The Role of Mankind

Sándor Bortnyik: The New Adam, 1924

The Role of Mankind in Understanding 

and Interacting with their World

The Grundrisse Lectures by David Harvey are already-and-unavoidably taking the study of Marxism well beyond a dialectical analysis of Capitalist Economics, to also begin to delve ever more deeply and revealingly into Mankind's essential-and-unique role as the only Thinking species upon Planet Earth, and maybe also in all the possibly reachable Universe at large!

For, productive Labour has long been Mankind's most self-determining and indeed qualitatively-developing feature in their evolution, and therefore has been playing the Key role in their Socio-Economic advances with respect to their increasing knowledge amd control with in their containing-and-developing Living World context, in which they both dwell, seek-to-survive, and even to prosper.

For, along with their bipedal gait, and a flexible and manipulatable hand, with an opposable thumb, Human Beings, in consequence of all their extensive potentialities, have also developed advanced, new and unique cerebral capabilities, which, after millions of years, led first to primitive tool-making, from sharp flint fragments, as well as the means to make and control fire, develop a Hunter/Gatherer, Family group existence, and simultaneously initiate the beginnings of Language, which, all taken together, enabled their considerable geographical spread across literally all accessible areas of our the globe.

And ultimately, via the transforming effects of the epoch-changing Neolithic Revolution, which also brought-in the beginnings of extensive Human Societies - and via Farming and Animal Husbandry, also led, in a remarkably short period of time, to Intellectual Revolutions, primarily in Ancient Greece, but also (and in a very different and important direction) in Ancient India too.

For, though initially somewhat limited by the development, for the first time, of a kind of Reasoning (the strict and damaging, but easily arrived-at Plurality), still managed to deliver both the very first rational discipline, Mathematics, along with a kind of Logic, based only upon wholly fixed relations and concepts!

Thereafter, Mankind was no longer just a continuing development of Homo Habilis (the priginal Handy Man), but, by then, one already capable of Thinking too: and that vastly transformed his capabilities, in that he also sought Reasons for everything that occurred, and NOT ONLY in what way and how he could use those revealed discoveries.

Man was now a Thinker, as well as a Tool-Maker and User, so instead of only asking "How?", he also began to ask "Why?"

So, there arose a division of Labour between achievements by hand, and those by brain, that were ALL still only carried out by Human Beings. And, aids to the making of new things, though involving an essential content of New Thinking, were still the products of Mankind, as also, of course, were the then invented machines.

And though, in modern times, these techniques will be programmed into Computers, rather than being the mere spades and wheeled-vehicles handled directly by people: they are still designed by, driven by, and even programmed by them too!

Sándor Bortnyik: The New Eve, 1924

Artificial Intelligence is merely the instructions devised by an expert in the given field, and then coded by a programmer, co-opeerating with that expert, then entered into a computer-driven-machine. That was the actual Labour-and-prior-knowledge involved in equipping, such a system!

AND, crucially, if that programmer was NOT implementing the detailed knowledge-and-understanding of an expert in the Real World field involved, the program delivered will be useless! The machine is still totally dependant upon the labour of the programmer, and, in turn, that involved in the knowledge of the discipline expert.

As such a System Designer myself, I can assert that NO machine can ever THINK!

Indeed, the quality of Thinking that goes into a Computer Program, AND a controlled machine, even today, is still totally inadequate to do literally ALL the tasks we can currently give them - and will always continue to give them in the future. And the reason for this resides in the kind of Logic (or Reasoning) that is implicit in all current Programming Languages and throughout the whole of Mathematics too.

Reasoning, as we generally know it, is wholly Pluralistic. Formal Logic assumes all relations and concepts are - forever FIXED - like the components of a machine.

Indeed, I spent most of the 1980s designing tailor-made control-programs across a very wide range of diverse disciplines, always along with discipline experts, in a University in Glasgow. Yet, nevertheless, only finally began to successfully address these major flaws via dedicated Multimedia Aids, applied to Film and Video recordings of dynamic Dance Performance and Choreography, in the first decade of the new Millennium. And, frankly, I have seen neither a similar general use, either in that area, or anywhere else, in the time since then.

So what is generally considered to be Artificial Intelligence, applied to computer-controlled machines, is still wholly pluralistic (comprised of fixed and discrete components - very unlike the evolving natural world) and totally incapable of applying any Human-like Intelligence automatically.

Indeed, the calamities frequently experienced in such situations, are not caused by correctable errors, but by irretrievable Pluralist Logic.

As a qualified professional Physicist, it still took me a lifetime of work in the field and latterly a whole decade of dedicated research to demolish the wholly Pluralistic Copenhagen Interpretation of Quantum Theory, currently still dominant in Sub Atomic Physics.

Indeed, both ALL Technology, and all the so-called Sciences too, have not only been crippled by Pluralist Reasoning, but also completely idealised in abandoning physical explanations for mere mathematical formulae, in order to conform to the Plurality of ALL Mathematics.

Sándor Bortnyik: Composition II, Pink and Blue, 1921

And Industry, for centuries, has had to break recognised useful Natural processes (always involving multiple, contending factors), to turn such processes into sequences of very simplified restricted separated-single-factor processes, involving purposely arranged-for pluralistic steps to attempt to replicate the Natural multi-factor situations: and, consequently, only skirting around the Real non pluralistic World.

The seemingly unsolveable problems have always been to attempt to handle simultaneous, mutually-affecting factors, in order to both control sequences of different factors, and separate their individual effects, and thereby lose their various cross influences. Indeed, the nearest that could be achieved was by whole sequences of single law steps, but these were not only always approximations, but also always, by the way they were set up, could not but eliminate all cross influences, so that things that always happened in Natural phenomena, were guaranteed to be absent in the whole set of simplified sequences,

Indeed, it was at first considered to be impossible to handle a dynamic and Holistic World scientifically, but modern researches into multifactor circumstances have begun to reveal how so-called temporary, and long-persisting "Balanced Stabilities" can, and indeed do, replace the supposedly-permanent Stabilities on which Plurality is based. And the natural processes, in the Real World, are actually made up of alternating sequences of different long-lasting Balanced Stabilities, interspersed with short-period Emergent Interludes, where one long-persisting Balanced Stability is, via a series of Crises, finally totally dissociated. And, when, in what appears to be a resultant Chaos, a constructive Phase, via a series of partially successful Crises, finally achieves a wholly New and long lasting Balanced Stability! We can call this an Emergence, or even a Revolution. 

These can never be explained or understood mechanistically. 

The role of Mankind now, must be to try and work out a different way...

The real trajectory of Qualitative Change

Issue 61: The Implicate Order

Issue 61

This series of papers attempts to draw a definitive line between the philosophical stance of physicist David Bohm, The Implicate Order, and his rejection of the Copenhagen Interpretation of Quantum Theory, on the one hand, and the seemingly-convergent Idealist philosophy of Errol Harris on the other, and to do so from an emerging Marxist standpoint in that crucial area.

The connections between these two thinkers were brought to my attention by my namesake James Schofield, and his thesis on the “Dialectical Holism” of the latter. His PhD deals with some interesting Physics and this introduced me to concepts such as Ontic Structural Realism, and set me thinking about Bohm seriously again. So thanks, James!

It is, and has been, very important because of the total lack of a Marxist critique of Copenhagen, via a clearly explained and explanatory superior alternative stance in Sub Atomic Physics. Indeed, this key absence has been so important that is has even frequently disabled the Marxist stance too, even politically!

For, these seemingly obscure questions always were of paramount importance from the time of Karl Marx’s split from Hegelian Idealism. For, without the conquest of Science by this new Materialist stance, it would be crucially disabled in everything else that it dealt with. Marx knew it, and intended to deal with it, but he was a philosopher and an academic historian, by training, and ill-equipped to tackle such a wide-ranging discipline as Science-in-general.

In addition, his historical studies with the new standpoint immediately required the conquest of Economics, as the touchstone for the tumultuous, indeed, revolutionary changes that were so important in the developments of Human Societies throughout History. His initial task, therefore, just had to be a very different treatment of Capitalist Economics, and the change turned out to present him with an enormous undertaking, recasting the whole of that subject from an entirely different and wholly new basis. This took him the rest of his life, and Science in general was never addressed by Marx.

Materialism and Empirio-Criticism by Lenin

The dangers of this crucial omission were realised by V. I. Lenin, when key members of the leadership of the Bolshevik Party had begun to show great interest in the positivist Physics of Henri Poincaré and Ernst Mach, which was understandable because of this evident hole in the Marxist stance.

Lenin knew, immediately, that this was serious, and he immediately set about a refutation of the Positivists in his book Materialism and Empirio Criticism - which successfully pulled Lunacharsky and others back into the fold, philosophically! But, he too was no physicist, so the hole was still not filled, and hasn’t been ever since.

Clearly, to this Physicist and Marxist that vital task is the most important in contemporary Philosophy; and this is already well underway. But the long standing historical omission of this undertaking could not but encourage committed Marxists to seek a world-class physicist who strongly rejected the Copenhagen stance, and the increasingly dominant candidate was David Bohm.

Indeed, in my youth I too sought answers with Bohm’s alternatives, but the problems in Science were extremely well entrenched and surprisingly old.

In spite of Bohm’s Materialism, there was with him, as with all scientists, a very long-standing Idealism, imported via Mathematics, and a Plurality via Abstraction - yet also and surprisingly Holism via Explanation, all amalgamated via the crucial glue of Pragmatism. This uneasy mix actually underpinned the whole of Science, and Pragmatism alone allowed a switching between different areas of study, where different assumptions “could work”.

And, of course the co-existence of these directly contradictory stances was not realised by those involved: they considered a “seemingly-contradictory-appearance” as being due to as yet not-fully-understood-areas, which would, later, be removed by new Knowledge.

But, that would never be the case, whilever this unaware amalgam prevailed.

And, the differences between Einstein and the Copenhageners, and between Bohm and the rest were all due to this congenitally-contradictory, assumed Amalgam as Basis.

So clearly, Bohm has to be dealt with, as vitally as Lenin had to deal with the Positivists, but this time fundamentally.

Wholeness and the Implicate Order by Bohm

New Special Issue: The Ontology of Quantum Physics

Special Issue 50

Our 50th special edition comprises a thorough critique of Slavoj Žižek’s The Ontology of Quantum Physics from his book Less Than Nothing, including an appendix of supplementary papers, with the intention of informing the reader of the philosophical bases for this approach.

Ever since Lenin’s damning critique of the Empirio Criticism Stance of scientists Poincaré & Mach, early in the 20th century, there has been a crucial, and ever more urgent need, to “complete the job”, by tackling the mess that was, and still is, the consensus Philosophy of Physics, which for centuries has been a contradictory amalgam of Materialism, Idealism and Pragmatism.

The writing was already on the wall, even in Lenin’s time, following the discovery of the Quantum - a descrete, particle-like alternative to the prior conception of propagating electromagnetic Radiation as an extended wave - in a then still undetected Substrate or Medium, which was termed the Aether.

The decline in the Marxist tradition due to the victory of Stalinism in the Soviet Union, and the lack of any significant developments elsewhere, either theoretically or organisationally, was mirrored by a steady decline in what was termed “Theory” in Sub Atomic Physics, as the mounting contradictions in the “New Stance, “ led to increasing amounts of Pure Mathematics, propped up by unfounded speculations - from Superposition, Quantum Entanglement, and Physical Singularities, to String Theory, Quantum Loop Gravity, Super Symmetry and even Multiverses!

Surprisingly, increasing numbers of self-professed Marxists lined up to even embrace the New Physics, and even to claim that it was “Dialectical”!

Clearly, the long awaited tackling of Science by Marxists, would also be the only means of its own salvation!

In Cambridge University, self-professed “Marxists” like Gliniecki, along with many others in the United Kingdom, were now extolling the virtues of Copenhagen, and even the “Marxist” Žižek has written a Chapter entitled The Ontology of Quantum Physics in his recent book - taking a similar line.

But, enough is enough!

This fake Marxist must be exposed for what he is, as part of the major task of defeating the Idealist Copenhagen Interpretation, which is now vital. It must be taken on, and completed NOW!

And, after many years addressing this very task, this Marxist, who is also a physicist by profession and experience, as well as a published philosopher, will now commence the final assault by demolishing Žižek.