The Charles Bonnet Syndrome

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

The Charles Bonnet Syndrome

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

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

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

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

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

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

V S Ramachandran

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

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

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

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

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

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

1, The Mini Movie

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

2, The Misinterpreted Tile

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

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

3. The False General Tiling

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

4, The Simplified Tiling

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

EDITOR’S NOTE:

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

Qualitative Causes and their Investigation via Systems Means

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

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

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

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

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

Frida Kahlo, Moses, 1945,

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

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

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

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

Schoolboys at Manchester Grammar

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

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

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

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

Jim Schofield presenting his research into the Laban Pure Form

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

...

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

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Process, Context and Recursion II

Pas de Deux (1968) Norman McLaren

BEGINNING TO UNDERSTAND MOVEMENT AND CHANGE

Carrying on from the prior papers in this series, I will further establish the System Nature of a Holistic Science, as applied to the Study of Creative Dance Performance and Choreography. The last 30 years of Research in this area, has also, surprisingly, enabled me to make this contribution, both there, and for Holistic Science in General!

I, of course, did the majority of this work in tandem with another researcher, the excellent Dr. Jacqueline Smith-Autard (Jackie), perhaps the leading expert in such studies in the World. She was the dance education specialist in the relationship, so please forgive my total concentration upon the Philosophical, Scientific and Computing questions involved, based upon a long professional life in these areas, mostly in Higher Education. 

Crucially, this research into Dance, and the difficulties of analysing movement using video, led me to fully appreciate the philosophical importance of Zeno of Elea, beyond his paradoxes of movement (the dialectic of continuity and discreetness) and to the importance of the Whole and the Part - and a fundamental critique of all Reductionism. 

I terminated, the immediately prior paper undoubtedly somewhat prematurely, in the midst of beginning to establish a wholly new Holistic Approach to the Sciences, certainly only now made possible by the extensive work with Jackie in Dance Research. But also, very clearly, this was too important a contribution to be tacked on to the end of what was really only a Basic Introduction, to a turn to a major new topic, so it was clear that a dedicated separate paper would be necessary to initiate such a Major Undertaking!

But, I feel that I must also make clear, that I had spent many years aiding researchers with computer solutions, in a whole wide range of Disciplines, from Physics and Engineering to Biology, before I was enchanted by Jackie's unique requirements for Dance. My own original areas, from where I started these kinds of interdisciplinary studies, were in my original specialisms of Physics and Mathematics, terminating finally in Higher Education in a major change to both Developing Operating Systems, and ultimately Directing Computer Services in two Colleges - latterly one that was part of London University (Goldsmiths).

In an earlier Higher Education post, I had established a unique Supporting Service for Researchers across many different Disciplines in a Scottish University, and had soon been forced to go well beyond the Total Plurality of my core Subjects, in order to solve a whole new range of problems that they were encountering. The complete abandonment of actually Explaining Qualitative Changes, which dominated literally all Current Research, forced me to daily address the often terminating anomalies within most Disciplines, and attempt a consequent General Turn to Holism!

And, as I was finally realising, towards the end of that prior paper, the Determining Systemic Nature of Holism, would have to be comprehensively established as an essential prerequisite to any attempt at a Real Developable Analysis of Change, which undoubtedly require an Epoch-Making shift in literally all current research methods. The usually assumed Total Independence of Single Natural Laws, was clearly untrue, and the usual way of eliminating those effects - by severely restricting the Scope of Investigative Experiments, merely threw all these crucial effects away, which involved the assuming of greatly more complex situations, that could be achieved by the mere summation of Eternally Fixed Laws.

They never can!

And, in addition, the Pluralists believed that the Laws found by their methods were exactly the same when multiples of such Laws were acting simultaneously.

That also isn't true!

Simultaneously-acting Laws always adjust one another to greater or lesser degrees, in ways that wholly Pluralist Methods will never Reveal. So these Holistic mechanisms have to be clearly revealed: thereafter determining exactly HOW production should be both implemented and controlled.

Or, alternatively, were there any naturally-occurring Stabilities, very different to those that occur in manmade Pluralistic Experiments, that actually are part of literally all Holistic Situations, and could be effectively and soundly used, as part of a more complex on-going System? The answer turned out to be "Yes!".

But, it was discovered by the historian Karl Marx, in a very different area, well-hidden within the Key Explosive and Emergent Happenings within every successful Social Revolution. For, such cataclysmic Events were considered "un-analysable", until Marx revealed that they were perhaps the only periods of substantial change, anywhere in Reality-as-is, that took place at a tempo that Humans could possibly apprehend and understand - primarily because, there alone, the Processes of History were entirely brought about by the actions of Human Beings themselves! Marx was not able to explain the apparent Stability of those slower processes of History, which for very long periods appeared to be steadfastly Stable and Unchanging. But, within a Revolution, the Maintainers of Stability totally collapse, and concerted actions by motivated groups of ordinary people, COULD bring about Significant Systemic Change!

However, in passing, such Events also revealed the seemingly permanent Stabilities all around, which resolutely maintain the Status Quo, for often vast periods of time, but, in fact, though strongly maintained as such, were happening in a Holist World, and could therefore, in the end, certainly be terminated.

These long-existing, self-maintaining Interludes, were clearly what we are looking for, being wholly naturally established and then maintained, but, nevertheless, only as Temporary Stabilities, possibly delivering Real interludes of Stability, via which a means of Holistic Rationality could be temporarily established and used, and naturally demolished when no longer applicable.

Clearly, for this to be the case, the composition, and self-maintenance of these Temporary Stabilities must be explained! Indeed, something both flexible and persistent must, on the one hand, be capable of mostly re-establishing the prior Stability, in a wide variety of possible undermining disturbances: AND also eminently capable of re-establishing conformability, to a new stability of outcomes.

Now this is by no means easy: but the best clue to a solution seems to reside in Diametrically Opposite Processes, which Zeno (of old) certainly noticed, and the idealist philosopher Hegel, organised into a varying system, in which these could deliver one outcome, or its direct opposite, and could, it has more recently been revealed (in my Substrate Theory of Physics, for example), give absolutely NO OUTCOME at all, as they exactly cancel each other out!

And, it has become clear, that in the sequences of consequently-enabled processes, they could, indeed, be terminated prematurely by such exact and final cancellations.

Yet, we are still a very long way from explaining the long-persistence of many such Temporary Stabilities, routinely mistaken for permanent or eternal features! We must also reveal their unusual-but-necessary compositions.

And, a possible solution to this might be if the Total Contents of a Temporary Stability was perhaps composed of multiple Balanced Stable collections of paired opposing processes, which, with a relatively minor damage could recover any undermining, by eliciting opposing changes in one area, to effectively Cancel-Out any damages inflicted in another: though both of which were somehow initiated from the very same external incursion, but in bringing about thereby opposing, balancing effects.

Now, as far as I have been able to discover, literally NO theoretical or experimental work has been undertaken in this vital area.

Something must be first causing such balances, and then, at least most of the time, maintaining them. What Stabilities there are, cannot have been already, and permanently resolved by magic, but somehow form into a naturally-arrived-at balance, and the consequent maintenance of a situation, instead of a never-ending constant slide towards Chaos!

Now, what has emerged, which could throw some light upon this problem, is the "calming nature" of constantly-repeating Cycles of Processes - which seem to be abundant literally Everywhere - and at all levels of Reality. 

And another similarly acting process, seems to be a consequence of multiple, simultaneous and different active processes, which seem to selectively change the overall composition into a more permanent mix over time. Possible causes such as Selective Elimination seem to be possible, but have nowhere been experimentally established.

And perhaps the usual reasoning, discounting such possibilities, is based upon a belief in Forever Fixed Natural Law, on the one hand, BUT, contrastingly, Evolutionary Change on the other!

Now, in a recently recorded coversation with Gareth Samuel, Eric Lerner explained the natural processes of a regularly concentrating Plasma Stream, in terms of an analogy with Road Traffic. In his case, he was explaining the sudden appearance of heat, by comparing a prior self-organised, one-way traffic flow, within a multi-lane road, to an unorganised mix of traffic going in all different directions, on a single-lane road, causing multiple collisions, and hence changing KE into an increase in heat! And, of course, both modes were natural, but caused by changing concentrating circumstances.

So, I am inclined to believe, that the processes I am considering could be analogous, and could in a similar way self-organise into optimum flows dynamically, for most of the time, only to be transformed then, by a rare change in the prevalent conditions.

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:

A New Holistic Iterative Method?

Henry Moore in his studio. The best artists seem to use a form of Holist Iteration as an investigative method.

Prelude:

What absolutely must be included here as the basis of a determined Holistic Stance, is to replace the most often assumed yet always-significantly-misleading consequences of the usually unconscious Pluralist Stance in all our methods.

And, that inevitably means removing any assumption of eternal Natural Laws, and instead, recognising the alternative of a whole set of multiple, mutually-affecting factors, which are not only changed individually by their accompaying-context, but reciprocally by also modifying that context too.

Permanently-fixed, natural kaws were an historically- necessary simplification, in order to even begin to understand Reality. Clearly, Plurality was an attempt to adjust Reality to get a handle on it - to get approximate values, from a simplified law.

But now, we absolutely must adopt new techniques to better reflect the true interconnected nature of Reality - one of these must be Iteration.


Iterative Methods:

There is a key problem in attempting, as I do, to develop an Iterative Method, from a measured data sequence alone, especially if we attempt to do it without any assumed form of model, for a relation supposedly- connecting those data points, as has always been the case in the usually-employed iteration techniques. For, without some sort of model, there seemed to be no way of reflecting the nature of the factors that cause the trajectory revealed in those data.

Now, in dealing with this situation, it is essential that several things have to be made absolutely clear about the usual iterative methods.

They always use an Ideal Form, taken directly from Mathematics, as a basis, which had then been fitted- up to those data, by multiple substitutions of them into it, to give a set of simultaneous equations, in the constants of the general form, which can then be solved. The result is still the same general Form, but persuaded- to-approximate to Reality, BUT only within-the-range from which those data were taken.

They then “re-structure” that equation geometrically- upon-a-graph into a set of iterative-forms. Now, such a re-structuring involves a major geometrical and transformative use, because, it isn’t merely a manipulation of the ideal equation. It is actually the use of that formula in geometrically-finding a consequent set-of-forms - one for each variable, that can use a single-known-point, and substitute from it into these derived iterative forms to find another single point, and, thereafter, further points, with each one derived from its predecessor.

And, the iterative forms so derived never change!

Being based upon Geometry-in-Graphs, they are unavoidably pluralistic: for the separation of variables into distinct directional dimensions, necessarily excludes any mutual influences they might have upon one another. So these iterarive forms also perpetuate Plurality.

They are fixed, but their repeated-use always gives new points, but always some distance from the “known” point used, so that the action moves rapidly across the whole range of the “driving” function’s possibility space (along with the usual drift as with all such iterative techniques).

Remember, absolutely nothing new has been added to the original source equation, only-the-means-used to access the sequence of generated points, delivered one-at- a-time. And if, as I am convinced, that original formula is NOT the deliverer of the sequence, but a simplified and idealised approximation, then all its short-comings MUST inevitably be carried over into the iterative forms derived from it, and added to by the effects of iteration itself!

Now, the reader is certain to ask why do these forms sometimes deliver things closer to Reality than the original source formulae? It is indeed an important question!

But, as the only significant change, in the actual plotting, has been the zigzagging-about the whole range of that ideal function, then that, plus the iterative drift, must be what is adding something extra, which can reveal something that was not there in the original idealised equation.

But, that method can surely only be some sort of purely- pragmatic trick. It certainly isn’t here taking us ever- closer to a definitive set of actually occurring situations, but just others in similar-but-different positions, in well- scattered general areas. They are certainly not due to the real physical causes (which are never even mentioned, never mind considered, but only due to our chosen strictly formal methods).

Clearly, though pragmatically, it is also only when our purposes can be at least partially fulfilled by such frigs, that we will use them. But, if our purpose is instead to better understand WHY things behave as they do, then it can only mislead us away from that valid, and indeed, absolutely necessary intention.

Let me re-emphasize, there is the important point that current iterative methods are always pluralistic – just like the original equation from which the iterative forms were derived, it assumes the same additively-arrived-at formal “cause”! And, such will be, for the very same reasons, significantly misleading.

But no Real World phenomenon is driven by a single factor: the general situation will always include many different factors, and crucially, if a holist stance is taken, instead of a pluralist one, then these factors will all affect and, indeed, change, one another to some extent.

Absolutely no other factors are included in the usual iterative methodology – it uses only ONE. So, what should be down to the hidden mutual affects of all the other factors involved, is here due instead to a rigged-up version of the usual method.

And, here it isn’t the actual-contributions, but something- else that may deliver something “similar”.

The Alternative:

So, it is suggested that we address these problems, instead, through the use of Recursion, in addition to the use of real points, and absolutely none of the usual pluralist and iterative methods of the past.

With each new measurement, we start by using Difference Methods (or something similar) to reveal what powers of variables are appropriate in the most general polynomial Model. Then use our data again, but now in the usual way to find the still unknown constants of that model.

So far, this sounds like something already used in the past, but there is a significant twist! We do not stick with that form throughout.

So, instead, we now recursively do the steps all over again, including the next measurement made, and repeat the full set of processes, not only with this, but thereafter with every single new additional measurement made.

What will happen is an evolving form, changing with each new addition.

Exactly what the most general form would be, may begin with the assumption of a polynomial. But, if the evidence is against that model, we could add further non-polynomial terms. The crux of the method then becomes the comparison of a predicted location with the real measured one, and a subsequent judgement as to what changes in the adjusted general form might be required.

The original idea for this method was conceived of as the measurements being taken as the body in question was moving (as if we were the riders on a rocket in Space). But, of course, a full, extended set could be achieved, before any fitting up was attempted, and in some complex circumstances, where many dominant influences could regularly come-and-go, for then this method will come into its own.

Indeed, the processes of the method could be carried out completely after the Event, and once sufficient had been processed to get some sort of form, all subsequent positions could be associated with its own version of the form. Also, each new, as yet unprocessed position would be predicted from the current version of the form.

Studying the varying forms could tell us more about the changing-real-influences affecting an overall form, than one that is both always simplified and idealised.

Postscript:

Now, the reader must appreciate that what is being attempted here is entirely new!

First, it rejects Plurality as the current basis for such pragmatic manipulations.

Second, it is attempting to indirectly include aspects of Reality that are usually excluded.

Third, it is purposely recursive, as in the Buddhist Loka Sutta, as a means of constantly checking upon its own validity.

It will most certainly NOT be the last word in this area: it will take some time to break ourselves from “If it works, it is right!” - the credo of the farmed situations that perpetuate Pluralist Science.

This paper was published as part of Issue 62 of SHAPE Journal entitled The Whole and the Part.

The Real Philosophy of Science

A complete rethinking of the Philosophy of Science is now vital. As climate change accelerates and capitalism slowly dies around us, it is no longer hyperbolic to state that human civilization now hangs in the balance. For the positivist consensus, salvation must come from science and its greater capacity to understand these problems and proffer vital solutions. Unfortunately for us all, and unbeknownst to most, science is in dire straights too. As it stands, contemporary science is not equipped to deal with these profound qualitative changes, or even its own shortcomings and failings. Physics, for example, has been undergoing a secret existential crisis for an entire century.

For the last ten years, physicist and philosopher Jim Schofield, has been publishing new theories and damning critiques of the scientific consensus in SHAPE Journal. His polemical writing largely rejects the epistemology of science as it is usually conceived, and instead poses a dialectical view of scientific history, its impasses and mistakes, and our flawed methods and assumptions.

The Real Philosophy of Science is Jim Schofield’s first full-length book on the subject, but it is long overdue. Many hundreds of papers have been published by the author. Included in this vast body of work is a final refutation of the Copenhagen Interpretation of Quantum Theory, alternative explanations for all of the anomalies of the Double Slit experiments, an extension of Charles Darwin’s theories to look at how they might apply to the evolution of reality in general, and the Theory of Emergences, which shows how Marx’s ideas apply beyond the social realm – to the revolutions which happen in nature. For Jim Schofield, it is only through real Marxist intervention in science, and scientific rethinking of Marx, that we can transcend the hidden impasses that now plague human thinking, and set the course of civilisation back on track.

This is my new book The Real Philosophy of Science. It's currently available from Smashwords and it should soon hit all major eBook distribution platforms.

Synchronicity? Google yourself a doppelgänger!

The 'real' James Schofield?

This is a little strange...

It seems I have a namesake. 

James Schofield is fairly common name. But Dr. James Schofield from New Zealand not only writes about philosophy and physics, but dialectics and holism too! I google these subjects often, and believe me, there isn't that much of interest out there, so this is a real surprise.

I don't really do coincidences. Maybe, just as I found James googling myself, so might James have found me and my work, some years ago, influencing his own research perhaps? 

I have no evidence for this particular theory, but maybe one day James will google himself again and find this post. If you are reading this James, please get in touch! No grudges! I'm reading your thesis now and it is fascinating, I think we have more in common than a name.

James Schofield.

A James Schofield that isn't me!

Is Reason Merely Formal Logic (Part 4)

Vahram Again - Ghost City series

The Crucial Role of Stability

So, where does this leave us? I am sure that we must include, along with these episodic Events of dramatic Change, their very opposite – the periods of Stability that occur in between! 

To begin to explain both of these could possibly reveal some sort of structure, and be wholly determined by Reality itself, and not a restricting man-devised pluralist programme.

The development of Reality is not one of “constant revolutions”, even though it is one of “permanent change”.

The difference is that the major Qualitative Changes only actually occur in Emergences, and are clearly episodic, while the incremental changes are very different – amounting only to “change within Stability”, where it is mostly easily accommodated within the current stability without ever threatening its overthrow.

The transition which can occur, however, is that from a "simmering stability” to a “boiling Emergence”, and clearly it is within this “change-over” that we will find what we seek!

Indeed, the more such events are studied (read Trotsky’s History of the Russian Revolution), it soon becomes clear that Holism and ONLY Holism can cope with such Changes. From the pre-Emergence build-up, through the revolutionary overthrow, to the establishment of a new stability, at a wholly new and higher Level, the factors are changing constantly. What is vital in one phase can vanish from the next.

NO immutables are available throughout, nor can they be engineered by Control. An avalanche-like series of phases definitely occur, NONE of which can be predicted pluralistically from its antecedents. There are no constant carry-overs, from before the Emergence, to actually deliver discernable persisting causalities, in the New Stability!

Clearly, the original “it’s all happening” holism will simply NOT DO!

The way a holistic Universe self-generates and then maintains its stabilities is by changing its own context - the key and crucial process.

So, at this point, I must once more reflect upon my hero Zeno, whose Paradoxes took the alternative assumptions of Continuity and Descreteness to the limit, and showed them BOTH to be inadequate.

Is it that which is also what is involved in the study of all real Change, and all real Movement, whether of objects, or of Reality, in Flux?

Examples of Using the Holistic Method

I: Dance

For the last 20 years, I have been tackling the provision of Structured Video Resources for the Teaching of Dance Performance and Choreography, and, perhaps surprisingly, this same problem has been paramount at every stage.

The Descrete is delivered by a photograph or a still-frame from a digital video, and though a moving video seems to be the place to find the real dynamics involved, how do we study it in detail, without having to turn it into descrete stills?

The problem was solved, though I won’t labour it within this essay.

Its solution was no one-liner! Even when we had the solution in our hands, we didn’t actually understand why it was successful. It took most of the full 20 years to answer that, and, thereafter, generate a whole set of appropriate tools, to enable the proper study of dynamism on Movement, in both Effectiveness and in Expression.

The point of bringing up this work here, is to establish that there ARE areas of study which directly address Change, and allow a start to be made, which is NOT merely a continuation of Pluralist Science.

Mont Sainte Victoire Cezanne 1902

II: Painting

In the late nineteenth century, the painter Paul Cezanne sought a different way of what he termed “realisation” of the landscapes of his home district in the south of France. He was a man of the countryside, not of the city, and the wonders of mathematical perspective meant nothing in the rolling landscape around Mount Saint Victoire. He wanted his pictures to be “much more real” than was currently being delivered by his contemporaries, and he worked to devise methods of achieving his aim. He developed a delivery of the spaces of his landscapes by a series of new methods.

It is interesting that while other leading artists were moving away from what might be called “realism”, Cezanne was making it his main purpose, but that did not mean he sought a photographic likeness. He used the sequence of overlapping areas, plus a form of “colour modulation” to generate a strong third dimension. And, even more surprisingly, he integrated different viewpoints into the same picture, to reflect how we remember a scene concretely. His works were considerably more real than anyone else’s, and he had a major impact on many contemporary and following artists. Indeed, there is a strong argument that Cezanne was the father of early 20th century flowering of Modern Art, and, certainly, was seen as making contributions to several different modern trends.

He was dealing with Reality in new ways, a million miles from Mathematical perspective and photographic truth, yet more “real” than either of them could ever deliver.

Such a diversion into Art may seem inappropriate in an essay on Reason and Reality, but it is, on the contrary, most appropriate. While the dominant, “reasonable” approaches to Reality were inherently pluralist and particular, the best artists had always been holists, and tackled the full multifariousness of the visual world in an integrated, holistic way. Their methods often involved an attempt to capture something of the rich, varied and integrated nature of their subject, with simultaneous elements attempting to deliver something of the oneness and mutually determined nature of the subject.

Of course, it is just as impossible to fully deliver such an intention in a picture, as to doing it is in an explanation, but the method also delivered the subject by a particular, seemingly active view of it.

Such works cannot be said to be pluralistic – the attempt to deliver Reality by means of its perceived constituent Parts, but instead by attempting to “realise” its intrinsic wholeness.

Read any critic trying to describe what is going on in a masterpiece, to see the inadequacies of even describing what was being delivered. THE communication of the holistic content could only be the picture itself!

And for my purposes, I have to investigate such paths, because they are THE most successful attempts at a holistic approach to delivery of the Real rather than the mere Appearance.

Mankind does realise such things, and always has, but the achievements are considered as trivial, compared with those of Science and Technology, and even regarded as somewhat self-indulgent, as compared with the useful and applicable investigations of the scientists and technologists. But, as I have described in the examples of Geology and Evolution, many things in the experience of Mankind could NOT be penetrated by pluralistic means.

III: Human Development

Let us consider the holistic development of a human being!

Such an individual starts its existence as a fertilised egg – that of a female united with the sperm of a male. Even at the moment of conception, the essential plans for the future development of that consequent human being are already there and complete in the DNA of that fertilised egg. But, these instructions come into action at different stages in the subsequent development of the embryo, and are activated by the changing context of the egg at each and every different juncture.

With such a collection of unchanging genes, each with a particular role, either alone or in combination with others, the expressions of these genes are delivered, but they MUST be under some sort of control. They don’t all act together unhindered and unsynchronised. On the contrary, they spend most of their time inactive and only come into play at exactly the right time. What can coordinate their properly sequenced expression?

We have only the fertilised egg, its genetic material and its environment.

Initially at least, the environment must trigger particular genes, and the process commences. But, as the embryo grows in size and absorbs nutrients, there will be physical rearrangements of the cells, and different conditions will pertain in different parts. The environment becomes localised and differentiated with internal components to add to the enclosing context. This must be the crux.

The embryo itself with its increasing differentiation, and the products of earlier expressed genes, along with the environment will successively trigger the right genes at the right times, and from a single original egg, via a multiplication involving cell divisions and a sequence of gene expressions, will usually immaculately produce the individual, which at some stage can leave its perfect environment within its mother, and set out into the world as a separate human being.

The organism has been directed by its genetic blueprint, but IT, in turn, controls the expression of that plan. The development of the organism changes its own contained environment as it develops.

Now, if we were limited to a single-celled organism, we would also be limited finitely, and though that fragment of life will still have alternative and sequenced modes, they would all have to involve the whole cell in these changes. The true potential of this recursive loop can only be maximised, in the way outlined above, in a multi-cellular organism (such as our human being). For then, different “local” environments for different groups of cells can cause different “expressions” of the genes in appropriate areas. Indeed, different functional organs can be developed simultaneously in different places – produced by different expressions of the genes, and these will in turn affect each others local environments.

The multi-celled organism revolutionised the possibilities for Life, and after almost 3 billion years in the single celled phase of Life, the Emergence of the multicellular forms led to the famous Cambrian Explosive Radiation of life forms, which persists even today in the main basic body plans of living things.

Can you imagine some pluralist attempt dealing with all this via a series of equations? It couldn’t!

Such a scenario requires a holistic standpoint to even conceive of it happening.

The organism is constantly changing but via a sequence of relatively stable phases, while at certain crucial points, the whole organism undergoes an Emergence, and becomes essentially different, with different and NEW properties.

The Pillars of Creation - Hubble Space Telescope

IV: The Universe

To those who study Emergence, there can be NO doubt, the living organism in microcosm reflects the Cosmos in macrocosm. It too undergoes episodic Emergences, wherein the possibilities are radically extended, and the crucial essence of these Events involves the changing environment, which initially produced it, and which is now regularly changed by its own products.

Emergences create new possibility spaces (to use a modern expression), NOT posited in the individual from without, but generated from within, when incremental change can no longer be contained in the same way, and the whole structure is radically changed – not merely in Form, but vitally also in possibilities.

Biomimicry

Not Form, but Cause

To return, for a moment, to my previously mentioned book, by Iain Stewart - Life’s Other Secret, Stewart’s thesis was that Mathematics was that other secret. He dismissed the “gene for everything” school of thought, and offered Mathematics as the determinator of many features of Living Things (the usual idealist error of inversion). But, Mathematics is about abstracting Form from Reality: it can never be a cause!

In the examples he gives, Stewart mistakes mere Form for determining cause, whereas it can only be a consequent result of some real and concrete multifarious processes. In concentrating on his beloved Mathematics, he ignored the true and fascinating real concrete causes.

Once more we see the limitations of Plurality, and the significant aberration of understanding that such an approach is bound to cause.

The reader, by now, will realise that this essay is neither a description of, nor a prescription for, a holistic Science. I am in no position to deliver such a thing. But, I can demonstrate that it is not only necessary, but also possible to develop such a methodology.

The reader will be forgiven for protesting that this essay seemed to promise Holistic Reason, or a Logic of Change, and has not delivered this. It is certainly true that a finished all-bells-and-whistles approach has not been described. If it had, it would be a truly world shattering revolution in Reason, but such systems can only be achieved over long periods, via the contributions of many innovative thinkers. It could never be produced in a single essay and from a single contributor.

The Laban Pure Form

The Multi-Discipline Approach

Nonetheless, I think that this contribution is important because of my unusual experience.

Not only am I a qualified Mathematician and Physicist, but have also reached the pinnacle of my profession in Pedagogy and also in programming Computers-in-Control. I am a long-standing sculptor and composer, and also spent a substantial fraction of my adult life in revolutionary politics. I am, as you may have guessed, a Marxist, though never a Stalinist. 

Since the early 1980’s my specialism in Computers-in-Control led to my assisting a wide variety of researchers in many disciplines, until finally I developed, with Dance Teacher colleague in Higher Education, a system for supplying Multimedia Resources for the Teaching of Dance, in which I an currently the world leader in the field.

I have been writing on science and Philosophy for over 15 years, and, since my retirement, have become full-time in these areas. I have written a series of books on Operational Research, the Methodology of Multimedia Pedagogy, Theory and Reality, Emergence and The Structures of Explanatory Diagrams. I have spent many years researching in Mathematics, with perhaps the best discoveries being the invention of an infinite Three Dimensional Strand (The Soma Strand) that stacks to fill space, and a polyhedral Teaching Aid (The Laban Pure Form) for use with Laban’s ideas in Dance Teaching, and his world famous Labanotation system for recording Dance works.

This width of interests is unique, and has fuelled my criticism of pluralist methods and philosophy in both Science and Reason. I am in a position to survey the landscape of Reality from a rare promontory, and at the very least discern that its proper exploration is certainly fully achievable, while “burying” the atrocities of current Quantum Theory in Physics along the way.