Review: A Certain Ambiguity

 

A Certain Ambiguity

A Mathematical Novel

by

Gaurav Suri & Hartosh Singh Bal

I am nearing the end of reading A Certain Ambiguity by these two Indian mathematicians, after I had been attracted to it by its advert, where it purported to be about Infinity. As my current researches are philosophical investigations in both Mathematics and Science, I immediately ordered the book.

But, on commencing to read it, I was surprised by the realisation that such a book could only have been written in the USA, and by someone who subscribes to the present day consensus there. Yet, by their names, these authors seemed to be from Sikh heritage, while the book delivers a debate between "American" Christianity and Atheism. Before any content is dealt with, this surprising situation seems to say quite a bit about the motives of the authors.

So, my excitement at finding a source to expand my own work, was immediately undermined by speculation about these motives. For, if they were dealing with the problems and capacities of Mathematics, the inclusion of a dogmatic christian judge (no less) seemed to betray "inclusion" motives... What do you think?

The actual content is contained within two discussions eighty years apart. 

The first details one between a christian judge and an Indian mathematician, after the latter had questioned and disagreed with some christian "speaker" in a public park. In spite of this being supposedly a "forum" for the populace to "air their views", the hostile reaction to Sahni's comments was immediately amplified into a major attack, and Sahni was arrested and charged with blasphemy, under some ancient and forgotten law. 

The second, much later debate, is set in the present day, and contains a long series of discussions between a mathematics lecturer and a small group of his students (one of whom is the grandson of the man Sahni).

The kernel in both these discussions, as the authors see it, is whether there is any certainty in this world, or, to be more accurate, in the vastly different sub-worlds defined by the judge's christianity and the Indian's view of mathematics. 

The judge sees everything as based on his belief in God, while the mathematician sees everything as based on his favoured axiomatic method, as used in mathematical proofs. Sahni keeps to the example of Euclid's Elements, which established this methodology in Alexandria 2000 years ago, where the subject was greek Geometry. Euclid managed to integrate ALL known geometrical ideas of his time into a self-consistent system based on a handful of axioms. Our mathematician considered that this was the most powerful method known to man, and could see that it could be extended in use to the world at large.

As a mathematician myself, I must say that I was somewhat surprised at the childishness of BOTH their positions. Did they really live in the 20th Century?

I had personally dumped religion at the age of 13, as it offered NO understanding of anything. Indeed, quite the reverse, it was clearly an alternative to any attempt to understand how the world works. And though I too fell in love with Euclid at about the same age, and could prove all the theorems without any trouble, I could not see how such an artificial system could ever be used generally to deal with everything in the world.

My respect for theorems soon matured into a respect for the 'included' logic. But even then it was clear what this method was all about. Logic was able to generate a whole panoply of consequences from a given set of assumptions and assertions. It could amplify a set of such things into an extensive penumbra of dependent, though not immediately evident extensions.

But, to reduce this general method to the axiomatic version contained in Euclid, was, even then, obviously juvenile, as logic was the basis of discussions about everything in the world. Axiomatic structures are only a special, limited, subset of this 'universality'. The idea of a complete, logical system of Absolute Truth was, to say the least, "a bit much". From the outset, it was clear that the assumptions on which Geometry was based were merely simplifications of what actually existed in reality. For in the real world there are no dimensionless points, no lines of zero thickness, and no infinite planes. These were clearly invented to serve as a basis for a model of the forms of reality. And, it must be emphasized that, by the time you reached the end of Elements, you did not know reality, you only knew the model, and, in addition, you perhaps grasped some idea of the power of Formal Logic. As a pupil in school, I soon moved my allegiance from Mathematics to Science, because the latter did at least attempt to tackle more of reality than Mathematics ever did or could!

I hoped for understanding via Science. 

But I was an able mathematician, and have used this remarkable tool all my life. My attitude to it was always pragmatic, rather than for revealing the truth of reality. I solved real world problems with it.

What A Certain Ambiguity never even mentioned were the uses of mathematics. All of its discussions were clearly limited to Pure Mathematics, Applied Mathematics didn't even deserve a mention, which when you think about it, is remarkable! But, I am clear that the reason it wasn't mentioned is that Applied Mathematics is not an isolated pure system. It is involved, everyday, in the attempted application of pure, abstract forms back into reality - and when you attempt to do this, all that purity and elegance vanishes. Multiple 'frigs', approximations, fittings and downright invented models are found to be essential. The abstractions, isolated, extracted and perfected by Pure Mathematics simply do not fit with real world situations as they stand. They have lost too much in that processing to have the necessary content for a perfect fit. Obviously, discussions about Essence and Eternal Truth do not gel very well with such things, and so Applied Mathematics is dumped for being ugly, as if it didn't exist at all!

Much later in life, I was able to categorize the situations of the role of Mathematics much more soundly, when I embarked upon a period of research into the Processes and Productions of Abstraction, which quickly grew into a major area of study. These studies have since extended into a much wider area, which at present occupies all of my time, so that it has now inflated to be accurately termed Philosophy.

 The Processes and Productions of Abstraction

A short film explaining these ideas

Mathematics, as it is discussed in this book, is quite clearly the study of Pure Form in isolation from Reality. Yet, its centre is its universality and generality - things that can only be established in Reality. These properties arise from the fact that its abstract equations can be used in many different areas. How else could it be termed "general" and "universal"? 

Now, all these questions are much too important to be tidily confined into limited areas in order to make the arguments easier. At the present time in modern sub-atomic physics, the majority of scientists would have us believe that the Essence of their subject is Mathematics. They have abandoned Science as it has been developed over many centuries to replace it by formulae alone. Now, to move to such a position does also abandon Reality as the supreme arbiter, and instead moves into a non-scientific position which is clearly a branch of Idealism. 

The book, surprisingly applauded by many world famous academics, is, as I hope that I have been able to demonstrate, decidedly infantile in its dealing with the important Big Questions, that are clearly untreatable by the limited disciplines employed. It is also surprisingly old-fashioned! The Religion/Science debate has been stone dead for many years. Why on earth is it now resuscitated in this book? It can only be because these old, answered questions have not yet been resolved in the States. Modern Christian Fundamentalism is clearly alive and well in that country, and even, we are told, in the Oval Office. The debate in this book reflects the bigger debate in American society at this point in history, but, as is usual in such things, it does not reflect the real issues or address the crucial questions. It is closer to what close advisers to the White House put into their president's mouth, when untenable things are proposed as the Truth.

Mathematics is neither the opposite of Religion, nor can they ever be reconciled. What utter nonsense. 

Indeed, my researches show that Mathematics is actually extremely Idealist, and the degeneration of Modern Physics is characterized by its abandonment of Science for the thin gruel of Mathematics as Essence. Such trends get more like Religion every day.

Why should such an easy target as Mathematics be chosen as the "enemy" in these discussions? I think the answer is transparently clear! It was chosen because it is an easy target. Mathematics is no general philosophical method. It is essentially Formal Logic, but in such a limited way that I have characterized its area of application as being only in Ideality - the world of pure form alone. It is easy meat.

I know because I have spent time doing a very different task - the criticism of Mathematics compared with Science - the weaknesses of description as compared to explanation - the whole trajectory of Mankind's methods in attempting to understand Reality. So, the easier target was purposely chosen in order to allow the "correct" general conclusions at the end of the book.

I had wondered whether I ought to write a full conspectus of this book, but not for long! It is simply not worth the effort. Dawkins might feel that he has a job combating American Fundamentalism, but not me! I have better things to do with my time.

I am sure that a such a book as this will become very popular in the Mid-West of the USA, and much discussion (as in this book) will ensue among privileged college students. But such a level of treatment only reveals inadequacies and scarcely requires a full treatment. 

After all, I dumped these ideas and questions before I was 14 years old, and when you become a man, you put away childish things...

Jim Schofield 

September 2007

Issue 27 of SHAPE

It is perhaps an unusual offering, for it concerns itself with how purely technological advances can reveal aspects of Reality that increasingly question our most basic assumptions, so that if we heed the hidden messages contained therein, they can lead to new philosophical insights of tremendous importance.

A particular example of this is how the very basic objectives of NASA, and its purely technological advances to simply supply us with ever more facts, have instead opened a veritable Pandora’s Box of the breathtakingly New, where we previously thought we would just confirm our previous assumptions and merely increase the known details.

But, extremely detailed still images and even movies delivered by spacecraft sent into close encounters with Jupiter and Saturn are perfect examples of such crucial revelations.

For these pictures present important questions, which if both addressed and, of course, answered, must transform the way we consider Change and Development wherever it occurs.

For though not dealt with in the papers presented here, recent relations have been revealed between Earth’s atmospheric Jet Streams and the North Atlantic Gulf Stream with atmospheric systems on both Jupiter and Saturn, which have been put down to so-called Rossby Waves, and also raised important questions of both Turbulence and Persistence in such systems.

We must take advantage of these surprising ‘mirrors’ on our own world to begin to address how Emergences actually occur in all developments, in whatever circumstances they arise. These three papers do not deliver full and comprehensive conclusions on these topics, but they do treat the revealed images as the beginnings of an alternative and relatively ‘alien’ source of relevant information that cannot be as easily tidied away as can most more local evidence.

Read it here.

The Spark of Life

 

 
With what small, flickering sliver did Life begin?

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

It cannot deal with Life!

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

SHAPE is 3 years old!

 

June 2012 marked the third anniversary of our online journal. It is a significant achievement, for from the outset it was intended to put out new Issues every three weeks containing around 3,000 words of original contributions, and in so doing building an accessible library of contributions on the subjects:

Science, Holism, Abstraction, Philosophy & Emergence

(hence S.H.A.P.E.)

So by this point in time some 150,000 words should have been delivered, and this goal has been exceeded and enlarged further by this blog and a small series of animations and films on the Shape Journal Youtube Channel These 'spin off's' have recorded 40,000 hits on their own, quite apart from the innumerable accesses to the main journal. 

Surprisingly this hefty output has not kept pace with my new writing, so that there is a great deal more to publish now than there was at the start of the enterprise. 

We sincerely hope that our readers have got something from this demanding and committed endeavour, and would dearly like our journal to be the chosen outlet for the creations of other philosophers in similar areas.

To mark this anniversary Michael Coldwell will be making another new video for us, to encapsulate the whole project so far, and hopefully to attract new minds to the Shape aegis.

Why Socialism IX: The Essential Development of Marxist Theory II

 

  Removing The Myths Of Progress

(Calamity is the Only Opportunity for Qualitative Change!)

 

 

When considering real developments in the World around us, we finally settle upon Emergences (Revolutionary transformations) as the crucial episodes. 

 

But it would be wrong to see such interludes as merely a sudden quickening of the pace of an already-operating, pedestrian process of qualitative change.
 

Indeed, in research undertaken into such Events, it has become clear that the first phase is always a major system-terminating crisis, and the crucial phase in the midst of such a self-generated Emergence, (as well as that following any externally-triggered general collapse - as in a meteorite impact) needs to be understood for it is when things are crucially transformed. And, that is only possible in terms of Stability and Development as alternative modes, rather than our usually assumed trajectory of incessant changes, but at variable rates. For we invariably (and incorrectly) see Stability as both desirable and constructive. And we contrast it favourably with the alternative of a totally destructive Chaos. For, with such a view, it appears inevitable that any real progress must be confined to only, and wholly, within Stability, and conversely that Chaos, if successful, will lead only downwards towards an ultimate and general dissolution.
 

But, this is a significantly mistaken assumption. Indeed, it is the opposite of what actually occurs. And, if this is the case, the question that must be answered is, “How does such a misconception become so widespread?”
 

Clearly, the error stems from those who define Stability, and what they not only see as progressive, but also have the wherewithall to impose it upon the majority of the population. And throughout history those have always been the people who are “in-charge” (or those closely and beneficially associated with them).
 

But, if our suggested, very different, alternative conceptions are true, and stability is totally opposed to progress, then we have to explain why this is so. And it is best revealed by contrasting Stability not with Chaos, but with its real opposite - Revolution. 

 

From this point of view, stability is essentially a balanced and conservative state, in which the status quo has to be actively maintained, and even strengthened whenever and wherever it is possible to do so. Any threats to the current Order are opposed immediately, either automatically in naturally achieved stabilities - via built-in inhibitors of system change, or within Societies via consciously set-up organisations such as the police, the armed forces and the Justice System.

NOTE: When politicians emphasize the Rule-of-Law as the essential ingredient in “democracy”, this is exactly what they have in mind.
 

Now this suggested alternative may be dismissed as merely a forlorn hope of those not in charge, and hence having no objectivity. But, if that were true, and the usual established view of stability was the case, then the motive forces for significant change would have to be ever and clearly evident within all such stable situations. So, the question that must be answered is, “Are these forces both active and clearly evident within Stability, and if so, what are they?”
 

And, to those who subscribe to the consensus view, the answer to such a question would inevitably be “Technology!” They would be clearly in difficulties to provide any other examples at all. And even this banker response does not, and indeed cannot, deliver significant qualitative change.
 

The definitions of both Science and Technology are clearly important in showing exactly what these activities do in fact achieve:

Science is the attempt to understand Reality and all new discoveries, while, Technology is merely the drive to use such things – profitably. And, this latter is then impossible to make into a system-transforming activity, for its context must be part of the process too. Indeed, an extremely good case can be made for establishing the exact opposite. 

 

For though we are told that it transforms Society that is certainly not by radically altering its stability. It actually presents an absolutely zero threat! Indeed, without the constant and accelerating March of Technology our current Social Order would be in dire trouble.

It enables a debt-based acceleration to disguise a real congenital decline, but to do so requires ever more resources and earnings to allow the most enormous borrowings to finance the essential research to deliver what is needed to keep the majorly holed boat afloat. Technology provides the pumps that keep it from sinking – hardly a progressively transforming contribution!
 

Now, I must admit that I am not attempting to win any arguments with the group who benefit most from the current system. That would be a total waste of time. But, I do address the majority, and those who should be their vanguard, the scientists, though the latter are currently in the most debilitating trough for extending our understanding of the World, and have been there for a very long time.

Sub Atomic Physics and Cosmology are deep in the mire of the wholly idealist Copenhagen Interpretation of Quantum Theory, and have completely abandoned Understanding and Explanation for pragmatism via Equations alone.
 

And, in spite of what leading scientists on innumerable TV Spectaculars and in magazine articles say about the promise of the latest experimental kit, the truth is that Science, as a means of understanding has completely lost its way. For they, in spite of the illustrious history of Science, also subscribe to the consensus view of Stability.

They dream of being able to pursue their studies without any essential regard to pay, facilities and funding.

They imagine that Stability will provide them with such a Paradise, and in it they will surge ahead to ever-greater understanding.

It is, of course, a well-loved, but wholly untrue Myth!

So, let us review this proffered alternative concept of Stability.

It has to be a state achieved in the end by restrictive and conservative processes, which deter all opposing systems, and keeps things as they are, conserved in a sort of perpetual balance. There are still both deleterious and alternative processes (non dominant) occurring, but they are generally kept well in check. Yet the ubiquitous Second Law of Thermodynamics is also no myth!

Incessantly, the combined processes of dismantling and decay, which together constitute this Law, persist, and every single Stability will at some point be totally undermined by these hidden forces, and will inevitably collapse, and seem to be heading for total and final Chaos.
 

But, surprisingly, something wholly unexpected occurs and NOT by chance. The overall direction changes dramatically through 180 degrees, and Dissolution becomes Creation. The Phoenix does indeed arise from the Flames of Destruction! Multiple, wholly-new proto-systems as sets of mutually conducive processes, begin to form and grow, and the crucial question must be “Why?”
 

There is a clear answer!

The so-called “policemen processes” of the prior stability have been swept away in the wholesale collapse, and all sorts of processes, prohibited or greatly restricted within that prior stability, now go ahead unhindered, and begin to form multiple conducive relationships with other processes, and the only opposition is via other equally new and competing alternative systems.
 

Out of what seemed to be a headlong dive into oblivion, we get instead developments on all sides, and in every single micro-stage one particular proto-system will rise to dominate, but will unavoidably and by its own success generate the renewed reappearance of the Second Law. The drive forwards will therefore be halted, and a return towards chaos will ensue. But, of course, that will only resuscitate the rise of yet new and different proto-systems and another upward surge will occur.
 

Ultimately, after a turmoil of such developments, and alliance of conducive, mutually supporting elements plus the required defensive 'policemen processes' will win out and a new and persisting stability will be established. 

 

 

The Trajectory of an Emergence

And when this has occurred, it will be, surprisingly to some, intensely conservative.

Its final success, though in process it will have introduced wholly new and better elements, will be due to its effective prohibitions via its defensive processes.
 

Stability is born out of such seemingly chaotic interludes, and these are so general across all developments at all possible Levels of Reality, that we have termed them Emergences (or in Social situations – Revolutions). And the resulting stability is never thereafter conducive to any alternative progressive change: it becomes entirely conservative of what has just been achieved, and has the prestige of that recent overturn to justify its now repressive nature.

NOTE: This phase was noticed by Marx, and the Stalinist reaction in Revolutionary Russia was termed a Thermidorian Reaction by Trotsky in reference to a similar phase in the French Revolution.
 

So, returning to the Emergence Event itself, we see that the only opportunity for real progress occurs as a result of what seems to be initially a final destructive collapse into Chaos. And, from an achieved Nadir of Dissolution, a crucial creative/destructive phase produces real progress – situations in which entirely novel developments occur and become stabilised. And though the very achievement of a New Order precipitates a resurgence of the Second Law dissociations, that does not take hold and dominate, but is again swept aside by each new, and different, pulse of new order.

This interlude of alternation between new developments and dissociation does not set into a permanent oscillation, nor does the Second Law win, and again take us to complete dissolution. Instead the individual oscillations get smaller, and the upward swings always outweigh the intervening declines, due to the increasing integration of defensive 'policemen processes' as part of each developing system, until a final threshold is surpassed, and the last system succeeds in becoming “finally” stabilised.
 

It is remarkable, yet true, that only in the turmoil of an Emergence does real progress appear and become established, while also this phase finally reaches a New and long persisting Level, but at the cost of an almost total inhibition of new qualitative changes. The revolution may seem to destroy the old repressive regime, but will, of necessity, become repressive itself, in order to survive.
 

NOTE: The ideas mentioned in this paper, and the included diagram, are from The Theory of Emergences by this author which appeared a couple of years ago as a Special Issue of the SHAPE Journal.
 

Now, It must be emphasized that this is no longer only a Theory about Social Revolution. Indeed, it has become increasingly clear that it pertains to all development at whatever Level.

It means that reductionist hopes at explaining all Wholes in terms of their contributory Parts will, of necessity fail at all crucial turning points. They work only within a given Level!

To address real qualitative developments of all kinds, we have to look for crisis and embrace it. Only when we do that can we really begin to grasp Emergence in process. And the most evident of such instances occur within our heads – in all imaginative and creative Thought. 

 

Hegel chose correctly!

Issue 26 of SHAPE

 

Form & Emergence

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

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

Read the new issue here

New Special Issue - The Jigsaw

Special Issue 11 - The Jigsaw: A Conspectus of Pete Mason's Quantum Mechanics and Dialectical Materialism.

This issue constitutes a conspectus/review of a paper by Pete Mason on the Socialist World website entitled: Quantum Mechanics and Dialectical Materialism (Marxism Materialism and Particle Physics), published on Boxing Day 2010.

It is advised that the reader should take time to study the original paper before reading this issue for a more complete understanding of what is being discussed.

Two approaches are taken to the task. The first paper entitled The Marxist Apologists for Copenhagen is a direct response to Mason’s paper from a contending Marxist position; namely that Marxism and the Copenhagen Interpretation of Quantum Theory are diametrically opposed, philosophically.

The second paper, Notes on Marxism, Materialism and Particle Physics, goes in to more detail and is a point-by-point critique of Mason’s paper, undertaken to reveal the inherent weaknesses in the original argument. These are vitally important to elucidate as Marxism should, in fact, be the study of Qualitative Change, something modern physicists have long abandoned. To adopt their pragmatic and statistical approaches to understanding and to embrace the “discoveries” of quantum physics as gospel, is to abandon Dialectical Materialism entirely for Idealism.

Austerity: The Rape of the Poor

 The Dissolution of Fictitious Value

Are you wondering what is going on among the leaders of the Euro Zone of the European Union? Do you, along with British Prime Minister Cameron and his Tory colleagues, put the whole thing down to their stubborn refusal to act! Or do you decide that all such efforts to rationalise our World (including the lauded United Nations) are doomed to failure from the outset. Yet what is really happening is certainly none of these things! It is the final Dissolution of the Fictitious Value on which Capitalism rests. It is the regularly occurring and inevitable Crisis of Capitalism!

This isn’t just about Greece, or even the sorely threatened Euro Zone. It is about the failure of the capitalists final throw – to generate yet another fictitious bubble, this time out of the “Own Your Own Home Myth” for the very poorest layers in capitalist society. It not only didn’t work, it was the final straw that broke the camel’s back. Its failure put ALL value in question. And the answer that came back was that such “growing” value rested ONLY on an agreed and regularly inflated figure, so that in the end all apparent gains were shown to be an illusion. Value poured away in one avalanche after another and in the last few days it has become clear that the mightiest banks were fiddling the interest rates to give the appearance of their getting out of their own self-made mire.

Now, this is not, as some might think, just what we have been waiting for, so, that finally we will be rid of this cancerous growth upon society. For, the perpetrators do have alternatives. They have done it before, and they will do it again. They contract back into their own national bases and oppose all others. And in such circumstances the ultimate “solution” is always the same. It is war!

And all supra-national organisations, such as the old League of Nations and the present UN, are shown to be toothless and useless in any global responsibilities. They can never act against powers in ultimate crisis. They can’t even cope with tiny Syria! Why, for example, is Russia still the enemy? It has returned to the capitalist fold. Indeed, if you listen to the current crop of Tory backbenchers in the UK parliament, it is clear that all foreigners are a threat. “We must struggle for the best opportunities to win what advantages we can”, is their ever-clearer standpoint.

Now, you may with justice dismiss such a “final decline” analysis, by referring to the regular past crises and their apparent, just as regular, “resolutions”. And all that is accurate, but to reveal the nature of such past recessions and Slumps, and to compare the nature of the current crisis with all of those, you must attend to the Theory of Emergences (slowly developed concerning Stability & Change in all systems of whatever kind), wherein crises ultimately will occur to any Stability, and when they do almost nothing can stem an impending calamity. Indeed, in such circumstances something painfully calamitous is unavoidable.

There is, of course, a crucial period in which ever-developing swings downward are countered by often repressive and restorative built-in reactions opposing them. In a society approaching a Revolution, this always takes the form of ever more violent police and even military actions, which can, and often do, become Civil Wars (as in Syria currently). And these counter actions can win – if only for a time.

The suppression of the 1905 revolution in Russia was just such a “success” for the powers that be. Indeed, repression of nascent change of whatever kind is the natural, built-in reaction of any system in crisis, not as in a revolution, by intention, of course, but as part of its very stability-imposing nature.

For, to achieve stability in the first place against many contending alternatives, any successful protosystem had to include what I call “policemen processes” – destructive processes that could actually become part of such a proto-system to oppose all dissociators of, and competitors to, that system. There can never be any stability without such elements! Stability is not merely a new arrangement that is better than a prior one (a happy medium?), but one which can extensively and effectively suppress opposing processes whether dissolutory or as competing proto-systems. These winning elements exist in ever more strength until the mix of multiple conducive processes and defensive/aggressive policemen processes is unstoppable, and totally dominating. That is how new stabilities are always established.

So, in a crisis, the restorative weapons, for both defence and attack, are always available, and in a dissolutory swoop naturally grow in strength: they join the ever-present independent dissolutory processes (usually collectively termed The Second Law of Thermodynamics) in the melee, and, in so doing, ultimately remove everything that both the Second Law forces and themselves act upon. The situation appears to be careering down to total Chaos!

Now, in natural systems, such crises are unstoppable, but in revolutions that is NOT the case! For such involves thinking human beings, and the defenders will always find many and various policemen processes to stem the cataclysm. The fulfilment of a revolution is many times more difficult than a natural Emergence. Now, this reminder of The Theory of Emergences has been necessary because of the economic crisis of Capitalism made inevitable by the latest defensive measure, another of the kind that has succeeded in the past in hauling the system back from complete collapse. And that is the ever-new ways of “creating” fictitious value in all things! As always, the dominance of some towering component, in this case the United States of America, could maintain the fiction by threat of, and even actual use of, war (and even the threat of the nuclear demise of humanity). But, as always, these methods are not sufficient alone to maintain a system, which has used up literally all its potentials. In spite of the demise of the Stalinist Empire (with its appearance of the “dreaded” Socialism), things have not got better overall, but actually much worse.

So, what was the EU about, and why did it have to move towards monetary union? And, of course, why was it bound to fail? It seemed so obvious as a solution. Develop a counter to American dominance by a unified Europe to challenge its hegemony and compete on equal terms. It had succeeded in America via the union of a continent-wide set of separate states, but it was, like Australia, an expansion into a “relative void” by a more advanced and equipped people, who mercilessly removed the meagre sprinkling of indigenous hunter/gatherers. And all these “states” were very young and with odd and much weaker dominances. The task then was much easier. In Europe, in the 20th century, very old and well-established nation states, with strong internal dominances, and even diminishing global empires, were a much more difficult problem. The unification was first achieved in the fairly narrow area of Iron and Steel production, and only much later as a Common Market, but without political union. Each country maintained its own political set up and governance, and, of course, their dominances established in each due to its own history and institutions. They could NOT be unified! Indeed, nascent attempts like the so-called European Parliament were necessarily toothless and certainly did NOT govern. All nationally dominant parties continued to act as before, and hence in a crisis would do what they had always done only more so!

The current crisis in the Euro Zone is not due to the inadequacies of the European leaders, but to undiminished National Interests and their embodiment in national ruling elites. The Nation State is the natural Modus operandus of an established capitalist dominance. Within the overarching, though decidedly partial system that is the European Union (and within it the Euro Zone) the naturally dominant country is Germany, and the weaker states have tried to milk the wealth of that super state to finance their own growth using the usual capitalist mechanism of long term and fictitious credit. As long as everyone, and especially the rich investors in this enterprise were confident of large returns, the system seemed entirely stable. And without internal-national changes of any significant kind, states like Ireland, Portugal, Greece, Cyprus and even Spain borrowed at a vast rate to “build a bigger economy” things would work out. But, where were all the enormous sums to come from to finance these remarkable developments?

The final US trick to fund all of this was in the seemingly never-ending increase in value of houses. They would lend to truly vast numbers of the very poorest in the US, with the plan of getting at least some repayments, and then on the inevitable defaults they would take re-possession at, as usual, an inflated value of the property. Continual cycling of this sort would retain ownership of properties with increasing value, while getting non-returnable repayments on every cycle. The poor could supply the resources needed, if the exercise was done on a sufficiently large scale. And that was attempted! But, the plan failed everywhere, because the repossessions, were NOT of properties of increasing value, but of wrecks, as the dispossessed took their revenge, and values swooped very quickly down. The plan failed in a very big way. Now, it didn’t only stretch to this particular sector, for the bottom fell out of the property market in general, and there was no way back!

In such a scenario, it has always been the same, someone has to pay, and if it is not to be everybody, then the fight begins – not only between rich and poor, but also between countries as the natural states of Capitalism. For the canny perpetrators of this gigantic scam didn’t carry it through. They instead sold-it-on worldwide as Triple A rated investments, and banks all over the world bought into it as a very profitable scheme. Indeed, many of the original perpetrators had “got out” of the scheme early with a profit, and it was the duped buyers of such “value” that were taken to the cleaners.

This was the origin of the now infamous 2008 crash. Does anyone even remember it now? The crisis hit the European Banks, who had bought in for a quick and easy profit, and instead had vast debts, which they couldn’t pay for as these assets were worthless. National political leaderships tried to stop a total collapse by using vast borrowings to cover the bankrupt banks, and in the UK several major banks were either partially or even majorly nationalised to transfer the losses to the nation. Now, you can’t invent value, so no matter what any country did, the crisis never went away, and individual countries made their own arrangements to try to redirect the damage elsewhere, to other countries. And the crisis just rumbled on and got worse. Now four years later it threatens not just the Euro Zone, or even the European Union, but worldwide Capitalism itself.

Now, the question is posed, “How can you get a cooperation of the different national bourgeoisie to aid the ones so weak as to find it impossible to cope?” To answer that question I can only repeat my favourite story of 2008, when Iceland’s financial sector bit the dust. The very same day the British businessman Green was filmed in Reykjavik “looking for businesses to buy for a song”. And even now in 2012 in the midst of the crisis, the rich buy at the bottom of a diurnal swing – convincing the uninitiated that an upswing is in the offing, only to almost immediately sell to take a profit, and thus causing the market to plunge again. Can you expect such sharks (or their advocates - politicians) to bother about those being fleeced to fill their own pockets? Of course not!

Let us be crystal clear. In what is usually a periodic slump, those who can make the rest pay, and actually buy while living off their accrued fat until a turn-around occurs. Do you want proof? Why is the remuneration of the rich accelerating, while the systems crumble (including publicly owned services)? Paying them bonuses for their “failure” is necessary, so that they at least will survive in the manner to which they have become accustomed. So, with their belief in Capitalism, they expect to cruise the South Seas in their yachts, until the turn round gets going again and they can return with pockets full of money, to once again milk their sacred cow. The question is, “Can they do this for ever? Or is their system running out of lies?” For, if this is the case, the disenfranchised will need to tool up for the coming revolution. The Arab Spring is only the precursor! 

The Major Crisis in World Capitalism

When watching the Stock Markets daily over the last extended period, you see a pronounced oscillation between steep dives in values followed by “not-so-quick” recoveries. And the Expert Commentators are always ready and willing to give “real, everyday” reasons for each and every reversal, which range from the Weather to bad, or even “good”, news. But, they only very rarely mention the contributions to this behaviour of the “profit-Takers”, where the money-men buy at the bottom of the market, followed by a hopeful rally by the less well informed, and then immediately sell to achieve yet another unearned and parasitic profit. Like the businessman Green, who on the very day of the economic calamity in Iceland was over there like a shot to buy when the market dived?

And the usual commentator-experts will never mention that in any systemic crisis there are always such dramatic oscillations – like the death-throes of a living organism, as the usual reliable Stability is undermined drastically. Nor do they reveal the purely temporary nature of the changes that are made to deliver apparent and reassuring recoveries.

Certainly, no one looks at the Crisis in Capitalism as caused by its necessary fictional values pumped up to unsustainable levels by speculative moves to wring the maximum profit out of every seemingly advantageous possibility that arises – the usual over inflated bubbles abound and are kept aloft long enough to enable profit-taking before the inevitable puncture and deflation occurs.

The foundations of the System are once again tumbling, as they have many times before, and though the oscillations can, and sometimes do, seem to be on the brink of a cataclysmic avalanche of dissociation, these situations can and usually are overcome. But how will they do it, and will it always be recoverable? Will they always get away with it, leaving either the Working Classes or the Third World countries, or BOTH, to pay the bill?

The crises in the past seem to have been overcome, but are they really, or is it just an increasingly enormous stacking up of an ever bigger precipice for a future and final calamity? The answers, of course, are available – in History! As economies such as that in the USA recovered at the expense of many others after the Major Slump between the World Wars, many countries such as Germany, and other badly affected areas, could see only one way out – WAR! Germany, Japan and Italy put down the strength of the UK to its conquered Empire, and that of the USA to its enormous internal market and its worldwide Neo Colonialism. So, the Answer was to acquire the same domination by force of arms.

We cannot let them try it again! What is being escalated in Syria? And what are the motives of the western Capitalist Powers? Why did they support the Libyan Revolution? They are certainly NOT socialists, are they? They couldn’t give a damn for the people of these countries, but CONTROL of Libyan Oil and influence in new capitalist regimes as a result of the Arab Spring MUST be their short-term objectives. Will the ordinary people of all these countries be helped by the success of these policies of the Capitalist Powers? Of course they won’t! And why am I confident of what I say is happening? It is the evidence from my current series on this blog entitled Why Socialism? Though the initial responses were small, they have recently increased considerably. In about 11 days hits from 50 counties have suddenly appeared, and it is interesting where they are coming from. The biggest response is from the ex-communist countries, with a rapidly increasing number from Latin America. The Big Crisis may happen where it is least expected...

Why Socialism VIII: The Essential Development of Marxist Theory 1

Now, the crucial flaw in “Democracy”, as is it usually argued for, and instituted within Capitalism, is that decisions are said to be made by the People and for the People. But the truth is that such is never the case!

What is available is that the populace can vote for any one of a number of available candidates for their local constituency, who at fairly rare public meetings explains what he or she stands for, and thereafter what will be voting for, but what actually happens in Parliament, if elected, is that the MP will vote as he thinks fit, or more accurately as the member’s Party directs all their MPs to vote. And these small interludes of public choice are extremely infrequent, and literally always made in ignorance of the real issues involved, not to mention the true unrevealed intentions of their candidate.

So, instead of merely constantly toting the Democracy-Demand, but within a future Socialist State, we have a much more difficult job to do. Otherwise, we effectively help to hide the dishonesty implicit in capitalist Democracy, as well as misguiding our supporters as to what we would institute in a Socialist State.

Now these questions are not merely a matter of choosing from a clearly evident and ready-made set of alternatives. All Forms within Socialism will be very different, and the organisations struggling for such a transformation MUST be duty-bound to make absolutely clear what Socialist Democracy would have to involve. It has to be a worked through and fully described alternative: and that makes it a job for our theorists. It is a job for Marxism!

So, let us attempt to delineate the main questions. How do we tackle the enforced ignorance of issues, and how do we bring decision-making closer to the people and much more frequent?

Read the rest of this post here...

Issue 25 of SHAPE

Read it here

This edition marks a change in both layout and overall method for this author, and as such requires a few explanatory words here. They are not about the content so much as how that content redefines its presentation.

The question being considered is the essential touchstone for a necessary and truly profound change in scientific method, for it cannot be addressed by the usual standpoint and methodology, which has remained essentially the same for several centuries.

Tragically, its clear inadequacies, revealed towards the end of the 19th century and the beginning of the 20th within Physics, did not lead to this necessary and indeed revolutionary change, but instead precipitated the wholesale retreat, which became The Copenhagen Interpretation of Quantum Theory.

For this change, in order to retain a “coherent” approach, rejected Explanation (Theory) as illusory, and pragmatically reverted to Prediction (and its means - Equation) as Science’s sole purpose. This retrenchment has now lasted 100 years, and shows no signs of ending.

Thus, those who consider that the Explanation of Phenomena to be Science’s ever-improvable essence, must find answers to the philosophical and methodological impasse that has resulted in this devastating retreat. And, there are many real world examples, which can be investigated to begin to get a handle upon Significant Qualitative Change – Revolutions in all areas of study.

Now, such researches are already being pursued, but only by a very few practitioners, and such papers as this must attempt to recruit ever more colleagues to this vital task. Thus, this paper will change the usual form, and will attempt to make illustrative links with other work in the area by special included panels, usually involving a picture or diagram, and an indication of where this can be looked up to pursue that particular line.

Clearly, this cries out for hyperlinks and relational databases web-wide, but differs in that the present available software does NOT involve adjustment either in the sending paper, or in the “sent-to” paper. So, that is too independent of any cross paper intentions, and that doesn’t always help. So, such use is not implemented here. It is, instead, beginning to find a way, which will hopefully transform the means to fit particular content. What you will find here is, of course, only a first step.

Issue 25 of SHAPE

Why Socialism VII: How are Decisions Made Within Capitalist Democracy

Before going on to the possible socialist alternatives to bourgeois democracy, we must first address the question:

“How does decision-making work in both non-political and non-representative bodies, for these are widespread and powerful organisations within all Capitalist Systems in addition to the usually considered elective methods?”

We do know how capitalist Democracy works in political assemblies such as the UK Parliament, where the main mechanism for decisions seems to be almost entirely top-down, and only very rarely bottom-up.

What is more, even the pre-election policies that secured the victory of one party over the others, can be radically changed, or even dropped once the majority in that assembly, and a guaranteed ticket-to-rule for the next five years has been secured.

With Party Whips, discipline and even the allocation of lucratively paid posts in government departments, the effect is to strongly bolster the top-down directing of what is made Law by such a "democratic" body.

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Behold the Majorana

or is it the neutrino,

    or perhaps the positronium,

    it could be the neutritron,

                             or even an Empty Photon………….?

The trouble with starting with equations as the only reliable basis for theoretical speculations, is that you only “see” what fits your forms. There is no concrete Reality as final arbiter – whatever is thereafter seen has to be fitted into the universally agreed “essences” – the equations that we have extracted previously.

Now this means that the only things that can be admitted into any “view of the World” absolutely must conform to these “essential and final” equations.


Of course, being Pure Form, such have been manipulated in all sorts of “legitimate” ways for what now amounts to generations of physicists. The equations can, and indeed have, been pushed (literally without limit) into all sorts of odd corners, and still be regarded as entirely sound [Note: Mathematical Chaos proves that].

So, the saga unfolded in the article by Michael Brooks and Richard Webb entitled All or Nothing [New Scientist 2864] can, and indeed must, occur!

To “explain” some new discovery, the existing deck of cards must be shuffled and shuffled again, and then pushed to the limits in accordance with meta-forms (forms of forms) like Supersymmetry to accommodate the “new”! The very same suit must be re-tailored to fit absolutely all occurrences.

So, this is what is behind this scarcely credible tract! Almost everything “might” be explained by a new particle, which seems to include both Matter and Antimatter as a single unified entity! In a veritable burst of chalk dust, many worried theorists try anything on their blackboards to solve the problem.

Yet, if they were real theoretical physicists instead of mathematicians, the model they require would be staring them in the face, but these equation manipulators can’t possibly see it.

The physical model that is required is the atom - and the components that make up the new entity would be one positron (antimatter) and one electron (matter) – mutually orbiting one another.

Indeed, such a particle has already been seen and named the positronium. But, that having been discovered in a High Energy Accelerator, was shown to be highly unstable with a minute lifespan, and hence dismissed for most of the suggested roles for the new entity. BUT, again using the atom as a valid model, the involved orbits in the positronium could there have been greatly elevated and very close to the limit of stability of that entity. The tiniest additional energy could be sufficient to totally dissociate it into its components – one electron and one positron – a veritable Pair Production indeed! So, if we bring down the contained energy considerably we might well be considering – a photon.

And, if we continued until we reached the minimum energy consistent with the continued existence of the entity at the other extreme, we could have an Empty Photon. And such could well be entirely stable in that state. Indeed such a particle (named by this author as the neutritron) could be everywhere – indeed the most numerous and most undetectable particle of all.

Think what else it might explain!

New Special Issue - Philosophical Musings

Read it here

A collection of musings on the interrelationships between:-

1. Reality-as-is – totally unconstrained and developing of its own volition

2. Pluralistically Constrained Reality – still a part of Reality but locally isolated into rigidly constrained Domains to reveal, and allow extraction of, so displayed relations

3. Purely Formal versions of these – clearly removed into Ideality – the mathematical World of Pure Form alone

All of these come out of a series of considerations and interventionist processes of what we can scientifically obtain from the World, and which contribute to our developing conceptions of” Reality”.

What is exciting about all these versions is that there are two things that thankfully seem to be present in all of them. First, there is what I have called Objective Content, which is present even if the models we derive or construct are not by any means a full and correct explanation. And there are also Resonances, which though they occur in the different forms and for different reasons in each, do, in fact, relate strongly to others in the alternative (and clearly parallel) versions.

Of course, as well as these helping our struggle to continually improve the truth of our understanding and explanations, they also can, and often do, mislead us into interpreting them as being the same in each manifestation, and that is certainly not true!

The small collection of papers gathered together in this issue attempt to reveal these various versions of Reality and how they distort our developing grasp upon “what the World truly is”.

Why Socialism VI: Do we Simply Put Capitalist Democracy in Socialist Hands?

"Now, apart from commercial and political motives being crucial in the failure of the Co-operative Movement, that was due not only to moral guidelines, which put such organisations at a decided disadvantage compared with their amoral capitalist opponents. There was also a timidity and conservative mentality too in those who led such institutions, and decided upon its plans and purposes. In a capitalist world there was no broad spectrum of sympathetic sources for the recruitment of available managers, and, as with all seemingly “socialist ventures”, they are soon dominated by incoming employees from the middle classes, who will always be looking upwards with ambition, rather than looking downwards with service in mind..."

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Finding Ideality

How the Search for Concrete Truths became the Search for Formal Truth

Facilius per partes in cognitionem totius adducimur: Seneca

(We are more easily led part by part to an understanding of the whole!)

Felix, qui potuit rerum cognoscere causas: Virgil

(Happy is the one who can learn the causes of things)

When arguing the pros and cons of certain assumptions or principles in Science, it may seem to the uninitiated that the philosophers are avidly contemplating their own navels, rather than addressing the really important issues of understanding the World.

But, the inevitable consequences of error in things that constitute the very bases of Science refute that very dramatically!

Let us take the universally accepted idea of Plurality – wherein analysis is considered not only possible in understanding any particular Whole, but indeed absolutely essential! The basis for this is the belief that every Whole is composed of a finite number of separable Parts, which, if isolated perfectly one-by-one will display, in turn, all relevant properties that can be involved in whatever that Part contributes towards the consequent Whole.

What emerges from subscription to that principle are legion and can be very misleading indeed.

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This paper is part of series called Philosophical Musings which will be published soon in an issue of Shape Journal - watch this space...

Why Socialism V: Service or Success?

When considering Socialism as an alternative to Capitalism, we must NOT limit ourselves solely to the usual primary political and economic areas. Indeed, at the very heart of these two systems are also entirely different implicit social contracts as to appropriate objectives in personal behaviour between the citizen and the State, or Community at large.

They can be somewhat oversimplified as Success or Service!

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The Means to Inform

How are opponents of a System in Power to publish their ideas?

The crucial opposing factor in informing the general populace of "the truth" has always been the ownership and control of the means of dissemination by a very limited class with very different interests and motives than the bulk of the population in any given country. And this means that it would be universally extremely unlikely to be allowed access via any form of Mass Media (to socialists in a capitalist society for example). And, in the same way the bureaucracies in the so-called 'socialist countries' such as the Soviet Union and China, were in a similar position, and thus determined exactly what was allowed to be delivered to their populations at large.

Yet, though these two supposedly different political systems led to a similar degree of crucial misinformation, it is not necessarily true that the problem cannot be overcome - at least for now! For the answer to the problem is surely the internet.

With minimal resources and a modicum of computer skills, a colleague and I have established several successful websites, and one of them made a worldwide impact. With our Dance-Interactive site, my small team and a professional dance colleague, over a period of some six years, managed to build a global database of some 3,800 genuinely interested contacts, and got our products in users hands in 80 different countries. And, crucially, in spite of the almost universal opposition of the dance education establishment, we did indeed outflank them via a policy of free demo discs offered on the site (in return for their contact details)  while, of course, providing them with what they needed, and indeed wanted, to empower their work - interactive video resources for the teaching of dance.   

Currently, another of our websites, the SHAPE journal, has been augmented by the blog you are currently reading, and the inclusion of videos and animations on Youtube - and our current total visits are approaching 35,000 in a relatively short period.

The point that I believe has been demonstrated, is that the Internet can empower financially poor individuals and fledgling organisations to establish the means to communicate, without being totally controlled by "those in charge".

The socialist organisations must therefore totally back those who fight for online freedom and the exposure of damning 'leaks' from secret areas to inform the public. They may be liberals and not share our political objectives, but they are addressing the area that makes so-called Democracy so clearly a total fraud, when in the sole hands of the privileged classes.

The Arab Spring proved it. Social networking on the web allowed those protesters to not only organise their forces, but also react quickly to counter actions by the forces of repression, and to flexibly deploy their forces in a way that the police and paramilitary forces could not subdue. And, an almost entirely non-violent uprising was still able to be effective. In spite of their liberal tactics they still managed to topple the dictators one after the other.

Needless to say, the leaders of the capitalist powers quickly intervened to ensure both influence (and oil?) from the seemingly non-socialist revolutionaries. But, even that clever move may prove entirely insufficient. In spite of many calls for the Rule of Law in Libya, and for the disarming of the revolutionary fighters, the latter have continued to keep their arms and be ready if required to use them again.

Though some nations have tried it, it has proved difficult to gag the web, and those who know exactly how to use their newfound communications, are already using them to ask new questions of each other.

So, with this relatively cheap and instant media, with all the power to change the world, the question for the socialist groups must be, "What must be published?" For even the dedicated socialist organisations tend to still be doing what they have for decades. The activists of the Arab Spring rushed past them as if they were rooted to the spot! That must change.

A detailed search through what currently exists on the internet, looks more like the old established "socialist news from across the world" - indeed, the reassuring message - "Look! There are others like us across the World!"

But that is nowhere near enough.

Not only must there be a substantial dissemination of Left news, but the far more important regular dissemination of empowering Theory , and by this I do not just mean quotes from the original theorists of the 19th and 20th centuries, but crucially fresh and appropriate Marxist theory being developed NOW. Not just agitational materials, but profound contributions upon all areas of human endeavour, achieved on the basis of the most powerful philosophy and method ever created by mankind.

There needs to be a constant flow of required developments in Marxist theory on literally everything. Fitting up the contributions of the original masters to modern scenarios, just isn't good enough. There are revolutions to be won.

What is currently available upon this powerful media is far from sufficient, and doesn't seem to appreciate what a weapon the internet could really be. 

So, what has to be done?

Issue 24 of SHAPE

Issue 24 sees the introduction of a new magazine-style layout to the journal and a complete reappraisal of how we see the Space-Time continuum - is it a 'continuum' at all, or is this another formal assumption?

Editorial: This issue of SHAPE is unusual in that it gathers together a series of recent papers precipitated by a long and concerted attack upon the so-called Copenhagen Interpretation of Quantum Theory. It started with the ubiquitous Double Slit Experiments, but quickly forced a more general reassessment which could not but include Cosmology and Einstein’s formal contributions upon the assumed framework of everything - Space & Time.

It is not the coherent and comprehensive work that was originally planned for a Special Issue on the subject - this will follow in the relatively near future - but it does lay down a few precursors of an entirely new approach, which arose out of other Sciences - particularly Biology and primarily Darwin and the following Evolutionists. 

But this collection does indeed tackle the philosophic ground of giants such as Einstein, Bohr and Heisenberg and shows in a fragmentary way where their transformation of Physics has unfortunately led.

Read the issue here

Why Socialism IV: Can It Be Established?

The Form of Socialism as a result of Revolution -
can it be Established?

Now, in the early years of the 20th Century, after the failure of the 1905 revolution in Russia, The Social Democrats of the majority tendency – the Bolshevics, were in the political wilderness, but the best of their leaders nevertheless knew what they had to do. Lenin set to work and wrote Materialism and Empirio Criticism, but this was NOT for polemical or agitational use. It was considered an essential, and indeed philosophical theoretical task to equip his Party comrades for the coming new revolution. Such presence of mind did not, in fact, adequately equip his party, and it was not until he joined his colleagues back in Russia in the midst of the 1917 revolution and delivered his April Theses that he managed to get them pointing in the right direction so that they could decisively influence the outcome of this inevitably developing revolution.

As distinct from the majority of Social Democrat Parties worldwide, he knew that the theoretical basis for such interventions was, and always would be, incomplete, but nevertheless absolutely crucial! You could not merely go to the shelf and bring down the appropriate volume. Marxism had to be developed constantly as nothing remains constant, and if you were not equipped to the absolute maximum level, you would be certain to get it wrong and therefore inevitably lead the Working Class to certain defeat.

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