Contemplating The Precipice

Dealing with Holisitc Complexity

To say the least, my current deliberations are getting more than a little ”hairy”, and I feel that I am skating upon very thin ice. For, in chasing the basic conundrums of Modern Physics, it has become very clear what had always been avoided, to a significant extent, and were now almost totally ignored, were the actual explanations of phenomena. And, this had been achieved by taking the much easier, alternative path of merely describing, and then formulating the purely quantitative data from phenomena into deemed-to-be essential equations.

But, this route can no longer be followed, and I am forced into uniquely tight corners, by the inherent contradictions generated by the one-sided, and indeed, the aberrant and misleading methodology that is usually employed.

For, in attempting to base yourself on past achievements (in which you can have no choice), you invariably find yourself constantly seeking causal sequences of explanation, yet always hitting the premature termination of each uncompleted series, and having to attempt to “do it for yourself”!

For example, my professor, many years ago, at Leeds University was world famous for his “Stoner’s Sub Groups”, but in my efforts in attempting to integrate atoms into a non-empty background, I had then, unavoidably, to explain the Copenhagen Interpretation’s probabilistic methods in terms of an actual filling or substrate of Empty Space, actively interacting with a nucleus-electron system within an atom.

The “usually necessary”, almost total isolation of investigated subsystems, and the consequent separate theories and equations, invariably meant that many transitions could not possibly be included. And changes of system always meant the abandonment of one theory and equation for another. You rummaged about in the “bag of solutions” to find a form that fitted, and the causes of the transitions were never properly addressed.

So returning to Stoner’s Sub Groups, I reckoned that my earlier suggestion of the actual existence of a space-filling paving might be relevant within an atom, and an explanation of Stoner’s discovery might well throw important light upon what was happening concretely inside an atom with its own internal substrate.

I reckoned that such a substrate, as I had postulated for my Theory of the Double Slit, would, in this particular set of circumstances, have to not only surround the atom, but also exist within it too!

If this were the case, the orbiting electron would have to negotiate through the internal substrate, as it attempted to respond to the electrostatic relationship between the electron and its nucleus.

After all, I have never understood how the demotion of the orbit of an electron in an atom (with its clearly physically caused electrostatic and magnetic properties due to a concrete set of circumstances), could transform the energy released into a wholly disembodied form that maintained complex electrostatic and magnetic properties in an infinite oscillation. The question, surely, had to be , “How?”

But, elsewhere, in attempting to explain Fields in a vacuum, surrounding a charged particle, and the effect of the “field” on any other interloping charged entities, if I had also to deal with action-at-a-distance, and I was forced to again define a substrate that could articulate all these effects.

NOTE: as you can see, each thing led to another. And, if a genuine causal chain (which is always assumed to be there) was to be found, and itself explained, you quickly zoom off to you know not where.

One thing incessantly led to another, and I found myself having to explain Stoner’s Sub Groups in terms of the inter-relation of orbits, fields and substrates within an atom.

So, as you can see, the imperatives involved are Real Physics, and not just the usual, formal descriptions, but I have to admit to frequently becoming swamped by what appeared to be “infinite regress”.

But, that is, of course, unavoidable, and was why for hundreds of years pluralist-based Science has dominated. For, it tidily avoided such precipitous routes!

The advantages, of pluralist assumptions, are that all such causal sequences are unnecessary for effective use of a single equation in its appropriate Domain. You could isolate! And, such considerations were sidelined as “theoretical” or even “academic”, and Science motored “ahead” with its small “steps in isolation”.

“Can we use it now?”, was the insistent cry. “I don’t want to know “Why?”, all I need is ”How?”

So, as soon as you decide to take the holist route, the endemic pluralist simplifications of past Physics no longer deliver the crucial essences of Reality, but are merely pragmatic simplifications, and manipulations of “the appropriate ground”.

The fact that these simplifications also were effective in revealing dominant factors, and hence facilitating “situation farming”, made accelerated (though aberrant) paths very easy to construct and follow, while everything else was ignored. And, the justification, the Principle of Plurality, made this methodology “sound”, as all extractions were deemed to be “separable”, and hence independent of context.

In addition, the collection of individual relations was sufficient for most practical applications, and the crucial drive towards inclusive, and indeed, ever more comprehensive theories was abandoned, with a measure of “justification”.

But, the Principle of Holism (the opposite of the Principle of Plurality) is that you cannot do that!

You can simplify, but NOT to reveal Essence, but only to reveal the more dominant contributions, and then in a purely formal, idealised and usually entirely quantitative form of relations - Equations. And, of course, such procedures are fine in limited and controlled contexts: the dominant factors can be made to work “almost alone” and in an idealised form. But, such an approach makes the important transitions from one qualitative situation to another impossible to address in an explanatory way.

“This happens when that threshold is passed”, is NOT an explanation. It is a placeholder for a missing explanation!

Causality becomes increasingly impossible, for each and every local truth has been found by actually removing what in unfettered Reality takes the situation to a very different set of phenomena.

The dynamic of a rich and changing Reality has been surgically removed, and replaced by only a series of artificially “true” snapshots of what was really going on.

Current Science is no longer the philosophic standpoint, from which the meaning of Reality-as-is can be addressed, but instead an equation-led, pragmatic bag of practical, unchanging equations!

It is increasingly breathtaking just how much is never explained, and how eclectic are even the very best of scientists. Without a qualm, such scientists will put aside one theory and pick up another, better-fitting one, and leave any explanation for the caused transition completely unaddressed.

Now clearly, such tasks are not individual, and limited in their content: they are too complex for one person to deal with. If ever there was a form of investigation that MUST be addressed socially, it is the current Crisis in Physics. There has to be too many balls in the air for a single juggler to cope with. You need a team, and a trained and integrated team at that.

Modern Physics is dying fast, and the present ideas and paradigms are simply not up to the tasks presented in the current era.

Couder’s Multi-Level Model

The more I think about Couder’s Experiment, concerning the behaviour of silicone drops bouncing upon a liquid silicone substrate, the more that I realise it also contains crucially revealing analogues for what happens at the sub atomic level, in spite of it being carried out solely at a macro level.

To briefly recap upon what occurred in his experiment, he has a shallow tray filled with silicone liquid, which is kept vibrating vertically. Onto this “substrate”, he very carefully allows a single drop of the same silicone liquid to fall.

You might reasonably expect that it would merely be absorbed into the tray of liquid, as they are both of exactly the same substance. But, that isn’t what happens at all!

The drop actually bounces back up into the air, after eliciting a depression at the point of closest approach.

Two things then happen, the surface tension of the liquid opposes the depression and after reaching a maximum, it begins to move upwards again. While at the same time, the drop continues to move upwards, but opposed by gravity, so that it also reaches a maximum, then begins to fall again. Now, something very similar occurs on the next closest approach (and a continuing sequence of these), and these continue as long as the same conditions are maintained.

But there is another important feature of this sequence – it is synchronised by the multiple approaches of the bouncing drop, so that the oscillations at the liquid surface in the local area of closest approach is linked to the regularity of the bouncing drop.

Yet, each approach does NOT actually touch the liquid substrate surface, it, somehow, elicits the described behaviours both of drop and substrate, without actual contact. The succession of depressions, as you might expect, moves outwards and declines in amplitude as it does so, but NOT only determined by the properties of the liquid substrate, though clearly the vertical vibration of the whole tray of that substrate, and its frequency will be involved. Clearly the vibrating substrate delivers both a frequency component and energy into the system!

So, after the initial release of the silicone drop, and without any further intervention, we have a seemingly stable bouncing drop, maintaining its separate integrity, but eliciting and then moving with an associated set of waves in the substrate (see the picture included here).

Now, various interesting extractions can be made from this experiment.

First, we can only assume that literally all the energy, for the continuing phenomenon, must come from the vibrating substrate. So, we have an interesting behaviour initiated by the original fall of the drop, but thereby eliciting a tapping into the resident energy of the substrate, to then produce a complex, stable and continuing system.

And such stability (as with all such systems) must be based upon reciprocal mutual effects between drop and substrate.

Now, it was an entire consonant feature to this, which allowed the author of this paper to explain the famed Double Slit Phenomena by means of a substrate being present there, in what is always assumed to be a background of totally Empty Space.

So clearly, we have a class of causally-unrelated phenomena, one of which not only applies at the macro level with Couder’s experiment, but another almost certainly happens also at the sub atomic level too.

The resonances of systems, such as this, are clearly important, yet different from the usually purely quantitative Forms, which are represented in Equations. For, these, very different cases, involve qualitative forms, and are delivered by explanations and not merely by universal qualitative equations, which, of themselves, explain absolutely nothing!

NOTE: Elsewhere, this researcher has been slowly gathering together examples of these “explanatory forms”, the most dazzling of which was surely Darwin & Wallace’s Theory of Natural Selection, which is certainly NOT merely encapsulated in a quantitative equation. And Nobel Laureate Hunt’s discovery of cyclin in fertilised egg divisions, which was also entirely qualitative.

Now, the use of a proposed Paving of Empty Space, comprising vast numbers of undetectable particles, which could propagate electromagnetic radiation, subtend fields around charged objects, and even facilitate Action-at-a-Distance phenomena, has clear resonances with Couder’s Experiment, if not in specifics, then surely in qualitative form?

Now, this theory, which directly opposes the Copenhagen Interpretation of Quantum Theory, has already cracked the Double Slit phenomena (see video above, links to relevant papers are in the description on Youtube), and the propagation of electromagnetic radiation, is also very close to dealing comprehensively with the subtending of electrostatic Fields, in that same “Empty Space”.

The suggestion is NOT a rehash of the Ether theory, for it deals adequately with observed quanta phenomena, and it changes fundamentally just how many phenomena are assumed to occur.

Throughout these hypotheses, the origin of the necessary energy for many phenomena is shown to often reside solely within a universal Paving of Space. And the definition of the pavings constituent particles also clearly hides a very substantial undetected store of both Matter and Energy, which seems to have an important bearing upon the suggestions for both Dark Matter and Dark Energy, which is at present yet-to-be-detected anywhere else.

Now, in my theory, this substrate is composed of small and undetectable descrete entities, closely related to positronium particles, which consist of a mutually-orbiting pair of one electron and one positron.

The natures of these sub particles means that both matter and antimatter, and positive and negative charges, render the combined form currently undetectable.

Nevertheless, they can hold individual quanta of energy by the promotion of these mutual orbits to a higher energy level, and also emit such quanta, by a subsequent return to the base level.

Also, as with so-called Empty Space, this “filling” will always contain some protected energy and matter of constitution, and hence even without any propagate-able energy, would contain unavailable stores of both of these.

The supposition that such a paving would be the source of energy in Field construction and effects, and also be able to provide the propagation of electromagnetic energy, both seem very sound to me.

So, let us return to the “bouncing drop”, with a more interesting basis for revealing its content and forms.

For though the “drop” appears to be the cause of everything (just like a charged particle does for the subtending of an active Field), it certainly is no such thing!

It hasn’t got any energy of its own (just like the unit charge hasn’t either). In both cases, the only on-going source of energy is the paving or substrate. Yet the drop is set in subsequent motion by close contact with the substrate, and also has the effect of synchronising the waves elicited in the substrate, with its repeated closest approaches of that drop. Clearly, we cannot simply divide our interacting elements into simple cause-and-result – they actually interact recursively – each influenced by, and influencing the other.

Let us carefully change tack, and instead consider a matrix of atoms in a solid.

NOTE: In the Couder video, a whole series of bouncing drops and their associated “waves”, line up like an evenly spaced matrix, though why this should be so wasn’t made clear.

From the outside of such an atomic matrix, energy is taken into the atoms, which then oscillate about their apparent, equilibrium positions with an increased amplitude, and the overall solid then expands in consequence.

The oscillation and equilibrium position are both caused by the balancing inter-atomic attractions, so that if an atom moves too far, the balance of forces is changed to bring it back. Unavoidably, over-shooting causes the opposite direction force causing an oscillation, which is then maintained by the prevailing local energy level of the surroundings.

Couder’s unusual set up allows a conjunction of phenomena not usually seen at the macro level, but amazingly close to what is thought to happen at the sub atomic level, especially if we replace totally Empty Space by a universal paving (substrate), which stores energy, propagates electromagnetic disturbances, and communicates Action-at-a-Distance.

There are other things in the Paving Theory of Empty Space apart from its obvious constituents – the active elements. Perhaps one of the most important is the role of recursion – or reflexive effects.

In the solution of the anomalies, observed in the Double Slit Experiments, a moving entity – an electron, causes electromagnetic disturbances in a universal and effectible paving, which moving much faster than the electron, gets to the Double Slits first, passes through both, and causes an “interference pattern” on the other side. So that when the electron arrives, and passes through either of the Slits, it then encounters the pattern, which channels its subsequent movement according to its initial path into that pattern.

The cause – the electron, created the disturbances within the paving, which later, after “interfering” duly caused the modified path through to the detection screen.

Such reflexive processes are crucial in explaining what was going on.

Can We Blame The Messenger?

In merely beginning to read yet another article by Michael Brooks in New Scientist (2928) on entanglement and other things in Quantum Theory, I realised that the properties (all ascribed to a disembodied quantum of electromagnetic energy) simply could NOT be correct! I don’t mean, of course, that they don’t exist, but I do mean that some, at least, are definitely not properties of the conceived-of Photon.

Brooks chooses to bring in Spin, and though he can only really describe it as the property of an extended material object, there is also little doubt that he is also insisting that it is a property of the Photon – conceived of as a totally disembodied gobbet of electromagnetic energy.

Now, immediately to a physicist, such as myself, the warning lights begin to flash (in fact several of them!). The first is triggered by the idea that you can have a gobbet of pure energy, totally separate from any matter whatsoever. The second is set off by the idea of such a gobbet actually spinning, or undergoing whatever it is that is termed “a spin”.

And, in the same few initial paragraphs, he makes it clear that we have absolutely NO choice, but to accept such consequences of Quantum Theory (or more precisely the Copenhagen Interpretation of it), because its statistical/probabilistic equations deliver very accurate predictions as long as the problems are posed overall, rather than for particular individual entities.

But why?

The Ptolemaic Theory of the Solar System, in its most developed form, gave accurate predictions, but it was, nevertheless, totally wrong!

Are we really to promote mere Forms, or Patterns, to be the determining essence of all things? We cannot possibly do that, for a very simple reason.

A particular Form can be used to predict in a whole causally unrelated range of phenomena. Forms are universal patterns, and not common causes. And this means that though they can exist all over the place, to make them the determinators of Reality is foolish.

How can these very different phenomena, which conform to a single Form, be assumed to have the exact same cause, and a purely formal one at that? That would only be the case if that Form were capable of being a physical cause itself! And, the language of these scientists always gives away their erroneous standpoint. They say, “This equation makes the phenomenon happen in this particular way!” They are clearly idealists and have actually abandoned materialism! They insist that things don’t happen due to concrete physical causes: they happen in conformance to the appropriate abstract equation.

You have to ask, “Why?”

I could go on with this line of argument, but it will never convince the Copenhageners – so, I’ll take another tack.

Gobbets of entirely disembodied electromagnetic energy (Photons) cannot exist, and certainly cannot move across totally Empty Space at the Speed of Light! In fact, nothing can move at that speed.

So, how does propagation occur, for we know that it does?

If we do assume that particles of matter can exist in such an environment, these will also be prohibited from moving at the speed that has been established for electromagnetic radiation. So, how can we transcend the seeming impasse?

We can do it via the presence of a Universal Paving of so-called Empty Space, populated with relatively stationary material entities (or receptacles), which can not only hold gobbets of E-M energy, but also pass it on, bucket-brigade-fashion across the paving, The material entities involved must act as receptacles for such gobbets of energy, NOT as is sometimes assumed, to carry it across the Empty Void, but to merely pass-it-on.

Now, such suppositions DO NOT, as they stand, deliver any sort of acceptable theory. Many questions still need to be answered, and a wholly new approach made clear.

To achieve an acceptable theory we must:

- Explain how these receptacles hold individual quanta of E-M energy

- Show how these receptacles can be wholly undetectable

- Explain the constant Speed of Light in a very different way

The model for addressing the first question is very clearly the atom, which has no difficulty in fulfilling this requirement. So, an analogous structure to the atom will have to be involved.

The second question can be resolved with the example of the positronium, which is itself undetectable, being constituted from a negatively charge, ordinary matter, electron, and a positively charged, antimatter positron. And though this has certainly been indirectly detected in high-energy accelerators, its very short lifespan in those extreme circumstances doesn’t have to pertain in Empty Space.

The constant Speed of Light becomes a property of the Paving, being the speed of induction of a quantum of E-M energy from one receptacle to the next.

Now, this is by no means a thoroughgoing definition of this Paving and its constituent parts, and we must here forego such a detailed exposition. But, the papers delivering this are already available on SHAPE Journal, so can be accessed very easily when required. Search the journal for Empty Photons.

But, we must reiterate an important difference with this Theory. The quanta never exist outside of such receptacles in propagation. Neither do the receptacles themselves move across Empty Space to deliver their E-M cargo. The movement is ONLY of the quanta, but not as moving, independent entities in Empty Space, but as induced gobbets passed from receptacle to receptacle.

So, within the purpose of this paper, we have a dilemma –

“Which of the evident features that we discern in experiments, are properties of the electromagnetic energy (the always temporary contents of our receptacles), and which are properties of the receptacles themselves?".

Of course, to answer these questions, it matters what the receptacle is made of, and how it can hold a single quantum of electromagnetic energy, and the answers are already known.

Our receptacle must have much in common with the atom! It must contain at least two sub particles with one orbiting the other, to allow it to be able to carry out the very same getting, holding and delivering of quanta that an atom can do.

Indeed, though initially defined purely theoretically, our proposed receptacle has been found to actually exist.

Now, it took a long time to find it, not least for alternative theories for so called Pair Production, did not include such an entity, but it was finally identified as the source of such events in High Energy Accelerators (as already mentioned above).

After this discovery, it became abundantly clear that this positronium, was indeed made from a mutually orbiting pair of an electron and one positron, and with these cancelling out both in Matter and in Charge, the invisibility of the particle in space was easily explained.

Now, the proposal for a universal paving of all of Empty Space had also long been discounted, because no such paving had ever been detected. But, if it was composed of these positroniums, that would explain the pavings invisibility too. And as the sub particles mutual orbits could be promoted to higher energy levels, it was clear that the required functions of getting, holding and delivering quanta (as in the atom) would be available.

Clearly, the instability of the positronium in High Energy environments, at first argued against it being able to carry out these roles, for its lifespan was momentary in such conditions. But, of course, the main habitat for these entities in this theory would be in Empty Space, where their stability would be assured.

Returning to the “messenger and the message”, the problems stated by Brooks fall away, as the various properties detected would be from TWO related entities – the messenger – positronium, and the message – the carried quantum of E-M energy.

Such phenomena would, henceforth, have to include an extra and transforming player – the Paving. And, instead of Wave/Particle Duality, and the other anomalies of Copenhagen, we would be able to attach the contradictory properties to different constituents.

Issue 31 of Shape

This is another unusual set of papers! And to address the problems involved, the author has had to include several fairly long-in-the-tooth articles that were, in their time, and still are, among the clearest that are available concerning key issues involved in Programming Languages.

There is one from 1998, and another from 2003, and I have to admit that several topics raised in these papers show their ages, via many of the pieces of ancillary kit and software packages that are no longer in use (or even remembered). But, these historically-defined details do not, in any way, undermine the general points made, for the causes for these diversions are still with us to this day. So, the dated references have not been removed or replaced.

In addition, in discussing the pros and cons of programming that were raised in Michael Brooks article Code Red in New Scientist (2920), it became evident that Computer Languages, as such, were unavoidably imbued with certain incorrect, and diverting assumptions carried over mainly from Mathematics (and to a lesser extent from Science itself), which certainly guarantee that certain vital natural processes and indeed, developments, are unobtainable, within the confines of these entirely formal means. So a short paper has also been included, that at least begins to address this problem in some detail too.

The historical papers on C++ and Flash (Actionscript), may be referring to older versions of these systems, but the points made are still to this day, entirely valid, and I also couldn’t just ignore Michael Brooks’ evident lack of any real understanding in the area of programming and Programming Languages, without delivering a strong criticism of his position. Publishing these papers has allowed me to do just that.

Read it here

Democracy?

In the light of recent events in Egypt, where the country's first elected president, Mohamed Morsi, has been unseated from office in what many are calling a military coup, and others see as a continuation of the revolutionary process started in 2011 - it seems a vital time to re-evaluate exactly what we mean by Democracy, and what it's true role should be in a genuine Revolution.

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Consider a political regime that you believe validates the repression of the majority of its people. What can be done to change the situation?

Well, it may be considered that the nature of how those in power originally achieved their positions, when it was initially transformed from the prior situation. They could have taken over by force of arms, say in a military coup, or via a popular uprising, or in more modern times, by a democratic vote. And, of course, if the establishment of the regime was either of the first two, and no democratic means of changing things were available, then those who are for change can only attempt to build a popular movement for the overthrow of the current regime. Yet, the actual physical removal of that ruling group by force is not considered to be correct, for whoever can marshal the mightiest force will win, and why should that be any better than what needs to be replaced?

No, it is usually considered to that some form of Democracy should be agitated for – a campaign to demand a democratic method of determining a government as the true representatives of the majority of the people.

A free and secret vote for candidates with no one being prevented from standing is usually considered vital. It has become the ideal of how a country should be governed, and regular elections will make it possible to vote out an unsatisfactory government, and vote in a better one.

But, does that ideal condition actually occur anywhere? And, is it ever enough to fulfill its original intentions?

The concept of Democracy was devised long ago, but not upon a countrywide scale at all!

It was certainly possible in a clan, a village or a City State perhaps. For then, the candidates might be well enough known for the electorate to make informed judgements. But, as the political units grew ever larger, and even became countries, those ideal arrangements and familiarity with everyone involved was certain to be lost.

The question became, “How can the ideal Democracy be scaled up to country-size, yet manage to maintain its necessary virtues?” And even further, “Was such a task even achievable?”

One model was suggested as the best way to maintain the qualities of Democracy. It was the hierarchical system. The lowest level of elections would still be small and local, where it would still be possible to know everyone involved, and choose with sufficient knowledge, the best person for the job. But, to deliver that the local unit would have to be small – a “Ward” covering a village, or clearly defined locality in a Town was one suggestion. But, what would be the role of the elected representative? Would he be like an elected Chief? That might cover purely local questions, but have zero effect beyond that constituency. Clearly, purely local leaders would have to represent that locality in some higher body, covering a large political unit – like a county or a City! But, then the questions on which the representative would have to vote, in the higher body, may never have been considered in the initial local election. And, clearly not everyone in the local Ward could be consulted and vote, for they might not know enough to make an informed choice.

The chosen representative must be trusted then, to make the best possible choices for those who had elected him or her. And clearly, the chosen candidate would have a crucial role in informing his constituents of the decisions pending in the higher body, and perhaps being mandated to vote in a certain way by his now better informed electorate.

So, an important modification to the local unit was its morphing into what became known as a council or soviet. And these bodies would have no restriction upon the size of the unit, but would have a vote in higher bodies proportional to their size.

Instead of a purely geographical determination, these soviets could cover a factory, or a department providing a particular service to a defined section of the community. A hospital would also be a very appropriate unit, which could deal with complex matters that the general public might be unaware of, AND, could even supply expert knowledge to a higher body, to inform its decisions in that area of expertise.

Clearly, above all this wide variety of local soviets would be a geographical Council, to which all local soviets of any size, could send their elected representatives.

While in a different direction, all hospitals (say) could send representatives to a higher body dedicated to that important set of objectives. As the layers in an ascending hierarchy got bigger and covering more responsibilities, they would have to elect people responsible to carry out the decisions of that body in particular areas – departments or “ministries” Clearly, with the particular specialist soviets, they could supply all who required it, with detailed information to both electorates and representatives who were in a position to make relevant decisions.

Clearly, what was meant to characterise these soviets and their upward and downward purposes, was meant to imbue the whole structure with relevant information. For without which appropriate decisions would be impossible.

But, even then, the current choices of representatives could not be guaranteed to do as the electorate wished. So, instant recall and a replacing election must be a right of the soviet over its representative in higher bodies, when the current incumbent was not doing what they considered to be necessary.

Indeed, this led to the callback of representative to a required discussion on particular issues, and perhaps even a mandating of the candidate, determining exactly how he should vote on a range of issues.

NOTE: But, that is not what happens in most so-called Democracies in the World today.

For not even the set of policies outlined before elections would be adhered to by an organisation (or Party) in power, and members of those organisations would actually be told how they should vote by their Parties, which even have policing members called Whips to ensure that they do as they are told.

And such a “mandating” is then top-down, and certainly nothing like the bottom-up mandates explained above.

Clearly, though such systems could easily gobble up too much time and too many people, and cut down the time for carrying out the major functions of the organisations. It could seem to be in danger of failing under the weight of too much time and too many decisions needing to be taken by such methods.

But, we are forgetting why this MUST be how real democracy is to be built. Once the various electorates had representatives that they knew they could trust, the number and intensity of these processes would decline, yet when a representative broke the conditions of their election, they could be easily removed. The system would militate against corruption.

Though, for this to be the case, these organisations would have to be functioning within a Socialist Society! Somehow, a better system than the mere election of your choice of candidates would be needed.

Once elected, the candidates should be given the confidence of the electorate, and either given a detailed mandate to carry out an agreed programme, or could come to the council for discussions and decisions. Any widespread dissatisfaction with the actions of the office holder must allow (with sufficient numerical support) a recall for immediate replacement.

Now, as can be seen, many of these features do not currently transfer to higher bodies in any present hierarchical system. The detailed information and control of elected members and officers are not instituted, when the council represents a substantial electorate, and immediate recall would not be considered to be practicable.

The problem has to be, “Just how will higher bodies be elected, and how will the electorate both be fully informed and keep control of their elected representative?”

Currently, when the system moves to a national level, most of the excellent qualities of the small, local unit certainly have been lost.

Of course, there is also a much more important difficulty. Yet, other quite separate and crucial considerations that must be addressed cannot possibly be avoided.

What quite separate organisations of Wealth and Power exist simultaneously with the democratic, political system?

Who owns the land, the factories, the mass media and most of the Wealth?

And, could these “alternatives” intervene in the apparently fair political structure?

The answer is a resounding, “Yes!”.

Even in the first democratic City States, which included Athens (Greece) and Rome (Italy), the wealthy could buy their way to effective power. “Greasing the Wards” or “Bread & Circuses” allowed the rich to buy off enough of the electorate to gain office and hence political power too. And, on a larger scale, with immensely bigger organisations and concentrated wealth, they could do a similar thing with the democratically elected representatives of the people.

And, it cannot be denied that in one form or another that this is the norm, even in the most lauded democracies of today. Power still resides substantially with wealth!

Now, at this point, the position of the generally accepted and indeed lauded leader must also be addressed. Giving everyone in a village an equal vote on all questions of policy cannot guarantee that the best decisions are always taken on behalf of the majority. It is more than likely that they will not know enough on all questions to make informed decisions. So, from the very earliest glimpses of a democratic system, the people soon learned to judge their friends and enemies within their village unit, and also to recognise greater knowledge and understanding in particular individuals. They gradually learned to differentiate between those who were out for themselves, and those who genuinely served their community. With more than a little luck, they could elect a leader or chief, who had all the necessary qualities to make the best decisions for the benefit of all. They are not rare people! You must have known many – from nurses to teachers, firemen to milkmen, and a thousand other occupations, wherein the greatest satisfaction comes from effectively serving the people in a way that makes things better for all. There are certainly those who ask for little more than to “do a great job”.

Now, choosing the best leader for a small group is relatively easy. And, if a mistake is made, the electorate simply informs that leader (via a Vote of No Confidence) and that they will choose someone else.

But, all these situations can be totally distorted by the above mentioned alternative power structures – usually based upon wealth and ownership.

The question arises, “Can you have Democracy in a society, which is drastically unequal in an economic and ownership sense?"

That surely has to be the key question to align with the ideal of political democracy.


For more on this subject, have a look at the latest issue of Shape Journal Marxism III.

New Special Issue: Marxism III - Why Socialism?

The set of papers in this new Special Issue were originally published here on the Shape Blog under the title the Why Socialism? series. It was written as a multi-part introduction to the topic and became a very popular series vastly increasing its visitor numbers over many months.

Clearly many questions were still needing answers, for in spite of a long and illustrious history since the original publication of the Communist Manifesto by Marx and Engels in 1848, Socialism has accrued countless failures and even betrayals. Yet its central tenets are as true today as when they were first written down in that document, well over 150 years ago.

The position was not like that of the Utopian Socialists, but was based upon a materialist philosophic standpoint - a meeting of German philosophy, English political economics and French social history. It was, and is, a magnificent amalgam, founded upon the necessary processes of social revolution, to finally dismantle old class regimes and liberate the masses.

Yet, only in a few places was this possible, where the working class was in a position to carry through a revolution by itself. In most cases the only possible route to a successful uprising was via an alliance of classes, including both the peasantry and often a large slice of the as-yet unliberated middle class. The problem was always what would happen once the repressive regime had been vanquished. Could the task of establishing Socialism be straightforward, or would the classes of this revolutionary alliance break apart and begin to work for their own dominance? The answer to such questions has been produced time and again by history, in Russia, Germany, China and right up to the present day with the avalanche of revolutions precipitated by the Arab Spring.

Socialism grounded in solid Marxist theory is needed now more than ever, as Capitalism faulters and people across the globe take to the streets in their millions.

Let this collection of essays on Democracy, Economics and Revolution, by a life-long Marxist, help with the problems of this, the most widespread unrest since the Europe-wide Year of Revolutions in 1848.

Read here.

Earth Before Life

A Lifeless Planet

Let us imagine a totally lifeless world!

Let us place it exactly where the Earth is now, in a containing situation very similar to that which pertains there today – but without either a single living thing of any kind present, nor anything that would have been made by Life.

What then would we have?

Starting with the nature of the substance of that planet and how it was originally constructed, it would certainly be hot! Indeed, having aggregated via millions of collisions with other solid bodies, both large and small, arriving at cosmic (very large) speeds, and arriving literally incessantly over a very long period – indeed, hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of years, it would certainly have been transformed to contain truly vast amounts of energy, which as it grew in size, would find it ever harder to escape as the ratio of surface area to contained volume would rapidly decline. And, with all these collisions turning into such accumulated heat, the planet would soon have become a molten world (or very close to it).

Such a temperature would have turned that very common substance in our Solar System, namely ICE, via water into clouds of water vapour, and from outside the planet would look very like the condition of the present-day Venus, with voluminous clouds hiding the surface completely. And once this state was fairly constant, without any further large and numerous collisions, the major transformations to its surface could only be due to volcanic eruptions, as Hot-Spot convection currents in the molten mantle reached the surface with vast outpouring of extensive lava flows across its already solidifying surface, which would take the form of ever larger floating rafts of lighter-weight materials (for it would be packed with dissolved gasses, that increasingly were released and headed for the surface under tremendous pressures. And these ejections would build ever-larger islands of solidity all over the globe.

No other real changes, apart from the constant thickening of the crust, would occur just yet, and if the substance of that crust were investigated, it would consist of layer upon layer of purely igneous rocks. At that time none of the major sedimentary rocks would yet be present, and certainly none of those produced by living organisms.

But, ever since the constant bombardment finally ceased, such a hot surface would begin to lose heat at a high rate, and two important processes would start to occur.

First, the solid crust would thicken as new lave flows cooled and added to it.

And second, the abundant water vapour in the planet’s atmosphere would start to be precipitated as both rain and snow. But, on reaching the still, very hot ground, this would be rapidly turned back into vapour again, and air currents and consequent weather would begin to form systems within the atmosphere, but in so doing, movements of the atmosphere between areas of different temperature would be inevitable, so newly evaporated water vapour would again in cooler conditions turn in to rain again. So repeated precipitation cycles would constantly be extracting heat from the crust to return it to the atmosphere, from where it could escape to the empty space beyond. 

Finally, cooler regions that were not heated as much by that other factor – heat from the Sun, say closer to the poles of the planet, would receive rain and snow that was not immediately returned from whence it had come, and surface movement of this liquid water would form streams, rivers and finally ever-larger reservoirs of water, and finally collecting into seas and indeed oceans. 

It is quite possible, with very little of this locked up as ice, that these bodies of water may well have finally covered the entire planet, as at this stage no mountains, in the usual sense, were present. It was basically a low relief surface with occasional volcanoes dotted about.

NOTE:  This means that at a certain point the only land would have to be adjacent to such volcanoes, so that the actual situation for Life to originate could be in the shallows close to such active sources of the most exotic ejaculations and constant heat.

And though the amount of land was either zero or very small, that would in no way affect the subterranean volcanic processes beneath the solid bottoms of the planet-wide oceans would still be just as active (both in mantle current Hot Spots, and in drowned volcanoes, so new volcanic islands would be emerging out of the ocean across the planet (just as Hawaii and the Galapagos Islands still do today).

Also, with continuing cooling, the water at the poles would spend some of the time as ice and new land made, at least at the surface of this new rock would grow at the expense of all-covering oceans, and the primaeval-raised areas of prior vulcanism would appear again a land.

In slightly warmer areas the rains could well fall again, and rivers would head downhill, carrying easier dislodged and picked up solids from the higher ground to both lower ground and finally to the sea, where they would be deposited as a descending series of gravels, sands and finally silts. Over many millennia these deposits would harden under increasingly-heavy overlayers into rock, and thus would therefore produce the first sedimentary rocks to add to the solid structures at the landward side, and to undersea surfaces of the planet.

But remember, all of this “land” would even then been as it is now, as a series of floating rafts upon a mantle of molten or near-molten matter. And, though in the end it would extend both above and beneath the waves into a continuous crust right around the whole planet, differences between dry land areas, and those constantly beneath the oceans, would gradually change and the “always-land” would break into tectonic plates driven by currents in the underlying mantle, and would slowly move, independently of one another, across the globe. Such movements would have several separate centres, and, therefore, the plates would move in various independent directions.

This new feature could not but lead to a series of eras on these floating blocks. For in time, there can be no doubt that these plates would finally collide, and when they did, wholly new phenomena began to occur. The colliding plates generally caused a crumpling of both plates, where the collision occurred, and for the first time mountains began to rise, which were not volcanoes.

Clearly, such increasingly high areas, would accelerate the run-off streams and rivers, and, due to erosion on the land, depositions upon the adjacent seabed would inevitably increase.

But these chains of high mountains also grew large enough to hinder the collisions, and the main thrusts would take one plate to be deflected downwards to travel under the other (Subduction). And this diving in towards the underlying mantle caused other, wholly new phenomena to begin to happen too. The diving place, often, but not always, from under the sea, would unavoidably bring large amounts of sea water with it that had seeped into the layer when under the sea, and the effect of this water, and the increasing temperature from the mantle, caused parts of this layer to melt, and increasingly released, previously dissolved gasses would cause great up ward pressures as they found various cracks and routes to the surface of the overlying land,

On reaching the surface a new kind of volcano occurred, with markedly different characters to the original Hot Spot types.

All along the tectonically-caused mountain chain, the volcanoes appeared and added greatly to the atmosphere of the planet, in addition to up upwelling of rock-making lava and exploded ash.

So, via these major collisions, the nature of the atmosphere of the planet was dramatically, and significantly changed, for, in the crucible of that volcanism, the ejected materials from both the mantle and the surface rocks, wholly new combinations were possible both between dissolved solids in the lying water, and in the ever more complex and reactive atmosphere: the planet, which had become a very different place with innumerably more substances, and their mutual reactions with one another.

And as the movements within the atmosphere became more vigorous, and effecting of ever-wider areas on the planet, extreme local conditions were more and more likely in a very diverse surface and atmosphere. In particular, the strength of the atmospheric storms could be so violent that vast numbers of electrons were torn from their parent atoms, leading to returns to normality via frequent and powerful bolts of lightning. So even electricity became common in atmospheric storms and an extra source of energy and components was added to an already complex mix.

But, still, as yet, free Oxygen was not yet a part of that heady mix, for as soon as it was Fire would be added to the many forces involved in the planets reactions.

Nevertheless, the atmosphere, at that stage, was a mix of reactive and dangerous compounds by any means of judgment.

Yet, it was in this precise environment that Life appeared upon this planet. It wasn’t anything like what we now consider to be Life, for almost none of the modern life forms would survive in that deadly mix.

Yet, they were certainly, and only for a short period in the life of the planet, certainly conducive to some initial, and very primitive lifeforms, which we know, in retrospect, would again completely transform the conditions and pave the way for very different forms that would follow. 

And we know it would, in yet another phase, wherein Life as we know it, or at least know about it from the fossil evidence, would finally begin to appear.

You may wonder why this small story was written?
It was to demonstrate the true essence of Science – NOT Equations, but Explanation!

For, without that we could never understand anything.

To the masses of the Arab Spring: Revolution!

What makes a successful Revolution?

The answer to this question isn’t universally agreed, and though, by this point in history, there have been many successful Revolutions, of various kinds, and at various stages in the social development of peoples in different parts of the world, only one can really claim to have been a Socialist Event, and that, most certainly, occurred in a largely peasant country – namely Russia.

The majority of successful revolutions were certainly those that finally smashed an entrenched and long-in-the-tooth feudal regime, and won freedom for those who traded and manufactured using borrowed Capital – in other words the nascent capitalist class, including within that term, both lenders and borrowers, but not usually aristocrats and landowners and never the toiling masses.

Yet, any such simple designation of even these revolutions was later greatly complicated by the accelerating rise of Imperialism, by established capitalist power as, in order to guarantee both their cheap resource sources, and their “controlled” (indeed owned) markets, they proceeded to conquer ever larger tracts of as yet undeveloped nations to feed their growing needs and ambitions.

So, a new kind of capitalist revolution arose, that was also to demolish the subjugation of conquered nations to the needs and requirements and demands of the imperialists - of the builders of worldwide Empires, who currently controlled these vassal countries for themselves.

And this, along with other unavoidable complications, meant that none of the revolutions were characterised by being fought for and carried out by a single well-defined class. Indeed, they, literally all, involved alliances of various disenfranchised, but quite different, classes, who all desired the end of the current repressive regime, for their own, often conflicting, reasons. Yet, without such alliances, and in spite of their clashing interests, none were in a position to succeed in overthrowing the incumbent regime without help and cooperation.

The usual pattern was for the more privileged or better-endowed and certainly educated class, in the alliance to take the lead, and deliberately ally themselves with the considerably larger numbers in the lower classes, by extending their demands to cover theirs too. For, with a majority of the population supporting an overthrow, even the combined efforts of the police, the army and even the navy, could not guarantee a victory for the status quo.

But even the final defeat of the old rulers, could still never be the end of the process, for the alliance would soon cease to continue to share a common purpose, and the better equipped with wealth and resources would then tend to become a new ruling class, and establish its own forces of repression to ensure the continued maintenance of their Newly Established Order and the “Rule of Law”.

Even The Russian Revolution involved such an alliance between, in February 1917, the working class, the middle class and the peasantry. But, by July, the break-up of the alliance was already well advanced, and a new one involving the workers and the peasants was forged by the Bolshevik Party with their unifying slogan of “Bread, Peace and Land!”, which enabled them to carry through a new Revolution in October.

So, it shouldn’t surprise us that the Arab Spring revolutions are hard to characterise. To obtain the necessary alliance, the initial common purpose was to remove the dictator, who not only suppressed the workers and peasants, but also the largely secular capitalist or professional Middle Class, who quite clearly did not have the privileges as had been achieved by their class in Western Democracies. So, the common aim, when finally achieved, revealed the unavoidable total absence of a general unifying programme. “What next?” was not agreed upon. And in the present world no country can choose to go its own way. It will exist in a world dominated by the major powers, who have the wealth and the power to still severely constrain even a successful Revolution, as long as they can agree advantageous terms to their chosen partners within the new state, or, if not, attempt to bring it down by other means.

The Iranian ousting of the US supported Shah, immediately meant severe constraints were imposed upon it both in trade and in financial transactions of all international kinds, and even the encouragement and funding of Iraq’s Sadaam Hussain to start a war with Iran.

Also the constant interference of the major capitalist powers with enormous support for Israel as a new theocratic and pro-capitalist state in Palestine, and for a dictator-led Egypt to make an accommodation with Israel, made possible by enormous financial grants from the USA. And the history of interference goes back a long way. For following the re-division of the Middle East by France and the U.K. and the continued dominance of “their” Suez Canal, these same powers had invaded that part of Egypt to prevent its control by newly nationalist-revolutionised Egypt after the ejection of the Feudal monarch.

Now, even with an increasing number of the dictators gone, the tasks were nowhere near completed, and no new unifying common purpose could produce the force that could finish the clearly necessary task.

So, like the prior common purpose of removing the dictators, the next obvious one was that of opposing the devilish influence of the USA, and other Western capitalist neo-colonialists powers determining the direction of their countries from without.

Even Al-Qaeda is a symptom of this path, as a unity of the upper layers within these Arab countries and the peasantry, and what better than a common religion to cement new alliances with this anti –US campaign.

“The freedom required can be achieved by a world-wide Jihad!” – it had happened over a thousand years ago as Islam conquered a major slice of North Africa, parts of Asia, and even a part of Europe.

So, such confusions are not new!

Similar conflicting forces were ever present in these national revolutionary events, which tended to stymie their successful achievement of a revolution for the majority.

It even, historically, had seemed impossible to achieve anywhere.

Except that, in the 19th century, a group of intellectuals in the Universities of Europe began to seriously study the social questions involved. Perhaps surprisingly, the best of these were philosophers, who had been disciples of the great idealist philosopher Frederick Hegel, but who, under the leadership of and the brilliant contributions of Karl Marx, had analysed the social movements involved historically, and materialistically, and shown their economic bases, and both the prior and following stages that had been associated with past revolutions were made clear. All sorts of groups were revealed to be currently ill-equipped to understand what was happening, and hence to formulate the necessary demands to drive the situation onwards, and, therefore, this had generally led those who followed them astray. The Utopian Socialism of many involved “social theorists” was given an historical and economic overhaul by Marx. Hopeful ideals were simply not enough!

Marx realised that many of the contributing classes to the revolutionary action were simply not equipped to carry such a revolution to the next level. The only revolutionary class had become the Working Class, so that only they could possibly see the real possibility of Socialism. And it was this crucial understanding that directed the leaders of the Bolshevik Party, and particularly Lenin, to grasp the torrent of changes and correctly match their actions to the developing situation. The Socialist Revolution was achieved! But, the subsequent revolutionary episodes, since that Revolution, have never attained what was achieved there and then. The question has to be, “Why?”

The leadership of the Russian Revolutionary Party – the Bolsheviks was always avowedly Marxist from the outset, and in the split of the Bolshevik faction within the Russian Social Democratic Party was because that standpoint was being significantly diluted by an increasing Menshevik alternative. The Bolsheviks went their own way. For, though Russia was still a feudal state, with a still subjugated, aspiring capitalist class, not only had the capitalist revolution not occurred, but also it simply couldn’t now happen, as it had done in Holland, Britain, the USA and France.

The Russian capitalists could not do it. The gulf between what they wanted and the increasing crises in both the peasantry and the working class, meant that ONLY a revolution under the leadership of the Working Class could achieve anything, and make possible a meaningful alliance with the peasantry. For within all the other parties, the domination of the Middle Class was already fully achieved, and the main struggle within those parties was to “cleanse“ them of the dreaded “marxist” influences and supplant it with the “realism” of a “Capitalism First” strategy, which would deliver exactly what they had in mind.

But, to achieve their objective they had to have the leadership of the masses, and they didn’t. They failed to subvert the revolution, mostly due to Vladimir Iliych Ulanov (Lenin), who was the leader of the Bolsheviks and a theorist in the Marx-mould: He knew what to do! The crucial leadership of that party were not mere activists, as were (and still are) those of the rest of the “left” parties, for the real marxists are constantly deepening and extending the theories, originally developed by Marx, in line with the inexorable march of real historical events.

Lenin had written on Imperialism, and also what has become the dominant philosophic position of Modern Physics – Positivism, in his book Materialism and Empirio Criticism. He had also gone right back to Marx’s own philosophical source – Hegel, and re-read his works materialistically.

Theory, he knew very well was not, and never could be, already complete and fully available in books, but had to be both re-realised and even re-forged day-by-day, and even sometimes hour-by-hour in the crucible that was a popular revolution.

Power to the masses of the Arab Revolution under the Socialist Banner!

In the Time-Sliced Interstices!

The Dynamics of Change

Maths & Reality

I recently picked up a book that supposedly dealt with (among other things) the mathematics of change. The clear standpoint of the writer was the central position of mathematics in the forms and processes of living things. He contrasted mathematical formulae with genetic explanations of the structure of living things, and considered that the former explanations were largely underplayed.

The Mathematics of Change? That sounded interesting. I had to read on!

But, I must say I fell about when I got to the so-called nitty gritty. Our writer coolly talked about a parametered situation covered by some formula or another, but, merely as an aside, revealed that it was subject to external influences – forces which in a stable situation were undetectable and could be ignored, but which at certain points could overthrow the stability of the “internal” maths-controlled sub-system and destroy it. This may seem, as he obviously thought, as a normal, unavoidable situation, and so it is. But, he clearly failed to realise the significance of his admission.

When a quantitative relation is extracted from reality and fitted up with an appropriate mathematical formula, the context or ground is necessarily dumped. The whole strength of a mathematical treatment is this abstraction of an aspect of reality from the integrated, all-inclusive whole. The method allows of detailed study of a coherent fragment “outside of” the complexity and seeming incoherence of reality as a whole. It also allows the researcher to tap into a rich panoply of universal mathematical forms and techniques that are applicable in a wide range of situations. Now, as inferred above, the chosen maths form for a particular phenomenon is totally independent of the “external” context, as it must be if universal forms are to be defined for future employment. So, the chosen form can give no warnings, in itself, of the form of a catastrophic system failure. Indeed, it is NOT the sub-system that fails. For the sub-system once extracted and treated in isolation is “independent” of the original “context”. That is the power of an abstracted mathematical treatment, but, it is the extended context, including the sub-system, that becomes no longer viable, and a revolutionary change occurs. Now, many abstracted formulae DO, of themselves, give way-out results in extended circumstances. They give zeroes and infinities and similar off-scale results. So these could be said to indicate when the formulae fail. Except that many theories INCLUDE such blow-ups as being the mathematics of actually physically existing entities, such as Black Holes and many similar extrapolations from the maths into “reality”.

Now, how a mathematician can make such system-change upheavals the subject of a discussion based entirely on extracted mathematical formulae beggars belief. If the system just blows up (and remember ALL mathematics is by definition ONLY about sub-systems) then how does the sub system mathematics deal with the event that is determined externally by his own admission? Where does he get the relevant equations from?

Now, I really must not convert this paper into a full treatment of the described writer. That is NOT my purpose. It was brought in as an appropriate preface to the real subject of System Change.


System Change

Now, in this area, it seems to me that there are two distinct and equally important aspects to the area of study. Firstly, it CANNOT be mathematical formulae that deal with these events. They are too limited in scope, and at the same time too universal in applicability. They simply don’t INCLUDE the necessary factors within them. The source of answers must be in forms that DO attempt much wider syntheses. These are the methods of scientic, analogous EXPLANATIONS. The second vital consideration has to be to focus study on the detailed and compressed events that constitute the actual process of revolutionary change. We must study the narrow time slot, within which the changes first begin to appear, then form sequences of temporary intermediates, until some NEW re-organisation, coheres into a different stable system.

We must approach the problem scientifically (not mathematically) and crucially also dynamically!


A Case in Point

In almost all my personal researches over many years, these sort of dynamical overturns are evident, and yet they are generally largely unknown and unstudied.

I will now relate an appropriate case of such studies, though those who have read other papers by the author may well already be familiar with it. To them I apologize, but its inclusion is in this discussion unavoidable.

Some years ago, I was working in what has since been promoted to a full Scottish University in Glasgow. There I got to cooperating, when appropriate, with some of my colleagues in other departments. I helped when I could (mostly on computer programming and graphics isualisations) but there was little doubt as to who was doing the significant contributions (and it wasn’t me!) My colleagues in the work I am about to describe were a research chemist and an Indian mathematician. They were working together on chemical reaction fronts in liquids. I had to ask them exactly what these were, and immediately realised that these scientists were investigating just the sort of dynamic changes that I have attempted to describe above.

Instead of adding the reactive components together, stirring well, then waiting for equilibrium conditions before anything was attempted to ber measured, they instead took the greatest pains to allow of NO disturbances to the natural processes whatsoever. They spent a great deal of time finding what they considered an appropriate reaction. First, it had to be an oscillating reaction, where initially

A + B became C + D,

and then quite soon after a threshold had been passed, and the reaction REVERSED so that

C + D became A + B.

They searched, and found such a reaction, where the products at either end were clearly differently and contrastingly coloured.

So, let us see what happened.

In breathtakingly still conditions, the necessary components were brought into contact. The reaction started, and at first nothing could be seen. As the reaction proceeded a new colouring became evident, not everywhere, but only on the actual reaction front. A line of new colour was being laid down. Subsequently, as you have doubtless already guessed, the reaction finally passed the expected threshold, and began to reverse - this time producing the original colour again. As the process went on and reversed several times, a banded two-colour structure began to unfurl in 3D space, and its form gradually became clear. It turned out to be a Toroidal Scroll. 

NOTE: Imagine a line, becoming a sheet, which itself followed a curved trajectory gradually building up a doughnut shape – a torus composed of a scroll!

This is crucially an example of what is going on in ALL chemical reactions in liquids, but is usually invisible and also never even studied. What did they use to insist upon in my youth? “Stir well and then wait for equilibrium conditions, or your result will be chaotic and uninterpretable!”

Now such dynamical transitions are not restricted only to liquid chemical reactions or even to reactions of other diverse sorts. They occur whenever systems flip over!


Intelligent(?) Crystallisation!

My current work, of necessity, has pressed me into looking at the formation of crystalline structures from solutions or a melt, and quite apart from the obvious chemical, mathematical, and even symmetry contributions, the normal products of crystallisation are NOT predictable in detail. All sorts of aberrations, twinnings and many other “errors” certainly occur. What then is the dynamical situation at the crystallisation “front”? Why is some sort of “seed” necessary, and what ensures (if that is possible) the guaranteed production of a perfect single, coherent crystal lattice? On studying various models of crystallisation, I came across various features that had to occur in crystallisation, at least sometimes, which were, in effect, failures. Several types were revealed theoretically. First, there were the possibilities of alternate stacking forms.

[NOTE: These may not be common, or even possible, in normal inorganic crystallisation, but my work is specifically concerned with re-entrant shapes – forms which definitely are common among organic molecules. Remember even viruses can be crystallised!]

These alternatives could also be incapable of producing extended forms, that could completely and coherently fill space. They could even be only “locally” symmetrical (as in snowflakes), rather than possessing the translational symmetries essential for continuous space filling. In addition, crystallisations could start at several separated centres, and grow towards one another, and these could easily be of different types and incapable of seamlessly fitting together at the interface.

Now all of this does reflect real crystallisation processes, but surprisingly, it is not these messy situations that pose the most telling problems. It is the freak situation of the crystallisation of a large perfect single crystal!

How on earth does this happen? How can every single additional molecule march into exactly the correct place, in the most coherent and extendable way. And how are alternate sites for the commencement of srystallisation inhibited to prevent the consequent problems associated with these? These things surely cannot be wholly achieved by chance, can they?

Let us study what happens as molecules moving about randomly on solution (or the melt form) and then add on to some already existing crystal. Remember, alternative stackings are possible which in the longer run will turn out to lead to aberrations- to the wrong phase, or even in extendable forms leaving unfillable gaps. How do JUST the right options take place? Could it be that the process of crystallisation, molecule by molecule, is not a simple flip? Could it be that there is a transitional period in which the molecules (still moving independently) jostle around the already solid core, ready for integrations, effectively moving in and out from possible attachment sites, along with the other closely situated molecules, until a MINIMAL, or optimum situation is reached, when the actual connections are triggered to commence in the ideal and extendable way?


A Causal Trajectory of Change?

We would then have, once again, a process, compressed in time and space, which contained the dynamic adjustment of optimal crystallisation. Now these are only a couple of instances from my own experience, I am already convinced that such dynamical, micro-scale and short-lived transition systems DO indeed exist. Crucially, we must address the inter regnum between two stable regimes, each of which is generally dealt with by abstracted mathematical formulae, neither of which can in any way contribute to the content of such a transition process – particularly in its causal trajectory.

Analogy & Causality

In the early days of “explanation” historically, there was simply insufficient knowledge and understanding available for a meaningful causal approach. Things could be described and similarities noted, but as to a full explanation in modern causal terms, it just wasn’t possible. But, that did not mean that very useful models could be referred to, in terms of which some sense could be made out of new situations. By far the best way of doing this was to relate the phenomenon being studied to some well understood and reasonably close analogue situation with which the investigator was intimately familiar.

Thus Analogistic Explanation was the earliest sound method. There were “causal” attempts made but they tended to attribute the functioning of parts of Reality to Gods and Goblins, so were hardly either sound or useful.

Analogy, on the other hand, could be very reliable, if appropriate analogies were found, so that even without any reasons for why certain behaviours occurred, the type of system which produced the rich set of factors and behaviours could be identified and a solidly familiar situation used as a guide to what was going on. Without an understanding of mechanisms and causes, the producing system type could be identified and quite detailed knowledge from a good analogue transferred to the area under study. This was not such a way out method. After all early Man was surrounded with things he didn’t understand, but he knew them very well and how they behaved. He was daily called upon to make judgements on what was likely to happen in one of these situations. He had learned to “understand” how these things acted under a wide variety of circumstances. It could be called understanding by familiarity and interaction, even though underlying causes were completely unavailable to him.

Considering this major lack of what we might call “Causal Knowledge”, this method by Analogy was highly intelligent, and when appropriately employed, very effective. Of course, to directly counter pose Analogy and Causality, as if they were fully available alternatives is very largely an oversimplification. As studies and subsequent knowledge grew, these two forms would interpenetrate and the resulting amalgam became very sophisticated, and such a simple categorisation as either one or the other became impossible.

NOTE: For example, let us consider that a certain complex situation was not only familiar but also had been carefully studied and many or even all of its components actually understood causally. If this was subsequently used as an analogue for some new area of study, the result would be extremely well founded, and considerably better than when NO causal elements were involved as in the very early cases.

But, to return to the bottom-most rungs of our ladder of technique, while analogy was dependant only on experience and could therefore be applied at a very early stage, causality was a more demanding beast. As already mentioned Man was always keen to reveal causes from the outset, but had only supernatural causes available to him. To reveal necessary causes as products of Reality itself demanded a great deal more than a seemingly appropriate Myth. The ground for causality was Man’s own capabilities. He caused things to happen everyday of his life. Without this ability to bens aspects of Reality to his needs and will, he would not have survived.

Thus, he HAD to see the world as subject to cause – his own causes in everyday life – and God’s causes when it came to things totally outside his control. But, Man did develop tools and weapons with his own hands, and began to take pride in his ability to cause! Plus his “ability to express in language” and his ”ability to form artistic images”. Such sources clearly refined his “all-powerful Deity” as” Man writ Large”

Man was built for causing and looking for causes.

While his implements were Ready-Mades, a more sophisticated attitude to cause could not develop, but from a surprisingly early stage Man began to construct original and clever implements which revealed design-for-use in himself. So, he was increasingly well equipped to look for and find causes, and the crucial stages occurred when he began to make sophisticated weapons such as Bows & Arrows. Great skill and knowledge was embedded in the construction of these weapons and “causes” were much less religious and much more functional in those sorts of endeavours.

While causes were still “bunched” together with their immediate concrete effects, no profound development was possible. They had to become causes in a wider field – that is, perceived causes in everyday activity had to be seen as applicable in a NEW way. Invention based on understanding of causality opened Mankind’s eyes to the possibilities in using causes creatively. This ultimately made possible the consciousness of sequences of causes building up to very sophisticated results. This was the birth of Reductionism.

This is usually seen “upside down”, so to speak, in that it immediately brings to mind a sort of top-down analysis. But that is typical of Man. It certainly did not arise that way round (i.e. out of analysis). That was a much later development. It MUST have been initially grasped in a “building up” way. Certain causes could be marshalled to produce situation X, and then this new set up marshalled in its turn to produce situation Y. Man began to plan a whole series of stages resulting in a final sophisticated product. In a recent TV documentary, Ray Mears and a Native American from Canada worked together to build a birch-bark canoe from original forest materials. Every stage in construction was conditioned by what was needed at each succeeding stage, so that ultimately hundreds of highly skilled sub-products had to be appropriately designed to fulfil its purpose at the next level. As Ray Mears explained, the final product was probably the finest boat ever conceived of by Man.

Just such activities laid the basis for Reductionism – levels of causes building up to complex results. Only later did it become a means of analysis – where complex situations were investigated to reveal underlying layers of contributory sub-systems – where causes had been marshalled to a complex end.

Now, Reductionism is clearly the workhorse of scientific understanding and is used everyday and in multiple circumstances to explain situations. It would be sufficient, but for one profound thing. Reality is not constructed entirely out of such pedestrian steps. Reductionism involves NO innovation – NO new levels – NO restructuring of the environment itself. Reductionism is ONLY applicable in mechanistic or single level systems – that is the steps in increasing complication are all at the same level. In Reality we have Emergence, where wholly new, never-before existed Levels emerge, which transform the forming circumstances themselves, and make possible subsequent developments that were IMPOSSIBLE before the Emergence took place. The Emergence of Life is the most important example, but such Emergences are Legion, and have occurred millions of times in the development of the Universe. But note, once a reductionist analysis arrives at such an emergent situation it fails. You cannot move through an Emergence to its original producing situation by the crude methods of Reductionism.

Now, surprisingly, you may think, analogy copes very well with Emergence – because it is not attempting to reveal quantitative formulae, but instead copes with explaining the situation by finding similar analogistic forms and processes elsewhere. It takes things as given in real analogies and reapplies the features of a whole system to obviously similar sets of processes in other circumstances. Where formulae blow up when presented with the simplest of Changes of State, for example from solid to liquid, analogies sail through both in verbal explanation and in physical modelling.

New Special Issue: The Loka Sutta

The writer of these papers is not a Buddhist. He is, however, a holistic philosopher, who sees his ancestry as stretching from the Buddha and Zeno of Elea in the ancient world, through Hegel and Marx in the 19th century, to his own attempt to carry the gains made by these great thinkers towards a wholly new form of Science.

This has not been an easy task !

In spite of a commitment to this basic position for almost all of his adult life, the task he set himself constantly generated other more urgent, more basic tasks, and in the end required the fullest possible investigation of the holist position in Philosophy, and the attempt to reclaim Science for this standpoint by a thorough understanding of just how such an all-embracing position could deliver an affective methodology.

It has demanded a series of prepatory works including a new Theory of Emergence, a substantial period of work on Iterative Techniques and Chaos in Mathematics, and finally a return to the Buddha’s Loka Sutta, his foundation for what individuals conceived of as “The World”.

What follows are my first real attempts to reconcile my own philosophical theories with those of that original and great holistic thinker.

Read the issue

New Special Issue: Wave Particle Integration

The idea of Wave/Particle Duality is much more complex than the nature of an electron or of a photon, for in its very conception it localises phenomena that are not actually local.

We are always happier with individual entities, carrying with them their unique load of properties, and interacting with one another, due to both these properties and to “prescribed” Laws of Nature. Any holistic mish-mash of an alternative, with things being changed, or even determined, by their vast range of possible contexts and contributions, confuses us, and is widely condemned as unsolvable obscurantism. So, in spite of evidence to the contrary, we stick-like-glue to our naming, defining and studying of particular entities, and their properties and relations.

But, what if Empty Space were not actually empty at all?

Read the issue here

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What Next For Turkey?

Yet another country in the Islamic world is in crisis. Perhaps the biggest country in the Middle East - Turkey - has also toppled into a state of crisis, seemingly over a park being earmarked for development into some sort of mall. Yet, of course, it is much more than that.

The discontent is country-wide, and the usual tactic of the ruling class, a turn to an Islamic state, is again coming to the fore. But though the peasants feel it will help them, the city-dwellers are sure it will take away what they have gained, and instead of the future they envisaged, there could be a retreat to a deprived past. Turkey is truly at a crossroads.

The dictatorial and religious tendencies of the current Prime Minister, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, are clearly opposed by the rising middle class, educated workers and city-dwellers generally, and it looks like another pulse in the so-called Arab Spring - the general move towards revolution for an entire civilization.

Listening to the various political commentators, even those on Middle Eastern TV stations such as Al Jazeera, you would think that the threatened uprising could never happen. Turkey is a democracy, we are told. Half the population are rural peasants that back the Islamist Prime Minister, we are assured, while the other (roughly) 50% live in cities, the workers and the middle class, who are lead by disaffected students, who know what they want, and it isn't an Islamic State! This impasse cannot be traversed! This is what we are told, but, of course, they are mistaken.

A Revolution is always an alliance of differing groups who come together with a unifying common purpose. The red flags in evidence at these various demonstrations are not all Turkish flags, some are emblems of the socialists and communists - the appearance of 'hammers and sickles' proved it. Clearly there is some culture of socialist ideas evident within Turkish society, and hence there may be real revolutionaries amongst them, who can correctly interpret what is emerging on a national scale. 

In Russia in 1917, with a successful defeat of the 1905 revolution behind them, the general consensus seemed to be that with the forced abdication of the Czar, enough was enough, and the vast preponderance of peasants would ensure that no social revolution could occur to take things further. Yet, the Russian revolutionaries knew what was necessary, and they knew that they must win the peasants to their cause, by including their most heartfelt demand in their battle cries. The demand became "Peace, Bread and Land!" - wedded to the demands of the working class there would be a turning over of private farmland into the hands of those that worked it - the peasants. They would own their own plots, and the vast majority of the national army were peasants - they not only were for peace, but would own their own land, and had the arms-in-hand to achieve it.

The leadership of the Turkish people must be won by those who understand revolution, and can present the appropriate demands to unify the peasants, workers and middle class to eject the reactionary government, for a just society.

Victory to the Turkish People!