Audio Issue 3 - Understanding Change

 

Audio Issue 3 of the SHAPE Journal

This selection of tapes looks at how we try and understand the dynamics of change. Science fails to understand change in any meaningful way. It can analyse quantitative change well enough, but how things emerge and evolve is much less well understood. Jim Schofield’s latest philosophical research attempts to address qualitative change, and begins to devise new experimental approaches and methods for capturing and understanding these crucial changes as they happen.

Start by watching the video below, in which I interview Jim about his new research, and the change in direction and focus that it represents. Below that you will find three raw recordings of Jim's recent tapes, in which the new theory is being currently developed. 

Special Issue 74: Flawed Logic

Special Issue 74 of the SHAPE Journal

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

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

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

Read more...

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!

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. 

The Role of Mankind

Sándor Bortnyik: The New Adam, 1924

The Role of Mankind in Understanding 

and Interacting with their World

The Grundrisse Lectures by David Harvey are already-and-unavoidably taking the study of Marxism well beyond a dialectical analysis of Capitalist Economics, to also begin to delve ever more deeply and revealingly into Mankind's essential-and-unique role as the only Thinking species upon Planet Earth, and maybe also in all the possibly reachable Universe at large!

For, productive Labour has long been Mankind's most self-determining and indeed qualitatively-developing feature in their evolution, and therefore has been playing the Key role in their Socio-Economic advances with respect to their increasing knowledge amd control with in their containing-and-developing Living World context, in which they both dwell, seek-to-survive, and even to prosper.

For, along with their bipedal gait, and a flexible and manipulatable hand, with an opposable thumb, Human Beings, in consequence of all their extensive potentialities, have also developed advanced, new and unique cerebral capabilities, which, after millions of years, led first to primitive tool-making, from sharp flint fragments, as well as the means to make and control fire, develop a Hunter/Gatherer, Family group existence, and simultaneously initiate the beginnings of Language, which, all taken together, enabled their considerable geographical spread across literally all accessible areas of our the globe.

And ultimately, via the transforming effects of the epoch-changing Neolithic Revolution, which also brought-in the beginnings of extensive Human Societies - and via Farming and Animal Husbandry, also led, in a remarkably short period of time, to Intellectual Revolutions, primarily in Ancient Greece, but also (and in a very different and important direction) in Ancient India too.

For, though initially somewhat limited by the development, for the first time, of a kind of Reasoning (the strict and damaging, but easily arrived-at Plurality), still managed to deliver both the very first rational discipline, Mathematics, along with a kind of Logic, based only upon wholly fixed relations and concepts!

Thereafter, Mankind was no longer just a continuing development of Homo Habilis (the priginal Handy Man), but, by then, one already capable of Thinking too: and that vastly transformed his capabilities, in that he also sought Reasons for everything that occurred, and NOT ONLY in what way and how he could use those revealed discoveries.

Man was now a Thinker, as well as a Tool-Maker and User, so instead of only asking "How?", he also began to ask "Why?"

So, there arose a division of Labour between achievements by hand, and those by brain, that were ALL still only carried out by Human Beings. And, aids to the making of new things, though involving an essential content of New Thinking, were still the products of Mankind, as also, of course, were the then invented machines.

And though, in modern times, these techniques will be programmed into Computers, rather than being the mere spades and wheeled-vehicles handled directly by people: they are still designed by, driven by, and even programmed by them too!

Sándor Bortnyik: The New Eve, 1924

Artificial Intelligence is merely the instructions devised by an expert in the given field, and then coded by a programmer, co-opeerating with that expert, then entered into a computer-driven-machine. That was the actual Labour-and-prior-knowledge involved in equipping, such a system!

AND, crucially, if that programmer was NOT implementing the detailed knowledge-and-understanding of an expert in the Real World field involved, the program delivered will be useless! The machine is still totally dependant upon the labour of the programmer, and, in turn, that involved in the knowledge of the discipline expert.

As such a System Designer myself, I can assert that NO machine can ever THINK!

Indeed, the quality of Thinking that goes into a Computer Program, AND a controlled machine, even today, is still totally inadequate to do literally ALL the tasks we can currently give them - and will always continue to give them in the future. And the reason for this resides in the kind of Logic (or Reasoning) that is implicit in all current Programming Languages and throughout the whole of Mathematics too.

Reasoning, as we generally know it, is wholly Pluralistic. Formal Logic assumes all relations and concepts are - forever FIXED - like the components of a machine.

Indeed, I spent most of the 1980s designing tailor-made control-programs across a very wide range of diverse disciplines, always along with discipline experts, in a University in Glasgow. Yet, nevertheless, only finally began to successfully address these major flaws via dedicated Multimedia Aids, applied to Film and Video recordings of dynamic Dance Performance and Choreography, in the first decade of the new Millennium. And, frankly, I have seen neither a similar general use, either in that area, or anywhere else, in the time since then.

So what is generally considered to be Artificial Intelligence, applied to computer-controlled machines, is still wholly pluralistic (comprised of fixed and discrete components - very unlike the evolving natural world) and totally incapable of applying any Human-like Intelligence automatically.

Indeed, the calamities frequently experienced in such situations, are not caused by correctable errors, but by irretrievable Pluralist Logic.

As a qualified professional Physicist, it still took me a lifetime of work in the field and latterly a whole decade of dedicated research to demolish the wholly Pluralistic Copenhagen Interpretation of Quantum Theory, currently still dominant in Sub Atomic Physics.

Indeed, both ALL Technology, and all the so-called Sciences too, have not only been crippled by Pluralist Reasoning, but also completely idealised in abandoning physical explanations for mere mathematical formulae, in order to conform to the Plurality of ALL Mathematics.

Sándor Bortnyik: Composition II, Pink and Blue, 1921

And Industry, for centuries, has had to break recognised useful Natural processes (always involving multiple, contending factors), to turn such processes into sequences of very simplified restricted separated-single-factor processes, involving purposely arranged-for pluralistic steps to attempt to replicate the Natural multi-factor situations: and, consequently, only skirting around the Real non pluralistic World.

The seemingly unsolveable problems have always been to attempt to handle simultaneous, mutually-affecting factors, in order to both control sequences of different factors, and separate their individual effects, and thereby lose their various cross influences. Indeed, the nearest that could be achieved was by whole sequences of single law steps, but these were not only always approximations, but also always, by the way they were set up, could not but eliminate all cross influences, so that things that always happened in Natural phenomena, were guaranteed to be absent in the whole set of simplified sequences,

Indeed, it was at first considered to be impossible to handle a dynamic and Holistic World scientifically, but modern researches into multifactor circumstances have begun to reveal how so-called temporary, and long-persisting "Balanced Stabilities" can, and indeed do, replace the supposedly-permanent Stabilities on which Plurality is based. And the natural processes, in the Real World, are actually made up of alternating sequences of different long-lasting Balanced Stabilities, interspersed with short-period Emergent Interludes, where one long-persisting Balanced Stability is, via a series of Crises, finally totally dissociated. And, when, in what appears to be a resultant Chaos, a constructive Phase, via a series of partially successful Crises, finally achieves a wholly New and long lasting Balanced Stability! We can call this an Emergence, or even a Revolution. 

These can never be explained or understood mechanistically. 

The role of Mankind now, must be to try and work out a different way...

The real trajectory of Qualitative Change

Levels and Hierarchies

Marxist Theory on the Nature of Emergent Transitions

No-one can seriously doubt that Discrete Levels do indeed occur within Reality.

But, the Principle of Plurality (and along with it the idea of Reductionism), assume Causality to be both universally applicable and transparently evident. And, in addition, any produced Levels are transformed into merely situations of complexity-and-convenience, rather than marking where wholly creative, multi-factor and revolutionary conversions have taken place!

For, in alternatively doing the latter, it would have totally prohibited any strictly straight-forward, and always fully-revealable, sequence of causes, as being the means by which they came to fruition.

This tenet is absolutely critical!

For, such a transition, termed an Emergence, can never be directly or fully predicted from its immediate precursors, because it then will have been a never-occurred-before transition: it will have produced the wholly new.

And as I was able to establish some time ago, within complex systems of multiple, purely-chemical reactions, in my Theory of Truly Natural Selection, an extension of something similar to Darwin's ideas, but concerning non-living processes, something of what happens in these Emergences could, at least partially, have been revealed. For, in that work, something of the holist concept of mutually-affecting processes, was clearly illustrated, including the significance of both competing and co-operating processes, in the ultimate achievements of balances-with-dominances, also delivering persisting Stabilities, and even explaining the possibility of flips between exactly opposite outcomes.

So, even in such simplified cases, some idea of both the resilience of achieved Stabilities, and the true vastness of their possible crises and dissolutions, plus even the consequent re-establishment of new Stabilities - upon entirely different and wholly new bases.

A mix of pluralist eternal entities cannot really compare with a mutually-affecting mix of holist entities in the vastness of its possibilities!

Clearly, none of this is ever possible within a Pluralist conception of Reality, for from that logical viewpoint, all things are fixed and totally independent of one another. Indeed, such mixes can only ever be seen as complex aggregations of fixed entities or even immutable Laws, and hence, natural creative innovation becomes a mere complexity of pre-existing forms.

Only the Holist Stance can deliver real Emergences!

And, a successful Emergence will always deliver a wholly new, previously-unpredictable Level.

And, without a true philosophically holist grounding, such as from The Buddha's or Hegel's damning critique of Pluralist Formal Logic, the necessary approach to "Complexity" will be very different indeed.

For, without it, the rich and turbulent trajectory of an actual Emergence will never even be imagined.

Let me relate a series of findings from my Theory of Emergences, which will give some idea of what is involved.

Fire tornado

Stability & Emergence

• Reality always involves multiple factors.

• These factors act simultaneously, but in different directions.

• Chaos seems likely, but instead Turbulence is produced.

• Usually, this finally settles into a balance of opposites.

• And, also, displays a resultant overall dominant stable effect.

• We can call this state Stability, and it can persist for a very long time.

• But, though it can appear permanent, it never is!

• At some point, the involved factors will change in some way.

• The effect will be to cause a Crisis in the Stability.

• Usually it will be resolved by a re-establishment of balance.

• But, a series of such Crises can follow, with a final Collapse.

• The stability is finally totally dissociated, heading for Chaos.

• It descends first to a Nadir of Dissolution.

• But then, as initially, it begins to form relations into systems.

• These generally fail, one after the other, until one persists.

• And further such systems are achieved, and a new balance.

• The cycle is complete a new and different stability now exists.

This level-change is a complex process, and appears incomprehensible without a holist approach to Reality. And, as described above, it is the most general description - extracted from such occurrences at many vastly different Levels of reality - where they will appear extremely different in detail, while oft-conforming to the above-described trajectory.

For example, the first analysed versions were extracted from Michelet's History of the French Revolution, by Karl Marx. Here the contending forces acting were people representing the warring Classes of that prior State-in-Revolution!

So, its embodiment at all possible Levels, down to the Sub-Atomic, as well as up to Social Revolutions, will, of course, reveal enormous differences in Content, while displaying a similar overall trajectory!

It has been applied to Capitalist Economics in Marx's Das Kapital, and to Social Revolution in the Russian Revolution, but its application generally to the vital area of Science has yet to be undertaken comprehensively, as Marx himself had always intended.

And, this undertaking is not a mere further task for Marxists, it is absolutely crucial!

As a physicist, myself, I can see that not only does Science really need Dialectical Materialism, but Marxism crucially needs that extension to Science.

With 60 years in Revolutionary Politics, always also seeking the wherewithal to defeat the Copenhagen Interpretation of Quantum Theory in physics, I never received what I required to attempt it.

It simply wasn't there!

But, it is now. 

The revolution starts here...

Do you want to participate?

Special Issue: Iteration

ITERATION

This special issue explores the idea of iteration in Mathematics and Philosophy. 

In Mathematics it is a way of trying to find answers through repetition, but it certainly isn’t the usual way of using equations. Originally an invention of pragmatic engineers it then became an extension of Mathematics, giving birth to all manner of wonderous inventions, from fractals to Chaos Theory. It is a fascinating area for sure, but it isn’t what the mathematicians like to pretend it is.

Iteration is a descrete way of approaching the continuous - and a static way of dealing with movement and change. It embodies all the chaos, paradoxes and infinite blow-ups you’d expect from such internal contradiction.

The papers in this short collection are presented in a different way from the usual updates. For it is such a difficult, and yet crucial, area that “the latest” seems both too esoteric and too abstract, and its relevance not immediately apparent.

It certainly wasn’t obvious to me! It has taken about 30 years for me to finally begin to understand iteration’s importance, in providing a very different approach to both Reasoning and Science. So, clearly, delivering the latest developments, without some idea of how it was finally achieved, would also leave most areas unexplained and unaquainted readers cold. So, this collection spans, one way or another, all the significant steps in that ascending trajectory.

First of all, these papers are not part of a complete and final narrative. They, instead, each and every one, come out of an only partly referred-to past, which had certainly left the necessary traces-and-questions in my head, but not yet upon the written page. Nevertheless, the fact that each poses as yet unanswered questions, does ultimately connect up with later papers, and, as it does so, begins to light-up a wholly new path towards Truth, inaccessible from the usual approaches.

As a whole, it brings together the inadequacies of disciplines that cannot deal with real Qualitative Change, such as Mathematics, with the finding of evidence for possible solutions actually within the very tricks and extensions that infer something beyond those steadfast limits, and which become attempts to solve the inherent problems of that discipline’s usual and in fact essential approach.

Indeed, as Hegel had always insisted, progress only resides in what appear to be untenable contradictions.

Read more

What is Form?

Sacred geometry?

Form: We think we know what it is!

And, we certainly know how to use it.

We have reached a remarkable sophistication in how we develop it.

Indeed, these positions have even led to it being generally promoted to delivering the essential Primary Causes in all of all of concrete Reality - and even, indeed, to the establishment of the Idealist philosophical standpoint, and the escalation of form's nature-and-laws, in Mathematics, to the position of Queen-of-the-Sciences, from its real position as its pragmatically useful Handmaiden.

But, it delivers, quite clearly, a wrong, or perhaps more accurately, a mistaken, path, overlaid-upon-and-hiding the more essential Route-to-Truth, and achieved by man's remarkable intelligence-and-ingenuity in purposely adjusting real situations to conform artificially, though never perfectly, to the consequent ideas and techniques of such a stance.

Early Man's intelligence coupled with his first intellectual tenet of "If it works, it is right!" - termed Pragmatism, had already equipped him to spread across the whole accessible World, as a successful hunter/gatherer. And, it has also underpinned all subsequent intellectual development, as it still does, to this day.

Initially, developments were slow in coming, as Man's only source of tools was sharp-edged, brittle-but-hard Flint, and his succession of discovered "cultures" were almost entirely to do with how he knapped pieces of Flint to produce variety and effectiveness in those tools, and, it took around 90% of Man's entire existence as a separate species (over 170,000 years) to arrive at the Neolithic Revolution. which began to change everything, culminating around 7,000 years ago with the first Human Civilisations.

By some 2,500 years ago, in Ancient Greece, the first entirely new addition to man's intellectual toolkit was, in fact, the recognition and study of Form.

It took the study of shapes into a wholly new level with what we now term Euclidian Geometry, and this in turn led to a whole series of other disciplines suggested by the success of that initial development of Mathematics.

It was in this following explosion of intellectual pursuits that Form, as dealt with in Mathematics, became essential. Indeed Formal Logic even includes that basis in its title.

But, in spite of its efficacy when coupled with a now well-developed Pragmatism and consequent effective technical achievements, it had a major flaw! It literally never worked perfectly in Reality-as-is!

All situations in Reality were clearly the results of many often-contending causes, and it took the union of Pragmatism-with-Form to begin to bring aspects of the real World into Man's better control. Situations were purposely simplified by removing as many contending-and-confusing factors as possible, and, thereafter, maintaining that control while the now clearly-revealed Form was extracted and studied.

Reality was firmly "pinned down" all the better to study it! BUT, was that studied-aspect exactly the same, when so artificially-isolated, as it was when embedded with others in Reality-as-is? The consensus decision was that it was indeed the same. So, implicitly, a crucial Enabling Principle had been inadvertently assumed.

It is, in fact, the Principle of Plurality: and it states that all factors, acting together, are independent of one another - they are indeed totally independent of all containing contexts. But, that is , most certainly, not true!

And, that fact is proved by successful use: for the extracted Form can ONLY be used successfully, if the very conditions of extraction are adequately replicated in use. And, Man, being a consummate pragmatist, could always achieve that requirement, and hence effectively use what had been revealed.

In spite of Plurality being incorrect, its inadequacies could be overcome by pragmatically optimised conditions. Technology was saved, but Science was sorely-damaged!

This was because extracted Forms were raised to the status of eternal Natural Laws, and that was quite-definitely untrue. And, consequently in Explanatory Theory such supposedly "eternal laws" were brought together in dealing with complex situations as totally FIXED components, and that was incorrect.

The edifice of "scientific explanations" was based upon an unsound premise and would, therefore, inevitably lead to both contradictions and impasse situations.

The philosopher Hegel had been right!

Though he was talking about thought, it definitely applied in Science Theory too, and his revelation of Dichotomous Pairs of totally contradictory concepts, revealed by unbridgeable impasses in Formal Reasoning, was true not only about Formal Logic, but also about all pluralistic Scientific Theory too.

A whole panoply of intellectual disciplines arose with exactly the same flaw, but only in the West. In India and ultimately in the East generally, the Buddha at about the same time as the ancient Greeks had implicitly assumed Plurality, had assumed Holism instead. The Principle of Holism took the opposite assumption - that "Everything affects everything else!" And, without any doubt, there is a greater content of Truth in this alternative.

Complex situations were seen as composed of multiple, always-varying factors, and though temporary dominances were indeed possible, and could last for significant periods of time, there always was an underlying dynamic which would, at some point, lead to dramatic changes, and crucially Developmental Changes too.

It was indeed, if an appropriate, investigative methodology could be developed, the ONLY basis for scientific Theory. The ultimate model of the pluralist view was Laplace's Clockwork Universe.

While, that of the developed holist view was closer to an Evolving Universe!

So, can we say what exactly the "Worship-of-Form" actually leads to, and why it has triumphed for so long?

As it turns out, we must answer the second question first. Form is true only when a single factor is acting in a simplified situation! It reveals a pristine-relation caused by a single physical cause. So, it is a legitimate extraction in such a situation.

BUT, even there, it is never primary, it is the result of the quite different and definitely primary Cause. And, this shows the Universality-of-Form: for the very same form can emerge in very differently-caused situations - and those actual causes do NOT have to be connected, just the resultant form is one of those which regularly occur all over the place! And hough, they can be used for description-and-prediction, they can never be used as the Sufficient Causes.

Now, why is this the case?

All versions of situations involving a particular cause are clearly related: but they are inevitably changed by other causal-factors acting-simultaneously. They therefore posess a family likeness: every one will be similar to the pristine-single-cause version - that is why they are all assumed to be the SAME! The pristine version is the Ideal Version of an adaptable Form.

As such it is fixed, but never happens as such in Reality. Indeed, the whole of Mathematics restricts itself solely to these Ideal Versions! And, all theorems, manipulations, and the rest are only true of those. We call that World Ideality: it is NOT Reality!

So, the process of finding-and-fitting measured data to a Mathematical Form is not only a simplification - due to the absolutely-necessary Farming-of-Context, but is also an idealisation of the actually-performing, modified-cause in the real situation. And, this puts major limitations upon systems of using these "fixed Laws" in production. Each law is limited to its own ideal context, so all productions necessarily involve sequences of ideal contexts, for each and every "law" used: it can be made to work, but only via this "factory-like system"! And, crucially, if those context-conditions are allowed to change, even marginally, or even if the process in a given context goes on for too long, it can cease to be appropriate, due to tiny and consequently uncontrolled factors, and the involved "Law" ceases to deliver, so the process inevitably fails.

Have you worked in a factory, if so you'll know exactly what I mean!

Now, in 1927 at the Solvay Conference, Niels Bohr and Werner Heisenberg unveiled their Copenhagen Interpretation of Quantum Theory, in which, to solve the problems of numerous impasses and anomalies in Sub Atomic Theory, ordained that Physical Explanations had not only failed in this area, but were also objectively impossible to take any further at the Sub Atomic Level, and proffered, instead, a wholly-mathematical-approach that could be made to successfully predict outcomes. 

Their main opponent was Albert Einstein, but though he argued for physical Explanations as paramount, he was also committed to mathematics as evidenced by his General Theory of Relativity, and the Copenhagenists won the day.

But, in the light of what I have revealed within this essay, it must be clear that this retreat was doomed from its outset. No wonder they had to invent Wave/Particle Duality, superposition and the illegitimate use of probabilities upon "simultaneous states of the dualist object", not to mention Quantum Entanglement and the Collapse of the wave function due to measurement.

With their gravely flawed philosophical stance, absolutely NO solution is possible. And, those errors are not just confined to Copenhagenists, but also to their Classical opponents too, and even those around de Broglie and Bohm's positions. The various amalgams of Idealism, Materialism and Pragmatism have to go, and the cornerstone of Plurality dumped for a Holist alternative.

Now that is, admittedly, a very Big Ask, but it has already commenced with the work of this theorist, Jim Schofield, to apply Hegel's solution to flawed premises in order to successfully solve every-single-one of the anomalies in the whole set of Double Slit Experiments. And, he did it by re-instituting the key omitted premise - the presence of a currently undetectable Universal Substrate throughout the Universe.

Remarkably, this assumption not only tackled those experiments, but also made possible the trascending of many other unexplained aareas such as quantised orbits within atoms and Electromagnetic propagation, as well as the subtending od concrete fields in what is usually assumed to be totally Empty space, and even Pair Productions and Pair Annihilations.

The "holistic" experimenter, Yves Couder, has even achieved quantised orbits in media at the macro level, and proved the role of such substrates as both general Sinks and Sources to provide energy in active situations, when its origin by the usual stances deliver nothing at all.

And, previous work by the holists Charles Darwin in his Origin of Species, and Stanley Miller in his Experiment to produce amino acids from an emulation of the Earth's Primeval Atmospheric processes, are both under review. First to extend Darwin's Natural Selection backwards into Non-living chemical reactions. And, secondly, with Miller's experiment to re-design it in order to monitor its internal developments as they occur.

Finally, a major and significant holist-dialectical critique of the whole History and development of philosophic Stances of Science is nearing completion.

The era of the dominance of Pure Form is finally coming to an end!

100 issues of SHAPE Journal!

Issues 1-50

Special Issues 1-50

SHAPE Journal is proud to announce it's 100th Issue!

Issue 50 - Logic and Emergence

Read the issue

Taking issues and specials together this journal has now published 100 editions of cutting-edge marxist theory and science, since we launched back in 2009. This one has been compiled to celebrate that achievement and to initiate the vital discussion about where we go next.

This journal has become the primary outlet for the radical theories of philosopher Jim Schofield, whose seminal work The Theory of Emergence was published by SHAPE in July 2010, as Special Issue 1. Alongside his latest work on Logic, this important thesis is included here again, to reveal the trajectory of this work over many years, but also to demonstrate fully the profound limitations of Formal Logic when dealing with change, or the emergence of the entirely new.

In this challenging new work Jim looks at the dialectical resolution of contradictory concepts, via their natural appearances in concrete reality, predominantly within emergences.

Maths-first Science? I

Use before understanding!

Introduction

Currently, Physics is seemingly embroiled in an irresolvable crisis, and to understand how it arrived at this desperate juncture, it is necessary to go back to its historical sources, and understand its initial and continuing motivations, and, even more importantly, its intellectual origins too.

From Man's hunter/gatherer origins he had effectively conquered the known World with his dexterity and intelligence, coupled with a single practical tenet, namely, "If it works, it is right", or, in a word - Pragmatism! Remarkably, with experience, intelligence and some basic arithmetic, Mankind had created Agriculture, Irrigation and even metal-working, and also, for its ever increasing trade, built roads, canals, and even sea-going ships, to supply their fast-growing cities.

Even Pyramids of colossal size, were constructed, as well as temples and palaces, and then giant empires were built across many countries. At a certain juncture in this trajectory, and focussed in the City States of Ancient Greece, Mankind began to create an intellectual aspect in its cultural life, going beyond, but still built upon, that same Pragmatism. 

And the first developable intellectual discpline which was realised was Mathematics, or to bemore precise, that foundation stone of Mathematics, termed Geometry.

Observing both nature and his own works, Man discerned certain patterns, which recurred over and over again, and via "drawing" them in the sand, or on paper, he idealised them into Pure Forms, which could then be studied, as such!

Remarkably, these idealised extractions could, in themselves, be studied and indeed sequentially related to one another, so that a new, extended intellectual discipline was created of seemingly endless range and complexity.

It was a remarkable creation, for it certainly did not exist, as such, in Reality, but did, at least partially, reflect aspects of Reality, though ONLY in a descriptively formal and idealised way. And, crucially, it could also be used effectively, if approximately, to predict certain kinds of outcomes!

Such successes caused it to colour our thinking in general! It was the immutability of the ideal forms that seemed to enable the proliferation of both its processes and its regular extensions. So, when the same approach was applied to Reasoning - involing the implications of statements, it led to Formal Logic, as another seemingly infinitely extensible intellectual discipline. An idealised and manipulate-able parallel world, of useable reflections, had been shown to be possible, and began to grow at markable rate.

What had been involved, in these developments, was a brilliant extension of that process, which Mankind had been doing for millennia - a process which became known as Abstraction.

It extracted something from Reality, which could be, thereafter, effectively be used in Thinking, even though no individual abstraction was ever a fully comprehensive account. What it did contain, however, was often extremely useful: for it invariably had a significant measure of what is termed Objective Content.

The consequences, when the very same methods were applied in the observation of Reality, were, therefore, pre-determined. Abstractions, once again, extracted something of value, but in the form of unchanging entities and their fixed inter-relations or Laws: what was extracted and used were seen as fixedobjects with eternal Natural Laws ONLY affecting them - and, in the usually fairly stable unchanging circumstances, these were real reflections, and could be used effectively.

Of course, to begin with, such naturally stable situations were limited to things like the Observation of the Heavens, but slowly, Mankind learned how to control or "farm" local domains of Reality, into simplified and artificially maintained, stable situations that could indeed be processed effectively.

Science too was therefore inevitably built upon the same foundations. Indeed, the most profound, but unstated common premise involved-throughout, was the now standard idea of unchanging essences, and this later became known as the Principle of Plurality!

Early Methods

Now, early science, could not penetrate Reality very deeply: indeed, most observations and even measurements were superficial: they could not analyse Reality, but took it as it presented itself, and at best, when it was varying, Man could find ways of holding it still, and so making dependable measurements of that.

So, apart from dimensions and maybe weight, no underlying causes could be revealed. Gradually, though, overall conceptions began to be imagined such as Temperature, Pressure and Energy, but these were not seen as properties of individual constituent parts, but of the complex thing as-a-whole. In other words, early Science was, generally, entirely of this overall nature. And, even when it began to be realised that there, indeed, were constituent units making up a whole, it still wasn't possible to measure all the individual parts, and sum their effects.

Only overall, resultant values were measurable.

Now, as better means of penetrating things more deeply became available, various methods of relating these overall measurables to the constituent parts were developed, as were means of relating what could be determined from constituent parts to things measured overall.

A parallel suite of techniques to indiviual part measurements was developed to relate the two. It took the general title of Statistics, along with a means of top-down interpretations were part of the system, termed Probabilities.

Now, this short excursion was necessary, as it was an alternative to the a more general method of analysis, involving layer-below-layer, increasingly-detailed analytic revelatons, until some ultimate fundamental causing entities were finally reached.

That approach, termed Reductionism, soon dominated, though it was never carried through completely: instead it was just conceptually-assumed, to underpin all partial investigations. And, the same approach took all found relations, as direct consequences of Laws at a lower level, and so on level-below-level, until at the bottommost, fundamental level, there would be the final eternal Natural Laws generating all of Reality via a hierarchy of consequent levels.

So, wherever possible, this would be implemented, at least partially, and when it wasn't, the reliable Statistics and Probabilities were resorted to instead!


The Final Crisis

Now, though usually ignored as being merely due to current ignorance, there were many intractable anomalies in the results obtained, due to the various differing and even contradictory premises and philosophical stances, that had been adopted by different groups of scientists doing different things.

But, the consequent, overall amalgam survived by a division of the participants involved, into different specialisms, who did their bit, within their particular stances, and passed over their results to other specialists, to be used as they saw fit!

Addressing the Massive Conceptual Crisis in Physics

Now, this admittedly cursory introduction has been necessary, in order to tackle the significant retreat adopted in Sub Atomic Physics in response to the perplexing discovery of the Quantum, on the one hand, and the increasingly unavoidable anomalies and contradictions on the other.

In fact, the most basic definitions seemed to be being totally undermined, as Particles seemed to, sometimes, act like Waves, while Waves, occasionally, appeared to behave like descrete Particles.

So, the tendency that depended upon, and trusted most, the embodiment of discovered relations into Formal Equations, knew that they, as always, would be able to mirror all phenomena in such Forms, and denounced Explanatory Physics, at least, at the Sub Atomic Level, as mere self-kid.

Reality was said to be determined by formal equations (Natural Laws), and they would be found in this area too.

So, the reason for this writer's preamble will now become clear!

Bohr and Heisenberg, along with many others, gradually achieved their formal claims, by using Probabilities and Wave Equations in a physically unjustifiable ways. There is a name for such tricks in Mathematics: it is termed a frig!

There was NO underlying physical explanation for what they achieved, but, the ancient and still existing "If it works, it is right!" justification was used to finally dispense with all explanations other than "Obeys this equation!"

The new stance was termed The Copenhagen Interpretation of Quantum Theory, and its increasingly-emerging clear inadequacies had to be papered-over with an increasing number of speculative inventions, and further abstract extensions in Pure Mathematics.

Now, some physicists still refused to submit, including Einstein, but neither side had the faintest idea what in physical theory itself, had been the problem.

For, the problem was most certainly the Pragmatism-driven amalgam of contradictory premises, upon which Classical Science, Formal Logic and even Mathematics had all been built.

But, the key pragmatic botch-up was certainly in Sub Atomic Physics, where Materialism, Idealism and Pragmatism had been patched together upon the same premise of Plurality, with "If it works, it is right!" Indeed, it could only exist by repeated separations into distinct "specialisms", with defined and limited spans - all created at the precise points where blatant contradictions became unavoidable. But, of course, they were avoidable - by setting fixed boundaries exactly where the anomalies presented themselves, and "agreeing to differ" with co-operating colleagues in adjacent specialisms.

Indeed, throughout the Industrial Revolution, and the rise of the consequent form of Capitalist Economics in the 19th Century, Science had merely become the "Richest Mine" of new discoveries for Technology's proliferating and profitable applications. There were "sound financial reasons" for the necessary blinkers!

So, try as they might, the Classical lobby could not defeat the Copenhageners.

They were simply too philosophically ill-equipped to do anything about it. David Bohm, and later the neo-Bohmians, tried with their suggestion of an accompanying Pilot Wave to every elementary Particle, but nothing theoretically was achieved.

The problems went far deeper, and unless they were made clearly evident and tackled head-on, absolutely no progress would be made.

Yet, 200 years before, the German idealist philosopher, Friedrich Hegel, had, in his Thinking about Thought research, begun to tackle the iniquities of pluralist Formal Logic, based, initially, upon the Dichotomous Pairs of contradictory concepts that had, 2,300 years earlier, led the Greek, Zeno of Elea, to formulate his famous Paradoxes - based upon the alternatives of Continuity and Descreteness.

Hegel unearthed multiple Dichotomous Pairs, which always brought Formal Reasoning to a dead halt - to a logical impasse, which could never, rationally, be transcended, but were always pragmatically "got around" by suck-it-and-see try-outs of each alternative to see which allowed a transition to further reasoning beyond the impasse. Absolutely no explanation of why that worked was ever revealed: it was a purely pragmatic (if it works, it is right) get-around!

But, Hegel found a solution: he unearthed the differing premises of each of the Dichotomous Pairs, and by correcting what was amiss or inserting what was missing, he healed the wound and restored a continuing Logic, at that point at least!

He also, as a holist (the direct opposite of Plurality) opened up the Dichotomy into a range of possibilities, both ends of which could dominate in differing circumstances, and even flip from one to the other, dynamically, at crucial overall transitions in complex situations. He developed the Interpentration of Opposites method of seeing complex situations from BOTH opposite points of view, and so began to get some sort of grasp upon Qualitative Change, which Formal Logic could never deal with.

But, Hegel was an Idealist: all things considered were only objects of Thought, while most answers could only be found in concrete Reality - that is by materialist scientists!

This was realised among Hegel's followers - The Young Hegelians, including both Feuerbach and Karl Marx, and they switched over to becoming materialists, while retaining Hegel's brilliant discoveries termed Dialectics.

In fact, Marx began to construct what he termed Dialectical Materialism, to distinguish it from the so-called Mechanical Materialist mish-mash of the current scientists. His objective was to create a Union of Science and Philosophy upon his new stance.

But, in spite of his wonderful contributions in History, Politics and Economics, he didn't ever get around to that crucial central task. His Mathematical Manuscripts revealed his efforts to get to grips with the other side, but as a mathematician and physicist, myself, it is clear that he didn't manage it.

It was simply too much to ask of a single individual, no matter how dedicated he was.

So now, we have another slant upon the current Crisis in Physics, as well as a direction of necessary research, but as both Marx and Lenin proved, it would require investigators who were professional mathematicians and scientists, who had also been won to Marxism, and, crucially, fully understood its philosophy and methodology.

Now, when put like that, it seems the required investigator has to be myself, but, committing to doing it is much easier said than done, for though I called myself a Marxist when aged just 19, it has taken me over 50 years of high-level research in my primary professions, namely Mathematics, Physics and Computing, with a career finally ending up as a professor in a world class University, before I finally believed I could do it.

In fact, I have already developed a non-Copenhagen Theory for the Double Slit Experiments, produced a definition of a Universal Substrate that can poropagate Electromagnetic Radiation in quanta, and deliver both Electrical and Magnetic fields subtended around initiating charged objects. I have also explained quantized electron orbits within atoms, without resorting to the Copenhagen stance, and am currently tackling Quantum Entanglement!

The reason it took so long was that I didn't really understand Dialectical Materialism, until I was forced back into studying both Hegel and Marx by demanding research into the Analysis of creative Human Movement in Dance. Not only did that research reap valuable rewards in those studies, but helped myself and my co-researcher win A British Interactive Video Award for excellence.

So, finally, after a long and necessary justification, I can, at last, begin to address the only research that would be considered valid by the Copehagen opposition [for they are convinced that their philosophic stance is totally adequate, no matter what I say].

But, arriving at their frigged formulae via a totally antagonistic set of premises and explanations, may just do the trick!

To be continued in Part II...

The Limits of Abstraction

The Processes and Productions of Abstraction

How Does Abstraction Fit Into A Dialectical World?

Some years ago, after extensive research, I produced the above diagram entitled The Processes and Productions of Abstraction. 

It requires a close look at the accompanying papers on both SHAPE Blog and SHAPE Journal to be able to correctly extract what the diagram delivers, but it did then lead to some major advances in the many possible worlds in which such different productions could actually exist.

The formal areas on the diagram are:-

MAN - the active element, in the middle

REALITY - as the all-containing Ground

CONCEPTS - through-and-into which the various Productions occurred

An important, and surprising, part of that latter "mental area" of CONCEPTS was termed Ideality - because it by-passed Reality crucially in the various Processes involved in its Productions.

Indeed, it was this Ideality - a rich conceptual World, that was the repository for Mathematics, and enabled a significant advance yo be made in the Philosophy of Mathematics by this theorist.

But, it was only a first step, for it then, more generally, and only briefly, involved just a few, and by no means enough, recursive loops, back to earlier productions, and, thereafter, consequent processes, with necessary corrections.

But, clearly, even more radical, and even transformative changes turned out to be absolitely essential too!

It was not yet, by any means, about Dialectical Logic and the essential Dialectical Materialist philosophical standpoint.

For, NO Abstraction can possibly ever be Absolutely Correct!

The actual process involved, in arriving at an Abstraction, though it is the result of a valid realisation of some measure of occurring Objective Content - some individual aspects or parts of the Truth, will still never be comprehensive. Only for a time, will it be possible to handle a given Abstraction, as if it were "The Whole Truth". For, its validating context will always be limited.

Indeed, we have already-fairly-quickly become aware that unless we remained within the exact-same context, or even rigorously worked to maintain it, our Abstraction would always, ultimately, begin to Fail.

And, remarkably, when t does, the relevant Abstraction, or even "Law", could actually turn into its exact-opposite. We could even arrive at a point where Two-Diametrically-Opposite-Abstractions, would both be, apparently, equally-valid, but on then trying each alternative in-turn, only one would lead onwards in our reasoning. 

What Zeno of Elea had discovered, 2,500 years ago, was concerned with the abstractions Continuity and Descreteness - for, when applied to Movement, it was not an odd-and-rare occurrence at all, but a very general and unavoidable feature of all Abstractions - reflecting both the Holist (constant-change) Nature of Reality and the natural trajectory of such changes.

The Formal Reasoning assumption that Absolute Truth could be built out of sufficient eternal elements, be they Abstractions ort Laws, was clearly incorrect!

And, therefore, what finally buried Formal Logic and its Reasoning, which always prohibited contradiction, as a sure proof of failure, either due to incorrect Reasoning or erroneous oncepts, was, instead, slowly being realised to be the natural dynamic of intrinsic change and development!

Of course, the emergence of the exact-opposite to a conception takes a great deal of swallowing: why couldn't qualitative changes just lead to something else?

Why only the exact-opposite?

Now, if the very centre of your mental world is Formal Logic, the required explanation will just never be found! To discover it, you have to study concrete Reality, not only as it exists today, at this moment - but, also, via the History of its development, wherever it leaves sequential evidence!

Instead of attempting to derive higher levels of existence from mechanistic complication of lower levels, you must, instead, study the higher levels to throw light upon the lower ones - twhere the evidence is always unavailable!

The real revealers of Reality are only available by studying Geology, Life, Man and Consciousness - for there the tempo can be made visible and analysed.

The Natural Emergence of Opposites

The emergence of opposites in reality, mentioned above, really does require further elaboration. Perhaps surprisingly, the ideas which ultimately led to the following Theory, came originally from Charles Darwin's Origin of Species, via his Theory of Natural Selection.

For, in the attempt of this theorist to tackle the Origin of Life on Earth, Darwin's Theory could not be used, because it only involved contention between populations of living species, competing to survive. Clearly then, though such could be used after the Origin of Life, it certainly could not in the conversion of non-living processes into the very first Living Things.

So, the arena for that Origin, and the natural processes occurring there, would have to be considered, as somehow, having a similar effect to those involved in consequent Evolution, but with none of the necessary competition-and-reproduction that dominated Darwin's Natural Selection.

Clearly, only various physical and chemical circumstances-and-processes would have to be happening.

I'm afraid the old random chance occurrences, allowing significant changing of the game, is just too unlikely to be seriously contemplated, no matter how long you give it to act. So, upon careful analysis, it is clearly totally impossible!

The most important features would have to involve easy moving of involved substances, varying conditions and multiple, available substances.

Clearly, the most obvious transportations, would occur if everything was happening in a liquid (water), which due to other external physical forces was constantly "on-the -move" and, consequently, also "on-the-mix".

Many such environments have been suggested, but only one stands out as ideal.

It is the occurrence of shallow and connected, tidal pools, on the edge of a globally-connected ocean of water, situated on a spinning planet, with an inclined axis, and a nearby, warming star, whose rays would frequently get-to-and-affect our described environment,

A reasonably-complex Atmosphere would also be essential, so the diurnal changes in illumination by the star, due to the spin, and the seasonal changes, due to the inclined axis, would not only cause varying Weather, but also both vigorous flows and strong interactions between that Weather and the global ocean.

The Nature of that Atmosphere should also be regularly added-to by ongoing volcanism and eruptions.

All of these situations would enable varying conditions, that also regularly recurred, all of which would be conducive at different temperatures, to many different chemical reactions being possible.

So, with the right conditions in place, what would unavoidably happen?

Various reactions would take place: though different in varying local conditions, and an active sea would move these around - not only locally, but also globally. Some would dissociate again, if the conditions became too extreme, but with the full picture as described above, there will always be places where certain things could and would survive, even if they were not happening everywhere.

We can conceive of a mix of different reactions taking place both incessantly and simultaneously, with facilitating energy perhaps from the nearby Star, or heated water from the vicinity of volcanism.

The big question is, "What would happen next?"

The usual assumption is that in time all possible situations will occur, and in many one-chance-occurrences, these will lead to more complex entities being produced, though still entirely non-living!

Taking the very same reasoning further, and over colossal time periods, enough totally chance occurrences, will very slowly take the complication to the very threshold of, and then into, the existence of the very first life. What utter rubbish!

You can see that the theorists involved in such theories are of the classical, pluralist, formalist type. But, that would never, ever do it! It is a mechanist, almost Laplacian narrative.

But, the Origin of Life was an actual, and totally game-changing, Revolution: an Emergence of the first water. A change, that once it occurred, took hold and completely out-competed all non-living processes from the outset.

With absolutely NO living competitors as yet, it would rapidly dominate every reachable conducive area across major parts of the Globe.

Now, compare this with the frequently suggested sequence of very unlikely, random occurrences, that fail in their millions before one manages to survive - faced then with another long stagnation, before another freak occurrence moves another small step towards Life.

The alternative presented here conceives of an entity being created that has absolutely NO living competitors yet possible, and something on-the-way-to-life, just competing with non living chemical processes, solely, on the basis of competing for the same resources. Indeed, what will have happened in the preceding period with only non-living processes happening, is that certain processes requiring, and finding, their required resource in abundance, usually churns on for literally millennia, producing enough products to lay down a layer of sediment thick enough to form rocks, still around billions of years later.

It seems very likely that the first "near-life" occurrence will also dominate in a similar way to the non-living example suggested above.

Of course, for this to happen, there is, still, a Revolution to describe!

It is, as been proved many times, totally impossible using the usual mechanistic, pluralist assumptions. So, as suggested earlier, we must look for evidence of actually-occurring Revolutions, in much later developments, long after the First Emergence of Life, to extract a working conception of how such a radical, totally transforming Change occurs, to see if it can throw light upon the most Revolutionary Event of all - The Emergence of Life on Earth.

It has been done several times, in various different ways. First, Karl Marx applied the newly discovered Dialectical approach to History, and discovered a whole series of such Revolutions in the Social Organisation of Human Societies.

Second, Lenin used it as a general method to guide the Bolsheviks within the Russian Revolution to seriously affect the outcome.

Third, Schofield went on to generalise Darwin's Natural Selection to non-living competition between chemical processes, in the period immediately prior to the Origin of Life.

Fourth, he then went on to formulate his Theory of Emergences, which traced the trajectory of an Emergent Event from a prior Stability, via a major Crisis to a Cataclysmic Collapse, swooping to what appeared to be Total Chaos, but then naturally-and-inevitably then delivering a self-constructed ascent to a wholly New Stability, at a different Level entirely.

Though much has still to be done, it is already underway.