02 December, 2011
09 November, 2011
The Red Herring of Observation
I have received much criticism from the YouTube brigade on my Double Slit animation, for not fully addressing the role of the observer / quantum erasers et al. This was never my intention with the work, which was addressing how electrons could build up an interference pattern in the Double Slit, without the need for resorting to probability distribution, which I see as a mathematical "trick" to get the right answer. I hope the following papers will help to clarify my position on this aspect of Quantum Physics.
Issue 21 of SHAPE
First part of a two-part issue on the Shell-Shaped Universe
(see video in previous post)
Part 2 will be published in Issue 22 of the Shape Journal next month.
(see video in previous post)
Part 2 will be published in Issue 22 of the Shape Journal next month.
“Chasing the Do-able” may well accelerate growth in Science, but the consequences will invariably, as in all such undertakings, cause the growth to be both etiolated and aberrant by such a process, with a major canker at its very heart, almost unavoidably included from the start. And Cosmology is certainly no different! Vast strides have been made, but have they all been in the right direction? The answer has to be a resounding,”No!”
How can such conceptions as Physical Singularities and Parallel Universes be anything other than frigs imported from that seductive World of Pure Form alone, which we term Ideality? And the nature of that “door” to such developments can, at the time of opening and entry seem to be not only harmless, but also positively encouraging. For in that wide-open view, all things seem eminently do-able.
The turning points were, of course, Einstein’s contribution on Relativity and the general acceptance of the Copenhagen Interpretation of Quantum Theory as bases for an entirely new turn in Physics and Cosmology.
No longer was Explanation the “number one” priority! Mathematics and the worship of Equations seemed eminently preferable. But also, many consequent assumptions were unavoidably taken as the foundations for this New World, and not least was the belief that light could propagate across entirely Empty Space without any transmitting medium whatsoever, and to “solve” the resulting problems, the Particulate Nature of Light (via moving Photons), became a cornerstone of the new system.
The following, alternative set of ideas, in contrast, turns its back upon such premises, and instead requires a particular form of medium for light propagation, and therefore makes transmission across totally Empty Space impossible. By such changes, the whole Universe is transformed!
Now, to immediately proceed along such a route cannot be done. For, though some sort of self-consistent body of ideas can be constructed, there are other, much more profound and significant philosophical standpoints and consequent methodologies to be addressed too. We must start by not looking forwards to the New Ideas, but by looking back to the Big Bang itself, and seeing it in a wholly new way.
Issue 22 will continue investigating these ideas and look deeper into their ramifications. We also have a new video up on our youtube channel, boldly titled, The Shape of the Universe!
How can such conceptions as Physical Singularities and Parallel Universes be anything other than frigs imported from that seductive World of Pure Form alone, which we term Ideality? And the nature of that “door” to such developments can, at the time of opening and entry seem to be not only harmless, but also positively encouraging. For in that wide-open view, all things seem eminently do-able.
The turning points were, of course, Einstein’s contribution on Relativity and the general acceptance of the Copenhagen Interpretation of Quantum Theory as bases for an entirely new turn in Physics and Cosmology.
No longer was Explanation the “number one” priority! Mathematics and the worship of Equations seemed eminently preferable. But also, many consequent assumptions were unavoidably taken as the foundations for this New World, and not least was the belief that light could propagate across entirely Empty Space without any transmitting medium whatsoever, and to “solve” the resulting problems, the Particulate Nature of Light (via moving Photons), became a cornerstone of the new system.
The following, alternative set of ideas, in contrast, turns its back upon such premises, and instead requires a particular form of medium for light propagation, and therefore makes transmission across totally Empty Space impossible. By such changes, the whole Universe is transformed!
Now, to immediately proceed along such a route cannot be done. For, though some sort of self-consistent body of ideas can be constructed, there are other, much more profound and significant philosophical standpoints and consequent methodologies to be addressed too. We must start by not looking forwards to the New Ideas, but by looking back to the Big Bang itself, and seeing it in a wholly new way.
Issue 22 will continue investigating these ideas and look deeper into their ramifications. We also have a new video up on our youtube channel, boldly titled, The Shape of the Universe!
28 October, 2011
The Shell-Shaped Universe
What Shape is the Universe?
A new issue will follow this video in coming days, explaining further how the theory of Empty Photons could have dramatic ramifications on how we see the Universe. Could the known Universe exist in a thin shell? Could every galaxy be an illusion? Watch this space to find out more...
08 September, 2011
New Special Issue on Form & Probability
This Special was a commendable task!
It was intended to reveal the nature of statistical and probabilistic Law as a special type wedded indissolubly to experimental evidence, and the revelation of this was to be a plank in the final and complete criticism of the Copenhagen approach to Science, as put forward by Bohr and Heisenberg. And it is a contribution to that objective! But, it certainly isn’t, as yet, part of a comprehensive argument.
It got deflected into absolutely necessary component issues, and diligently followed various lines, that were revealed as having to be solved to have any hope of completing the full task. In such crucial reversals of methods a whole range of component issues have to be addressed prior to a final integration: The terminally ill but not yet dead semi-copse has to be seen to its final demise, before we bury it for ever!
I am sure that this offering will energise others, as it has this writer, for the task is essential, and the rewards will be prodigious. Sub-Atomic Physics was wrecked upon the rocks of real Qualitative Change and the emergence of Levels within the development of Reality. And such problems (in all areas of Science) will only be properly addressed when the problems raised in this area of Physics are finally solved for good!
14 August, 2011
Issue 20 of SHAPE
This issue of SHAPE Journal contains a closely related series of papers, in which the trajectory of significant qualitative change in an Emergence is tackled,diagrammatically. Of course, the elements of such considerations are still concepts, processes and transformations, but the spatial idioms of diagrams delivers that extra “dimension” of simultaneous portrayal, which does, indeed, allow quite involved transitions to be laid out, considered and significantly improved.
A words-only argument can be as much about winning as revealing, and it is clear to this author that without these kinds of diagrams, we would not only find solving such problems considerably more difficult, but we would also be bereft of the best initial means of communicating the ideas involved too.
The trajectory of Creative Change in an Emergence, such as that of the Origin of Life on Earth, involves contradictions, phase changes, and major transformations – even of the probabilities of events, and it is these features that must be understood. These papers do not complete the job, but they were fundamental in the creation and publication of this author’s Theory of Emergences in 2010.
22 July, 2011
What is Intelligence?
In the article Claws for Thought in New Scientist (2819), Emma Young ranges about various studies in the animal world to find evidence that convinces her that “animals lie on a kind of spectrum, from a primitive kind of awareness, to the rich and complex stream of thoughts in the human mind”. And in doing this reveals that she (and those she refers to in her piece) have a pluralist approach to such questions.
By this I mean that every animal is measured against Intelligence (–the human kind) to see if they have it, or part of it, and this seems to reveal a continuous range with Human Intelligence at the top, and lower animals with this same commodity, having ascended, step by step, some way at least towards this ultimately possible state. You might ask why such is deemed to be pluralist (in the philosophical sense and not either the religious or political senses). Well, Plurality sees everything in terms of Wholes and their constituent Parts, and hence any investigative process attempting to reveal the nature of things is basically analytic, applied first to an observable Whole, and subsequently to each of its Parts, to thereafter make possible an explanation of the original Whole.
From the outset, perhaps centuries ago, the property of intelligence was allocated only to Human Beings, and other “mechanisms”, such as hard-wired instincts were awarded to all those below the qualifying limit.
But, such a standpoint has long been severely undermined, but the alternative of a spectrum cannot be any better, for it implies quantity rather than quality – amount rather than wholly new processes, and even, perhaps, that it is sufficient quantity of what is involved that can jack things up to each and every Level in this range of the given facility.
Yet, the study of Development in general shows that such is never the case. Significant Qualitative Change only happens in short-period interludes termed Emergences, which are NOT mere stages in a particular quantitative spectrum of changes, but actually totally transforming revolutions. And these transformations are never incremental. Indeed, they involve seemingly terminal crises initiated by wholesale avalanches of dissolution, which only when that process has dismantled the situation almost to the state of complete chaos, does it turn round and then create the wholly New.
And when this is used as a template for development, and hence in Evolution too, the work must be to first identify these crises, and explain why they occurred, as well as the following creative phase which brings in wholly new qualities and establishes a New Level of Reality. With such a development scenario the changes are neither gradual or incremental, but revolutionary, and each major advance involves a significant step-change in possibilities, so ideally each of these new Levels should have its own unique name: they are not all the same but differing in quantity: no spectrum of these Levels can be constructed.
Therefore, Intelligence in Humanity is not a general quality with different amounts at each Level of development.
To assume the latter merely becomes the apportioning of amount to each phase without any investigation of how the Event of Transformation occurred. Instead, it is assumed to have merely increased by some pedestrian process which when passing an important threshold (merely of quantity) enabled the “new facilities”.
No! I’m afraid this is not how these things occur!
And to do as the researchers into the Origin of Life on Earth do, and merely study the prior conditions for the actual causes of the development will (as it continues to do in that important area) always and inevitably fail. Even the searching for the causes of a Revolution in prior circumstances will also be inadequate.
What has to be addressed is the relationships between Stability and Emergence, - so that the studying of prior circumstances can only deliver reasons for the initial crisis and cataclysm, and not for its resolution within the creative Phase of the Emergence.
For such a study must expose the real dynamic or trajectory of changes within an Emergence, and also deliver why the New is ever possible. My point is that the kind of research related in this article, with its implied current methodology is doomed to never reveal what is actually happening, and why, but indeed it is merely logging what appears and when.
17 June, 2011
Issue 19 of SHAPE
Also in this edition we are trying out a very different structure to a standard issue of the Journal. Not, I must hasten to add, in the Design or in the Content of SHAPE, but both in the quantity that we publish in a single issue, and in the intrinsic relationships between the set of papers included.
In the past we have divided all of the longer papers into a series of installments, which were then spread over a series of issues episodically - and we usually only had three unrelated topics in each issue. The success of the Special Issues of SHAPE has demonstrated to us that that choice was mistaken, and complaints have made it clear that more coherence and continuity would be acheived by publishing related sets of papers within a given issue.
So, for a few issues at least (and maybe for much longer) we will be changing our policy. First, the issues will be larger in size. The articles will be longer than the original 1000 word limit, there will be more of them, and they will tend to be all upon a related or even on an identical topic.
In this issue, therefore, will be seven separate contributions, thus raising the content well above the usual limit, though in this first tryout we have chosen fairly short papers with more diagrams. Most of these were written at different times starting 4 years ago, and it is interesting that the very act of composing this latest version has catapulted the editor into another bout of writing on the same topic. Clearly, it is hoped that this format will reveal something of the actual development of the ideas involved, and may even elicit more contributory responses from our readers.
This current set is on Positive Feedback scenarios, which turned out to be an absolutely crucial concept on the creation of the Theory of Emergences and in radically transforming in the research into the Origin of Life on Earth.
15 June, 2011
Shadowlands
It is, in a way, a kind of minimalist means of telling a story, but it also involves the most striking symbols of the types of people, places and events that are involved. And I characterise them as symbols with good reason: images or representations would be simply not appropriate. For they are immediately recognisable, and can “perform” in standard recognisable ways all sorts of “characteristic” actions, which would be difficult to present in a real theatre with actors and props (though in Far Eastern theatrical traditions, and ancient Greek Theatre, they did also attempt to do it with masks and/or dramatic costumes).
The suspension of disbelief was considered paramount; so the inadequacy of direct portrayal by perhaps less-than-convincing human representations, and the use of symbols seemed to greatly aid this requirement. Also, the ambiguity involved in using shadows allowed the imaginations of the audience to “fill-in” what was not there, and also allowed the effects, possible with shadows, could also be put to “magical” uses. The rhythm of the actions and the possibility of transformations by merely changing the angle of presentation of the puppets (or even the distance from the screen to deliver indefinite, ghostlike” images, could elicit in the audience a magical imperative of a story-line, almost impossible by other means at that time. It was, indeed, a very telling means of delivering a known and striking legend or myth.
Four different shadow views of the same object
demonstrating the illusory effects of shadow distortions
demonstrating the illusory effects of shadow distortions
The writer is both a mathematician and a scientist, and has for many years sought a characterisation of what is involved in these two seemingly closely related areas, but which turn out to be very differently grounded. They turn out to be not the most comfortable bedfellows by any measure of means.
By far the most difficult to pin down was always Mathematics. It is, at the same time, considered both as the most abstract representation of Reality, while also its inner imperative – its actual driving force! And these are certainly inherently contradictory characterisations.
How can Form – the substance of all Mathematics, be both abstract and also the cause of all concrete phenomena? The only answer is that it cannot be both!
Yet, some seemingly sublime things can be unearthed by Mathematics alone, so what is actually going on? What is Mathematics really? What does it deliver? Can it really be the essence of Reality?
Yet the very limitations of Form delivered by such means, was simplified, without totally losing any objectivity. Even in a distorted shadow, there will still be Objective Content from the really existing concrete source. And the mixture of simplification and Objective Content could be very informative, especially if the simplification could be appropriately controlled and adjusted to expose a chosen feature.
Finally, the constancy of capture – shadows on a screen, would certainly impose a consistency on the things studied – a crackable universality. So, if all this is legitimate we have Mathematics as the Shadowland of Reality – a filter and a dramatisation that does facilitate the possibility of a beginning to its understanding.
Yet it also removes forever the idea that Form exposes the driving essences of Reality. That clearly is a myth!
How can Form – the substance of all Mathematics, be both abstract and also the cause of all concrete phenomena? The only answer is that it cannot be both!
Yet, some seemingly sublime things can be unearthed by Mathematics alone, so what is actually going on? What is Mathematics really? What does it deliver? Can it really be the essence of Reality?
These are important questions, and are, even by the giants in those fields of endeavour and explanation, very poorly understood. Indeed, the whole History of Science (and even of Philosophy) has displayed a constant oscillation between disembodied Form and Concrete Content as the basis of Everything – indeed between Idealism and Materialism! And sometimes, the imposition of what are clearly idealised Forms upon aspects of Reality has proved amazingly fruitful, and even in the most surprising applications, for solving real, everyday problems.
Nothing could be more idealised than Euclidian Geometry with its dimensionless dots, and lines of zero thickness, not to mention its perfect circles and infinite perfectly flat planes. And yet it proved to be packed full of resonances with certain aspects of Reality and was so formally coherent that sound proofs could be constructed within this Ideal World alone! It empowered Man to solve real problems in his concretely existing World, by tackling them in a totally idealised World! No wonder these early mathematicians endowed their subject with transcendental properties to deliver the actual essences of Reality.
But, of course, it simply wasn’t true! It did not deliver a single CAUSE!
It delivered what came to be called Pure Form (unadulterated by the noise and dirt of the Real World) And knowing and understanding Form of itself could be extremely useful, even when applied in a much more complex real World. Indeed, it proved (much later in History) to be possible to manipulate Reality to clearly expose such Ideal Forms, which “proved” once and for all that these essences simply must be there! How could you reveal something that was merely a figment of your imagination? NO, you were extracting something that Reality actually contained!
The careful construction of appropriate Domains of Reality, with the control and even the suppression of many factors could indeed transform a situation, so that the most important relations were exposed clearly, and could be both extracted and presented mathematically as Equations.
Man did seem to be exposing the hidden essences of Reality, and they were indeed Forms! The World appeared to be constructed out of multiple contributing Forms, which Mankind was getting increasingly better at extracting, manipulating and even using! But, the question still hung there unanswered, “Could purely abstract relations actually cause concrete phenomena, or were the concrete phenomena generating Universal Forms?”
After many attempts to correctly characterise Mathematics, which had to explain how what seemed to be intrinsic Form, it was clear that these could not only be recognised and extracted, but then could be manipulated in isolation from its place in the concrete World, to some really useful purpose. There was something clearly objective even in abstract Mathematics! What could it be?
Perhaps the Shadow Theatre could throw some light upon these questions!
I suddenly realised that doing Mathematics was like shining a powerful light to reveal only the Shape of things by the shadows that they could cast! The analogy was more than a clever, but superficial, construct. It included the possibility that different things could cast very similar shadows, and were also capable of misinterpretation! Shadows require not only a source of light, but also a receiving surface, where the shadows could be cast. And the nature of the latter could certainly both select single Forms from many, or even distorts them markedly. Yet measurements of such shadows would still contain some Objective Content: they would have been caused by real concrete set ups. Even though the receiving surface could be at an angle, or curved, or even uneven, they would never be valueless, they would still contain real features of the original, though mediated by the overall circumstances of their projection upon the receiving surface. Even the nature of the casting light would have its effect but would never be arbitrary. Imagine the difference between the shadows projected by a point source of light upon a flat surface compared with a spherical surface surrounding both the light of the object to be studied.
Nothing could be more idealised than Euclidian Geometry with its dimensionless dots, and lines of zero thickness, not to mention its perfect circles and infinite perfectly flat planes. And yet it proved to be packed full of resonances with certain aspects of Reality and was so formally coherent that sound proofs could be constructed within this Ideal World alone! It empowered Man to solve real problems in his concretely existing World, by tackling them in a totally idealised World! No wonder these early mathematicians endowed their subject with transcendental properties to deliver the actual essences of Reality.
But, of course, it simply wasn’t true! It did not deliver a single CAUSE!
It delivered what came to be called Pure Form (unadulterated by the noise and dirt of the Real World) And knowing and understanding Form of itself could be extremely useful, even when applied in a much more complex real World. Indeed, it proved (much later in History) to be possible to manipulate Reality to clearly expose such Ideal Forms, which “proved” once and for all that these essences simply must be there! How could you reveal something that was merely a figment of your imagination? NO, you were extracting something that Reality actually contained!
The careful construction of appropriate Domains of Reality, with the control and even the suppression of many factors could indeed transform a situation, so that the most important relations were exposed clearly, and could be both extracted and presented mathematically as Equations.
Man did seem to be exposing the hidden essences of Reality, and they were indeed Forms! The World appeared to be constructed out of multiple contributing Forms, which Mankind was getting increasingly better at extracting, manipulating and even using! But, the question still hung there unanswered, “Could purely abstract relations actually cause concrete phenomena, or were the concrete phenomena generating Universal Forms?”
After many attempts to correctly characterise Mathematics, which had to explain how what seemed to be intrinsic Form, it was clear that these could not only be recognised and extracted, but then could be manipulated in isolation from its place in the concrete World, to some really useful purpose. There was something clearly objective even in abstract Mathematics! What could it be?
Perhaps the Shadow Theatre could throw some light upon these questions!
I suddenly realised that doing Mathematics was like shining a powerful light to reveal only the Shape of things by the shadows that they could cast! The analogy was more than a clever, but superficial, construct. It included the possibility that different things could cast very similar shadows, and were also capable of misinterpretation! Shadows require not only a source of light, but also a receiving surface, where the shadows could be cast. And the nature of the latter could certainly both select single Forms from many, or even distorts them markedly. Yet measurements of such shadows would still contain some Objective Content: they would have been caused by real concrete set ups. Even though the receiving surface could be at an angle, or curved, or even uneven, they would never be valueless, they would still contain real features of the original, though mediated by the overall circumstances of their projection upon the receiving surface. Even the nature of the casting light would have its effect but would never be arbitrary. Imagine the difference between the shadows projected by a point source of light upon a flat surface compared with a spherical surface surrounding both the light of the object to be studied.
Giorgio de Chirico's architectures of shadow
Yet the very limitations of Form delivered by such means, was simplified, without totally losing any objectivity. Even in a distorted shadow, there will still be Objective Content from the really existing concrete source. And the mixture of simplification and Objective Content could be very informative, especially if the simplification could be appropriately controlled and adjusted to expose a chosen feature.
Finally, the constancy of capture – shadows on a screen, would certainly impose a consistency on the things studied – a crackable universality. So, if all this is legitimate we have Mathematics as the Shadowland of Reality – a filter and a dramatisation that does facilitate the possibility of a beginning to its understanding.
Yet it also removes forever the idea that Form exposes the driving essences of Reality. That clearly is a myth!
01 June, 2011
New Special Issue on the Origin of Life
An Assault on The Origin of Life
The Ground and Proposal for a new Miller's Experiment
This Special does not deliver a final solution to the Origin of Life on Earth, but it does both ask and answer many of the crucial questions without which such a task would be impossible.
It defines a new and necessary standpoint for a scientific attempt on this question, which has from the outset been forced to abandon the current, universally accepted ground for all scientific work. It has had to turn its back upon Plurality (the Whole and its Parts), Universal Reductionism, Formal Logic and the wholly idealistic belief in Reality being the product of eternal formal laws, and replace all of these with a steadfastly holisitic view, which turns out to be the only way to address revolutionary Qualitative Changes as are clearly involved in this stupendous Event.
It turns away from the Sciences of Stability and towards the Science of Qualitative Change, and to do this, extracts from a wide range of similar Emergence Events, what must be involved to create the Wholly New. But, to make such a switch is, without doubt, highly dangerous, because unlike the consensus standpoint in the Stability Sciences there is NO well-defined and soundly established standpoint and tested methodology. Nowhere can a holisitic scientific standpoint be looked up and implemented. It has had to be devised! And because of this, it will necessarily be incomplete.
Nevertheless, the gains that came from even a few sound holistic priciples, and a great deal of research, have made the outlines of such an approach conceivable and indeed applicable too.
The crucial and necessary task was to rescue Miller's wonderful experiment from its unavoidable cul-de-sac, in which, though it was able to demonstrate that amino acids could be naturally produced from an emulation of the Earth's primaeval atmosphere and shallow tropical seas, it could not reveal how this had happened. To intervene in such a complex natural process to check what was going on would have broken the isolation necessary to make it entirely self-moving. But, by employing the new standpoint and using the latest available techniques, those weaknesses have been solved, and a major part of this Special Issue is in a long paper defining the New Miller's Experiment.
Other questions, answered incorrectly by many at present, who are more influenced by the need to acquire funding or join the consensus, than in finding the truth, had to be properly established as part of this approach. The questions "Where?", "What?", "How?", "When?", and "Why?" were addressed, and many important discoveries found, which turned out to be vital in tackling this, the most important of all current scientific questions.
A type of Truly Natural Selection, before Life had arrived, had to be established, and shown to be instrumental in a rapid, directed rush-to-order in this Event. And most important of all was the realisation of unavoidable osciallation between long-term stability, and episodic revolutionary Emergence Events, which constitute the actual rhythm of Development in Reality. This was finally released in 2010 as The Theory of Emergences, and published in a previous Special on this Journal. Finally, the various build-up-to and analyse-down-to routes to the Origin of Life were shown to be profoundly mistaken, and the essential nature of both DNA and the Cell as being the point at which Life actually appeared, debunked to allow the addressing of the real questions.
I have now contributed six years to tackling these questions, and I hope that this initial Special (there will also be several others) will help others to also tread the new exciting path of Qualitative Holistic Science that is being erected now!
11 May, 2011
First Life - Review
In David Attenborough’s new series on BBC TV, he considers the trajectory of Life from just after its Origin onwards. He, so far at least, doesn’t get involved with the so-called pre-requisites for Life, nor the most difficult of all questions – the actual Process of Origin, but he does address the almost incomprehensible tempo of development in Early Life.
He initially starts by standing in Charnwood Forest (near Leicester in England) where he points out a very early fossil, discovered by a pupil from his own school (at which I taught for a while). Indeed, it is perhaps the most famous – Charnia (named after where it was found). But the age of such very early fossils was only somewhat less than 600 million years old (from the Pre Cambrian geological era), and he goes on to reveal the discovery of fossils as old as over 3 billion years that have since been revealed. Yet the crucial question about this early phase in the evolution of Life has to be “Why did it take so long (around 3 billion years) to get from these early, but indisputable glimmerings of Life to Charnia?”
Sadly, though, just as you’re getting interested, he goes on to repeat the current NASA-led prejudice, which insists that the location of the very First Life on Earth was at the Black Smoker emissions in the depths of the major oceans. [A position considered absolutely necessary by NASA for it to continue to get its required prodigious funding. Their argument being “If life could begin on Earth in seemingly impossible places, it might also be found in similarly impossible places in Space, so give us the funding we required to find it!]
Though he doesn’t say it, Attenborough infers that the reason for the deadly-slow early tempo of Life, was the prodigious isolation of the Black Smokers in the depths of the oceans from the required highly conducive areas for the rest of its development. It may have started there, but to develop further it had to get away to better conditions.
But, we aren’t funded by the US government (as is NASA), and we don’t have to take up such a position.
Let us assume the much more likely location for the Origin of Life on Earth – NOT in those dark, pools amid a totally hostile and vastly extended context, but in highly conducive, rich and varying circumstance bathed in the light and heat of the sun, and with world-wide surface currents and quickly moving atmosphere to transport all sorts of different components into an ever changing mix. I’m sorry, but I am amazed at the current consensus on this important question! Don’t these non-experts know that the consensus is always wrong, and is generally created and propagated by those with a vested interest, and the resources to publicise it?
Now, the same vast delay would still have to be explained, but not so easily using the pigeon-holes provided by NASA, and then shelved!
Why would the first Life not immediately diversify?
To really address such a question, we would have to tackle it from the exact opposite end!
Why did Life later on diversify and multiply at ever more accelerated rates? And why did certain forms remain almost unchanged for hundreds of millions of years? And exactly how did the clearly necessary conditions for both these cases actually occur? The question turns out to be a philosophically basic one about Stability and Change. The generally accepted prejudice about such things is that once the impossibility of something has been breached, and the impossible has actually appeared, it will accelerate away in multiple directions. It will accelerate away, but NOT in multiple directions.
It will proliferate in a SINGLE direction!
Nothing persists, no matter how often it appears, unless it is part of a system, which prevents other changes. The New has to become part of a system, which actively maintains itself by acting against all further (and threateningly rival) developments, even if they could be “better”! The norm is that Stability is always very highly conservative, and once established will inhibit, devour or destroy any further, similar forms of change to itself. Indeed, qualitative change is rare, and can only succeed if the currently prevailing stability becomes totally compromised, and a cataclysmic dissociation dismantles ALL its defensive maintaining and inhibitory processes.
You need a calamity to precipitate “real change”
NOTE: Now, before we go any further, we should consider the situation of First Life!
It would NOT be part of any system, when it first occurred, and it would certainly fail! Indeed, many different potentially first Life entities would appear and disappear even in highly conducive circumstances. But, there would be significant changes. A few mutually conducive processes – both living and non living could come together and co-operate as a mini-system, and as such would begin to proliferate at the expense of other less conducive or even mutually contending! Only when a set of processes persisted could we signal the actual beginning of Life.
But it would NOT generate a variety of different forms. On the contrary, its success would depend in its inhibition of such occurrences. The First would proliferate as a SINGLR form, to a vast extent, and everywhere prohibiting further alternative “successes”.
Indeed, as with the much later Stromatolites the norm would always be this vast single-form proliferation. In the case of these Stromatolites, it was worldwide and sufficient to actually change the composition of the Earth’s atmosphere, with a vast increase in free Oxygen, in spite of its high reactiveness.
Now returning to our point about the necessity of calamity to cause significant qualitative change. This is embodied in the Second Law of Thermodynamics (Rust never sleeps!), which makes deterioration the most ubiquitous tendency in Reality. Now, even that powerful tendency can be kept at bay, for long periods, but never finally defeated!
Now, the usual optimistic idea of development is that small, incremental improvements can accumulate until a progressive revolution is precipitated, which leads to significant qualitative change.
But that is a hope-filled Myth! The only guaranteed cumulative processes are those towards dissolution, and even without any externally-caused calamity, a given stability will, in the end, fall apart, and an avalanche of dissolutory change will carry the situation towards a total loss of any kind of Form – indeed, towards Random Chaos! But, such a calamity turns out to be the ONLY possible situation in which significant wholly-new changes can begin to occur. And this is because the defensive and attacking processes of the prior stability have been removed!
NOW, anything can happen!
And it does!
All sorts of conducive processes, which reinforce one another will now be selected as against contending ones, and without the policing processes of the prior stability, and will proliferate.
Though the more successful they are, the more the dissolutory processes will again grow to dismantle them. It looks as though all will fail! But, though the overall situation does indeed seesaw between progressive construction and dissolution, a very remarkable alliance is possible. Certain dissolutory processes can turn out to be advantageous to a developing proto-system, for they could benefit from the system for their own required resources. They can emerge as the policemen of the proto-system, and the seesaw changes are nevertheless generally upwards.
At a certain point the proto-system can become established and persist! A new continuing stability or Level has occurred full of wholly new things. But surprisingly its continued existence is, in the last analysis, down to its own defending dissolutory processes aimed specifically at all which are NOT of that system. The revolution only succeeds by being opposed to further change It stops all further qualitative change! Things grind to a halt in innovative terms. Indeed, such systems can proliferate quantitatively, and “take over the World”, but do not allow further or general significant qualitative change.
These revolutionary Events are, of course, Emergences, and the new regimes, which they establish are termed Emergent Levels. Life is just such a Level. The conundrum of why Life doesn’t keep reappearing from non-living situations is thus explained. It is prevented by already existing Life.
Class and Consciousness
I have contributed an article on class to my son's blog, The Red Eye Portal.
Click here if you are interested in reading it.
Click here if you are interested in reading it.
30 April, 2011
The Red Eye Portal
New blog from Shape Journal contributor Mick Schofield. News, Views and Reviews from the Left of Field.
29 April, 2011
Review: Horizon - Before the Big Bang
At last it seemed that the crucial unanswered questions were finally being addressed.
“What had happened before the Big Bang? What had actually caused it to occur?”
But, I should have known better! What causes can you ever find when you have long ago dispensed with such things, for mathematical forms of its essential equations?
Shape Down
Sorry everybody, it would appear we're having some problems with our website host for the journal.
We're still trying to find out exactly why the site is down, and will endeavor to have it up and running again as soon as we can.
We're still trying to find out exactly why the site is down, and will endeavor to have it up and running again as soon as we can.
02 April, 2011
Understanding Intelligence?
If I was going there, I wouldn't have started from here!
But, of course, that is NOT the case! It is merely a "useful" simplification used by scientists.
Yet, this assumption is ubiquitous (hence the saying above to counter it), and once you realise it, clear cases of it appear absolutely everywhere, and then stick out like sore thumbs, where previously they were "invisible". In a recent New Scientist (2784) there is an article entitled The 12 Pillars of Wisdom which is introduced in the very first sentence with:
The point is proven, is it not?
Photograph by Mick Schofield
The expression "You can't see the Wood for the Trees!" is ever resonant in the ways that we usually consider the World. I never realised it before, but it relates to our profound belief (our assumption) that Plurality is the way of the World; that the essence of all phenomena is contained within their "constituent Parts", and the converse of this - that properties of the Whole can be totally reproduced by means of the mere provision and juxtaposition of all these Parts.
Indeed, the major criticism of Plurality is that it exactly equates the Parts revealed, isolated and extracted by artificial erection of Domains, with its "brother" relation, as it exists, in the coherent real World Whole.
But, of course, that is NOT the case! It is merely a "useful" simplification used by scientists.
No matter how much we learn about the specimen forms of trees, grown in splendid and perfectly arranged isolation, such knowledge can never reveal, from that alone, the full full qualities of the Wood or Forest.
Yet, this assumption is ubiquitous (hence the saying above to counter it), and once you realise it, clear cases of it appear absolutely everywhere, and then stick out like sore thumbs, where previously they were "invisible". In a recent New Scientist (2784) there is an article entitled The 12 Pillars of Wisdom which is introduced in the very first sentence with:
"Can we ever understand intelligence? Only by building it up from its component parts"
The point is proven, is it not?
Now I could belabour the point throughout the whole length of that contribution, but I won't. The key point necessary has been made! Clearly the writer believes he is going to bring together as many aspects of "intelligence" extracted by various pluralist means, in order to deliver the nature of intelligence. But that is impossible. Many new things may be there, and the article will be worth reading for those things alone, but they will not, and indeed cannot deliver the secret of intelligence!
That would certainly involve a very different approach grounded soundly upon some understanding of the episodes of revolutionary qualitative change known as Emergences. For only when we begin to grasp how all such changes emerge, NOT as the consequence of the mere juxtaposition and summation of only small incremental changes, but as the reality-changing result of dramatic revolution.
01 April, 2011
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