Cosmic Dust Clouds

Just how do the truly vast cosmic dust clouds form?

You would think that with a Big Bang initial stating point, followed by a series of supernovae a little later, that everything would be flying apart, and along roughly radial paths from their “explosion points”. And it is not at all clear how such a “dispersive” set of circumstances could erect such clouds of something or other, light years wide, so that they should end up as relatively stable, and long lasting structures.

There is, of course, the usually proffered “explanation”, which has “quantum fluctuations” present from the very first instant, which therefore, would “build-in” an unavoidable unevenness, and hence lead to many local concentrations. But, lets face it, such is a groundless dream, totally lacking in any concrete evidence – some sort of backwards extrapolation to explain the inexplicable in terms of the current, established Copenhagen prejudices. But that certainly isn’t it!



Now, the very fact that the clouds are opaque to light indicates that they must include particles of Matter (i.e. dust of solid elements) that are much larger than Hydrogen or Helium atoms, and hence could only have been produced from matter building stars in supernovae. For, current theories have all elements above H and He, produced by fusion in a series of sequential star forms, and finally dispersed, far and wide, by Supernovae.

Yet though that may explain our clouds’ contents, it really doesn’t explain their seemingly static state, which can be confirmed by that other consensus theory, that put down the demise of such stability to the shockwaves of subsequent supernovae, that break the “balancing stability”, and start a gravity-based concentration around local centres. For, with that theory, it is admitted that Gravity-caused aggregation alone is insufficient to end that state.

So, how did these clouds come to be in such a state originally?

Let us initially take some of the usual ideas and where it seems appropriate, add a few more.

The concept of a Big Bang of Pure Energy alone surely has to bite the dust? It is an internally contradictory idea that has been patched up with various speculative add-ons – the most significant one being that it didn’t expand into a pre-existing and totally Empty Space, but actually created Space itself as part of the same Big Bang process.

So, from a vanishingly tiny dot (the Physical Singularity) we have Energy, sufficient to construct a whole Universe, which, nevertheless, was full(?) of “quantum fluctuations”, and created Matter as it also created its own, required Space.

NOTE: In a nutshell this has Energy from Nothing making all Space also out of Nothing, and producing Matter as it went: an interesting Origin, don’t you think?

It was certainly NOT, we are assured, any sort of explosion, for that would require both pre-existing Matter and Space. Instead, we are told, it was a kind of emanation(?) of Pure Energy, creating Space and Matter as it went: a whole Universe, its actual Space and absolutely all of its contents, had spewed out of Nothing! But, surely creating-Matter is NOT merely the reverse of creating-Energy-from-Matter as in Atomic and Hydrogen Bombs? The pre-requisites for both of these are both Matter and Space.

So, just how does disembodied, Pure Energy condense(?) into Matter? And what is the Form of that Matter when it is first produced?

The problem is that Fusion needs Matter to work!

Indeed, it fuses smaller units together to make larger units, but with a necessary loss of some of the matter involved into Energy. You cannot reverse that to get Matter out of Energy alone! And what do they mean by “concentrate” or “condense”? How do you squeeze Energy until it produces Matter? Or is it somehow self-squeezing? Do they mean that after a certain, threshold density of Energy it becomes stable Matter?

But surely as all this energy was originally in “zero” Space, and then continuously had more and more Space as the process progressed, doesn’t that mean that the energy-density MUST be getting less and less, and will never again reach those earliest levels?

The received wisdom (if we allow a temporary slipping into “explosive” ideas) is that Hydrogen and Maybe Helium were produced by the Big Bang, though clearly some even smaller “bits” would have had to have been produced first, as both Hydrogen and Helium are combined entities.

So, in spite of these clear anomalies, let us initially stick with the consensus scenario, and have unevenness from the start, and as soon as Matter was created, it started to pull together in the more dense parts of the density spread. The idea is that these would very rapidly grow into stars of truly immense size, and as that volume increased, accelerate through the stars history, so that they would very quickly (in cosmological terms) exhaust all the matter-growing phases producing Helium, Carbon, Oxygen, and so on all the way to Iron, before really exploding in a truly giant Supernova.

Of course several of these would go through these stages more or less simultaneously, so even the explosion-less Big Bang soon produces massive actual explosions, which according to current theory are the ONLY situations in which all the higher elements are produced (remember, our Cosmic Clouds are of dust).

We now have, therefore a cataclysm of Supernovae – all exploding outwards, but as yet still in a relatively tiny Universe (compared to now). Clearly, these explosions would “bump into” one another, and in certain areas “cancel out”. Perhaps this was the actual source of our vast, light-years-across, dust clouds, which, in consequence become relatively stable: They might, as whole “clouds”, still be moving, but internally the individual movements of the components from both involved Supernovae may approach a “random mix”, and thus produce a stable overall state within the cloud [Both gravity pulls and collisions could in time achieve such a state].

This, I’m afraid, is the best that I can do with current theories, though I must admit that I cannot really agree with the majority of their “standing-ground” – their founding assumptions. For, they are clearly purely formal and abstract, indeed mathematical bases.

By abandoning “old-fashioned” “Physical Explanations”, and instead relying exclusively upon Equations, as the true essences driving Reality, they have abandoned a materialist standpoint for a completely idealist one.

All their bases are purely formal abstractions, which they develop in solely mathematical ways.

The trick of turning multi-dimensions as used to cope with multi-variable relations, into a many dimensional Universe, and thereafter develop from their Equations and formal extensions, purely formal “explanations” for everything, places them squarely in Ideality – where mathematicians dwell, turning their backs upon Reality, which is the only land for real physicists.

The turning point was, without any doubt, the victory of the Copenhagen standpoint of Bohr and Heisenberg at Solvay in 1927, as an almost inevitable development of the mathematical achievements of Planck with his Quantum, and Einstein with his purely formal Relativity.

The slope became so steep it was impossible to stop the slide, without directly questioning the enormous formal (mathematical) inroads into Physics, which the vast majority depended so vitally upon, and the whole Sub Atomic Community began the slide, headlong down to Idealism.

To those who disagree with this standpoint, may I mention String Theory, the Higgs’ Boson, Theories of Everything, involving 11 (or more) dimensions, Branes, Parallel Universes to name only a few...

Are these not purely formal speculations without any real Physics whatsoever? Of course, they are! 

Mathematics, as a discipline itself, deals in the purest of Forms, which they get from glimpses in Reality, and which are increasingly “nailed down” by the most careful construction and maintenance of Domains to eliminate almost everything but a final, formal relation. What crucifies such methods is that these “farmed” results are then believed to be the eternal, underlying truths of Reality.

They aren’t!

So, the current theoretical position is an amalgam of constantly new facts, due entirely to mammothly developed technology, and the farming of the Domains studied, and the purely formal relations thus extracted, though, of course, always related to those supplied by the mathematicians, who have been studying such Forms, in their own pure terms alone, for millennia.

Indeed, the new legitimacy inverts the established Scientific Method, by expecting to find essences and even new entities, hidden in their beloved Equations, rather than in Reality. While, at the same time, constraining experimental work into the ever narrower, and higher energy area of forced collisions as THE only experiments worth pursuing. And all that is founded upon the assumption (which has become a Principle) of Plurality – where found relations are presumed to be independent of their contexts, and hence actually eternal, additive components, capable of producing any complex situation.

Dialectical Reasoning

The revolutionary methodology of reasoning, handed on from Hegel to Marx, was of a very unusual type compared with what had been universally employed previously.

For, being holistic, rather than pluralistic (as literally all prior reasoning had been, and, of course, all of Science certainly had become) the new approach started from the total inter-relatedness of all things, and hence fulfilled the credo, “Everything affects everything else!”.

But, such a stance does seem to totally exclude the possibility of Analysis, which is surely the central plank of the scientific method, and has to look beyond individual (and separable) contributions to integrated and mutually transforming effects at a higher level, to get any sort of handle upon how Reality actually behaves.

But, in spite of these major difficulties, it alone can cope with both Change and Transition as caused processes, and that has to be its critical contribution to human reasoning.

One vital feature was that the multiplicity of contributing factors meant that in any situation both complementary, and even totally contradictory, factors would certainly be present and making a contribution. And, any observed overall effect, would be the result of the increasing dominance of certain mutually conducive factors over other less effective sets. And, even that situation would never be permanent, but would have the ever-present possibility of such a “current “solution” being overturned as the general situation changed, and even a directly contrary dominance could come into overall hegemony.

To address qualitative change is very different from purely quantitative changes within a stable situation.

The conceptual model adopted, therefore, became one of contradictory pairs of overall outcomes, and as the most important aspect of the studied situation, its development into something entirely different. It could be dealt with (to an extent) by the activities of these Opposites – the Dialectic of the situation!

Now the validity of this rather surprising approach has been confirmed innumerable times, but only in developments: it is not about stable, quantitative and slowly-changing situations, but about transforming and qualitative changes.

Perhaps before this discussion gets out of hand, the crucial evidence of The Impasse should be brought in?

Most conceptions of situations are far from being the “absolute truth” of it, but are usually an acceptable and useable approximation: the assumptions, processes and even entities involved do get reasonably close to what is going on, and in most stable circumstances “do the job”: conclusions and even predictions can be relied upon. But, such is never the case forever. No matter how clever (or even wise) were our suppositions, there will always be situations where the conceptions and assumption fail. Now, our fallback practice is to have a second-string theory, which also works in some very closely related cases, and we switch to this to see if it does the job here too. And sometimes it does!

We then have two mostly workable alternatives, and we pragmatically switch between them to be in the position to carry on with our objective.

NOTE: But, we must not confuse this with pure unprincipled Pragmatism, as displayed in the current models of the Nuclei of atoms. For there is, at the present count, an unrelated set of some twelve alternatives to juggle between, This two model alternative is not only much more tightly constrained, but, as it will turn out much sounder philosophically.

But, there are cases when even these dichotomous pairs fail to deliver anything at all. And this indicates a true impasse, where the possibilities of the current situation have been left behind completely. No matter what we do using these alternatives, they still always lead to a contradiction: they are both wrong! The situation seems to defeat our usually applicable pair of alternatives, and we seem to be able to go no further.

But, as you may already have guessed, our two alternatives can never be wholly arbitrary, or unrelated to one another, they both will have a measure of the Objective Content of the situation within them, and it was that, which caused them to becomes our pair of alternatives.

But the occurrence of The Impasse, instead of being a dead-end, is perhaps the much more productive situation - for it is only here that the necessary transcending solution can actually be addressed.

NOTE: In his book Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance Robert Pirsig called such situations the vital periods of “Stuckness”: situations to be sought out and welcomed as the places to make real progress in our understanding.

Dialectics takes the naturally emerging pairs of such dichotomies as temporary truths in the short term, but also as anvils on which to beat out a transcending alternative.

One obvious area, totally unintelligible to today’s physicists, involves the alternatives of Wave and Particle in Sub Atomic Physics. And, perhaps, the most famous is the perennial Descreteness and Continuity dichotomy, as Zeno was clever enough to demonstrate so superbly in his Paradoxes.

But surely, such a method, is not, repeat NOT, predictive, as are most quantitative equations in Science, though, on the other hand, it does give the person a changing situation - to think about what factors are involved, and which way a transition is likely to occur. In contrast to the usual method in Science, which can ONLY predict within its appropriate and defining Domain (set of producing conditions), the holistic approach is much more general and unconstrained.

The holist alternative does attempt to juggle all the involved factors as changes occur and by defining them into pairs of opposite-yet-possible outcomes, points strongly to a particularly limited pair of possibilities.

It is by no means as crude as it at first sounds, for whatever “wins” in a competition of many contributing and distortable factors, will always get there due to its cooperating, and even integrated and mutually modified, set of conducive factors to ensure dominance. While, when a transition does occur, it will again be to one with a similar set of conducive factors, which are likely to be the opposite of what pertained before.

The natural marshalling of simultaneous factors will always take such a form, for such groupings ensure proliferation best. It is about multiple factors with different directions interacting to lead to a particular overall dominance.

A pluralist equation doesn’t even include what factors are present. It is merely a quantitative relation within a static, non-changing situation: it is incapable of saying why it behaves as it does, and the nearest it can get to suggesting what might replace it, is for it to “blow up” into one of its terminating singularities.

But, though this contribution is only a beginning, Dialectics did reflect the true dynamics of multiple interacting factors in real systems. The seemingly arbitrary concentration upon opposites is NOT what was being inflicted upon the situation by Mankind: it was NOT simply another imposition. For the division into conducive and antagonistic contributions to combined effects did cause related groups of factors to form conducive, mutually-supporting sets or systems. And in any complex situation, the direction of these proto-systems would be defined.

It is also important to understand just how dominance occurs: it is basically a version of Selection, which I have elsewhere termed Truly Natural Selection, and it occurs not only in Living Things, but at all levels, even between chemical reactions, which might compete for the same resources

And, a working through at this basic level turned out to deliver a viable model. Mutually conducive or supporting processes, where the product of one was the necessary resource for another, would certainly mutually affect one another. And such could even develop into quite long sequences or even cycles.

Clearly, as such systems came together they would really be greatly more successful than lone processes or mutually contending pairs of processes. The conducive systems would soon collar the majority of the available resources and begin to dominate.

Yet, such sets would not all require the same conditions and resources, so many such systems would occur. 

The rivalry between them would be of a different character. It would not be direct competition – for they required different things, but efficiency and rate of production would tend to some systems growing bigger then others.

NOTE: though too early to deal with it here, these ideas have led to the Theory of Emergences, which addresses how the “wholly new” comes into existence – clearly crucial in any complete theory of Evolution.

When the Bastille Finally Falls!

How can we identify the current cul de sac into which Modern Physics has purposely and noisily marched, and not merely criticise as Prophets of Doom, but also be able to present a ready alternative and much better show already waiting in the wings? Now, if such an alternative were both fully assembled and available, as a coherent, consistent and comprehensive standpoint, along with a clearly useable methodology, then there would be no real problem. But, that ideal situation is far from being the case at the present time.

There are, of course, many very good examples that could be brought into any ongoing argument, but altogether too few, and at this time, too little developed, to stand against a united chorus of “Yes, but” type responses from the sizeable majority representing the currently “universally-agreed” side.

For, in spite of the grave weaknesses of that currently accepted position, it has now been “in charge” for a very long time, and in any ping-pong battle, hurling examples from each side, there can be absolutely no doubt, who will have the deciding weight of projectiles.

It is certain, however, that if the philosophical case were allowed to be put, the new alternative would win hands down. But, who has such arguments about Philosophy these days? You know the answer, it is, “Nobody!”

And, the vast expansion in media of all kinds only reinforces that situation. Twitter one-liners dominate these days, so wit will trump argument, and humour will always trounce commitment. So, there is certainly a major problem in getting anything at all complicated out there, and then discussed.

Now, such episodes, when reaction rules, have happened before. There were times after the failures of revolutions across Europe in 1848, when reaction ruled, and even a new Bonaparte was installed as Emperor in Paris. And, similarly, after the demise of the 1905 revolution in Russia, the leadership of the Bolshevik Party was down, as Lenin said, to “You, me and him!”. Yet in 1870 during the Franco-Prussian War the sans culottes of Paris rose again and instituted the Paris Commune, while in Russia in 1917 the very same Bolsheviks actually took power, and established the World’s First Socialist State.

So, though the task at present seems impossible to carry out, it will NOT remain so!

The swoop downwards from all-powerful repression to powerless impotence does indeed occur, and it will occur in this task too - and for similar political reasons. As the Crisis of Capitalism again dominates across the World, and the Ruling Class as usual insists upon the Working Class footing the bill, the latter will finally SNAP! And all hell will break loose!

In such turmoil all prior short-odds predictive bets will be OFF, and everything will be up for debate!

Issue 29 of Shape

This small set of papers was a response to a significant change in the position of an establishment group of physicists, as their latest adjustment in coping with the continuing and unresolved Crisis in Physics.

For, though for many years (and even decades) mathematical-physicists have been rummaging through the seemingly endless depths of the World of Pure Form alone (Mathematics) for a solution to their evidently pressing need for a Theory of Everything, their many and varied, speculative journeys have become ever more unbelievable.

Yet, without in any way dramatically changing their avowed stance, these theorists have switched their attention to a very different area in the search for this required “end of the Rainbow”, and it is interesting what their new turn has involved!

For it does seem to acknowledge the real cause of their continuing dilemma – the lack of an appropriate philosophy as a basis for their driving laws!

So, from a purely descriptive/predictive pre-occupation with quantitative Form (equations) they have finally turned to the most “philosophical” of the Laws in their collection, with the purpose of finding there the hoped-for salvation.

They have turned away from trusting only Pure Form to instead address Pure Chaos!

Of course, though Mathematics has been, and still is, used even in this area, it is the Second Law of Thermodynamics that seems to fit their requirements most accurately. For it is not a relational law!

If anything, it is a philosophical Principle: that everything is perpetually running down: all Order is dissociating into all Chaos!

It is certainly appropriate in very many areas (and the engineers, who first thought of it, would insist that it pertains absolutely everywhere).

Two major contributions to this standpoint have recently appeared. One in the pages of New Scientist (2886) by Vlatko Vedral, and the other in a two-part TV series by Jim Al’khalili on BBC entitled Order and Disorder.

Here are my responses to these positions.

Read them here

Figure and Ground

The Dangers of Simplification

 

This seemingly interminable series of papers on Fields is a product of the way we always attempt to deal with such phenomena.

We have learned that the most productive approach is to avoid confusing complexity, and, instead, work to simplify situations as far as we possibly can. So, we select & isolate situations, attempting to leave only what we are seeking: we simplify first conceptually, and then concretely until we have both a revealing and amenable Domain - ideally conducive to our further studies.

By now, we are, without doubt, the masters of such isolating and constraining of phenomena in such a way as to “completely reveal” their supposedly “Key Relations”.

It has, indeed, become the fundamental approach for all our experimental set-ups, and, therefore, produces not what we think we have revealed – Fundamental and Universal Laws, but, on the contrary, specific and limited relations locked fast into the specially arranged, conducive situations we have erected.

Thus, our “Truths” are always fragments – particulars. And so, though we crave overarching and universal laws, we never actually get them.

We get a multiplicity of particular laws-plus-their-contexts.

So, with such a complex area as Fields, and indeed ALL actions-at-a-distance, this fragmentation is multiplied even more.

Yet, before this revelation gets too depressing, it has to be emphasized that we certainly know how to use what we currently extract. Our methods have been very successful, for we know precisely where to apply our “partial truths” – in the appropriately constrained situations! As long as these correct contexts are accurately constructed, we do indeed have places where our laws work: we can predict, and hence also produce!

Our methods equip us for production, but also inevitably disarm our ability to explain why things are the way that they are, and behave in the way that they do, when left to themselves!

We are very adept technologists, but not adept scientists (though we think that we are), and, most certainly, are nowhere near being even competent philosophers.

Now, the pragmatists will dismiss any such criticisms of both their method and standpoint, because their purposes are in no way compromised by the inadequacies of their approach.

Continuing “Progress” still appears to be continuously assured. But, of course, without the essential development of understanding as well as straightforward use, what we get can only be an aberrant growth.

It is really a maximal exploitation of a partial truth, rather than a step on the path to an ever wider and deeper understanding of our world. [Like the young man who built me a working Amplifier, but could not tell me why it worked, or what the various components were actually doing: neither could he use what he had to design something new].
Indeed, if the stream of scientific explanations ceased forthwith, technology (as with my young electrical constructor) would etiolate and die, like a pea shoot without sustenance.

Science is the source and lifeblood of technological progress, and even more important, it can also be the means to actually understand the world.

Now, returning to our problems with Fields, the difficulty is that our isolating and simplifying also walls us off from what we are trying to understand. For such things are not appropriate to such methods: for Fields are certainly NOT isolatable phenomena! Why can I say this?

It is because the “Figure” and the “Ground” in such situations are not only inseparable, but also actually mutually defining and determining! We simply cannot separate them without destroying what they are.

For example, is a Field actually erected by its “causing” charge, or is it actually a response of the Background to the presence of that charge?

For we usually assume that our Grounds are always totally inert – mere formal references, whereas the holist suggestions outlined above change all of that!

The two always have a reciprocal relationship, and perhaps an evolutionary one too.

Now, rather than halting the conclusions here, and arguing whether these assertions fit all cases or not, let us first concede something called Dominance.

Though the philosophical basis for the ideas being explained here constitute Holism, they are NOT the same as that early version espoused by The Buddha, though it is still much closer to his position, than it is to the sub atomic physicists of today.

It does, in contrast, admit that things are not all of equal weight, and in many situations, particular relations can dominate to such a major extent that they can be fairly easily isolated, extracted an then used in the pluralist sense described above as the usual scientific experimental practice.

But, “Exceptions always make Bad Law”, and Dominance is not triumphant either everywhere, or permanently.

It is a surface effect, upon a holistic World, where literally everything does indeed affect everything else, and in many crucial areas we have to deal with not only Systems of Processes, but also hierarchies of such Systems too.

A great deal is always going on simultaneously, and our Simplifying, Isolating and Constraining in order to extract any usable order does indeed change the overall situations that we are trying to understand.

The classic example is, of course, the Weather, but there are many cases where such situations also defy Analysis by our usual pluralistic means.

My favourite is Miller’s Experiment, wherein he attempted to make an emulation of the conditions upon the primitive Earth – before Life had emerged, in the hope that he could reveal something of the developments leading to that revolutionary Origin of Life.

Sealing “everything necessary” in a glass containing-system, and adding heat and electrical discharges (as lightning), he set the system in motion, which was as near as he could get to the actual primaeval Weather System, in order to see what might occur.

As we all know, after only one week, the water in his system had already turned a deep reddy-brown, and on dismantling of the system, he was able to show that amino acids had somehow been synthesized.

But as to how this had happened, there was no way that he could confirm the processes involved.

The absolutely essential isolation from any present-day contributions, also prohibited any time-based Analysis, and most certainly, many strands of changes must have been happening throughout that momentous week, both as parallel simultaneous processes, and as parts of crucial ongoing and changing sequences. So, without any possibility of intervention, NO further explanations were possible.

This is, and always gas been, the classic dilemma of investigating a Holist World using the only available methods - pluralist science could get nowhere in such investigations. They seemed to be Unknowable. And in spite of the undoubted success of Miller’s Experiment, it was also the “end-of-the-line” in most scientists’ eyes. Pluralist science offered a great deal more and it was there that ALL the research was concentrated.

So, these inevitable cul de sacs in attempts to develop a Holist Science did dissuade anyone else from embarking on such a seemingly doomed-to-failure route.

Yet, it would be wrong to consign this approach to the dustbin just yet. Darwin’s Origin of Species was a masterpiece of Holist Science, and other major holist contributions have also been made. But, the philosophical ground, and necessary methodology for a general holistic, yet scientific approach has still not yet been defined. It still awaits a generally applicable methodology!

Now, this author has attempted to apply such a method to the infamous Double Slit Experiments, beloved of the currently dominant Copenhagen School in Sub Atomic Physics, and he was finally able to explain all the anomalies involved, without any recourse to Wave/Particle Duality or the probabilistic formulae of the Copenhagenists.

So, with this demonstration the Copenhagen View was proved to be NOT the only possible approach, and he has since embarked upon a particular area of Physics, which has long annoyed him.

It is, of course, Action-at-a-Distance, the propagation of electromagnetic radiation through totally Empty Space, and, of course, the “daddy-of-them-all” FIELDS!

So, let us assume the very worst!

Let us say that our “Figure” is really composed of multifarious and mutually determining processes, while our “Ground” is not only very similar in its diverse content, but also both determines the behaviours of the contents of our supposed “Figure”, and is, in turn, modified by them.

Now, here is surely a suitably messy situation to attempt to make sense of.

How might we do it?

Well, we do have a vast set of pluralist techniques, that though compromised conceptually, do give us “something”; and what we get is never merely pure invention, it always contains some aspects or fragments of the Truth. So, as long as we don’t wander off down the usual road, we can use these gains in a different way.

Though all gains made by such methods are always predicated upon restricted and maintained Domains, they do include an important measure of what is called Objective Content.

So, rather than careering off down the pragmatic sweet, downhill road to Production, we should gather as many closely related sets of pluralist Results as possible, and attempt to make some sort of conceptual integration out of them instead.

And, with such a change of philosophy and of methodology things can change profoundly.

We now consider all the skewed, pluralistic evidence, knowing that it has been extensively processed, and hence treating much of what we have with a measure of scepticism, and instead, attempting to formulate a common explanation, that would, in each biased pluralist set up, produce what has been extracted, but would integrate all cases into a single explanation.

Now, at this point we must address the universally applied frig that is the traditional answer to their “sets of pluralistic results”

That frig is the belief that each pluralistically obtained relation (a Law) is in fact the actual Truth for those factors, and if we simply add all such obtained Truths together, totally unmodified, we will get True Reality.

It replaces the true inter-relating integrations with crude Complication. The various Laws are summed to reconstruct what really happens.

NO THEY DON’T! What has to be done is to attempt to merge the individual isolations into a functional and integrated whole. That is much more difficult, but is essential!

NOTE: The alternative to the Copenhagen explanations of the Double Slit Experiments that was my own holist alternatives were amazing different in every possible way. And though the Copenhagenists could immediately motor off with their probability equations, they also brought understanding to a dead halt. Whereas, the holistic explanation have opened up theoretical prospects not only in these areas, but generally!

Quantum Fallacy: An Analogue of my Theory of the Double Slit?

Interesting experiments with silicon appear to come to similar conclusions regarding wave/particle duality to my Alternative Theory of the Double Slit. Thanks to youtuber Alex Claros Fernandez for sharing this clip. Have a watch of both videos and see what you think.

The Necessity of a Sound and Adequate Philosophy in any Important Endeavour

Some years ago I was invited to give a talk to a group of Marxist activists as a kind of education class.

My son, who was a member of this group at that time, had been extolling the virtues of my Marxist philosophy, and thought it would be interesting for the group.

No particular remit was involved, so no-one had much idea of what I was going to speak about. So, I chose an area that I had been involved in, in my professional life, for several decades, and one where my philosophical standpoint and approach had allowed me to make a unique and significant contribution.

But I must admit that, to my audience, my choice of topic was a very surprising area. The reponse from them was clearly total incomprehension! For, I had chosen to speak about the detailed methods and analysis that along with a specialist in the field had developed for the teaching of Movement in Dance – both from a performance aspect and also from creative choreographic considerations too.

They could hardly believe their ears! Here was a so-called Marxist, talking to an active Marxist Group about how to perform and create Dance? Was he off his rocker? He is fairly old!

I suppose they must have been expecting an analysis of the current political situation, with maybe a little more theoretical ammunition to use in arguments and discussions. But, instead, they had this academic talking about Descreteness and Continuity, and explaining Zeno’s Paradoxes.

They could see absolutely nothing for them in what was being revealed. To them, it sounded totally useless as a contribution to what they did, day-in and day-out. But, they were wrong!

Indeed, having been in revolutionary Marxist organisations for most of my life, I finally knew clearly exactly what was wrong with them, and it certainly wasn’t insufficient arguing points. It was that they were NOT Marxists! They never thought about Philosophy at all, and frankly could see no real use for it in what they did! They distrusted academics who “pretended” to be Marxists, but who were, as far as they could tell, merely treating Marxism as a subject to be studied, analysed and criticised.

But they had forgotten what both Marx and Engels were: they were academic philosophers situated in German Universities, and originally were the disciples of the Absolute Idealist Philosopher Frederick Hegel.

Their first and most important "revolution” had been to “stand Hegel on his head, or rather upon his feet”, and transfer bodily his holistic dialectics into Materialism. Without the struggle of these Young Hegelians to transform “academic” Philosophy, there would never have been any Marxism at all!

So. the very focus upon something NOT part of their everyday practice was my plan to make them consider things philosophically, and away from the ready clichés that purported to be Marxist Philosophy. It had to be an entirely universal approach applicable to absolutely everything!

And, Marx’s initial impetus was also clearly insufficient to arm a whole following movment.

For, at the beginning of the 20th century Vladimir Ilyich Lenin knew that his Bolshevik Party could never lead a revolution to success in Russia, unless it tackled its abysmal Philosophy. He both wrote Materialism and Empirio Criticism and set to reading the works of Hegel materialistically, which he then captured in his Philosophical Notebooks - Volume 38 of his collected works.

Frankly, the position at this present time is incomparably worse than it was then. These activists know ZERO about the Marxist Philosophical standpoint and even less about its importance. You would never know from such people that such a philosophy was, and still is, THE most powerful existing anywhere at this time. Yet not only does it never get aired – much more important it also NEVER gets used!

So, as far as I can tell no one studies it, and most certainly no one is developing it. Almost all so-called Marxists know absolutely nothing about the gains made by the founders of Marxism in Philosophy, and certainly no one knows how to use it in the myriads of areas, where it would be both necessary and revolutionary today.

For example, even after 100 years the totally reactionary Copenhagen Interpretation of Quantum Theory still rules Sub Atomic Physics, and in most sciences the assumed primacy of Natural Laws is presumed to actually drive Concrete Reality to be what it is, and behave as it does: a purely idealist concept!

At the same time the real strength of Science – its Explanations (its Objective Content), have been dumped in favour of eminently useful Equations. Yet the way that these are extracted from Reality and raised to Natural Law status relies totally upon the Principle of Plurality, which makes all such extracted relations totally independent of their context, and hence makes them eternal. Mere complication of many such Natural Laws is supposed to deliver absolutely everything! NO, it does NOT!

The whole thrust of Marxist Philosophy is that it is Holistic – the exact opposite of Pluralistic, and, instead of concentrating on Stability, as does Science, it instead concentrates upon Qualitative Changes, and in particular, Emergent Events, which in Society are termed Social Revolutions, but which also occur in all Development, no matter where and when it happens.

How, did a handful of Marxist leaders manage to intervene in the Russian Revolutions of 1905, February 1917 and Octover 1917, and not only win, but rebut the monarchist Standing Army, and the armies of 14 invading nations intent upon defeating the first ever Socialist Revolution.

Do you really think that slogans in the Russian Revolution lasted throughout? NO they did not! The leaders had to constantly be reviewing what they put forward as demands, and had to unify disparate elements the poor – not least the vast majority – the peasants from the countryside, and the Working Class from the cities and towns.

This they did, though at one point Trotsky was in prison and Lenin was in hiding in Finland. Yet by October they had it correct and took the power.

New Special Issue: Marxism II - Emergence

Once more the total emphasis in this Issue must continue to be upon the philosophical bases of Marxism. And it will not be a mere historical survey of an already complete, established and adequate standpoint, but, as it should always be, a Work in Progress.

Indeed, to even maintain its original power and method, it must be both rediscovered and rejuvenated, if only because no knowledge or understanding can be absolute.

History is real, and Reality will change and regularly deliver the entirely NEW: how can it ever be complete! Indeed, any complete standpoint based solely upon what has occurred previously will find itself unable to cope with entirely new situations, and will inevitably drift towards the consensus delivered by the dominant Class, and away from the Marxism of Revolution.

The most urgent task of revolutionaries is to constantly extend and renew the Philosophy. As soon as that is sidelined and current “Activity” is allowed to dominate, the ever-sharp tool of Marxism is blunted, and the established routines of past phases take over, and will most certainly not equip us for the tasks ahead.

Indeed, in this Issue there is an account of the attempt to discover the inner trajectory of all revolutions – or, more accurately and abstractly, of a general Emergence .

For the contributions of Marx and Engels were significantly added to by the experiences of the Bolsheviks in Russia in two revolutions – an unsuccessful one in 1905 and a successful one in 1917. That revolutionary Party was fused into an effective implement of change in the white heat of revolution, and hence vastly added to what Marx and Engels had delivered in the previous century.

Yet once more there wasn’t time or enough Marxist thinkers to further extend these ideas into an ever wider set of areas, and, most important of all, into Science.

The writer of this Issue is both a Marxist and a Scientist, and has slowly and necessarily had to also become a Philosopher too. The task here is to investigate the inner processes that take place within an Emergence – the revolution that is possible in all developments, and crucially in Science too.

Read the Issue

The Trajectory of an Emergence

Re-draw of my Trajectory of an Emergence Diagram to feature in the next Special Issue, Marxism II: Emergence

Politics and Religion

Claiming the Moral High Ground

The question just has to be asked, “Why has religion figured so strongly in social revolutionary situations?”

Currently, in Bangladesh, the Awami League government there has set up what it calls an International War Crimes Organisation, to identify the “Crimes against Humanity” committed in the Bangladeshi War of Independence from Pakistan in 1971. At that time the Pakistan Army was used to oppose the Bangladeshi separatists and millions died. Almost 40 years later the Awami League promised that, if it won the next General Election, it would set up such a body to try the criminals of that war. But the main defenders against the accusations, all turn out to be members of the main opposition party to the current ruling group. And to confound the mess even further, there is, as in every Third World Muslim country at the present time, a Fundamentalist Islamic Organisation, who will do literally anything to achieve their goal of an Islamic State obeying Sharia Law.

Now, this is just one of the many such politically unstable situations across the globe, which are, unavoidably it seems, laced through with religion.

Even in the English Revolution of the 17th century, both sides insisted that they had “God on our side”, and claimed the moral high ground essential to deliver Justice to all. And, it is that claim, which is immediately meaningful to ordinary people upon both sides. Who can disagree with such criteria?

For the people do indeed see clearly the injustice of their own position, and look to a standpoint with the moral authority to act in their interests – in the interests of Justice!

And, after millennia when this was channelled into religious moral codes, and the Right or Wrong of every situation, it is clear that they would be looking for an organisation that would truly fight for the justice that had long been explained as principle in their religions.

Indeed, the more the politicians betrayed in such countries, the more the masses turned to “honest Holy Men” to speak for them, and the more the establishment figures in that religion also failed them, the more they turned to radical clerics with a terrorist agenda. After all, they argued, the Islamic Fundamentalist Taliban had defeated the Russians and won a whole country. It could be done!

Even in so-called western advanced countries, the politicians profess to be religious and attend all the most significant religious events. They want to drape the moralist cloak of such religions around their shoulders, while doing what they really believe to be important.

And this attitude within the masses is not easily changed.

In the Revolution of 1905 in Russia the people marched behind a senior Russian Orthodox cleric to petition the Czar for Justice. But it took a World War and two more Revolutions for this iron belief to be fractured and for new revolutionary leaders to be the only ones left to trust.

Reportage, Activism and Theory

You can’t have one without the others!

I always remember, as a young student, listening to a speech by Gerry Healy of the then Socialist Labour League, a Trotskyist Revolutionary Party affiliated to the International Committee of the Fourth International, and his answer to a question about the rights and wrongs of a particular strike, which caused him to respond with, “What you don’t seem to understand”, he affirmed, “is that the bosses are always wrong!” Such a response took the questioner by surprise, for he expected a rational, or even moral, explanation, for that was how he arrived at his political positions and “beliefs”. But Healy didn’t come from that background at all. He knew the enemy and their lying ways, and knew that you had to fight them with Working Class action, AND also that, to be a Marxist meant that that you were always on the side of the Working Class, and against the Ruling Class on every single issue!

But though he was right to answer the Middle Class student in that way, he was wrong when it came to training a Marxist Revolutionary Leadership for the Working Class, for those would have to go well beyond Trade Union consciousness: they would have to understand deeply about Capitalism, and even more fundamentally, would have to become both a Marxist Philosopher and a Trained Marxist analyst and theorist. And that would involve the necessary Philosophy – including both Holism and Dialectical Materialism, which would have to be their steadfast yet developing worldview, in order to supply their required methodology for dealing with all problems at all levels. The gut reaction may place a speaker, like Healy, on the right track, but the preparation of a revolutionary leadership required a great deal more than that.

After a lifetime in and around revolutionary politics, I finally realised that those who currently profess to be Marxists were NOT doing what Marx and Engels, and later Lenin and Trotsky, knew to be imperative. They were neither developing Marxism (absolutely essential), nor training a new cadre to be Marxist in the Leninist sense. They weren’t, and still aren’t, equipping a leadership, and hence they were failing the Working Class.

Now, I have just finished reading the most detailed (and extensive) Marxist essay on Syria (written January 2013), which was a serious and competent delivery of much that we need to know. It was, by far, the best that I have read, but it gave no clues as to what Marxism really is – and by that I mean it did not reveal its philosophy and method. The dialectics of a tract by Marx were absent. You either took what the writer revealed, or you didn’t.

There wasn’t an evident and unstoppable imperative of a superior philosophy clearly in action, and that, as Lenin himself was well aware, is vital! He didn’t write Materialism and Empirio Criticism as a filler between vital political activities. He wrote it because he was attempting to train a Marxist cadre, and even colleagues like Lunacharsky (later Commissar for Education in the Revolutionary Regime) were tarnished with the positivist brush of Henri Poincaré and Ernst Mach.

It seemed to me that there are many sides to the essential activities of Marxist revolutionaries. The common denominators to all groups who profess to be such are Reportage and Activism the first must inform of the facts before any appropriate action is decided upon. BUT both will be flawed without the essential ground provided by the Marxist Philosophy, and its methods. For the World is in constant change, and a Marxist cannot just “look up” appropriate measures: he has to re-invent them as things change. In the midst of a revolution, the revolutionary will be changing “what has to be done” by the hour!

What characterised Lenin was this sound Marxist basis and analysis. In the midst of the Russian February Phase, only his philosophy and method saw “what had to be done”, and in his April Theses, he turned the whole Party around.

Finally, in the turmoil of fast transforming Reality, he usually knew what to do. No time for reportage or even political activism then! The correct analysis of the moment, and the right immediate actions were essential. Without his solid and brilliant philosophy, he simply could not have done it.

I, therefore, ask, with respect, the writer of that excellent piece of Marxist reportage (**see reference below), “Where is the Marxist Philosophy?” Needless to say, I ask because I am attempting to contribute towards that standpoint and theory via my expertise as a scientist and teacher, plus 50 years in the revolutionary movement.

Jim Schofield : A Marxist Philosopher - March 2013

References:

** Economic & Philosophic Science Review (EPSR) on the internet article dated January 2013

Also several Special Issues and individual articles by Jim Schofield on SHAPE Journal, SHAPE Blog and SHAPE Channel on YouTube

Documentary on the Philosophy of Science

Documentary by Michael Coldwell on the work of philosopher Jim Schofield. "The Problem With Science" looks at several flawed assumptions at the heart of the scientific method, and how they have adversely effected how we see the world.

While few would deny the great technological and scientific advances of the last century, even fewer are aware of the methodology's many drawbacks and pitfalls, and how these have lead us to a distorted view of reality, and an inability to understand both qualitative change and the inexplicable emergence of the wholly new.

Is the answer to adopt a more holisitic approach to Science?

What Next For Syria?

How can we characterise what is going on in Syria?

It was correct to see it initially as part of the Arab Spring - then the capitalist predators finally got their acts together, to (in some way) intervene, in an attempt to turn the situation to their own advantage, and are now playing an increasingly determining role.

Their first effort in Libya certainly didn't work out as hoped, so the second effort in Syria had to be more circumspect, and the genuine nascent popular revolution had to be distorted into something very different.

Of course, it has all happened before in the case of the Russian Revolution, with devastating failure as the result. First of all, there was support for the Monarchists and White Armies of the ensuing civil war, which was then followed by the invasion of armies from 14 different nations, with the sole purpose of defeating the revolution. But they failed completely and had to switch to a very different long-term objective, latterly termed the Cold War, to undermine the revolutionary regime. 

So with the Arab Spring things had to be different - and considerably cheaper! Nevertheless, the results, so far, have been, if anything, a great deal worse.

For, who are those who are interfering, what are their intentions and how are they doing it? 

First of all you have the reactionary monarchies of the Middle East, such as Saudi Arabia, who pour money and arms into Syria, but pick and chose who gets it - primarily Islamic fundamentalist groups intent upon establishing an Islamic State. 

Then you have the western capitalists states, which pretend that they only have humanitarian motives, which is clearly untrue! 

Indeed all sorts of individuals from all sorts of countries associated into many different kinds of groups (including terrorist organisations) have poured into Syria. The result has been a multiplicity of armed groups fighting the regime, with looting the only way of financing their actions and maintaining their forces, and these are rapidly turning the situation into total chaos.

But what of the other side - the supporters of President Assad? They will be those who benefit from his largesse internally, and from his buffer-state role externally. 

In this melee there is no revolutionary party armed with the essential Marxist theory to correctly interpret what is going on, and organise a secular alternative to both sides of this conflict, based upon the mass of the population. 

For the interventionists have no understanding of the dynamic of a revolution: and only know about the ebbs and flows within a stable society, and the single alternative of repression and war to re-establish their required hegemony. In a revolution everything they do only makes things worse, and their methods (particularly the local monarchies) have been repressive for centuries. 

Indeed, if you want to characterise the process, there are many exemplars throughout history. Whenever a particular stability became undermined and began to collapse, the positive outcome via Revolution to a new and higher Level, was never guaranteed. And with powerful, but uncomprehending forces smashing against one another, for their own interests only, the most likely outcome was always what we term a Dark Age. Only losses of a major nature could possibly result with Mankind taking a giant step backwards. 

While the capitalist powers are arranging conferences to decide the kind of future they require for Syria, where are the revolutionary parties worldwide doing the same? Even humanitarian interventions can be achieved better than the symbolic gestures of the western charities. Does anyone remember Workers' Aid in Bosnia Herzegovina?

Metamorphoses

Radically Transforming Interludes

We have many assumptions and indeed principles, which we truly believe accurately reflect Reality, and they, therefore, underlie absolutely all our explanations and theories.

But, do they address the really important phases in any actual qualitative changes – in the actual development of Reality, or do they merely deal with the local and immanent snapshots of that trajectory or longer exposures of forcibly maintained stable setups, and, therefore, only within one form or another of an unchanging stability?

My contention is that they most certainly do only the latter, and deal with any evident qualitative changes by merely switching between alternative stabilities, and totally ignoring any transformation interludes from one to the other entirely!

But, of course, if these crucial interludes are omitted, such a paradigm will never manage to explain why and how the measured phenomena come to be in place, both in our arranged Domains, and certainly never for totally unfettered Reality.

We may be able to construct analytic and synthesizing methods, within each stability, but they will only encapsulate pattern, and allow prediction thereby: they will be merely technological and certainly not explanatory, for the latter is essential for both true Science and real Philosophy!

And, of course, this is exactly what usually happens, and has done so for centuries.

But, what it means when unavoidable and major transformations occur is that we are then totally ill equipped to either understand them or, indeed, cope with them.

We, in such periods, are tossed about like corks in a stormy sea, and can do nothing to, in any way, intervene.

We are consigned to merely suffer these transformations, and dearly hope for the quick return of our interpretable Stability.

Clearly then, our basic conceptions and methodologies are inadequate to deal with such interludes of qualitative change!

Our achievements are predicated solely upon Stability, and the overall trajectory of any real Development is entirely out of our hands.

We are pragmatic users of stability, yet sufferers of Change!

But, are we congenitally restricted to such a stance?

Can we only do what we do, and no other?

The answer has to be a resounding, “No!

For, to start with, we do not deny these transforming interludes at all. We greet the births of our babies with great delight, and what are such events but interludes of almost miraculous changes?” And we see and recognise the metamorphoses of worm-like caterpillars into devastatingly beautiful butterflies without a qualm. And as a scientist, I recognise these revolutionary episodes throughout the history, not only of all Life, or the development of the Earth, and even of the Cosmos too, and the Life histories of its stars.

We know that these episodes do indeed occur!

Why do we not address such in generality as a natural consequence of the necessary evolution of Reality, and study them all scientifically?

The trouble was, and still is, the unavoidable occurrence of exactly those transformations in Society – the Social Revolutions! For, these can throw out all those who rule or dominate.

They frighten the establishment to death!

So, any serious scientific study of these transformations in general – usually termed Emergences, would also unavoidably have to include Revolutions in that very same remit, and that could be devastating!

Good God! It might equip agitators like Lenin to intervene in a Revolution to work to change its outcome!

Could the establishment ever risk such an occurrence?

The answer is clearly, “No!”

And it has always been so, whatever the establishment consists of. Instead, such researches and methods of investigation, and its resultant theories must be roundly condemned, and even ridiculed, and such people get away with it (most of the time) because they have the old “pluralist science” safely on-their-side.

For that methodology never addresses such transformations – indeed, they are avoided at all costs, and where stability doesn’t naturally exist, it is skilfully imposed to enable successful experiments to be carried out and appropriate laws extracted.

And this can quite adequately produce a galaxy of products, without any recourse to these emergent considerations.

For, their kind of investigation is strictly limited to Stability. And given constrained and maintained Domains, they can find laws that can be used to reliably predict, and hence produce!

The counter to truly explanatory, and, therefore, real Science, is, as always, technology.

For it will work while-ever any system of transforming Revolution does not take over!

For such plurality-determined “science” delivers without addressing any emergent events, except perhaps as “midwives” to the inevitable, or “surgeons” to the catastrophes.

Indeed, this medical-type metaphor is doubly appropriate because more generally, you have to ask -

“How can a profession such as Medicine cope with living people, and all their inevitable health crises that they are bound to undergo, without a standpoint that addresses emergent events?

Surely, they must extend their methods to unavoidably include these events?

For, if not, what you learn and apply must be mere recipes.

If your diagnostic methods, named complaints, and systems of treatment for all possible illnesses are of this nature, then the doctor becomes a database for such a body of knowledge, rather than any kind of investigating scientist

And in a much wider general field, can we call most of what is usually termed “research” (in our society today), Science?

For, it is entirely dependant upon the discoveries, formulations and explanations of other people – scientists who attempt to find laws in given Domains (artificially maintained stabilities).

Those that form the majority of those involved in such “research”, are merely finding the best, quickest, cheapest, most alluring, or most profitable products of already known laws.

They can keep it up almost indefinitely, but it is not Science, but only Technology!

Now, anyone following the current narrative in the media about “Science” will doubtless feel that they have to disagree with this analysis. For, they constantly hear from populists like Professor Brian Cox, Jim Al’Khalili and Marcus du Sautoy of all sorts of phenomena, many of which purport to address qualitative change, but actually do no such thing!

Most of Cox’s qualitative excursions are about things, which cannot be interfered with, far away in the Cosmos, while those from du Sautoy are diversions into Chaos and Fractals (with a substantial addition of the condiment of Pure Chance) to “explain” various Emergences in Mathematics.

But his narratives are a fraud, they are never about Reality, but about the mathematical World of Pure Form alone – what I insist should be called Ideality.

NOTE: In fact his position was put very succinctly by Stanislav Lem when he said:- 

“Let us imagine a mad tailor, who makes all sorts of clothes. He does not know anything about people, birds or plants. He is not interested in the World; he does not examine it. He makes clothes but does not know for whom. He does not think about it. The tailor is only concerned about one thing: he wants to be consistent. [….] He takes the finished clothes to a massive warehouse. If we enter it we would discover that some of the clothes fit an octopus, others fit trees, butterflies, or people. We would find clothes for a centaur and for a unicorn, as well as for creatures they have not even been imagined yet. The majority of his clothes would not find any applications.

Mathematics works in the same way. It builds structures but it is not clear of what. These are perfect models (i.e. perfectly accurate), but a mathematician does not know what they are models of. He is not interested. He does what he does because such an action has turned out to be possible."

Summa Technologiae – Stanislav Lem



Indeed, no one actually addresses such questions.

Finally, we must come to the science that first did actually address Emergences – namely by Charles Darwin with his Origin of Species. With such an epoch-making contribution, surely of all the sciences, Biology must be the one to pursue what Darwin began and go ever deeper into Emergent Events?

But, I’m afraid you will, sadly, be disappointed.

The touchstone was the second brilliant piece of holist science carried out by Stanley Miller in his famous Experiment, in which in a totally isolated experimental set-up, containing what were then considered to be the substances dominating the atmosphere of the early, pre-Life Earth. He designed and constructed his apparatus to emulate what was likely to have happened in what might reasonably be called the “Weather Cycles” from that period, and set the system into action by the addition of just heat and lightning (via electric sparks).

In only a week, the water in his closed system had turned reddy-brown and later analysis was found to contain amino acids – the crucial building blocks in all known living things on Earth today.

It was as revolutionary as Darwin’s contribution, but the majority of scientists were not satisfied, and asked, “Well, what exactly was going on within this set-up. What were the various processes going on and in what order?” And they universally concluded that, “Without knowing these things, the experiment had no consequences. It was a dead end!”

And, in spite of some improvements by Miller, the technology of that time did not allow him to answer their crucial questions, without, in the usual pluralist way, intervening to analyse, and so destroy each and every sub-process of the self-moving, holistic system.

The line of research was dropped.

And that is symptomatic of all modern biological research. They too do not address Emergences!

Now, though these wholesale criticisms are correct, there would naturally still be some scientists, who would indeed address crucial transformational episodes in new and imaginative ways. For example Hunt in studies into how, why and when the cells of fertilised eggs divided, for he developed a technique, which neither stopped nor interfered with the natural process of cell divisions, but also enabled him to separately analyse the chemicals present during successive phases of the process. He cracked what was initiating cell division, and for this brilliant work was awarded the Nobel Prize for Biology.

While in a very different and surprising area, Pagel studying large numbers of fossils, was able to show statistically that Species Origin had to involve a single event, and not the usually assumed set of small incremental changes over an extended period. Species Origination was an Emergent Event, and definitely then needed an explanation for what actually happened during this remarkable multi-phase Event.

Finally Ryan with his work on viruses and their penetration into other organisms, not only on the well known symbiotic type of relationships, but also in unifying single but unrelated organisms - a virus and a much higher living thing into a single amalgam, the results of which could be crucial in explaining alternative forms of genetic mutation other than the usual “random damage “ version.

The title of this paper was chosen as Metamorphoses for very good reasons. Can we just study the caterpillar and the butterfly totally separately, and in great detail, and ignore the amazing metamorphosis in between?

The answer has to be a resounding, “No!” What on earth is going on within the chrysalis and why? It is almost as if two species have been merged – one with the idea of eating its way to nirvana via leaves, and the other perfect for the reproduction of the species with the added and miraculous facility for flight.

Think what actually occurs!

A soft bodied, worm-like creature gets fat enough and then retires into a chrysalis, wherein the most radical transformations occur.

It is like a re-invention of the organism.

Instead of being soft-bodied, it transforms into a hard exoskeleton-encasing insect, with elaborate wings. Instead of eating leaves, it now switches to sucking up nectar from flowers, and, instead of being camouflaged, it erupts into a galaxy of colour to signal its presence to potential mates.

It usually only lives long enough to copulate and lay eggs before dying. (The mayfly (another relative) actually emerges in the adult stage without mouthparts, for it doesn’t even need to eat during its very short life).

So, what on earth happens inside that chrysalis?

Why was there such a revolutionary transformation?

Where did the imperatives for resorting to such a two-phase life and its absolutely essential transformation event come from?

All these questions are valid and definitely need answers.

In other areas, there are organisms (some incredibly simple – even single celled), which, in very hard times, transform themselves into a dormant and maximally protected state to “see-out” the bad-times (the seed being the simplest example), but it also happens to multi-celled animals too, and they can survive for truly remarkable periods of time in these defensive, totally-inactive states.

But even there the process from original organism – to dormant version – to fully-functioning organism again, is never merely “shutting-down”. It is always a major and profound re-organisation into “something else”. Clearly, there must be resonances between those defensive transformations and the much more short-term and functional metamorphosis of the caterpillar/butterfly.

One area that may be revealing can be seen in the study of developing embryos. For, it is evident that to some significant extent, these tend to pass through similar stages to what happened to prior species in the evolution of the present–day organism to arrive at its current state. It seems to indicate that prior phases in evolution are not lost, but are still present within the genetic material of the current organism, and in fact function as before, but only in the embryonic development stage

Could it be that reversions under extremely damaging conditions can take place, to put the organism in a more survivable prior state, and that when conditions improve, the organism can re-instate its current development path (within the safety of the chrysalis) until it can emerge as the final version of the current organism.

When we talk of a blueprint in the DNA of an organism, it is usually interpreted as a single trajectory through the various necessary phases of development. But several things would be essential even for such a seemingly” simple” plan.

For, the necessary “instructions” are not available in that DNA as a linear, physical sequence – starting at the beginning and going through each successive phase in turn.

It just isn’t like that!

The instructions are arranged in no particular physical order: they are dispersed throughout the DNA.

So what determines the actual sequence to be followed?

Each phase produces along with its primary functions the necessary chemical trigger for the immediately following phase, by producing a unique “key” that alone can “turn-on” the next phase, wherever it turns out to be. And these can be anywhere in the DNA, for the necessary key, being a chemical molecule, can bathe all parts of the complex molecule, but only act upon its target area(s) that initiate the required next phase. So, the whole sequence is elicited one at a time by the products of each immediately prior phase.

Indeed, the assumption that the overall sequence is the only one coded for, would, therefore, also be inaccurate.

In fact there could be alternative sequences that are almost never switched into action, including many redundant vestiges from past incarnations of the organism. And some of these might be triggered by adverse circumstances, which push the organism to the limits (and maybe beyond) of its normal envelope of survivable conditions, which would act as emergency solutions. A fairly common example in plants might be that which produces seeds – still the living organisms, but nothing like the fully-functioning adult plant. And in the same way a whole variety of similar “dormant” defensive forms might be triggered as the only way to maintain the spark of life.

Once such a set of alternative possibilities is considered, we can then consider that old (not usually still used) plans can be triggered, which could help a species in difficulties with impossible conditions to return to such a sequence as a survival alternative. Indeed, they might have been common in the very earliest scraps of life in the most demanding of circumstances of the early Earth.

And once we see that, much of the usually considered to be “junk DNA” is in fact still functional, but never triggered in normal sequences of a given organism, then we can view mutation very differently indeed. For whatever the cause of the mutation, it will respond initially to this unused storehouse of sequences, which might make the difference between success and failure for that change.

Also, situations such as metamorphosis may be a special case wherein two phases not originally run as a one-after-the-other sequence, might well be not only triggered in hostile circumstances, but regularly, as a superior alternative.

How Do You Develop Marxism?

Here is perhaps a surprising question and answer!

“What is Marxism for?” And the response is, “Absolutely Everything!”

Now, that doesn’t sound right, does it? Surely, Marxism is the means by which the Working Class gets tooled-up for the coming Revolution? It is a method of analysis of the current state of Capitalism, and also a means for defining its alternative, Socialism, and therefore, crucially the standpoint and method for developing the revolutionary forces to defeat the forces of reaction by means of a Socialist Revolution.

Well, no, that is by no means sufficient, and many others could make a similar sounding claim, without even claiming to be Marxists, as to their objectives and professed means.

Indeed, long before it was so central to political action in the Working Class, it was an unnamed revolutionary re-direction in Philosophy, and was initially composed of a group of young followers of the philosopher Hegel – the Young Hegelians.

And it was certainly because of that origin that it could develop into a materialist philosophy that could better than anything else understand current society, and also analyse what crucial revolutions, such as the English Revolution in the 17th Century and the French Revolution in the 18th century actually were and what the trajectory of significant qualitative changes were going on within those total turnovers of the state of those countries.

So, what point am I trying to make?

Have a look at this diagram.



This is a Marxist conception of the trajectory of a Revolution but maybe not as you've seen it before.

You may with justice wonder what its use is, and I will insist that it is an attempt to show in diagrammatic form what people such as Marx, Engels, Lenin and Trotsky were aware of and used to guide their actions as leaders of the Working Class.

You will not have failed to notice that it doesn’t call the depicted event a Revolution, but an Emergence! And this is because absolutely all Qualitative Changes, which result in major transformation of Level, occur in any kind of development process, wherever it is happening, and whatever it is happening to!

Indeed, the most important Emergence in the History of the Universe was the Origin of Life on Earth. And in the fossil record that particular episode is invisible and would still be so even if First life were ten feet high.

It is bound to be invisible, because the Key Transformational Events are of infinitesimal duration compared withy the Stability from which they arise, and the Stability into which they emerged.

And remarkably, you may be surprised to hear that literally ALL Science never addresses these kinds of Events at all! Indeed, Science as it is at present grounded, can only study Stability, and the non-qualitative (quantitative) changes that occur within that much more easily investigatable state.

So, perhaps the surprising answer at the head of this paper is becoming clearer.

Marxism is not only about all development, but also without it NO real qualitative development can be addressed.

Now, I would go further, and suggest that if present day Marxism does not fulfil the promise that only it can deliver, it will also fail to be entirely adequate in the usually agreed areas. It will very easily become something else!

And this is not a mere subjective guess by this observer.

I have been a Marxist, a scientist and a teacher all my life, and have seen failure after failure in my colleagues addressing these precise questions.

They were all as useless at the big questions in Science as their pro-capitalist colleagues.

I am primarily a physicist, and the retreat in the early part of the 20th century usually called the Copenhagen Interpretation of Quantum Theory, and even Einstein’s explanation of Gravity in terms of the distortion of his so-called Space-Time, were not addressed and demolished, but actually embraced!

Many are the contributions in socialist newspapers “explaining” these difficult areas to the uninitiated.

Have you read The Crisis in Physics by Christopher Caudwell?

He knew it was drivel and began the task of debunking it. But, he was also a real revolutionary, and when the time came went off to Spain to fight Franco, where he was killed.

You should read Caudwell and take up where he left off!

So, Marxism is a philosophy, and not of the armchair-interpretative kind, but of the kind that can and indeed must, change things. And, there should be no narrow restriction in what Marxists do: they are equipped to address all aspects of Reality including both Physics concerning Copenhagen, and Biology with the Origin of Life. The gulf in attainment in such areas, cannot merely be put down to mediocre practitioners in those specialist fields, but must also be laid at the door of Marxists.

For this achievement by Marx and Engels furnished Mankind with the very best Philosophy yet, which could throw light upon all of Mankind’s areas of study. And, the lack of progress, in the fields mentioned, does reveal that we have truly cut our great philosophy “down to size, and in so doing also severely restricted its role in politics too. For success in answering the big questions in Science will further deepen and widen the scope and profundity of marxian concepts and methods. An evident weakness in such areas will surely mean that Marxism has ceased to be a philosophy and become instead a series of political prescriptions to guide day-to-day political activism.

So, if you want to be a marxist, you will not achieve it merely by reading books. You must tackle the big questions that non-marxists have no hope of solving. If you are a biologist you should tackle the Origin of Life. If a physicist, then your target must be the Copenhagen Myth. If you are a teacher, you should be crucifying the politicians of capitalist democracy for their reactionary policies, and make significant contributions in Pedagogy. And, even if you are none of these, you must include a profound appreciation of the real content of these areas in the definition and development of your method.

And to all those who would energetically oppose such activities as “running away from the struggle”, let me remind them about Lenin.

At a crucial period in the sometimes very slow if not actually retrogressive development towards another Revolution in Russia, he wrote the crucial philosophical work Materialism and Empirio Criticism, when some of those he criticised were actually within his own tendency. And even more unlikely he produced his Philosophical Notebooks in which he read Hegel materialistically.

Is anyone of our persuasion going to condemn Lenin for avoiding the fight?

As he stepped from the train at the Finland Station after a long forced exile abroad, he immediate jumped up and harangued his welcoming crowd with a trenchant criticism of their policies, and via his following April Theses managed to turn his erring party around and ready for October.

Yet what has been done in deepening our understanding of the detailed Nature and Trajectory of an Emergence (a Revolution!)?

In my addressing of this area, I have studied Emergences in all area of human endeavour - all sciences and subjects and even the development of the Universe.

Do you really think that Marx only studied revolutions? He studied History, Economics, Palaeontology, Literature and even Mathematics.

Have you read the drivel they peddle about the Origin and Development of the Universe? It is the most unutterable rubbish, and yet they assure us that they will be able to fully and finally explain the actual Origin, as soon as their particle smashing in the Large Hadron Collider is fully up and running.

Where is the deep investigation of the whole trajectory, from the first murmurings of possible change to the complete overturn? And how about the processes occurring within the Event itself - what is being changed and how?

Can we read a series of books considering Emergence in all possible spheres? Again, you know the answer, it is, “No!”

And we cannot leave out that most important Crisis in Physics, which has beset the Sub Atomic Area for over 100 years without any real resolution.

In 1927 at the Solvay Conference, the idealists Bohr and Heisenberg defeated Einstein and established a major Kantian retreat in that subject, which has reigned ever since. Why has no Marxist tackled this impasse?

Though Christopher Caudwell did attempt the task and would have made a profound contribution, his Marxism also took him to Spain to fight Franco, where he lost his life before he could complete his valuable contributions to Marxism.

So, who took up the reins and continued his contribution? Nobody!

And, what of Evolution? Was Darwin’s incrementalist theory of Natural Selection sufficient?

The answer is certainly , “No!”

It did jettison God from the Nature of living things, but the actual mechanisms, and indeed revolutions, of change were only inferred.

The most important questions in Evolution, as in all other forms of development, has to be how Stability is established and maintained, and how it is consequently and inevitably undermined, and even occasionally totally destroyed in short interludes of what appear initially to be entirely dissolutionary changes, but which can establish a wholly new level of Stability in a crucial Second Phase.

Where are the investigations into these vital revolutionary episodes, which are the only times that can create the entirely NEW? And where are the studies of how mutation could possibly be integrated into an entirely new and almost perfectly reliable set of genetic instructions?

Again, this is not a job for biologists as such, but for Marxist biologists focussing on the processes of real qualitative change, and the establishment of stabilities, not to mention the subsequent and inevitable demise of every single one.

Such tasks are beyond the capabilities and standpoint of the specialists in the various areas: they are too general and holistic for head-down pluralists. They need the philosophical approach that only exists within Marxism. Indeed, to localise Marxism to politics alone, is a major mistake, and a self-inflicted injury to its real universal applicability. WE cannot wait around for the next revolution to increase our grasp of what happens in such events. We must enrich our ideas constantly by the tackling of revolutionary qualitative change wherever and whenever it occurs.

Let me ask an important question.

Have you ever got lost in the abstractions of Hegel, of even Marx himself? Of course you have! So, where is the continuing Marxian investigation into the Processes and Productions of Abstraction?




For my thesis throughout this paper has been the universality of Marxist Philosophy: it is not only a political standpoint and method. It applies to the whole of developing Reality!

Over the last rather long period, very little has been tackled outside of politics and economics within the Marxist Community. Yet without that inevitable widening and constant availability of our considered sources, we will shrink-not-grow!

In my researches, all the real successes were always interdisciplinary.

These questions have to be addressed!

Can we expect to achieve the status of the intellectual leaders of our Class as long as the Copenhagen Myths are allowed not only to exist, but for its followers to condemn all who attempt to explain anything within their hallowed territory?

And, the same can be said for the current nonsense about the Origin of Life and the idealist drivel about Parallel Universes, and Physical Singularities, not to mention Dark Matter and Dark Energy in what passes for Cosmology today.

Let us be clear!

If a so-called Marxist cannot demolish that rubbish, they are unlikely to cope with the minute-by-minute decisions in the midst of a Social Revolution.

Do not forget the importance of a pamphlet like, The Part Played by Labour in the Transition from Ape to Man. And also remember when it was written and by whom.

Marxism is the Philosophy of Mankind and must be established on all fronts!

A new series on this has begun on the Shape Journal.