Ideal and Real Worlds?

Mathematical Landscapes
by Zarko D. Mijajlovich

The crucial significance of both Simplification and Idealisation in Mankind's attempts to, first describe, and then understand, Reality, must be understood for how they have enabled progress in this demanding endeavour, while at the same time guaranteeing both mistakes and even impasses - some of which seem totally impossible to transcend, and have remained so for extremely long periods in Man's relatively short history. Indeed, it is this contradictory status that these "gains" most certainly possess, which makes their relationships to what actually pertains in Reality-as-is, so difficult to grasp.

Mankind's frequent solution to such conundrums, has always been their quality of remarkable flexibility, which allowed them to use the pragmatic stance embodied in, "If it works, it is right!", to actually step-around such impasses, merely on the basis of experience - without necessarily understanding why, and in what circumstances, a particular assumption works. Such "successful-steps" appear everywhere in the panoply of Man's ideas of his World, and deliver, therefore, many such universal, "sticking-plaster-solutions" throughout that constructed-view of Reality.

In contrast, with a purely holist view of Reality, such means may seem wholly wrong, but that clearly isn't the case. Such eclectic methods can, and indeed do (to an extent) reflect Reality, especially in certain situations.

The seeming contradiction between "Everything affects everything else" and fixed, Idealised Forms and Relationships, is NOT a mutually-exclusive, and contradictory pair of stances.

Indeed, because of simplifying in various persisting natural situations, occurring at particular times - which we call Stable Situations (or natural Stabilities), these assumptions can indeed approximate to what pertains there.

It is, of course, due to an arrived-at "balance" of contradictory factors, which can be, for an extended period, self-maintaining, and, consequently and quite-naturally, simplifies the situation, in an overall way, delivering an extractable combined relation.

We don't know why this occurs, but we clearly see it, and can extract and use it, for as long as the Stability persists!

Now, situations can naturally occur, which are close to being stable, and these allow glimpses of such simple relationships, which observers can latch on to as the key-producing-parts of such complex situations, and, if they are extractable, they can become the assumed-to-be producing "idealised components" of Reality. So, such Idealisations can indeed reflect such situations, and can be successfully used to predict what will happen under any particular, non-dissociating changes, within a Stability.

But, even so, the question, "Why?" is never addressed.

So, disentangling such naturally-complex, yet reasonably-stable situations is often impossible: and there can be no doubt that multiple, individual factors are involved, and also that, in specially arranged-for circumstances, a particular Single Factor can actually dominate, and its individual contribution in those circumstances, can be extracted. But, it will not be the same as it would be in other non-dominant situations.

That assumption - that it will always be the same, is the flaw in Idealisation!

The extracted Form of the individual contributing factor, taken from the dominant situation, is merely the Idealised Version of that factor, and the assumption that it is always exactly like that in all situations, that it is eternal, is quite definitely incorrect!

The assumption (that it is fixed) depends upon the universally-adopted Principle of Plurality, which underpins the whole of the usual methodology of Science. So clearly, such a mistake is exceedingly important.

The much more truthful, but currently "technologically-unusable" stance, is that delivered by the totally-opposite Principle of Holism!

Andy Goldsworthy

For multiple simultaneous factors, acting together are neither eternal, nor do they merely add-together, in varying amounts, to produce all possible situations. Indeed, every single one of them is different in different situations: for they most certainly affect one another!

They can, however, be organised to approach Plurality, for a given individual, targeted factor, by the careful-farming, and then sustained-maintenance of the exact same conditions, under which that particular simplified and idealised factor was made overt and then extracted.

Now, perhaps surprisingly, these transforming pluralist assumptions do not prohibit effective Use! As long as the appropriate, farmed conditions are provided for a given idealised factor, that will deliver what its extracted Form predicts.

But, to get anywhere near what the original, unfettered, many-factor, complex situation actually produced (though really, even then, only something similar) would always need a new application for each-and-every extracted factor, each in its own farmed environment, and carried through as a complete sequence over time!

[See all production processes in Industry for proof of this!]

Anhydrous ammonia plant, ca. 1954

But, there was, still, a major fly-in-the-ointment: the pragmatic assumptions which did deliver-usefully in production, were always significantly-damaging in attempts to actually explain phenomena. For, any individual equations produced by those pluralistic methods could not be brought together to explain the original unfettered situation.

Initially the Explanation was always attempted holistically, in terms of substances-and-their-properties, but though successful, these never gelled with the extracted equations.

So, the two approaches gradually changed in their roles. While the equations were considered reflections of underlying eternal Natural Laws, the holistic explanations became something of an apologetic-accompanying-narrative: a tale to tell to the uninitiated, who couldn't possibly appreciate the beauty and power of the abstracted eternal Natural Laws.

The only solution to this contradictory situation was to stress the Principle of Plurality, and insist that the unfettered phenomenon was merely an addition of the full set of eternal Natural Laws, in varying quantitative proportions.

Theory in these circumstances had been abandoned for mere Productive Reliability. Pragmatism had re-established its old dominance, and if anyone asked for an explanation, they were now just given the equation.

Gradually, participants began to consider that "Theory" was just the skilful manipulation of just such equations, to fit all possible circumstances. And, of course, that wasn't ever correct or explanatory! It was a frig: and any consistency evident was that of Idealised Mathematical Form, and NOT of physically existing Reality.

Real Physical Theory was rapidly being abandoned, and the results would be the current Crisis in Physics, which has now existed ever since the decision at the Solvay Conference in 1927, when Bohr and Heisenberg defeated Einstein and Schrödinger, with their Copenhagen Interpretation of Quantum Theory.

Mathematics is never the Essence of Reality, but only the study of idealised Forms, which are always just inviolate-able patterns or formal relations. To make them primary, as the "actual Drivers of Reality", instead of simplified and idealised forms derived from a carefully-tailored Reality, is clearly Idealism - a far cry from the avowed Materialist basis of Science!

Math Fantasy

The whole strategy based upon Plurality was a means of approximating to Reality via both farmed-situations and the simplification and idealisation of carefully-isolated, individual relations. Pragmatically, such means could be effectively-used to achieve intended outcomes, but could never deliver actual explanations!

When it came to understanding what was really going on, and "Why?", it was gravely flawed and limped across multiple impasses via old fashioned "suck-it-and-see" Pragmatism!

We have to be crystal-clear on all this!

Mathematics (like Formal Logic) is valid system of study for idealised Forms.

But, it is not the underlying driving basis of concrete Reality!

It was, and still is, a brilliant man-made simplification of aspects of Reality, which when used in appropriately simplified and maintained Domains - that actually bend a situation to something approaching that idealised form. But, it is, however, never appropriate in unfettered Reality, or in any attempt to understand and explain phenomena as they actually occur, naturally, in Reality-as-is!

Fundamentally, the pluralist approach and methodology, separates individual factors, artificially, from their natural joint occurrences, to use each one separately and sequentially, in tailored situations, to enable reliable predictions.

Capitalism and Alienation

Dr. Harriet Fraad on The Desperate Alienation & Suffering of Working Class People in today's Capitalist Society 


The following recording is the 3rd November Edition of the Democracy at Work Weekly Radio Show - featuring, in the last half hour of the broadcast, Dr. Harriet Fraad talking about alienation in our Capitalist World.

Many requests have been received by that organisation for more contributions by Dr. Fraad, who performs a vital function in her critique of this inhumane system, especially when it is in crisis, as it has been now ever since 2008, tipping BOTH workers and the unemployed into an even worse state than normal. She relates how it has always been basically of that same nature, but dramatically dives to desperate levels in times such as now.

Democracy at Work have arranged for her contributions to occur in the all subsequent first shows of every month. Her contributions will significantly enhance what is already an unmissible show, hosted by Marxist Economist Dr. Richard Wolff.


Access the current show here!

How Class Works

Obvious and Hidden Truths

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

Both in Science and in Art

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Let us attempt to be crystal-clear!

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Correction:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Man Makes Religion

The Creation of Adam by Michelangelo

From Karl Marx's

Critique of Hegel's Philosophy of Right

Man, who has found only the reflection of himself, in the fantastic reality of heaven, where he sought a superman, will no longer feel disposed to find the mere appearance of himself, the non-man [Unmensch], where he seeks, and must seek, his true reality.

The foundation of irreligious criticism is:

Man makes religion, religion does not make man.

Religion is, indeed, the self-consciousness and self-esteem of man, who has either not yet won through to himself, or has already lost himself again. But, man is no abstract being squatting outside the world. Man is the world of man – state, society.

This state and this society produce religion, which is an inverted consciousness of the world, because they are an inverted world! Religion is the general theory of this world, its encyclopaedic compendium, its logic in popular form, its spiritual point d’honneur, its enthusiasm, its moral sanction, its solemn complement, and its universal basis of consolation and justification.

It is the fantastic realization of the human essence, since the human essence has not yet acquired any true reality! The struggle against religion is, therefore, indirectly the struggle against that world, whose spiritual aroma is religion.

Religious suffering is, at one and the same time, the expression of real suffering, and a protest against real suffering.

Religion is the sigh of the oppressed creature, the heart of a heartless world, and the soul of soulless conditions. It is the opium of the people.

Issue 46: The Truth Papers

Issue 46

This edition comprises a collection of papers on Truth and our failed attempts to find it.

As soon as Mankind conceded that multiple, simultaneous relations are acting-together to produce literally everything present in Reality, we were immediately confronted with a major problem!

How could we extract all these relations accurately, and, thereafter, how could we then discover both their individual and their combined effects? The problem was perplexing, until someone, a couple of millennia ago, suggested that it was actually very easy: the various relations involved were assumed to be fixed, so they remained the same regardless of context.

It wasn’t true, of course.

Marxism & Physics POSTSCRIPT

Comrades wishing to equip themselves with the current developments in the Marxist method are directed to view Professor Richard D. Wolff's weekly and monthly updates on Economics - available on YouTube.

For more general philosophical coverage consult this blog, and the 7 years (84 Issues) of SHAPE Journal - an e-journal, all issues of which are available for free online.

SHAPE is very wide-ranging, with a great deal upon current developments in Marxist Philosophy, including the recent Theory of Emergences (i.e. Revolutions!).

JS

There Are No Laws of Nature!

There is a lot of evidence to suggest that this quote is misattributed to Euclid, though it is certainly an old phrase, and is the natural conclusion of the idealist view of natural law

All Ideal Laws of Nature are Bunk!

Exactly how then are natural behaviours caused?

"Is Quantum Mechanics involved in this area of study?" is a frequently asked question - but what does such a question actually imply? For example, in a recent news item in New Scientist magazine, a researcher wonders if an, as-yet-unknown, Law of Conservation is the reason for the stability of the proton.

Now, such a question from an actively working scientist is truly incredible! For, what is clearly assumed is that Reality behaves in the way that it does, in certain particular areas of study, entirely due to being directed to do so by purely abstract Laws.

For, that is exactly what is not only the basic assumption of the current interpretation of Quantum Physics, but within that consensus tradition, it is also asserted, in tandem, that a total rejection of Explanatory Theories is essential too. Instead of such Explanatory Theories, Formal Probabilistic Laws are, alone, supposed to actually cause observed behaviours, if that peculiar stance is accepted!

Now, is such a stance not clearly idealist?!

And, to make it even more ridiculous, a cursory consideration of the means Mankind uses to extract such "laws", clearly indicates that those means are such as to only-ever deliver an arranged-for result: hence the so-called Natural Laws are only extracted from very restricted, filtered and even "farmed" contexts - man-arranged Domains, which are expressly designed to suppress, remove or limit most present relations, to more clearly deliver only a single, targeted-for relation.

Hence, they are NOT the eternal Natural Laws that they are assumed to be.

They are currently existing relations, but ONLY in that specific, supplied context: elsewhere they will most certainly be different.

Now, long ago, this kind of idealist nonsense was allowed to be imported into Science via the devising of a special Enabling Principle. It isn't usually overtly stated, or even admitted, but the Principle of Plurality was long ago built, irremovably into the foundations of the standard approach, to make the above assumptions "true".

For, Plurality insisted that all individual relations within Reality are totally fixed: they don't change at all, so all the "farming" of contexts cannot change those relations, they can only effectively reveal them. But, I'm afraid, it just isn't true!

Innumerable examples can be given to show that the exact opposite principle - that of Holism, is much more generally applicable, and shows that Plurality, in fact, only holds in particular natural or man-made Stable situations: everywhere-else Holism is clearly evident, and simply must be assumed if qualitative changes, and the true creative development in nature, are ever to be adequately addressed.

So, these aspects imported an idealist strand into Man's investigations of concrete Reality. And, on revealing certain patterns within these stable, man-devised Domains, allowed them to be fitted up to pure formal patterns from Mathematics, evident in the measured data collected, to succinctly describe a particular found and isolated relation.

These Formulae were only ever Descriptions: they could, clearly, never be Explanations!

But, they had a very seductive property - they could be used to predict certain future outcomes reasonably accurately. And, this ability to be able to predict was extremely convincing to those who couldn't do such things, and the "predictor" was given high status, even though he often had absolutely NO idea why Reality behaved in such a way.

So, these so-called Natural Laws, which are assumed to drive Reality, are, actually, no such thing at all. They merely describe a pattern of simple, uneventful changes. Much more investigation will always be necessary to begin move towards answering the much more important question, "Why?"

Clearly, such formulae deliver NOT Natural Causative Laws, but, merely, widely-applicable and purely Formal Rules - very different things indeed! Remember the ONLY possible "explanation" delivered by the equation alone is, "Obeys this Rule!"

Not much of an explanation is it?

Now, it may well be asked, "Why do such clearly idealist "laws" ever fit Reality?". Well, two things must be made clear in answering that question.

FIRST: All such patterns must have arisen from material causes, but only if these particular causes are acting ALONE! That is why in scientific investigations, the primary task is to severely limit the Context, in an attempt to restrict the causation factors to a single one! Only if this is done, can such an ideal formal relation be revealed.

But, SECOND: The investigators invoke the Principle of Plurality, which, as explained earlier, assumes that sets of such "ideal laws" simply sum, to give the things we naturally observe in totally unfettered Reality!

And that assumption is WRONG!

Remember it isn't man-devised "Laws" that make things happen: it is physical causes, and these are always changed by context - in other words,

Reality is not Pluralist: it is Holist!

So, you cannot assume that an ideal law, revealed by extreme isolation, will remain exactly the same in complex situations - allowing simple addition of such laws to be assumed. They will, most certainly, have changed by physical causes in the combined context. The usually assumed Natural fixed Laws are transforming idealisations of the actual holist complexity!

Marxist Theory Today IV

Assimilating and Using the Marxist Method

My first tack in pursuing this objective was basic but crucial: I had to understand Mankind's developed processes of Abstraction-from-Reality, in order to begin to see how our original concepts were arrived at.

I back-traced the processes involved all the way to initial Observations. Then, gradually unearthed the necessary sequence of processes, and the productions, that were involved.

Crucially, I then attempted to concentrate my findings into a clear and concise diagram.

The completed diagram (shown below) related Man and Reality, via those Key Processes to deliver Abstract Productions (or concepts), without which, any kind of understanding would be impossible.

New Marxist theories: Jim Schofield's 'Processes and Productions of Abstraction'

The final result was profoundly significant, for it not only showed the sequence and hierarchy of processes and concepts, but also revealed a higher order of phases of development from Basic to those involved in Science.

And, profoundly, it also revealed clearly exactly how Mathematics arose via a specially devised subset & extension of Reality, which I termed Ideality!

And, his began to inform a trenchant criticism of my own most successful subject Mathematics, as well as the contradictions present in Science itself.

It also led to the next and most important phase of my philosophical researches.

By 2010, I had devised The Theory of Emergences, as a culmination and focussing of 50 years as a professed Marxist, transformed by this vital and revealing last few years. Let me regale you with the final diagram of that Theory.

New Marxist theory: Jim Schofield's Trajectory of an Emergence

This wasn't as general as its title seems to claim, for it was primarily an attempt to trace out the trajectory of a known and well-documented (by reliable Marxists) an actual Social Revolution - The Russian Revolution of 1917.

The profile was from pre-Revolution Stability, through Crises and Oscillations, via seemingly terminal Collapse, to a construction/dissolution oscillating and ascending Phase, gradually achieving a final and persisting Stability at a wholly new level.

I, finally, had an inkling of what someone like Lenin had to cope with, to analyse objectively, and do what was required, in the midst of a Social Revolution - indeed, to ride the rollicking, dangerous tiger to a successful outcome!

But, I was a scientist, and, I believe, a good one.

I knew that my task, and also the most important task for Marxism, was to free Science from the idealist manacles of the Copenhagen Interpretation of Quantum Theory for good.

My use of the gains that I had made, would have to be employed across the board!

Now, this latter development was in many ways putting the cart before the horse. Though both immediately and fruitfully applicable, it all still lacked the use of the detailed discoveries by Friedrich Hegel and Karl Marx, which had profoundly transformed Philosophy, and severely criticised Formal Logic and the methods of Reasoning that were the only ones available, and totally incapable of dealing with the creative, qualitative developments, as in Evolution, and the whole History of the Universe.

Hence, a detailed study of those essential early stages followed, starting with Hegel's revolutionary Thinking about Thought, and his realisation of the many, and recurring, rational impasses occurring in all thinking that is limited by Formal Logic, the Principle of Plurality and the unavoidability of clearly rationally-insuperable Dichotomous Pairs of contradictory concepts (Abstractions), which arose directly from the very same set of assumed, basic premises.

He was able to show that when the relevant premises were dug out, and carefully traced through, to deliver both arms of an evident Dichotomous Pair, it was entirely possible to examine all those premises one-by-one, identify possible dodgy ones, and find out whether changes could be implemented, which allowed a transcendence of the caused impasse.

Hegel immediately knew that he had discovered a new kind of thinking, which for the first time delivered a working method of addressing the weakest aspects of the 2,500-years-old Formal Logic, and also included the beginnings of what he called his Logic of Change, and a means of not only dealing with the evident failures of strictly Formal Logic, but much more widely, by addressing the trajectories of Qualitative Change that, thus far, had never been properly addressed.

The basic method described here, only in outline, he termed Dialectics. 

Systems Dialectics - interesting diagram trying to address something similar in theory, not sure if it quite works! - source: https://rdln.wordpress.com/2014/06/14/dialectical-systems-and-chaos-part-2/

However, among his Young Hegelian followers, Karl Marx considered that the features, which Hegel only applied to Human Thought, were also true in all areas of natural development. He exported both Dialectics, and his own philosophical stance, from Hegel's trenchant Idealism to Materialism!

But, clearly, Marx's subsequent direction was not what Philosophy usually did. If at all, such things as Marx was now including, were usually addressed by historians, scientists, economists and mathematicians etc. etc.

Marx realised that all those disciplines, too, were also limited by Formal Logic, and its kind of Reasoning, so he declared that his new Dialectical Materialism alone could, and indeed, would transform these areas too, initially by using the same methods of addressing the impasses involving Dichotomous Pairs, and caused by inadequate premises.

And, his primary target just had to be Economics! He needed to understand the current Economic System of Capitalism, and its avowed principles and premises.

And, both History and Archaeology showed quite clearly that Human Societies had definitely developed, and moved through a sequence of distinct Economic Systems - and, each one had been terminated by what had become known as Social Revolutions.

And, to strongly focus such an investigator's attention, the 15 year trajectory of the French Revolution had only very recently occurred, and very nearly totally transformed a continent.

It just had to be understood!

Jules Michelet - History of the French Revolution

And, as circumstances also dictated, the right historian had been similarly focussed into logging the whole event in meticulous detail: the brilliant French historian, Michelet, in doing this, had transformed the methods of his discipline, and the full richness of a studied Revolution was there in his brilliant work, for people like Marx to study: and that is exactly what this serious and brilliant philosopher did!

Now, you can see why I and millions of others had been let down by generations of self-professed Marxists throughout our political lives.

None of this was revealed and explained!

None of it was even used!

The Dialectical Materialist Method was not delivered!

And, clearly and crucially, none of it was ever applied in Science!

So, what was left was just Political Activity, maintained, primarily, by the prestige and momentum generated by the Russian Revolution, without the necessary extensions, in the manner of Marx himself, into the many, still-outstanding and absolutely-necessary disciplines, such as Science, and most crucially of all, Physics!

Such people were a long way from being real Marxists.

In fact, their distortions of Marxist Theory had actually misled the world Working Class, and failed to cope with the rise of Fascism, and yet another World War, where literally millions of workers died at the behest of their ruling classes.

And, even the landside election victory of a Labour Government in Britain led to only temporary gains, now being increasingly flushed down the toilet at an ever increasing rate.

We were ALL, from workers to intellectuals, betrayed by these fakers! As my original title for this essay declares:- They were, at best, merely "Descriptive, Retroactive and Activity-Based" in both Theory and Practice.

And that isn't Marxism!

The Large Hadron Collider

Tackling the Crisis in Physics

So, having personally got to this point, what did I now do?

Since I was 19 years old, I had been stymied by what I had been taught in my Physics Degree Course at University, but had no idea what to do about it. Lenin's Materialism and Empirio Criticism promised a Marxist alternative, but it was never subsequently delivered.

But, NOW, I was in a position to tackle this vital task myself!

Throughout my career as a physicist, I had been brought to a halt by a classical Hegelian Dichotomous Pair embodied in the infamous Wave/Particle Duality insisted upon by the Copenhagen Interpretation of Quantum Theory.

Clearly, now, I had to use the Dialectical Materialist Method of Marx to reveal the flawed common premises, which gave rise to this impasse, and determine what was wrong.

Initially I found simplification, context-farming and even idealisation embedded in the universally applied Scientific Method, but I still couldn't correct the premises involved. UNTIL, that is, I noticed a glaring omission. Most Sub Atomic Phenomena had NO physical explanation - only detailed descriptions and useable formulae - allowing effective use, but totally without any explanations, without any Theory!

Now, Mankind had explained things in the past, which they couldn't do any longer. So, I looked at these and realised that the current impasse was due to the banning of the explanatory concept of a Universal Substrate in the basic premises upon which Sub Atomic Physics was then built.

So, I checked out what would happen in the ill-famed Double Slit series of experiments if a substrate were included.

The Double Slit: Matter in Motion?

Amazingly, all the problems and confusing anomalies dissolved away: all phenomena, in every version of the experiment could be explained physically! No Superposition or Wave/Particle Duality: no collapsing of the Wave Function - it all became totally irrelevant.

Now, this concept, of a Substrate, had long been jettisoned because it could not be detected, but, as James Clerk Maxwell had shown, if such an idea could lead to successful theories they were, at least temporarily, valid - remember it was he, assuming the Ether, that produced the still universally used Electromagnetic Equations.

Of course, the belief in eternal, directing, Natural Laws, long assumed in Physics, made the validity of concepts like an unknown Substrate reprehensible: but that prejudice was mistaken!

Mankind's theories were all approximations, but as long as they contained enough Objective Content to be better than those they replaced, they would be legitimate steps forward.

Man has never had access to so-called Absolute Truth, though the myth of eternal Natural Laws, encapsulated fully in Formal Equations, implied the opposite.

Clearly, the assumption of a Universal Substrate, was significantly BETTER than the Copenhagen retreat from explanation entirely!

However, scientists have certainly sought the presence of a Universal Substrate over an extended period, and never found even the slightest trace. Yet, here we are, with its firm assumption of existence, demolishing the whole edifice of Copenhagen.

So, I decided to theoretically devise a "real" Substrate that would, for sound, physical reasons, be entirely undetectable, yet would deliver, in a physically explicable way, ALL the requirements I had worked up for The Theory of the Double Slit - and I succeeded!

The flaw in the premises, was not a mistakenly described component or idea, but an actual omission.

New Marxist theories of Physics by Jim Schofield

I had used Hegel and Marx's Dialectics to crack a problem, not only in Sub Atomic Physics, but generally. 

For, apart from the inclusion of the Universal Substrate, the whole mish-mash of contradictory philosophical assumptions, which for millennia had not only involved Materialism, but also Idealism and Pragmatism.

That amalgam had also been demolished.

An amazing claim, you might think, but the Double Slit success has been followed by other equally important gains, in dispensing with Quantum entanglement and Superposition, while a totally non-Copenhagen explanation of Quantised Electrical Orbits in Atoms has also been completed.

The door is now ajar, and through it could be seen the Future of Science, and a re-invigorated Philosophy of Marxism!

This post is the last in this blog series entitled Marxist Theory Today. Watch this space for more articles in our grand Shape Journal series on Marxism & Physics.

Is Reason Merely Formal Logic (Part 4)

Vahram Again - Ghost City series

The Crucial Role of Stability

So, where does this leave us? I am sure that we must include, along with these episodic Events of dramatic Change, their very opposite – the periods of Stability that occur in between! 

To begin to explain both of these could possibly reveal some sort of structure, and be wholly determined by Reality itself, and not a restricting man-devised pluralist programme.

The development of Reality is not one of “constant revolutions”, even though it is one of “permanent change”.

The difference is that the major Qualitative Changes only actually occur in Emergences, and are clearly episodic, while the incremental changes are very different – amounting only to “change within Stability”, where it is mostly easily accommodated within the current stability without ever threatening its overthrow.

The transition which can occur, however, is that from a "simmering stability” to a “boiling Emergence”, and clearly it is within this “change-over” that we will find what we seek!

Indeed, the more such events are studied (read Trotsky’s History of the Russian Revolution), it soon becomes clear that Holism and ONLY Holism can cope with such Changes. From the pre-Emergence build-up, through the revolutionary overthrow, to the establishment of a new stability, at a wholly new and higher Level, the factors are changing constantly. What is vital in one phase can vanish from the next.

NO immutables are available throughout, nor can they be engineered by Control. An avalanche-like series of phases definitely occur, NONE of which can be predicted pluralistically from its antecedents. There are no constant carry-overs, from before the Emergence, to actually deliver discernable persisting causalities, in the New Stability!

Clearly, the original “it’s all happening” holism will simply NOT DO!

The way a holistic Universe self-generates and then maintains its stabilities is by changing its own context - the key and crucial process.

So, at this point, I must once more reflect upon my hero Zeno, whose Paradoxes took the alternative assumptions of Continuity and Descreteness to the limit, and showed them BOTH to be inadequate.

Is it that which is also what is involved in the study of all real Change, and all real Movement, whether of objects, or of Reality, in Flux?

Examples of Using the Holistic Method

I: Dance

For the last 20 years, I have been tackling the provision of Structured Video Resources for the Teaching of Dance Performance and Choreography, and, perhaps surprisingly, this same problem has been paramount at every stage.

The Descrete is delivered by a photograph or a still-frame from a digital video, and though a moving video seems to be the place to find the real dynamics involved, how do we study it in detail, without having to turn it into descrete stills?

The problem was solved, though I won’t labour it within this essay.

Its solution was no one-liner! Even when we had the solution in our hands, we didn’t actually understand why it was successful. It took most of the full 20 years to answer that, and, thereafter, generate a whole set of appropriate tools, to enable the proper study of dynamism on Movement, in both Effectiveness and in Expression.

The point of bringing up this work here, is to establish that there ARE areas of study which directly address Change, and allow a start to be made, which is NOT merely a continuation of Pluralist Science.

Mont Sainte Victoire Cezanne 1902

II: Painting

In the late nineteenth century, the painter Paul Cezanne sought a different way of what he termed “realisation” of the landscapes of his home district in the south of France. He was a man of the countryside, not of the city, and the wonders of mathematical perspective meant nothing in the rolling landscape around Mount Saint Victoire. He wanted his pictures to be “much more real” than was currently being delivered by his contemporaries, and he worked to devise methods of achieving his aim. He developed a delivery of the spaces of his landscapes by a series of new methods.

It is interesting that while other leading artists were moving away from what might be called “realism”, Cezanne was making it his main purpose, but that did not mean he sought a photographic likeness. He used the sequence of overlapping areas, plus a form of “colour modulation” to generate a strong third dimension. And, even more surprisingly, he integrated different viewpoints into the same picture, to reflect how we remember a scene concretely. His works were considerably more real than anyone else’s, and he had a major impact on many contemporary and following artists. Indeed, there is a strong argument that Cezanne was the father of early 20th century flowering of Modern Art, and, certainly, was seen as making contributions to several different modern trends.

He was dealing with Reality in new ways, a million miles from Mathematical perspective and photographic truth, yet more “real” than either of them could ever deliver.

Such a diversion into Art may seem inappropriate in an essay on Reason and Reality, but it is, on the contrary, most appropriate. While the dominant, “reasonable” approaches to Reality were inherently pluralist and particular, the best artists had always been holists, and tackled the full multifariousness of the visual world in an integrated, holistic way. Their methods often involved an attempt to capture something of the rich, varied and integrated nature of their subject, with simultaneous elements attempting to deliver something of the oneness and mutually determined nature of the subject.

Of course, it is just as impossible to fully deliver such an intention in a picture, as to doing it is in an explanation, but the method also delivered the subject by a particular, seemingly active view of it.

Such works cannot be said to be pluralistic – the attempt to deliver Reality by means of its perceived constituent Parts, but instead by attempting to “realise” its intrinsic wholeness.

Read any critic trying to describe what is going on in a masterpiece, to see the inadequacies of even describing what was being delivered. THE communication of the holistic content could only be the picture itself!

And for my purposes, I have to investigate such paths, because they are THE most successful attempts at a holistic approach to delivery of the Real rather than the mere Appearance.

Mankind does realise such things, and always has, but the achievements are considered as trivial, compared with those of Science and Technology, and even regarded as somewhat self-indulgent, as compared with the useful and applicable investigations of the scientists and technologists. But, as I have described in the examples of Geology and Evolution, many things in the experience of Mankind could NOT be penetrated by pluralistic means.

III: Human Development

Let us consider the holistic development of a human being!

Such an individual starts its existence as a fertilised egg – that of a female united with the sperm of a male. Even at the moment of conception, the essential plans for the future development of that consequent human being are already there and complete in the DNA of that fertilised egg. But, these instructions come into action at different stages in the subsequent development of the embryo, and are activated by the changing context of the egg at each and every different juncture.

With such a collection of unchanging genes, each with a particular role, either alone or in combination with others, the expressions of these genes are delivered, but they MUST be under some sort of control. They don’t all act together unhindered and unsynchronised. On the contrary, they spend most of their time inactive and only come into play at exactly the right time. What can coordinate their properly sequenced expression?

We have only the fertilised egg, its genetic material and its environment.

Initially at least, the environment must trigger particular genes, and the process commences. But, as the embryo grows in size and absorbs nutrients, there will be physical rearrangements of the cells, and different conditions will pertain in different parts. The environment becomes localised and differentiated with internal components to add to the enclosing context. This must be the crux.

The embryo itself with its increasing differentiation, and the products of earlier expressed genes, along with the environment will successively trigger the right genes at the right times, and from a single original egg, via a multiplication involving cell divisions and a sequence of gene expressions, will usually immaculately produce the individual, which at some stage can leave its perfect environment within its mother, and set out into the world as a separate human being.

The organism has been directed by its genetic blueprint, but IT, in turn, controls the expression of that plan. The development of the organism changes its own contained environment as it develops.

Now, if we were limited to a single-celled organism, we would also be limited finitely, and though that fragment of life will still have alternative and sequenced modes, they would all have to involve the whole cell in these changes. The true potential of this recursive loop can only be maximised, in the way outlined above, in a multi-cellular organism (such as our human being). For then, different “local” environments for different groups of cells can cause different “expressions” of the genes in appropriate areas. Indeed, different functional organs can be developed simultaneously in different places – produced by different expressions of the genes, and these will in turn affect each others local environments.

The multi-celled organism revolutionised the possibilities for Life, and after almost 3 billion years in the single celled phase of Life, the Emergence of the multicellular forms led to the famous Cambrian Explosive Radiation of life forms, which persists even today in the main basic body plans of living things.

Can you imagine some pluralist attempt dealing with all this via a series of equations? It couldn’t!

Such a scenario requires a holistic standpoint to even conceive of it happening.

The organism is constantly changing but via a sequence of relatively stable phases, while at certain crucial points, the whole organism undergoes an Emergence, and becomes essentially different, with different and NEW properties.

The Pillars of Creation - Hubble Space Telescope

IV: The Universe

To those who study Emergence, there can be NO doubt, the living organism in microcosm reflects the Cosmos in macrocosm. It too undergoes episodic Emergences, wherein the possibilities are radically extended, and the crucial essence of these Events involves the changing environment, which initially produced it, and which is now regularly changed by its own products.

Emergences create new possibility spaces (to use a modern expression), NOT posited in the individual from without, but generated from within, when incremental change can no longer be contained in the same way, and the whole structure is radically changed – not merely in Form, but vitally also in possibilities.

Biomimicry

Not Form, but Cause

To return, for a moment, to my previously mentioned book, by Iain Stewart - Life’s Other Secret, Stewart’s thesis was that Mathematics was that other secret. He dismissed the “gene for everything” school of thought, and offered Mathematics as the determinator of many features of Living Things (the usual idealist error of inversion). But, Mathematics is about abstracting Form from Reality: it can never be a cause!

In the examples he gives, Stewart mistakes mere Form for determining cause, whereas it can only be a consequent result of some real and concrete multifarious processes. In concentrating on his beloved Mathematics, he ignored the true and fascinating real concrete causes.

Once more we see the limitations of Plurality, and the significant aberration of understanding that such an approach is bound to cause.

The reader, by now, will realise that this essay is neither a description of, nor a prescription for, a holistic Science. I am in no position to deliver such a thing. But, I can demonstrate that it is not only necessary, but also possible to develop such a methodology.

The reader will be forgiven for protesting that this essay seemed to promise Holistic Reason, or a Logic of Change, and has not delivered this. It is certainly true that a finished all-bells-and-whistles approach has not been described. If it had, it would be a truly world shattering revolution in Reason, but such systems can only be achieved over long periods, via the contributions of many innovative thinkers. It could never be produced in a single essay and from a single contributor.

The Laban Pure Form

The Multi-Discipline Approach

Nonetheless, I think that this contribution is important because of my unusual experience.

Not only am I a qualified Mathematician and Physicist, but have also reached the pinnacle of my profession in Pedagogy and also in programming Computers-in-Control. I am a long-standing sculptor and composer, and also spent a substantial fraction of my adult life in revolutionary politics. I am, as you may have guessed, a Marxist, though never a Stalinist. 

Since the early 1980’s my specialism in Computers-in-Control led to my assisting a wide variety of researchers in many disciplines, until finally I developed, with Dance Teacher colleague in Higher Education, a system for supplying Multimedia Resources for the Teaching of Dance, in which I an currently the world leader in the field.

I have been writing on science and Philosophy for over 15 years, and, since my retirement, have become full-time in these areas. I have written a series of books on Operational Research, the Methodology of Multimedia Pedagogy, Theory and Reality, Emergence and The Structures of Explanatory Diagrams. I have spent many years researching in Mathematics, with perhaps the best discoveries being the invention of an infinite Three Dimensional Strand (The Soma Strand) that stacks to fill space, and a polyhedral Teaching Aid (The Laban Pure Form) for use with Laban’s ideas in Dance Teaching, and his world famous Labanotation system for recording Dance works.

This width of interests is unique, and has fuelled my criticism of pluralist methods and philosophy in both Science and Reason. I am in a position to survey the landscape of Reality from a rare promontory, and at the very least discern that its proper exploration is certainly fully achievable, while “burying” the atrocities of current Quantum Theory in Physics along the way.

New Special Issue: Thinking!

Special Issue 45

Exactly what thinking is has always been a problem for Homo Sapiens.

For we are clearly animals, yet seem to be very differently endowed from even our closest relatives among the Great Apes.

Yet we continue to study what we think of as “intelligence” in various non-human animals, and attempt to define what it is that separates us from them, and exactly how it could have developed in only this single species.

Indeed, we often characterise what we do as “Thinking” and picture it in a very homocentric way, as in Rodin’s famous sculpture of a man with his hand upon his chin and with head bowed. He isn’t looking at an object or doing anything physical: he is Thinking!

We like this because it doesn’t seem to fit with how all the other intelligent animals “think”. We seem to do our reasoning solely in our heads, using what we call abstractions, and we are convinced that only we can do this. There can be no doubt that it happens. But what actually is it, and what can it achieve? Indeed, the number one question has to be, “Can it actually settle upon the Real Truth?” The answer has to be “No!”

Marxist Theory Today III

Eadweard Muybridge: Dancing girl. A pirouette (2)

The Long-awaited Breakthrough

A major breakthrough in my Marxist philosophy just had to come, and it happened in a very surprising area - the application of multimedia techniques in aids for the Teaching of Dance Performance and Choreography!

The unique cooperation between a world class researcher in dance teaching, and this physicist/computer-expert, led to a product which won a British Interactive Video Award (BIVA) for excellence. And, as the research proceeded, with ever-new objectives, and unavoidable constant changes in both equipment and software, major questions became totally unavoidable.

Yet, before that position was reached, another change of job, was necessary. Apart from this work with my Dance colleague (which later got her a PhD), little else was going on in that institution. I applied for and got a professorial level post in London University as a Director of Information Technology. But, as usual, the emphasis changed: in London I had to undertake the design and commissioning of a Campus-wide Fibre-Optic Network, which I successfully achieved within the next 18 months, while keeping contact with my Dance Research colleague back in my old institution.

But, ill-health due to a chronic illness over the last decade, finally caused early retirement, and a cessation of all undertakings, to at least recover to some extent, though it was clear that I would never be able to return to full-time work. As I slowly improved, I took to making toys for my youngest two children, mostly in wood, which both I and they enjoyed enormously. After a Drakar, a Brigantine and a Tug for my lad, I constructed a Noah's Ark, a historic Mail Coach and a Gypsy Caravan for my girl.

NOTE: I haven't mentioned it here, but I have married twice and have five marvellous children, all of whom, at this time of writing, had obtained degrees in a wide variety of subjects, and some had gone on to Postgraduate qualifications too. They have also given me 10 grandchildren and one great-grandchild!

A remarkable post-retirement interlude then ensued, involving irregular work with my Dance colleague, ostensibly on a series of new multimedia aids building upon the gains made in our award winning Dance Disc, but also, for me, posing new philosophical questions involving the unstated premises underlying what we were trying to achieve, and a realisation of how both the idealist philosopher, Friedrich Hegel, and his leading student Karl Marx had addressed such problems.

Finally away from the constraints and requirements of employers, I was addressing what I knew were the central questions in literally ALL serious research. And, the fact that this particular undertaking was about problems in Movement and Dynamics, made it ideal for addressing fundamental questions head-on!

Gjon Mili - 1947 strobe shot of Nora Kaye dancing on pointe

The problem had been noticed 2,500 years ago by the Greek, Zeno of Elea, who had accurately revealed problems with his famous Paradoxes.

Each case addressed the incompatibility between the two concepts of Continuity and Descreteness, which Mankind always switched between pragmatically in attempts to address problems associated with movement. Zeno's Paradoxes such as Achilles and the Tortoise and The Arrow made our lack of rational reasons for our switching very clear.

Hegel, some 2,300 years later, had finally addressed the problem philosophically, and had found a solution.

He realised that the regular occurrence of such Dichotomous Pairs of contradictory concepts, always arose from the very same premises, if they were significantly flawed. Such Pairs always delivered a rational impasse, and without significant changes in those premises, we would NEVER transcend that rational HALT. Instead, we would leave it unresolved, and merely cause investigators to pragmatically choose whichever of the pair allowed a successful continuation. But Hegel found a solution!

By successfully revealing all the often unstated premises in a situation, he was able to attempt changes in those premises, which, if appropriate, transformed the Impasse into a fork in reasoning, in which sound reasons could decide which way was correct.

He called his method Dialectical Reasoning, and though he considered it only as applicable to Human Thinking, his best student, Karl Marx, realised that it was applicable to conceptions about Developments of any kind, whatsoever. So, he transferred Hegel's achievements, wholesale, into a Materialist Philosophical Stance: so, for the first time, it could be applied across the board, and crucially to both Social Development in History and to Science itself!

The problem with capturing dance, could not have been closer to what was, clearly, the crux, all the way from Zeno to Marx!

Movement, when analysed, can never be delivered only by descrete positions (Stills): for, in addition, where it came from, and what was to follow, must also, somehow, be delivered too.

And, that requires a time-based context (a Movie).

Yet, without precise positioning-information (only accurately-available from high-resolution Stills) NO precise dynamics could be captured and delivered. And, this was the case both in correct performance within a Dance Piece, and, crucially, also in the choreography involved when creating such movements.

Millennia had passed with such instruction being by "do it like this" - purely by demonstration, by the choreographer or someone he or she had very fully instructed, by those very same means.

You could (and did) get away with it in performance instruction, but only with dancers present who had correctly done it before.

But, teaching choreographic creation of entirely new movements and pieces was never conquered.

My colleague's purpose was to attempt to solve the problem using Video and Film, but she soon found it impossible due to acute problems in accurate Access, and major difficulties in precise and revealing Control, using the available technology of the time.

I was able to proffer a possible solution via precise and flexible computer control of such footage, delivered from a Laser Disc, as well as delivering synchronised simultaneously presented views from different angles, and even detailed close ups. Both Access and Control were sufficiently delivered for most of my colleagues requirements to be provided.

It enabled a major step-change in what my colleague was attempting, but alone it wasn't sufficient, and the universal switch to Digital footage from Analogue footage made it impossible to deliver, as we had successfully achieved all our objectives with the prior format.

The philosophical problems were clearly unavoidable, and the Marxist research as well as that required within Dance Instruction came together, and I was able to finally crack both!

Well, "crack" is, of course an over-statement: for to become a real, producing Marxist theorist would take a great deal of time: but I was finally on my way!    

This post is part of a blog series entitled Marxist Theory Today, which is turn, forms part of our grand Shape Journal series on Marxism & Physics.

Is Reason Merely Formal Logic? (Part 3)

Anish Kapoor - Sky Mirror

Qualitative Change & Development

Involving both Analogy, Generality & Objective Content

Even the originators of the previously described scientific methodology were dissatisfied with it, as the sole method of dealing with Reality. It was a profoundly “particular” method! Almost all scientists “knew” that Reality was an inter-related Whole, and required an insight into this side of its qualities, relations and processes. They were dissatisfied with their “bag” of disparate, special-case solutions, and also required to understand over much wider areas of Reality.

The only way they could do this was to attempt, in addition to their usual methods, to also try to understand “WHY?” things were the way they were! And, that needed to integrate the particulars into more general scenarios. They knew that the methodology of experiment and abstraction was simply a very sophisticated way of describing each-and-every particular case. They knew that they would be greatly more empowered by understanding why things were the way that they were, and over much wider areas of phenomena.

So, a parallel approach involved identifying common elements across many particular cases, along with the postulation of processes, which actually caused things to happen. These included the abstracted relations of the normal methods, but extended to seeing whole areas as integrated and explicable systems. And these Theories proved to be both profoundly revealing, yet also perhaps not surprisingly, also inevitably insufficient!

This latter feature was unavoidable because the theory would inevitably always be based on inadequate data and also inadequate previous understanding too.

However, such a flaw was not totally debilitating. It was certainly NOT a case of “Give up now, you’ll never do it!”. The care and intelligence that the best scientists employed, meant that they DID extract significant elements by these methods, which I call Objective Content. The details of the Theory may later turn out to be based on erroneous assumptions and abstractions, but it always had the taste of the actual occurrence in Nature.

You could depend on such Partial Truths for now. Indeed, even when a theory was overthrown by a better one, the old brick which had played a role in the whole edifice, was certainly comparable to the updated replacement, and could not only maintain the structure adequately, but also be very easily replaced by the better brick, without the whole thing collapsing to the ground.

But, this parallel methodology came under a severe threat in the years following the beginning of the 20th century. It happened in the citadel of ALL the Sciences – in Physics – where the previous (so-called “classical”) attempts at integration into wider comprehensive theories were increasingly exposed as inadequate. There arose an ever-widening gulf between the technological/mathematical, equation-producers and the erectors of overall explanatory theories, that attempted to integrate all phenomena into coherent, general schemes.

And, the source of the rift was clear!

It wasn’t the inadequate philosophy of the theorists that caused the problems, but, on the contrary, that which originated with the equation producers.

Plurality was proving to be wholly inadequate in the sub-atomic domain!

Why was this? The answer is - because it required Parts which were “effectively eternal”!

That "permanence", in the past, may have been due to a natural interlude of temporary stability, or due to the necessary imposition of containing conditions (as in literally ALL experiments). But, it proved impossible in this crucial area of Reality.

You may well ask why it was the theorists that were kicked into touch and not the through-and-through pragmatic pluralists of the equation makers! But, the answer is very clear.

The equation makers never made ANY more-general claims for their equations (or so they said). They were quite satisfied to have equations that worked in given circumstances! They were pragmatic to the end. It was the theories that had to bite the dust!

The equation makers could see NO reason why their methodology should in any way be compromised. Their “head-down” severely “local” approach could continue just as before.

With each new phenomenon and its containing situation, they always just reached for the Library of Forms that is Mathematics, in each and every situation, and they usually found something to fit.

The fact that they could not inter-relate their diverse instances and separate equations, was simply dismissed as -

“Not our problem! We can deal with whatever is necessary as we always have. We can control each and every situation in our mammoth array of expensive kit, and produce any situation we think fit. And when one Domain is transcended, we simply move to the next formula as we have always done. The fact that the theorists have run out of analogies, and all their attempts at integration have failed, only reveals their “self kid”. They are redundant!”

So, the flaw in their own methodology, which actually caused the problem, was used to scupper its parallel theoretical accompaniment, and of course, for this rejection to succeed, there also had to be real inadequacies in the position and methodology of the theorists too.

What were they?

Michael Coldwell - Everything Affects Everything (photograph of Liz West's Additive Mix installation)

The Difficulties of a Holist Alternative

The problem was that, though the theorists were less “particular”, and less “blinkered”, than the equation-merchants, they still only played lip-service to the only philosophical alternative to Plurality, which is Holism. And you can see why!

Holism seems to undermine any chance of understanding any given area of Reality, because its relevant mediations are ultimately almost infinite, including not only immediately-local and obvious parts, but also whole hierarchies of aspects - both contributory and produced. In contrast, Plurality effectively “walled around” and “nailed down” its areas of study, to guarantee the revelation of isolated relations, whereas a true holist approach had to address the whole set of possibilities simultaneously.

Even, our theorists could not do that, so they too had attempted the integration using the assumptions of Plurality – they took their cue from the limitations of the pluralists, but whereas the latter had only very narrow, “limited” objectives, they by their requirements needed a wider context. So, their taken-on limitations could be no other than a certain route to disaster.

The most important of their retained pluralist methods was Formal Logic (Reason?), which defined Parts as eternals and attempted to explain things using them alone. It didn’t take these theorists long to realise that this wouldn’t work, so they depended, instead, on the idea of the “Hierarchy of Parts”. In this view, each Part was itself composed of lesser Parts, and the job of Science was to “penetrate through” these layers, one at a time, until they reached the ultimate, basic, fundamental and immutable elements of Reality.

Such a scheme can quickly reach prodigious proportions (an almost infinite regress), but, it allowed concentration on local, deep sub-sets, while promising total comprehensiveness in the end. This handy get out is termed Reductionism, and it seemed to allay problems for theorists attempting to explain a given limited area. Then, clearly, the FULL right-through explanations became the task of scientists as a whole, and individuals could limit their task, while apparently still contributing to the overall purpose of Science.

No single theorist (or even group) could be expected to tackle the whole hierarchy, so they sensibly limited their job to do-able chunks. The term do-able is surely the KEY!

It meant that they limited their theories to areas where Logic could indeed by used. The elements of their explanations were taken as given (as indeed fixed) at some lower Level, and could be used as immutables in the current explanation. So, nevertheless, the mistake of the immutable Parts was assumed here too.

Now, here I am talking about physicist-theoreticians.

Elsewhere, in some so-called “lesser” Sciences, immutability had long been seen as clearly impossible, and had been jettisoned. In both Geology and the study of the Evolution of Life, the only thing on the menu was Qualitative Change, and in these studies equations were useless in dealing with that!

NOTE: In this, any equations that could be derived were, from the outset, mere conveniences, and delivered NOTHING in explaining the creative processes of Change that were the essence of these Sciences.

These Sciences had to address Qualitative Change itself, yet was not, and never could be, a study of such processes occurring now! All the valuable evidence was “of the distant past” and greatly transformed by gigantic forces, or selective processes, taking place over millions of years. They had to study the remnants of the effects in the meagre traces left in the rocks beneath our feet.

Yet, they produced in the last 150 years the most profound theories in Mankind’s history from the Origin of Species to the meaningful history of the Earth itself via the Theory of Tectonic Plates.

Science explanation in these vital areas was not self-kid, and had been achieved under the most difficult of circumstances. So, why had the physicist-theoreticians not been able to find their alternative route?

it was because they had no frozen history of sub atomic Changes to study in order to discover its meanings. They were "now-scientists" (using experiments), and also wedded to the universal failings of pluralist assumptions. Even our geologists and students of Evolution were actually ill-equipped to really tackle Change.

For. there was a profound gap in the methods of dealing with Qualitative Change that had to be addressed.

Naum Gabo

The Hegelian Holistic Method - Dialectics

What was needed was to fulfil the original agenda of Hegel, which he so brilliantly proposed over 200 years ago, when he found it essential to embark upon the construction of a Logic of Change (he called it his Science of Logic). But, there was no doubt that his crucial area was Change itself – and Qualitative Change at that! He got round the problem of absolutely no fossilised evidence, by choosing his own Thought as his area of study. For this, he was roundly condemned by both his co-idealists, and even the opponent materialists, but he could see no alternative.

He did not succeed in his attempt, but that was not because he was wrong. He was ahead of his time and though he had a strong group of disciples (The Young Hegelians) the problem of his idealism just had to be addressed.

The issue was ultimately destructive of the group as Karl Marx “changed horses in mid-stream” and became a sort of Hegelian materialist. He called the new position Dialectical Materialism.

The future of Hegel’s agenda may have seemed assured by these developments, but it wasn’t!

Though the only studies in this direction were those undertaken by Marx and his followers, they were soon embroiled in what they considered to be a much more pressing undertaking – the Social Revolution.

For Marx, in applying Hegel's methods to History, began to understand the sequence of succeeding Economic Systems, and their individual overthrows via Social Revolutions. Clearly, this could not but lead to a study of the then current Economic System, namely Capitalism, so the more basic philosophical tasks though inferred in all his work was, to a significant extent, shelved for a more opportune time, when, of course, sufficient numbers of co-workers would surely be available.

Such circumstances never materialised, however, both during his life, and, even afterwards, for the imperatives of social action tended to dominate the work of his many disciples. And, it must also be admitted that disciples don’t usually entirely grasp the agendas of their mentors, and the study of Change was NOT carried through as was crucially necessary.

Surprisingly though, there are significant records of such Change, and they are available in History.

Not, of course, what is usually called History, where historians concentrate on Kings and Wars, but the detailed, almost moment-by-moment history as produced by historians such as Michelet.

Such historians do NOT take the usual route, nor write on the usual subjects, for the necessary data that is needed for real Change takes place overtly ONLY in Social Revolutions. And, a great deal has been written on the English, the French (Michelet himself), the Paris Commune, and finally the Russian and Chinese Revolutions.

In addition, the history of Reality itself can also be seen as being studded with such “revolutions”, though in those non social areas, they are now more correctly called Emergences.

From the Emergences in the Evolution of the Universe itself, with first its stars and galaxies and then the Origin of Life and its remarkable Evolution, all the way to Social Revolutions. All these display Qualitative Change in remarkable episodic “turnovers”, which also always “multiplied-up” future possibilities.

Indeed, they were THE crucial Events in Significant Change throughout!

And such Emergences, though rare, turned out to have been legion in the vastness of Time.

The study of such Emergences MUST be the key to a holistic alternative to Plurality.

Of course, compared with the immediate pragmatism of pluralist science, and its accelerating number of separate, individual and isolated discoveries, the study of Qualitative Change seems extremely indirect and abstract, but it allows the possibility of both a structuring, and the possibility of the Understanding of Holistic Reality - in Change!!

The trouble with a purely philosophical holism, is that it was self-defeating. In opposing the analytic partitioning used by the pluralists, the arguments of the classical holists, quite rightly, concentrated on the all-encompassing, innumerable inter-connections and mediations between everything and everything else!

With such a position, you might well be able to win arguments, because you were clearly correct, BUT you couldn’t develop any sort of methodology, that is a system, which would deliver Reality in wider and wider “explained” areas.

But, the theoretical position could not be turned into a holistic methodology of study and explanation.

NOTE: When Professor Sykes was recently employed to travel the world studying Meditation by Buddhists, she openly admitted that she was at a loss to carry out any meaningful investigation. She could ONLY conceive of a study in which the vast majority of factors were held fast, and a minimal number of variables investigated to reveal a telling relation. The fact that such controls were impossible, completely disenfranchised her cherished methods. They were, of course, totally pluralist. And her mentors in these holistic techniques could not reveal to her an alternative method of study. She just had to experience the processes “whole”, and communicate what she had experienced. She felt totally inadequate to the task of explaining what was going on, and she is no mug!