Of Cycles and Dialectics

 

Dialectical Dynamics

In Part 17 of David Harvey’s series of Lectures upon Marx’s Grundrisse, he reveals some crucial features of Marx’s version of Dialectics, based upon the repeated Cycles developed in the very intrinsic dynamics of both establishing the wholly New, within processes that then become parts of repeated Cycles, and which in their subsequent development, also elicit other consequent related Cycles, all of which, thereafter, mutually-determine each other’s qualities!

But they never settle into finally Fixed Forms. This can be confusing for readers of Marx, who expect definitions of things to stay the same - as they do in all Pluralist forms of study.

Indeed, they are always undergoing constant changes, and suffering consequent Crises, for Dialectics indeed emphasizes the Holist nature of Reality!

Now, this makes it very different for Classical Formal Logic (a Pluralist view), which has dominated all Reasoning since the Ancient Greek Intellectual Revolution. This Logic must consider things Qualitatively Fixed, though they can vary Quantitatively, and so-called Understanding becomes a kind of Logical Game - with fixed rules! The most fundamental rule of all forbids contradiction.

And, this meant that, for well over two millennia, that there was NO way of explaining Qualitative Development - which was reduced to Quantitative changes of fixed entities. So though the wholly New was often recognised, it could never be explained: a crude “Quantity into Quality” was merely assumed, and its circumstances noted, and used to predict when & How such things may change, but never Why!

But, certainly, how Marx understood such things, in his Grundrisse, was revealing its intricaces to Harvey!

And, some of the most revolutionary processes are revealed there as to how-and-why the wholly New could first emerge, give birth to other consequent processes and cycles, and were then, unavoidably, transformed, recursively by their own creations!

Indeed, though neither Marx nor Harvey were aware of it, recent research into both long-lasting Natural Stabilities within Reality, and their roles both within and outside of Emergent Interludes have been recognised and both described and explained via the concept of “Balanced Stabilities” - Stability itself is not only dynamic, but contradictorily accomplished via change.

For, these are combined phenomena, due to many simultaeous processes acting together, in balancing pairs, which fairly quickly, when subjected to cycles of variability, gradually filter out lesser contributions, yet establish relatively stable pairs of opposing processes, which effectively deliver an overall, co-ordinating bunch of these, which together provide a self-maintaining Stability overall, and, which is usually self-maintaining, for extended periods of time, but which can in extreme circumstances, precipitate an overall dissociation of all the individual component “balances” and finally cause the overall collapse of the complete “Balanced Stability” - a Revolution, in fact!

In consequence usually immediately forming new opposing Balanced Pairs, and ultimately composite Bundles in wholly New “Balanced Stabilities” in so- called “Emergent Interludes”

And elsewhere, and over time, these features, and others like them, are THE ONLY explanations for real, entirely- innovative creation of the totally NEW! Evolution is impossible with a strictly pluralist view of Reality.

And, the holistic mutal affecting of multiple simulateous processes, and cycles, makes the incredibly long odds of changes by mere Random Chance, in an entirely Pluralist World, a total non-starter!

Also, and perhaps even more important, the Pluralist set up is exactly what leads to the Second Law of Thermodynamics, permanently immobile Stability as the end point of varying factors, and the whole concept of Entropy as nonsense.

And, perhaps, even more importantly, the many wrong turnings due to Plurality, have been the myriads of contradictions that it has caused, initially in the division of studies of Reality into separate “Subjects” and “Specialisms” as a workaround, but most profoundly of all in dispensing with very effective Logical Models like The Aether, as an undetectable Universal Substrate filling all of Space, and the dispensing of Physical Explanations, replacing them with INADMISSIBLE, entirely pluralist mathematical Equations, which contain none of this crucial dynamic quality, whatsoever.

Reality may not have any pre-ordained directions of Progress, but it certainly behaves very differently when everything can potentially affect and transform everything else.

Exploring this brave new world is where Science must go next.

This post was taken from Issue 70 of SHAPE Journal entitled Cycles. 

Penrose and Ideality

Why Cosmology is Irretrievably Broken

As a serious and active theoretical physicist and mathematician, I have been inevitably driven to Philosophy, in order to try to explain the many apparently unavoidable contradictions encountered literally everywhere in both of these disciplines. And, it was there, within Philosophy, that I had been irrefutably presented with a damning indictment of both the bases, and of the assumptions, underlying these disciplines, which are also present, in the usual Basic Formal Logic type of reasoning used there too.

Such an extreme realisation was, itself, of course, a very long way from being an immediately-arrived-at conclusion. For, on the contrary, those very same now-rejected beliefs had been, without any doubt, a tremendously empowering past achievement by Mankind, and had led to significant progress in their attempts to make sense of their finally coming-to-be-thought-about World.

Indeed, to this day, most people, even including most professionals, and in these very same fields, do not, as yet, even doubt their crucial underlying premises, and have stuck, consistently, to them, ever since their major revelation by the ancient Greeks. For, they were, and still are, neessary-simplifications of Reality, and still retaining a true-if-limited measure of Objective Content within them.

They are often true-for-now, and hence wholly dependable in the short term. Indeed, in some cases they even appeared to be true-for-ever, such as in Number, for example! But in reality it depends on what you are counting - for, if your 1 + 1 is a Man and a Woman, it could, in time, equal 3, or 4 or even more. Then, as the parents die, it can decline, maybe even to 0! Yet, who would give up Number as a truly valuable concept, because of this clear time-dependence: it still has true value in many relatively unchanging scenarios.

Indeed, the key-misleading-assumption involved, when applied generally, has a name: it is termed Plurality. Put simply, Plurality asserts the permanence of certain things, ideas or beliefs, and their independence of other simultaneously-present entities or happenings. It was intuitively arrived at by the Greeks, in their first major revelation - that of Mathematics, originally concerned with perfect shapes in Euclidian Geometry, but soon extended to the whole discipline involving all Pure Forms.

And, let us be crystal clear, with Mathematics, within its well-defined bases, Plurality is, indeed, always valid! Its very power depends upon its definition of perfect shapes, or more generally, Perfect Forms, for this enabled the whole discipline to be built into a relatively consistent and developable system.

But, this was only at all possible by limiting study to Pure Forms alone, which, as a consequence, also made it necessarily conform to Plurality too. But, consequently, Mathematics does NOT apply to Reality, as such, but only to this reflection of its Pure Forms and nothing else - basically, it is true only of a parallel and restricted World, which we term Ideality.

Roger Penrose and some Ideality

Now, the problems with my chosen disciplines arose, when situations unavoidably involved Qualitative Changes. For, Mathematics, as originally defined, excluded this possibility entirely, but also for the very same reason could still be developed into a remarkably informing descriptive discipline, when restricted to things conforming to Plurality - that is to only quantitative changes, usually only within what are termed Stabilities.

But, my consequent turn to Physics (from my first love, Mathematics) didn't help, for the benefits of Mathematics in staying with Plurality, had also been exported illegitimately, first, to Formal Logic, and thereafter to the Sciences too.

Though Physics, for example, was temporarily rescued by a form of Positivism which allowed the co-existence of various contradictory stances which could be switched-between with the long-standing pragmatic excuse of, "If it works, it is right!" So, an amalgam of stances were simultaneously-allowed, including Materialism (from Reality), Idealism (from Mathematics), Pragmatism (from his Hunter/Gatherer past), Plurality (from Formal Reasoning), and even Holism (from attempts, in spite of all the above, to physically-explain real phenomena).

The major crisis, was finally unavoidably precipitated, in the 20th century, by the increasingly-emerging failure of the above amalgam, which led to the dropping of Physical Explanation totally, and the whole-hearted embracing of Mathematics as the "sole-saviour", particularly in Sub-Atomic Physics, but also with a devastating carry-over into Cosmology too.

Now, this particular essay was precipitated by a video on the internet by Professor Roger Penrose upon the assumed-cause - the Big Bang, and inevitable final-demise, of our Universe! Penrose started by mentioning his resolute faith in Mathematics, and, in particular, of Einstein's Relativity Equation, and though he didn't question the Equation, he felt that certain prior assumptions, upon which it was erected, might well be erroneous.

Interestingly, he located the difficulties within the Singularities seemingly occurring at either end of that existence - the Big Bang beginning, and the Zero ending, indicated within the equation by its effective blowing-up at those singularities.

His problems were with the (indisputable-for-him) Second Law of Thermodynamics, which indicated that the trajectory of that whole History was -

from a High-Energy, Random-movement, Minimum Entropy Start

onto a Low-Energy, Random-movement, Maximum Entropy End

It didn't make sense in Penrose's conception for it seemingly went from Chaos to Chaos via Structured Foms and even Life? But, his doubts weren't because of Penrose's "rich and wide" experience of Reality: for he, on the contrary, only "dwells" exclusively in a pluralist world determined-and-describable only by Mathematics!

Indeed, if you expected any Explanatory Physics, from his then-emerging Conformal Cyclic Cosmology, you will be sadly disappointed.

Both in the Universe's Origin (as in a Big Bang)

and in the Universe's Demise (as in a Terminal End)

they are described as being in an identical Conformal featureless "Flatness".

You have to remember his total dedication to pluralist Mathematics: in "explaining" anything, he actually says, "The equations deliver all these outcomes"! No references are made to any actual Substances and their properties. Absolutely everything comes from the Abstract Equations alone, and, ultimately, all his descriptions will be shown as the consequences of Formal Equations - they, we are told, determine-everything!

Yet, such means not only do not, but also cannot, deliver Qualitative Change, so all adherents to the Copenhagen Interpretation of Quantum Theory, with their Maths-only stance, can never ever explain such changes: they can only, in the old pragmatic way, switch between equations because - "If it works, it is right!" That is NOT Science. It is Idealism as embodied in purely Formal Equations. It can only ever be descriptive, but never explanatory, so it actually terminates Science to be replaced by a dry and dead formalism.

Now, with justice, the response to all of this might well be to demand that this critic must deliver the alternative to this Dead End, and that is certainly a legitimate position to take. Yet, the routes taken in the whole of Mankind's various intellectual disciplines, over millennia, have unavoidably brought us to this significant current Impasse. The contradictions have been built into the Amalgam of such Premises, which were all retained, in order, pragmatically, to be able to achieve the many required particular outcomes, in a variety of areas.

And, that Amalgam must now be dismantled, via a route admitting of, and dealing comprehensively with, Qualitative Change.

But, in spite of several heroic attempts to do this, particularly since the Dialectics of Friedrich Hegel, some 200 years ago, this has not been achieved, primarily, because such an undertaking has never been systematically-and-comprehensively applied to Science, and, crucially, to Physics.

And, the usual restriction is, invariably, to only ever do Studies of Stability, either natural or arranged-for, which is now required to be extended beyond the point where formalist equations FAIL - where each-and-every essential Stability dissociates, and where the Real World processes, which alonedeliver the Qualitative Changes, termed Emergences,or even Revolutions,must now be the New Focus.

This is not new, descriptively, of course - for in Biology, Evolution is both totally accepted and well described. And, Geology has revealed the 4 billion-year-long History of the Earth, and even the time of the Origin of Life, and the Tempo of its consequent stages of subsequent development - its Evolution!

But, what are rarely, if ever, investigated, are the relatively short Interludes of Emergent Change, which are totally unavailable by current scientific methods, which ONLY EVER investigate Stability! It has been shown that an interlude of Qualitative Change is a cataclysmic transformation, requiring, initially, repeated Crises within the current Stability, which turns out to be a self-maintaining balance of multiple-opposing-factors, and which finally totally collapses - seemingly heading for a Nadir of Dissociation - that is, in fact, a complete dissolution of the prior System-Stability involved.

Yet, consequently, this then allows the still-existing individual processes, from the prior Stability, along with co-existing others, to find new "partners", in both conducive-cooperating and opposing relationships, which ultimately achieve a wholly new self-maintaining balance, in a new Stability, at a new and different level!

We currently recognise the Stabilities, upon either side of such a Transforming Interlude, but know nothing of the process which brought-about The Change. We use the passing of Threshold values, in certain Key Parameters, to signal when to switch getween the alternatives, but we can never explainthe conyent of that transition!

Now, such an absolutely necessary inclusion of these changes into Science is not just a dream! It is already underway, with a major Holistic attack upon the Copenhagen Interpretation of Quantum Theory, and its many consequences. The ill-famed Double Slit Experiments have been fully explained, purely physically. And the quantization of Electron orbits in Atoms has also succumbed to the new approach. Of course, the very heart of this endeavour has been to produce a coherent, consistent and comprehensive Holist, Materialist Philosophic Stance. And, the demotion of Mathematics from its current primary position to that of a flawed but useful Handmaiden in both Science and Technology has been necessary.

How can Science become Holist rather than Pluralist?

This undertaking, almost exclusively by a single individual (the writer of this paper), has amounted to over 1,000 papers, published at a rate of approximately 9 per month over the last 9 years, but based upon a lifetime's involvement, at a professional level, in all the disciplines addressed.

Postscript: The obvious question that may be considered important, about this philosopher/scientist, must be, "to what tradition or milieu does this researcher belong?" He has been a aspiring Dialectical Materialist since early adulthood, but only began to make significant philosophical contributions in the last 20 years.

Qualitative Abstractions and Emergences

The latest issue of the SHAPE Journal is on Abstraction. From a beginning some years ago, with The Processes and Productions of Abstraction, this theorist has now made another foray into this subject, this time going well beyond that initial diagram, and has begun to address Abstraction applied to Dynamic Change too. This following paper shows just where this new turn is beginning to lead.

Qualitative Abstractions and Emergences:

Having more generally addressed Abstraction, though mostly at a single Level, and entirely within a local Stability, we now have to leave the confines of such a pluralist standpoint, and instead, reach further into both Qualitative Changes, and, indeed, what we term as revolutionary transformations that create wholly New Levels – termed Emergences.

The whole methodology of abstractions in Science is locked into a strictly pluralist perspective, which sees all acting relations as entirely separable, and this assumption makes any found relations into fixed Natural Laws. But, actually, such can only approximate to Reality, and limit the applicability to within either natural or man-made stabilities only, and, indeed, can never transcend a Level boundary.

And, Laws at a higher Level can never be explained in terms of the prior “producing”, lower Level.

Indeed, it would be entirely incorrect to see the new Level as a natural causal consequence of the Level that preceded it! This might be surprising, but, in doing so, we are applying what is usually acceptable for within Level relations, to still be legitimate across Level Boundaries, and that is not the case.

Why?

It is because such a revolutionary transformation is never a continuous, incremental process, but always involves a truly major crisis and collapse, followed by a fundamental re-building along totally original lines. In other words, none of the factors involved in the re-building would have even been present, as such, in the erroneously-called “producing” Level!

So, we have a major problem!

We have learned how to use the very same methods within each New Level, as were successful within prior Levels. And, though we can get away with this, it will only work for processes entirely within the new Stability. And, we can certainly never fully explain the features of that higher from the lower! Indeed, the source of the newly-created Level is only possible via a situation that the prior Level would never allow – indeed, a general chaotic tumult, in which literally all the characteristic stabilising relations of the prior Level have been totally dismantled! What then occurs is like a rebuilding, not just out of old “bricks”, but also, and primarily, involving entirely new ”bricks” of a new construction.

And, this is why the explanation of events like The Origin of Life, in terms of prior, non-living processes is impossible! The actual basic context has been radically altered and relatively few factors remain unchanged, and even those that do survive intact, and play no part in the features of the new system.

So, what happens in the New Levels of Reality?

They beget their own relations and abstractions, though, once more, we always predicate them upon a totally pluralist perspective. Yet, what can these new ideas mean for the universally accepted Principle of Reductionism – which states that all causal sequences are traceable, all the way down to fundamental particles, and their basic Laws? Obviously, it makes such an assumption totally unfounded and unavoidably misleading!

Now, the real, overall trajectory of Development of concrete Reality is certainly NOT pluralist! It may well involve long periods of Stability, in which Plurality is a fair approximation in local, stable contexts, but each and every epoch will always terminate by being continually undermined, by its own internal contradictions, leading to, first, a major crisis, and then, a total collapse of the stability, into what appears to be complete Chaos! But, such is not our usual conception of “chaos”, in which totally random, undirected processes get absolutely nowhere (for that is yet another kind of Stability, is it not? On the contrary, this real kind of “Chaos” is both the most productive and creative interlude that is possible to exist!

We call such an event an Emergent Interlude!

Yet, thus far, in this account, we have only described its initial catastrophic phase. From the results of that dissociation into a seeming Nadir of Chaos, multiple productive processes accelerate, and begin to associate into conducive, ever-more-complex systems.

Why they happen now, is that all such constructions had previously been prohibited, or even destroyed, in the prior Level Stability, but all of its many restraints have since perished along with the Level itself, and so free-forming sub-systems appear everywhere, usually competing, but occasionally forming ever bigger, conducive super-systems, and ultimately one such system not only grows largest and dominates, but also includes sufficient, destructive sub processes within it, directed at all other non-own-system processes and even systems. So finally, a new overall Stability is achieved on a new basis, with its own Laws!

And, perhaps surprisingly, the assumption of Plurality gets more acceptable again, and the old methodology can be used once more, though, of course, with new components.

Clearly, if anyone wants to plumb the causality of Reality from top to bottom, they will never be able to achieve it, using only a pluralist perspective and methods. The crucial links in the causal changes will occur ONLY in the Emergent Interludes, and it is there that a wholly new Holistic Science must be built – literally from scratch!

Issue 35 of Shape: The Fourth Law

 

I am reluctant to label my latest contribution “The Fourth Law of Thermodynamics”, because of the absolutely necessary context, into which such a title positions it.

The three original so-called Meta laws of Science, arose within the context of a wholly and exclusively pluralist and technological approach to Science. It could not be other, as that approach was the ONLY one that Mankind could use to attempt to both reveal and use the relations acting within Reality.

Indeed, outside of the found-to-be-essential constraints imposed upon all activities in that investigative AND producing sphere, a law such as the Second Law makes no sense at all!

It is a correct law as an indispensable rider to a pluralist approach, which never investigates entirely unfettered Reality-as-is, but, on the contrary, limits all investigations to within carefully designed, constructed and maintained Domains, without which the sought-for relations could neither be revealed nor extracted.

The Second Law is thus a permanent, accompanying foil to all such pluralistically derived laws. It actually makes totally unfettered Reality into a completely dissociating sump, surrounding the ideal Domains of all investigations and uses.

And, the merest crack in such a fortress, will therefore immediately begin to destroy was so painstakingly achieved in the purposely isolated island of interpretable Form.

Thus the Second Law is not what it is claimed to be! It is actually the World seen reflected in a wholly pluralist, technological mirror.

The incongruity of a Law of Total Dissociation, without an essential countering Law of Construction makes absolutely NO philosophical sense at all!

How can the only way be down?

This issue counters the Second Law with a proved Law of Creation and Construction.

Read Issue 35

New Special Issue: The Phoenix

 

The poets knew it long ago, but could only describe it. Yet, profound though their accounts were, their tale certainly needed a more comprehensive explanation to take their wise observations further. Clearly, the lack of such an answer as to why it was so, shows that the role of the poet is to make profound observations, which others too often, if not invariably, miss!

I am, of course, referring to the description of “The Phoenix arising from the flames of destruction!” Though it is indeed a special and important revelation of seemingly contradictory processes, it does also require not many only good, concrete examples to be described in detail, but also for them to be thoroughly and more generally explained. How and why does such a seemingly inexplicable process actually occur?

To make any progress beyond the cryptic revelation, we also need to know what exactly is being described by such a process. The event is clearly the outcome of a totally dissociative or destructive initial phase, having as its surprising and following outcome, a real, constructive and creative step forward. And, in so doing it certainly completely contradicts common sense in the normal way of predicting future outcomes from current processes.

Read Issue

The Parable of the Flood

Addendum to Explanation via Chaos (see below or click here to read it)

This paper on High Anxieties: The Mathematics of Chaos, most certainly took the reactionary position of the programme makers on the current crisis, and indeed crises in general, and revealed it as a one sided view on such major systemic overturns which are generally termed Emergences.

There is no doubt that all the revelations were of this one-way nature, and hung everything on the “unavoidable tendency of complex systems to descend into Chaos” in these sorts of circumstances. What was concentrated on as a basis was, as you might expect, the seemingly stable and predictable situations, which suddenly and inexplicably dissolved into totally inexplicable Chaos.

Surprisingly, it seems, the culprit was nature itself, which was insisted on as being subject to such calamities whatever anyone did to avoid them.

Now, the theme of my criticism was to contrast this lop-sided analysis with the correct explanation of such cataclysms in general. Such “Emergences” are never wholly negative, and indeed display a revolutionary and progressive side when the destruction and replacement of the Old Level has been completed.

You would never guess that our commentators were talking about the same sort of Event, so I countered this miserable and pessimistic journey into the inexplicable, by briefly mentioning real Emergences, but it has become clear that most people, and our mathematicians in particular, do not even know what they are. For, I suppose, you cannot expect those who think the World is driven by mathematics to consider anything so intrinsically contradictory.

My previous paper was perhaps too determined by the actual narrative and intentions of David Malone – the main designer, director and presenter of the programme. Because of this, my counter arguments did not do justice to the real story that was so evidently mis-told by this group of mathematicians and their associates.

This addendum should perhaps redress the balance, and at some stage be woven into the main paper, with a more co-ordinated attempt to deflect it from Malone’s whirlpool agenda, and instead redirect it in a much more positive direction, by revealing the general nature of real development, and its more revolutionary interludes which we call Emergences.

The basis of all the turning point Events in development has to be the maturing of an included, if hidden, instability in any evolving holistic system. In such processes many contending things are changing and growing or declining, but, in the main, the system tends to be self-correcting or self-maintaining, and stays within what we might call a Stable Interlude. Because of this various regularities are maintained and are even termed Laws because of their persistence.

BUT, these interludes do NOT last forever, and such systems, due entirely to their own inner processes can, and do, approach “turning points” in which the seemingly permanent dominances are successively undermined by fast-growing forces, until the complete breakdown occurs. Yet, such are NOT the end of the World, but are certainly the end of the Old Regime. The turnover is because what were normally suppressed forces of dissolution (The Second Law of Thermodynamics) begin to grow at an increasing rate, the old stabilities haltingly, and then more swiftly, dissolve, and via a very turbulent and creative following period, a new Higher Level finally emerges.

A new stability is established, with much greater potential than the Old Level, and things become stable once more at a much higher Level.

There are myriads of these Emergences, but almost everyone is unaware of them. The understandability of the World is always seen as residing in the currently Stable Level, and its relations and Laws are assumed to be eternal. With this view the peculiar characteristic of Malone and company is basically in opposition to the maturing Event. To them it is solely a great calamity, with NO way out, and he and his co-thinkers can only see it from their standpoint of the “working and dependable past”.

Ideally then, they judge the impending chaos as a wholly bad thing, which should not be allowed to succeed. The Stable Past should be strengthened and maintained at all costs, because the alternative cannot be predicted and seems worryingly like the End of Everything. They would want a continuation of the prior stable circumstances, and its predictable outcomes. When what replaces this is the inexplicable and destructive it must be opposed! They are hence a mixture of despairing doom mongers and reactionary defenders of the past “Golden Age”. They must be compared to the political reactionaries in a Social Revolution, who will do anything to save the economy, the Czar or even the country, by any means possible. They see nothing but bad in the completion of the Emergent Event, and ONLY think in terms of, if possible, restoring the old regime, by all measures aimed at countering the headlong rush to what they see as complete dissolution.

I hope that, in the above, I did bring up the correct arguments at all the appropriate places in the positions of our Defenders of the Faith, but what is really needed is one (or more) sound analogues of a real Emergence, in contrast to such a one-sided description of a catastrophe. And, it is important, because the forces attempting to retain the increasingly bankrupt past may indeed win. They have done so many times before, with disastrous consequences. The aftermath of the 1929 crash not only lasted for many years but also produced aberrant growths to maintain the status quo such as Fascism and World War. A failed Emergence always produces a major breakdown – a “Dark Age”. History is packed with examples of this.

Now, if I were to use a Social Revolution or the Origin of Life on Earth as my defining example, it would not be accepted by the general mass of the population. They cannot be explained by any other means, but they would rather be considered by most as Catastrophes or Miracles rather than the usual “transition mode” for turn-around development. So, though I am tempted, and these would definitely suffice technically, I am sure that they would not be the best vehicles for “selling” Emergences for what they really are.

I therefore looked around for a parable of an Emergence: a story of development and change, which made abundantly clear sense and could be easily taken on. This meant that I could not position the story in the present, with all its political overtones and allegiances.

I decided to position my tale in Ancient Egypt.

The Flood

Towards the end of the Stone Age the once lush plains of North Africa were being consumed by the ever-encroaching sand of the hostile desert. The thinly-spread, hunter-gatherer family groups had to find a better place in which to survive, and throughout the whole once-fertile area the hopeful treks began. They had to find sufficient game and edible wild plants to feed their small family groups, so they travelled ever eastwards, towards the rising of the sun.

Yet everything continued to remain the same, or got even worse.

There seemed not a hint of improvement, so they had no choice but to carry on. Every day they moved on and east, surely the desert could not continue forever.

Then, one morning through a surprising and obscuring mist, they saw a distant line of green tall shapes.

They looked like trees, but how could that be, they were still in the midst of the unremitting desert. They hurried forwards with gathering speed. They really were trees – big, green healthy trees, packed with many fruit.

But there were thousands of them, as far as the eyes could see, in both directions. Then beyond the trees was another miracle. An enormous slow-flowing river lay across their path, welcoming them in.

As they got closer the desert beneath their dry and cracked feet began to vanish. The ground became covered in soft, green plants of all kinds, and at the river’s edge were tall swaying reeds, and hundreds of wild-fowl swam about, or fluttered into the trees. This indeed was a land of milk and honey. They were saved!

As the months passed, more and more small groups arrived at the river. They spread out along its banks. Built their homes from the trees and reeds, gathered the fruit, hunted the abundant game and wildfowl, made boats out of the reeds, caught fish and as much as hunter-gatherers could, they prospered!

But, the same climatic changes that were still continuing to enlarge the pitiless desert were also changing things on a global scale. The rains, that thousands of kilometres to the south produced this magnificent river, were changing their patterns too. The massive continents were heating-up and were causing the rains to be concentrated into a much shorter period, which came to be called the monsoon. Vast amounts of rain fell in a short period in the mountains of Ethiopia, and poured down every slope in myriads of growing streams. These quickly merged into raging torrents, carving their way through the soft earth, until they finally came together into a single flow, expanding the now mighty river to a prodigious size.

In the lush and peaceful valley of the Nile the new inhabitants of the land went about their daily tasks.

They were used to the river changing as the seasons passed, but whatever the time of year the generous river always remained.

But things had now changed dramatically, the seasonal rise in level was markedly different. The flow continued to increase beyond its usual limits, and the water began to spread outwards, threatening the new communities. The people sensed that their River might become dangerous. They gathered what they could and moved towards the nearby hills.

The river not only continued to increase in rate of flow, but also everywhere began to overflow its banks and consumed the each and every small settlement. The land of milk and honey had been drowned. 

It vanished beneath the waters.

The people watched from the high ground, and prayed that the waters would subside and return their paradise to them once again.

And then, it began to happen. The levels began to subside. The waters receded and a whole new land was revealed. For some distance on either side of the now quietening river, the flooding had severely soaked the land, AND covered it with a fine, rich mud – a mud that had been carried all the way from the mountains of Ethiopia.

As the people picked their way back towards their River, they noticed that already thousands of new plants were peaking through the mud. The returning people had not lost their paradise, but delivered of yet another miracle. The land was clearly even more fertile than before. The calamitous events, had turned out to be a blessing - a present from the Gods.

It did not take long for the people to intervene by planting their meagre collections of seeds into the ready earth. Instead of hard won handfuls of edible seeds, they could now produce sacks full of such bounty. Their yields were increased twenty-fold. And their lives were changed forever.

On these banks flowered one of the first and best civilisations of Antiquity. The populations soared and the assured plenty gave time for many new activities. Along this blessed River Mankind reached new heights, as had never before existed anywhere on the Earth.

BUT, let us consider a quite different story in exactly the same circumstances.

Let us rewind back to before the flood and consider a different course of events.

After the establishments of the first settlements, groups still coming in from the desert found the narrow fertile strips on either side of the river were already occupied.

There was no room for them. The people already there not only had fertile, well watered land, but had an abundance of fish and waterfowl in the fiver. Such unavailable plenty seemed unfair. Some decided that they had as much right to this wonderful place as anybody else and they would fight for it if necessary.

So that is what began to happen. Now, as new incomers found that they could defeat the incumbents, they also discovered that they couldn’t get as much out of the new opportunities as those they had defeated. It became obvious that a better way would be to reign over the established populations without “dirtying their hands” so to speak. The thing was not to supplant the existing population but to rule them and extract tribute. They could even set up a sort of protection racket, ensuring the “safety” of settlements for a reasonable fee. Of course, such “protection” would involve bodies of armed men, and would very soon become “those in charge”! As things developed these new rulers realised that they could maximise their cut by being masters of the river. So by war and boats they extended their control. Their mobility enabled them to travel up and down the river landing where necessary and quickly establishing their threat/protection relationship.

These masters of the Nile soon “owned” the whole New Land.

Now we must remember that we are still in the early quiescent stage of the settlement of the Nile.

We have to consider what effects the Flood would bring to these arrangements.

As the waters rose, the people would, as they did in our simpler version, move away from the river’s edge to higher ground. They had done this in the past whenever the river rose. But the rulers depended on their mastery of the river to maintain their realm. They did NOT abandon their means. They stayed on the river. The rising waters soon became a swift flowing torrent and the boat masters were swept out to sea and perished. The ordinary people however were unscathed, and in time came back to Their River, now restored to them as before, but greatly enhanced. The flood had not only removed their oppressors, but also delivered to them the miracle of vastly increased fertility and plenty. They now had in their hands a situation, which ensured their growth and progress as a people. In this land civilisation would flourish.

*

Now, how can such a story help us with the calamities of High Anxieties: the Mathematics of Chaos?

It can do it in the following way.

The Flood was an Emergence but was seen very differently by the two groups involved. The boat masters saw it ONLY as a mounting threat to their means of rule and tribute. They knew their power lay in their boats and weapons and stuck to them both like glue. They did not understand the mounting flood, and dearly hoped that they could survive if it subsided soon. But their clinging to such things led to their demise in the sea. Their view would have been throughout that the Event had released Chaos on their well-ordered World. They knew nothing of farming, they were a ruling class. Everything they saw could only be seen from that point of view.

NO positives were in evidence at all to them. If any survived, they would remember how it had destroyed their lives. They would be aware that Reality could inexplicably release uncontrollable Chaos upon them at any time.

But, in contrast, how would the farmers see the Flood?

They would remember it as the beginning of plenty. It was the reward from a generous deity for their hard work and invention. It had delivered the possibility of living much better and even having enough produce to trade with others. A civilisation was brought to them via the fabled Flood of Plenty. And it happened every year without fail.

Yet this was the exact same Flood that had brought Chaos and death.

Yes, it WAS an Emergence, wherein some balance of forces, which had shown itself in a form of stability, grew quickly towards an overturn beyond all its previous states. It had destroyed the Old, and created the New, at a higher, richer and better Level.

Issue 29 of Shape

This small set of papers was a response to a significant change in the position of an establishment group of physicists, as their latest adjustment in coping with the continuing and unresolved Crisis in Physics.

For, though for many years (and even decades) mathematical-physicists have been rummaging through the seemingly endless depths of the World of Pure Form alone (Mathematics) for a solution to their evidently pressing need for a Theory of Everything, their many and varied, speculative journeys have become ever more unbelievable.

Yet, without in any way dramatically changing their avowed stance, these theorists have switched their attention to a very different area in the search for this required “end of the Rainbow”, and it is interesting what their new turn has involved!

For it does seem to acknowledge the real cause of their continuing dilemma – the lack of an appropriate philosophy as a basis for their driving laws!

So, from a purely descriptive/predictive pre-occupation with quantitative Form (equations) they have finally turned to the most “philosophical” of the Laws in their collection, with the purpose of finding there the hoped-for salvation.

They have turned away from trusting only Pure Form to instead address Pure Chaos!

Of course, though Mathematics has been, and still is, used even in this area, it is the Second Law of Thermodynamics that seems to fit their requirements most accurately. For it is not a relational law!

If anything, it is a philosophical Principle: that everything is perpetually running down: all Order is dissociating into all Chaos!

It is certainly appropriate in very many areas (and the engineers, who first thought of it, would insist that it pertains absolutely everywhere).

Two major contributions to this standpoint have recently appeared. One in the pages of New Scientist (2886) by Vlatko Vedral, and the other in a two-part TV series by Jim Al’khalili on BBC entitled Order and Disorder.

Here are my responses to these positions.

Read them here

New Special Issue: Marxism II - Emergence

Once more the total emphasis in this Issue must continue to be upon the philosophical bases of Marxism. And it will not be a mere historical survey of an already complete, established and adequate standpoint, but, as it should always be, a Work in Progress.

Indeed, to even maintain its original power and method, it must be both rediscovered and rejuvenated, if only because no knowledge or understanding can be absolute.

History is real, and Reality will change and regularly deliver the entirely NEW: how can it ever be complete! Indeed, any complete standpoint based solely upon what has occurred previously will find itself unable to cope with entirely new situations, and will inevitably drift towards the consensus delivered by the dominant Class, and away from the Marxism of Revolution.

The most urgent task of revolutionaries is to constantly extend and renew the Philosophy. As soon as that is sidelined and current “Activity” is allowed to dominate, the ever-sharp tool of Marxism is blunted, and the established routines of past phases take over, and will most certainly not equip us for the tasks ahead.

Indeed, in this Issue there is an account of the attempt to discover the inner trajectory of all revolutions – or, more accurately and abstractly, of a general Emergence .

For the contributions of Marx and Engels were significantly added to by the experiences of the Bolsheviks in Russia in two revolutions – an unsuccessful one in 1905 and a successful one in 1917. That revolutionary Party was fused into an effective implement of change in the white heat of revolution, and hence vastly added to what Marx and Engels had delivered in the previous century.

Yet once more there wasn’t time or enough Marxist thinkers to further extend these ideas into an ever wider set of areas, and, most important of all, into Science.

The writer of this Issue is both a Marxist and a Scientist, and has slowly and necessarily had to also become a Philosopher too. The task here is to investigate the inner processes that take place within an Emergence – the revolution that is possible in all developments, and crucially in Science too.

Read the Issue

The Spark of Life

 

 
With what small, flickering sliver did Life begin?

It was certainly not yet a cell, or even something well below that form, but endowed with RNA or even DNA. To place such things as these as the necessary starting point reveals from where we are currently standing, and looking, imbued with that position, to identify the first traces of Life. And from such a standpoint, we will not be addressing the actual Spark of Creation, but really yet another stage in the following Evolution.

We realise what Evolution is, and merely extrapolate backwards until that process “seamlessly transforms” into a very similar process in the preceding non-living substances.

We impose an incrementalist conception upon an Event that could never be such.

The Origin of Life on Earth was the most significant transforming Event in the history of the Universe (as far as we know), and such an approach laced through with the usual banker assumptions of more commonplace changes will never reveal what actually happened.

Not only was that event far earlier than such “life indicators” that we insist must be present, but even the significant steps in the following Evolution were always majorly redirected by very similar Events, which we term Emergences.

So, in concertinaing and truncating the earliest wonderful living miracle, we effectively emasculate the real, creative processes involved, and disable our chances of revealing what would be the most important understanding possible for Mankind.

Why is it that all those involved in the quest to reveal Life’s actual Origin, insist upon their mechanisms and processes, though admittedly writ very long and very large?

It is because that trajectory from non-living chemical processes to the very First Life actually involved the most unpredictable series of 'miracles', which changed the whole game, and the whole context too. For in finding any means of making sense out of Reality in general, we first had to make it intelligible. And to, therefore, start with such miracles was not a good idea at all. No one addressed the miracles! The dominant method, which has been developed to date, is the “pluralist analytic, scientific method", wherein various Wholes are identified, and “held still” in order to discern their hidden components (Parts). And if ever that proved inadequate, a complete locality would be isolated, and nailed down with many less-significant factors totally removed, while others would be increasingly held constant, until our hoped for and maybe only previously glimpsed “key relation” was revealed clearly and continually. Only then could it be measured and the results formulated into some sort of Formal Relation or Equation.

Such a methodology did, and still does, put into our hands the wherewithall to replicate those vital conditions, and USE the relations to some required end. But, it is crucially flawed, because it cannot deal with unfettered Reality, but only with a maximally modified and indeed “farmed” version of it, which we can set up and exploit!

It cannot deal with Life!

And that certainly not only includes its Origin, but in each and every significant, qualitative change in its subsequent development. For that particular standard process of investigation would kill it – stone dead!

Its applicability to the “Forms” evident from Living Things, and the chemistry and the physics occurring within Living Things is indeed possible, but never to Life itself.

For Plurality – the conceptual basis for that method divides things into their contributing Parts, as if they are entirely separable and caused by purely bottom-up factors in a strictly physical or chemical way.

Life was never that, so it became impossible to investigate the Origin of Life by such means.

Instead, we do small within-a-level causal sequences such as Oparin’s studies of Sols and Gels, and hope that sufficient other areas can be cracked to “come together” like a jigsaw puzzle - to reveal Life.

That is a forlorn hope, for Life is not such a collection of investigatable “Parts”: it is an integrated Whole, and the means to deliver the trajectory of its First Appearance is certainly not yet in our scientists’ hands. Nor, will it ever be while they restrict themselves to pluralist means. First Life was not created by cumulative, incremental processes at a pre-Life level, which at some point “passed” a vital threshold and – “Lo, behold Life!”

The transition to Life was a revolutionary trajectory, with diverse and contrasting Phases, which we term an Emergence. Those who, like Oparin, deliver necessary precursors such as appropriate chemical forms, or organic syntheses, say absolutely nothing about the transforming Event itself. The truth is the very opposite of their assumed cumulative aggregations, for the evidence is that such Emergences are always triggered off by a cataclysmic dismantling of the preceding stability, as the ONLY way that the totally new could possibly emerge, and thereafter an unavoidable battle between alternatives, and a integrating of defensive and constraining sub processes, which would finally establish a wholly new Level of Stability could be achieved, which we term Life!

Indeed, a crucially universal law is negated within such an Event.

It is the Second Law of Thermodynamics, which perpetually pertains within Stability, but is replaced by its opposite during the creative heart of these transforming Events. And this can only be achieved when in the dismantling of a current stability, all its “policemen processes” are dissociated, so that a uniquely totally unfettered situation allows previously prohibited constructional processes to proceed and grow.

Notice also, that these Events do not all succeed. There is no inevitability about them. Many will not make it to a new Level of Stability and will fall back to something akin to the prior state. But even these failures will contribute to a following ascent. Every failure will leave behind scraps or detritus, which could be participants in the next revolution when it occurs. And, these Emergences have been happening throughout the whole history of the Universe, and every single stable success, has, in the end, come to its demise. No Stability is eternal!

How could our current pluralist, pedestrian and incrementalist conceptions ever crack this unique kind of problem? They have never been able to do it, and their methodology prohibits them ever doing it now or in the future.

Issue 26 of SHAPE

 

Form & Emergence

Once again, this issue is somewhat different to either the usual arbitrary collection of papers in what is best described as a Standard Issue, or the set of closely related contributions that demands their own dedicated Special Issue. There has also a development of our Standard form into what might be called a Magazine Issue, and yet here we are again with yet another different offering. For the papers included here are of a special type: they are corrections or amplifying updates of previously published papers, and rather than just referring to their antecedents , it is clear that such modifications will always be necessary. So the emphasis in this Issue is put upon this absolutely essential aspect of the real development of ideas, and departs from the usual incrementalist way of most such papers in the usual Professional Journals.

You may wonder what the differences involved may be, but it is in the Philosophy of such “improving” contributions, for they are not so much mere corrections as conceptual developments and hence are unified in the clear emergent aspect involved. In a sense we are hoping that the basic standpoint behind all the contributions to SHAPE, and their developments are emphasized as the necessary way forwards in today’s Science. We, as always, focus upon the actual transitional trjectories, which are involved in such developments. We do not believe in the cumulative, incrementalist repository of individual additive contributions, but the ever deeper revelation of the creative processes that are essential in real understanding. In a sense we do not emphasize the delivery of Forms, as do the deliverers of equations, but the study of the Forms of Form and their Emergences. Enjoy!

Read the new issue here

The Life Factory

(Natural Selection before Life?)

Perhaps surprisingly, scientists have finally returned to Miller’s famous experiment concerning the Origin of Life on Earth, but with the purpose of going beyond the limited achievements of that effort so many years ago (1952). In an article in New Scientist (2797) by Katherine Sanderson the ideas of Lee Cronin of the University of Glasgow were presented, which put forward a new slant on that experiment. Along with the rest of the NASA-led sheep, he is persuaded that Life did NOT originate in such circumstances as were the basis for Miller’s Experiment, but in much more surprising places, such as the “black smokers” at the bottom of the oceans, or even at one of the many other unlikely places (that could even be found elsewhere in the Solar System, and even more distantly in the Universe, and hence justify the funding that NASA needs “to investigate”)

Now Cronin’s other new point is that there must have been a whole series of developments in the chemistry involved (in our case organic chemistry, but not necessarily there in other parts of the Universe) prior to Life. And in this he is certainly correct!

Of course, the actual mechanism for selection and development, or even “evolution” in these non-living things could not be Darwin’s Natural Selection, for the processes involved in that are predicated upon Life already being in existence, and upon competition between living organisms.
So some very different form of selection and consequent development must have occurred based upon an entirely different mechanism, to take the “organic broth”, to a position in which all the necessary processes, which would later be included into Life itself were made available.
NOTE: BUT both he, and almost all others investigating this field, assumes that Life was the direct result of the presence of such processes, which almost automatically shifted over into this New Form. But this is NOT the only conception of what actually happened. Indeed the main alternative has Life emerging out of a precipitated catastrophe of dissolution of a prior stability.

So taking his conception of pre-Life selection AND his idea of a direct precipitation of Life, he believes that he has a way of investigating such pre-Life developments. AND, significantly, that they could happen anywhere, and NOT just on Earth. [It begins to sound even more conducive to NASA’s conceptions, does it not?]

Cronin et al do indeed recognise an unavoidable pre-Life development period, in which, long before we could call it Life, there were processes “competing” for the same resources, and thus producing a strong selective effect on a sufficiently initially diverse mix of processes to lead to the dominance of certain sequences of systems of processes. Indeed, though his method is to establish such processes as generally available by experiment with his Polyoxometalates, the idea has already been developed theoretically by this author (J. Schofield) in Organic Chemistry in his paper Truly Natural Selection (2009), and published the following year in SHAPE Journal on the Internet. But Cronin’s experiment expects what he calls autonomous developments to occur right there in his apparatus, and considers that the only extras required to take things to significant levels, will be the external adjustments to various available parameters, and this is, I’m afraid, doomed to failure.

This is because he assumes a continuous, incremental series of steps travelling uninterruptedly through to Life itself, and that is never how such things actually develop. Such revolutionary New Levels never appear surreptitiously and automatically, but ONLY via what are generally termed Revolutions, or more technically as Emergences.

Now such Events do indeed happen throughout the history of Reality, and they always the absolute opposite of continuous and incremental changes into the New. On the contrary, they are invariably initiated by a wholesale collapse of the till-then established Stability, as the Second Law of Thermodynamics types of dissociative processes grow at an increasing rate, until they pass a crucial threshold and precipitate a cataclysmic avalanche of dissociations. This catastrophe seems to be sending things careering back towards an inevitable oblivion.
But it doesn’t do that!

Research into such Events has shown that ONLY via such an almost total dismantling of the prior stability can the available processes begin to rapidly form new systems unhindered by the strong forces of stability, which actually allowed the prior Level’s continuing stability. Only when those conservative processes are finally gone, could the actual possibilities of unhindered competition begin to form systems, which could ultimately be resolved into a single dominant system being finally established as the new Level. Life was no automatic transformation, but a successful Revolution, made possible by a prior, and almost total, collapse, of the preceding stability. Only when the old Level is dead could constructive (opposite to the Second Law) developments actually succeed.

Without any idea of the trajectories within an Emergence, NO experiment could ever be conceived of (never mind constructed) to facilitate these necessary Events. Cronin will produce only a confirmation that selection is possible, but the whole dynamic essential for a revolutionary overturn will NOT be present, and as with Miller’s magnificent attempt, it will not lead to real gains on the Origin of Life ON EARTH!

NOTE: This author’s (J. Schofield) design for a new Miller’s Experiment is already available via the SHAPE Journal’s Blog on the Internet.

Issue 13 of Shape

Read it here

First Special Issue of the Shape Journal

The Theory of Emergence by Jim Schofield

Read it here

Issue 11 of Shape

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Issue 9 of Shape

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(Belated) Issue 7 of Shape

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Issue 5 of Shape

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