Mechanisms of Development

Mechanisms of Development

& The Consequent New Structures of the Nature of Reality

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Well established features can simply just vanish!

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

There is no royal road to science...

 

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

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

Taking SHAPE I: Denis Noble and Systems Level Approach

 

New video from SHAPE films, Taking SHAPE I, is part of new series looking at a nascent holistic science and attempting to take SHAPE Journal and these radical ideas to a new audience.

Top down or bottom up? Which method best helps us understand complex natural systems? We look at Denis Noble's "The Music of Life" and the argument that reductionism misses the vital role of multi-level systems in organising reality... But what happens when these systems fail? 

This contribution begins a new series of experimental videos on the philosophy of science from SHAPE Films. Each episode features theorist Jim Schofield discussing a different key thinker or researcher, and how their work may help the development of a new holist scientific method.

Developments in the Human Brain

Elsewhere, recently, I have found it necessary to consider the Effect of the Emergence of Language upon Human Development and Understanding. And, in those studies, it clearly is significant just how the Patterns of Thinking seemed to change profoundly whenever a particular Form was also given a Name, and then discussed, along with other things, and in the same way as everything else. And, this was unavoidable, of course, because within Language, a Name must be totally-fixed, to thereby allow Language to both effectively and unambiguously deliver any ideas involved!

For, whereas, a Form is never once-and-for-all uniquely determined - they most certainly-and-importantly DO change, into various other and significantly different Forms as Development proceeds - Names, on the contrary, cannot do this, for a mutually understood definition must hold, in order for it to play a meaningful role within communication.

This is both mostly unacknowledged epistemologically, and highly important, as Language is our only means of Explaining Things. Such a limitation can often be wholly incorrect when applied to dynamic Forms and Systems in particular, as it is often not immediately evident, as profound Change doesn't happen most of the time, in many areas. They are then regularly used as just another normally-unchanging (constant) elements of Language, Words: and this can cause major errors in Explanations, when those Forms suddenly change into other quite different Forms, in Emergent Development. 

But today, I came across another See The Pattern video on Toutube, by the creator and presenter of that series, Gareth Samuals, in which he considers a study from a US University, in which the actual Shrinking of the Human Brain, generally, has been clearly established! 

Now, I gave been engaged for some time upon the Emergence and putting the Effect of the restrictions of Language, above those nrcessary for Human Thinking, which has seriously affected it, in both some great advantage, as well as also, other clearly disbling ways.

For, the direction that The Sciences have taken since the Greek Intellectual Revolution of the 5th century BC, there has been been an effort to take the Forms, along with all other elements as being totally constant, by putting the needs of the Consistent Language (in Explanation) well above the need to the development of the Forms, thus vastly distorting all supposedly Scientific Explanations, by the needs of Language over those required for Forms.

Now, in addition to the above point crucial other changes are involved. For, something about the processes involved in Thinking about Things generally, must surely have significantly changed the structures and processes involved in a major qualitative changes in the forms of wholly new features that were recently necessary that were NEVER necessary previously, and some replaced those left over from a majorly different System, no longer relevant!

It would seem that whatever changes happened (and remember they actually were NOT universally implemented) still involved a shrinking of our Brain size.

What could possibly have caused it? And did it mean a reduction in the processes necessary,  caused by   simplfied Thinking techniques!? And, if so what exactly were these changes?

We have long been aware of physical changes due to excessive exercise: but this discovery is undoubtedly significant - for it seems to link a Loss-in-Structures, coupled with a significant Gain-in -Performance!

For, if this is a rare if General Rule, it infers a very different - nay revolutionary - relation between Structure and Performance, and a significant re-writing of Development and Evolutionary Changes!

But, it shouldn't surprise us, if we are already committed to the Revelations delivered by Dialectical Materialism! For, though, most of the time, things do remain unchanged, we are beginning to address the Clear Fundamental Interludes of Significant Qualitative Changes, AND the significant Role of Contention in the creation of the Wholly New! So, it cannot be avoided that the Material World changes too - And NOT just incrementally - they also happen in the thinking abilities and even physical capabilities of organisms, which can only mean that these developments must also reflect the capability of physical Changes in those organisms too!

Thought-and-Language simply must have some physical manifestations - for, indeed revolutionary transformations in Thought cannot merely be a mere new arrangrmrnt of a totally unchanging physical entity!

For, we must remember, the relatively short lifetimes of individual people, and their only way of passing physical capabilities on being via Sexual Reproduction between different individuals, in a definitely clearly dialectical development of the production of a Single Egg (synthesis) - formed from both contributing (and contending) parents, but thereafter wholly contained within and automatically sustained by the Mother! Until finally, in a cataclysmic change termed Birth, suddenly becomes a separate and unique individual - having to breathe and feed for itself! If that isn't a Revolutionary Physical Change, I don't know what is!

And, these constant renewals, many thousands per day, alongside the inevitable terminations, ultimately, of both parents of the prior generation, SIMPLY MUST involve other major changes too, also significantly sometimes including, the creation of the Wholly New! Yet, exactly how all those changes in Thinking, physically emerge-and-modify what happens in the Brain is NOT known.

There is no developing Physical Model of the Brain: it, instead, is conceived-of, as an eminently-flexible organ, with potentially infinite capabilities - to which I must profoundly disagree! For, what could possibly have given this matter such capabilities?

You can see why a God had to be considered as The Prime Architect with these assumptions - but it has long been just a necessary Myth!

And, with the usual regular errors imposed upon all discusions of causes, due to the confusion about Names, especially when they are applied to things such as Forms, as explained earlier in this piece - so that NO meaningful conclusions are arrived at, and making regularly sound conclusions impossible to achieve, and the consequent generated problems are thereafter rarely, if ever, addressed.

Yet, surely, it must be possible, from a real understanding of how Forms do ultimately-transform, via explicable processes, into something quite different, without letting the basic rules of supposedly intelligible Language, forever lead us into the mire!

Of course, to be able to do this, one must have seriously embarked upon a dedicated journey into The Dialectics of Change, which is NOT the accepted wisdom currently, though there are increasingly many areas where that is the only worthwhile Approach.

 

Crisis in Cosmology: Big Bang or Big Bust?

 

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!

 

 

Tories are using the pandemic to dismantle the NHS

 These videos are a must-see.

Behind the pro-NHS rhetoric, Boris Johnson's Conservative government are covertly selling off, and systematically undermining, our public health service.

The Great NHS Heist film

The (Ongoing) Coronavirus Crisis...

 This article was originally posted on this blog in April last year, but is no less relevant today.

Brooks & Wolff realise the Current Dangers

for Workers and COVID 19 and consider a call for 

A General Strike

In a key episode of The Michael Brooks Show on YouTube we see a significant critical-&-political Turning Point has suddenly emerged. Instead of focussing all the usual diverse criticisms of the way the Pandemic has been addressed by Governments worldwide (and in the USA in particular): it is alternatively conceived of, for the first time, as a clear Pro-People and Anti-Capitalist Combined-Agenda for a General, Co-ordinated Action of the Working Class, against the inhuman Economic System and instead consider an alternative one, for the benefit of Ordinary People!

First, Brooks himself, in a remarkably energetic contribution, reacted to the currently increasing pressures from Big Capital, to try to get all workers back to work, in spite of the still raging Pandemic, and, to instead propose, via a bottom-up organisation, of what Brooks termed "localist solutions" - wherein the people in a well-defined local district, would organise, for themselves, their own, democratically-elected committees to control both the safety and provisions for their locality.

And only the very day before, the writer of this paper (in England) had suggested very similar "Special Local Councils" with the same purposes to Brooks' suggestion, along with a very different plan to, when the time is ripe, release small areas from the Total LockDown, along with appropriate & essential Testing of the contained population, adequate Personal Protective Equipment deployment, and the instituting of freedom of movement, within such enclaves, for those proved to be clear of the virus, by prior population-testing.

While, the shops and essential services, within the enclaves, along with both employing organisations and Firms there, should be a priority for Testing-and-release from shutdown as soon as possible. And, the small sizes of such enclaves would make this majorly effective, and new co-operative services of all kinds could easily be self-organised and made safe! And the evidently necessary discipline, on all fronts, wholly organised solely by the locally-elected Councils for the enclaves. Such organisation, alone, would allow a gradual and reliable extension of Released Areas with ensured safety!

Second, Brooks then brought in Economics Professor Richard Wolff (one of the founders of Democracy-at-Work) into the discussion to contribute his political ideas of "What is to be Done!" And, he immediately changed the emphasis, by suggesting that the pressure of a return to Work by the Big Capitalists, should be countered by what would amount to A General Strike!

Sent home workers would NOT return, without the guaranteed provision of full and adequate safeguards for the workers involved, with the Pandemic still raging! And, if the Government failed to do it: they would do it all for themselves!

With the colossal death figures still appearing daily, Workers would NOT expose themselves, their fellow workers. and their own families and children, to the risk of catching the virus!

Thirdly, Chris Smalls, a worker within Amazon, was included in the Discussion, for he had been suspended by Amazon for organising his fellow workers against the conditions in which they were being expected to work - with fellow workers working well within the generally-set inter-personal limits of 2 metres, and in which some were actually falling ill with the Coronavirus, while actually still working.

Chris had little trouble getting the agreement of fellow workers upon what should be acceptable conditions of work, and in the midst of all this, he was sent home by the management as a "danger to his fellow workers!". But his still energetically-pursued objective has remained to get his fellows to go home until acceptable conditions are provided. 

This single YouTube video has changed the game in the USA among ever-larger sections on the Left, and if Trump, which seems likely, joins the Big Capitalists in attempting to hurry People back to work, it is clear that this Turn, could become an Ever-Growing Flooding Wave of Dissent!

Indeed, in spite of its terrible death figures, the Italian Government is already getting sections of workers back to work even now.

So, it appears likely that many will refuse to do so, to protect themselves and their families! If this happens, it will be a key moment in the long fight against Capitalism's exploitation of the Working Class.

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... 

The Rape of Yemen

 
Having presented the main Resolution on Yemen, many tears ago at a Young Socialists Annual Conference, I have always searched for a real Socialist account of what has been happening in that part of the World, usually without any real success!

But, the recent virtual video conference compiled by The Workers Party of Britain, is by far and away the best I have seen, and I have therefore suggested that SHAPE present the video in full. For though extensive, that kind of treatment has been exactly what has been essential for some time.

While SHAPE Journal & this blog usually concentrate upon new developments in Marxist Theory, most particularly within Philosophy and Science, as the primary area of study, SHAPE also represents an Internationalist Socialist Political line too - so, we reproduce this important piece here with the greatest enthusiasm!

COVID-19 and global financial collapse?

 

Eric Lerner is quickly becoming one of our favourite thinkers at SHAPE Journal. Not only is he pioneering holist materialist science with his research into Nuclear Fusion and green energy solutions, his political and economic analysis is equally on point!

Coronavirus and Class: Call a General Strike!

Brooks & Wolff realise the Current Dangers

for Workers and COVID 19 and consider a call for 

A General Strike

In a key episode of The Michael Brooks Show on YouTube we see a significant critical-&-political Turning Point has suddenly emerged. Instead of focussing all the usual diverse criticisms of the way the Pandemic has been addressed by Governments worldwide (and in the USA in particular): it is alternatively conceived of, for the first time, as a clear Pro-People and Anti-Capitalist Combined-Agenda for a General, Co-ordinated Action of the Working Class, against the inhuman Economic System and instead consider an alternative one, for the benefit of Ordinary People!

First, Brooks himself, in a remarkably energetic contribution, reacted to the currently increasing pressures from Big Capital, to try to get all workers back to work, in spite of the still raging Pandemic, and, to instead propose, via a bottom-up organisation, of what Brooks termed "localist solutions" - wherein the people in a well-defined local district, would organise, for themselves, their own, democratically-elected committees to control both the safety and provisions for their locality.

And only the very day before, the writer of this paper (in England) had suggested very similar "Special Local Councils" with the same purposes to Brooks' suggestion, along with a very different plan to, when the time is ripe, release small areas from the Total LockDown, along with appropriate & essential Testing of the contained population, adequate Personal Protective Equipment deployment, and the instituting of freedom of movement, within such enclaves, for those proved to be clear of the virus, by prior population-testing.

While, the shops and essential services, within the enclaves, along with both employing organisations and Firms there, should be a priority for Testing-and-release from shutdown as soon as possible. And, the small sizes of such enclaves would make this majorly effective, and new co-operative services of all kinds could easily be self-organised and made safe! And the evidently necessary discipline, on all fronts, wholly organised solely by the locally-elected Councils for the enclaves. Such organisation, alone, would allow a gradual and reliable extension of Released Areas with ensured safety!

Second, Brooks then brought in Economics Professor Richard Wolff (one of the founders of Democracy-at-Work) into the discussion to contribute his political ideas of "What is to be Done!" And, he immediately changed the emphasis, by suggesting that the pressure of a return to Work by the Big Capitalists, should be countered by what would amount to A General Strike!

Sent home workers would NOT return, without the guaranteed provision of full and adequate safeguards for the workers involved, with the Pandemic still raging! And, if the Government failed to do it: they would do it all for themselves!

With the colossal death figures still appearing daily, Workers would NOT expose themselves, their fellow workers. and their own families and children, to the risk of catching the virus!

Thirdly, Chris Smalls, a worker within Amazon, was included in the Discussion, for he had been suspended by Amazon for organising his fellow workers against the conditions in which they were being expected to work - with fellow workers working well within the generally-set inter-personal limits of 2 metres, and in which some were actually falling ill with the Coronavirus, while actually still working.

Chris had little trouble getting the agreement of fellow workers upon what should be acceptable conditions of work, and in the midst of all this, he was sent home by the management as a "danger to his fellow workers!". But his still energetically-pursued objective has remained to get his fellows to go home until acceptable conditions are provided.

This single YouTube video has changed the game in the USA among ever-larger sections on the Left, and if Trump, which seems likely, joins the Big Capitalists in attempting to hurry People back to work, it is clear that this Turn, could become an Ever-Growing Flooding Wave of Dissent!

Indeed, in spite of its terrible death figures, the Italian Government is already getting sections of workers back to work even now.

So, it appears likely that many will refuse to do so, to protect themselves and their families! If this happens, it will be a key moment in the long fight against Capitalism's exploitation of the Working Class.

Harvey on Marx's Grundrisse

Fantastic Marxist theory in action here

Brexit: Manufacturing Consent?

While there are certainly some convincing left-wing arguments for leaving the European Union, none of these featured in most Leavers' reasoning in 2016, in the original push for a referendum or in the current Tory party's attempts to manufacture consent for a no-deal Brexit.

As the UK sits at the precipice of another general election, we must try and understand why and how the Conservative Party, and large parts of the economic elite, are doing this. The media (most major newspapers and television news including the BBC) are certainly pushing for this outcome and are engaged in a substantial propaganda war against Jeremy Corbyn and Labour.

It's worth re-visiting this great documentary, Manufacturing Consent (1992), featuring the ideas and work of Noam Chomsky. In this film Chomsky asserts that the media always works this way, in the interests of vested interests and big money. Brexit and this current election are no different.

Is Revolution a Natural Part of all Development?

Natural Revolution

SHAPE Journal is proud to present a new film by Michael C Coldwell and Jim Schofield.

This is a film about revolution.

A film about how revolutionary emergences are a natural and crucial part of all developing reality. 

Based on a wide-ranging discussion between Marxist philosopher and scientist Jim Schofield, and filmmaker and researcher Michael C Coldwell, this essay film explores diverse themes, from Stalinism to the evolution of language, from the origin of life on earth to the failure of the 1960s revolutionary movement. The visuals are ripped and mashed from Youtube - archive footage, newsreels and films from the 20th century. Music is supplied by Conflux Coldwell and the Urban Exploration collective.

Natural Revolution (2019) A SHAPE film...

Natural Revolution

SHAPE Journal is proud to present a new film by Michael C Coldwell and Jim Schofield.

This is a film about revolution.

A film about how revolutionary emergences are a natural and crucial part of all developing reality. 

Based on a wide-ranging discussion between Marxist philosopher and scientist Jim Schofield, and filmmaker and researcher Michael C Coldwell, this essay film explores diverse themes, from Stalinism to the evolution of language, from the origin of life on earth to the failure of the 1960s revolutionary movement. The visuals are ripped and mashed from Youtube - archive footage, newsreels and films from the 20th century. Music is supplied by Conflux Coldwell and the Urban Exploration collective.

Chomsky & Krauss

On Morality and Power

But NEVER, of course, Social Class

I have been listening to a questioning interview of Noam Chomsky, conducted by Laurence Krauss in the Origins series of Public Lectures at Arizona State University.

It was about the History of Mankind, and its frequently unspeakable bestiality, contrasting markedly with the approach, analysis and explanations, by philosophers such as Chomsky, who have always throughout that long history revealed and condemned such atrocities, and argued for a much more critical approach by the populace.

But, the questions, as defined by Krauss, were to do with the Nature of Mankind, which could be said to have, in the past, allowed such a History, and why they seemed to never listen, allowing such atrocities to have always continued - even getting vastly worse, over time. Krauss seemed to be implicitely questioning Mankind's essential natural Moral Fibre, by their forever ignoring of these clearly evident Truths.

But surely, the actual answers carried out were never instituted by the People, and were really about the very different Social Class Interests, always promoted by the Ruling Classes, who were always the sole deciders, and hence the real perpetrators, and those who had managed to both obtain and keep their Privileges, Class Policies and Power, by consciously and consistemtly ensuring their continued dominance, by their somehow regularly maintained Power, and the seeming multiplicity of possible policies, and purposely confused by added and profusely published lies.

So, that along with their Control, allowed them to enforce them as they pleased, and as a necessary defence against those who lusted after owning and them despoiling our resolutely defended rights!

Though Chomsky fought hard to deny the culpability of Mankind itself, by defending their moral fabric, it still allowed the opposite case of a general culpability to be posed.

And, of course, the mode of questioning, by Krauss, was about Mankind in general, rather than those means, by which clear minority groups and leaders were both originally established, and there-after maintained in power.

The actual modes of life involved, and the Classes that were then enabled to carry them out, and impose their explanations, were NEVER EVER addressed, for if they had been, the culprits would have been easily exposed, and perhaps the appropriate actions to remedy the various producing situations could have been discussed.

They weren't!

And that was because the whole issue was purposely cast into the "Advice of Wise Prophets" and the unwillingness of the People to listen to them - blaming the masses, basically.

And, how else could it have been exposed, when delivered solely by members of the "Wise Prophet clan" - The Intellectuals?

Many of that clan of Intellectuals were mentioned, but blatently absent of course, was Karl Marx, whose main contibutions via the adoption and use of Dialectical Materialism, and his characterisation of the nature of a whole series of different Human Societies - all determined by which Social Classes had achieved the power within each of them and knew how to maintain it.

For Marx was both a professional historian and a philosophic follower of Hegel, due to the latter's brilliant conceptions of the importance and significant occurrences of Qualitative Changes, which Marx immediately-knew had historically opened the door to explaining the natures and trajectories of such societies, as well as their ultimate demises in Social Revolutions!

Indeed, in the very way Krauss conducted the interview, the always unstated but nevertheless evident question was surely:

"Why didn't the people follow the prophets and change their societies?"

For, one after the other, NO such changes were ever suggested! What was the matter with them?

Krauss was evidently well aware of the unvoiced alternative, and he was clearly under pressure to keep the discussion where he needed it to be, so he increasingly guided the ensuing discussion, by posing past utterences by Chomsky, and asking him to defend them, until the overrun in time was sufficient for him to terminate the interview, without ever letting it explore the radical alternative.

It should be emphasized the the whole Origins Project (and indeed the significant building up of ASU) has been extensively financed by both billionaires and a series of major Capitalist Enterprises, and many of his chosen experts in the extensive Origins Project are both evidently and overtly often employees or even Owners or CEOs of major Capitalist Enterprises.

POSTSCRIPT:

Indeed, having perused most of the Lectures in the Origins Project, it soon became clearly evident that to Krauss, a unity of Academia with Big Business Finance and its supported technical endeavours is THE way forward for both Capitalism and Mankind, even though the evidence, as the current Crisis continues to unfold, quite clearly is only the sure way to Armageddon!

Coming soon... Natural Revolution

SHAPE Journal is collaborating with philosopher Jim Schofield and filmmaker Michael C Coldwell to make a documentary film about Marxism, Revolution, Science and Emergence

Current Praxis: The huge gap between theory and practice

Theory and Practice: To Serve and to Organise

As a long-time active Socialist, and latterly Marxist Theorist, I am acutely aware of the gap between my extensive efforts on the web, and its almost total lack of connection with the on-the-street organisations of the disadvantaged - and this is clearly a general problem.

Now David Harvey, surely not only the leading Marxist theorist living today, but one whose Internet offerings have become extremely widely-read - BUT, he is nevertheless concerned about his lack of connections with organisers on-the-street, and has put up two interviews with Chris Caruso, in his excellent Anti-Capitalist Chronicles (out of Democracy at Work), which excellently addresses these precise questions.

As everyone can see, naturally emerging protest demonstrations and even loose organisations are arising with crucial agendas all the time - the most important one currently being the Yellow Jacket Movement in France.

But too many of such occurrences don't last: single issues, no matter how important, cannot survive if they don't link up with others to enrich the content, capabilities, understanding and fraternal, social strength of their efforts.

The interviews carried out by David Harvey are crucial, and one, which is about this problem, and the linking of internet-based propagation and help, for the exciting developments in the streets and localities, is included here to introduce them to you.

Perhaps we can help too - either here on SHAPE, or by delivering your questions and concerns to places like the Anti-Capitalist Chronicles.

Contact us privately via email:

shape@bild-art.co.uk

or leave a comment under this post.