The last in this series of papers on Jim Schofield's Systems Theory deals with how science needs to move on from a mechanistic understanding of systems and evolution, and finally embrace dialectics.
Contents:
Introducing Schofield’s Systems Theory
Natural Multi-Factor Interactions
Dialectical Materialist Evolution
Addendum: Emergence and Randomness; Order out of Chaos?
The Working Class Artisans - A (very) brief history of science
The very beginnings of what were later called The Sciences kicked off in ancient times, in the hands of able Artisans, who, initially as Farmers, attempted to make their daily tasks easier, by starting to devise simpler ways to undertake the many onerous processes involved, by the careful and intelligent design and making of helpful Tools. They were never initially trained in such tasks: they just had to "Suck-it-and-See" in attempting to alleviate some of the more time consuming jobs, that were absolutely essential to successful growing, animal husbandry, cooking and crafting. In time, these increasingly effective innovators became independent of individual farmers, and formed a valuable aid to the whole community. For doing their specialist tasks and nothing else quickly speeded up their Development AND the Efficacy of the aids they made, used or trained people for use. In the more developed Feudal Communities, they might be employed directly by the Lord of the Manor, and even equipped with their own small staff: and this greatly extended what they could usefully do...
But, these Artisans were essentially Pragmatists - finding the best and most effective means of achieving their aims through experiment. They rapidly became indispensable, and were joined, in the employ of the Lord, by professional soldiers, with the efficient tools of their defensive and coercive trades, to maintain and even increase the extent of that Lord's Territory! And, in such circumstances had to extend the skills of the local Tool producer to making and improving the weapons of the soldiers too. Indeed, in Sea-side or River-side locations these increasingly able Artisans began to be called upon to provide boats and minor bridges too.
Now in the so-called Classical World, dominated by Greece and then Rome, the soldiers became more associated with the Ruling Class, as feudal Domains became only parts of Militarily acquired Empires of great size, topped by a growing Ruling Elite, who were able to follow differently occupying lifestyles, and pursue concerns like Philosophy and the Arts! They got their riches from vast estates, particularly in conquered Lands. So, developments in attempts at Understanding began to take two very different routes: though in the case of the Ruling Class, their bases DID NOT originate as did the older Artisanal route within Pragmatism, and the solution of everyday Work Problems, but instead in their purely conceptual experiences in their cerebral preoccupations.
These two alternative routes in Thinking diverged markedly. For while the Pragmatist still solved the Everyday Problems, the Conceptions of what pure Reasoning could achieve, were considered to reside only in the Classical Ideas, and NEVER in the simple Pragmatism of the Artisans!
The Ruling Thinkers - A (very) brief history of science
So, when the Ancient Greeks came up with the very first Consistent, Concise and Comprehensive Rationality for Mathematics, it was Wholly Wrongly assumed to be about ALL Kinds of Thinking! But those privileged Thinkers, largely a part of the Ruling Class, knew Nothing about the Applied Knowledge of the Artisans! Indeed, their devised Logic was only legitimate within the tightly maintained and Restricted Areas of Disciplines like Mathematics: wholly Pluralist sets of circumstances and Processes.
Yet in the alternative approach of Pragmatism, they were also stymied by a very different and undermining mistake: for their approach involved NOT a purely cerebral Discipline, as was the Classical Stance, but changing Real World situations that frequently undermined their conclusions.
Interestingly, BOTH sides considered that they solved their inadequacies by Combining the Two! But this didn't fully solve the problem. The only approach for both of these just had to be Holistic: because, to some extent - Everything affects Everything Else!
Nevertheless, the Pragmatists embraced the classically developed Mathematics of their Rulers, because of its seemingly-reliable-consistencies (and in spite of its blatant Plurality): while the Classicists, in turn, embraced the Real World Causality of the Pragmatists (in spite of its evident inconsistencies and physical limitations - always limited to known, local and highly constrained situations).
And the closer we study our consequent Laws within both of these alternatives, the more Significant Inadequacies are revealed: and, the more failures we notice, whichever Stance we choose to make!
Let us, therefore, re-address what was historically-considered necessary, in order to make sense of what was being revealed within the first general Approach of Chemistry!
The Petit Bourgeois Alchemists - A (very) brief history of science
For as this discipline developed, it certainly seemed able to deal with particular features, such as the various different Elements, which clearly combined-together, as units of the substances involved, and always as Single Atoms or Molecules, even if the Context was a great multiplicity of these units: the overall Bulk Effects being merely seen as multiplied-up versions of the Exact Same Products! - in spite of the individual single-unit-reactions by NO means happening simultaneously...
Of course, these methods work pragmatically within artificially-constructed Experiments, with absolutely nothing else in the mix - all variables must be controlled! But such circumstances would NEVER occur in unfettered Reality-as-is!
Indeed, absolutely all Experiments are limited-to these kinds of restricted cases. And, it is obvious that in less "clean-and-ordered" conditions, things would certainly not only be very different, but also would occur at different tempos, and include other usually NOT considered components too. And also, given time, and a Real World Complex Mix, all sorts of reactions including those that, by diverse routs, also end up adding to the expected result's total by other means.
And, of course, standing behind all of these assumptions is the Major Error, that separately derived cases simply Add - when happening together and simultaneously - but THEY DON'T! As The Systems Approach regularly proves.
And, of course, Chemistry played no part in the Artisan precidence in many other nascent Sciences! For, it was primarily developed by specialists within Education, and a limited band within Production, where in both of these, its study was given the usual greatly restricted Context, with the usual severely biassed results! Indeed, most supposedly relevant studies were treated to similar restrictions both in Education and Production. And, always seemingly with just Causes - as the more Natural occurrences would always involve a multiplicity of simultaneous, mutually-affecting Processes, thereby making any meaningful understanding of what was going on, impossible! And, particularly as, with little or no revealed Causal Laws, separating out the various contributions to any overall results, was effectively impossible too.
Indeed, the establishment of Causal Laws, AND their separation from the overall effects, was imperative - BUT also impossible as more and more such relations were initially totally Quantitative, and hence indistinguishable from all other Quantitative contributions. And as these Causal Relations didn't appear at the same Level, as the exclusively Empirical Results, this became increasingly difficult to both correctly match up and apply.
And, to make matters even worse, the multiplicity of confusing Systems Effects - which, remember, were NOT even acknowledged until recently - the disentangling of these differently caused contributions was never fully achieved!
The solution, though obvious, is nowhere generally admitted and hence NOT undertaken! It has to be an all-out assault upon Systems Theory, involving the detailed definition of Causal Elements, in order to Fully Explain their contributions, as well as including their purely Quantitative aspects.
Now, with a well-entrenched and dominant Mathematical Rationality, the current scientific methods simply cannot easily do this.
The new series on SHAPE Journal attempts to outline an alternative approach
Let us look briefly at a single Systems Approach revelation by this researcher, in order to effectively reveal the involved difficulties!
It is the unavoidable preponderance of CHAINS and even CYCLES of Processes, that are necessary to analyse the Effects of particularly important faults that regularly disturb these Sequences!
Now clearly the Processes involved in these sequences are NEVER lined up in a queue, ready-and-waiting for their turn! They will merely be available within a pre-existing "random mix" - - perhaps more numerous than others not regularly required in this way: BUT, because of their randomised positions AND the possibility of their being pre-emptied by others with the same linking variable, could have a mistaken join up and hence a confusion which could show up in the final Quantitative results, with NO indication of WHY?
Now, an important aspect of Systems Theory, is when a particular Natural System, involving a whole consequent series of Separate Processes, gets established, and is multiply repeated simultaneously, and also over time: for the constant repetition ensures not only the resulting final products, but also the continuing presence of all the required components in the mix - especially if they are involved one way or another in other Processes too! For they came to have assured presences in the containing population, where others not so integrated, would tend to die out!
So the finding of the next required Process in a sequence would always be easier (though not always guaranteed). So fairly "ordered" populations could gradually be achieved!
Large-scale successful process successes, tended to restructure their environments, sometimes dramatically, at least to some extent removing the prior "randomness", and making the sequences ever more likely to succeed!
But such kinds of vital population massaging, would never be straight-forward to interpret Quantitatively.
It is when we start to think this way about dynamic Natural Systems, that the age-old pact between experimental pragmatism and mathematical logic, begins to break down irrevocably...
The following paper is part of a forthcoming special series of the SHAPE Journal outlining my new Systems Approach to Science - the issues are to be titled The Systems Theory of Everything...
The key revelation, via my recent work on Systems Theory, is that absolutely all Laws exist in very long-lasting, initial & partial modes - actually defining, what appears to be, their naturally Sole and Permanently Existing Level. This Level certainly continues to exist-as-such for often considerable periods of time. Yet, that seeming-permanence is totally illusory: for, though it has in actuality established a Primary Level-of-such-Laws, the consequent process of the Law's Inevitable Evolutionary Development was, as yet, still incomplete. It actually can-and-does establish further transforming developments, into extra Causalities, situated at a Wholly New Level, while adding a Purely Empirical Rider STILL at the prior Level.
Now, understandably, this was always missed in our scientific investigations (and still is, by all those intimately-wedded to the two and a half millennia-old Principle of Wholly Pluralist Laws)! A stance naturally arising, entirely Pragmatically, from the absolutely necessary, and greatly restricting, experiences of the only Form of Successful Productions, entirely Without Theory then known. For it simply could not be otherwise!
Only via great restrictions upon both Context and Content could Productions be consistently successful. And, this is because, of course, such limitations successfully totally suppress any natural further Causal Developments - indeed of any Evolution of the Laws involved.
Remember, therefore, such Levels were solely imposed by Mankind! Left to itself, Reality-as-is naturally evolves, though often extremely slowly from our perspective. And it was Successful Production that set the first-percieved-boundary, though the natural difference in tempo actually drove the Man-sized conceptions involved.
Now, the problem of discarding that initially necessary straight-jacket in Thinking, has taken a very long time, in breaking-into Man's Consciousness, because Production has become the Motive Force for our Success in this World! And, has also been the Prime Driver of the whole Human Population into Opposing Economic Classes, which also perpetuate this actually accelerating aberration.
The Essence of the entrenched Pluralist perspective, underpins the current Class Dominances, and has continued to dominate Mankind's Consciousness for Millennia!
Science is also a social process, and part of a superstructural system that "maintains the base"
But, such a damaged-view of the World has undermined any Real Understanding of Reality-as-is, to such an extent, that the dominant Economic Drives were, and are, pushing Nature itself to the brink of collapse, and without a veritable Revolution, the Human Situation upon Earth is surely in question.
For, the Natural Revolutions of the Ancient World, that historian and philosopher Karl Marx had studied, and thereafter so brilliantly-and-remarkably analysed, in his wholly New Dialectical Way, sadly had, since then, been increasingly diverted away from that wholly natural, self-correcting-and-developing Path, by the concerted efforts of Mankind (particularly its Ruling Classes) - greatly distorting and also forcing such situations into clearly non-natural directions, without the releases and rejuvenations that those Revolutions had always allowed!
Initially, those man-devised objectives and consequent directions didn't seem to be forcing situations badly wrong! But, that increasingly and acceleratingly changed, as Mankind's choices ever more speedingly precipitated more-and-more Crises, though also, contradictingly, alongside clearly evident Gains.
So, the real causes of a general deterioration were never realised! And, the mounting damage to the Natural Environmental Processes of Development, along with the suppression of literally all natural-and-beneficial Revolutionary Upheavals, were imposing a significant and increasing bias, and ever more deterioration, upon the underlying conditions of all wholly Natural Levels.
The previously wholly Natural Processes of Both Correction and Improvement were increasingly suppressed by Human Activity, and concern for the many natural self-correcting Systems of Planet Earth, along with its diverse and contending Contents, were NO LONGER allowed to function as was necessary for such a complex System to be able to develop naturally!
Of course, Marx's historical analyses had been wholly correct, but he had never went beyond his own finite Social and Economic Disciplines, in any of his analyses, so the wider Sciences were all totally omitted! And, subsequent Marxists, ever since, (with the possible exception of Lenin) all kept well within the confines and boundaries of their own particular disciplines - so many of these contributions, though certainly of some value, were also severely damaged by these major limitations.
Coupled with the always-assumed extrapolations-upwards from single Atoms and Molecules, all the way to considerably larger natural associations, could not but severely-distort what was considered to be Causality, regarding real and much larger Systems.
Clearly, these assumptions would be wholly misleading, in Real World situations, so, experimenters continually restricted the circumstances of their Experiments, until the results finally matched the assumptions! Not very scientific was it?
But, remarkably, by mere chance, those results did indeed match with another remarkably truncated Discipline - and, for totally unrealised reasons! For, IF the restrictions were tightly implemented-and-maintained - as such, the situation would indeed be made to conform to the originally tightly restricted-and-controlled condition - which limited Laws to their initially First-discovered-Level alone.
You can see why they clung to their Plurality so steadfastly: but it was for the Wrong Reasons, and led them increasingly astray over time!
Only Modern Systems Theory (for example, the work of Denis Noble) could possibly reveal the Truth - for Causality actually changes with Scale! And, without which, the intricacies of Real Dialectical Causal Evolution would NEVER be understood.
Now, the very development (occurring originally in Ancient Greece circa 500 BC) that laid a basis for a certain kind of Consistent Thinking, associated with Number, and thereby establishing the very first Consistent, Concise and Comprehensive Rationality, upon which, the First-Ever Usable Rationality was constructed - gave power to the elbows of those who extolled-the-virtues of Rationality in establishing Truth Absolutely Everywhere, and ALSO, thereby, instituted the Wholly Wrong Idea, that the same would be possible across All Areas of Study, upon an identical basis: which was most certainly UNTRUE!
For, though this did also reflect the First Discernible Level in Natural Laws, it was NOT all-embracing, and would, everywhere, be extended, given time, because in its early association with the First Ever Rationality of Mathematics, had subsequently damagingly manacled literally all Logical Thinking, only to that necessarily limited Rationality, probably very similar to that devised for Mathematics: which was, most certainly, Totally Incorrect.
And, this clearly also-damaged the very idea of Rationality, as applied across most areas of Study, and was, thereby, limiting the range of possibilities only to those that conformed to a single artificially limited Logic.
The true, natural variability of most real relations was ignored, for a simpler System that always also implemented the necessary limitations!
These damaging assumptions were established for literally all Ways of Thinking - as it was to match the Limited Rationalities across the whole range of real possibilities, which had, thereby, falsely restricted situations to only all severely and wrongly-limited-sets. The whole range of Rationalities were similarly straight-jacketed into restricted sets, that could never fully reflect the full set of Real Possibilities that were actually occurring.
Clearly, such wrongly-imposed limitations would necessarily omit some of the true full set of legitimate contributions, and, thereby, also fail to fully consider all of the actual effects of those omitted possibilities completely, and hence, at least some of the consequent extended sequences of later, as yet, totally unaddressed possibilities.
What would unavoidably have been delivered, but would also necessarily have always been incomplete: and these, nevertheless, would have their effects, which because of the imposed, yet incorrect limitations upon everything, would later still appear, but "without causes", and consequently be frequently wrongly explained!
Now, a single case, as described above, would, of course, be added to by all other applications of that falsely imposed restriction: not to mention all the many possible "cross-effects" between the various different omitted cases. So, in this complex world, we are now revealing the overall effects of these limitations, which would, very quickly, expand to significant unaccounted-for consequences. And, the question that arises must be, "What would experimenters DO to bring things back into predictable territory?" Would it be another dose of those usually-applied simplifying Physical Restrictions, that were the problem in the first place?
The points made in this essay are by no means trivial: but taken as a whole, with other seemingly confirming processes of various other kinds, can-and-have produced an apparently consistent approach, which is, nevertheless, totally false! And, therefore, one which initially must have seemed wholly sufficient, has, as more and often contradictory additions were included, demanded ever more also-incorrect additions, merely to counter the ever-increasing contradictions, caused by those restrictions.
The only effective approach, has to be a disposing of all these past mistakes (and any correcting props we routinely rely on), and the complete replacement by the indicated extension of Dialectical Materialism, to a Holistic Systems Approach to absolutely Everything!
The previously truncated, and hence initially greatly simplfied, straight-through approach, and its replacement by a sequentially emerging System of Levels - to actually reflect the real constantly (if slowly) Emerging Evolution of Reality into Ever New Levels, with majorly qualifying Effects. The Appearance and consequent Evolution of Life did exactly this, and thereby has proved its necessary inclusion within absolutely all areas of Change!
Now, the consequences of this are NOT just in explaining the Emergence of wholly new features, BUT primarily in how the increasing numbers of often contending Laws and Properties - all available together - actually manage to co-exist!
We must remember that all these many Laws, not only all exist in the same spaces, but both depend upon each other for required resources - and also, in turn, deliver their products in the same way! And, though some will compliment one another, others will most certainly contend. And, in a multi-factor environment, contentions will tend to balance out - effectively negating each other's opposite effects.
Overall, the most likely outcome will be what might be called an Active Balance - producing a kind if Stability, which is actively maintained as such, by cyclical processes, all of the time!
Now, as I have established elsewhere in several other papers in this series, the gulf between these, and the way of finding, and using Natural Laws, particularly in my specialist area of Physics: and the Real World I have described here, is undoubtedly enormous! For, the relations due to the properties of the various Elements and their compounds are always limited to just the relations between those properties occurring at the most basic Aomic and Molecular Level, which are considered to then be merely multiplied-up somehow, purely quantitatively, when used in the actual bulk occurrences: with no consideration whatsoever of any Interacting Systems Effects, between the many clearly also-present, other simultaneously-happening processes. And, the relations between all these many different processes is totally disregarded!
So, all the Effects that I have been considering in this series of papers are, thereafter, never considered at all by Scientists, or anyone else that I can see. Yet, they not only happen, but by various Systems Means, including the cancelling of Contentions, the overall total finally arrives at an Active Stability, which temporarily maintains them all, but now hidden within what we see as "Stability"!
And what a Natural Revolution turns out to be, is originated initially by a general drift towards - first one of the many Active Stabilities dissociated, followed immediately by all the rest, one after the other - onto the total dissolution of a general Collapse, and a return back to something resembling Chaos.
But, though it always happens - it isn't what we usually think characterises such a Revoluion: for, that is always the following High-Speed Re-constructive Phase, that allows a Total Re-building of all Active Stabilities, but upon an Entirely New Basis, this time solely from the Chaos that has been produced, yet on a different and indeed higher Level.
Indeed, from the exact same included resources, a Wholly New Set of True Emergences appear, which though they were always possible within that set of resources, were also totally impossible to predict from the prior situation.
The promises of a successful Revolution can NEVER be specific: but when a Revolution is finally successfully completed, against the forces of reaction - the active stabilising processes of the prior system - the gains will always be significant!
Both in Nature and in Human Societies, development always occurs via a succession of such Necessary Revolutions: it can not be any other way, because all prior elements exist only in a rich interconnected fabric of interacting parts, which present a complex whole to thwart significant changes! There is NO ideal achieveable situation - for Reality-as-is constantly creates ever new possibilities, while simultaeously developing ways of safeguarding past gains. But, that will persist only until the System is no longer viable - at that point a Revolution is inevitable.
Until we understand these complex processes in Multi-Level Systems, we won't know when this will occur, or have any idea what is likely to happen afterwards.
In beginning, to explain the Natural Development of Reality-as-is, and having to consciously change from the once primitive Approach by assuming a single All-Embracing Rationality to a strictly Formal One, epitomised solely by Mathematics: it gradually (and haltingly) became clear that such an Approach was far too restricted - excluding all relevant causative factors, to highlight only those that are wholly defined by a Set of Forever Fixed Laws - just like those of Mathematics, and hence making those rationalities entirely Pluralistic.
So, if the readers of this (as they should) require a comprehensive proof of this important conclusion of mine, I can refer them to many evident arguments, culminating in this stance, within SHAPE Journal - compiled over the last 12 years by this writer: where the main intention was to win over participators to the Alternative Holistic Approach, as originally initiated by The Buddha, though only finally and extensively established by the historian/philosopher, Karl Marx, very much later, in the 19th cebtury - some two and a half millennia after The Buddha.
But, Marx never extended his crucial changes into any of The Sciences, which turned out to be an absolutely vital omission: so he did not complete the necessary transformation, thereby leaving his version of Holism, woefully lacking in many important and indeed necessary areas. And, most important of all, he did not establish sufficiently an All Embracing Version of Holism!
For, it should also have comprehensively tackled the problem of multiple, simultaneous and mutually- affecting factors, that would have involved what I have called The Systems Approach.
But, even those meagre additions, by this Thinker and Writer, turn out to be nowhere near enough, as FIRST: The Emergence of Life totally transformed the available mechanisms within the properties of the now newly available agents of all the possible concrete development, namely ALL Living Entities, and the then, ultimately, the qualitatively different Thinking, finally possible by Mankind!
Now, the latter undertaking is now somewhat underway, but the former involving the effect of Life itself, has, as yet, NOT been addressed. So, the purpose of this paper will attempt to begin to sufficiently fill that vital gap!
For the tempo-and-nature of Development, itself, was majorly-and-qualitatively transformed by the Emergence of Life - as embodied in the unavoidable, appaerent limitations delivered by the relatively Short-Lengths of all the Lifetimes of the interacting living entities involved, and also significantly also compounded by the only possible concrete legacy between generations, being via the sexually-produced, and hence genetically-defined determinators, combined within the produced seeds-or- offsprings: and which always being distinctly genetically- different to the contributing individual parents, and, thereafter directing the competition of those differently- endowed others of their type.
For, the somewhat inferior products would always survive less well, and, over time, the genetic stock of the various populations would clearly improve and even their means of life would change and be passed on both purely genetically, and by parental instruction! And though other factors would undoubtedly be involved, there would be significant tempo developments via Evolution, than was ever possible before the Advent of Life!
From two very ordinary Working Class families, including my Grandma, who could neither Read nor Write, my son now has a Doctorate and directs a significant course at a well-eatablished English University!
Yet, nevertheless, actual ascending trajectories of possible individual development, are not yet what they should be, as the World Economic System grinds increasingly haltingly towards an inevitable Worldwide set of Devastating and even Existential Crises, in many different directions, each with no obvious solutions, being either pursued, or even proposed.
The opportunities that are still possible, are increasingly opposed by those who for a very long time have been reaping most of the rewards available , and doing it in such a way, that, on a Global Scale, they work against such developments, if applied generally, and instead re-direct the driving imperatives involved away from the general involvement of all populations, so that they show themselves as driving things, at least partially, only to their own working populations, so that they are ever more likely to be blamed. Global calamities such as increasingly irreversible, yet wholly Damaging Climate Change, and the also ever-growing impoverishment of the majority of the World’s poorest Populations!
And, by so doing, attempting to divert the blame for all of the Crises onto ordinary people, and certainly not the fault of the decision makers, who actually caused it, as long as they didn’t suffer!
The Objective of the Ruling Class is clearly to ensure their own well-endowed future, while everyone else bears the brunt of any fall-out, even though to continue to get away with it all, they will act as if they are struggling against colossal odds outside of their control, while they continue to try to alleviate the lot of the Common People “as best as we can!”
But, though the tempos of development involved in Society were vastly increased, those improvements were NOT directed in the very best directions, for the benefit of the majority of the population. But, always aimed in the directions that affected the tempo of monetary benefits selectively to the Owners and Directors of all Productive, Transportive and Distributive undertakings! The needs and benefits for Employed Workers did NOT figure at all in these remunerations!
Theory:
Without a doubt, further progress in the intellectual developments that Mankind has pursued, is needed in order for us to survive beyond this century. Literally ever since we abandoned the Trees of the Equatorial Forests for the significant Emergence of the new open expanses typified by the unsustaining grasses, with their populations of grazing, fleet-footed animal inhabitants, along with the fierce predators that preyed upon them, so clearly having the strong effect of selecting for ever increasing speeds of the prey animals, in order to even survive! Surely, that didn’t seem at all coducive as a habitat for Human Beings! So, what was it that even gave them a chance of surviving? They were NOT fleet- of-foot: nor did they possess dangerous teeth, claws, or remarkable strength!
Those Hominids seemed hopelessly ill-equipped for the wide open Praries, and far better off remaining where there closest relatives, the Gorillas and Chimpanzees chose to remain, with the protection and relative abundence of the fast shrinking Forests... But, they didn’t do that!
So what features in the lives, suggested that the Praries were the best place for them?
They had already abandoned the trees for the Ground! For by doing so they enabled their forelimbs to become manipulators of things: and their hands evolved very differetly, into brilliant manipulators of many different things. The became bipedal, with NOT tree-grasping “hands”, but running feet! They had already found ready-made rools in the form of sticks and stones, and could maintain a naturally caused Fire, both for warmth and to scare off predators.
And these changes radically altered their ability to THINK! It was as yet still similar to how they used their brains in the Trees - but was changing fast! The new environment was greatly more challenging than it had long been in the forest: for there was literally no secure places to go to when challenged by predators. Somehow early Humans had to stand and fight and arrive at effective wasys to do that! They had to constantly think of how they would survive: and those who didn’t measure up, perished! There was a selective pressure upon them that fairly rapidly selected for the cleverest!
They found caves to use as refuges: and ever better weapons to fight with, including spears and Fire itself; and, accordingly, only the best thinkers survived, and, along with the developments in intelligence, the Humans (or, most probably, their immediate ancestors), rapidly adapted to make the best of this new environment for their survival and development. In particular, they lost most of their body-hair, and rapidly adapted sweating to further cool down their increasing temperatures - while also adapting thier legs and feet, for extended necessary running. They became ever better animals of the plains!
Now, such swift and concentrated adaptions also demanded major changes in their brains, but, most significantly, in how they solved the very different problems of Survival: for without that ability too, they could not have continued their conquest of ever new environments, which they continued to do until they were literally everywhere upon Planet Earth!
But, to assume that all these developments were based upon ideal ways of internalising the Truth of these New Situations, you would be very wrong indeed. For, there was Absolutely NO Easy Access to such “Truths”! Reality-as-is is far too multi-layered and complex for that to be directly achievable by mere Experience of it.
Indeed, all such achievements ONLY had to marginally increase the possibility of survival - and that has to include something of the Truth!
So, literally NONE of the improvements ever enabled Human Thinking to alight upon any absolute Truths at all: they were all only ever partially true, and would, every single one of them, lead to error in all attempts at analysis!
Our concept of both the Nature of Reality-as-is, AND of of our predictions from it, have so far been inadequate, as every New Area of Study only ever reveals wholly New, previously-hidden features, that, even when they are fully addressed, are STILL not by any means, the Whole Story! Indeed,these revelations prove undisputedly that the Holist View and Approach to the study and control of Reality-as-is is absolutely correct, and that from the tiniest morsel of Matter to the Infinite Universe, there will exist many, many very different Systens, Structures and Laws, which, nevertheless, naturally co-exist, and even contribute to one another: YET at each Level deliver different dominances and hence a surprising measure of temporary independance, while still via Emergences, are always capable of changing overall situations dramatically - even into what appears to be a Direct Opposite situation!
This paper is taken from the latest issue of SHAPE Journal (76):
This edition looks at evolutionary development, but certainly not in the usual and expected ways. Jim Schofield's new Systems Approach to Science reconfigures how we think about how both natural and social systems change over time.
From the revolutionary tool use of Early Man, to the problems of solving Climate Change today, from the mysteries of Sub-atomic Physics to the unknown Origin of Life on Earth, this discursive series of essays plots a path through the many flaws in current Human Understanding, to reveal the vital need to appreciate systems holistically for the first time.
Revolution and Emergence are just as important to understanding Life's development, as genetics and incremental Evolution. How do such vast systems become stable in the first place, what finally makes them collapse, and how does that process lead to the Wholly New?
The initial conceptions by Human Beings, as with all the other simultaneously-existing living-creatures, assumed the Constancy of their Common World - and this intial assumption, in the Sole Case of Mankind alone, was then increasingly challenged, by their own, if initially meagre, sucesses in dealing with that World.
Now, such real developments, that were achieved, did not ever come easily, so there was nothing automatic about our progression. Indeed, it was also clear that they were difficult to “get right”, and Reality-as-is, was also definitely composed of multiple features, some of which seemed Contradictory...
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.
This edition continues this journal's exploration of a nascent Holist Science.
Though I have been approaching the mysteries of the Subatomic world for a very long time (see Substrate Theory and The Theory of the Double Slit) - I now must tackle the many anomalies of this area of Physics, Philosophically, to have any chance of establishing a new Holist approach, before Physics effectively destroys itself, with its increasingly generated contradictions.
These papers bring together findings from Substrate Theory, The Theory of Emergences and the new Systems Approach to Science, to make the case for using Dialectics in Physics and the search for further "Invisible Media" across the Sciences.
After struggling through a 9,000-word set of essays upon these questions, within A Study of The Philosophy of Reality, so many surprising aspects arose that I was sorely pressed to extend the discussion to Theory-in-General - and particularly into what is often termed "Truth" - with regard to Subsequent Purposive Action: for the relationships turn out to be nowhere near as obvious as I (and it seems everyone else) had initially assumed to be the case. The descent to an underlying Universal always beckoned!
Nevertheless, your immediate Objectives (and also The Local Context), clearly change Everything, so that General Conceptions, wholly independent of such purely local considerations, are clearly bound to lead one astray, if they differ: and they most certainly always do.
Now, this latter point may well arouse a committed and energetic opposition, but "Truth", when defined solely by the subsequently-achieved success in producing those desired objectives, accompanying, as they do, a whole range of such achievable Contexts, quite definitely, removes that world from its assumed Absolute Context, and places it into a much more limited one. Indeed, the vast majority of such intentions, will do likewise, making the Absolute View of the Context always, at least locally, totally wrong.
Indeed, what soon became clear, in that prior collection of essays, was that very many such contexts have their "Own Truths", validly restricted to that particular limited Context, to facilitate its correct analysis, and guarantee its consequent outcome.
All Truths dont have to be Universally True! Indeed, MOST Truths are of this context-limited-type.
And in a Holistic World, such as we definitely inhabit, with literally Everything affected and Changed by Everything Else, to some degree, rather than throwing up our hands, and giving up, we have long learned how to deal with Local Cases, where local circumstances do not substantially change over time, or are maintained as such for the duration of investigations!
The whole of Current Science was, from its outsets, consciously built upon such Qualitatively Unchanging, Controlled Situations; which naturally deliver Fixed Pluralistic Solutions - so problems arise if situations legitimately stray into The New, where the old assumptions no longer hold. Indeed, the usual Overall Premise is that situations can and indeed do change, NOT to be delivered by a Single Permanently Fixed Natural Law, but to yet another Locally Fixed and very different one.
Yet, at the same time, Generally Everywhere Applicable relations SIMPLY MUST be used when substitutions between formulae, in order to build a legitimate valid Science Discipline, as a single whole! So the evident mismatch between given relations in Local Maintained Stabilities, and the Formulae developed solely from the valid equations of the Discipline as-a-whole, trigger off a multitude of regular problems.
You cannot do that!
Not least, when the wrong, usually Local, equations are used, substituting from Local relations into others to illegitimately extend the Discipline as a whole. Very clearly this will cause problems!
Why?
It is because we trust our Formal Repredentations and Methods more than any others - and you can see clearly why we do! It is because we have discovered a Purely Formal Method of bringing relations together to deliver "more relations"! Once we have such a combined-formal-representation for the new combined feature - entirely defined purely in terms of quantitative variables, which can take a range of values, and which when inserted into the combined Formula by their values, for delivering the new feature, evaluating the result delivers a new value for the new feature: but it is, and can only be, entirely quantitative.
But, what Quality does it refer to?
No description, or even mention, of any Qualities of the New Feature are evident anywhere in this process. As such, new Qualities cannot be represented Quantitatively or using Formulae.
So where are any qualitative changes defined?
It has to be Wholly Elsewhere, usually from detecting New Qualitative Effects via Experiment and/or from mere Observation.
But they are NEVER explained causally!
Can changes in quantities alone explain NEW Qualities? NO! Qualities were traditionally causally-explained, but now have been increasingly abandoned as an integral Part of Science, to be replaced solely by Mathematics, which are significantly Philosophically compromised, in that demanding role, so, along with mere Association, for a wholly unsatisfactory attempt at "explanation"!
NOTE: You can see their difficulties in Public Lectures, where they are often forced to once again rely upon long-abandoned causal explanations of the past! For otherwise they would conjure up absolutely no belief in such an audience.
Elsewhere I have comprehensively dealt with the consequences of this wholly illegitimate abandonment of Causal Explanation, within Physics in particular. But, the disease has entered into the very Fabric of all the Sciences, as is increasingly evident from the many proliferating problems, which currently beset them all.
And, as I have begun to expand things generally into what I term Systems Causality, which is almost totally unknown in any of the Sciences, but has significant largely Causal Effects, which are also not recognised as such either! Indeed, it appears to be only in the Systems Effects that address the causal changes which can be ascribed primarily to Number.
Indeed, the most important, appears to be what I have termed Selective Elimination of certain processes usually brought about by the same distortions, which could also lead to significant Qualitative Changes, and which are often terminated as possibilities by such removals...
The Origin of Systems is a new series of papers by philosopher Jim Schofield, exploring several options for a complete overhaul of both Science and Materialist Dialectics.
We must turn our efforts to the holistic study of complex systems and what Schofield calls “Systems Effects” via the “Systems Approach”, if we’re to turn a corner in our understanding and finally break free from the shackles of reductionist Pluralist thinking.
It soon becomes apparent that we know very little about how natural systems actually come to be, how they evolve over time, what keeps them going over hundreds or even millions of years, and what finally precipitates their collapse. Only a Holist approach stands a chance of answering these vital questions about Reality.
And as the vast systems of Capitalism and our Global Climate begin to collapse, a Holistic understanding of Systems in general, will become vital for our survival as a species.
As Schofield writes in this issue: “Our so-called Explanations, are often far from the mark, due to their being totally unaware of the Real Full Processes of Development, behind Reality. And this leads to many mistaken conclusions, rarely addressing the absolutely vital, self-made and inevitable mounting Crises of our remarkable History, in all its causes, both positive and increasingly dangerous! So without, the Key Revolution in Real Understanding, that we await, this remarkable Development, this unfathomable work of the Evolution of Matter - culminating here in us, in Human Beings, and in this society - could easily end in an existential catastrophe.”
The Origin of Systems, as a piece of theoretical writing, is extremely ambitious in scope, but ambition is certainly needed now, when a Revolution in how we think, is needed for our survival.
Art Director’s note - Tomás Saraceno
This month’s issue deals with the complexity and interconnectedness of natural systems, and our worrying inability to understand them through current scientific methods. As always in SHAPE Journal, we try and chose the work of great and thought-provoking artists to accompany the theory text, not to illustrate the ideas discussed obviously or directly, but to form a parallel but relevant narrative on the core concepts involved.
For The Origin of Systems we chose the work of installation artist Tomás Saraceno. He originally trained as an architect, and his intricate and immersive works seem to literally build bridges between science and art. Saraceno certainly sees the Earth as a complicated and vast system, we must try and understand, describing it as “the fastest vehicle that ever existed”. His work is concerned about the threat to natural environments and ecosystems, also taking inspiration from neural communication networks, origin theories, sub atomic physics and spiders.
I have been a dedicated Marxist for most of my adult life, philosophically and politically, I think Karl Marx has come closer than anyone to Understanding something intrinisc and profound about Reality - and, though I still and justifiably celebrate the great achievements of Marx - they cannot yet but still also reflect the unavoidable weaknesses, always involved within the very first conception in any field. It would be a miracle if any such were ever initially and immediately wholly correct.
Though colossal in their scope, and sound in their premises, Marx’s contributions to Philosophy were then, and still are now, insufficient to be an all-embracing and wholly adequate Philosophy of Reality-as-is! For, they were based majorly upon the so far known and studied History of Mankind, and of course, it simply couldn’t have been based upon anything else, for only that History had sufficient extension to cover its many radical twists and turns!
And also, because only that History covered enough ground to reveal most of the necessary Actual Development, Changes and Anomalies, to alone be capable of highlighting both the usually slow tempos involved, while at particular irresolveable Crises, also clearly revealing the rapid Revolutionary Changes, unavoidable at such an incomparably faster rate - compared with the more pedestrian ones occurring the rest of the time.
It has taken 170 years since Marx’s initial revealing contribution, to totally reveal without any significant developments beyond those original bounds set by History itself alone.
And, these achievements have also NOT yet been extended, to any other important Disciplines in the same-and-necessary way as Marx has applied it to History and Economics.
My ongoing project in this journal, is to try and finish Marx’s work and apply his materialist philosophy to the Sciences. It is a big job.
Intellectual Disciplines in General, not only each have their own Independent Philosophies, but, in addition, ALL contain separate subsections each, in turn, with their own separately defined Philosophies. Mankind has regularly found it impossible to reveal a Single All-embracing Philosophy that might cover absolutely Everything! There are now literally thousands of Specialisms, each with their own defined Philosophy, to match the unavoidable splits in original single philosophies, demanded by failures in prior attempts at explaining the evident insurmountable anomalies!
What, of course, they always reflect, are the illegitimate Pluralist, and therefore necessarily artificially limited, supposed contexts! And, of course, despite Marxism’s extended range: its initial Form, too, would prove to be inadequate, as yet, in some important areas!
The whole means of explaining things needs a Comprehensive Review - starting with the more blatant and misleading assumptions of its supposed Logic! And, in Science, the whole basis, originally laid down in the Ancient Greek Intellectual Revolution - which lets face it was an extremely long time ago - needs upturning to the alternative Holistic Stance (though incomparably more developed and generally applicable than the original version of The Buddha!) For, the rejection of Plurality, must do a great deal more than only reject the Fixity of Natural Laws!
It must also reveal just how the changes happen naturally, primarily when distorted by the imposed simplifications of the assumed Context - to instead bring in Reality- as-is, achieved via multiple simultaneous and differing contributions - all having very different effects.
Now, stated just like that, merely seems to infer an impossible-to-solve constantly varying task. But that turns out to NOT be the case at all!
For, the contributions are all of different weights, thereby making the lesser ones swamped by the most dominant ones: and only becoming relevant as the balance of contributions changes significantly. Yet, the usual Mathematical Logic treatment of such switch-overs (with “if / then” type clauses, and consequent flips to a new state) were, and still are, never explanatory at all - merely signalling WHEN but never WHY, and delivering absolutely nothing beyond the purely Quantitative- triggered flip, and NO mecessary information about the current underlying and multiple changes to, in any way, reveal what happens next, and with what currently hidden consequences.
The causes for the current and following trajectories of changes are NEVER revealed!
But, in fact, there must be multiple simultaneous and affecting contrinutions constantly moving towards the next viewable change, but we have, at that point, no way of ever knowing anything about such events - before they accually occur!
Clearly, you either dramatically restrict, and then maintain Contexts, to allow them to be predictable, pluralistically, or alternatively you could “Give up Now, you’ll never do it!”
But, Reality-as-is, left to itself, can, and indeed will, in its own time, deliver the real result of everything acting together, though with no restrictions at all of the context, the actual variation of everything involved, though they will all happen, at the right time, but that will be unknown, outside of the experiencing context itself!
And, exactly when changes occur, would not be known before they do!
Yet experiencing such overall events will still give an approximate suggestion of what will happen the next time it is run naturally!
But, of course, such “suck-it-and-see” methods, would never suffice in Productions for Sale!
However, the very most basic, and most general, of effects, could perhaps be predicted, but only if the causing Systems Relations, themselves were known, and included!
And, as has been established in recent papers in this series, these Systems Effects can surprisingly turn out to be very important indeed!
One recent development, which might signal a way forward, is due to physicist Eric Lerner. Equations- deriving directly from experimentally obtained data in the usual ways, has been abandoned, for cruder, but much more reliable “inter-variable” relationships, obtained over a very wide variety of detailed circumstances, which can be far more effectively relied upon, compared to the usual substitutions between fitted-up general Formulae, taken direct from Mathematics itself, which had been established there solely as a means of relating Pure and Unchanging Forms.
This paper is part of a series called Down the Infinite Rabbit Hole of Holist Complexity - you can read the rest in the latest issue of SHAPE Journal (74)
This edition continues philosopher Jim Schofield's recent attempts to define what a Holist approach to Science should be. This time around, the focus is on why it hasn't really been attempted before, and why, when we do try holistic methods in Science, we usually fall back on tried-and-tested Pluralist forms of research.
The problem is complexity. The Natural World is incredibly dense, interconnected and with many hidden levels and systems processes. The straight-jacket of the Pluralist Scientific Method is the only way we have historically managed to control situations sufficiently to try and analyse and understand them. The problem is, that this gives us a very distorted, simplifed and ossified picture of what we're examining. We remove many hidden factors which might turn out to be be vital, and even more crucially, we remove the possibility for natural Qualitative Change to take place.
Art Director’s note:
For this issue we have chosen the dark, dense paintings and sculptures of Anselm Kiefer for the illustration. We are always looking for abstract art which invokes change in some way, and the complexity of evolving reaity. With a keen interest in mathematics and science as well as mythology, Kiefer’s work deals with concepts such as the passage of time, cosmogney, chaos and death. His most recent exhibition Supertrings, Runes, the Norns, Gordian Knot, is influenced directly by studies such as String Theory - but not without a pleasing degree of skepticism. Of the work he says:
“These advanced mathematicians are attempting to find a theory of everything, but each time they open a door, many other doors reveal themselves. It is all abstract mathematics, of course, so nothing is really yet proved. The more I read about it, the more I think they will never find the answer.”
There is certainly abstraction and form in Kiefer’s work, but also a very messy materiality. He is interested in and influenced by science, but unlike many mathematicians and artists alike, he is not seduced by beauty, simplicity and perfection. He knows that this would be Idealism, and the Real world is much more labyrinthine and impenetrable than we like to think.
