First Americans

The First Peopling of America

In how many waves, and when and how did they come?

Things are changing fast in the studies of Early Man, and many once-firm conclusions are being dismantled by new archaeological evidence.

A very interesting body of different discoveries from all over the whole of North and South America, are questioning the generally-believed single first immigration from Siberia, only 40 thousand years ago, which now looks as though it may have been at least three incursions, including much earlier ones by very different routes.

Quite apart from the above archaeology, there has always been seeming contradictions in the cultures of various tribes and civilisations that have left their proof in both the constructions still standing, and the peoples still existing to this day.

It has always seemed to me that the most primitive economic system that has existed until recently on the plains of the Mid West, in what is now the USA, the hunter/gatherers, contrasts markedly with the much more advanced peoples very much further south, in Central and South America.

For, the former were much closer to the supposed original point of entry - across the now Baring Strait, presumably when it had been turned into a land-bridge, with the decline in sea-level, caused by the build-up on land of the fast-advancing, vast glaciers of the Ice Age.

And, to raise even more questions, remains found in Brazil of an ancient woman or girl, were validly dated as the oldest ever found in the Americas, and she looked nothing like either the Plains people up north, or even the supposed Siberians or Mongolians who were considered to be the ancestors of all first Americans.Indeed, she looked more like the first peoples of Australia.

Then, even more recently found, some very old remains were revealed to have features more like modern Europeans. And, some were reconstructed to look more like the Ainu from northern Japan.

Finally a well-preserved, but very ancient body was found, and investigations proved that his entire diet had been of fish, which inferred a possible close-to-the-sea route of access, while along the south coast of Alaska animal remains proved conclusively that they must have lived upon land, next to, but not covered by the Ice Sheet that was dominating the rest of the Land.

And, of course, the ancient land revealed by the locking up of water in the Ice Sheet, will by now be inaccessible, due to the demise of that Ice Age, and the returning of the water to underneath the Pacific Ocean, so cannot be investigated for necessary evidence.

Now, why would anyone brave the rigors of the ancient far north to reach America?

The best argument seems to be the herds of Caribou, which occur, today, not only in Alaska and Canada, but across Eurasia from Scandinavia to Siberia.

And, Man soon learned to follow them in their essential vast migrations to new pastures. With a way of getting to such resources in America Humans could have followed them, using them for food, clothing and even transportation, as they do today.

Some time ago I put up a paper entitled "Did the Eskimos Discover America", reasoning that they could have conquered living in the Arctic of Eurasia, and merely followed the edge of the ice, during the Ice Age, occasionally on their sea-skin boats, to America.

And, this contribution has proved very popular. So, though that is clearly not the full story, it had merit.

From what I can make out from the excellent NOVA Documentary (on YouTube), there now seem to be several waves of early immigrants at very different times, stretching back much further than the now replaced single incursion.

The Origins and Development of the Solar System

If there was a substrate...

On watching a Horizon programme on BBC 2 recently (03/03/15), the imponderables about this “assumed-to-be-solved” area of Cosmology were increased considerably.

Instead of a “nice” Newton’s Laws explanation of the system (well within our observational range, and even with some voyages of discovery), that presumably commenced with a Cosmic Cloud of a range of particles produced by a preceding Supernova. Nevertheless, various problems seemed to be as yet unsolved literally everywhere.

Indeed, the pluralist stance, which assumes absolutely everything can be explained by an increasingly complex mix of fixed Natural Laws, has been under threat for centuries, and never seems to ever deliver the fruits of an assumed Reductionism, as it is supposed to do, but instead we are to take it on trust that such will be delivered, somehow “in the future”. But, the sort of things revealed in this programme, and from a stance situated at the very heart of the established scientific approach, should, therefore, have been fairly straightforward, but was clearly nothing of the kind.

Though the programme writers and makers didn’t highlight it at all, the resounding question had to be about that pluralist stance. And, it was incapable of delivering answers in the very area, in which Newton and his colleagues originally established the initial bases of Science, as we now know it, then it would be absolutely nowhere, when it came to considering the multiple Levels of Reality above this basic case – Life and Consciousness are way beyond such a stance.

So, if by some chance, you are not a pluralist – indeed, the very opposite – namely a holist, then you would not be surprised by these difficulties. You may not be able to explain an alternative Origin and Development, but you would know that such is definitely required.

Before we go any further, let us just make these alternative positions a little clearer.

The pluralist conception puts eternal Natural Laws as the active, producing factors, initially organising the Cosmic Cloud into an inevitable system.

But, of course, such a stance is idealism – for where do such laws come from? These Laws in their universally accepted way of encapsulating them – as formal Equations, cannot possibly be the primary sources of any process of development: they can only be the results of the interactions of physical entities with certain properties.

How can Laws possibly be primary?

Also as the organisation of the original pieces that went to make up ever bigger aggregates, and relations between them, the laws not only then came into existence, but would most surely change as things developed?

So this is the alternative holist position¬

Now, a basic scenario has been devised (by such holists) for such developments – knitted together from a study of many diverse developments occurring at many different Levels of Reality. And these ideas, paradoxically, occurred very late in Mankind’s own development, and came, originally, out of serious studies entitled “Thinking about Thought” by its initiator Frederick Hegel around 200 years ago, and thereafter by a study of the significant changes in History, first by Michelet and then by Marx.

And, what came out of those investigations was a trajectory, which seemed to be universal in all developments of every possible kind.

Perhaps surprisingly, this was never a matter of incessant, incremental changes – ultimately adding up to new forms, but, on the contrary, the seemingly strongly enforced maintenance of current forms over long periods of a seemingly permanent Stability, in which the overall structure did not change significantly. Yet these long and dominating periods were, nevertheless, interleaved with short interludes of major qualitative changes termed Revolutions, and then when considered in all possible contexts, as Emergences.

Clearly, once such a trajectory was looked at, for developments like that of the Solar System, it became clear that no simple, formal Law of Gravity would be sufficient.

For, such dramatic changes can only be as a result of competing factors – balanced in Stability, and finally overcoming their constraints and causing a collapse in the old set up, and the subsequent building of a new balance with in a new, different and higher Stability. 

Now, the pluralist Laws that would be the only factors, that, so far, Man had been able to call upon, were always, and inevitably, in the form of Abstractions - which were arrived at from data taken from Reality, but both simplified and idealised, so as to be representable into formal relations (Equations), and brought together according to Formal Logic, into merely consistent complexities.

Instead of being the assumed “primary drivers” of Reality in development, these were clean, man-modified versions taken from particular and conducively-designed contexts.

In addition, the ground for the usual cosmological considerations was originally totally Empty Space (which is, of course, also a mad-made construct).

Yet, to have totally Empty Space, as a universal ground required an origin too. And, when literally everything else is matter obeying its own Laws, then we have another series of Problems.

Where does the matter come from?

What initial form did it take?

Also, it becomes obvious that the concept of Empty Space itself is another of Mankind’s simplifications and idealisations. By making space devoid of all matter, it just became a stage upon which absolutely everything could happen – a static, inactive reference system, against which everything else could be measured.

But, the alternative, of a Space full of stuff, is just as likely – at least it gives us something to watch changing and developing in itself!

And, indeed, Man, when he began to study Reality, he soon filled Space with what he called a medium – a continuous, elastic and invisible substrate, which could effectively explain many things – such as the propagation of light and heat across the seeming void, which most definitely occurred.

Clearly, we cannot readily disentangle real, physical Reality from our always-inadequate conceptions of it.

For, Man didn’t arrive both ready-made and adequately equipped, to merely by thinking, arrive at the truth of any aspects of Reality. On the contrary, he too emerged from lesser beings. So all, yes ALL, of his conceptions about reality would be limited by his own current state of development. The Laws he found would, at the same time, as reflecting Reality-as-is, would also be limited by the current state of development of Man himself. How could it possibly be otherwise? 

Even our assumptions about the past will never be totally objective. Indeed, Man will always both simplify and idealise whatever he studies, to have any chance of even beginning to understand it.

And turning these abstractions into Natural Laws, entirely independent of Man, has to be erroneous.

Yet, at the same time, we cannot merely dismiss Man’s abstractions as simply wrong, for that also isn’t true. Clearly, there is Objective Content – aspects or parts of the truth, in his conceptions, and that is why they can be used both effectively and reliably in certain defined situations.

So, how do we characterise such conceptions, and plot a path in which these are brought, ever closer, to the Truth? The original answer to this question, by the ancient Greeks, was an example of the tail wagging the dog. For, Man established “Truth” by the consistency of his abstractions overall.

He was able to do it by assigning NO significant changes to things generally, and this allowed the formulation of the system termed Formal Logic to become established as the means of testing and even of developing conceptions.

Now, because of the ever-present Stability of Reality, the basic assumptions were approximately true, so the foundation stone of Formal Logic – A = A, the Identity Relation, could be assumed as the banker premise within the normal situations. Everyone now knows, and even knew then, that some things definitely changed, but they were seen as insignificant, at worst, and merely significant incrementally at best, and so, in most cases of productive use were basically a nuisance. So, a methodology was designed of “keeping things still” while studying them, so that the eternal Natural Laws would emerge, un-blurred by unimportant variabilities, to reveal what really mattered.

This approach became known as Science, and its use in carefully controlled Domains, by Man, became what we now think of as Technology.

Now, I must ask the reader to forgive this extremely cursory glimpse at Thought and Truth, but it had to be included here to begin to disentangle our unavoidable abstractions from our actual objective – Reality-as-is. And, hopefully, it would be the case too in the context that we would be in by attempting to work out the actual Origin and Development of the Solar System.

Let me indulge in one more essential diversion to reveal the dangers inherent in our lauded methods.

In Physics, with its original assumption of a medium filling Space (Aether theory), no trace of that medium could ever be found, so the concept of it, after much discussion, was finally, and supposedly irrevocably, dumped!

Space was back to being totally empty once again.

But, it didn’t help!

The problems began to proliferate, especially after the Discovery of the Quantum. For, this encapsulation of electromagnetic energy into disembodied gobbets, was clearly incompatible with a continuous medium of any kind.

But, it left a gaping hole in the required physical explanations of a whole raft of phenomena.

And, in addition, the, soon to become infamous, Double Slit Experiments also pushed the crisis to the limit! For, the results from these experiments seemed to simultaneously allot two totally contradictory properties to the key entities involved.

Sometimes, they acted as particles, while at other times like waves! Wave/Particle Duality was born, and surprisingly accepted as “The Truth”!

Yet, when this theorist included a certain kind of substrate, occupying all the spaces in this set up, ALL the anomalies just vanished!

Now, if the principle of an increase in Objective Content, is true, and a real measure of the closeness to Truth (as mentioned earlier), this meant that the new ideas must replace those of Wave/Particle Duality – the so-called Copenhagen conception, because it delivers more objective Content!

Now it was this researcher, who came up with the new theory for the Double Slit Experiments, and clearly, presented with the many imponderables in current ideas of the Solar System, it seemed worthwhile to reassess that conception, by bringing in the same universal substrate as had proved so effective in the Double Slit problem.

Now, all the advantages of a totally empty void would be gone, and a wholly new set of problems and solutions would be unavoidable.

The gulf between a totally Empty Void, and that filled completely with an active substrate is, of course, enormous.

For example, aggregations would have to occur within such a substrate, and any movement of the resultant bodies would also have to plough through this substrate like a ship through water. The effects of such disturbances upon propagation would have to be determined, and, thereafter, some means of the re-establishment of the normal conditions would also need to be explained.

The analogy with oceans may well be relevant, for they too propagate waves in spite of being seemingly messed up by the passage ships and whales.

The complex state of any substrate, and, in particular, the forces of re-establishment following disturbing passages through it, would have to be established and the involved phenomena explained.

It, as an assumed initial state, would certainly play some sort of role in aggregation – not least in propagating whatever causes such, for without a substrate, even Gravity becomes yet another case of the fabled Action-at-a-Distance once more.

To set up the required mindset for addressing all the usual problems of a universal substrate, we must commence by considering all the indisputable properties which will have to be delivered by such a filling of Space, in absolutely everything that we know occurs within it.

The analogy with ships in a sea gives us a starting point, but, certainly, cannot be taken too far, for though single entity transits may be similar, whole avalanches of particles would certainly not be the same.

For, as was assumed in the approach to the Double Slit phenomena, a single, moving particle (like an electron for example) would continually be disturbing the substrate – causing propagations of such continuously. So, with a veritable torrent of such particles, it would be both being repeatedly initiated, and also a roaring well ahead of its causes in a resulting stream of the disturbances within the substrate.

This would be caused by all disturbances moving forward of its cause (being at the Speed of light), while the causing particle would definitely be moving much more slowly.

Thus each and every particle, on interacting with the substrate, will project ahead of itself, a strong beam of disturbances, well ahead of what actually caused them.

And, perhaps, even more significant, absolutely all previously considered Actions-at-a-Distance, from Gravity to electrical and magnetic propagations and fields will also have to be fully explained in terms of this substrate too.

NOTE: At this point I must relate that several other independent researchers into the possibility of a substrate, but coming to the problem from very different specialist areas, have naturally each concentrated upon features that arise in their discipline, and have each come up with very different candidates as the units comprising such a substrate.

An electrical engineer was concerned with the subtending of magnetic fields within such a substrate, and defined his suggested unit accordingly. While another perplexed by quantization used a liquid as his model of the substrate, and concentrated in all his investigations on both Resonances of oscillations and Recursive effects to produce quantized orbits (which, by the way, he succeeded in doing). And, also an American scientist who is preoccupied with Gravity, caused his units to be defined in such a way as to deliver exactly that gravitational effect.

And, of course, lastly we have the writer of this paper, who in tackling the Double slit Experiments, ended up with a joint particle as the basic unit, with its internal sub-particles mutually orbiting one another. His objectives were to produce units of what he calls “a Paving”, which would be undetectable due to the opposite properties of its component parts, and to produce such a structure as to be able to hold and pass on quanta of electromagnetic energy, via the promotion and demotion of those internal orbits.

Now, such diversity is unavoidable.

For, the problems each individual researcher is addressing are all undisputedly real. So all these lines of study are revealing Objective Content. The problem is how can they be integrated into a comprehensive, explaining-all theory?

The current conclusion of this researcher is that is that the substrate must be heterogeneous – that is it contains several different units.

After all, criterion-number-one is that they are all undetectable, and that means not only to the usual means of detection, but also to each other – they could indeed co-exist.

And, what inter-reactions they do have are considered to only occur in very close proximity to one another – being very local indeed.

Now, the original suggestion, of this theorist, was that it was composed of a single kind of entity, but evidence from other researchers and theorists makes that assertion unsustainable.

And this relative independence of one another will cause them to act as if they alone inhabit Space. Each type may well inter-react with others of the same kind via different overall structures. 

It would be a mistake to assume that all of these different units act in an identical way like different elements in a gas. Just as in Maxwell’s remarkable model of the ether, it seems likely that different structures will be involved.

Remember, it was his model that enabled Maxwell to develop his, still used equations of Electromagnetism, so something of his model must certainly have been a reasonable assumption.

I have included his diagram from Margaret Morrison’s paper on the subject.

Various features of this model are relevant to today’s concerns. Crucially, he has reciprocal effects between his two involved entities. Dropping Maxwell’s model entirely along with the concept of the Ether was a major error, and it stems from the pluralist conception of Reality driven by Natural Laws. The alternative holist view does not see the gains of Science as Absolute Truths, but as analogistic models with a measure of Objective Content, so that all gains are partial and temporary. The best we can do is to strive to increase the amount of Objective Content in our constructions.

So, in our current problem, concerning the Origin and Development of the Solar System, we will have to solve, on a cosmic scale, what is also currently being addressed upon a Sub Atomic scale.

And, though very far apart in scale, they will still be related, as the substrate involved is common to both realms, but with different priorities to be solved.

On the Cosmic scale, Gravity and the general problem of Actions-at-a-Distance will be the dominant considerations. While at the Sub Atomic scale, it has to be the problem of quantization.

But, in an important way, the universality of forms such as orbiting, occurring at both levels, though with very different causes, again proves that Forms are secondary, and can never be causes in themselves.

The dominance of equations has to be a failed diversion from the real causes of phenomena, whatever the level.

The Promise of Virgin Land

The Promise of Virgin Land...

...And the ultimate Terrorist Response

The man finally reaches the crest of the rise, and looks down before him upon vast and verdant grasslands that reach as far as the eye can see. It appears to be entirely uninhabited! Large herds of bison roam steadily along across this seemingly infinite and ideal expanse. Yet, the whole area seems to be completely untouched by the action of people.

The silent watcher had only recently escaped from a war-torn Europe, where he had no chance of getting anywhere, or doing anything to change his desperate existence. He was entirely without education, but he could both farm the land, and handle livestock. And, here, before him, was the ideal and uninhabited place The Promised Land, where he could indeed build a good life.

Then, in the distance, he notices a small group of fast-moving, bare-back riders. They are native “Indians”, and they cut out a few strays from the herd and with bows and arrows manage to down several. They fairly quickly remove the best and easily carried parts of the beasts, and depart, whooping with delight. This, it appears is their land!

But, touching his rifle, the watching man realises that they are no kind of farmer, but primitive hunter/gatherers, and as such they need these vast areas to support their families and their tribe. “What a waste!”, thinks the watching farmer. “This land should be farmed!”

It could support many, many people like himself, and with such resources and this ideal land, they would finally be masters of their own destiny! “We must have these valuable grasslands! For, we could develop vast herds of cattle to feed the burgeoning cities in the east. We could build our own state!”

And, of course, this man wasn’t alone. Not only were there literally tens of thousands regularly arriving in America, looking for just such a chance, but the moneymen and politicians in those eastern cities, had also realised the profits that could be made from these verdant plains.

The Indians had to be removed!

These plains must be turned into productive farms. So, by a continual drift of immigrant farmers, plus the machinations, lies and betrayals of the politicians, this land was taken, and the Indians all but destroyed.

The Indians gradually realised that the treaties and agreements would never be honoured, and the only thing that they could do was to kill all interlopers, whoever and whatever they were. They must forcibly clear their land of the perpetual tide of land grabbers. They could not beat the armies that were sent to “pacify” them, so what is today called Terrorism arose! And then, as now, the solution was the same – “Wipe out the terrorists! For they kill the innocent!” – while also taking control of their lands in order to exploit its benefits to the full.

Early Navigation of the Seas

The Coastal Seas as Ancient Highways to the Land

Several established and increasing by numerous pieces of evidence seem to indicate that sea-going craft (at least ideal for coastal journeys) were a surprisingly early invention of Mankind. For, hunter-gatherers, constantly on the move to find food, would be certain to regularly encounter rivers across their migratory path, and though searches would have been undertaken for places where they could be forded, the possibility of crossing water immediately via easily constructed 'boats' would have saved a great deal of time and risks. Indeed the Channel Islands, off California, have revealed fossil human bones from a very long time ago indeed, and these could have only been reached by boats of some sort. 

Although much later historically, there is the fact that Orkney included a very advanced early human settlement, involving an integrated group of stone-built houses, in an area devoid of trees. The inference was that such a settlement was not only close to their main source of food, the sea, but also directly upon the "main highways" of that time linking many well spread settlements accessible by boat. The land was certainly not endowed with any rich source of game, and was totally unable to support any real agriculture.

Finally, the problem of exactly how America was initially populated with the first wave of human beings to actually get there, both from Asia and perhaps even Europe, would be much more simply explained by, if the peoples concerned were competent with boats, and feeding themselves almost exclusively from the sea. Read more on this here

Now the clinchers for archaeologists will always be the finding of such ancient vessels. But, surely the earliest boats, without metal tools, would have to have been made with materials such as skins and branches, or birch-bark and resin, with perhaps a wooden frame of some sort. Such vessels would never survive so many thousands years as such, but the skills in making them would be maintained by groups where they were constantly needed. The beauty and functional superiority of the North American birch-bark canoe is a masterpiece of excellent handling, lightweight and easy to repair. Such consummate boat building would require a long period of development to arrive at such a masterpiece.

Since the melting of the ice sheet at the end of the last Ice Age, we know that most coastal areas, just where these derelict boats would be, were vastly and permanently inundated by the rising seas. Current underwater archaeology is severely limited by both poor visibility, the difficulty of disposing of spoil, and the kit necessary for people to effectively work under the sea. Without doubt there must be some vital traces under the sea bed, and near river mouths, preserving evidence of our maritime past, preserved deep in the sediments. 

Did the Eskimos Discover America?

Could Ice Age Mariners have got there first? 

On reading the latest contributions to the problem of, “Who were the first Americans?”, in New Scientist (2910), and thereafter re-viewing Alice Roberts TV series on “The Incredible Human Journey”, that addressed the conquering of the whole World by Homo Sapiens, another alternative seemed to demand inclusion in the list of possibilities. The assumptions, without any doubt, which seemed to delineate many of the opposing arguments, about who made that first journey and when, were about the total exclusion of humans from the regions dominated by the ice – usually described as Ice Sheets many miles thick.

Now, the immediate questions - about surviving in snow-covered and winter conditions, were surely only investigatable by studying how the Eskimos and other Arctic peoples have managed to survive until today. It cannot be that long ago, when all these peoples were still squarely in the Stone Age, or perhaps more properly in the Pre-Metal Age. And for truly vast periods of the year, they had to survive the most atrocious conditions, and find food in environments that seemed incapable of delivering any adequate sustenance.

By hunting seals and fishing through holes in the ice they have survived for millennia, and the very nature of their later means of finding adequate sustenance seems to indicate that the sea was most probably their main source for these essentials. Indeed, such groups, living at the edge of the sea, and with some means to migrate when necessary, most probably by boats, they could certainly have moved to stay in contact with the sea’s edge even as the Ice advanced.

Once you have a people so closely connected to the sea for both food and transport, this changes radically the migration possibilities as described in Alice Roberts Series. After all, even without assuming boats, these “out of Africa” humans, covered prodigious distances to get as far as Australia at a very early juncture. And to make that last step into a new continent, meant they even they would have had to have some sort of boats. Also the later conquest of the Pacific by seemingly primitives cultures in Micronesia, inferred not only boats but also profound knowledge of travelling by sea. Also early settlements, in the north of the British Isles, indicate very clearly, that passage overland was considerably more difficult than by sea. The seas were clearly how they got about, and what we would now consider to be the edge of possible habitation, in the Hebrides and Northern Islands, were evidently key posts along well-used routes – by sea. And closer still to our time, the best sea going boats and sea navigation was practiced by the Vikings, who we know got to America themselves.

The point I am attempting to make is that early man being a hunter/gatherer, and hence having to be constantly on the move to find new virgin areas, to supply their needs, would simply have to have boats. For with tides and currents, the sea and the shorelines were constantly replenished with eatables. To cope with the sea in every way must have been crucial. Even in Alice Robert’s piece, the general migrations were always along the coasts, perhaps because food from the sea was the most reliable source from time immemorial.

The question must be, “Could people like Eskimos, but endowed with coastal maritime skills and craft, have made the kind of journeys that seem unavoidable in the various America-reaching suggested explorations?”

Any scenario that has such peoples leaving vastly more conducive areas to set up permanently in the ice-gripped north is surely wrong. It is more likely that the first people reaching that continent soon after its impossibility due to ice and ocean had been reduced, would be by peoples already familiar with the conditions that they would encounter on such a journey, indeed, they are likely to have come from very similar climes, and believed that they could get past those conditions to something they knew that they could cope with, and have it to themselves. And they may well have stayed because, in spite of harsh conditions, they already knew how to cope, but would also have access to a superior range and number of prey animals both on the land and in accessible waters.

In particular, the areas adjacent to seas that would be unfrozen for part of the year, and lakes with could be fished the year round through holes made in the ice covering. Surely, such people would have been master of those conditions when they arrived?

Remember, early Man, being the only intelligent hunter/gatherer, could NOT stay in one place (except in exceptional circumstances), and had to constantly be on the move, to find what they needed in sufficient amounts for them to survive. Indeed, in a land entirely empty of people, they would be by far the best and most successful hunters, for apart from their superior intelligence, to animal predators; they also had many man-made weapons and social organisation to hunt as teams with well-established strategies.

And finally, with such a developed set of skills, if always close to or easily connected to the ocean, with craft and past knowledge, would greatly strengthen their ability to provide sustenance from that rich source too.

Striking off into the middle of an ice-field, or a desert would almost certainly be much too risky. But, following the coast with small easily-handled and even easier carried craft, and a familiar and regularly refilled larder of the inter-tidal zone, let alone the sea itself, would put such people at an advantage. Indeed, their speed of advance along a coastline would be surprisingly high - with a return the way they came, always a known option in face of difficulties. And, that rate of advance would be increased if they were constantly getting into ever-warmer territories full of an ever-wider range of accessible foodstuffs.

My suggestion is that an Eskimo dimension to the wanderings of early Man, especially into America is well worthy of further study.

The Parable of the Flood

Addendum to Explanation via Chaos (see below or click here to read it)

This paper on High Anxieties: The Mathematics of Chaos, most certainly took the reactionary position of the programme makers on the current crisis, and indeed crises in general, and revealed it as a one sided view on such major systemic overturns which are generally termed Emergences.

There is no doubt that all the revelations were of this one-way nature, and hung everything on the “unavoidable tendency of complex systems to descend into Chaos” in these sorts of circumstances. What was concentrated on as a basis was, as you might expect, the seemingly stable and predictable situations, which suddenly and inexplicably dissolved into totally inexplicable Chaos.

Surprisingly, it seems, the culprit was nature itself, which was insisted on as being subject to such calamities whatever anyone did to avoid them.

Now, the theme of my criticism was to contrast this lop-sided analysis with the correct explanation of such cataclysms in general. Such “Emergences” are never wholly negative, and indeed display a revolutionary and progressive side when the destruction and replacement of the Old Level has been completed.

You would never guess that our commentators were talking about the same sort of Event, so I countered this miserable and pessimistic journey into the inexplicable, by briefly mentioning real Emergences, but it has become clear that most people, and our mathematicians in particular, do not even know what they are. For, I suppose, you cannot expect those who think the World is driven by mathematics to consider anything so intrinsically contradictory.

My previous paper was perhaps too determined by the actual narrative and intentions of David Malone – the main designer, director and presenter of the programme. Because of this, my counter arguments did not do justice to the real story that was so evidently mis-told by this group of mathematicians and their associates.

This addendum should perhaps redress the balance, and at some stage be woven into the main paper, with a more co-ordinated attempt to deflect it from Malone’s whirlpool agenda, and instead redirect it in a much more positive direction, by revealing the general nature of real development, and its more revolutionary interludes which we call Emergences.

The basis of all the turning point Events in development has to be the maturing of an included, if hidden, instability in any evolving holistic system. In such processes many contending things are changing and growing or declining, but, in the main, the system tends to be self-correcting or self-maintaining, and stays within what we might call a Stable Interlude. Because of this various regularities are maintained and are even termed Laws because of their persistence.

BUT, these interludes do NOT last forever, and such systems, due entirely to their own inner processes can, and do, approach “turning points” in which the seemingly permanent dominances are successively undermined by fast-growing forces, until the complete breakdown occurs. Yet, such are NOT the end of the World, but are certainly the end of the Old Regime. The turnover is because what were normally suppressed forces of dissolution (The Second Law of Thermodynamics) begin to grow at an increasing rate, the old stabilities haltingly, and then more swiftly, dissolve, and via a very turbulent and creative following period, a new Higher Level finally emerges.

A new stability is established, with much greater potential than the Old Level, and things become stable once more at a much higher Level.

There are myriads of these Emergences, but almost everyone is unaware of them. The understandability of the World is always seen as residing in the currently Stable Level, and its relations and Laws are assumed to be eternal. With this view the peculiar characteristic of Malone and company is basically in opposition to the maturing Event. To them it is solely a great calamity, with NO way out, and he and his co-thinkers can only see it from their standpoint of the “working and dependable past”.

Ideally then, they judge the impending chaos as a wholly bad thing, which should not be allowed to succeed. The Stable Past should be strengthened and maintained at all costs, because the alternative cannot be predicted and seems worryingly like the End of Everything. They would want a continuation of the prior stable circumstances, and its predictable outcomes. When what replaces this is the inexplicable and destructive it must be opposed! They are hence a mixture of despairing doom mongers and reactionary defenders of the past “Golden Age”. They must be compared to the political reactionaries in a Social Revolution, who will do anything to save the economy, the Czar or even the country, by any means possible. They see nothing but bad in the completion of the Emergent Event, and ONLY think in terms of, if possible, restoring the old regime, by all measures aimed at countering the headlong rush to what they see as complete dissolution.

I hope that, in the above, I did bring up the correct arguments at all the appropriate places in the positions of our Defenders of the Faith, but what is really needed is one (or more) sound analogues of a real Emergence, in contrast to such a one-sided description of a catastrophe. And, it is important, because the forces attempting to retain the increasingly bankrupt past may indeed win. They have done so many times before, with disastrous consequences. The aftermath of the 1929 crash not only lasted for many years but also produced aberrant growths to maintain the status quo such as Fascism and World War. A failed Emergence always produces a major breakdown – a “Dark Age”. History is packed with examples of this.

Now, if I were to use a Social Revolution or the Origin of Life on Earth as my defining example, it would not be accepted by the general mass of the population. They cannot be explained by any other means, but they would rather be considered by most as Catastrophes or Miracles rather than the usual “transition mode” for turn-around development. So, though I am tempted, and these would definitely suffice technically, I am sure that they would not be the best vehicles for “selling” Emergences for what they really are.

I therefore looked around for a parable of an Emergence: a story of development and change, which made abundantly clear sense and could be easily taken on. This meant that I could not position the story in the present, with all its political overtones and allegiances.

I decided to position my tale in Ancient Egypt.

The Flood

Towards the end of the Stone Age the once lush plains of North Africa were being consumed by the ever-encroaching sand of the hostile desert. The thinly-spread, hunter-gatherer family groups had to find a better place in which to survive, and throughout the whole once-fertile area the hopeful treks began. They had to find sufficient game and edible wild plants to feed their small family groups, so they travelled ever eastwards, towards the rising of the sun.

Yet everything continued to remain the same, or got even worse.

There seemed not a hint of improvement, so they had no choice but to carry on. Every day they moved on and east, surely the desert could not continue forever.

Then, one morning through a surprising and obscuring mist, they saw a distant line of green tall shapes.

They looked like trees, but how could that be, they were still in the midst of the unremitting desert. They hurried forwards with gathering speed. They really were trees – big, green healthy trees, packed with many fruit.

But there were thousands of them, as far as the eyes could see, in both directions. Then beyond the trees was another miracle. An enormous slow-flowing river lay across their path, welcoming them in.

As they got closer the desert beneath their dry and cracked feet began to vanish. The ground became covered in soft, green plants of all kinds, and at the river’s edge were tall swaying reeds, and hundreds of wild-fowl swam about, or fluttered into the trees. This indeed was a land of milk and honey. They were saved!

As the months passed, more and more small groups arrived at the river. They spread out along its banks. Built their homes from the trees and reeds, gathered the fruit, hunted the abundant game and wildfowl, made boats out of the reeds, caught fish and as much as hunter-gatherers could, they prospered!

But, the same climatic changes that were still continuing to enlarge the pitiless desert were also changing things on a global scale. The rains, that thousands of kilometres to the south produced this magnificent river, were changing their patterns too. The massive continents were heating-up and were causing the rains to be concentrated into a much shorter period, which came to be called the monsoon. Vast amounts of rain fell in a short period in the mountains of Ethiopia, and poured down every slope in myriads of growing streams. These quickly merged into raging torrents, carving their way through the soft earth, until they finally came together into a single flow, expanding the now mighty river to a prodigious size.

In the lush and peaceful valley of the Nile the new inhabitants of the land went about their daily tasks.

They were used to the river changing as the seasons passed, but whatever the time of year the generous river always remained.

But things had now changed dramatically, the seasonal rise in level was markedly different. The flow continued to increase beyond its usual limits, and the water began to spread outwards, threatening the new communities. The people sensed that their River might become dangerous. They gathered what they could and moved towards the nearby hills.

The river not only continued to increase in rate of flow, but also everywhere began to overflow its banks and consumed the each and every small settlement. The land of milk and honey had been drowned. 

It vanished beneath the waters.

The people watched from the high ground, and prayed that the waters would subside and return their paradise to them once again.

And then, it began to happen. The levels began to subside. The waters receded and a whole new land was revealed. For some distance on either side of the now quietening river, the flooding had severely soaked the land, AND covered it with a fine, rich mud – a mud that had been carried all the way from the mountains of Ethiopia.

As the people picked their way back towards their River, they noticed that already thousands of new plants were peaking through the mud. The returning people had not lost their paradise, but delivered of yet another miracle. The land was clearly even more fertile than before. The calamitous events, had turned out to be a blessing - a present from the Gods.

It did not take long for the people to intervene by planting their meagre collections of seeds into the ready earth. Instead of hard won handfuls of edible seeds, they could now produce sacks full of such bounty. Their yields were increased twenty-fold. And their lives were changed forever.

On these banks flowered one of the first and best civilisations of Antiquity. The populations soared and the assured plenty gave time for many new activities. Along this blessed River Mankind reached new heights, as had never before existed anywhere on the Earth.

BUT, let us consider a quite different story in exactly the same circumstances.

Let us rewind back to before the flood and consider a different course of events.

After the establishments of the first settlements, groups still coming in from the desert found the narrow fertile strips on either side of the river were already occupied.

There was no room for them. The people already there not only had fertile, well watered land, but had an abundance of fish and waterfowl in the fiver. Such unavailable plenty seemed unfair. Some decided that they had as much right to this wonderful place as anybody else and they would fight for it if necessary.

So that is what began to happen. Now, as new incomers found that they could defeat the incumbents, they also discovered that they couldn’t get as much out of the new opportunities as those they had defeated. It became obvious that a better way would be to reign over the established populations without “dirtying their hands” so to speak. The thing was not to supplant the existing population but to rule them and extract tribute. They could even set up a sort of protection racket, ensuring the “safety” of settlements for a reasonable fee. Of course, such “protection” would involve bodies of armed men, and would very soon become “those in charge”! As things developed these new rulers realised that they could maximise their cut by being masters of the river. So by war and boats they extended their control. Their mobility enabled them to travel up and down the river landing where necessary and quickly establishing their threat/protection relationship.

These masters of the Nile soon “owned” the whole New Land.

Now we must remember that we are still in the early quiescent stage of the settlement of the Nile.

We have to consider what effects the Flood would bring to these arrangements.

As the waters rose, the people would, as they did in our simpler version, move away from the river’s edge to higher ground. They had done this in the past whenever the river rose. But the rulers depended on their mastery of the river to maintain their realm. They did NOT abandon their means. They stayed on the river. The rising waters soon became a swift flowing torrent and the boat masters were swept out to sea and perished. The ordinary people however were unscathed, and in time came back to Their River, now restored to them as before, but greatly enhanced. The flood had not only removed their oppressors, but also delivered to them the miracle of vastly increased fertility and plenty. They now had in their hands a situation, which ensured their growth and progress as a people. In this land civilisation would flourish.

*

Now, how can such a story help us with the calamities of High Anxieties: the Mathematics of Chaos?

It can do it in the following way.

The Flood was an Emergence but was seen very differently by the two groups involved. The boat masters saw it ONLY as a mounting threat to their means of rule and tribute. They knew their power lay in their boats and weapons and stuck to them both like glue. They did not understand the mounting flood, and dearly hoped that they could survive if it subsided soon. But their clinging to such things led to their demise in the sea. Their view would have been throughout that the Event had released Chaos on their well-ordered World. They knew nothing of farming, they were a ruling class. Everything they saw could only be seen from that point of view.

NO positives were in evidence at all to them. If any survived, they would remember how it had destroyed their lives. They would be aware that Reality could inexplicably release uncontrollable Chaos upon them at any time.

But, in contrast, how would the farmers see the Flood?

They would remember it as the beginning of plenty. It was the reward from a generous deity for their hard work and invention. It had delivered the possibility of living much better and even having enough produce to trade with others. A civilisation was brought to them via the fabled Flood of Plenty. And it happened every year without fail.

Yet this was the exact same Flood that had brought Chaos and death.

Yes, it WAS an Emergence, wherein some balance of forces, which had shown itself in a form of stability, grew quickly towards an overturn beyond all its previous states. It had destroyed the Old, and created the New, at a higher, richer and better Level.

The Origin of Us

George Gaylord Simpson made perhaps the most telling contribution to the Evolution of Life on Earth with his interpretation of his extended investigation into the development of the horse, with the work that he carried out in what is now the US State of Wyoming, and in which he unearthed in an amazing series of fossils covering many millions of years of the history of this unique animal.

From the dog-sized eohippus all the way to the modern Equus, he collected enough evidence, on the one hand, from fossilised skeletal parts, and, on the other, about changes of climate during very long simultaneous periods of time, to begin to throw important light on the mechanisms involved.

A varying climate put changing and very different demands upon this evolving animal, which varied in response in several important ways. These involved the feet, the teeth and the brain, as evolutionary pressures selected for major changes, with each significantly different imposed lifestyle dictated by how the horse survived, reproduced and even prospered.

Now, the initial animal in this sequence eohippus had five toes on its feet, and teeth for browsing on leaves. It also had the brain functionalities and size of that needed by most prey animals of that size and mode of living.

But as climate changed, the most successful selective response in our dog-like animal was for increased speed of escape and for wide ranging locomotion to find ever-rarer areas of appropriate food. And these pressures gradually selected for a decrease in the number of toes, down first to three, and finally down to one. (See image below)

At the same time its teeth became those for grazing rather than browsing, and, most significantly of all, the brain grew considerably in functions and in size.

Now most evidence from the very distant past is invariably very incomplete, and conclusions drawn about the actual trajectory of development, between these scarce and widely separated signposts were naturally very unreliable.

But Simpson’s chosen ground was remarkable for its truly large and relatively complete fossil record of these animals, that seemed to have lived in the same area for vast periods of time as both the ground beneath their feet, and the prevailing climate, changed dramatically.

Literally, the whole development was regularly delivered by enough fossils to make much sounder interpolations than were usual in most other circumstances.

And, of course, it was Simpson who was doing the investigating and the interpreting.

He was able to align his fossil evidence in a time-sequence, and could see developments in different parts of the animal’s anatomy as often parallel and connected changes. He was able to match these sequences both with a known sequence of climate changes and also, and significantly, with each other.

Crucially, he was able to see how changes in climate demanded changes in behaviour, which selected for important changes in the animal’s structure in various parts of its body. And, with such an almost sufficient record, his conclusions were much more reliable than usual.

Now, this section of my paper is only supposed to be a brief preface to a review of a TV programme, The Origin of Us, presented admirably by Dr. Alice Roberts as a BBC series (currently being repeated by The Eden TV Channel). So, clearly, I am not attempting a thoroughgoing description of Simpson’s work. [By to those who don’t know of this work, I recommend his great book, The Meaning of Evolution].

But his relating of a changing environment to the selection of modifications in the mode of life, and resultant changes in various functional parts of the animal as it evolved were exemplary.

For his crucial conclusion was how the single-toed foot for maximum speed on the plains, plus all those muscles that could facilitate the turns and changes of the chase, also and inevitably led to changes in the brain to control these new features effectively.

The various possible means of movement of the “horse”, which included co-ordinated use of both locomotive and balance muscles led to a rapid development of the brain to cope with such demands.

And, once the brain had significantly expanded in this way, the possibilities of other new functions could also arise to take advantage of the extra brain cells.

And it is this interpretation that I believe throws important light upon Alice Roberts similar interpretation of the development in human evolution over several million years. For in this series, Alice draws attention to the developments evident from the skeleton in finally producing homo sapiens as it was in its evolved state as a hunter/gatherer.

Homo sapiens possessed two remarkable things: first, it kept all five digits in its forelimbs, which also ceased to perform any part in locomotion, because the species became bipedal. It stood and moved on only two legs. This totally released the forelimbs as arms. And their digits became manipulative fingers. So, clearly this meant that a whole new set of possibilities, and consequent uses of their hands demanded, and got, by selection appropriate control developments in the brain.

But, this was a very unlikely predator. It certainly wasn’t strong, and had NO enormous claws or teeth. Indeed, the most important evolutionary development was (as with the horse) in its supreme ability to run and it could also sustain that for very long periods.

Many associated and necessary developments occurred, due to the emergence of a natural Running Man.

Balance, as well as locomotion, required appropriate changes in the brain, while the liberated hand became the most dextrous limb in the whole animal kingdom, and consequent brain changes ensued in that connection too. To see just how brilliant this limb became, merely watch a concert pianist playing a major concerto.

Now my reason for writing this review – apart from thoroughly recommending the viewing of this excellent series, is also to disagree with Alice Roberts allocation of the development of the large human brain to adequate sustenance and hence down to the use of fire in cooking food.

Though this was undoubtedly very important, I cannot agree that merely sufficient cooked food caused the growth of the human brain. It helped, of course, but Simpson’s reasons for a similar development in the horse far outweigh sustenance in the rapid acceleration in brain size.







As Engels outlined in The Part Played by Labour in the Transition from Ape to Man, it was the hand that did it. And his 19th century contribution, plus the revelations from George Gaylord Simpson, and even Alice’s comments on the Running Man, are surely the main generators of the developed human brain. For once it had been established it could do a great deal more.

A Brief History of Abstraction

 A new video from Shape Journal exploring the ideas behind my Processes and Productions of Abstraction diagram.

View large diagram