Issue 77: The Systems Theory of Everything Part II

 

Issue 77 of SHAPE Journal

Issue 77 contains the second instalment of The Systems Theory of Everything.

This series of issues attempts to set out the first definitive account of Jim Schofield’s new Systems Approach to Science. The various papers collected here, and over the next few editions of this journal, explore the proposed theory and explain why it is such a radical departure from the current universally applied scientific method.

The series continues with a closer look at Buddha, Marx, Hegel and Zeno for clues on how to develop Systems Theory.

Contents:

Introducing Schofield’s Systems Theory

Real Messy Development
Top-Down or Bottom-Up?

Reality-as-becoming:
The Two-Way Street of Real Full Causality

Beyond Zeno and Hegel:
The Profound Significance of Contention

The Buddha and Quantum Theory

A Comprehensive Holist Approach:
How can we effectively deal with Levels?

Systems Contentions

Systems-based Marxism

Equations: Why they lead us to nothing...

Entering the Multi-Level Cosmos

Special Issue 76: The Systems Theory of Everything

 

The Systems Theory of Everything I

This series of issues attempts to set out the first definitive account of Jim Schofield’s new Systems Approach to Science. The various papers collected here, and over the next few editions of this journal, explore the proposed theory and explain why it is such a radical departure from the current universally applied scientific method.

While working on the recent YouTube video “Taking Shape: Denis Noble and the Systems Level Approach” (2022), it arose in discussion between myself and Jim, whether or not “system” was even the right word to use for these ideas. Schofield’s revised view of natural systems is certainly not the usual one. They are not “systematic”, mechanistic or carefully structured in any way. They don’t follow universal laws and rules. They are dynamic, contingent and emergent, containing contention and contradiction. They can be hidden, vastly complex, and sometimes seemingly chaotic from our human vantage point. Many are stable and extremely long-lasting, and are routinely misinterpreted by scientists as eternal and fundamental laws of nature. Schofield’s view of systems is Holist and Materialist, arguing that the holistic understanding of how natural systems evolve and maintain themselves, is vital if we are to really appreciate how things come to be, and why they are the way they are.

Issue 76: Development

Read Issue 76 of SHAPE Journal

...

This edition looks at evolutionary development, but certainly not in the usual and expected ways. Jim Schofield's new Systems Approach to Science reconfigures how we think about how both natural and social systems change over time.

From the revolutionary tool use of Early Man, to the problems of solving Climate Change today, from the mysteries of Sub-atomic Physics to the unknown Origin of Life on Earth, this discursive series of essays plots a path through the many flaws in current Human Understanding, to reveal the vital need to appreciate systems holistically for the first time.

Revolution and Emergence are just as important to understanding Life's development, as genetics and incremental Evolution. How do such vast systems become stable in the first place, what finally makes them collapse, and how does that process lead to the Wholly New?

The initial conceptions by Human Beings, as with all the other simultaneously-existing living-creatures, assumed the Constancy of their Common World - and this intial assumption, in the Sole Case of Mankind alone, was then increasingly challenged, by their own, if initially meagre, sucesses in dealing with that World.

Now, such real developments, that were achieved, did not ever come easily, so there was nothing automatic about our progression. Indeed, it was also clear that they were difficult to “get right”, and Reality-as-is, was also definitely composed of multiple features, some of which seemed Contradictory...

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.

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... 

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!

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.

Holistic Theory and Practice: Cosmology

 

The Real Tester for the Holist Approach in Science is surely Cosmology!

For, such is essentially only an "observation-only" sub-discipline, wholly without the absolutely necessary confirmatory contributions of Experimental Interventions, to verify-or-deny any Purely Speculatively-arrived at Theories, that investigators in the field are surely initially-restricted to. Unless, that is, there are confirmatory experiments, that would be possible in the Laboratory on Earth, and in the always-required controlled conditions, and hence could confirm relations revealed, which would also be applicable within Cosmology too.

Now, so-called Empty Space and Laboratory situations delivered, of course, the major differences in Ground, between those two very diverse environments involved. For, if Space really were totally empty, normal situations upon Earth, most certainly, were NOT! So, experimenters often established their experiments within totally evacuated environments, by both establishing and maintaining a vacuum, in which to carry out their experiments. And, for a while, that seemed to suffice.

Until, that is, James Clerk Maxwell embarked upon his major study of Electromagnetism, when he needed a defined Spatial Medium to help him adequately address his Subject: for without it he would be unable to complete his decided-upon task: it certainly wasn't a set of Properties of Nothing, and literally all useful prior contributions required such a Medium!

So, Maxwell decided to first model an invisible Substrate, entirely via what effects it definitely had upon all Events occurring within it. And then, he used his new definition of "The Aether" to attempt to solve his outstanding problems in Electromagnetism.

For many decades, this seemed to work, and much sound work was completed in this area. But, then the Michelson-Morely Experiment seemed to prove that no such Universal Substrate existed in Space - yet Maxwell's discoveries, predicated upon such a Medium, nevertheless carried on being used, BUT now in supposedly Totally Empty Space!

Needless-to-say, Physics then began to fall-apart as a solely Causally-Explicable Discipline, and fitted-up more and more Mathematical Formulae, which increasingly replaced Causal Theories as "supposed explanations"! Indeed, Henri Poincaré and Ernst Mach, with their Positivist Approach, which they called Empirio Criticism, then suggested that only an amalgam of Explanations AND Mathematical Formulae could deliver, theoretically, the objective Real Physical World.

And, by the time of Niels Bohr and Werner Heisenberg, the wholly mathematical Copenhagen Interpretation of Quantum Theory replaced all Explanation at the Sub Atomic Level!

But, this Descent had been inevitable: for, ever since the Greek Intellectual Revolution in the 5th century BC, and the establishment of the very first Rationally-Consistent Intellectual Discipline of Mathematics, with such evident theoretical power, within that discipline, it was exactly what could possibly revolutionise both General Reasoning and the Sciences, so it was wholly illegitimately transferred-over to both of these areas too!

Why was it illegitimate?

It was totally Pluralistic: so all its Laws were Eternally FIXED (as they were legitimately in Mathematics)! But, they are NOT so Fixed in either Everyday Logic or in The Sciences, as they are not fixed in nature.

And such was a major restriction on the ability of all these Important Disciplines to cope with Reality and its evidently self-moving Actual Development.

Yet, at almost the same time as the Greek Intellectual Revolution, in India, The Buddha was formulating Mankind's initial effort at describing and using Holism, which also, and crucially, began to address Qualitative Changes, which were wholly inexplicable within the Pluralist Approach.

Indeed, though The Buddha, and his followers could never complete what was necessary to equip Holism to also address all the issues across all Disciplines, it did significantly position Qualitative Change as the engine for all Real Development of the wholly New, and, it is not surprising that the best of his followers were acclaimed for their evident Wisdom: the Loka Sutta is a case in point, of the alternative reasoning of the Buddhists!

NOTE:

Now. it is clear that Mankind did not come Ready-made into existence, but evolved out of its animal prehistory, finally into a Thinking Species: and, as such, we had to Change Qualitatively, but NEVER directly, to ever better conceptions of their World. But, the climb could not be cumulative! Conceptions were never wholly correct, but always a mixture of better-and-useable ideas, along with others that were wholly wrong. And, to make matters worse, the flaws in the mostly correct ideas, contradicted the as yet unrealised features, in the rest, and worked against a speedy extension.

And also, both the prestige and the power resided unavoidably with the Pluralists, because of their extensive successes in mastering the world with Technology, and its valuable products: it predictably, via western Empires eventually ruled the World, until Holism re-established itself in a surprisingly Political garb - initially in the writings and actions of the historian Karl Marx. who began to establish a profound analysis of Economics in his lifes work, Das Kapital!

But while he certainly pointed the way towards a modern and scientific Holism, the absolutely crucial comprehensive application to The Sciences was never undertaken.....

...until NOW!

Elsewhere, this philosopher has completed a major holistic critique of the Copenhagen Interpretation of Quantum Theory, but the time has come to also address the mess that is present day Cosmology.

There is NO available Technology in Cosmology, especially as the whole of recent excursions into Space have been totally dominated by Pluralist "scientists" and technologists: absolutely no departures from the Fixed Laws of the Pluralist Approach have been allowed in their investigations of the cosmos.

So, when added to the above-described inabilities of Cosmology to even establish anything Explicable about our Universe, the clearly evident failures of present day version of it, cannot be hidden behind successful Technology: but they certainly try to do that!

From the Big Bang and constantly the Expanding Universe, to Dark Matter, Dark Energy and Black Holes, it is clear that Pluralist Speculation had nothing-of-value to contribute from that actually-existing Universe, to contradict the Pure Speculations, without any confirming-or-denying evidence from a properly investigated Reality, as they are unavailable to earthbound and pluralist-constrained thinking of the so-called "scientists" involved.

Until Modern Holist Thinking tackles these areas of study, as is becoming increasingly available on SHAPE Journal, Cosmology can never break out of its current manacles. And even Modern Physics as it is developed and taught currently, is incapable of having anything but an increasingly confusing and misleading approach to Reality-as-is!

The contradiction, on Earth, between Pluralist and Holist Approaches to Real Science, will be the initial battleground!

The fight has begun with the latest Special Issue of SHAPE Journal, dedicated (along with many other contributions in previous issues), to explaining the recent 21st century contributions to Modern Holist Science.

And a short introductory pamphlet, covering the same ground, will also be published in print, and available via SHAPE in coming weeks.

The current research is still at an early stage, but will carry on for the foreseeable future, as this undertaking is only one of the many offerings regularly available on SHAPE - with of course, many political contributions, and topics such as the Covid 19 Pandemic, and the now substantial Economic Crisis worldwide too.

Special Issue 72: Holist Science

 

Read Special Issue 72 of SHAPE Journal

The problem we’re faced with in developing a holistic approach to Science involves the unavoidable complexities and interactions of multiple simultaneous aspects of Reality-as-is. Indeed, they initially seemed to be so insurmountable, that Mankind came to believe that underlying all the evident and confusing complexity, there had to be an integrating simplicity at its heart. Otherwise, how could all the clearly evident regularity and even the exquisite beauty of the Natural World have arisen? Our forebears concluded that it might well be revealable, with the appropriate processing. For, if this could be achieved, the revealed Simple Laws of Nature (applied within those same ideal conditions) would allow them to be purposely used to Mankind’s own conceived of benefits.

In fact, a great variety of things coexist within all Natural Environments! For, as we are already beginning to understand today -

First: Single laws do not usually exist as such: they are invariably acting simultaneously. with many
others.

Second: The contributions of given factors, in a natural collection of Laws, will never be fixed, they will
all perhaps vary!

Third: Individual Laws will never stay exactly the same: they will be influenced and changed by other simultaneously-acting Laws.

Fourth: All Laws inevitably Act upon two different Levels of condition:-

a) RANGE LIMIT: Outside of a given range the law vanishes, and other factors can change the Law’s Limits.

Outer LAW Limits pertain

b): RANGE: Inside its Range the Law acts, but is nonetheless affected by others

Inner Law pertains

And Mankind’s simplification of all these (and more) effects was to effectively, as far as is possible, “hold a situation-still”, in order to study it. And, of course, how they did that would depend upon circumstances, and what it was they were attempting to reveal. Indeed, they didn’t mind movement and quantitative changes: they could be achieved sufficiently easily.

BUT genuinely Qualitative Changes - when things became something else - were always prohibited! And, all the Laws that were sought, were assumed to exist as such naturally, independently of all others, when they did appear together, they were assumed to merely SUM.

Such a stance conformed exclusively to what we call the Principle of Plurality - the opposite of the Principle of Holism.

The Problem with Classroom Physics

Semi-Pluralist Science: 

Schoolroom Physics

Having watched a video from the USA supposedly presenting the very best of Schoolroom Demonstration Experiments in Physics, I immediately recognised exactly the kinds of experiment that was done in my own own school as a boy, when I first started studying the subject.

For, I am now able to see why my efforts, and that of my fellow pupils', in those unavoidably delivered circumstances, were, (despite my being proven as excellent at the theory) all so poor when it came to experiments, and also why some of my fellows students did so well in that area.

For, whereas I did exactly as I was told, and consequently got the poor results, in fact, all of these poorly-equipped investigators should have affected everybody, yet at least some of my fellow students "looked up the expected answers", or asked previous year students, to see what they should be getting, and made damn sure they got something like that themselves! But, I was convinced by the Theory, and expected invaluable confirmation in the "proving experiments", so when they didn't, I accepted that I was a lousy experimenter!

And, it didn't get much better, as an undergraduate at University. For, once again, I was a top student at Physics Theory, but "poor" in experimental work! Nevertheless, I still usually ended up top, particularly in Mathematics, which did seem to conform exactly with Real World applications.

And it is only now, a lifetime later, that I can clearly see what was amiss...

Even in Higher Education, most of my peers had quickly learned to cheat, for the Experiments were both too badly conceived-of, and even set-up, to ever give correct answers. So, while I misguidedly struggled to find "The Truth", in what I believed to be the true scientific way, my fellows just wanted the right answers and got them by other means.

Sadly, these experiences put me off Experimental Physics, though I continued to excel at Theory: and I consequently had many rows with the postgraduate "demonstrators" who were supposed to aid undergraduates with their experiments. And, as they were the only real contacts between the Staff and the students, my stock with the powers that be in the department was soon declining rapidly...

And it is only now that I know why!

The reason was that the Pluralistic Mathematics intimately-involved in both in how the experiments were conceived-of and carried out, and even in the so-called Theory that we were taught, were mutually gelled-together, as well as possible, between the two, but only if "correctly" carried out "perfectly" on the experimental side. But, neither side actually delivered Reality-as-is at all!

The crudity of the Experiments meant that the matching with results became increasingly difficult, and even often impossible to obtain, and if and when they did, it was NEVER the sought for Truth, but an approximation based squarely upon an assumption of permanently Fixed Laws.

NOTE:

Indeed, this major error, over many years, had separated those involved, into those delivering Experiments, and the Theorists who interpreted them, into two very uncomfortable groups of bedfellows, who, nevertheless, were indispensable to one another - precisely because of their very different priorities in maintaining a simplifying fiction.

So, by my fellow students cheating, the true inadequacies of the Experiments were masked, and, consequently, literally no-one was comprehensively adequately trained in all aspects of Experimental work. Indeed, if by some prior good teacher of experimental work, a particular student actually got exactly what the experiment could deliver, it would, nevertheless, be marked as wrong, because it would still NOT exactly match with the "Theory"!

Let us see why such a scenario was wholly unavoidable.

Ever since the Greeks, the Results of Experiments were always treated totally pluralistically! All were aimed for particular Laws, that were assumed to be naturally forever FIXED.

Nature was falsely assumed to work only via such eternally Fixed Laws. 

But the real unfettered world is not fixed in such a way, and to get anywhere even reasonably near to that situation, the rigid control-and-maintainance of the constitution of the Experiment would have to be absolutely perfect: and that, of course, was almost impossible to achieve without great expense and sufficient time being allocated to ensuring that supposed "perfection".

And, needless-to-say, that didn't ever happen with entirely student-run lab experiments!

By the way, in Professional Science contexts, the experimenters and practical product deliverers were Technologists rather than Scientists, while the theorist interpreters of the resulting data were the actual Scientists.

Any Fixed Laws, extracted in such experiments, were never generally applicable either: they would only behave as such if the Applying situation was totally identical to the Extracting one - the complete control of these environments is technology!

Modern physics is impossible without advanced technology

So, in other words, the true guardians and implementers of the aimed-for Pluralist Science were ONLY EVER the Technologists.

The scientists, on the other hand, were initially holists, seeking Natural Laws, which in that Real World of multiple simultaneous and mutually-affecting Laws, were impossible to extraxt as such, without a radical pruning and thereafter continued rigid control of the situation: and that could NEVER reveal the same Law, as applied in Reality-as-is.

For the Laws did not just SUM: they changed one another in various different qualitative ways! So the Laws in Experiments were DIFFERENT to those Laws in Reality-as-is!

A FIXED Law as was evident in a perfect Pluralist Experiment, actually never existed as such anywhere in Reality-as-is!

Now, for Science-in-General, and even in the professional World of scientific endeavour, a further totally-mistaken assumption was made. It was assumed that the Fixed Law extracted, by these methods, was the natural, underlying Law present in absolutely ALL relevant situations, usually along with others, all of them being of the very same type. They just combined somehow to deliver Reality-as-is. And, this belief was embodied in the universally-accepted Principle of Plurality.

What that meant, was that absolutely NO Qualitative Changes could ever occur, by the action of Natural Laws: all real Development and even Evolution were put down solely to mere Complication alone.. And this is clearly wrong!

So, why was it adopted so emphatically?

You have to remember exactly-when it was first achieved, and what a remarkable Revolution it precipitated within Mathematics! For, it was first implemented, as such, in Ancient Greece, almost 2,500 years ago, in what later became known as Euclidian Geometry, and thereafter and equally legitmately extended to the whole of Mathematics - as it then was. For, the use of a wholly new kind of Abstraction had been involved that only referred to Relationships, and consequently had, for the first time ever in Human History, enabled the sound construction of a whole new Intellectual Discipline, by using these Revealing Abstract relations, via a totally reliable New Rationality.

Indeed, the Revolution was incorrectly-assumed to encompass Absolutely Everything: and was immediately, and wrongly, applied to both General Reasoning and all the emerging Sciences too.

Now, to further explain that more general use, we have to consider the special situation of Stability: for, in the Rationality of Mathematics, it was also validly applicable in Stable Situations of all kinds, as long as they remained as such! And Mankind had long been "holding-things-still", while they used them, for a very long period prior to the gains in Mathematics! So, the extension was obvious, and, as long as the Stability was maintained, it remained a valid application.

But, an intellectual Rule that only worked in special pragmatic situations was NO GOOD for valid-and-comprehensive explanations, even if it was adequate pragmatically: in other words, it was OK for Technology, NOT for real exploratory Science!

So, these two stances for dealing with the very same things, naturally drifted apart, and pragmatic problems were solved by technicians, while the scientists persevered, under increasing difficulties, with the consequent pluralist Theory!

Now, Experiments increasingly were set up "to work" by necessarily-attendant technicians, while the scientists carried out the Experiments and attempted to fornulate the "Fixed Natural Law" supposedly involved. But they usually got somewhat different results, each and every time they carried out the "supposedly very-same" Experiment. Now, it was always put down to "randomly-varying conditions", so that by taking averages over several runs, the underlying "Fixed" Law might be extracted.

But there isn't such a Fixed Law! The real World is holistic, wherein many simultaneously-acting Laws, both modify each of them AND the overall final effect too! And, that variability in results would be an average of all those, still making some sort of contribution, BUT by randomly varying as would always be cancelled by averaging, but "all-in-its-own-single-way" for each and every as yet still not-completely-removed contributor.

Sum the achieved average would NOT be of a fixed underlying Law, with randomly varying context, but, instead, an average of the involved and still-acting remnants of the supposedly-removed natural and multiple, usually accompanying contributions.

Which is why, in the title of this paper, I termed it "Semi-pluralist"!

And, which, at best, delivers only a poor approximation to an actually non-existant supposedly Fixed Law anyway!

Clearly, to conquer Reality, in all circumstances - absolutely essential if the many anomalies and crises, currently totally inaccessible outside of the artificially-fixed version, are also to be fully dealt with, what they simply must be tackled with a comprehensive knowledge of the Real Holistic possibilities.

A Holistic Version of Science must how be both unearthed and systematically developed!

Maybe one day we'll see holistic experiments in school Science labs...

Random Noise and Holism

...

PREFACE - for Mick

I started this paper before I had sufficiently realised the significance of your excellent essay. So, I am inserting this short explanatory introduction as you and I (as far as I understand it) represent two different and valid approaches to supposed "Random Noise" holistic interpretations. I find your essay to be profound and significant, and describing why Photography has the qualities that it does because its images always endow ambiguity, because they only deliver frozen stills of what is still in the process of change. It explains your necessary preoccupations in both your ideas, and your produced photographs, and is crucially important.

Interestingly, I am NOT a photographer, but nevertheless I too am struggling to extract the invisible components of change in seemingly static, stable situations, BECAUSE at some point, they will reveal themselves in an Emergence - an interlude of relatively sudden Qualitative Changes. I too start with multiple, simultaneous material processes that are very quickly hidden within a "Balanced Stability" of seemingly static Forms or Patterns. But, of course, it is actually a still-active state and certainly not an unchanging one.

So, in BOTH our cases, your condemnation of removing the seemingly Random Noise is absolutely correct (and for the reasons you say), Noise is NOT what it seems, but the only route to revealing what is hidden beneath our extractions and our interpretations. Destroying Noise is typical of all Pluralist study, which only sees essence in the overt relations which can easily be extracted.

Needless to say, I too want to "analyse-the-fog", but I am not dealing with a Static Photograph, but instead, an active "Balanced Stability", where the thing I want to remove is the obvious "pluralist Balanced Stability" relation, hopefully leaving only the previously hidden nut both active and required factors necessary to complete a Dialectical Analysis.

Finally, there is a whole other contribution encouraged by the "Random Noise", which is the constant, and oft-employed ability of the Brain to "fill an ambiguous Gap with "fitting" images from Memory!

 

 

In a paper by Dr. Mick Schofield - who is a Lecturer in Media Studies, specialising in Photography at Leeds University, England, and a long time collaborator with me on the SHAPE Journal - he raises a whole range of important questions concerned with the illusions unavoidably triggered in the perceptions of viewers from within photographs, containing excessive blurring or graining.

Now, as I am an almost-blind philosopher and scientist, myself, I have been plagued also, by something clearly related to these phenomena, but in my case involving Direct Seeing of the World. Considerable losses to the macular regions in both of my eyes have also led to aberrations in viewing that are definitely not there in the Real World being observed!

The main problem in my case was soon diagnosed as the Charles Bonnet Syndrome, which in the more extreme cases of vision loss, led to revealing important brain functions, which were also clearly everyday useful parts of normal Direct Seeing, but, involving not only less precise information from the Non-Macular areas of the retinas, within my eyes, which it appears, from my investigations and considerations as being wholly replaced by "tilings" taken from recent or older limited-and-squared-off remembered samples, or, alternatively, from still currently available images, taken from seen-areas, that "approproiately" exist all-around the missing direct view, with tiled exact copies - "filling-in any blanks", in other words NOT entirely using actual direct images, of what was being looked at then and there.

It is a well-known trick by magicians, to purposely draw your attention away from where they are doing something, that they do not want you to see, to an area of the real scene, that your brain is no longer receiving as a direct view, BUT only via these repeated memory tilings in which you are not really seeing the present moment, but static fragments of the past. So when he brings your gaze back, in that directly viewed place, real current information is again used, so the magician's hidden trick magically appears!

Now Dr. Schofield is concerned primarily with what happens in observing a photograph, and particularly when the captured image contains a great deal of confusing Noise, and apart from his valid and important contribution, it seems highly likely that "insertions" similar to the ones I have described above could also be involved here - for, as the above trick proves, this neurological process appears to be happening extensively all of the time, but mostly away from the primary focus of the observer's eyes.

Now, this area only came to my attention because being a sufferer from the Charles Bonnet Syndrome, I am also daily concerned with attempting a valid Holistic-Stance-Criticism, of the usual descriptions of natural phenonena, that has prevailed ever since the Greek Intellectual Revolution of the 5th century BC. For, thereafter, Mankind, on having discovered Pluralist Rationality within the building of the Discipline of Pure Forms alone (namely that of Mathematics), quite validly, about forever FIXED Relations, and finding that a valid Approach, extremely beneficial in that area, were so enamoured of its power, that they immediately and wrongly applied it, wholesale, to both General Reasoning and All of The Sciences too. Indeed, from that Intellectual Revolution right up to the present day, that gravely mistaken Stance has been largely maintained as such, in both of these important areas of Reasoning. So, crucially it applies in most Cerebral Reasoning, AND, even more importantly, in the description, interpretation and explanation of observed phenomena! We look for single causes, acting alone, as Fixed Natural Laws, and ignore not only the many others acting simultaneously, BUT significantly also their mutual qualitative effects upon one another too.

And such an omission also leaves out all Qualitative Changes, for "Fixed Natural Laws" can only SUM, and therefore only Complicate, rather than Develop! A whole rich and important set of these effects are ignored, and wholly static and unchanging areas such as photographs will NOT benefit by a return to the very same fixed image, whereas repeated returns to what initially seems to be a fixed situation in Reality, can and does deliver the subtle changes that make for alternative interpretations as The Buddha so profoundly observed in his Loka Sutta.

Let us be resolutely holist, and state that Noise is due solely to multiple simultaneous contributory causal factors - of so many different processes and their relative proportions, that the result appears "totally Random", with every direction and speed of the causing processes so reasonably evenly shared as to give a false impression of reflecting none of its many contributions!

But in any direct viewing situation the variety of possible contributuons is never infinite. Indeed the evident natural stabilities (that regularly present themselves and persist for very long periods) seem to infer both an increasing limitation upon the number of such factors, and the tendency to filter out completely the more insignificant ones, along with the preponderance of almost direct opposites to diminish the effect of those opposite processes, while maintaining them as still existing balanced pairs.

Now this alternative conception, would make destroying the confusing background Random Noise, the equivalent of throwing out the baby with the bathwater!

"Why?" 

Because that Random Noise is a still existing collection of simultaneous processes, currently subdued, but nonetheless vital, as balances change within the overall mix.

And what should be removed once it has been established, must be the clearly evident ones, leaving what is left to deliver its effects, and probably showing different effects and extractables, thereafter.

This paper and discussion follows on from the issues raised in the last issue of SHAPE Journal (Truth and Illusion, Special Issue 70). You can read the full edition here

Issue 70 of SHAPE Journal: Cycles

Read the Issue

This edition features a collection of essays by philosopher Jim Schofield on the importance of studying cycles.

It is becoming ever clearer that Repeated Cycles of Processes turn out to be imperative at all levels of Reality. From the enlightening holist philosophy of the Buddha, to weather patterns, metabolic pathways, life cycles and new extensions of Dialectical Logic and Physics Theory, recursive cycles are at the heart of many key attempts to understand the complexities and underlying structures of the natural world.

Key to this new study is unlocking the role cycles play in Qualitative Change, evolution in both Life and the development of matter, the interaction of vast systems and the Emergence of wholly new entities and systems. This research is vital in the development of Dialectical Materialist philosophy and SHAPE journal's attempts to rescue Science from the damaging limitations of Pluralist methodologies.

Issue 69 of SHAPE: Waves and Fields

Waves and Fields

Waves and Fields in Media

This new issue of SHAPE Journal tackles some of the most important problems in Physics from a Marxist perspective - revealing the science’s overlooked assumptions and disingenuous methods in comparison to new materialist Substrate Theory. This new kind of Physics assumes a hidden medium of Lepton particles permeates the known Universe, propogates light and explains some of Physics’ darkest corners - from pair production to quantised orbits to Dark Matter to Heisenberg’s Uncertainty Principle.

As scientists dug ever deeper into Reality, even approaching the mythical “Fundamental Particles” of the Universe, which were supposed to be the original causal sources of absolutely everything, the proliferation of impasses became so abundent that “Explanation” itself was abandoned as a myth, and replaced by Mathematical Forms alone.

Unfortunately Mathematics is a Pluralist Discipline, requiring only fixed determinations of disembodied entities and forms, so it was always congenitally incapable of addressing what was required. Instead of seeking the engines of Qualitative Change, which might explain the evolution of matter and the rules which seemingly govern its behaviour, the discipline was still permanently orientated to seeking only eternal Natural Laws. Sub Atomic Physics, experimentally, was primarily restricted to seeking new discoveries in ever-higher- energy Colliders, or ever more powerful Telescopes - as if somehow technological progress would prove to be a magical salve to these shortocomings. All the while, Physical Theory was religated into the mere exotic manipulation of Mathematical Equations. Physics had been totally emasculted!

As a result, such an important scientific discipline has been effectively disabled from being analysed in the usual classical way, and, in spite of the sophistication of the Mathematics involved, on any completion, it has still been returned to its inadequate means of the past - explaining very little, yet delivering over long periods of time, a stream of seemingly constant states, each of which maybe “Wholly New”, to give the false impression of real descriptive Progress, but that old simplifying Phase has long passed.

What is clearly required today is a Revolution in Explanatory means, which can no longer avoid the crucial mechanisms of Real Qualitative Change - something the old single causes can never deliver.

Now, such a requirement cannot be solved by the usual kind of Causality: it is not a specific result requiring a single cause at all, but, on the contrary, more like a Complex, multi-factor System, that in exceptional circumstances changes into a very different one, or even a wholly new, never-before-experienced Emergent State.

It is a problem, which most certainly, involves many simultaneous factors, which have NOT led to Chaos, but, on the contrary, have arrived at an overall-interacting- mix of processes, that usually delivers a reliably stable- and-unchanging overall state (in fact appearing as a permanent natural and unchanging arrangement allowing that assumption of the eternal laws of physics which dominate the field), but which in particular and unusual sets of internal changes, can flip-as-a-whole into a new and different, but temporary stability, once again appearing to be another “permanent” result!

Clearly such Qualitative Changes are never the result of a particular single cause, with a known outcome, but, on the contrary, actually a temporarily-balanced outcome of a complex system, which will find a balance in one of its many possible outcomes, yet most-of-the- time stopped by the internal consequent changes that actually automatically oppose any externally imposed changes, in various corrective ways. But, exceptionally, can alternatively also wholly dissociate, and thereafter re- organise into something entirely NEW. And as the whole thing involves many different factors and levels, each and every one accompanied by one or more balancing opposites, so, the overall results are not easily diagnosed.

Now, unlike the usual Pluralist kind of Causality, the Dialectical form is never, so-directly, predictable: indeed, though the changes often take place within relatively-short Emergent Interludes, it initially involves the trajectory of a whole sequence of dissolutions, and a following, and often-entirely-new sequence of constructive associations, to finally deliver one-or-another from a whole range of possible final outcomes. Indeed, these Emergences are so quick-and-diverse, that the detailed trajectories seem impossible to theoretically reveal!

But, nevertheless, it was surprisingly discovered happening within Social Revolutions, and at much slower tempos, which could indeed be effectively interpreted, dialectically. Indeed, it was, in just such solvable situations, that Karl Marx finally got a general handle upon holistic processes of change, and enabled successful outcomes within a whole series of such Revolutions occurring in the 20th century.

Now, historically, the total absence of such a Dialectical means of analysis, meant the continuance of the prior Pluralistic Approach, which could never cope with such Changes, so the usual method was to, successively, greatly simplify the real situation, until it finally DID conform to Plurality, for each and every recognised Law, applied separately, within separated, tailor-made series of set-ups, would be necessary. And, to compound the felony, the other defining aspect of Plurality - that such acting laws were independant of one another, so their combined results would be given by mere additions, would also and quite incorrectly, be included in the analysis.

Naturally, in spite of such multiple, separately carried- out experiments, to model the Natural Combined Event, the results would NOT conform sufficiently, so further restrictions were included to remove any possibly- transmitting intermediaries, such as any Media, which could intervene, with the excuse, seemingly verified by the Michelson/Morley Experiments, that Space itself was totally empty of any Universal Substrate!

But, of course it was the role of such substrates, which enabled many phenomena to be adequately physically explained by Waves within them.

The Wave or Particle Nature of Light exemplified by the disagreements between Newton (for Particles) and Huyghens (for Waves) was resolved by the belief in Waves, but somehow without-a-Medium.

But this, in the 20th century, was removed from physical explanation alltogether, and via a construct known as Wave/Particle Duality, “unified” by a wholly illegitmate mixture of Wave Theory and Probabilities, gave useable results, purely pragmatically, via mathematical formulae alone.

But, there is the much more important aberration ofUnderstanding, now dominant across all the Intellectual Disciplines, which does not merely distort our view, but damagingly emasculate our ability to travel, even slowly, towards the objective of revealing the Truth of Reality. For Plurality, as is totally unavoidable in Mathematical Reasoning, has long been uncritically extended to both Formal Logic and literally all the Sciences. So that Qualitative Change, which is the only engine of all the varying qualities of Reality, and all development too, have been totally excluded from our view of the Universe.

Yet, there has been a tenuous, and often, all too frequently, an almost invisible link - to a solution, literally equally as old as has been the influence of the current consensus established by the Greek Intellectual Revolution, some 2,500 years ago.

It consisted of a totally opposite stance, which was developed by the mystics of India, simultaneously with the Greek Revolution, and greatly influenced by The Buddha, in which the determining essence of Reality was NOT Stability, as it was with the Greeks, but Qualitative Change - as evidenced by The Whole Living World, and the Consciousness of Man, both of which were available all the time and everywhere, though far more difficult to extract than the simplifications of Plurality.

It became known as Holism!

But these two alternatives appeared as mutually exclusive, so once one of them had been decided upon, consideration of its direct opposite appeared not only impossible, but actually incomprehensible! Though even within the Greek dominated arena, a dissenter called Zeno of Elea appeared immediately after the Intellectual Revolution, who in his Paradoxes, where he applied legitimate contradictory concepts to Movement, was able to expose many rationally untranscendable impasses, though he wasn’t aware of it, to the falsity of the Pluralistic stance imposed by the Greeks, upon General Reasoning from Mathematics.

And it wasn’t until some 2,300 years later, that the German Idealist philosopher Hegel, resurrected Zeno’s crucial exemplars, and considerably extended them to a much larger number of Dichotomous Pairs of Contradictory Concepts, that a possible reason for them appeared to be revealable.

And it boiled down to the impossibility of Plurality in situations where certain things could and indeed did change over time, in these particular cases, due to their being caused by two simultaneously-present opposites, in which the current relative proportions of each of them could change, and naturally cause a resultant switch in dominance between them.

It was a simplified explanation, but was then extended to a more complex System wherein everything varied, but arrived at complex Systems that settled into self- correcting, apparently permanent Stable States (such as those considered primary in Plurality and Physics).

The keys were still natural opposites, but “interpenetrating” in various ways to deliver an important System of corrections to Pluralist Formal Logic, which Hegel termed Dialectics.

NOTE:

An important contribution to this theory was recently developed by the writer of this paper in his researches into the pre-Life Chemical processes, which had to have preceded the first appearence of Life itself, in Systems of Natural Organic Chemical Reactions, and their overall trajectories of change, which were the prerequisites of Life, and which I called Truly Natural Selection.

Of course, Hegel’s version as an idealist philosopher was to his mind, and could only be about Human Thinking: but the transforming step was completed by the Young Hegelian follower of Hegel - namely Marx himself, who transferred over all of Hegel’s gains to a wholly Materialist stance, which only then could be correctly applied to both Reasoning and Science, initially by his own Key Intermediary of History. within the most profound Qualitative Changes ever - those occurring within Social Revolutions, as their necessary slow-tempo revelations, and his ever burgeoning Critique of Capitalist Economics, as the detailed coherent definitions of all such Qualitative Changes, in an on-going, constantly developing, yet constantly contradictory System.

Sadly, the final steps in this new Intellectual Revolution, which just had to be the detailed application of Dialectical Materialism to Science, took another 149 years to be addressed by this particular 21st century Marxist, and only completed in the latter part of 2019.

In this new issue, these dialectical studies are taken further, looking at the role waves and fields play in physical holistic systems, and how their study might change Physics forever.

Read Issue 69 of SHAPE Journal here

Issue 67 of SHAPE: Holistic Materialism II

Issue 67

The second part of my series on Holistic Materialism is now available to read on SHAPE Journal. 

Issue 66: Holistic Materialism I

Read Issue 66

This is the first in a special two part series entitled Holistic Materialism. These issues constitute a set of loosely related papers by Marxist theorist Jim Schofield concerning his philosophy of science, and his application of Holism and Dialectical Materialism to the sciences, especially particle physics. This has been a historical and epistemological project as much as it has been a philosophical and scientific one. In order to understand the mistakes and impasses we are presented with in science today, it is imperative to go back and have some understanding of how knowledge and philosophy have evolved over human history.

But what exactly is Holistic Materialism? Holism is a word that means different things to different people, a seemingly vague term that is often abused and misused - ‘holistic medicine’ for example covers all sorts of pseudoscientific nonsense no empricial researcher would care to be associated with. However Holism as a philosophical concept refers to something quite specific, and for Jim Schofield it is encapsualted in its opposition to the Pluralist position (not to be confused with pluralism), which sees all entities and laws as separable - capable of being isolated and studied in isolation - but more importantly, that this separability will somehow unlock the truth of how things in reality work. Essentially it is the philosophy of reductionism and this underpins almost all contemporary scientific research. Jim Schofield’s work is a unique critique of the hidden assumptions which underpin all science.

This is not the first time the term Holistic Materialism has been used, however. We see it linked to biology and 19th century naturalists in the writing of Ernst Mayr.

“The discovery of the similarity between dialectical materialism and the thinking of the naturalists is not new. Several authors have called attention to it, particularly Allen... He starts quite rightly: “The process of natural selection is as dialectical a process one could find in nature.” Allen thought that the dialectic viewpoint of the naturalists had been lost between 1890 and 1950... Allen asserts that the “holistic materialism” of the naturalists had failed to incorporate two important dialectical views. First “the notion that the internal change within a system is the result specifically of the interaction of opposing forces or tendencies within the system itself.”

The Roots of Dialectical Materialism (Mayer, 1997)

In the work of Schofield we see this kind of holist view of natural systems but very much informed by the dialectics of Karl Marx. It is not enough to see the interconnected-ness of things but realise how natural dominances emerge, to the point of seeming universal, and also how these dominances can come crashing down as their internal contradictions finally play out. It is in these crucial events that we see the Emergence of the wholly new. In these papers we see how Pluralist science prohibits access to this fundamental feature of reality, and that while those 19th naturalists may have hinted at the way forward, holist science is something new.