contained, but varying Laws - and, of course, sufficient validations of any extracted theoretical conclusions! And, instesd of merely linear addutive "development, there surely has to be an effective means of recognising the precursors of a Coming Qualitative Change, that will change almost everything involved.

Now, the reader will probably be wondering now exactly when we are going to address Cosmology!

But, clearly, though in the usual Pluralist Approaches to the topic, many obvious criticisms could be validly made - they would, most certainly NEVER lead to new and revealing solutions, because the whole Pluralist Basis is both wrongly and wholly incapable of revealing what is necessary! Clearly, the only possible effective approach has to be Holistic too.

So, the above clarifications had to be essential, to have any hope of making real progress in the area of Cosmology! Just think about the difficulties of effective Confirmation Experiments on Earth.

They would be wholly impossible in Cosmology!

But, the very variety of outcomes with a Holistic Approach, could only match with a profoundly close set of holistic explanations: and further possibilities could be suggested and examples of them sought in The Cosmos! Indeed, the very variabilities become an advantage so mere Observations would be far better confirmations than they could ever be with Fixed Pluralist Laws.

Postscript:

Just imagine Miller's Experiment, re-designed as described earlier, involving long sequences of versions, with separated paths of development, along with others in an investigative-remix! What could be learned there would be the best possible primers for a subsequent set of applications in Cosmology...

The Limits of Philosophy?

I have been a dedicated Marxist for most of my adult life, philosophically and politically, I think Karl Marx has come closer than anyone to Understanding something intrinisc and profound about Reality - and, though I still and justifiably celebrate the great achievements of Marx - they cannot yet but still also reflect the unavoidable weaknesses, always involved within the very first conception in any field. It would be a miracle if any such were ever initially and immediately wholly correct.

Though colossal in their scope, and sound in their premises, Marx’s contributions to Philosophy were then, and still are now, insufficient to be an all-embracing and wholly adequate Philosophy of Reality-as-is! For, they were based majorly upon the so far known and studied History of Mankind, and of course, it simply couldn’t have been based upon anything else, for only that History had sufficient extension to cover its many radical twists and turns!

And also, because only that History covered enough ground to reveal most of the necessary Actual Development, Changes and Anomalies, to alone be capable of highlighting both the usually slow tempos involved, while at particular irresolveable Crises, also clearly revealing the rapid Revolutionary Changes, unavoidable at such an incomparably faster rate - compared with the more pedestrian ones occurring the rest of the time.

It has taken 170 years since Marx’s initial revealing contribution, to totally reveal without any significant developments beyond those original bounds set by History itself alone.

And, these achievements have also NOT yet been extended, to any other important Disciplines in the same-and-necessary way as Marx has applied it to History and Economics.

My ongoing project in this journal, is to try and finish Marx’s work and apply his materialist philosophy to the Sciences. It is a big job.

Intellectual Disciplines in General, not only each have their own Independent Philosophies, but, in addition, ALL contain separate subsections each, in turn, with their own separately defined Philosophies. Mankind has regularly found it impossible to reveal a Single All-embracing Philosophy that might cover absolutely Everything! There are now literally thousands of Specialisms, each with their own defined Philosophy, to match the unavoidable splits in original single philosophies, demanded by failures in prior attempts at explaining the evident insurmountable anomalies!

What, of course, they always reflect, are the illegitimate Pluralist, and therefore necessarily artificially limited, supposed contexts! And, of course, despite Marxism’s extended range: its initial Form, too, would prove to be inadequate, as yet, in some important areas!

The whole means of explaining things needs a Comprehensive Review - starting with the more blatant and misleading assumptions of its supposed Logic! And, in Science, the whole basis, originally laid down in the Ancient Greek Intellectual Revolution - which lets face it was an extremely long time ago - needs upturning to the alternative Holistic Stance (though incomparably more developed and generally applicable than the original version of The Buddha!) For, the rejection of Plurality, must do a great deal more than only reject the Fixity of Natural Laws!

It must also reveal just how the changes happen naturally, primarily when distorted by the imposed simplifications of the assumed Context - to instead bring in Reality- as-is, achieved via multiple simultaneous and differing contributions - all having very different effects.

Now, stated just like that, merely seems to infer an impossible-to-solve constantly varying task. But that turns out to NOT be the case at all!

For, the contributions are all of different weights, thereby making the lesser ones swamped by the most dominant ones: and only becoming relevant as the balance of contributions changes significantly. Yet, the usual Mathematical Logic treatment of such switch-overs (with “if / then” type clauses, and consequent flips to a new state) were, and still are, never explanatory at all - merely signalling WHEN but never WHY, and delivering absolutely nothing beyond the purely Quantitative- triggered flip, and NO mecessary information about the current underlying and multiple changes to, in any way, reveal what happens next, and with what currently hidden consequences.

The causes for the current and following trajectories of changes are NEVER revealed!

But, in fact, there must be multiple simultaneous and affecting contrinutions constantly moving towards the next viewable change, but we have, at that point, no way of ever knowing anything about such events - before they accually occur!

Clearly, you either dramatically restrict, and then maintain Contexts, to allow them to be predictable, pluralistically, or alternatively you could “Give up Now, you’ll never do it!”

But, Reality-as-is, left to itself, can, and indeed will, in its own time, deliver the real result of everything acting together, though with no restrictions at all of the context, the actual variation of everything involved, though they will all happen, at the right time, but that will be unknown, outside of the experiencing context itself!

And, exactly when changes occur, would not be known before they do!

Yet experiencing such overall events will still give an approximate suggestion of what will happen the next time it is run naturally!

But, of course, such “suck-it-and-see” methods, would never suffice in Productions for Sale!

However, the very most basic, and most general, of effects, could perhaps be predicted, but only if the causing Systems Relations, themselves were known, and included!

And, as has been established in recent papers in this series, these Systems Effects can surprisingly turn out to be very important indeed!

One recent development, which might signal a way forward, is due to physicist Eric Lerner. Equations- deriving directly from experimentally obtained data in the usual ways, has been abandoned, for cruder, but much more reliable “inter-variable” relationships, obtained over a very wide variety of detailed circumstances, which can be far more effectively relied upon, compared to the usual substitutions between fitted-up general Formulae, taken direct from Mathematics itself, which had been established there solely as a means of relating Pure and Unchanging Forms.

This paper is part of a series called Down the Infinite Rabbit Hole of Holist Complexity  - you can read the rest in the latest issue of SHAPE Journal (74)

Issue 74: The Infinite Rabbit Hole!

Read the latest issue of SHAPE Journal

...

This edition continues philosopher Jim Schofield's recent attempts to define what a Holist approach to Science should be. This time around, the focus is on why it hasn't really been attempted before, and why, when we do try holistic methods in Science, we usually fall back on tried-and-tested Pluralist forms of research. 

The problem is complexity. The Natural World is incredibly dense, interconnected and with many hidden levels and systems processes. The straight-jacket of the Pluralist Scientific Method is the only way we have historically managed to control situations sufficiently to try and analyse and understand them. The problem is, that this gives us a very distorted, simplifed and ossified picture of what we're examining. We remove many hidden factors which might turn out to be be vital, and even more crucially, we remove the possibility for natural Qualitative Change to take place.

Art Director’s note: 

For this issue we have chosen the dark, dense paintings and sculptures of Anselm Kiefer for the illustration. We are always looking for abstract art which invokes change in some way, and the complexity of evolving reaity. With a keen interest in mathematics and science as well as mythology, Kiefer’s work deals with concepts such as the passage of time, cosmogney, chaos and death. His most recent exhibition Supertrings, Runes, the Norns, Gordian Knot, is influenced directly by studies such as String Theory - but not without a pleasing degree of skepticism. Of the work he says: 

“These advanced mathematicians are attempting to find a theory of everything, but each time they open a door, many other doors reveal themselves. It is all abstract mathematics, of course, so nothing is really yet proved. The more I read about it, the more I think they will never find the answer.” 

There is certainly abstraction and form in Kiefer’s work, but also a very messy materiality. He is interested in and influenced by science, but unlike many mathematicians and artists alike, he is not seduced by beauty, simplicity and perfection. He knows that this would be Idealism, and the Real world is much more labyrinthine and impenetrable than we like to think.

Weak Theory

The Weakness of Pragmatically Derived Theory

Since "time immemorial", Mankind has seen Theory as facilitating the effective Pragmatic Use of all that is discovered about Reality! After all, primitive Man would insist, "What else are such ideas for?"

But, of course, there are other reasons for Theories, but none of these were even concretely considered in the earliest of epochs of Mankind, where the more intangible questions were always allocated to Supernatural Causes. And, even the simplest relations between elements of Natural Phenomena, were only relateable, in any useful way, by always deliberately holding situations as still as possible, for absolutely anything, to be extractible at all! And, the definer of required situations was embodied in the usual tenet:

"If it works, it is right!"

So, the initial Pragmatically useful investigations, all concentrated upon the "already dead" or tightly, artificially controlled situations - otherwise NO relations were obtainable. But, crucially, there was NEVER a single such "Stability", encapsulating absolutely ALL such situations: indeed, almost every imposed Stability was different - depending upon what had to be revealed! So, all but the very simplest undertakings, were unavoidably composed of many, very different required Stabilities, determined by the series of separate steps necessary, to finally end up with the required product, via a whole series of different processes - each confined within its own ideal and maintained circumstances.

Now, this meant that literally nothing was ever attempted within naturally-occurring Reality-as-is, because totally different conditions would be essential for every single step in any intended production. Hence, the accumulated Knowledge was involving many different contexts - each using very different extracted Laws. So, nothing was actually revealed about Reality-as-is,  and as that was the only situation naturally Common to all relations actually occurring-together there, and NOT the separate ones, each of which are only true within their own special artificial context thereafter could, and always were, actually be algebraically related to one another to thereby Construct a supposedly "Valid Science"! So, as NO SUCH Science could be constructed by such means, we simply must give what we do actually construct a different name: we call it Technology!

Indeed, the construction of ANY Discipline by such a means, using the Rationality of Mathematics to do so, is always wholly and misleadingly illegitimate. For, Mathematics, as it was originally devised and developed by the Ancient Greeks, is only true in totally Pluralistic Situations, wherein all relations are Forever Fixed.

For, though that is always true within Mathematics, it is NOT so within Concrete Reality-as-is - for that does not just complicate things, but, in contrast, actually Evolves them: and consequently the Wholly New can-and-does occur, and it can never be predicted before that first occurrence.

So, the then universal use of Mathematical Rationality, in any area of Explanation, and in any area, where things can naturally develop into the Wholly New, and with the objective of extending Understanding, is woefully mistaken!

And the Problem is most certainly due to Principle of Plurality.

For, in about the 5th century BC, two directly opposing Tenets of Reasoning were devised in different parts of the then civilised World! Each one aimed at producing a different Rationality to allow features of a given Part of Reality to be soundly related to one another via Thought alone! But, the basic assumptions upon which they were based were diametrically Opposite to each other, and, if used effectively would lead to very different conclusions. They were, of course, based upon very different, if totally valid, aspects of Reality-as-is: but were each considered to be universally applicable to absolutely Everything!

Of course, they had to be based upon profound extractions from Reality, and sadly, Reality actually conforms in different circumstances to TWO Diametrically Opposite Principles, which are found to act only in very different circumstances.

The Principle of Plurality was discovered by the Greeks within Mathematics, and wholly developed only within that context where two things were wholly legitimately established for Mathematics.

First, was the realisation that Simplified Relational Abstractions - relating wholly non-concrete, but nevertheless wholly valid relations, between such Abstractions. Indeed, it was the realisation of these special kinds of Abstraction that initially enabled the Rational Construction of Euclidian Geometry, and thereafter Mathematics as a whole. And this was because these Abstractions limited the Rationality involved to always valid Totally Fixed Relations, and therefore also its consequent laws.

While the other approach developed in India by The Buddha, involved deriving The Principle of Holism, which, on the contrary, involved most elements being capable of constantly available variation (both quantitative and qualitative), and hence having literally NO Forever Fixed properties and consequent Laws!

The Buddha's sound basis was, of course, the observable Living World all around him. 

Now, you might think that the direction determined by The Buddha, would be the best option: but, in the short term, it certainly wasn't! For, a qualitatively-varying and developing World, is certainly closer to the General Truth of All of Reality, than the West's primary philosophical choice of assuming a Wholly Pluralist World: but actually that choice gave them a handle - it had also given them effective Technology, within multiple easily-controllable Contexts, while The Buddha's Holistic alternative, though it gave them Everything at Once - was far too complex to effectively control or use, while maintaining its essential Nature, and they didn't develop beyond mere Pragmatism, for millennia.

What was clearly needed to develop the absolutely-necessary Holist Stance, was the creation and then development of a Purely Holist Science, which has not only failed to appear in The Orient, but is also almost universally absent in the West too.

There was a window for such a Discipline to occur - out of the Dialectics of the Idealist Philosopher GWF Hegel, especially as his best follower, Karl Marx, began to apply a thorough-going-and-creative detailed Holist approach to the Developments in Social History, and particularly to The Capitalist Economics of his day. But, the crucial development of also applying a similar approach to The Sciences was NOT undertaken: for though the Tempos of Man-Made History were graspable by the then available Human Thinking, those of most aspects of Physical Reality were not.

Of course, even within Marx's lifetime, Charles Darwin did begin to tackle the question of The Origin of Species, with a distinctive measure of success, but all the rest of Science required a similar holistic treatment, and that was still not yet forthcoming!

The writer of this paper (as well as many others, published over the last period in SHAPE Journal and on this blog), is both a fully-qualified Physicist and Mathematician, yet increasingly he is a trenchant critic of much of Modern Sub Atomic Physics, as well as pretty well all of Current Cosmology. He has spent well over a decade criticising the current, linked approaches in both of these areas, and has, only then, undertaken the task of beginning to establish a consistently Holist approach in these areas, and is now literally developing Holist Science from scratch.

Many diverse contributions have been written, and many more are actually currently in process of being produced, and already planned, at least in outline! This current paper, along with a small number of others, is being produced as an informing Introduction to the whole undertaking, and will, hopefully, set readers in such a position as to contemplate the size and content of perhaps the most important questions for Science at this present time!

The Misguided Basics of Rationality in both the Sciences & Reasoning

Sabine Hossenfelder and how Physics relies on Beauty!

As I have long argued, in prior publications, the principle flaw in the Sciences resides within Physics, as is most certainly revealed in the total subservience of its Theories to Mathematics. The origins of this problem lie in the crucial achievements of the Ancient Greeks, in their brilliant Intellectual Revolution (circa the 5th century BC), and also via their invention of a wholly new kind of Abstraction - both possible and, indeed, necessary in involving Relations to rationally develop the first-ever consistent, coherent and comprehensive Discipline, in history.

For, it was, indeed, an epoch-changing invention, because it delivered the first ever Complete Rationality - enabling the sound establishment, first, of Euclidian Geometry, and, thereafter, of the whole of Mathematics in general! But, this was wholly legitimately achieved ONLY because mathematical relations were always & forever FIXED: they absolutely never changed qualitatively into something else! This kind of messiness was against the rules!

So, what was achieved was only a Purely Mathematical Rationality, which was fairly quickly achieved and extensively and correctly used to ultimately build the Whole Discipline. But, it was only-ever-true for Mathematics, but NOT for either the Sciences or more General Reasoning - for in all of those important Disciplines, as in Life itself - things have Actually Evolved: they had to be changed qualitatively. and hence purely Mathematical Reasoning could NOT ever be legitimately related in that way.

Nevertheless, The Greeks, justifiably enamoured with their New Rationality, illegitimately applied it other Disciplines. And, that was soon literally extended universally throughout Mankind. Indeed, its basic Defining Principles, particularly those within Geometry-and-Symmetry, were re-classified as Beauty, and applied to absolutely Everything as Everywhere-applicable Principles!

Now, I have just finished watching a YouTube Video by the scientist, Sabine Hossenfelder, who was severely criticising the preponderance of Beauty, when used in judging the values of new Theories in Physics: her criticisms were wholly valid, BUT of Mathematical Rationality, and NOT of Beauty!

Indeed, the mistake of the Greeks was never realised, and Mathematics has wrongly and damagingly become a veritable-yet-wholly incorrect Ground in All Rationality. And, this is now so embedded in these Disciplines, that no-one can conceive of their Discipline without it!

For example, in Sciences like Physics, All Investigative Experiments, and All Productive Processes are ALWAYS and necessarily carried out in rigidly Pluralist (i.e. conforming to mathematical rationality) situations, absolutely essential to make their "Laws" work at all! Indeed, by such means Physics, in those areas, has ceased to exist as such, and has been pragmatically replaced by its older relation, namely Technology, and has been theoretically converted to Idealism!

And, "to compound the felony", it is ONLY those illegitimate Pluralist Equations that are exclusively and illegitimately used within "so-called Theory": thus making the consequent construction of an overall Discipline via substitutions between those Equations totally illegitimate, for all those Pluralist Equations are, each and every one, about Different Situations! Indeed, it is now very clear that to resolve this problem permanently, it will undoubtedly require the extensive establishment of a completely-New and Entirely Holist Approach to the Sciences, and, of course, particularly in the most formally-distorted of the Sciences: namely in Physics.

This is already underway in SHAPE Journal, but, as the size of the task is ever more clearly indicated, just how far Physics, in particular, its straying into pure Plurality, has become ever more evident! So, the solution will involve something very different to the artificially achieved and wholly Pluralist constraints upon both Experiments, Productions - and especially on Theory! Instead, a wholly new form of the subject simply MUST be revealed, to effectively deal with Reality-as-is, for the first time: otherwise, there can be no consistent, coherent and comprehensive system - on which to inter-relate the Holistic Real World versions of the Laws, and hence, be capable of producing a real Science!

Process, Context and Recursion II

Pas de Deux (1968) Norman McLaren

BEGINNING TO UNDERSTAND MOVEMENT AND CHANGE

Carrying on from the prior papers in this series, I will further establish the System Nature of a Holistic Science, as applied to the Study of Creative Dance Performance and Choreography. The last 30 years of Research in this area, has also, surprisingly, enabled me to make this contribution, both there, and for Holistic Science in General!

I, of course, did the majority of this work in tandem with another researcher, the excellent Dr. Jacqueline Smith-Autard (Jackie), perhaps the leading expert in such studies in the World. She was the dance education specialist in the relationship, so please forgive my total concentration upon the Philosophical, Scientific and Computing questions involved, based upon a long professional life in these areas, mostly in Higher Education. 

Crucially, this research into Dance, and the difficulties of analysing movement using video, led me to fully appreciate the philosophical importance of Zeno of Elea, beyond his paradoxes of movement (the dialectic of continuity and discreetness) and to the importance of the Whole and the Part - and a fundamental critique of all Reductionism. 

I terminated, the immediately prior paper undoubtedly somewhat prematurely, in the midst of beginning to establish a wholly new Holistic Approach to the Sciences, certainly only now made possible by the extensive work with Jackie in Dance Research. But also, very clearly, this was too important a contribution to be tacked on to the end of what was really only a Basic Introduction, to a turn to a major new topic, so it was clear that a dedicated separate paper would be necessary to initiate such a Major Undertaking!

But, I feel that I must also make clear, that I had spent many years aiding researchers with computer solutions, in a whole wide range of Disciplines, from Physics and Engineering to Biology, before I was enchanted by Jackie's unique requirements for Dance. My own original areas, from where I started these kinds of interdisciplinary studies, were in my original specialisms of Physics and Mathematics, terminating finally in Higher Education in a major change to both Developing Operating Systems, and ultimately Directing Computer Services in two Colleges - latterly one that was part of London University (Goldsmiths).

In an earlier Higher Education post, I had established a unique Supporting Service for Researchers across many different Disciplines in a Scottish University, and had soon been forced to go well beyond the Total Plurality of my core Subjects, in order to solve a whole new range of problems that they were encountering. The complete abandonment of actually Explaining Qualitative Changes, which dominated literally all Current Research, forced me to daily address the often terminating anomalies within most Disciplines, and attempt a consequent General Turn to Holism!

And, as I was finally realising, towards the end of that prior paper, the Determining Systemic Nature of Holism, would have to be comprehensively established as an essential prerequisite to any attempt at a Real Developable Analysis of Change, which undoubtedly require an Epoch-Making shift in literally all current research methods. The usually assumed Total Independence of Single Natural Laws, was clearly untrue, and the usual way of eliminating those effects - by severely restricting the Scope of Investigative Experiments, merely threw all these crucial effects away, which involved the assuming of greatly more complex situations, that could be achieved by the mere summation of Eternally Fixed Laws.

They never can!

And, in addition, the Pluralists believed that the Laws found by their methods were exactly the same when multiples of such Laws were acting simultaneously.

That also isn't true!

Simultaneously-acting Laws always adjust one another to greater or lesser degrees, in ways that wholly Pluralist Methods will never Reveal. So these Holistic mechanisms have to be clearly revealed: thereafter determining exactly HOW production should be both implemented and controlled.

Or, alternatively, were there any naturally-occurring Stabilities, very different to those that occur in manmade Pluralistic Experiments, that actually are part of literally all Holistic Situations, and could be effectively and soundly used, as part of a more complex on-going System? The answer turned out to be "Yes!".

But, it was discovered by the historian Karl Marx, in a very different area, well-hidden within the Key Explosive and Emergent Happenings within every successful Social Revolution. For, such cataclysmic Events were considered "un-analysable", until Marx revealed that they were perhaps the only periods of substantial change, anywhere in Reality-as-is, that took place at a tempo that Humans could possibly apprehend and understand - primarily because, there alone, the Processes of History were entirely brought about by the actions of Human Beings themselves! Marx was not able to explain the apparent Stability of those slower processes of History, which for very long periods appeared to be steadfastly Stable and Unchanging. But, within a Revolution, the Maintainers of Stability totally collapse, and concerted actions by motivated groups of ordinary people, COULD bring about Significant Systemic Change!

However, in passing, such Events also revealed the seemingly permanent Stabilities all around, which resolutely maintain the Status Quo, for often vast periods of time, but, in fact, though strongly maintained as such, were happening in a Holist World, and could therefore, in the end, certainly be terminated.

These long-existing, self-maintaining Interludes, were clearly what we are looking for, being wholly naturally established and then maintained, but, nevertheless, only as Temporary Stabilities, possibly delivering Real interludes of Stability, via which a means of Holistic Rationality could be temporarily established and used, and naturally demolished when no longer applicable.

Clearly, for this to be the case, the composition, and self-maintenance of these Temporary Stabilities must be explained! Indeed, something both flexible and persistent must, on the one hand, be capable of mostly re-establishing the prior Stability, in a wide variety of possible undermining disturbances: AND also eminently capable of re-establishing conformability, to a new stability of outcomes.

Now this is by no means easy: but the best clue to a solution seems to reside in Diametrically Opposite Processes, which Zeno (of old) certainly noticed, and the idealist philosopher Hegel, organised into a varying system, in which these could deliver one outcome, or its direct opposite, and could, it has more recently been revealed (in my Substrate Theory of Physics, for example), give absolutely NO OUTCOME at all, as they exactly cancel each other out!

And, it has become clear, that in the sequences of consequently-enabled processes, they could, indeed, be terminated prematurely by such exact and final cancellations.

Yet, we are still a very long way from explaining the long-persistence of many such Temporary Stabilities, routinely mistaken for permanent or eternal features! We must also reveal their unusual-but-necessary compositions.

And, a possible solution to this might be if the Total Contents of a Temporary Stability was perhaps composed of multiple Balanced Stable collections of paired opposing processes, which, with a relatively minor damage could recover any undermining, by eliciting opposing changes in one area, to effectively Cancel-Out any damages inflicted in another: though both of which were somehow initiated from the very same external incursion, but in bringing about thereby opposing, balancing effects.

Now, as far as I have been able to discover, literally NO theoretical or experimental work has been undertaken in this vital area.

Something must be first causing such balances, and then, at least most of the time, maintaining them. What Stabilities there are, cannot have been already, and permanently resolved by magic, but somehow form into a naturally-arrived-at balance, and the consequent maintenance of a situation, instead of a never-ending constant slide towards Chaos!

Now, what has emerged, which could throw some light upon this problem, is the "calming nature" of constantly-repeating Cycles of Processes - which seem to be abundant literally Everywhere - and at all levels of Reality. 

And another similarly acting process, seems to be a consequence of multiple, simultaneous and different active processes, which seem to selectively change the overall composition into a more permanent mix over time. Possible causes such as Selective Elimination seem to be possible, but have nowhere been experimentally established.

And perhaps the usual reasoning, discounting such possibilities, is based upon a belief in Forever Fixed Natural Law, on the one hand, BUT, contrastingly, Evolutionary Change on the other!

Now, in a recently recorded coversation with Gareth Samuel, Eric Lerner explained the natural processes of a regularly concentrating Plasma Stream, in terms of an analogy with Road Traffic. In his case, he was explaining the sudden appearance of heat, by comparing a prior self-organised, one-way traffic flow, within a multi-lane road, to an unorganised mix of traffic going in all different directions, on a single-lane road, causing multiple collisions, and hence changing KE into an increase in heat! And, of course, both modes were natural, but caused by changing concentrating circumstances.

So, I am inclined to believe, that the processes I am considering could be analogous, and could in a similar way self-organise into optimum flows dynamically, for most of the time, only to be transformed then, by a rare change in the prevalent conditions.

Special Issue 73: The Holistic Engines

Read Special Issue 73

This is the third edition in a new series on Holist Science, and how it must differ from Pluralist methodologies, if it is to truly revolutionise the discipline, and move it past its many current impasses. 

The Holistic Engines examines how change happens in natural situations - how Science fails to grasp dynamic causalities at multiple levels of Reality, and how it must now embrace a new augmented Dialectical Materialism, if it is going to begin to deal with Reality outside of its complete formalisation in Mathematics and Technology.

Art Director's note:

The importance of Abstraction to Holism and Dialectics, has been reflected visually, in the series thus far, through the use of Russian Constructivism as illustration, and the development of those ideas in proto graphic design and art from the Bauhaus.

However, what is missing from this influential Abstract art, is similar to what is missing from the Pluralist Abstraction that Schofield criticises in his Philosophy of Science. Both of these forms of Abstraction lack any real dynamic content, or the ability to represent change and evolution as we see it occuring in the Natural World. For this reason these Abstractions, while sometimes revealing, and formally very satifying, can sometimes seem lifeless and cold, or overly simplifying.

For this issue, which looks specifically at how Holistic Dialectics could address the real engines of change, we have looked to another, more dynamic form of Abstraction, and a key precursor to Constructivism, for many of the illustrations: Russian Futurism. Unlike Italian Futurism, which was closely related to Fascism at the time, the Russian version was primarily influeced by Cubism, and many of these Futurists went on to become part of the Bolshevik Revolutionary movement.