Beauty?

Scultpure by Henry Moore - its beauty is nothing to do with symmetry or formal perfection

As an artist (I am primarily a sculptor) as well as both a professional scientist, and a philosopher, I always justifiably jib at sweeping definitions of Beauty, from one or another supposedly fundamental stance! So, when today I was assaulted on YouTube by a series of such declarations, I was impelled to pen this essay.

The most glaringly false declarations, as you might have guessed, were inevitably about Mathematics!

Wilczek swoons at its towering and breath-taking "Beauty", while another is staggered by the importance of Number in the Universe.

But, it is also clear, that neither of these 'prophets' were in any way aware of the fundamental weakness at the very heart of that Mathematics, which makes it totally incapable of dealing with any qualitative developments whatsoever. For, its power resides solely in its artificial simplification of all things to reveal only their superficial Forms or Patterns.

Mathematics is the study of forever-fixed Pure Forms, and as such was, and is, a truly remarkable advance, but certainly NOT the Revealer of all, or even any, Causative Essence. The invention of this formal approach, by the Ancient Greeks, was indeed a major Revolution in intellectual studies: but it wasn't carried out by an omnipotent, all-knowing and all-seeing God - but by mere human beings.

Darwinian Evolution selects for Survival and effective Reproduction only - so our Hominid-Line knapped pieces of flint for literally millions of years, without any significant intellectual development occurring at all. For this 'intelligence' was not congenital, but certainly had-to-be both a solely socially-acquired, and passed-on ability.

Indeed, the undoubted proof is clearly evident, from the revealing studies of Palaeontologists, who also immediately recognised the tremendous significance of the Neolithic Revolution, when Mankind successively changed-over to staying-in-one-place with others of their kind to productively both Farm-the-Land, Domesticate Animals. and discuss with one another. Only then could increasing-social-interactions begin to develop in both the regular Exchanges of things, and revealing Discussions, delivering a consequent development of productive activities and crucially also both Language and indeed Thought itself!

Now, the above short diversion into Human Evolution was absolutely essential, as without it, the inevitably inaccurate initial misconceptions about the Nature of Mathematics would inevitably intervene to prevent any understanding of its accompanying significant weaknesses. So, unavoidably demolishing any promotion of it to a universally fundamental role in the Consciousness of Mankind!

The Ancient Greeks had achieved a remarkable thing conceptually, in their Intellectual Revolution - they invented a wholly new kind of Abstraction - with regard to Forms, that enabled the valid construction of the very first Intellectual Discipline in their History - namely Mathematics!

I call them "Simplifying Relatable Abstractions", and they were a remarkably empowering original invention! They stripped down certain formal conceptions to an absolute minimum content - indeed, so tiny were they, that they were useless in isolation - BUT, as connecting-enablers, they alone legitimately linked certain things together, delivering a sound means that could be legitimately repeated into delivering a substantial complex and coherent spatial Discipline.

But, there was a flaw!

All so-produced-things must be permanently fixed.

They could never change qualitatively into something else!

So, what had actually been inadvertently and unavoidably subscribed-to was the Principle of Plurality, and, most certainly, not everything was legitimately so permanently limited. But, abstract Form most certainly was!

Now, here beginneth the inevitable drift into significant Error, from this initial success. For, immediately, The Greeks, delighted with what they had been able to do with Form, exported the same sort of qualities into both Reasoning and a nascent Science, where they were wholly illegitimate as universal premises!

But, the disaster was, by no means immediately evident, particularly if those so-produced Disciplines were to be only used within naturally Stable and Unchanging Situations.

And also, crucially, in Science, investigators quickly learned how to both achieve-and-maintain such situations, for both relation extractions and also subsequent effective use of extracted eternal Natural Laws. While in Formal Logic, the Reasoning was limited to fixed concepts, which could suffice in most stable situations!

NOTE: But, almost immediately, Zeno of Elea had revealed the unavoidable falsities that emerged from Contradictory Fixed Concepts in his Paradoxes.

Now, as both a competant mathematician and a well-informed philosopher, I have developed these ideas, particularly with respect to the damaging Role of Pluralist Mathematics in Science, wherein I have established it as unavoidably both pluralistic and idealistic, and hence totally inadequate as any sort of assumed General Ground of Concrete Reality, i.e. in Science.

Indeed, all of its many extensions no longer exist within Concrete Reality at all, but are situated solely within Ideality - the realm of Pure Form alone.

Jim Schofield's Theory of Abstraction

So, when Wilczek and his like wax lyrical over the Beauty of Mathematics, he is actually describing situations in Form-Only Ideality!

The breath-taking intricacies and "beauties" of these investigators, are NOT about The Real at all, but, instead, only about the extensions of formal definitions into the infinite, but not concretely existing, features of Pure Form Alone within Ideality.

[It applauds the infinite extendibility and intricacy of Symmetry with Fixed Forms, and totally excludes the Real World Beauty of Creative Development entirely]

It just cannot be Science any longer: for it is, at best, a form of Art, based upon the Real, but artificially extended to extreme limits, outside of Reality, to display their Formal Beauty!

[Remember: Reality also contains properties, qualities and causalities, while Ideality contains only Form!]

But, why then is this unreal World indulged-in so extensively by scientists?

Having shot themselves in the foot via the Universal extension of Plurality to literally everything, they walled themselves off, permanently, from Developing Reality, and the Holistic and Dialectical means of dealing with it, so were forced to permanently give-up Understanding, for mere Prediction, and hence had to look elsewhere, NOT, it must be emphasized for Explanations, but instead, to seek only Descriptions-of-Forms that might possibly then be used as Disembodied Forms, enabling Prediction, without-Explanation or increased Understanding.

It is actually a retreat to an older pragmatism, disguised within sophisticated Abstraction!

Art: The Articulation of Form

Bodies against time by Étienne-Jules Marey

With the wide acceptance of Form as the sole determinator of Content, on the one hand, contrasting with the alternative view, which makes all Causes as only due to Content-and-context, and, in addition, as the determinator of Form, on the other - we clearly have contradictory premises as to what is primary in determining the Nature of Reality.

The two positions boil down, in philosophical terms, to opposite stances, namely -

Form-first delivers to us Idealism, while
Content-first constitutes Materialism.

But, what Forms do we deal in, and under what system of rules do we use them? Rigorously, we have only the set of Perfect Forms - that is those initially observationally and pragmatically-established, and, thereafter, those rationally-developed via a Purely Formal System of Manipulations that we term Mathematics. But, is that, really, a viable means of revealing all of Reality?

It was, of course, the very-first coherent and consistent attempt, by the Ancient Greeks (circa 500 BC), but it was also a truly revolutionary move, for though literally NO Perfect Forms exist as such in Reality-as-is, the development was extremely significant for another key aspect of what was necessarily involved.

Let us, first, be crystal clear as to what these crucial Forms were.

The more obvious Forms were Squares, Circles and Triangles - but even more non-real entities were, what they, in turn, were composed of - namely "Lines of zero thickness" and "Dots of zero extension". What on earth was going on?

Josef Albers, 'Formulation Articulation I & II', 1972,

It came from, in fact, the already common practice of Simplification - employed in order to make things easier to consider, manipulate and construct into ever more comprehendable, complex systems. BUT, and this is very important, these "modifications" were of a very special type: they attempted to extract only the "truly key features" from real situations, and into pure embodiments of a kind of assumed to be driving-or-causing essence.

They were in fact Abstractions.

Now, Abstractions were not, even then, wholly new: they had been used for millennia to describe animals of the same species - characterised by common, easily-identified visual appearances, and attached-to each uniquely-named variety. But, what the Greeks did was significantly different! Their extractions were Perfect-Forms, not merely a commonly-applicable description. For, such were each individually considered as the unchanging essence of all things possessing that form, for though it NEVER occurred in Reality, as such, it could be used, effectively, for all occurring versions of that shape: it was indeed an Idealisation, as well as a simplification of what was being dealt with.

NOTE: Before going any further, we really must note both the advantages and disadvantages of all such Idealisations. For, as they were never enough to completely define any particular, real-world-thing, they, therefore, would definitely, at some point, fail in being "appropriate descriptions", once crucial aspects - omitted from any idealisation, came into determining prominance for some uninconsidered reason. But, on the other hand, such idealisations would be extremely useful, and could deliver reasonably accurate predictions, and even guide successful productions, whilever the idealised description remained "apt"!

So, in a particular sense, it was a very real advance, for though it was always an approximation of concretely-existing versions of this form, the general relations, extracted from manipulations with this Perfect Form, were indeed "just-as-true" of all such other concrete versions of it too! But, though all this was pragmatically validated, as was then usual, by, "If it works, it is right!", we have to ask what did actually determine that Form? Was it built-in from the outset by an all powerful creator? Or, were they the only possible shapes that things could take?

Clearly, Idealism is a construct and NOT a revelation of natural essence! So, if this is the case, the Materialist alternative must always be employed to attempt to answer the question "Why?". concerning the reasons for the particular Forms of entities. Yet, in addition, it also must be fully explained why the idealist route, nevertheless, still enabled effective predictions and productions to be achieved.

Now, all this has been fully addressed elsewhere in writings by this philosopher. So, those, requiring that, are directed to SHAPE Journal on the Internet, and its many issues concerned with The Philosophy of Mathematics.

But here, the priority, as the title of this post asserts, is the consideration of "Art is the Articulation of Form" as claimed by the Italian painter and sculptor, Amedeo Modigliani!

Head by Modigliani

If Art was fully-delivered just by Form as such, it would mean something very different to what Modigliani suggested, and as a sculptor, myself, I was immediately sure that he had got-it-right in his "definition". For, basic Perfect Forms, as found in Mathematics, simply cannot say much more than is conveyed within the particular shape's formal definition.

But, just how one form transforms into another can display a rich variety of varying alternative causes: while in music a particular rhythmic pattern and tonal sequence transforming into something different can contain the subtlest of emotional or even causal content.

Perhaps surprisingly, while Form as such was never capable of explaining anything, the articulations between different forms could remarkably reflect the transformation of causes delivering that transition.

That may not seem much, but, to arrive at such a conclusion, would be incorrect! For, Art is not an indulgence or a mere entertainment (as in "Strictly Come Dancing" for example)! For, many millennia it has been an alternative means of communication of things not adequately dealt with by other means.

In a sense it is the oldest-holist-attempt to deliver aspects of a changing Reality - indeed, the very opposite of pluralist forms and even explanations!

It can, at its best, capture Reality-in-transit, and perhaps this is because it subordinates Form to "Time"?

Forms are fixed patterns, often extractable only by stopping the flow of Time and taking a "snapshot" of the revealed (if momentary) pattern!

From Ghost Moments by Michael C Coldwell

NOTE: My son, Michael Conflux Coldwell, is a photographer and musician, and he addresses the seeming limitations of "the photograph" by choosing as subjects situations wherein significant, over-time changes are there in the frozen-yet-haunting content. And, in a recent exhibition delivered many such photographs, as well as a movie, accompanied by his own music and sounds, which dramatically converted photographs into suggestions or even repositories of change.

AM by Conflux Coldwell

Now, Art attempts to remedy any simplifications by building "time-perceptions" into the art-work: it is why Music is so transcendental, because it directly uses Time, itself, to express what it is attempting to communicate. But, even static, unchanging Works-of-Art, nevertheless attempt to enforce a trajectory of perception, as the observer is led-through the work over time.

As a sculptor myself, I, like Modigliani, attempt to deliver two time-based perceptions for my audiences: I deliver changes via the varying positions of observers as they move around the piece! But, I also communicate change, precisely as Amedeo describes it - as the articulation (or changing) of one form into another - via various sorts of micro trajectory across the surfaces of the piece.

As a young convert to Sculpture as an artform, it isn't surprising that my first serious piece was a re-creation of a Head by Modigliani, and my favourite sculptor very quickly became Henry Moore!

Oval with Points by Henry Moore

The Imperatives & Trajectory of Writing

A Muse by Scientist and Philosopher 

Jim Schofield

Having been a full-time writer, initially, of directed academic papers, and, thereafter, individual essays, for a developing period of almost nine years now, I am, in retrospect, interested in the unplanned trajectory that I have been directed upon by that experience.

Initially, my topics were extremely varied, not only coming from my later career in Further and Higher Education - as a Lecturer and Researcher in Computing, but also from many, much earlier phases, when I was involved in teaching Physics, Mathematics, Biology, Music and even Revolutionary Politics.

Though, I occasionally also wrote upon Art, it was as a practicing Sculptor that I put in the hours there, and though I did write extensively for a time, on Music, it was as a rather incompetent performer, and perhaps a somewhat better analyst, that I spent my time in that area.

Writing was an intellectual activity, and initially, was limited by my own current inadequate knowledge, though I always found that I had something to say upon the latest News, and upon articles in Scientific Magazines, the results initially were invariably just critical one-offs.

But, being aware of those inadequacies, I resolved to attempt to overcome them, and read a great deal to that end. And, crucially, as a life-long teacher, what gains I made for myself, I wrote up as if I was teaching a class - so my style was never very literary - with the none of the usual abundance of quotes, references and examples of relevant experience.

I saw writing as teaching, and delivered accordingly, as if I was there in front of a class (though I had to imagine for myself any puzzled expressions and probable consequent questions).

I invariably got an inordinate number of criticisms from "professionals", who felt it necessary to dismiss my "style", punctuation and incorrect language, as betraying clear unprofessional inadequacies. But, as a highly successful teacher for over 40 years, I felt that I knew better.

I was never attempting to earn a place in Academia, but merely to teach what I had learned.

Now, as a qualified computer expert, I had managed to land my perfect job - helping Higher Education researchers (across the whole range of disciplines), by both devising and delivering computer programs to help them with their work.

I wrote tailor-made and usually completely original software aids for research in disciplines as widely different as Engineering, Taxonomy, Control of complex testing and analysis machines, Nursing Care Plans, Mathematical Chaos, and I finally won a British Interactive Video Award, for The Dance Disc - a multimedia aid for the teaching of Dance Performance (all of these were, of course, only achieved along with top experts in the discipline-field involved).

The language I used, when talking with my co-workers, was exactly how I wrote, and, it always seemed to work very well.

What I am keen to communicate here, is how my writing changed over the years.

From the outset of the current, writing-only phase, I worked 7 days-a-week, 12 months-a-year for a minimum of 4 hours a day ( and often a lot more), and quickly reached the level of output of a "Paper-a-Day". I began to fill 80 page display books with printed versions of my work, which rapidly grew to over 150 volumes, at which point, I switched to much more capacious A4-size polythene boxes.

A current estimate of my writing is around 6 million words, and after only a couple of years into this phase, I (with the help of my son, Michael Schofield) had set up three dedicated websites, where my work was published.

The most important site was SHAPE Journal, which, by October 2016, had published 91 Issues, each containing around 6-10 original papers. It didn't take long for us to, in addition, publish what we called Specials, which were originally conceived as SHAPE Issues dedicated to a single theme.

Now, from the very beginning of this endeavour, I had been losing my sight: so changes to my writing facilities were regularly necessary.

Initially, I wrote on paper with a pen, but soon had to switch to a more readable fibre-tip marker, and enlarge my manuscripts. The second stage was always to type from the MSS into my computer, but, then, the text on screen became too small to see, so a bigger screen became a regular update. And latterly, I couldn't even read my own manuscripts, so I switched to direct-typing-in, using a truly mammoth screen.

Another development in method was also derived from teaching, for I frequently changed course within a lesson, as a response to evident problems and questions - and, following an unresolved question, I even made sure I had cracked it by the next lesson.

So, when writing, I had to be my own sternest critic, particularly during a reading of what I had just produced, so necessary additions were then carried out, and inserted within the prior text. Many times, it was incomplete premises, assumptions, or prior ideas that were mistaken or even missing, so resolving these, produced Prefaces and Introductions, and topics often stretched into series of related papers. 

Perhaps the most important development was the Necessary-Interruption-Technique - where I realised the need for a necessary area of work. So, I immediately suspended the current writing, and diverted to researching the as yet unresolved question that was required, before I could complete the prior paper. But, most directly-available information was rarely an Explanation, so I regularly had to sit down and think it through for myself.

Brief notes helped guide my later writing, but clearly the Thinking Sessions were becoming more and more vital. The gathering of mere Knowledge was clearly insufficient!

In the present World Knowledge has, indeed, become the main objective, but that is surely NOT the main purpose of Education: that is now, and always has been, the Understanding of phenomena.

In addition to "How?", we have also know "Why?"

Instead of the mere dissemination of prior Knowledge, the emphasis changed markedly to explaining why things behaved as they did, and my writing became Original Theoretical Research.

As a qualified physicist, I tackled the infamous Double Slit Experiments, in Sub Atomic Physics, and managed to arrive at a comprehensive Explanatory Theory, at variance with the now consensus Copenhagen Interpretation.

In research into the work of the philosopher GWF Hegel, and his famous student Karl Marx, I finally arrived at an original Theory of Emergences.

And, elsewhere, also managed enhancements to Darwin's Theory of Natural Selection, as well as significant improvements in Stanley Miller's famous Primeval Atmosphere Emulation Experiment, which had naturally generated the absolutely vital amino acids in less than a week.

Having had a very wide experience over a long career, I was able to not only write, but also make original contributions across a range of disciplines, and despite my increasing blindness (I have advanced Macular Degeneration), I have accelerated my rate of production considerably.

In the coming Summer (2017) we will celebrate with the 100th Issue of the SHAPE Journal online, which will be a Special - composed entirely of the Illustrations, Montages, Diagrams, Graphic Art and even YouTube videos - all selected or created by my son and colleague, Michael Schofield, who is currently studying for his Ph.D. in Photography at Leeds University, England.

It will be quite an issue!

Obvious and Hidden Truths

"An Additive Mix" by Liz West. Photograph by Michael Coldwell

Both in Science and in Art

It has always puzzled me how clearly receptive literally-all artists and writers were, and still are, to the major Copenhagen retreat in Sub Atomic Physics. Approving articles appear regularly, seemingly glad to see that Physics has finally been rescued from dull, "mechanical materialism", and into the pure-light of Reason, and the beauties of Pure Form.

For, you would expect that whether you were a scientist or an artist, your clear objective would usually be to reveal that "Hidden Truth", which was, and always is, never immediately evident!

Why should this not be the case? Well, there are reasons!

Most Science is both pedestrian and pragmatic: so, the conception of it, among non-specialists in that field, is invariably closer to a technological conception, than one of "Natural Philosophy" - the original title and description for Science.

Indeed, since the heyday of the inventors, who successfully exploited any and all scientific discoveries in sellable devices, such as those by Marconi, Tesla, Bell and Edison, the ever-present demand, "What's it for?" has majorly replaced the original "Why is it so?", as the main requirement to be answered. And Understanding, as Science's major purpose, has been extensively replaced by Usability as the main aim and director of scientific investigations.

Indeed, this inversion of the usual order, in scientific investigations, has demoted Theory from being the major purpose, ground and, indeed, director of new discoveries, into becoming merely a "placeholder-explanation" of what is "already perfectly well known, and, already, most effectively used" - indeed, an afterthought!

A major principle on which current Science has been built, literally since its inception, such as Plurality, allows analysis of "extracted laws", which are then often seen as "directly-causative", as well as being, necessarily, relatively simple. And, in addition, such a stance sees what has been extracted in many different experiments, as delivering purely additive contributions: so that phenomena are conceived of with literally NO recursive effects where results actually qualitatively-change-their-causes!

Perhaps, even more restrictive than that, was the apparent basis for Copenhagen - the insisted-upon, Predominance of Form, as embodied in Formal Equations, which again arose, initially, to enhance and improve various modes of Production, based upon scientific discoveries.

So, how could its then further embodiment as "sole cause", possibly be instituted from such a beginning?

The key argument, against such "reasoning", has to be that it could never be so, when used entirely-alone. For, Form is descriptive, not explanatory: it is caused and not causing, and would always lead to contradictions and dichotomies if pushed beyond its always context-limited predictive scope! 

Anthea Hamilton, Vulcano Table (2014). Photo: Michael Coldwell

Now, such methods were relatively new to Science, though always attractive to creative artists of all kinds. For they were exclusively concerned with reflecting back to viewers, by their creations, the often unconscious, human conceptions and thinking, as directly as possible.

But, the real basis of all formulae is always Idealism - it makes the formal equations into the actual causes, and hence involves the abandonment of the materialist stance at-a-stroke.

Let us attempt to be crystal-clear!

All acquired equations from experiments, are to a significant extent, "man-made", which is both due to the necessary simplifying process of farming of the contexts of investigation, and also, thereafter, to the following essential idealisation of the products of that extraction, by the careful fitting-up of pure formulae from Mathematics to match such results, which, given an exact repeat of the same context as in extraction, enables predictable and successful use.

Such formulae do NOT exist, as such, in totally unfettered Reality: they are most carefully arranged-for by Man, and hence are man-devised reflections of only particular controlled areas of Reality. For it is this, as such, that makes them appear as eternal Natural Laws, and is, quite definitely, an idealist deformation, making the farmed-for-form the "natural cause"!

But, of course, Idealism is, certainly, not merely about the quantitative measurements alone, it is, of course, vastly wider than that.

And, it was those aspects, connected with human volition, that were the concern of artists, and made the New Physics seem so attractive to that creative group, who, in their own work, were really portraying what they considered to be the essences driving Humanity.

In addressing Humanity, artists of all kinds knew better than to be strictly analytic in delivering their subjects, because what they were really addressing was too rich and complex to be dealt with in that way. They were delighted with the move towards Idealism in basic Science. They also knew that their "means" - whatever they were portraying, were much more than what Science usually delivered.

Put as simply as possible, artists correctly see the world through Mankind's eyes-and-volitions, which they attempt to reveal to their fellow humans, whereas real scientists attempt to find the intrinsic causality of whatever they are investigating, and attempt to deliver that.

To cap it all the new physicists began to speculate in an idealist way to fill the evident cracks in the Copenhagen Interpretation.

Many idealist concepts transferred from Pure Mathematics, such as what became known as Singularities, began to move to central positions - with Big Bang Origins and Black Hole Demises for everything in the Universe, not to mention multiple Dimensions, above the natural three of the Real World, which appeared in order to "explain" the stances in many anomalous phenomena.

But, I would not equate the artists' stance totally with that of the new physicists.

The former were attempting to be true to a human experience of reality, and in that they are more true to an important part of it than the new physicists ever could be, but their common stance of Idealism, would not, alone, deliver what either group were really seeking - Truth!

"Reciprocal Spaces" by Shelley James and Scott McLaughlin. Photo: Michael Coldwell

Correction:

Perhaps much earlier, in this account, I should have explained Postmodernism. For this is the contemporary philosophical excuse for Pragmatism - and the regular switching between contradictory alternatives apparent in all logical impasses in reasoning. Artists loved this because that "kind of Truth" was better than just one or the other of the contradictory alternative being solely correct.

And, you cannot do that without discovering the reasons for the generation of such a dichotomy.

Instead, they considered, keeping all options was better, and this is borne out by the success of such pragmatic switching - you certainly didn't understand why, but nevertheless, "picking the right one", by chance or trial-and-error, in a given situation, did indeed work!

Artistic ambiguity played a similar role, but also, in the hands of a great artist, could indicate something of true, but not completely known, circumstances.

That is why truly great art always includes such profoundly directed and revealing ambiguity.

It is nothing like the crude methods of the new physicists, which actually do the opposite, and not only hide the real causes, but actually BAN all attempts to uncover them.

To this degenerate group "The World simply obeys statistical probabilities" - which is simply not true!

The artists' generally were aghast at the prior Mechanical Materialism, which to them was like dissecting dead Life, it lacked the impulse for Change evident in the Real World, so they mistakenly gave unwarranted support for these new idealist physicists...

Stability and Change

Sculpture by Tara Donovan

Quantitative Pin-heads & Qualitative Revolutions

Let us start by comparing Formal Logic with Dialectical Logic!

The former is universally applied across the board, and has been a significant method for explaining the causes and the consequences of phenomena via what are termed Natural Laws, as well as in discussions and arguments, where it reigns supreme to this day.

Yet, some 200 years ago, the brilliant German idealist philosopher, Friedrich Hegel, condemned it as inadequate in innumerable, developing situations, and consequently struggled for years to construct a better alternative.

His criticism was that Formal Logic only worked out the consequences of sets of fixed Laws, and, as such, failed in dealing with things that changed qualitatively.

It was solely the method for dealing with things that only changed quantitatively, and hence didn’t ever become something else. He, therefore, sought a Logic of Change, and made significant gains in that direction – in particular, in his alternative method of reasoning, which became known as Dialectics!

Clearly, the crux of the problem was whether Reality was solely the product of fixed Natural Laws, or whether it self modified - that is it actually evolved!

For, centuries Mankind had struggled to distil “Eternal Abstract Laws” out of complex and often confusing Reality, in attempts to understand it, solely in terms of fixed material things and fixed abstract laws of purely quantitative change.

But, there was a crucial rider to this aim: which was expressly to enable the use of what was extracted to certain desired ends. Initially, at least, the reasons for the undertaking were almost entirely pragmatic. If what was achieved could be profitably used, then “it was right!”

Now, there were extremely important problems with these objectives from the outset, but they appeared to have been solved by adopting the ubiquitous Principle of Plurality, which certainly seemed to deliver a logically- tight system of handling these extractions effectively and reliably, but only as long as certain preparatory conditions were always established and maintained throughout both investigations and subsequent use!

This was achieved, and many gains were made possible by the resulting system, which was termed Formal Logic. 

Sculpture by Tara Donovan

But, Hegel’s chosen area was “Thinking about Thought!”, and he compared the implicitly assumed Principle of Plurality with its opposite - that of Holism. For, this alternative turned out to be brilliant at exposing the complex causes of phenomena, and to a remarkable extent, dealing with qualitative changes too. But, there was NO practical, purely quantitative system of using Holism as had been developed with Plurality. It was clearly superior in Explanation, while, equally clearly, useless at dealing with quantitative questions. 

It became Hegel’s task to attempt to remedy this lack: he was determined to devise a Logic of Change.

But, its whole object involved tackling the creation of the wholly new, as he was aware certainly happened in Thinking! So, it was clear he had to investigate the crucial interludes, when such qualitative, conceptual leaps occurred, to reveal what was actually happening. [Surprisingly, human beings thought just like he did, but, unlike Hegel, they hadn’t the faintest idea of what actually occurred in generating new ideas. The processes of the mind were wondrous but inexplicable to them.]

In actively seeking such creative events, Hegel happened upon what he termed Dichotomous Pairs of concepts, which were clearly directly contradictory ideas, which couldn’t possibly both be true, but which had nevertheless seemingly emerged from the very same generally-agreed premises! And, Mankind, whenever this happened, always found themselves at a logical impasse. 

They simply couldn’t use Formal Logic to go any further, so they merely terminated that line of reasoning, kept both arms of the dichotomy, and switched between them entirely pragmatically.

Hegel knew that these impasses AND their pragmatic work-around, had to be dispensed with. He had to unearth the actual causes of these Dichotomous Pairs, and somehow, find sound “logical” way to transcend both, to reach solid and developable ground beyond them.

 

He had the ancient example of Zeno’s Paradoxes as an obvious starting point, for they demonstrated clearly the inadequacies of Formal Logic in dealing with them. Zeno, some 2,300 years earlier, had noticed the dichotomous pair Continuity and Descreteness, and proved their total contradiction via his cleverly constructed Paradoxes. It was, indeed, an ideal place to start, for since Zeno no one had made any further contributions to such contradictory concepts, and, certainly, if anyone did transcend a pair of contradictions, it certainly wasn’t then turned into some sort of generalised method.

Hegel set himself the initial task of revealing the source of the contradiction, and, thereafter, devising a reliable method of always being able to transcend the impasse, thus opening up such dead-ends in reasoning to further developments.

Now, this task was by no means easy! Within the Formal Reasoning tradition, there really was no way of explaining such contradictions at all: it had to involve very deep-seated and often implicit assumptions, that users were not even aware of, and, if revealed would undermine long established methods and consequent conclusions too.

His initial discoveries were that Dichotomous Pairs always occurred at some point, and when they did that would permanently terminate that line of reasoning, full- stop! Now to dissuade any efforts in this direction. an essential “by-pass technique” had become the pragmatic work-around: the “use what works” trick! But, clearly, such frigs merely papered over something very important and wrong in normal reasoning methods.

The affect upon the cornerstone assumption of Reductionism was clearly evident.

Every single line of reasoning would always be terminated by this same phenomenon. And, yet the overall stance of strict causality from bottom to top was still adhered to, though, in its current premises, it couldn’t possibly be true.

Human understanding came to look like a much divided bush of logical reasoning, with every single (or terminal twig) ending in one of these impasses.

“Wisdom” had now declined into merely knowing which arm of a dichotomy to take - like leaping from rock-to-rock across a raging stream.

Hegel finally realised that qualitative change was the problem: dealing with fixed, unchanging entities and even Laws would always end that way: it was a strictly limited system. And, the solution could be no easy fix. 

Sculpture by Patrick Dougherty

The dichotomy marked the point at which some sort of qualitative changes were occurring, and switching around between formal and fixed laws couldn’t possibly resolve the problems.

Deep below the resulting Dichotomous Pair, there had to be a very different kind of qualitative process, that didn’t have a single outcome, but at least a Pair, and any “law” to be revealed had to change with differing circumstances to give both outcomes!

Hegel had to dig deep enough to reveal the fixed erroneous premises, where a variable law should be. The task was not only to bring out the key premises, but also criticise and replace the cause of the problem. If this was done then the anomaly at the top level would be removed. The impasse would have been transcended!

Indeed, the key mistake was in subscribing to the Principle of Plurality. Clearly, Reality was not a mere addition of multiple fixed Formal Laws: it actually in certain circumstances changed qualitatively. The reason for the inordinate delays in addressing these anomalies is understandable. For, what was necessary was a major change in premises, not just for an individual impasse, but for all of those caused by these universally assumed, but rarely overtly stated assumptions.

To break through was more than dealing with a particular problem, it meant a positively wholesale revision, with consequences everywhere. And, it didn’t help that the old to-be-replaced premises could still deliver required outcomes in appropriately arranged-for circumstances.

Why should there be a revolution, when individual solutions were still possible, for productive ends, in carefully arranged-for circumstances?

The major imperative for change was philosophical! It was about Understanding rather than mere Effective Use, so it was never a priority!

And, of course, being a philosopher, Hegel’s achievements didn’t impact a burgeoning growth in Science, and wouldn’t to this day 200 years later, while it was exclusively about human thinking.

Only when Science itself was brought to its knees by irredeemable cascade of such impasses, would the challenge be imperatively addressed, and even then as a Revolution, rather than an adjustment!

It also required the next stage, which was to extend it to all areas of thinking and indeed, all areas of Reality too: it had to be transferred wholesale from Idealism to Materialism. 

Now, this was achieved by Hegel’s best student, Karl Marx. But, Marx’s applications, even though he was fully aware of their power across the board, were focussed primarily upon Economics, History and Politics. The important full-scale application in the sciences did not occur.

Now, as this researcher (Jim Schofield) discovered in his own work in this area, at the present time, the “thinking solutions” recommended by Hegel in revising erroneous premises were too concerned with Logic. Yet, the premises discovered to be crucially at fault in Science were not just with regard to concepts.

They definitely included contents as well as conceptions of Reality. For example, the long held idea of a Universal Substrate, even though its existence was never proven and it was totally dropped in Physics, this “physical premise” has turned out to be the most important error transforming Physics, ever since the discovery of the Quantum in the late 19th century.

Indeed, literally from that moment onwards, physicists made retreat after retreat, until at the Solvay Conference in 1927, Einstein and other classical physicists were defeated by Bohr and Heisenberg, when they persuaded the majority of those attending to subscribe to their purely mathematical Copenhagen Interpretation of Quantum Theory.

At no point did any scientist take on Hegel’s (and more importantly Marx’s) criticisms. For, though Hegel could be dismissed as an Idealist, Marx should not have been, for he was a Materialist!

And, hence, no investigation of premises was undertaken, instead, the whole fabric of physical explanation was dumped, for the “supposedly primary” determinations provided by Purely Formal Equations. In effect, Theory was abandoned for pragmatism and formal equations - as the driving essences of all Reality. Sub Atomic Physics became a purely abstract sub-division of Mathematics.

So, for the last 200 years Hegel’s gains have never been generally applied in any Science, except unintentionally by holist scientists such as Charles Darwin, Alfred Russell Wallace and later Stanley Miller.

You would have thought that Hegel’s revelations would have changed their World, but they certainly didn’t think that!

Human Thinking was not only considered a “foreign” and incompatible tradition to Science, but was considered merely as a transparent conduit for “Real Formal Ideas and Relations”.

Hegel’s criticisms cut no ice with scientists, who were committed Materialists, and had no truck with Idealists such as Hegel.

Dealing as they did with eternal Formal Laws of Nature and their precise embodiment in formal equations, they were convinced that carrying on in the same way as before, they would ultimately have all the equations they needed to explain everything.

Even though the relevance to all knowledge had been realised by Hegel’s best student Karl Marx, who along with several other Young Hegelians, decided to move all Hegel’s gains over wholesale to a Materialist standpoint.

But the whole group were philosophers, with not a single scientist involved.

Now, this group realised that the possibilities that they had transferred over were all-embracing, and would apply to all concepts and reasoning, but because of their specialisms, they naturally started by applying them to the things they were most familiar with such as History, Economics and Politics. In those areas they made significant, indeed, revolutionary contributions. But, in spite of making it clear that Science would also be transformed, none of them were in a position to do anything fundamental about those possibilities. 

The Dialectics of Nature and The Part Played by Nature in the Transition from Ape to Man, were valuable indicators of direction, but professional scientists were needed to be recruited to address the major problems in their disciplines. And that did not happen!

Science was never given the necessary attention, and was unaffected by the Marxist revolution in other areas.

But, though there was no one to predict the inevitable crisis in Science, it happened anyway,

For, the 200 years since Hegel’s important contributions and even Marx and Engels transfers to materialism, none of it had the least effect upon the scientific community, who increasingly as the years rolled by were less and less concerned with philosophy, and still in the 21st century have a contradictory set of bases as their underlying premises. They may have overthrown their classical amalgam of materialism, idealism and pragmatism for a more limited dependence on Form alone, which, if anything, can only be a step backwards into a fairly consistent idealism. They still hobbled along with a contradictory stance, but now it involved Pragmatism and Idealism in preference to Materialism!

The , now very long-in-the-tooth imperative of carrying over Hegel’s achievements into the heart of Science, still requires to be achieved. And, clearly, with the scientists hostility to such encroachment into their realm, the only possible assault, just had to be a head on attack upon the Copenhagen Interpretation of Quantum Theory, and particularly upon its main cornerstone - the famed Double Slit Experiments.

Both these have been adequately explained by the gains of Hegel and Marx, and the rubbishing of the current theories of quantization are now almost complete.

All we need is for some physicists to be confronted with these results.

Issue 44 now available

This paper is the third in a series of articles to be published here weekly, on the theme of Marxist Philosophical Practice. This work isn’t about Capitalism or Socialism, and certainly says nothing about Economics. This is about Marxism as a philosophical approach, applicable to any field of study, any aspect of reality. The series takes four very different issues in Philosophy and investigates them via this Marxist stance, which is termed Dialectical Materialism.

These papers are also collected as a new issue of the Shape Journal (44) available here

Sound Fountains

Sound Fountains at Nottingham Contemporary - Caroline Locke from Caroline Locke on Vimeo.

Ecce Habilis

Ecce Habilis by Jim Schofield

Clay and the Collective Body

 

Interesting stuff on the Red Eye Portal about sculptor Antony Gormley's latest installation Clay and the Collective Body. 

Have a look

Sculpture by Jim Schofield

Soapstone sculpture of Buddha

Soapstone Buddha by Jim Schofield