Special Issue 78: The Systems Theory of Everything V

Special Issue 78 of SHAPE Journal

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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

Weak Theory

The Weakness of Pragmatically Derived Theory

Since "time immemorial", Mankind has seen Theory as facilitating the effective Pragmatic Use of all that is discovered about Reality! After all, primitive Man would insist, "What else are such ideas for?"

But, of course, there are other reasons for Theories, but none of these were even concretely considered in the earliest of epochs of Mankind, where the more intangible questions were always allocated to Supernatural Causes. And, even the simplest relations between elements of Natural Phenomena, were only relateable, in any useful way, by always deliberately holding situations as still as possible, for absolutely anything, to be extractible at all! And, the definer of required situations was embodied in the usual tenet:

"If it works, it is right!"

So, the initial Pragmatically useful investigations, all concentrated upon the "already dead" or tightly, artificially controlled situations - otherwise NO relations were obtainable. But, crucially, there was NEVER a single such "Stability", encapsulating absolutely ALL such situations: indeed, almost every imposed Stability was different - depending upon what had to be revealed! So, all but the very simplest undertakings, were unavoidably composed of many, very different required Stabilities, determined by the series of separate steps necessary, to finally end up with the required product, via a whole series of different processes - each confined within its own ideal and maintained circumstances.

Now, this meant that literally nothing was ever attempted within naturally-occurring Reality-as-is, because totally different conditions would be essential for every single step in any intended production. Hence, the accumulated Knowledge was involving many different contexts - each using very different extracted Laws. So, nothing was actually revealed about Reality-as-is,  and as that was the only situation naturally Common to all relations actually occurring-together there, and NOT the separate ones, each of which are only true within their own special artificial context thereafter could, and always were, actually be algebraically related to one another to thereby Construct a supposedly "Valid Science"! So, as NO SUCH Science could be constructed by such means, we simply must give what we do actually construct a different name: we call it Technology!

Indeed, the construction of ANY Discipline by such a means, using the Rationality of Mathematics to do so, is always wholly and misleadingly illegitimate. For, Mathematics, as it was originally devised and developed by the Ancient Greeks, is only true in totally Pluralistic Situations, wherein all relations are Forever Fixed.

For, though that is always true within Mathematics, it is NOT so within Concrete Reality-as-is - for that does not just complicate things, but, in contrast, actually Evolves them: and consequently the Wholly New can-and-does occur, and it can never be predicted before that first occurrence.

So, the then universal use of Mathematical Rationality, in any area of Explanation, and in any area, where things can naturally develop into the Wholly New, and with the objective of extending Understanding, is woefully mistaken!

And the Problem is most certainly due to Principle of Plurality.

For, in about the 5th century BC, two directly opposing Tenets of Reasoning were devised in different parts of the then civilised World! Each one aimed at producing a different Rationality to allow features of a given Part of Reality to be soundly related to one another via Thought alone! But, the basic assumptions upon which they were based were diametrically Opposite to each other, and, if used effectively would lead to very different conclusions. They were, of course, based upon very different, if totally valid, aspects of Reality-as-is: but were each considered to be universally applicable to absolutely Everything!

Of course, they had to be based upon profound extractions from Reality, and sadly, Reality actually conforms in different circumstances to TWO Diametrically Opposite Principles, which are found to act only in very different circumstances.

The Principle of Plurality was discovered by the Greeks within Mathematics, and wholly developed only within that context where two things were wholly legitimately established for Mathematics.

First, was the realisation that Simplified Relational Abstractions - relating wholly non-concrete, but nevertheless wholly valid relations, between such Abstractions. Indeed, it was the realisation of these special kinds of Abstraction that initially enabled the Rational Construction of Euclidian Geometry, and thereafter Mathematics as a whole. And this was because these Abstractions limited the Rationality involved to always valid Totally Fixed Relations, and therefore also its consequent laws.

While the other approach developed in India by The Buddha, involved deriving The Principle of Holism, which, on the contrary, involved most elements being capable of constantly available variation (both quantitative and qualitative), and hence having literally NO Forever Fixed properties and consequent Laws!

The Buddha's sound basis was, of course, the observable Living World all around him. 

Now, you might think that the direction determined by The Buddha, would be the best option: but, in the short term, it certainly wasn't! For, a qualitatively-varying and developing World, is certainly closer to the General Truth of All of Reality, than the West's primary philosophical choice of assuming a Wholly Pluralist World: but actually that choice gave them a handle - it had also given them effective Technology, within multiple easily-controllable Contexts, while The Buddha's Holistic alternative, though it gave them Everything at Once - was far too complex to effectively control or use, while maintaining its essential Nature, and they didn't develop beyond mere Pragmatism, for millennia.

What was clearly needed to develop the absolutely-necessary Holist Stance, was the creation and then development of a Purely Holist Science, which has not only failed to appear in The Orient, but is also almost universally absent in the West too.

There was a window for such a Discipline to occur - out of the Dialectics of the Idealist Philosopher GWF Hegel, especially as his best follower, Karl Marx, began to apply a thorough-going-and-creative detailed Holist approach to the Developments in Social History, and particularly to The Capitalist Economics of his day. But, the crucial development of also applying a similar approach to The Sciences was NOT undertaken: for though the Tempos of Man-Made History were graspable by the then available Human Thinking, those of most aspects of Physical Reality were not.

Of course, even within Marx's lifetime, Charles Darwin did begin to tackle the question of The Origin of Species, with a distinctive measure of success, but all the rest of Science required a similar holistic treatment, and that was still not yet forthcoming!

The writer of this paper (as well as many others, published over the last period in SHAPE Journal and on this blog), is both a fully-qualified Physicist and Mathematician, yet increasingly he is a trenchant critic of much of Modern Sub Atomic Physics, as well as pretty well all of Current Cosmology. He has spent well over a decade criticising the current, linked approaches in both of these areas, and has, only then, undertaken the task of beginning to establish a consistently Holist approach in these areas, and is now literally developing Holist Science from scratch.

Many diverse contributions have been written, and many more are actually currently in process of being produced, and already planned, at least in outline! This current paper, along with a small number of others, is being produced as an informing Introduction to the whole undertaking, and will, hopefully, set readers in such a position as to contemplate the size and content of perhaps the most important questions for Science at this present time!

The Misguided Basics of Rationality in both the Sciences & Reasoning

Sabine Hossenfelder and how Physics relies on Beauty!

As I have long argued, in prior publications, the principle flaw in the Sciences resides within Physics, as is most certainly revealed in the total subservience of its Theories to Mathematics. The origins of this problem lie in the crucial achievements of the Ancient Greeks, in their brilliant Intellectual Revolution (circa the 5th century BC), and also via their invention of a wholly new kind of Abstraction - both possible and, indeed, necessary in involving Relations to rationally develop the first-ever consistent, coherent and comprehensive Discipline, in history.

For, it was, indeed, an epoch-changing invention, because it delivered the first ever Complete Rationality - enabling the sound establishment, first, of Euclidian Geometry, and, thereafter, of the whole of Mathematics in general! But, this was wholly legitimately achieved ONLY because mathematical relations were always & forever FIXED: they absolutely never changed qualitatively into something else! This kind of messiness was against the rules!

So, what was achieved was only a Purely Mathematical Rationality, which was fairly quickly achieved and extensively and correctly used to ultimately build the Whole Discipline. But, it was only-ever-true for Mathematics, but NOT for either the Sciences or more General Reasoning - for in all of those important Disciplines, as in Life itself - things have Actually Evolved: they had to be changed qualitatively. and hence purely Mathematical Reasoning could NOT ever be legitimately related in that way.

Nevertheless, The Greeks, justifiably enamoured with their New Rationality, illegitimately applied it other Disciplines. And, that was soon literally extended universally throughout Mankind. Indeed, its basic Defining Principles, particularly those within Geometry-and-Symmetry, were re-classified as Beauty, and applied to absolutely Everything as Everywhere-applicable Principles!

Now, I have just finished watching a YouTube Video by the scientist, Sabine Hossenfelder, who was severely criticising the preponderance of Beauty, when used in judging the values of new Theories in Physics: her criticisms were wholly valid, BUT of Mathematical Rationality, and NOT of Beauty!

Indeed, the mistake of the Greeks was never realised, and Mathematics has wrongly and damagingly become a veritable-yet-wholly incorrect Ground in All Rationality. And, this is now so embedded in these Disciplines, that no-one can conceive of their Discipline without it!

For example, in Sciences like Physics, All Investigative Experiments, and All Productive Processes are ALWAYS and necessarily carried out in rigidly Pluralist (i.e. conforming to mathematical rationality) situations, absolutely essential to make their "Laws" work at all! Indeed, by such means Physics, in those areas, has ceased to exist as such, and has been pragmatically replaced by its older relation, namely Technology, and has been theoretically converted to Idealism!

And, "to compound the felony", it is ONLY those illegitimate Pluralist Equations that are exclusively and illegitimately used within "so-called Theory": thus making the consequent construction of an overall Discipline via substitutions between those Equations totally illegitimate, for all those Pluralist Equations are, each and every one, about Different Situations! Indeed, it is now very clear that to resolve this problem permanently, it will undoubtedly require the extensive establishment of a completely-New and Entirely Holist Approach to the Sciences, and, of course, particularly in the most formally-distorted of the Sciences: namely in Physics.

This is already underway in SHAPE Journal, but, as the size of the task is ever more clearly indicated, just how far Physics, in particular, its straying into pure Plurality, has become ever more evident! So, the solution will involve something very different to the artificially achieved and wholly Pluralist constraints upon both Experiments, Productions - and especially on Theory! Instead, a wholly new form of the subject simply MUST be revealed, to effectively deal with Reality-as-is, for the first time: otherwise, there can be no consistent, coherent and comprehensive system - on which to inter-relate the Holistic Real World versions of the Laws, and hence, be capable of producing a real Science!

Frege, Dummett and Plurality

Origins of the Current Crisis in Philosophy

In a recent proffering on Youtube, Michael Dummett explained both the current contributions, as well as the final failures of Gottlob Frege, concerning the Philosophy of Mathematics - but, as it turned out, he was also, in fact, actually revealing the widespread mistakes, as well as the many general inadequacies, throughout all past and present Philosophers (including himself), concerning that important area of Theory.

For Frege, along with all the rest of his co-thinkers, made (and still make) Logic - some kind of crucial "Absolute", coming both uniquely and only from Man, rather than being a failed attempt, by Man, to reveal an objective set of the real changing relations, within all of Reality-as-is! But, he is, most certainly, not alone, Mankind in general has believed this for the last two and a half thousand years - indeed, ever since the Greek Intellectual Revolution of the 5th century BC.

And, they made it seem to be the case, by devising a wholly new kind of Relation, which, for the first time ever, devised relations between certain Abstractions, rather than between existing objects, and which therefore could, within those special circumstances, and types of Abstraction, be wholly Constant. But, they were NOT abstractions like the names of concretely-existing things, they were instead ONLY of one special type of relation occurring between particular kinds of Abstractions!

As this is a subtle and even surprising kind of relation, I feel that I must give some original examples, used by the Greeks, in constructing Euclidian Geometry.

The first was The Point!

Now, this abstraction was composed of a totally disembodied Position. It had absolutely zero extension in the Real World, delivering only a Position, and nothing else, but as such DID indeed have relations with other such Abstractions

- such as The Line!

Now, this was defined by two Points and delivered a Direction. It, too, had NO extension in Space, but could genuinely be related to other such Abstractions, thereby beginning to define both a Direction - and ultimately Mathematics!

Next came The Plane - and then, an extended series of others, that because of the unique disembodied relations to others of the same kind, could indeed, deliver a consistent set of extractions from Reality, which could not only be useful, but, because of their nature, deliver a Fixed System of such relations.

They had invented a Pluralist System! Now, this could seem to be a useless, if consistent System, but it turned out to be very close indeed to what Mankind had found to be the easiest way, to not only make sense of a version of Reality-as-is, but also to actually make things too.

The only way to do anything with situations in the Real World, was, first, to hold them resolutely still - as in all technology and the Scientific Method itself. This necessarily involved keeping all used situations as simple and unchanging as possible, so they were already attempting to approach the perfection of what was to become necessary for Mathematics to be legitimately applied to it.

So, the new intellectual gains made by the Greeks, coupled with the well-established Pragmatism given by "If it works, it is right!", definitively defined the Technological Ideal for getting reality to behave as desired, and indeed as required!

Now, also, these procedures fitted in well with giving sizes to the actual processes occurring in Reality, because all the measurements, with regard to some kind of Scale, was as important in trying to explain phenomena causally.

And, long before Quantitative Laws were crucial in identifying under exactly what circumstances significant Qualitative Changes occurred, and thereby suggesting Causes! They could be loosely correlated to such changes in Qualities, even if the reasons extracted were NOT Quantitative Laws, but Additional Qualitative Explanations.

Thus, Separate Explanatory Reasons necessarily grew up alongside Quantitative Laws, which though they related to Quantitative values, NEVER actually explained Why Qualitative Changes occurred, but only When!

Indeed, no strictly Quantitative Law could EVER explain any Qualitative Change. They may be associated, but NEVER causally!

However - as they say - "The tail can wag the dog!". and it did so technologically, leaving the explanations as to Why, NEVER addressed.

So Technology developed apace, leaving Explanations increasingly unaddressed.

Indeed, any remaining causal Explanations were relegated to be an accompanying narrative ONLY.

So, these two approaches almost became Different Disciplines - named Technology and Science!

Therefore, the Technology was more about Delivery. While the Science was increasingly Speculative, rather than Explanatory.

And, the surprising thing was that these two cores were increasingly made subordinate to any Mathematical Relations that had been fitted-up to measured data sets, acquired by these two sets of Experts, who had somehow to work together.

But, in watching a recent historical account on YouTube, put together by Gareth Samual (See the Pattern), where his stepping stones to a Theory of the Ether were always the Equations resulting from the various theoretical investigations - always "validated" only by successful predicted use. But, literally NONE of them were correct, and Samuel explained that effective predictions could be achieved with formulae, in which as many as 20 different constants had been included, yet they had NO real physical determinators within Concrete Reality, and were merely only "adjusted-to-fit"!

Also in Drummett's extended piece upon Frege, he frequently referred to Logic as both Absolute-and-Given, which, most certainly it isn't!

So, the question arises, "Exactly where was that System of Reasoning originally established absolutely" - which without any doubt, was supposedly achieved in the Greek Intellectual Revolution, of the 5th Century BC, where it defined the elements of Euclidian Geometry as:

Absolute Relational Abstractions

which it was intended only to apply to these very unusual types of relational entities, which are certainly NOT the case generally in All Reasoning, and most certainly NOT the only ones used in what he calls Logic!

 

 

Special Issue 72: Holist Science

 

Read Special Issue 72 of SHAPE Journal

The problem we’re faced with in developing a holistic approach to Science involves the unavoidable complexities and interactions of multiple simultaneous aspects of Reality-as-is. Indeed, they initially seemed to be so insurmountable, that Mankind came to believe that underlying all the evident and confusing complexity, there had to be an integrating simplicity at its heart. Otherwise, how could all the clearly evident regularity and even the exquisite beauty of the Natural World have arisen? Our forebears concluded that it might well be revealable, with the appropriate processing. For, if this could be achieved, the revealed Simple Laws of Nature (applied within those same ideal conditions) would allow them to be purposely used to Mankind’s own conceived of benefits.

In fact, a great variety of things coexist within all Natural Environments! For, as we are already beginning to understand today -

First: Single laws do not usually exist as such: they are invariably acting simultaneously. with many
others.

Second: The contributions of given factors, in a natural collection of Laws, will never be fixed, they will
all perhaps vary!

Third: Individual Laws will never stay exactly the same: they will be influenced and changed by other simultaneously-acting Laws.

Fourth: All Laws inevitably Act upon two different Levels of condition:-

a) RANGE LIMIT: Outside of a given range the law vanishes, and other factors can change the Law’s Limits.

Outer LAW Limits pertain

b): RANGE: Inside its Range the Law acts, but is nonetheless affected by others

Inner Law pertains

And Mankind’s simplification of all these (and more) effects was to effectively, as far as is possible, “hold a situation-still”, in order to study it. And, of course, how they did that would depend upon circumstances, and what it was they were attempting to reveal. Indeed, they didn’t mind movement and quantitative changes: they could be achieved sufficiently easily.

BUT genuinely Qualitative Changes - when things became something else - were always prohibited! And, all the Laws that were sought, were assumed to exist as such naturally, independently of all others, when they did appear together, they were assumed to merely SUM.

Such a stance conformed exclusively to what we call the Principle of Plurality - the opposite of the Principle of Holism.

Noam Chomsky's Philosophy

Noam Chomsky's intellectual approach (and what it lacks)

After watching the latest video from Noam Chomsky on YouTube - another wide-ranging philosophical contribution upon Human Thinking and Understanding, with its relation to our changing Conceptions of Reality - it became increasingly clear that, to him, this was NOT the development of various different attempts to both formulate accurate accounts describing that Reality, only in the common form of an increasingly competent, developed Language, but also never, as a revealing critique of its current contexts of different Social Organisations, involving ideas for its necessary improvement.

In his dealing with the relations between that Thinking, and the Reality it was attempting to describe, he only considers the internal relations and inadequacies of such Thinking, as the only possible-and-effective means of in any way addressing our world.

It was a wholly intellectual approach!

However, in spite of great historical breadth and an increasing intellectual depth, he also insisted upon what he saw as its intrinsic and sometimes unavoidable failures, as well as its seemingly built-in limitations.

But, Chomsky is neither a Scientist nor an Artisan of any kind: he only contributed conceptions concerned solely with Thinking-as-such, without involving any concrete means of, not only testing his ideas in Reality, but also, as Mankind had always done, not finding solutions in any consequent, concrete interactions within that Reality-as-is!

And, towards his conclusion, it also became clear that he was exclusively describing the imposed, if diverse, stances of various sections of the Ruling Class, as the only possible, as well as unavoidable-and-natural consequences of the processes involved, in only that developing system, over time.

He considered it as the sole engine of all development. He is clearly an Idealist!

So, in spite of his apparently "leftist" reputation, he had literally nothing-to-say about what had occurred in Socialist Thinking, throughout his extensive and detailed contribution. It, overall, reflected the dominant Liberal/Left Stance, most clearly exemplified in US politics, and, consequently-and-crucially also had absolutely nothing to say about real Social Alternatives, or amazingly, even intellectually about the major Pluralist/Holist diversions in Human Thinking within the last 2,500 years!

He was, therefore, wholly preoccupied with only what he saw to be both the only real means of progress, as well as the Natural and unavoidable limitations of that same Human Thinking: and consequently-but-inadvertantly, went on to demonstrate that very same limitation, even in his own analysis, dictated by his chosen-and-privileged ideas of intellectuals ONLY!

Noam Chomsky on Natural Law

At no point, did he ever address the Idealism and Materialism aspects of Philosophy, and, in particular, had zero to say upon the Dialectical Materialism of Karl Marx, and its role in the Major Social Revolutions of the 20th century. Nor, of course, did he trace the declines, both in historical gains, and within its own self-defeating short-comings, in the hands of its Theoretical developments and Political Organisational Forms.

Frankly, by his contribution in this event, you would think that he had given an extremely comprehensive account, but that was very far from the Truth. Indeed, the actual significant interactions of openly Marxist Parties in the active motivation of the Masses, into effective political action, including their damaged successes in the largely still-feudal countries, such as Russia and China, and their universal failures in the advanced Capitalist Countries of the West.

And, of course, absolutely NO acknowledgement of the fact that Dialectical Materialism was never ever comprehensively extended beyond the area of Capitalist Economics - including absolutely no such attempt to develop that key methodology across the whole range of Sciences, or absolutely crucially into either Philosophy or Language - so that consequently, it had nothing to say upon the reactionary developments in Sub Atomic Physics, and no absolutely essential and transforming contributions in Biology - particularly concerning the study of Evolution.

It was clear that throughout this presentation, Chomsky was NOT explaining his position to ordinary working people - for his whole approach was aimed at privileged middle class intellectuals, like himself, as the language he used totally betrayed his target audience, very clearly indeed!

And, I have myself suffered from exactly that type of deliberate exclusion - for though I have worked as a professional educator all my adult life, my paternal Grandmother could neither read nor write, and my Father (her son) was always an unskilled labourer. Throughout my successful career, I always refused to ape "my betters", and kept my Northern Working Class accent! So, I was usually treated as someone, who wouldn't understand the intricacies of Real Intellectual Argument, until I deigned to join in and prove the theses of "my self-assumed betters" wrong!

The method always employed in such Public Lectures (and Discussions) always uses the Names or Titles of Arguments, rather than explaining their actual contents, so that, unless you are constantly involved in such ideas with all of your time, you would not know what they meant, and your consequent "lack of understanding" would invariably be put down to your stupidity. And so, to terminate any possible explanations from me, the deliverer would show great surprise at one's ignorance of such essential Titles!

My own education, concentrating primarily upon Theoretical Physics and Mathematics, of course suffered from the same "Intellectualism", as I am here describing with Chomsky. But my Working Class background indelibly imprinted by my upbringing and status, always impelled me to attempt to transcend its clear limitations. Initially this broadened my interests to include, first Painting, and then Sculpture, and finally Computing - and slowly, in particular, due to the way I was treated in my chosen career. I was first a schoolteacher among my own Social Class, and then later in a Grammar School (educating the children of the Middle Class), after which I spent 10 years in a Further Education College teaching mature Working Class students how to program computers, along with the very best skill training Engineers for Local Industries.

I finally, after many rejections, I got a post in Higher Education, but it was only possible by attempting to get such a post abroad. I got a job in a Polytechnic in Hong Kong, where I was soon promoted to Senior Lecturer. And returning home to the UK on completion of my contract, I got a similar post in Glasgow in Scotland, where within 2 years, I was promoted to Principle Lecturer.

I decided to terminate my teaching, and concentrated instead solely upon devising and producing tailor-made Computer Software aids for researchers across the whole range of disciplines, which significantly adjusted my conceptions of Theory: as I had to help deliver exactly what my Discipline Expert Required!

And during the 1980s, many important Programmes and published research Papers were produced.

Finally, in a Director of Computing role, first in Bedford and finally in London University, I worked with an exceptional teacher of Dance Performance and Choreography, to deliver the Control and Flexibility she required, in using recorded footage of exemplar performances, that was subsequently used all over the world.

This career was sadly terminated early due to ill health, but working entirely from home I continued producing original research and software tools, and when this became impossible due to my failing eyesight, I worked with my son, Michael, who by then was a PhD, and a lecturer in Leeds University, to attempt to tackle the inadequacies of Intellectualism in Philosophy!

SHAPE Journal was my attempt to tackle Philosophy differently... 

This undertaking has taken me 14 years, 12 of these publishing over 150 issues of SHAPE Journal and this blog, involving over 1,000 separate papers. The initial project was to tackle the mess descended into within Modern Sub Atomic Physics, particularly addressing the Copenhagen Interpretation of Quantum Theory, and the Modern Version of Cosmology, arising from the Copenhagen Stance. And latterly an extension of Dialectical Materialism in dealing with Modern Science...

Now, I will not even try, at this stage, to "correct" Chomsky's claims on the impossibility of explaining Effective Causal Explanations, which is the universal cornerstone of all his diverse arguments about the Impossibility of Real Understanding - because, in his particular restricted presentation of that problem, he was correct! 

But, in spite of his seemingly comprehensive arguments, he omitted (or more likely was totally unaware of) the effect of the alternative to his universally Pluralistic intellectual stance, in all the means that he referred to in his otherwise comprehensive treatment. And that was because, ever since the Greek Intellectual Revolution, almost 2,500 years ago, the only way literally ANY consistent and effective Rationality was considered possible, was by limiting the experiences involved to solely pluralist situations - which did NOT allow any real Qualitative changes, and, hence, would, if rigorously implemented, profoundly limit all relations to fixed exclusively quantitative Laws, so the Rationality involved could never ever explain the real Essence of an Evolving Reality, which is therefore definitely limited to both Constant Laws, and only episodic, and always inexplicable Qualitative Changes - NEVER involving significantly any reasons for those changes.

And, to ever address explicitly such changes, situations would have to be Holistic - as was defined at the same time as the Greek Intellectual Revolution, but wholly separately, by The Buddha, many thousands of miles away in India!

Now, neither subsequent Western Plurality nor Eastern Holism, ever dealt comprehensively-and-explicably with a qualitatively developing World, and Mankind's uses of their consequent ideas to understand Actual Development does not yet exist!

For, Reality does not conform completely, with either of these simplifications of it, mainly because, in both cases, the occurrence of the many, clearly obvious Stabilities, were never understood correctly!

Plurality, in fact, made Stability the basis of Everything! Whereas Holism failed to understand their persisting occurrences, completely, making Constant Change its credo! And Mankind, for a very long period indeed, could countenance no other method, when relying exclusively upon a Single Conformity occurring straight-through all possibilities.

The idea of an actually-existing Hierarchy of different Rationalities, at different Levels, as well as the actual causal connections occurring between those apparently independent Levels, were for a long period, totally outside of any such considered possibilities - until thinkers like Karl Marx and Charles Darwin began to reveal irrefutable evidence of such important natural transitions, simultaneously with innumerable contradictory components, strongly keeping situations as they were over long periods of time!

How can you even approach these questions without reference to Marx and Darwin?

Indeed, Contradiction was considered an absolute anathema!

And until Contradiction was properly understood (outside of the formalisms of Logic), such changes would certainly remain wholly inexplicable - and so they are inexplicable to Chomsky! In the universally-applied Mathematical Rationality, all Contradiction was dismissed as impossible, and therefore revealing an error of Logic! And, it wasn't until Mankind's breadth of Study was extended well beyond the Strictly Local, in both Time and Space, that such things could no longer be avoided.

Nevertheless, most "theorists" had developed their theories separated from the Real World, and instead as a wholly cerebral exercise, and so could never personally implement any of their then necessary experiments, so to even carry them out they had to employ skilled artisans and engineers, to achieve behaving systems for them.Yet, their both avid and universal subscription to the Principle of Plurality, could not be lightly dumped, as it did successfully "legitimise" the reliable Production of manufactured goods, both solved-and-delivered by those artisans and workers, and especially for the leisured intellectuals, who were never involved successfully in such activities anyway, and so didn't consider whether they were legitimate or not - but only that they delivered the objects and services that they required.

Yet, an ever-growing army of artisans and engineers, whose credo pragmatic credo was "If it works, it is right!", were increasingly rejecting the intellectual, theoretical stances of the scientists, and, in particular, the incredible-but-necessary theoretical assumptions of Modern Sub Atomic Theory, and always instead trusted their own Pragmatic arrangements and understandings, at which they were the consummate masters, and were always relied upon by those theorists, to make their experiments fit their way-out theories!

You may well wonder how this arrangement ever worked out, until, that is, you see the kind of Mathematics that the theorists always resorted to, to make it fit. For that Discipline, being wholly Pluralistic, naturally extended well beyond Reality-as-is, and well-into Ideality, so when the technicians were setting up the required experiment, they too could do the Maths, so they would physically organise the experiment to artificially deliver exactly what the Pluralist Theory predicted!

It was an unhappy coalition, as far as the pragmatists were concerned, and they increasingly began to look elsewhere for Real Theory. This situation has led, in Physics, to what is termed The Electric Universe alternative! And while this alternative was compromised by its Pragmatism, it has certainly challenged the conformist position in both Sub Atomic Physics and Cosmology, with valuable and demanding alternatives!

You can read more about the pros and cons of this in the latest issue of SHAPE journal:

Issue 72 of SHAPE Journal: Is the Universe Electric?

 

Read the Issue

What is the Electric Universe? 

This edition examines the controversial Electric Universe group of physicists and their ideas, comparing them to the consensus position in Cosmology, and attempting to reveal both of their inadequacies, regarding a shared basis in Pluralist thinking. 

If we were to judge Electric Universe solely by their representation in the mainstream media and in popular science writing, we would quickly discard their contribution entriely, as pseudo-scientific conspiracy theories, lacking in any evidence or even brand it a dubious cult. Have a little read of this article from Vice magazine for a flavour of the discourse in question. Electric Universe adherents are called believers, rather than investigators, in the writing, and the substance of their ideas is written-off as total crackpottery. 

SHAPE Journal takes a more nuanced position to these matters. There are certainly major problems with much of what falls under the Electric Universe banner - but the project seems to be a surprisngly broad church - and one that welcomes many outsider scientists and non-conformist thinkers in Physics, that actually have something worthwhile to say. Some of the research undertaken by people affiliated or associated with the Electric Universe, is actually rather good indeed - but doesn’t seem to benefit in terms of credibility, from their link with EU. 

The Electric Universe was established by Wallace Thornhill in 1994, and now has a fervant worldwide following and annual conference. In 2007, Thornhill published a book with David Talbott under the same name, and this became something of a bible for the movement, alongside the film they made, Thunderbolts of the Gods. The guiding principal, is that electricity is the most important force in the Universe and Plasma is the dominant form of matter. 

Jim Schofield first became aware of Thornhill on Youtube, during the early stages of his research into Substrate Theory, as Thornhill also seemed to insinuate the presence of some hidden substrate - a sort of reformulated Aether theory being necessary to explain the propogation of Electromagnetic radiation across the Universe. He also seemed to reject the mathematical reductionism in Physics that Schofield was pushing against in his own research. Unfortunately, Thornhill went no further down this road - and it quickly became apparent that the leader of this movement had no coherent integrated basis for these ideas, no over-arching theory at all in fact - and that he and his closest followers were worryingly prone to fishy mythological references and conjecture, relying on rhetoric rather than evidence to support their arguments. Despite all of the gaps, the absence of evidence for many of their ideas and lack of quality control on the research that falls under the EU umbrella, there is some interesting stuff to be found there - Gareth Samuel’s “See the Pattern” videos being one such example.

Plasma research and Plasma Cosmology theories seem to be the source of the best contributions the extended Electric Universe family has to offer. Work on plasma filaments, the Structured Atomic Model and various hints at some electrical medium pervading space, all have potential with verifiable ideas being postulated. 

Both Plasma Cosmology and Jim Schofield’s Substrate Universe, attempt somewhat similar things - reexplaining physical phenomena in space, using only known particles of matter (Leptons) in various different arrangements and states, linking up the Universe in various ways, allowing the propagation of EM radiation and the construction of vast electrical and magnetic fields, if not gravitational ones too. Both offer materialist solutions without recourse to the mathematical idealism we see in the mainstream - spooky action at a distance, Quantum Entanglement or Uncertainty, for example. 

It certainly seems possible that these nascent sciences could end up supporting one another, or even combining, to construct a new view of the physical Universe grounded solidly in material reality, and its observable electromagnetic properties. For this reason, and others, Jim Schofield has given the Electric Universe gang a little more time than most theoretical physicists would, with particular interest in the front line of Plasma research. 

Digging deeper reveals other important connections. For Schofield, Eric Lerner’s research into Plasma and Fusion Reaction, is some of most exciting happening today - certainly pointing towards a much more holistic way of conducting Physics research, and scientific experiments, more broadly. 

Although not directly associated with Electric Universe, in the video below we see Lerner talking with Gareth Samuel about Fusion Energy, Plasma and Cosmology. The unacknowledged role that Plasma plays in the Universe is of key concern to both Lerner and the wider Electric Universe crowd, who see plasma filaments as vital to linking up their electrical stars and galaxies. 

Whether or not all these ideas have much merit, Lerner has certainly shown both the importance of Plasma in understanding the Universe, and that much of the received wisdom in Cosmology is not settled at all - the Electric nature of the Universe is still open to question.

Issue 72

What is the Philosophy of Mathematics?

 

Worlds created from abstractions are virtual, not real

What is Mathematics?

And what is its Relationship to Reality?

I have been looking for satisfactory answers to the questions above for sometime - none are forthcoming! Having just watched a couple of lecture videos on Youtube - one by Ray Monk on The Philosophy of Mathematics and another via Google Talks by a Dr. Stephens on Emmie Noether, my question (posed by the title to this paper), that literally demands to be addressed, remains unanswered. It was needed to clear up exactly where Reality-as-is terminates, and the products of Human Thinking, both claim to take over and intervene, by Reversing-the-Process, and beginning instead to contribute to the actual defining of "A Reality" via man-made Purely Formal Relational System!

The Ray Monk video

Indeed, though not admitted as such, that actual change was one of the unavoidably Key Products of the Greek Intellectual Revolution of the 5th century BC, when a successful attempt to do precisely that was actually made possible by their invention-and-use of certain

Simplifying Relational Abstractions

applied to concretely impossible, yet mathematically essential relations, between such things as:

               

- Points with zero parts

- Lines with zero thickness 

- Planes with zero depth

For it was these abstractions, and these alone, that made Mathematics possible, by restricting the whole exercise, with such transforming physical constraints: that they also made all subsequent relations in that discipline to become Forever Fixed in quality! Everything was made, by these changes, to conform to an essential

Principle of Plurality

- but though easy to validly insist upon, within the Realm of Pure Forms alone, it was wholly impossible to apply in Concrete Reality-as-is! So, when usefully applied to "such a Reality", that too, ALSO just had to be majorly-constrained to deliver only such necessarily-Fixed-Relations- achieved by forcibly-limiting the situation involved, into a rigidly-constrained Stability - indeed, into a guaranteed Pluralist Situation, to enable Mathematics to be effectively-used.

Therefore: Reality is NOT revealed by Mathematics!

Reality has to be made to conform to our abstractions.

However, such seemingly-unchanging Stabilities can occur naturally, and often do if only temporarily, AND, in addition, man-made Pluralist Stabilities were often fairly easy to both construct-and-maintain: the consequently extract Pluralist Laws, from both such contexts, were then further-assumed to be the Natural Truth, but usually often hidden under many overlying and masking extras. 

So, this major and false inversion, promoted Pluralist Laws as the "Actual Truths of Reality", and material Reality-as-is was demoted into becoming "a misleading fiction"! And, consequently, all arranged-for situations in Production, which obeyed those Pluralist Laws, were wrongly seen as exposing the "Real Underlying Reality" of the natural world.

But that isn't True!

Also, all insertions algebraically, from one Pluralist Law into another different one, are totally illegitimate! The whole universally-established Method of Mathematical Rationality as a means-of-extending these discoveries into a comprehensive valid discipline, are also totally mistaken when dealing with Reality-as-is.

But, Mathematical Plurality was universally employed because it validly enabled a whole and successful means of implementing a totally reliable Method of achieving Successful Consequential Productions, merely by breaking the Production Process down into a series of separate individual stages, each with its own physical restrictions and consequent Pluralist Laws!

And paired with the longtime-prior, pragmatist legitimiser of "If it works, it is right!" the New Approach vastly-enlarged what could possibly be done: for the new system was a truly major advance over what it replaced! And, it even encouraged the beginnings of a possible alternative and Causal Approach, with added-in possible notions of exactly why things behaved as they did.

Though the two sets of ideas did not mesh at all well, and Causal Explanations were never an integrated part of the Main System! Explanations provided merely a helpful accompanying narrative. And, any really-attempted causal explanations were restricted only to limited areas of study, which were naturally much closer to Pluralist situations, always due to these sustained periods of "Stability" (which could last millions of years, admittedly) as were evident in the Night Sky of the Heavens!

So, it is not surprising that such an evident conducive Tail would wag the confusing real Dog, and put the usually defeating nature of most of Reality as being due entirely to the large number of different active contributions overlying the hidden significant determinators! So, one way of "revealing" the "main determinator" in a not-too-complex system, would be to purposely-suppress all the "inessentials", and so completely reveal the underlying "main cause".

Science was deliberately converted into a wholly Pluralist Discipline, via Mathematics and pragmatism, because in such arranged-for situations, wholly successful productions were always possible, proving the value of the approach: though, of course, it could not lead to a successful integrated Theoretical System on the natural world - indeed a real Science- but only Technologies, involving many separate, achievable Contributing Productions, but NO integrated-and-cerebly-developable Theory.

Indeed, it is correct to insist that, at best, Mathematics can only deliver a partial Reflection of the Reality it seems to deliver, but simultaneously it can, in addition, deliver a whole collection of related features, BUT ONLY from elsewhere in the involved realm, where Mathematics legitimately reigns- that is within Ideality!

Indeed, Ideality, being only a Conceptual World of Pure Forms alone, enables Mathematics, but NOT Reality, to be infinitely extended! Many of the extensions to Mathematics, brought in to "explain" features of Reality that Plurality fails to deal with, are also totally illegitimate in Reality-as-is, so can tell us Absolutely Nothing: they seem not to exist anywhere in concrete Reality.

Maybe I should mention a few of these, in case you are in doubt!

How about Dark Matter, Dark Energy, Quantum Entanglement, Multiple Universes, The Uncertainty Principle, The Heat Death of the Universe, The Big Bang, Initial Inflation, Infinite Expansion, Normalisation, and many, many more!

But many of the real problems caused by the Illusions of Plurality, can be compounded in various different ways: and perhaps the most important ones are those caused by the mistakes of Plurality, but complicated by the formulaic simplifications caused by substitutions from one pluralist equation into another, because, once two, or more equations have been merged in this way, the result will certainly NOT be delivered by using that combined Form, as the concrete result is never a single process, but still a simultaneous set of mutually effecting processes.

For though we have made a combined single Formula, in Reality such will still be individual processes competing for resources and producing outputs into a general pool of consequent resources, once again to be competed for. Yet, the original amounts of the various components now being lost in the new and different pool!

And the algebraically arrived-at formula cannot in any way mirror what is holistically going on in material Reality. 

And, to complicate things even further, apart from being essential resources, when each process proceeds separately, many secondary products from one process can and will affect another when all happening together: and these will be totally unknown from the wholly separate cases that delivered the supposedly contributing processes... 

A New Kind of Science?

... 

A Critique of - and Alternative to - Stephen Wolfram's

 "New Kind of Science"

With his computer software products of the last 30 years - solely based upon Cellular Automata - Stephen Wolfram builds, by very simple rules, certain surprisingly complex patterns. He compares them with the Binary 1s and 0s in Computing Machine Code where they are used to emulate a whole range of complex systems, that he and the Computing community have developed to a remarkable degree. But here, involving only Black and White identical squares, which via the "Wolfram Language", he has suggested a further, "more basic-and-abstract" set of Software developments, which, he insists, transcend all the anomalies-and-contradictions of the two currently dominant theories in Physics, such as those delivered by both Relativity Theories on the one hand, and Quantum Theories, on the other.

For, he insists that the far-more-basic study of all the results involved in his new kind of simple abstracted elements, are very different from those currently subscribed-to in those "Fundamental Theories" mentioned above. And, to that same end, he has also produced a "Wolfram-based" piece of software, incorporating, in addition, an extensive Knowledge Base, and possible direct access to its solutions, when posed with obviously relevant questions typed into it.

BUT, (and this is most important) he nowhere in his "New Science" addresses any of the causes inherent in those usually Subscribed-to-Areas of Theory and Knowledge, which have always been wholly dependant, ever since the Greek Intellectual Revolution, absolutely solely upon the artificial Rationality of Mathematics.

This foundation was possible due to an invention I have dubbed Simplified Relational Abstractions.

These abstractions were very effective, and have been used ever since, but they are true only in the relationships between Fixed Pure Forms, that always exist only in Forever Fixed Relations to one another (Laws or Rules), and therefore could alone be used, via Theorems and their Proofs, using that unique Mathematical Rationality, which, in order to work at all, just had to conform exactly to The Principle of Plurality.

But Plurality was not, and never can be true, of literally all other Reasoning, which instead must conform to the Principle of Holism, in which all "Laws" or "Rules" eventually vary, and such qualitative changes have to be the sole-means of Rationality, used in tracing out the only possible qualitative changes. Purely quantitative changes can never deal with such areas, and they will definitely include both General Reasoning, and ALL of The Sciences too, for all natural reality evolves and changes over time unless we try and stop it doing so. 

Now, though Plurality can-and-will approximate to Reality within Effectively Stabilised Situations, they are never, as is usually assumed - The Natural Norm of Reality. They are instead actually only temporary, if occasionally very long-lasting interludes, which will always terminate as the nexus of mutually-supporting-factors, are ultimately always and naturally successfully challenged. All Real Qualitative Development simply MUST, and indeed WILL, only conform to Holism.

At the same time as the Ancient Greeks were settling upon Plurality as the means for studying reality, in India - majorly influenced by The Buddha - they were settling instead upon Holism, as the rational Basis of all Reasoning, AND crucially all Development too! But, of course, both of these conceptions were, at that time, inadequately defined, as Mankind was, in both cases, breaking wholly new ground, and as with all such "Incomplete Understanding", it will always turn out to be less-than-sufficient, to include all the relevant factors.

Indeed, a crucial tenet of Modern 21st Century Holism, stresses the unavoidable multifarious basis of all Reality-as-is, as being inevitably composed of many different-yet-simultaneous factors - all of which do NOT just SUM, but actually affect one-another continually and qualitatively.

So, Causality in Fixed-Law Plurality, and hence also in Wolfram's identically philosophically-based stance, all fixed Rules are either ON or OFF, and can only Quantitatively SUM, when acting simultaneously with other Pluralist Laws. 

However, in Holism which more accurately represents how physical reality behaves, a huge variety of interactions are possible - all of which can change-each-other in various ways. While overall - taking all of them together, actually produce a range of diverse, consequent Phases, depending upon the weights, but also crucially the kinds, of the influences involved. The crucial thing about Plurality, is that the Laws cannot change qualitatively, and, as such, remain fixed no matter what the containing circumstances are.

But, the same cases within Holism, because of their mutually modifying effects, infer an almost continuous variation in how they all act: including, once changed, how they then react-back-upon what changed them, and, indeed, change that too, in consequence! You are bound, therefore, to get both Recursion, and even the ultimate appearance of the Wholly New: where it WILL, in such circumstances, also be the Emergence of total Novelty - real Qualitative Development is therefore not only possible, but inevitable - and this is reflected in the dynamic reality we observe.

Now, additionally, there will also be actual contention- indeed sometimes all the way to processes producing the Direct Opposites of other processes. And the amount of such opposition, will vary in various ways from effectively Ignorable in one direction, all the way to Total Cancellation, with neither process NOT having any effect, on to the Total Dominance of one over the other (and all states in between these distinctive Phases). And Recursion will also guarantee that the many modifying Effects will "in sum" create constant variations in literally everything, though itself will be adjusted by the sizes of the differently-acting Opposites.

Now, in such a melée, it seems inevitable that very long-lasting Stabilities could, and occasionally would, be totally impossible, but that turns out to be incorrect! Indeed, when the above relations, all acting together, work themselves out, a kind of Balanced Stability is achieved, with the diametrically opposite processes controlling groups of situations into constantly varying, yet effectively "constant" results by a built-in entire controlling into a "Negating Balance of Opposites", which whenever an unbalancing commences, quite mechanistically also varies what will change it back in the opposite direction: though all such operations occur over very short time-spans.

Interestingly, these "Balanced Stabilities" are NEVER permanent, and in rare Crisis Situations, can and indeed do, carry on into overall avalanches of collapses of all the Balanced Stabilities into a total Dissolution of the overall System of them, into what appears to be Total Chaos! The name usually applied to these situations when we observe them in society, is a Revolution, but similar patterns are observable in natural development too - and its following resolution into a New System of balanced stabilities, if such occurs, is termed philosophically, an Emergence.

Stephen Wolfram

Now, all of these criticisms of Plurality, also apply equally well to Wolfram's new alternative Science: so it is certainly no solution to the myriad problems associated with the Pluralist Stance - the well-beloved mathematical view - and the crisis it has precipitated in Physics.

So, now, we must begin to adequately equip a genuinely New Kind of Science - based resolutely in a New Holism - as the old historical version of holistic thinking is, as yet, ill-equipped for the necessary task of solving Science's philosophical inadequacies. 

We dealt with some possible new Holistic approaches in the last issue of SHAPE Journal - Circles, Spirals and Helices

Now, both the problems, and the virtues, of the Holist Stance arise from its maximal variability! For, without any Stable Waystations being available within its Reasoning, all Explanations get turned into different seemingly Infinite Regressions. So, there have to be both Processes and consequent achieveable Waystation States, wherein reasonably "long-lasting Interludes of Relative Stability are achievable, where in, in some cases at least, the old pluralist methods could still be used within the achieved Temporary Stabilities. BUT, it could never extend to predicting those States' guaranteed terminations, and, crucially, what they would then be replaced by. Indeed, ALL Qualitatuive Changes are totally beyond Plurality!

So, even in the best of circumstances, the actual trajectory of all Development is always unavoidably due to a kind of ever-present Blind Holism - it can never describe exactly what you will get in such Holistic Changes! But, Reality is never in a single Universe-wide State. It is inevitably structured as a Hierarchy of Levels, and within those Levels of Further separate Localities - all ruled by Holism, but everywhere attaining temporary interludes of Stability - both achieved, maintained and ultimately terminated along with its temporarily "stable states".

Let us begin to investigate just how these are achieved!

Here again we must approach "Circles, Spirals and Helices", because it is never in single instances that qualitatively changed Compositions, and, therefore caused flips to alternate States, are thereby achieved: it can only happen in constantly repeated Cycles of Processes, which, alone, can over-time dramatically change compositions, and hence ultimately precipitate Wholly New Outcomes. Indeed, such changes, initially, have negligible effects: but, nevertheless, they will be affecting many different simultaneous processes - to different extents - until the whole system flips-over into a series of different modes, each of which, either settle into a self-adjusted relatively stable state, or precipitate an overall collapse into a major Qualitative Change!

The Cyclic Nature of the System, both "steadies the boat", in one sense, by briefly returning to previous conditions, but also ensures Cumulative Build-Ups, that take the System to Wholly New Circumstances. The multi-factor nature of these Cyclic Systems is governed by the multiple simultaneous interactions, which can both steady things, or alternatively build-up to destructive proportions.

It is the former of these two alternatives that usually dominates, and ensures that the situation remains stable most of the time - look at the cyclical stabilities of atoms, metabolic pathways, ecosystems, orbits in planetary systems and the fusion reactions in stars. These recurrent stabilities throughout nature allow us to use Plurality and Mathematics to understand their forms, but we understand nothing about their underlying dynamics, lifespans or origins. 

These cyclical stabilities boil down to the unavoidable Causal Dominance of Diametrical Opposites: for ONLY these can oppose their opposites, entirely cancel their effects, and maybe even precipitate their individual domination or even demise!

Now, these latter paragraphs reflect the very different Nature of Holistic interactions. They not only differ from the usual Pluralistic Causality, but can actually take different consequent and even diametrically opposite paths. So, there is a great deal more to it, than I have inferred here.

Holistic Rationality is still in its infancy, and that also means that Holistic Science (especially in subjects like Physics), is practically non-existent! We see its origins in the Dialectical Materialism of Karl Marx, both in History and in Capitalist Economics, but even that took Marx the rest of his life to just begin the process, AND even in those areas it has to be constantly updated with new study, for nothing we discover is fixed like in Mathematics, everything constantly evolves!


ASIDE:

I cannot let this important passage pass, without describing its relationship to "Balanced Stabilities". For these are the Holistic Equivalents of all the Supposedly Basic, and potentially-permanent Stabilities in Plurality.

But, of course, they are in fact the very Opposite of Basic, and are, somehow, actively-maintained as Stable (presumably via the cumulative effects of processes in Repeating Cycles), which usually effectively eliminate all destructive contributions by the ever increasing successes of Pairs of Diametrical Opposites, not only selectively eliminating all others, but also, settling into whole sets of Balanced Pairs of opposites, acting as self-adjusting maintainers of the achieved Overall Stability.

Now, the switches, from absolutely NO causally-explained Qualitative changes, as in all Pluralist Science, is still not universally accepted, as most scientists actually recognise such changes, but either totally fail to explain what causes them, and/or just signal-and-describe, rather than explain, the occurrence of such changes, by merely noting-when the exceeding of a previously observed and thereafter known threshold occurs, and the consequent switching to a different behaviour then happens, without any explanation for that change in the Science.

Clearly, this tells us nothing: but such was the established norm, with the various behaviours considered to be adequately described by mathematical equations - that have been fitted-up to measured values from experiments, and both dominated by, and sufficient for, Effective Pragmatic Use (or Technology) only, but often with little or no explanation of Reality (or Science).

The "use-tail" therefore always wagged the "explanatory dog"!

And with the dexterity of Human Hands, tool-making and the development of our intelligence, even that had been sufficient to transform their World and Lives truly significantly! With the gains of the Greek Intellectual Revolution, Humanity would continue to do so for still more millennia.

But a New Approach (as yet undefined) was even then, clamouring-at-the-Door! It was the need for a deeper Understanding of our world, and therefore Real Explanation of its mysterious and dynamic nature. Now there had been many failed attempts to do this in human history, via Magic, Chance, Religion or even the Plans of Great or Wise Leaders, but what was already becoming possible were the emerging means of investigating aspects of Reality - in order to really Understand them - not the Technology which took over, but Science itself!

But the steadfast commitment to Plurality was already deflecting attention, even then, into only Fixed Laws limited to constrained contexts: and the vast majority of Causal Systems were not Pluralistic at all! So what began to be discovered were individual Laws, within rigidly-maintained circumstances, but never how those limitations and their necessarily Fixed Laws could be transcended, which was still causally unknown!

Two millennia ago, The Buddha was already developing an alternative approach, which later became known as Holism: and slowly the dynamics of Natural Qualitative Change began to be attempted to be addressed by human beings - but still not yet via a developed System of proven ideas, though, initially, at least, by continuing re-assessments and occasional profound Thought - and always available for improvement.

https://writings.stephenwolfram.com/2017/06/oh-my-gosh-its-covered-in-rule-30s/

But, in Science, that approach was minimally developed because of the Pluralist Myth that absolutely everything can be adequately addressed by Fixed Laws alone. They most certainly cant!And, what is almost entirely undeveloped in Physics, for example, are the Dynamical Emergences of Qualitative Changes, as causally explained phenomena.

Yet that is absolutely imperative, if Science is to form a basis for most Reliable Understanding: and we must start with how they work within recurring processes as in Cycles, as in Orbits and in Spins.

With the one-off occurrence of an effect, qualitative changes are likely to be small and soon swamped by a cascade of other very different ones. But, in constantly repeated, seemingly-identical cycles, such changes can, and indeed often do, accumulate into an ever growing Effect, which can ultimately become dominant, and flip the whole situation into a different mode! Now, such things can literally never happen with Fixed Pluralist Singly-happening Laws: but, with collections of multiple, different and simultaneous Holistic sets of Laws, particularly in repeated Cycles, they could be very likely indeed.

But, such changes within an Holistic set of laws can do several very different things! They can establish temporary Stabilities for long periods. Aberrations can cause the total collapse of such a Stability. Cycles can selectively eliminate aberrations in Systems. They can allow Qualitative Changes in Real Development. 

And, as the common form of "Stability" in a Holistic World, it is only ever temporarily delivered within a Balanced Stability of many laws - linked Laws primarily in Balanced Pairs of Diametrical Opposites, such aberrations though similarly ineffectual singly, are on the contrary, within constantly repeated Cycles, highly likely to grow, for though normally singly eliminated by the self-adusting Pairs, which can usually overcome a single aberration, they will, on the contrary, be highly susceptible within constantly repeated identical Cycles, so such aberrations can then accumulate over many repeats, which can in some circumstances even precipitate a complete dissolution of the system - not only of single Balanced Pairs, but could, along with others, dissociate an entire Balanced Stability.

In an Holistic situation Formal Logic doesn't hold! 

But it is still Causal!

Many simultaneous causes contend!

You have to reveal The Whole Mix!

But, notice that, because any diametrical opposites will mutually-cancel, they will not be easily eliminated: on the other hand, less related and thereby balanced-and-maintained components, will instead be selectively-eliminated over the constant, successive repeats of the ongoing Cycles - to leave only the more retainable content over time!


ASIDE:

The Nature of Modern Holism, not appreciated until very recently, now involves very different dynamic scenarios to those of the usual Pluralist Stance, because the simultaneous interactions of multiple contending and modifying factors, are now seen to involve a whole range of different outcomes, that were wholly inconceivable previously in Plurality.

Indeed, even The Tetralemma, as mentioned in the writings of many Buddhist Philosophers, that listed the 4 conceivable judgements, that cover all the possible applicabilities of such ideas - indeed that they can be

True

or Untrue,

both True & Untrue,

or neither True or Untrue

- instead of being only absolutely unexplained Descriptions, are now each capable of being covered by a series of rational explanations for the first time.

And the initial places these began to become possible were in changing contents and ultimately outcomes of constantly repeated Cycles!

Now, this development has already precipitated an alternative to the usual Pluralist Theories dominating current Cosmology: as they have led to a rejection of the usual Theories particularly concerned with the Origin and Subsequent Development of the Whole Universe. Indeed, all sorts of extensions to Reality are referred-to, in compiling current explanations in this significant area of ideas, actually taking most of them well beyond Reality and Deep into the heart of Ideality!

Yet, the sort of possibilities now being revealed concerning Natural Electricity and Magnetism, are not only providing a fully-explicable "Non-Big-Bang" beginning to Everything, and thereby not only providing an alternative initial primarily Electromagnetic Origin, but also delivering the best chance, today for a Nuclear Fusion means of providing Electricity in the near Future, with the efforts of Eric Lerner and his Fusion Focus team in New Jersey, USA!

So, a major New Intellectual Revolution is at least nigh, if not already underway, which will change literally every aspect of our Philosophy and Culture, if carried-through to completion, or their ultimate demise if not.

Now this paper commenced with the proposed alternative deep mathematical abstractions of Stephen Wolfram, but in taking this new Holistic Route to Understanding has expounded the real way forwards, while also demonstrating the truly vast, indeed Infinite extent of Ideality, that seduces with its detail, but nevertheless leads Mankind only into the Swamps of Myth!

There is a New Kind of Science on the way, but it isn't Wolfram's.

Science must break free of Mathematics and Pluralist thinking to deal head-on with the dynamic, evolving, material and Holist Universe we actually inhabit, for the first time.

The Problem with Classroom Physics

Semi-Pluralist Science: 

Schoolroom Physics

Having watched a video from the USA supposedly presenting the very best of Schoolroom Demonstration Experiments in Physics, I immediately recognised exactly the kinds of experiment that was done in my own own school as a boy, when I first started studying the subject.

For, I am now able to see why my efforts, and that of my fellow pupils', in those unavoidably delivered circumstances, were, (despite my being proven as excellent at the theory) all so poor when it came to experiments, and also why some of my fellows students did so well in that area.

For, whereas I did exactly as I was told, and consequently got the poor results, in fact, all of these poorly-equipped investigators should have affected everybody, yet at least some of my fellow students "looked up the expected answers", or asked previous year students, to see what they should be getting, and made damn sure they got something like that themselves! But, I was convinced by the Theory, and expected invaluable confirmation in the "proving experiments", so when they didn't, I accepted that I was a lousy experimenter!

And, it didn't get much better, as an undergraduate at University. For, once again, I was a top student at Physics Theory, but "poor" in experimental work! Nevertheless, I still usually ended up top, particularly in Mathematics, which did seem to conform exactly with Real World applications.

And it is only now, a lifetime later, that I can clearly see what was amiss...

Even in Higher Education, most of my peers had quickly learned to cheat, for the Experiments were both too badly conceived-of, and even set-up, to ever give correct answers. So, while I misguidedly struggled to find "The Truth", in what I believed to be the true scientific way, my fellows just wanted the right answers and got them by other means.

Sadly, these experiences put me off Experimental Physics, though I continued to excel at Theory: and I consequently had many rows with the postgraduate "demonstrators" who were supposed to aid undergraduates with their experiments. And, as they were the only real contacts between the Staff and the students, my stock with the powers that be in the department was soon declining rapidly...

And it is only now that I know why!

The reason was that the Pluralistic Mathematics intimately-involved in both in how the experiments were conceived-of and carried out, and even in the so-called Theory that we were taught, were mutually gelled-together, as well as possible, between the two, but only if "correctly" carried out "perfectly" on the experimental side. But, neither side actually delivered Reality-as-is at all!

The crudity of the Experiments meant that the matching with results became increasingly difficult, and even often impossible to obtain, and if and when they did, it was NEVER the sought for Truth, but an approximation based squarely upon an assumption of permanently Fixed Laws.

NOTE:

Indeed, this major error, over many years, had separated those involved, into those delivering Experiments, and the Theorists who interpreted them, into two very uncomfortable groups of bedfellows, who, nevertheless, were indispensable to one another - precisely because of their very different priorities in maintaining a simplifying fiction.

So, by my fellow students cheating, the true inadequacies of the Experiments were masked, and, consequently, literally no-one was comprehensively adequately trained in all aspects of Experimental work. Indeed, if by some prior good teacher of experimental work, a particular student actually got exactly what the experiment could deliver, it would, nevertheless, be marked as wrong, because it would still NOT exactly match with the "Theory"!

Let us see why such a scenario was wholly unavoidable.

Ever since the Greeks, the Results of Experiments were always treated totally pluralistically! All were aimed for particular Laws, that were assumed to be naturally forever FIXED.

Nature was falsely assumed to work only via such eternally Fixed Laws. 

But the real unfettered world is not fixed in such a way, and to get anywhere even reasonably near to that situation, the rigid control-and-maintainance of the constitution of the Experiment would have to be absolutely perfect: and that, of course, was almost impossible to achieve without great expense and sufficient time being allocated to ensuring that supposed "perfection".

And, needless-to-say, that didn't ever happen with entirely student-run lab experiments!

By the way, in Professional Science contexts, the experimenters and practical product deliverers were Technologists rather than Scientists, while the theorist interpreters of the resulting data were the actual Scientists.

Any Fixed Laws, extracted in such experiments, were never generally applicable either: they would only behave as such if the Applying situation was totally identical to the Extracting one - the complete control of these environments is technology!

Modern physics is impossible without advanced technology

So, in other words, the true guardians and implementers of the aimed-for Pluralist Science were ONLY EVER the Technologists.

The scientists, on the other hand, were initially holists, seeking Natural Laws, which in that Real World of multiple simultaneous and mutually-affecting Laws, were impossible to extraxt as such, without a radical pruning and thereafter continued rigid control of the situation: and that could NEVER reveal the same Law, as applied in Reality-as-is.

For the Laws did not just SUM: they changed one another in various different qualitative ways! So the Laws in Experiments were DIFFERENT to those Laws in Reality-as-is!

A FIXED Law as was evident in a perfect Pluralist Experiment, actually never existed as such anywhere in Reality-as-is!

Now, for Science-in-General, and even in the professional World of scientific endeavour, a further totally-mistaken assumption was made. It was assumed that the Fixed Law extracted, by these methods, was the natural, underlying Law present in absolutely ALL relevant situations, usually along with others, all of them being of the very same type. They just combined somehow to deliver Reality-as-is. And, this belief was embodied in the universally-accepted Principle of Plurality.

What that meant, was that absolutely NO Qualitative Changes could ever occur, by the action of Natural Laws: all real Development and even Evolution were put down solely to mere Complication alone.. And this is clearly wrong!

So, why was it adopted so emphatically?

You have to remember exactly-when it was first achieved, and what a remarkable Revolution it precipitated within Mathematics! For, it was first implemented, as such, in Ancient Greece, almost 2,500 years ago, in what later became known as Euclidian Geometry, and thereafter and equally legitmately extended to the whole of Mathematics - as it then was. For, the use of a wholly new kind of Abstraction had been involved that only referred to Relationships, and consequently had, for the first time ever in Human History, enabled the sound construction of a whole new Intellectual Discipline, by using these Revealing Abstract relations, via a totally reliable New Rationality.

Indeed, the Revolution was incorrectly-assumed to encompass Absolutely Everything: and was immediately, and wrongly, applied to both General Reasoning and all the emerging Sciences too.

Now, to further explain that more general use, we have to consider the special situation of Stability: for, in the Rationality of Mathematics, it was also validly applicable in Stable Situations of all kinds, as long as they remained as such! And Mankind had long been "holding-things-still", while they used them, for a very long period prior to the gains in Mathematics! So, the extension was obvious, and, as long as the Stability was maintained, it remained a valid application.

But, an intellectual Rule that only worked in special pragmatic situations was NO GOOD for valid-and-comprehensive explanations, even if it was adequate pragmatically: in other words, it was OK for Technology, NOT for real exploratory Science!

So, these two stances for dealing with the very same things, naturally drifted apart, and pragmatic problems were solved by technicians, while the scientists persevered, under increasing difficulties, with the consequent pluralist Theory!

Now, Experiments increasingly were set up "to work" by necessarily-attendant technicians, while the scientists carried out the Experiments and attempted to fornulate the "Fixed Natural Law" supposedly involved. But they usually got somewhat different results, each and every time they carried out the "supposedly very-same" Experiment. Now, it was always put down to "randomly-varying conditions", so that by taking averages over several runs, the underlying "Fixed" Law might be extracted.

But there isn't such a Fixed Law! The real World is holistic, wherein many simultaneously-acting Laws, both modify each of them AND the overall final effect too! And, that variability in results would be an average of all those, still making some sort of contribution, BUT by randomly varying as would always be cancelled by averaging, but "all-in-its-own-single-way" for each and every as yet still not-completely-removed contributor.

Sum the achieved average would NOT be of a fixed underlying Law, with randomly varying context, but, instead, an average of the involved and still-acting remnants of the supposedly-removed natural and multiple, usually accompanying contributions.

Which is why, in the title of this paper, I termed it "Semi-pluralist"!

And, which, at best, delivers only a poor approximation to an actually non-existant supposedly Fixed Law anyway!

Clearly, to conquer Reality, in all circumstances - absolutely essential if the many anomalies and crises, currently totally inaccessible outside of the artificially-fixed version, are also to be fully dealt with, what they simply must be tackled with a comprehensive knowledge of the Real Holistic possibilities.

A Holistic Version of Science must how be both unearthed and systematically developed!

Maybe one day we'll see holistic experiments in school Science labs...