Audio Issue 3 - Understanding Change

 

Audio Issue 3 of the SHAPE Journal

This selection of tapes looks at how we try and understand the dynamics of change. Science fails to understand change in any meaningful way. It can analyse quantitative change well enough, but how things emerge and evolve is much less well understood. Jim Schofield’s latest philosophical research attempts to address qualitative change, and begins to devise new experimental approaches and methods for capturing and understanding these crucial changes as they happen.

Start by watching the video below, in which I interview Jim about his new research, and the change in direction and focus that it represents. Below that you will find three raw recordings of Jim's recent tapes, in which the new theory is being currently developed. 

Audio Issue 2 - Impossibility Space

 

Audio Issue 2 of SHAPE Journal 

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

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

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

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

The first Audio Issue of the SHAPE Journal - The Nature of Reality

 

Audio Issue 1 - The Nature of Reality

This is the first Audio Issue of the SHAPE Journal. This new form of publishing will feature podcast-like content alongside lectures, videos and some written-word content, transcribed from audio recordings.

Philosopher Jim Schofield's eyesight has deteriorated rapidly in the last year, making traditional writing and editing impossible for him. This new format for the journal should allow him to continue working and communicating his ideas via this website. 

It is also an opportunity to investigate new ways of disseminating content and finding new audiences for the work. Some of our most successful outputs have been YouTube videos in the past, and this shift will place focus on that kind of content over traditional academic papers. 

In the first of these new editions Jim Schofield goes back to basics, looking at how previous work on the Substrate Theory of Subatomic Physics and the recent series on Systems Theory might affect how we see the nature of reality...

Use the link above to access the full issue. You can also listen to the main discussion on YouTube:

A Revolutionary Understanding

Lenin was very critical of Positivism

The major Wrong Turning at the beginning of the 20th Century within Physics (and then the other Sciences), was undoubtedly that taken by the Positivists, who were troubled by the increasing number of solely Empirical Laws arising within Modern Physics, which seemingly had no evident Physical Causes naturally available - as had always been the case with the usually historically-sought Causal laws. The advantage with those Prior Laws, was that they could be related to the involved componentsí Natural Properties, that also clearly held sway all the way from the Atomic & Molecular Level, to their performances in Bulk at a higher Level of Reality. So, in addition to any purely Quantitative Relations extracted, there was also always this Qualitative Information: so, together, they married Quantity & Quality into two-sided, Meaningful Laws! 

But, those New sort of relations, also emerging, though they involved similar numerical relations between certain evident variables, clearly DID NOT & COULD NOT ever relate these to any Qualitative relations, to, together, deliver meaningful Explanations of Real phenomena.

Now, before we go any further, we simply must make absolutely clear that the now usually achieved Totally Separate Quantitative & Qualitative Equations as such delivered NO PERFECT standard to mutually relate to! And, this inadequacy became a far more general attitude to behaviours well outside The Sciences too!

Once accepted as legitimate, ALL LAWS covering much wider areas of Reality also were acceptable as mere Quantative Relations having NO Qualitative Explanations!

And this was highly dangerous, for what effects they produced were seemingly Unknowable!

And they were only finally possible as Mankind developed the means to largely Control Limited Areas of Reality, extremely effectively, and, thereafter maintain that situation throughout subsequent variations within the Main Components, that would have to be clearly associated with certain actually consequent changes: and if these were then extracted as Laws they could effectively be used - BUT ONLY in Artificial Tightly-Controlled Production Methods.

That became their primary motivation!

For more genereally evident Quantitative & Qualitatative Relations were NOT there simultaneously available! And so NO Explanations were possible

You would imagine that the growth of The Sciences would simultaneously greatly enable Mankind in Explaining their World: BUT the Pluralist limitations caused by those tightly restricted conditions made it so the relations that they were limited to DID NOT reflect Reality-as-is, and was linked to Numeric Values rather than Explanations! And, it, inexhorably, began to move Human Society from merely taking Reality, exactly AS IT IS, to instead having to be able to direct, small parts of it into very useful chosen (and more-and-more-often), Entirely New Directions. 

The age of advanced technology effectively killed Science.

It wasnít so much a Revelation of Reality-as-is, as it was a ìNew Extracted and Totally-Controllable More-Limited Versionî, capable of empowering the Manufacture (but NOT the Understanding) of useful, artificially extracted & Transformed Additions - both as clean & unadulterated, as were most of the wholly Natural & Different Productions, independent of Man, within Reality-as-is!

Indeed, the New approach embodied a Veritable Revolution in the Capabilities and the assumptions of Mankind in order to achieve ONLY that & no other. But, it also originally explained Absolutely Nothing! For, it was situated only within a Parallel Artificial Domain, which was initially, at best, much more useful than it was informative.

But, Mankind saw, at least, the possibility of it delivering a great deal more, if, and only if, it could be married to its evident Properties with roughly-appreciated from already-known (for many Natural Phenomena) and their inter-relationships. But the two were only separately known. 

Of course, these ideas emerged as such, ONLY within the Working People of Society: for NO progress could possibly be made by those who didnít actually DO any such work! So, the initial gains were always made by the Artisans and their descendent Engineers and Experimentalists - the most skilled pragmatic workers in Society - whose knowledge of making things was Wholly Pragmatic, rather than Explanatory.

Now, simultaneously with these crucial developments, a very different Social Class had politically taken control of their individual Localities, (often by Force), and, thereafter, convinced the Populations which they now controlled, that they alone were ALSO both Capable Defenders of their now-subsevient charges, and were also absolutely necessary to stop even-worse-others (from elsewhere) taking away all that was now being achieved, and doing it by viscious-looting Force, and even killing any who got in their way, when they thought it necessary.

Now, such consequent internal social divisions, were never conducive to the increasing requirement for a real Understanding of what was currently actually being both pursued & achieved, and, by which the overall Level of Understanding AND Achievement could be extended.

Somehow, the false paths, and even the consequent wrong conclusions imposed by all the participators within so far experienced History, just had to be somehow transcended, if the many usual prematurely-terminated outcomes were to be avoided.

But, it, unavoidably, had to eliminate the usual consequences of a very poorly understood, and consequently always deteriorating situation, especially as the Ruling Classes (and their many privileged hangers-on), constantly used their limited Control to actually prevent the Real-if-hidden Truth being both considered and then developed effectively!

How are we to convince ordinary people of the Real Truth of the situation, when as individuals it will always be impossible, within such a situation, where every usual means of informing them, of what is possible, has been well-and-truly tightly controlled for centuries, if not actually millennia, by the Ruling Classís generally agreed self-centered means of dealing with all such features, while ALWAYS maintaining their CONTROL!

The consequently-developed route unavoidably-achieved, came to be via Wholly New Political Parties, along with Jointly-agreed actions, based solely upon their Own Class! But, those benefitting mostly from the current situations, would, in any Generally-Precipitated Crisis Situation, always turn to the much wilder, more direct Forms of Repression, such as Fascism & even naked Military Control of Society.

So, the best hope surely now, has to be to equip the Real Class Forces of Change to take maximum advantage of the Coming Inevitable Terminal Crises, by knowlegibly revealing the predictable Result, if the Forces of Reaction within the battle for The Minds AND The Forces necessary to impose their preferred outcome. As always, a union of The Working class Youth and the latest Marxist Theory - as spelled out, for exanple, in this Major Series of Essays, can be the only salvation.

But beware of false Prophets!

It is also very clear that the Stance fought for in these papers is neither complete, nor does it have sufficient Forces to achieve the Necessary Objective of providing what will be needed, to direct that Assault! Alliances with currently existing and tolerated organisations clearly presently, does the Very Opposite, and ALWAYS also undermines the only valid means of understanding the current Headlong Deterioration!

It IS NEVER mere Organisation that will equip the Necessary Forces of Social Revolution, BUT ONLY a genuine UNDERSTANDING of what drives such situations.

Not Alliances, but Understanding! 

And, currently, absolutely NONE of the current Claimed-to-be Left Parties have added significantly to the contributions of Karl Marx - the unavoidable limitations of a philosophic stance initially derived almost 200 years ago, will NEVER be sufficient to address TODAY!

That is why this research was begun, some 16 years ago, following an active participation in literally ALL the Parties of the LEFT, but also an increasingly a commitment to the essential Development of Marxism via the Sole attempt at a Dialectical Critique of both Social Development, and its inevitable Turning Points within Social Revolution.

BUT, and it turns out to be a very big BUT: the necessity of Theory involved which can NEVER EVER be developed by a single individual! It is far too big a risk to be the work of only a single contribution, as was clearly proved by the example of Marx himself!

Though the gains I have been able to contribute, have at least been significant, they have been so in spite of over 60 years commitment, which has NEVER been sufficient! And, in spite of my most productive contributions being in the last 16 years, amounting to over 1,600 papers, it has only been in the last couple of years that the most significant contributions have been produced.

It isnít the job for a single individual (no matter how committed), for it is without doubt, an approach which not only transcends any single discipline: but, indeed, needs to be adequately developed, it requires them all - and not just produced by real interest, but also, necessarily, by the required methods to breakthrough all the many constraints, implemented to simplify analyses!

For example, it has been the inclusion of the major discoveries in Systems Theory, by Biologist Denis Noble and others, that has for the first time also addressed several limitations in the ways Marxism has regularly pursued ever since - and including, Marx himself!

Now, this project, along with a series of others, has put into serious question, NOT just these type of problems, though also upon a much wider scale, in which the Whole set of ways that problems can occur - both in Reality-at-large, AND in the whole range involving both natural and consequent engineered problems, concerned with Explaining all that we now also see, as well as the full range of situations both now possible and also as newly evident, achievable Objectives in delivering what they all can do. For, in the past, a set of assumptions about what makes things the way that they are, have MOST CERTAINLY greatly over-simplified our Understanding.

The perceived basic (and invariably inadequately described) situations, have, almost always been believed to be those possible States - that some Natural, or even Man-Made Action or Event can actually exist within!

Indeed, on-going-investigations are always revealing New Forms, which could-and-often-did actually persuade Artisans that their objectives were impossible: especially as ìprecisely-knowingî the current state turns out to be never a simple task, as so many interactions frequently produce results that ìlook unchangedî and are in fact actually significantly-different, in a way which is not immediately evident.

Remember that Artisans have long established required conditions for certain processes WITHOUT a full theoretical basis for them, & their Laws reflect curtailed & severely limited Equations only!

The usual solution was always to so-greatly-restrict both the Context and Controllable Content, as to always produce a single, easily reproducible State, that could validly be considered One of the Many Basic States possible, which would always be taken as a legitimate extraction from all of the others known to be possible in that Context! For such always was the Primary Objective, as a starting point, in all Manufacturing - as the dependable Basis for all Subsequent Productions.

But that doesnít help us Understand complex, dynamic, Natural Systems - including those of Society itself. 

The Odessa Steps

The separately arrived at properties in Reality-as-is DO NOT just ADD UP - they DO NOT deliver the Full Set of possibilities. They are a Strictly Limited Set, selected for by the particularly severe constraints that had been imposed in order to extract them in the first place.

For the objective was NOT, and, indeed, was never intended to enable an Explanation of the subsequent performance, BUT, instead, only those required for Future Production of a Chosen Result.

And these two sets of conditions produce Very Different Possibilities!

The ones always chosen are just those with ONLY a Future Production in mind! Indeed, that objective is the ONLY One usually fulfilled: the whole Approach is solely directed towards Production, and NEVER Explanation!

And the Conclusions from this are that our assumptions are certainly NOT sufficient! Reality-as-is contains many other cases we are unaware of, and, they also affect one another, which would greatly complicate the then required processes yet to be implemented.

So, they donít even try!

So-called Physics is NOT what it is claimed to be: it is a SYSTEM for controlling Reality, solely designed to aid Production. 

The Required Revolutionary New Stance

Clearly, we have been well-schooled, in this Wrong Turning, for a very long historical period, and for what always were Very Good Reasons indeed!

You would not criticise a child for not dancing before it could even walk - NOR understand what you were saying before they could even talk!

There have been profound and unavoidable Purely Natural Reasons for the necessary route we have taken, which, if we are Now (and Subsequently) to avoid at least some of the consequent pitfalls, in our future updates upon our methods.

For, the problem emerges entirely from our distorted - yet completely understandable, Early Misconceptions of the True Nature-of-Things!

For, we, ourselves, actually also developed from a Whole Series of Lesser Forms, and many earlier solutions, within our then Primitive Thinking, only had to be close enough to Reality-as-is, to deliver an improved, and hence worthwhile, benefit! This, anyway, has always been the situation for Mankind: for settling upon the ìSupposed Truthî, long before anybody even had the required means to do so absolutely, or even partially! So, it NEVER delivers the required complete-and-wholly-correct Truth as its evidently, arrived-at conclusions.

Let us attempt to address this problem better NOW!

We will still NOT yet arrive at the Complete Truth (for it doesnít yet even ìexistî), BUT, we can eliminate just a few obvious very long-standing ìsupposed truthsî as now completely evident as errors.

The daddy of them all is the belief that The Truth is FIXED!

It isnít.

Indeed, Absolutely Nothing is!

But, it can certainly appear so in stable Systems, for some considerable periods of time, because even with apparently constant random variation, Really Significant Changes will only emerge when that ìseemingly undirected variationî, somehow, finally arrives, surprisingly, and at a Much Better State - and, thereafter, vigorously proliferates the New Form fast!

BUT NO External Judgement of Quality was necessary in this crucial transformation: its own increasing relative success, alone confers that by itself.

This is something like Darwinís notion of Natural Selection, but extending that to all Levels of Reality - all Natural Systems.

So to us, at our Level, , most things either continue to appear Fixed, or in ìGetting-Nowhere Randomnessî seemingly permanently! But, that isnít actually The Full Truth.

Yet, appreciating this, still doesnít indicate, in advance, exactly what Laws are going to emerge. On the contrary, to ensure Current Success, you simply always have to be maximally aware of what Laws seem, ìfor nowî, to be Fixed! But, the scientists who do ONLY that, will unavoidably be caught into getting nowhere, when suddenly a New Law finally does emerge!

So, instead of ONLY Subject-Based-Research: there, surely, has to be also Constant Background Research probing-deeply into the very important Dynamic Development of Laws.

A Final Aspect of this whole Approach, when generally-applied, concerns how the various well-established Laws, being unavoidably radically challenged by this Current Stance, occupied by almost Everybody Else with the argument that it most closely reflects what has been continuing to significantly Change. Laws that were usually considered as Forever Fixed now are more correctly seen as involving Whole Mixtures of Laws, most usually swamped by one that had previously emerged as totally naturally dominant.

This is a rarely appreciated feature of Reality-as-is, which is usually simplified into that which is currently dominant, so when circumstances begin to greatly amplify another element, it seems to have come in from outside of the System, whereas it was always a built-in, though currently suppressed, aspect of Reality-as-is that was therefore always totally hidden and ineffective previously, but in non-conducive condutions. It is clearly an important philosophic feature that was naturally, if mistakenly, assumed as such in the past.

For with the Long Established view determined by both tailored and rigidly maintained Fixed Sets of Contents, along with unchanging Contexts - they are all separately dealt with - each in its own required Context and Content, the resulting Laws, are then coupled with sets of another, Absolutely NEVER arrived-at in a Commonly occurring Situation - and in a Production always applied as part of a sequential Series, with each step in its own ideally necessary and maintained different Context.

So, clearly, that will constitute a wholly Artificial Union, and will never suffice if they were all applied in a singular Common Context - which is, of course, certainly mainly the case in Reality-as-is!

In Conclusion

So, in finnaly assessing what has ultimately been achieved, we must draw some general conclusions, primarily about the most important areas tackled in these essays.

The key objectives were always to deliberately target the absolutely necessary Philosophical Developments, which are particularly difficult when no longer addressing Restricted Contents & Contexts, as we always do in Mathematics: but, instead, approach the Real World-as-is - much of which still remains not only yet to be revealed, but also Explained in any way!

And, that, Iím afraid, is much easier said than done: for an Extremely Important Ser of Reasons:

Reality-as-is is NOT already fixed!

Neither does it change within limits!

It is an Evolutionary System - forever developing to the Wholly New!

So, they were here addressed hopefully to transform the underlying assumptions unavoidably-associated with the usually involved important Ideas and Methods, upon which our current Theories are always based.

But, unlike most Explanations that only ever deliver within Constrained Rationalities (like Mathematics), what we have to deal with is absolutely NEVER finished: for it creates the Wholly New regularly (if infrequently) and requires, instead, an Open-Ended System, integrating the Totally New, BUT also never as an Anything Taken-up Collection. It also has to fit!

But, in doing so, it adds more to have to relate predictably with every new addition! So, it involves a Rationality, which grows, amd though preserving the old, it also adds-in, an affecting, yet mostly conforming, NEW!

How about that for a truly demanding Discipline!? 

This article is taken from Issue 79 of the SHAPE Journal, and is the last in the series of papers called The Systems Theory of Everything.

Issue 79 - The Systems Theory of Everything VI

Read Issue 79 of SHAPE Journal

The last in this series of papers on Jim Schofield's Systems Theory deals with how science needs to move on from a mechanistic understanding of systems and evolution, and finally embrace dialectics.

Contents:

Introducing Schofield’s Systems Theory

Natural Multi-Factor Interactions

Dialectical Materialist Evolution

Addendum: Emergence and Randomness; Order out of Chaos?

Systems Structures & Top-Down Causalities

A Revolutionary Understanding

The Need for a New Approach to Theory in General

 

Special Issue 78: The Systems Theory of Everything V

Special Issue 78 of SHAPE Journal

...

Special Issue 78 contains the fifth instalment of The Systems Theory of Everything.

This series of issues attempts to set out the first definitive account of Jim Schofield’s new Systems Approach to Science. The various papers collected here, and over the next few editions of this journal, explore the proposed theory and explain why it is such a radical departure from the current universally applied scientific method. 

The series of papers in this edition examine the history of Pluralist Science and how we might begin reversing its many mistakes.

Contents:

Introducing Schofield’s Systems Theory

The Bases of the Sciences

Nature’s Context

The Misleading Failure of Bottom-up Causality

The Problem of Laws and Levels

Science for Understanding, not merely Production

Qualitative Causes and their Investigation
via Systems Means

Mechanisms of Development

Mechanisms of Development

& The Consequent New Structures of the Nature of Reality

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Well established features can simply just vanish!

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Issue 78 - The Systems Theory of Everything IV

Issue 78 of SHAPE Journal now available 

Issue 78 contains the fourth instalment of Jim Schofield's Systems Theory of Everything.

This series of issues attempts to set out the first definitive account of Jim Schofield’s new Systems Approach to Science. The various papers collected here, and over the next few editions of this journal, explore the proposed theory and explain why it is such a radical departure from the current universally applied scientific method. 

The series of papers continues to investigate how Systems and their Laws Emerge and Evolve, and why a Marxist approach is necessary to untangle it all.


Contents:

Introducing Schofield’s Systems Theory

Empirical Laws within Science

New Emergences and Imposed Calamities

Multi-Level Law and its Evolution

Emergences and Evolution

Mechanisms of Development

Where are the Marxists?

Cause and Law

There is no royal road to science...

 

In the words of Marx: "There is no royal road to science, and only these who do not dread the fatiguing climbs of its steep paths, have a chance of gaining its luminous summits. "Believe me, dear reader, your Karl Marx."

Dr Ranjeet Brar delivers this lecture at a party school on the question of Marxist Philosophy - there is some interesting stuff to unpack here. Looking forward to going into Dr. Brar's ideas in more depth, but certainly some correlation here!

The Charles Bonnet Syndrome

This paper is taken from Special Issue 70 of SHAPE Journal: Truth and Illusion. 

The Charles Bonnet Syndrome

Discoveries of the Vision/Brain System caused by significant Loss of Vision

I am a scientist and an octogenarian. I currently suffer from an affliction known as Charles Bonnet Syndrome, caused by macular degeneration.

“Charles Bonnet syndrome (CBS) is a disease in which visual hallucinations occur as a result of vision loss. CBS is not thought to be related to psychosis or dementia and people with CBS are aware that their hallucinations are not real.” Rarediseases.info

As an extensively-experienced researcher in both science and philosophy (and their inter-relationships, and cross- causalities) - as well as being a prolific investigative writer of serious academic papers in both of these areas - I felt I was in a unique position to shed some light on this disease, and the insights it offers into how we understand the world visually.

I have a particularly well-endowed background to both accurately describe the changing symptoms involved, and (it seems to me), I possess a unique and necessary ability to draw conclusions, wholly absent from either the usual sufferers or medical practitioners - to play a role in extracting more informatively, exactly what is going on in this less than perfect, and undoubtedly failing system of diagnosis and treatment.

Indeed, it reminds me of the conclusions drawn, many years ago, by V. S. Ramachandran - whose work I have followed closely - from the clinical evidence of both Blind Seeing and Visual Neglect, concerning the Brain Functions involved, and dependable conclusions on how hallucination is actually a fundamental part of vision.

V S Ramachandran

My credentials are actually somewhat understated in the above brief description of my professional career. The last 20 years of my life have been dedicated to understanding the philosophical limitations of all Pluralist Science - a pervasive logic which sees laws as separable, but is blind to the dynamics of Qualitative Change, due to its primary methods of analysis - holding things still and making extractions. Plurality regularly generates untranscendable contraditions and impasses in our understanding, but science is fundamentally pragmatic and finds workarounds, but without ever resolving the underlying problem of its failure to deal with real-world change.

This is certainly relevant to understanding my condition, as the Charles Bonnet Syndrome is about the dynamic interface between signals from cells in the retina of the Eye, to regions of the Brain with the capabilities to construct adaptable, and developable visual models (“as cerebrally-viewable images”), which is what we actually “see” and consider, and which is both constantly-updateable and stable as a kind of “movie” in our minds, and could be called upon when required in both the immediate present, and the distant future as visual memory.

And this is well beyond what any Pluralist Science can possibly cope with! But, what could be the requirements of an alternative Holist Science, one that could comprehend this mental movie? For, it certainly WILL NOT BE as a sequence of stills (as in Film) OR even as a sequence of mini-movies (as in Analogue Video)! NOTE: I studied the dynamic qualities of both of these electronic media as part of my extensive research into Dance Education and Motion Studies, with Bedford Interactive in the 1990s.

What will it have to be then, to be useable, as we know it is in the brain, and specifically, how will it perform as evidenced by the actions of The Charles Bonnet Syndrome?

And the more incidents I experience due to the condition, the more complicated and various are the functions that are demonstrated. So, rather than using the selected examples from a clearly diverse range of accounts, some of them are either remembered or can be somewhat embroidered - to avoid the misleading consequences of such misleading evidence - I will instead commence my own contributions with a range of my own experiences, as a professional scientist and multi-discipline researcher, only recounting what I have personally experienced, and also judging what I consider valid enough to be included, if and only if, an explanation is forthcoming!

Let me start by describing the various types of hallucination I have experienced myself.

1, The Mini Movie

This invariably occurred upon waking and opening my eyes. But, it wasn’t a misinterpretation of “things- seen”, for it was there wherever I looked, and was always containing the very same subject matter. But, uniquely, it was always in full-detailed colour and excellent resolution - a perfect illusion, always of the same restricted scene, but with minor differences. It was always of a Victorian slate roof, containing one or two brick-built chimney stacks, surmounted by ceramic tops, all with the same kind of zig-zag heads. And, invariably, there would be a branch of a tree, with large glossy leaves being blown about in the wind. But that was it! In a way it was beautiful, but like a repeating movie scrap! Surprisingly it was always framed, as if seen through a window. and wherever Iooked it was there! But it always soon faded and was gone.

2, The Misinterpreted Tile

This, latterly as my sight has become very poor, is clearly a rather poor version of something actually seen, but in these cases it fills-in where my macular is detecting nothing. Very recent versions occur when a glance to a new place immediately sees a hole (that is - nothing there at all), and then rather quickly fills it with the circumstances close to the tile from actually seen views near to that hole! But my looking elsewhere and using the part of my right eye macular, still partially working, you can confirm that the patch is wrong.

With further deterioration, it has now become a major problem, as it can deliver buildings or trees to the view, when it should be the sky!

3. The False General Tiling

In relatively poor lighting conditions, a misinterpreted patch from an extended same view, will then fill-in-and-maintain, wherever I look in that extended view with a regular tiling of the same “tile”, this giving it a pattern which isn’t actually there.

4, The Simplified Tiling

If I look intently at a patterned surface or curtain, it simplifies successively (if I continue to stare) into a series of different, but repeated sets, wherever I look. And, surprisingly, the images, then consist mostly of black lines upon a white background, but they are so beautiful. It’s a real shame I can’t “capture them”!

Now, as with Ramachandran’s conclusions upon brain-activity areas, with normal seeing, the revelations of the Charles Bonnet Syndrome sufferers, as seeing functions were damaged, also throws light upon how the brain plays various creative roles in normal sight too.

To consider these phenomena upon sound bases, though, we have to be clear upon the differing functions of both the relatively tiny macular areas of the Retina within the eye, and the much larger non-macular area, which occupies the whole of the rest of the Retina. It has become clear that we actually see literally ALL detail via the Macular part of the Retina - these are the only areas naturally delivering everything we see in any detail: whereas the rest of the retina is only well equipped for detecting the movements seen by our eyes.

Indeed, detail updates for any achieved brain-image of something seen, can only take place via the macular! The macular must be moved about to build up the picture of a scene in the brain.

[Whereas, as the focus of seeing is moved elsewhere, a simplified-and-unchanging version is always left behind in all past positions, in the now non-macular areas of the Brain-image. Clearly that part of the brain-image must all be derived from prior macular attention to such areas. The non-macular brain-image is therefore initially composed of “macular-sized patches” delivering the whole of the non-macular brain-image]

So, immediately, anything no longer being picked up by the macular will NOT now show moment-by-moment changes there. Indeed, it will show what was there the last time we looked at that area, via the macular, BUT, as the non-macular does deliver movement, it will have, in some way, to update that non-macular view!

But in addition, evidence from Charles Bonnet sufferers, reveals an extra fill-in function, by copying in a now- absent-view from immediately adjacent areas.

While the rest of the non-macular view is always rotated according to a previously-learned “algorithm”, while still updating movements anywhere upon that area, as our view is moved on.

Now, some of the built-in mechanisms for updating the brain-image of a looked-at-view, have only been revealed by sufferers of the this Syndrome, particularly when the incoming image delivered by the eye is deemed inadequate, for the initial solution is to fill-each-gap with the same content, indeed as that of a close nearby spot (either a reliable one, or a compromise inaccurate one).

In the latter case, it is revealed to be from the immediately priorly-vistited “patch” - so that in an erroneous viewed area, the moving glance of the viewer will merely leave a trail of identical patches determined by the eye’s line of scanning. So, if I as a sufferer, are not sufficiently careful, the brain can fill whole areas of sky with a fiction of recently observed trees!

EDITOR’S NOTE:

Charles Bonnet Syndrome is a very specific form of pareidolia - or visual apophenia. This means that it is evidence of a general tendancy of the brain to invent things in order to make sense of random or meaningless information. For Charles Bonnet sufferers, this is experienced as profound hallucination. In people without sight loss these mechanims are still present, but largely hidden, as the stream of visual information given to us by our eyes is complete enough to correct any mistakes or strange inventions made by the brain. Seeing faces in the dark is an example of pareidolia working under normal sensory conditions. People undergoing prolonged sensory deprivation can also experience hallucinations, similar to Charles Bonnet sufferers, as we see with a phenomenon called Prisoner’s Cinema, in which inmates kept in solitary confinement begin to see strange light shows on the walls of their cell.

Qualitative Causes and their Investigation via Systems Means

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

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

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

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

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

Frida Kahlo, Moses, 1945,

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

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

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

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

Schoolboys at Manchester Grammar

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

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

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

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

Jim Schofield presenting his research into the Laban Pure Form

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

...

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

Science for Understanding, not Production

Science for Understanding

and not merely

Science for Production

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

BUT NOTE:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

But, it just wasn't true!

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

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

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

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

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

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

And they clearly wont be Solely Numeric!

Chains & Loops

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

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

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


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