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. 

Audio Issue 2 - Impossibility Space

 

Audio Issue 2 of SHAPE Journal 

This edition collects together several recent recordings by Jim Schofield on the philosophy of science, continuing his recent questioning of the nature of reality and how we study it. 

The main hypothesis presented here is that reality is somehow organised into emergent levels. We cannot predict when a new level will emerge, and we can't understand what it is and how it works, merely by studying the levels below it (reductionism). This is because a new level actually changes the levels below, creating new subordinate levels that make up its key components and contentions.

In this new work Jim Schofield moves away from looking at levels in terms of scale and physical spaces (the vast difference between sub-atomic physics and human biology, for example) and instead reimagines levels as possibility spaces.

The discussion draws on Buddhist philosophy, Dialectical Materialism, Mathematics and Evolution.

Special Issue 78: The Systems Theory of Everything V

Special Issue 78 of SHAPE Journal

...

Special Issue 78 contains the fifth 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 of papers in this edition examine the history of Pluralist Science and how we might begin reversing its many mistakes.

Contents:

Introducing Schofield’s Systems Theory

The Bases of the Sciences

Nature’s Context

The Misleading Failure of Bottom-up Causality

The Problem of Laws and Levels

Science for Understanding, not merely Production

Qualitative Causes and their Investigation
via Systems Means

Mechanisms of Development

Mechanisms of Development

& The Consequent New Structures of the Nature of Reality

There are many, long-held assumptions about the Nature of Reality - and these are understandably distorted by the often extremely slow tempo of the Qualitative Changes that occur. And this gives an initial impression of some essential Eternal Stability. on which everything else is built, with only inessential variations actually occurring.

However, such an environment, if it were to exist, would basically remain the same forever - maintained as such by a Fixed Set of Natural Laws. With this primary assumption, attempts to understand those Laws were well worth pursuing, if only to make sense of the full set of possibilities, so that the most conducive could be arranged for, and always kept that way, forever.

This was a relatively Static Conception of Reality, and what investigations were pursued, were NOT considered to be an infinite set: but, at least, a fairly large-yet- unchanging group of natural possibilities. All discovered Laws were assumed to then be available then, in exactly the same ways hence forward!

But after many millennia of study, there always seemed to be others - as yet unknown! The set was apparently getting ever-bigger, and a full definition of them all always appeared to be a long way off!

It never occurred to Mankind that Wholly New Laws were constantly developing, because NO possible mechanism for Production of The New seemed at all possible - beyond the divine.

And indeed, all discoveries were naturally-assumed to be merely different combinations of those already- known Laws: and there was an assumed Logic of such combinations. But all of this isn’t True! Indeed, there are situations, in which the Wholly New can be created for the very first time: and NOT merely from new combinations of previously existing Laws - and, hence, when such does happen, there is absolutely NO Way of ever predicting what they will be! They will most certainly NOT be mere combinations of past known Laws - for then they could easily be explained and always be completely predictable!

So, what occurs, are termed Emergences. They are NEVER predictable, and hence ALWAYS add Wholly New Possibilities to the Overall situation.

Reality-as-it actually-develops: we have the constant Evolution of Nature to attempt to understand!

All we can more generally say, about these Wholly New Emergences, is that they will, indeed, have “something” comparable in common with other prior Emergences - for example, how they may interact with other prior existing Laws, of all kinds! BUT, exactly what they themselves will contribute, will never be predictable, in advance of their first appearence, though more general roles to other prior Emergences will be obvious after the Event.

Now, all of this is clearly profoundly important - the great omission in modern Science is the paramount role of Emergences within Evolution. For, following their appearences, new directions will be possible, that were not available prior to such Events: and the most important of these will, most commonly, be when old- established features begin to be directly-contended, and, maybe, even actually eliminated.

Well established features can simply just vanish!

So, it would be totally mistaken, to assume that they would only Add to the possible range of outcomes: for, sometimes, they could most certainly Substract from prior possibilities too.

Now, as I have been at pains to fully appreciate the Important Role of Contention in complex situations, it becomes ever-clearer just how many surprising outcomes can result in well established, seemingly “stable” circumstances. And the Active Stabilities within the long periods between Revolutionary Events, are perhaps both the most important, AND by far the most difficult to explain! What actually delivers these Active Stabilitues, which are maintained for such exceptionally long periods?

It certainly isn’t a single overall condition that has to be precipitated into a General Collapse! It can, surely, only be a whole series of Separate Active Stabilities, which deliver the Obvious Overall Stability, due to the simultaneous stabilities of all the present sets. So, they have to be, at least close to individual collapses but surviving! The Revolution will be precipitated by first one individual Active Stability failing, and in doing so, trigger other Collapses, until the whole System is dissociated.

Now, there are still many more only half-answered features about the Nature of Reality, particularly concerning Electromagnetic Currents and Fields in Space, and relatedly also involved within the Sub Atomic regions within, and even without, Atoms. For things like Birkeland Currents cry out for further Explanation: as do many other related phenomena!

The classic “Chicken-and-the-Egg” Problems - relating Current and Fields, especially out in the vast expanses of seemingly Empty Space - originally conceived-of as a vaccuum devoid of matter - are still far from any satisfactory explanation, and are never considered as important when it comes to actual research of Space itself: while the Sub Atomic Spaces within Atoms are also ignored experimentally.

It could be that the usually available controls considered essential for ALL Earthbound Experiments, are clearly impossible in such areas, so literally Nothing is done there! In particular, the unexplained Nature and Description of the creation of the Birkeland Currents, coursing between

The Sun and The Earth: not to mention the now widely- suggested Hierarchies of several of these Currents, claimed to be actually Directing the arrangements of Stars, across Truly Vast Volumes of “Empty Space”!

How did these huge Systems Emerge, and what initially directed their creation and optimum positioning?

Clearly, the usual descriptions (as in the “See the Pattern”) make absolutely no attempts to address these questions, as has become the norm in most Electric Universe published ideas, as well as elsewhere in Physics.

But, all such assumptions-without-Explanation, simply must be investigated: yet all access to Experiments-in- Space seem to be totally non existent within this extensive Group, and wider too, it appears!

Indeed, there seems to be a surprising attitude to Theory - NOT, as the essential explanations of WHY things behave as they do, within carefully designed Investigative Experiments, but, alternatively, as self-consistent “Descriptions”, with absolutely NO naturally critical stance - as they surely should always be to finally arrive at The Truth!

Clearly, any still-remaining “Big Bang” ideas, give a Single Initial Source, for all Energy Requirements, but Reality is NOT a Running-Down Clock: it is a powerful- and-Continuing Creative Process, regularly producing The Wholly New - the evidence is all around us!

Along with the now universally-employed lop-sided account of the Ukrainian Conflict, the same kind of lop- sided accounts of Reality are similarly rampant too!

ASIDE: The above conclusion, which is certainly true about Modern Science, needs, I feel a concrete example of the increasingly employed alternative to experimentally-justfied Theory, to the now regularly- resorted-to alternative of more-detailed, and indeed useful, Descriptions, often employed in Science - as an alternative to Real Theory.

The example, that I am most familiar with, is the See the Pattern “Explanation” of the various forms of Atomic Nuclei - composed (for simplicity) by identical Spheres - representing Protons and Neutrons, and attempting to “explain” various features in terms of “Closest Packing” Forms!

It certainly isn’t a Scientific Explanation: it is a somewhat idealised Description ONLY, and explains almost Nothing of these crucial bits of Reality! It says absolutely Nothing about the Vital Properties of those different Atoms! The Science is omitted and “replaced?” by some Purely Descriptive Geometry.

The obvious and clearly very important Properties, known to be associated with these substances, all the way to their constituent Atoms, are NOT explained by this Closest-Packing Approach: so by far the most important and Causal features are simply NOT delivered.

The Persisting Myths involving the accumulation of only simple Quantitative Changes, within their Key Parameters, which being much too deficient to also include any Qualitative Evolutionary Changes, is therefore demolished! And Real Evolutionary Changes then actually construct a New-and-Necessary Totally Integrated System, in which the many contributions help to both support and mutually maintain one another.

But, by the very same relationships, many contributory elements are also eliminated, so, the overall prior System cannot recover, and step-by-step it dissociates into a complete Collapse: Stage One of a Revolution has occurred!

The Total Chaos that thereby results, however, is certainly NOT the end of the Process! For, wholly-automatically, a Whole New System then proceeds to construct a very different, and more appropriate sort of Active Stability. Stage Two of the Revolution is also complete!

Now, these Two Processes are always very Different: the Collapse is both swift-and-automatic: but the Re-Build, thereafter, has to find its optimum components, largely by trial-and-error, and that takes time!

Now, though Karl Marx recognised that these Revolutions regularly happened in Human History, AND hence were probably the usual Mechanism involved-in Real Qualitative Changes in Absolutely All Kinds of Developing Systems, his Primary Discipline was the study of Human Societies within History. And, that alone would require a truly massive amount of work to identify, describe, and crucially Explain all its vastly varying tempos, and the particular factors affected therewith.

Marx, though, intimated that such processes were almost certainly more general than being limited only to Human History: but he, personally, NEVER took his conceptions directly into the vast Range of Disciplines, where they would also be validly applicable!

Now, this was unavoidable, at that time, for both the tempos and the Qualities involved in Natural Systems, would be very different indeed, and, any wholesale- and-unmodified transfers, from say, History to Physics, would certainly be calamatous!

The Nature of what Marx called Dialectical Development, would, initially, at least, be limited to History and Economics - but the Philosophical reasoning behind his approach was much more general.

Now, the extension of this approach to all the other Disciplines is much Easier Said Than Done! For, starting with basic materials within Physics, will, in spite of the same general appoach, be necessarily profoundly different: if only because the ingredients in Physics are totally non-living objects, without any Conscious Reactions to what is going on!

The involved processes in such Systems, though still taking a related development path, will still be vastly more limited than the Processes in a History of Conscious Human Beings! It will be possible for such Human Physics Practitioners, to naturally attempt to build a Dialectically Developing version of Physics - BUT, it will look nothing like the Forms and Developments dominating Marx’s vision of History!

And, if it is to become THE general Way in all investigative Disciplines: they will ALL differ significantly - each with their own unique characteristics, even with a consistently Dialectical character assisting in our understanding of Change.

Indeed, this researcher as a qualified Physicist, and long-time critic of the usual ways that this important Subject has been developed. I disagreed with my Lecturers, from my very first term at University, and interestingly, on searching for an alternative approach in the exellent Library there, I found only one lone book presenting, what I believed, was a viable alternative. The book I found was in the Philosophy Section, and was called Materialism and Empirio Criticism - a work by the Russian Ulianov, who was the only one at all close to my own strongly held criticisms. I only, later, found out that Ulianov was better known as Lenin - the later leader of the successful Russian Revolution, and an avid follower of Karl Marx!

But, by the publication of this book Lenin amply demonstrated that Marx’s Dialectical Materialism could be applied powerfully and consistently to a very different Discipline to that of Marx, which in many clearly evident ways was considerably more Basic than History! Lenin knew that he personally could not take these ideas further: but he certainly proved it was possible, while at the same time very different to its application in the social world. And, he also proved his profound Marxist credentials, at many crucial junctures and Crisis Points within the Progress of the Revolution.

Many years ago I attempted to do the same job as Lenin (in Physics, not global Revolution!), but I couldn’t make any real progress, until I came across The Systems Approach, which alone significantly extended the range of Causal influences beyond the usual Properties of Atoms and Molecules to include Top-Down Systems Causes too! And, as mentioned elsewhere in these papers, Oxford Don Denis Noble has effectively included Systems Theory into his again very different Discipline of Biology!

Now, that there are three very different areas finally receiving necessarily extended approaches, we have produced, thereby, three different possibilities for new developments. For - in terms of Levels of Reality - below History we now have Biology, lacking the Conscious interventions of Mankind, but including Life and its basic development trajectories - and finally we have Physics, which now delivers the most basic Level of Reality that we can access.

And, these, together, have recently ushered-in various previously not-included factors, the Most Important being a general Systems Theory - and, for the first time, the acknowledgment of Top-Down Causalities, to add to the prior sole reliance upon reductionist Bottom-up influences.

And, what could, indeed, be added ON TOP of all of these, and influenced by them, as well assigning a wholly New Major Level of both Actions & Effects, consisting of Artistic Interpretation & Futher Explanation, across the whole set of the Arts, and a most profound disemination via the powerful revealing Media possible!

Now, in addition to what has been suggested above, yet another highly important aspect of the Key Processes involved, has-to-be the mechanisms that must be used to implement what is necessary! For these greatly influence just how these processes inflict the absolutely maximum effects! These unavoidably greatly concentrate these Effects in subtle Systems-Processing ways, ONLY evident when we correctly consider them acting upon various sets of Reactions, as finite CHAINS of separate processes.

For, though crucial, these are never regimented by waiting-in-line for their turn. For, the output from one process has to “find” the place to initiate the next process, and any movent involved, could also dissipate these comings together, and, in so doing, reduce the possibility of a completed CHAIN. So, perhaps surprisingly, the coming together always also elicits a reflected opposite action, from the recipient, and this dissipates the energy, in the form of an oscillation in-place! The complete CHAIN therefore happens, and so possibly dissociating energy happens in-place: and the overall result is the achievement of a kind of Active Stability, which allows all the required reactions to happen without dissociation! There are Two basic cases that must occur in the above described way:

1: THE LINE SHUNT Where whole chains of different processes, when disturbed in a single direction, nevertheless deliver a maintained two-way Oscillation, at the End of all the processes acting in a CHAIN

or
2: THE TWIN SHUFFLE When many such processes are acting simultaneously, a disturbance will cause multiple similar oscillations throughout the whole lot!

For, both of these intensify those Effects, which though seemingly one-way “shunts”, in fact actually cause movements both forwards-and-back, to deliver the possibility of maintaing an overall Stability, via a both ways maintained oscillations!

The reason for mentioning two different examples, is that while they deliver different situations, they still end up with a similar Active Stability, substituting Oscillations in place for translational movements.

This paper is taken from the ongoing series The Systems Theory of Everything, currently being published in SHAPE Journal. 

Qualitative Causes and their Investigation via Systems Means

Now, the sort of Investigation mentioned in the title of this paper, cannot but take us into a Wholly New Realm! Though, it must also be clearly emphasized that it involves an absolutely imperative change in the way all of The Sciences MUST, henceforth, be conducted.

For, the Greek Intellectual Revolution of 500 BC, though undoubtedly an absolutely essential Step Forward in Mankind's Thinking, also achieved - what all such innovations of that kind invariably also install - the usual Inevitable Diversion into misleadingly inadequate Over-Simplification!

Many Inevitable & Damaging Detours are always totally unavoidable as a necessary Unifying Product of the very same Commonly related Developments - for Mankind - is embodied in attempting to understand the processes, which ultimately will totally leave unaddressed the very processes that have produced the investigators too! Think where that omission positions the Investigators, and their employed means...

But, the increasingly evident superiority of the Investigators, unavoidably would be distorted by their clear differences to absolutely Everything else: and, the most obvious conclusion would always be that THEY were specifically included, as some sort of Reflection of an all-powerful Creator!

So, they certainly never saw themselves as a mere part of the remarkable Vista (which they were increasingly converting to Their Own Uses), but outside of it somehow (Idealism): and by their Analyses and Explanations they revealed ever-more about The Supposed Supreme Creator of it all - and especially as they, in their own way, were revealing The Creator's Intentions!

Frida Kahlo, Moses, 1945,

The separation of Theory & Practice was physically embodied, for centuries, with Many Different (currently dominant) Social Classes, wherein all the Practical Work (and even New Inventions), were unavoidably-situated with the Skilled Workers, which I term "Artisans", while whole "Explanations" of the World were reserved for the Educated Class of Owners.

So, the many mismatches between these two Class Worldviews (and Approaches), were to some extent softened, by the somewhat privileged positions bestowed upon the Very Best Artisans. Indeed, perhaps surprisingly, easier ways of advancement were afforded to the best Soldiers (for example), and on which side they used their skills against their own Class!

But apart from the "Privileges" that certain highly skilled soldiers could achieve, real Class Mobility was not possible then - prestigious Positions, could happen, as long as they didn't have to Read & Write! But, even that was too much of an economic disadvantage in the end, so the tendency became increasingly to Educate the Working Classes, but to still maintain Class Differentials, as far as possible.

I can speak with some authority on this subject, as I came from an unskilled Working Class background, and after getting Eye Glasses, following General Tests within All Schools in the 1940s, I soared across most of the Qualifying Hurdles, including to everyone's surprise, Passing the 11-Plus Examination to win a place at a prestigious Manchester Grammer School! Where, over the next 7 years, I had an illustrious Career, finally winning a place at University in Leeds! And following an extra year in Leicester University to Qualify as a Teacher, I started out upon a Teaching Career first in a Middle School, then a Grammar School, and finally in a Further Education College.

Schoolboys at Manchester Grammar

But as soon as my steadfastly alternative view of things became evident - certainly different to the accepted Norm - it was then that my Career quite definitely had a restraining lid placed on it! I could not be allowed to in any way "Join the Club",  with all its advantages! It soon became very clear that my abilities were there to be Used by their Class, rather than applauded!

It is easy to explain, by the subsequent perpetrators, by adding that I just wasn't up to the task: but a continuing extension of successes elsewhere certainly didn't confirm their prejudiced conclusions. For, having learned to Read & Write long ago, before I was 5 years old, I was, always, an avid regular visitor to any Local Public Library, and the always assumed usual Lack of Knowledge, that was usual in my Class, was certainly NOT the case with me!

I had realized their purposes, and then by-passed them, by thereafter following any success I had achieved, by an immediate move to another institution. And it worked very well until a post in a University, when a few days off with an old illness gave them the chance to try to terminate the job by asking me to resign! But this, I refused to do - and after confirmation of the non-terminal and easily coped-with nature of my illness by a Harley Street Surgeon, I obtained a Full Early Retirement, and, instead, returned to continue my prior Researches into Motion Study, for the next 10 years, with my Dance colleague, and all that despite an Aneurysm, which did lose me a couple of years!

I finally realized that I had to take a termination of those Researches, when I was presenting a Paper upon my work on the Laban Pure Form, at a Conference in Athens (Greece), when it was finally clear that my eyesight was critically impaired, so that all my usual activities depending critically upon that Sense, would have to cease forthwith!

Jim Schofield presenting his research into the Laban Pure Form

Needless to say, this didn't lead to a restful retirement, but instead to my Final Career as a Full Time Philosopher and Writer, which extended for the next 16 years. For, with the help of my son (who has a PhD, and is a Course Leader at Leeds University) I was equipped with a four-and-a-half-foot-wide Screen for my Computer, plus a helpfully Coloured Keyboard, and radically re-coloured Screen, with much larger and easily variable Font Sizes.

Indeed, for the first time in my career, I was able to pursue, Full Time, the many differences that have emerged in my Academic Interests, that had become evident in my very first Term at University, when I had begun to attend to study Physics, at the very beginning of my career. And, it was clear to me, from the very outset of that Physics Course, their whole approach was damagingly mistaken!

For, in the early 20th century two different kinds of Physical Law had been reliably begun to be revealed: the first was the traditional Causal Laws, which concentrated upon being able to Explain Why things behaved as they did. But, increasingly, there had begun also to also be revealed Solely Empirical Laws, which related measured quantities, BUT explained absolutely Nothing!

Now, these were clearly true! No matter how many times they were repeated, the exact same results would always be delivered. But the Results from the solely Empirical Laws could never be associated with any single Property - so they explained Nothing!

Much later, it was decided that the numeric results DID NOT refer to any Single Known Property: BUT, instead, to a whole set of very different and, as yet, currently Entirely Unknown Properties COMBINED via their numeric Effects alone. And, as we didn't know exactly what they did, OR how much of each were involved, Absolutely NO Crucial Individual Contributions were available!

Indeed, only a combined purely Qualitative overall Effect, in a single associated overall quantity would be available. But, without a breakdown into Individual Qualitative Effects, and the proportions delivered to each, it could still explain Nothing!

Indeed, for these to be combined purely Quantitatively, it also indicated that these combined numeric contributions were of THE VERY SAME THING! It wasn't of different effects, but something common to them all: like Temperature, or some similar accompanying and definitely additive quantity.

Clearly, the 2,500 year old method of carrying out Experiments, supposedly to deliver what happens in Reality-as-is, has been a catastrophic Failure for our Understanding, even though it was completely adequate for accurately guiding Production. Indeed this Wholly Pluralist Mistake has been profoundly misleading in Absolutely All Attempts to Explain Anything!

Instead, a tidy and achievable alternative was established solely with Production in mind, and the Science of Physics was actually-replaced by its many uses in Engineering and Technology.

However, the Theories of Physics DID NOT soundly inform the Processes of Engineering: indeed, it was the Practices of Engineering which ultimately determined the Theories of Physics!

The Full Physical Theories of Reality-as-is are still Unknown! Neither Physics nor Engineering currently deal with any Reality beyond our Technological Control - which instead creates a new Reality that we routinely mistake for Reality-as-is. 

To maintain this effective illusion they must be always strictly limited-to Methods & Materials that can be relied upon to perform as our scientific Disciplines require, and hence always demand Absolutely NO self-modifying Techniques have ever been built into our constructions! When they fail, they Fail!

And, without extensive reflections of True Reality-as-is in our constructions and methods, many limitations within these edifices will NEVER be allowed-for, and the necessary, indeed, the whole constructional (and even medical) built-in changes instituted - due to appropriate continual monitoring, and consequent triggered remedial corrections, will NEVER have even been considered.

Take the obvious medical requirements of at-risk-patients: instead of nurses carrying out somewhat irregular testing: these could be permanently in place, with even immediate automatic changes in treatment coupled with detailed results sent direct to those responsible & capable of checking and in instituting the necessary modifying treatments. But, clearly, Research and Development teams would have to be radically expanded in the range of Disciplines, and Particular Skills present in the team, or available very close at hand.

For 7 years, in two British Universities, I made myself available to all active Researchers, across the institution, as a ready-and-waiting Highly Skilled & Experienced Programmer, to assist them where I could. And these were absolutely NEVER mere technological interventions.

Perhaps the most surprising was in Dance Performance and Choreography, which actually won a British Interactive Video Award in 1989. While another transformed the attempts of a Biologist to Classify (and easily identify) the World's Tardigrades, which was highly successful. With another Intervention I helped a Mathematician, who was attempting to model The Actions of The Human Heart, wherein my help revealed both the equivalents of both Fibrillation and even Heart Attacks in his suggested model.

Many other valuable contributions proved possible, and these were only available from an able Computer Programmer: yet I can think of many other Disciplines even more appropriate in many such Researches. And having specialized in both suggesting and joining such teams, the gains made have been so remarkable, but generally were still very rare at that time, and that where such have been attempted successfully, there has still been a dominating reluctance to recognize where the credit should be both admitted and celebrated!

Interestingly, in one post, I had a visit from the Local Examinations Organisation, because they couldn't understand why my students were so much better than literally all the rest in our Region, and certainly absolutely no credit was allocated within the Institution where I worked! Indeed, the Examination Board also asked me to become their Chief Examiner in my Subject, as part of a concerted effort to increase standards generally: but, at an Assessment Meeting the Teachers involved thought the the Level achieved by my classes were due to favoritism! But, the scores in question, commenced long before I was Chief Examiner, when I could do Nothing about the marks awarded... Meanwhile nobody elsewhere within my own institution were at all aware of the success either!

So, the question arises - "How can such successes be used to encourage successful means across involved instutions generally?" It surely has to be regular Informative & Celebratory Events, and maybe even consequent courses, along with sample materials, exhibitions, and even awards for success, by the Board, for informing & helping interested Teachers.

Now, these things are never as straight-forward, as they should be, Research can never be entirely limited to a Single Discipline, and even when it does involve a measure of co-operation with experts from other Departments, it is NEVER usually officially organised and involving a truly Joint Team! For, the inter-Department-rivalries for difficult-to-obtain Research Funding always puts paid to such official forms of collaboration. Funding is always allocated-to individual Departments, and cross-department co-operations are always strictly ad hoc, and residing in a Single Department officially. Projects involving people from several different Departments are invariably Unofficial, AND always fraught with difficulties!

I managed to make it work, in only two Institutions, fully successfully, and in only one other where I managed it only once! The first was in a Further Education College, where such Research was almost totally unknown. But, in the two Universities, it was only possible by the inter-departmental involvement being coordinated by The Computer Services Department! And that worked because Computer Services was NOT a potential competitor for Research Funding: it had to be a Servant-to-All! And several good projects were unofficially undertaken, but not without some unavoidable calamities.

Indeed, even this solution ran into difficulties, as Computer Centres in Educational Institutions were invariably islands of Electrical Engineers in an Institution of Academics: and they didn't like what was happening to Their Ground! There was undoubtedly a Class dimension to this too

Indeed, in retrospect, it surprises me that Computer Centres were ever willing workers in Projects dominated by Organisers and Academics! They were only really happy looking after machines and keeping them working...

...

This paper is taken from the ongoing publication The Systems Theory of Everything.

Science for Understanding, not Production

Science for Understanding

and not merely

Science for Production

Pluralist Science - which I have extensively revealed to be greatly misleading, in the absolutely necessary Development of an absolutely full and necessary Real Explanatory Understanding of Reality-as-is - has proved to be severely-limited and entirely-restricted, in both its true effectivity. It is really useful only when used within Purely Effective Production Methods: and, even there, significantly-limiting in what could ever even be achieved, in that extremely valuable area!

It has, also, unavoidably, and very badly distorted any attempts, both at a fully-subsequently-developable Understanding of all the on-going further possibilities, achievable even within those now drastically-restricted-and-maintained components, still always seen to be absolutely all that is involved, AND certainly-thereby, also due to its consequently-misleading Methods - which actually forcibly always omit the possibility of many other useful extra Productions, mainly because their possible subsequent Manufacture - isn't even realised, as ever being achievable via related methods! Only the more obvious "Paths-through-Reality" were ever considered in Production.

Surely, a thorough-going Revolution-within-our-Approaches, is long overdue! For that will be absolutely imperative, not only for a True & Wide-Ranging Understanding, but, in addition, for a truly mammoth, and important, extension of what a Real Science could deliver.

And, as those already familiar with my writings over the last period will already be expecting: these absolutely necessary transformations will be impossible unless also accompanied by a Dialectical Materialist Approach, which has already made a whole series of Essential Developments in Politics, established via a major & revealing re-interpretation of History, not only in terms of warring Social Classes, but most profoundly, also, in the necessity of taking-the-side of the Working Class, and steadfastly working against the increasingly established, and now ruling, Capitalist Class.

But unless this is seen as an example of "The Tail Wagging The Dog", we must also emphasise the damaging inadequacies of current Capitalist Rule, in Mankind's Understanding of Reality!

For millennia, Theory has solely been the exclusive Domain of a series of Ruling Classes, which because it has never been in the hands of The Doers, absolutely always reflected and supported the position of the Classes that had developed it.

The position from which these Developments CAN ONLY be achieved, most certainly, being that of an entirely Socialist one - and entirely committed directly against the Capitalists, and their self-centered priorities! And, such a Stance is absolutely imperative, as for literally millennia such Ruling Classes have had the power and made their Decisions, entirely without the wherewithal, within their Class, to actually DO any of the clearly necessary Work, or even, to ever get a real understanding of it!

Theory and Practice have largely become based upon Different Social Classes, and this exclusively determined their priorities for millennia.

For though, I am originally the son of an unskilled labourer, after a surprising success within an extended Education, I have worked for many, many years in Schools, Colleges and Universities, and across a very wide range of Scientific Disciplines, with significant success, so these social conclusions can never be attributed solely to Sour Grapes!

But, it was also never a Smooth, Sweet & Fruitful Ascent to Glory!

It was a constant fight, with many battles, that just had to be won, and also necessarily immediately-followed by the successful acquiring of a new job, often even with a switch in country required, in order to ensure that subsequent necessary judgements there, would be based solely upon my clearly-demonstrated achievements, rather than Class background. 

And, as long as these were regularly being achieved, they predominated in how I was assessed for new posts within new places! Indeed, I had an extremely wide range of appointments and contributions in many different cities, with Professional Demonstrations, Lectures and even Posts in eight different countries - including throughout the UK and Ireland, then Hong Kong, along with significant work in Spain, Portugal & Greece, and others in Holland & Belgium. And, surprisingly, any local victories NEVER meant that you could stay in that Institution, for no matter how good was a current position, success also invariably makes you a rival for the ambitions of similarly involved others, so a gain is ONLY guaranteed by an immediate move!

But, clearly, returning to more General Developments, well beyond the strictly personal, with such a remarkable Political Stance as mine, there could be no chance of building a soundly understood General Position, without an increasingly soundly-realised Real History of Development (as it really should be), AND absolutely crucially based upon a Sound & Profoundly-Grasped Philosophical Theory, fully able to explain all Historical events, as well as be ready to further explain them again once they have produced all possible following Developments too.

No such Informing Theory was even intimated until the arrival of the truly Revolutionary Philosopher Karl Marx, in the early 19th century, whose principle area of study, initially, was Ancient History, some of which was available within the still available Writings of Civilisations like those of the Greeks & Romans. But, Marx could not believe that they accurately described the earliest Developments, and he, among a wide range of other investigators, with varied agendas, began to go much further, and consider the very much earlier Origins and Developments of Mankind.

And, it was unavoidable that the transitions between, say, Hunter/Gathering and Farming, would surely have to be established within a subsequently greatly-accelerated Form, within a further set of Developments, which were characterised by him as constituting actual Social Revolutions!

And, very clearly, such Emergences had to have happened also only in the Innovative Developments of the entirely Wholly New, and, of course, within the very First Appearance of all Living Things too!

And, Marx's Major Conclusion was that these dramatic-and necessarily Swift-Tempo-Transformations (not evident within the usual Slow Tempos of Everyday Trivial Changes) were undoubtedly the Key Interludes of All Major Transformations, which would have to be understood, to ever really meaningfully--explain all such significant Revolutionary Changes!

Now, Marx was initially a committed follower of the Idealist Philosopher Hegel, especially in his remarkable tackling of the most outstanding problem, left totally unsolved by the Greek Developments (way-back in History), which certainly did NOT fit in with their Generally Universally Celebrated Approach: the appearances of wholly unexplained, yet certainly consequent Qualitative Changes, and the only reasons Hegel could consider for them, was because, as an Idealist, he never ever addressed Reality-as-is. Instead, Absolutely Everything, Hegel believed, developed entirely within Human Thinking - where absolutely Everything was possible - so solely within that Powerful Context, he could deal with Qualitative Changes as necessary changes in Thought, and NOT changes in material Reality!

But, it was, at this precise point that Marx parted company with Hegel, for he insisted that these significant Changes took place entirely within concretely-existing Reality-as-is! Hegel's effective Sleight-of-Hand, in locating all such cerebral ideas as only existing within the only-and-unavoidable way we related such things, was Wrong. Hegel was clearly relegating such things entirely to Things of the Imagination: and Marx knew that this merely avoided the Real Problem, which would be irrelevant when addressing Really Existing Situations.

And, of course, this revealed that "Hegel's Solution" actually achieved Absolutely Nothing: and would legitimately be immediately rejected by those who daily dealt with Reality-as-is, AND actually regularly physically-made a whole host of Real Things.

So, naturally, the Makers-and-Doers within Society had to base things upon something incomparably more solid than those based upon the idealist Belief of Thought alone!

Indeed, the whole of Manufacturing and Production, just had to base its methods entirely upon Real World Properties and Laws relating Real Things.

BUT NOTE:

In order to cut Reality down to a handleable size, it still had to be severely-restricted to forcibly limit it to One Single Law at-a-time, to enable the situation to be so-simply-directed. But, Complete Manufactures would, therefore, have to be composed ONLY of a full & separate set of individually artificially-restricted situations, each thereby obeying ONLY a Single arranged-for Law at a time.

But, let us be crystal-clear, though avoiding the lies associated with the usual assumptions about the Nature of Reality, even with the truth-filled view, it still had to be severely maintained so, in order to be at all useable in Full Productions: AND that approach was majorly misleading too, when it came to correctly Explaining Why things happened exactly the way that they did!

The Devil had merely been replaced by The Deep Blue Sea, when it came to both Theory & Real Understanding!

And, the full set of problems involved, were not easily simultaneously solved, for the Real World as such is absolutely NEVER a mere Summation of Fixed Laws: indeed, they most definitely affect one another, and not just by individual modifications, but, instead, also widely by interrupting-one-another, and even, wrongly, linking parts of different Laws into concatenated mixed sequences - to give inexplicable & useless results!

Indeed, the only solution to this seemingly unsolvable mess, would have to involve the Finding of the actual Causal Laws, that certainly deliver the only available Empirical Versions, currently the only ones easily ones accessible.

And, until recently, these were nowhere to be found: and that was because Mankind was permanently wedded to the Myth that all such Laws were exclusively Bottom-Up! Yet, the Causal versions of these Laws turn out to be exclusively Top-Down, and will only be both found and revealed at a Higher Level.

The Causes were only made available by all the extensions, found to be also involved solely within Systems Theory! And, these wil; turn out to be Nothing Like the usual "Within-Level" explanations available for the usual Atom-Level Laws, extracted from the Properties & their Processes available at the Atomic & Molecular Level, (and because they are solely numeric) also to be able to be simply multiplied-up, totally unchanged in Quality and varying only in Quantity, when acting at the usually-required Bulk Level!

But, the New Systems Level Laws, on the contrary, are very different indeed: for they are effectively-and-always combined with each other there, to give overall very complex qualitative results: though in the usual normal "within-Level" Way, though with absolutely NO Qualitative Causes being evident there - can still give only Quantitative Results, so the New NON-Quantitative Laws can never be further analysed into individual seperate Causes at all, without a very different Qualitative investigation of the Causal Laws that also delivered them!

Now, historically, for many generations, Physicists ONLY sought Quantitative Causal Laws, as these, knowing the Properties of the Atoms & Molecules involved, could also presumably Fully Explain-why things acted as they did! But, by the 20th century, and its vigorous extensions of Physics down into the Sub Atomic Realm, there began to Emerge ONLY Purely Empirical Laws, relating only the combined Quantities, and with absolutely NO Evident Qualitative Causes at all evident! And this was because these Laws were Causally Qualitative, and hence though associated Quantities could indeed be merged correctly - by so doing the individual Qualitative Causes were not-retrieveable, but totally LOST by such operations!

The combined Quantitative results were entirely CORRECT, but the reasons for them were LOST!

And, try as they might, no Physicists were unable to find a single Cause!

Henri Poincare & Ernst Mach reacted by defining a Wholly New Stance, that they called Empirio Criticism, in which they insisted that Empirical Laws should be given the same weight as was the case for Causal Laws. But this stance was initially (and correctly) rejected by the majority of their colleagues, worldwide! But, as there then followed a Positive Avalanche of these Purely Empirical Laws, the general mood flipped-over to begin to agree with the position of the previously-rejected Positivists, and there were even those who placed such solely Quantitative Laws as by far the more Basic!

They were wrong, yet until such Causes were found and, ALL the Laws that underpinned that "wrong-turning" would no longer be seen as correct! And, that discovery still turned out to be a very long-time-in-coming, because traditional Methods had all efforts to find those Causes totally unsuccessful - for they were always inevitably looking in the Wrong Places, and for the Wrong Things!

The tradition had been that all Causality is always Bottom-Up!

But, that meant that all searches for Causes would be in situations BELOW what we were seeking explanations-for: but, they weren't there, and it wasn't until Researchers happened upon the wholly new Systems Effects, that the possibility of Top-Down Systems-Generated Causes began to be considered.

Yet, it still wasn't obvious, exactly what these New Causes were!

They were, of course, nothing like the usual Properties of Substances - traceable all the way down to individual Atoms and Molecules, which had simply been multiplied-up unchanged to describe the usual Bulk Effects! They were, instead, many and varied Causes - always involving interactions between different Situations, or even different Processes: so the simplistic Causal Laws, involving ONLY the Effects of Properties, were most certainly NOT what were happening at the New Systems Level.

In fact, the only reason that the usual type of Atomic Level Laws worked-in-the-usual-way, was because the arranged-for Experimental Situation was always very massively restricted to only the very minimum of Key Purely Numeric Variables, so that the Atom Level Properties that still worked in exactly the same way, as the numeric Effects could be added together correctly: BUT all other possibilities had been forcibly excluded, as they were clearly NOT numeric.

Now, the initial users always believed that their extensive editing of actual situations, did Absolutely Nothing to the various contributing Laws - merely revealing each focussed-upon-one, by removing the complicating and confusing others that were normally also present: and because of their non-numeric nature greatly hindered any attempt to understand what was happening due to these type of cases!

They believed that their methods were revealing the components that simply delivered Reality, via only a Direct Sum of all the numeric values of those delivered by their component Laws!

But, it just wasn't true!

They didn't all simply ADD, for some actually also causally affected & changed each other: and these original contributions had by then been totally lost by the mistaken consequent Methods used.

Now, the ones actual causing transforming interactions, at this Level, are many-and-varied, and hence, considerably more complex than the usually wrongly-supposed, merely numeric consequent interactions. And, therefore, the actually Transformed Overall Results would always differ considerably, from what those mistaken assumptions naturally misleadingly delivered.

It is also quite impossible to guess exactly what has actually been implemented, solely from the only available related source - the Overall Purely Empirical Results that are always easily achievable: by combining just the final solely numeric results alone. There will, most certainly, be more-than-one contributing Purely Causal Law: and to overtly do what is required, will be possible only if we certainly involve the finding and revealing, of all the many different necessary efforts to deliver them all.

But, where can we find, all that diverse evidence, to carry out these revelations?

It will certainly have to be at a Higher Level, as they must be Top-Down!

But, as they will be several, and of different Natures, due to being caused by very different processes: SO, the initial essential researches will be to consider the various ways these may be caused!

And they clearly wont be Solely Numeric!

Chains & Loops

By far the most important change, involved in these wholly New & Necessarily Also Qualitative Effects, are those generated by the fact that they are The Results Of Multiple Combined Causes residing within quite separate simultaneous Processes involved.

The crucial differences compared with ALL of the prior Single Process Causes, which always predominated in Properties occurring at the Atom Level, and were selected-for, by very strict and very artificial imposed restraints upon the Contents allowed in ALL arranged-for Experiments.

Now, this investigation will undoubtedly be substantial, so it will be tackled in the next paper in this series!


...
This paper is taken from the ongoing publication The Systems Theory of Everything.

Revolution and Evolution

Real Evolution: The Dialectical Materialist Version

This is the latest in the long series of papers on The Systems Theory of Everything, currently being published in instalments on the SHAPE Journal. The most recent unpublished papers in this series have been, without any doubt, Revolutionary!

And it has taken some two thousand five hundred years of mistaken & Wholly Pluralist Misguidance, to finally announce the Ultimate Demise, and the Impossibility (at least at present), of both a Sound and Developable Truth-Revealing Approach, that will radically transform Human Understanding of all Development.

And, let us be clear, it is not a moment too soon! We need a new Dialectical Materialist Science to understand and deal with rapid changes happening today - both socially and in the natural environment.

The War in Ukraine, similar to many that, for example, the USA regularly indulges-in - without the Whole World System having to be purposely-and-consciously put in Existential Jeopardy - now threatens to be a repeat of the Second World War, when both sides were also Capitalist, and the Capitalist Dominance of the World turned out to be at stake then too.

Now, this will NOT be a primarily Political Paper, but these points are much too important to be ignored, and they will always be regularly addressed when appropriate. But, at this point, the Full and Crucial Replacement of the Millennia-long errors made by Mankind, were clearly, and will be, by far, the most important initial task: so, the arguments arising from abolishing the currently Universal-and-Incorrect Stance, have not yet been by any means sufficiently elaborated - so, let us, at this time, continue with that First & Foremost undertaking, and get what we will more generally require, initially, from the clearly emerging ideas in this set of papers.

For, upon a re-assessment of the currently major mistakes in Science, I am sure that we will reveal, in addition, answers to the more general questions too! And, the Key Area, is surely in correcting our conceptions of the Required Context for any Sound Analysis of Systems undergoing transformation.

Absolutely Nothing will take place, anywhere, unless the required features are available-and-beginning to come across what they will quite naturally combine-with! Indeed, what we now know are vital are the CHAINS of Processes - linked by the Output of one being the necessary Input of the next in the series! And, of course these will never all be happening at the very same time: they simply couldn't do so, as initially they would totally all be entirely separate - distributed singly throughout a relatively unstructured melee.

The trajectory of the subsequent-build, could only be a One-at-a-Time situation! And for the whole CHAIN to be successfully sequentially-acting, would not only take an inordinate length of time to complete the CHAIN, but would be regularly-interrupted and even sometimes prematurely terminated, by adding other links from different potential-partial-CHAINS that were available with the same link, but inappropriate.

Any Outside Observer would confidently only predict just a different kind of Random Chaos resulting for the whole population of Partial Chain potentially available by the same link. And such a conclusion would be correct, and remain so, until by chance after maybe Eons of Time, a favourably functioning Complete Chain was finally executed. But still entirely alone, what could it DO?

Indeed, the answer would surely be Absolutely Nothing, and would remain so, until a different and somehow Complementary Chain also arose, that could connect with the other one, and thereby produce something Absolutely New, with always reproducibly favourable functions!

Now, such seeming miracles have been, and still are, considered Totally Impossible to occur - within the established Thinking of Mankind!  For, within their known World, such situations would just have to be the result of a Supernatural and All-powerful, yet Man-like Director of Absolutely Everything - indeed A GOD!

Order could never actually Emerge out of Total Chaos! All the consonances of Everyday Reality simply must have been arranged-for: how else? Clearly, these remarkable and complex situations, just with Reality alone as the Sole organising Source, and if just left to itself, would perhaps Complicate, but surely never mutually Co-operate! Order couldn't happen purely by Chance!? Surely, the everywhere evident, Direct Contentions would always predominate?

Indeed, the trajectory of Human Development has long been attributed to particularly powerful Men! You have never been able to just sit back and observe Reality, bringing up all things everywhere exactly as is - & carrying you with it, has it? On the contrary, Early Mankind was always lucky-to-survive at all, in a mostly hostile World! And, it appeared to be the actions of particular individuals that changed the odds to every single greater extent that enabled the subsequent rise of Mankind to dominate their environment.

Nature was only very rarely conducive, perhaps initially only in the Eden-like tropical jungles, with their plentiful fruits and shelter from the elements. But the following Open Plains habitat was almost totally devoid of any natural succour for humans, who had to transform into fierce hunters of the Plains Animals, simply in order to survive.

Indeed, conceptions of natural mechanisms of Development, through all the Stages that must have been involved: and particularly the earliest ones - those entirely without Life - have never been really understood!

Yet, it is certainly those, existing at the Base of all subsequent processes, which have always been the Real Productive Drivers of Absolutely All Development!

Let's make it Crystal Clear.

We have to explain the earliest Pre Life Developments, that enabled everything that happened subsequently - including the Origin of Life itself!

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

The Bases of the Sciences

The Working Class Artisans - A (very) brief history of science

The very beginnings of what were later called The Sciences kicked off in ancient times, in the hands of able Artisans, who, initially as Farmers, attempted to make their daily tasks easier, by starting to devise simpler ways to undertake the many onerous processes involved, by the careful and intelligent design and making of helpful Tools. They were never initially trained in such tasks: they just had to "Suck-it-and-See" in attempting to alleviate some of the more time consuming jobs, that were absolutely essential to successful growing, animal husbandry, cooking and crafting. In time, these increasingly effective innovators became independent of individual farmers, and formed a valuable aid to the whole community. For doing their specialist tasks and nothing else quickly speeded up their Development AND the Efficacy of the aids they made, used or trained people for use. In the more developed Feudal Communities, they might be employed directly by the Lord of the Manor, and even equipped with their own small staff: and this greatly extended what they could usefully do...

But, these Artisans were essentially Pragmatists - finding the best and most effective means of achieving their aims through experiment. They rapidly became indispensable, and were joined, in the employ of the Lord, by professional soldiers, with the efficient tools of their defensive and coercive trades, to maintain and even increase the extent of that Lord's Territory! And, in such circumstances had to extend the skills of the local Tool producer to making and improving the weapons of the soldiers too. Indeed, in Sea-side or River-side locations these increasingly able Artisans began to be called upon to provide boats and minor bridges too.

Now in the so-called Classical World, dominated by Greece and then Rome, the soldiers became more associated with the Ruling Class, as feudal Domains became only parts of Militarily acquired Empires of great size, topped by a growing Ruling Elite, who were able to follow differently occupying lifestyles, and pursue concerns like Philosophy and the Arts! They got their riches from vast estates, particularly in conquered Lands. So, developments in attempts at Understanding began to take two very different routes: though in the case of the Ruling Class, their bases DID NOT originate as did the older Artisanal route within Pragmatism, and the solution of everyday Work Problems, but instead in their purely conceptual experiences in their cerebral preoccupations.

These two alternative routes in Thinking diverged markedly. For while the Pragmatist still solved the Everyday Problems, the Conceptions of what pure Reasoning could achieve, were considered to reside only in the Classical Ideas, and NEVER in the simple Pragmatism of the Artisans!

The Ruling Thinkers - A (very) brief history of science

So, when the Ancient Greeks came up with the very first Consistent, Concise and Comprehensive Rationality for Mathematics, it was Wholly Wrongly assumed to be about ALL Kinds of Thinking! But those privileged Thinkers, largely a part of the Ruling Class, knew Nothing about the Applied Knowledge of the Artisans! Indeed, their devised Logic was only legitimate within the tightly maintained and Restricted Areas of Disciplines like Mathematics: wholly Pluralist sets of circumstances and Processes.

Yet in the alternative approach of Pragmatism, they were also stymied by a very different and undermining mistake: for their approach involved NOT a purely cerebral Discipline, as was the Classical Stance, but changing Real World situations that frequently undermined their conclusions.

Interestingly, BOTH sides considered that they solved their inadequacies by Combining the Two! But this didn't fully solve the problem. The only approach for both of these just had to be Holistic: because, to some extent - Everything affects Everything Else!

Nevertheless, the Pragmatists embraced the classically developed Mathematics of their Rulers, because of its seemingly-reliable-consistencies (and in spite of its blatant Plurality): while the Classicists, in turn, embraced the Real World Causality of the Pragmatists (in spite of its evident inconsistencies and physical limitations - always limited to known, local and highly constrained situations). 

And the closer we study our consequent Laws within both of these alternatives, the more Significant Inadequacies are revealed: and, the more failures we notice, whichever Stance we choose to make!

Let us, therefore, re-address what was historically-considered necessary, in order to make sense of what was being revealed within the first general Approach of Chemistry!

The Petit Bourgeois Alchemists - A (very) brief history of science

For as this discipline developed, it certainly seemed able to deal with particular features, such as the various different Elements, which clearly combined-together, as units of the substances involved, and always as Single Atoms or Molecules, even if the Context was a great multiplicity of these units: the overall Bulk Effects being merely seen as multiplied-up versions of the Exact Same Products! - in spite of the individual single-unit-reactions by NO means happening simultaneously...

Of course, these methods work pragmatically within artificially-constructed Experiments, with absolutely nothing else in the mix - all variables must be controlled! But such circumstances would NEVER occur in unfettered Reality-as-is!

Indeed, absolutely all Experiments are limited-to these kinds of restricted cases. And, it is obvious that in less "clean-and-ordered" conditions, things would certainly not only be very different, but also would occur at different tempos, and include other usually NOT considered components too. And also, given time, and a Real World Complex Mix, all sorts of reactions including those that, by diverse routs, also end up adding to the expected result's total by other means.

And, of course, standing behind all of these assumptions is the Major Error, that separately derived cases simply Add - when happening together and simultaneously - but THEY DON'T! As The Systems Approach regularly proves.

And, of course, Chemistry played no part in the Artisan precidence in many other nascent Sciences! For, it was primarily developed by specialists within Education, and a limited band within Production, where in both of these, its study was given the usual greatly restricted Context, with the usual severely biassed results! Indeed, most supposedly relevant studies were treated to similar restrictions both in Education and Production. And, always seemingly with just Causes - as the more Natural occurrences would always involve a multiplicity of simultaneous, mutually-affecting Processes, thereby making any meaningful understanding of what was going on, impossible! And, particularly as, with little or no revealed Causal Laws, separating out the various contributions to any overall results, was effectively impossible too.

Indeed, the establishment of Causal Laws, AND their separation from the overall effects, was imperative - BUT also impossible as more and more such relations were initially totally Quantitative, and hence indistinguishable from all other Quantitative contributions. And as these Causal Relations didn't appear at the same Level, as the exclusively Empirical Results, this became increasingly difficult to both correctly match up and apply.

And, to make matters even worse, the multiplicity of confusing Systems Effects - which, remember, were NOT even acknowledged until recently - the disentangling of these differently caused contributions was never fully achieved!

The solution, though obvious, is nowhere generally admitted and hence NOT undertaken! It has to be an all-out assault upon Systems Theory, involving the detailed definition of Causal Elements, in order to Fully Explain their contributions, as well as including their purely Quantitative aspects. 

Now, with a well-entrenched and dominant Mathematical Rationality, the current scientific methods simply cannot easily do this.

The new series on SHAPE Journal attempts to outline an alternative approach

Let us look briefly at a single Systems Approach revelation by this researcher, in order to effectively reveal the involved difficulties!

It is the unavoidable preponderance of CHAINS and even CYCLES of Processes, that are necessary to analyse the Effects of particularly important faults that regularly disturb these Sequences!

Now clearly the Processes involved in these sequences are NEVER lined up in a queue, ready-and-waiting for their turn! They will merely be available within a pre-existing "random mix" - - perhaps more numerous than others not regularly required in this way: BUT, because of their randomised positions AND the possibility of their being pre-emptied by others with the same linking variable, could have a mistaken join up and hence a confusion which could show up in the final Quantitative results, with NO indication of WHY?

Now, an important aspect of Systems Theory, is when a particular Natural System, involving a whole consequent series of Separate Processes, gets established, and is multiply repeated simultaneously, and also over time: for the constant repetition ensures not only the resulting final products, but also the continuing presence of all the required components in the mix - especially if they are involved one way or another in other Processes too! For they came to have assured presences in the containing population, where others not so integrated, would tend to die out!

So the finding of the next required Process in a sequence would always be easier (though not always guaranteed). So fairly "ordered" populations could gradually be achieved!

Large-scale successful process successes, tended to restructure their environments, sometimes dramatically, at least to some extent removing the prior "randomness", and making the sequences ever more likely to succeed!

But such kinds of vital population massaging, would never be straight-forward to interpret Quantitatively. 

It is when we start to think this way about dynamic Natural Systems, that the age-old pact between experimental pragmatism and mathematical logic, begins to break down irrevocably...

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.