Process, Context and Recursion II

Pas de Deux (1968) Norman McLaren

BEGINNING TO UNDERSTAND MOVEMENT AND CHANGE

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

They never can!

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

That also isn't true!

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Special Issue 73: The Holistic Engines

Read Special Issue 73

This is the third edition in a new series on Holist Science, and how it must differ from Pluralist methodologies, if it is to truly revolutionise the discipline, and move it past its many current impasses. 

The Holistic Engines examines how change happens in natural situations - how Science fails to grasp dynamic causalities at multiple levels of Reality, and how it must now embrace a new augmented Dialectical Materialism, if it is going to begin to deal with Reality outside of its complete formalisation in Mathematics and Technology.

Art Director's note:

The importance of Abstraction to Holism and Dialectics, has been reflected visually, in the series thus far, through the use of Russian Constructivism as illustration, and the development of those ideas in proto graphic design and art from the Bauhaus.

However, what is missing from this influential Abstract art, is similar to what is missing from the Pluralist Abstraction that Schofield criticises in his Philosophy of Science. Both of these forms of Abstraction lack any real dynamic content, or the ability to represent change and evolution as we see it occuring in the Natural World. For this reason these Abstractions, while sometimes revealing, and formally very satifying, can sometimes seem lifeless and cold, or overly simplifying.

For this issue, which looks specifically at how Holistic Dialectics could address the real engines of change, we have looked to another, more dynamic form of Abstraction, and a key precursor to Constructivism, for many of the illustrations: Russian Futurism. Unlike Italian Futurism, which was closely related to Fascism at the time, the Russian version was primarily influeced by Cubism, and many of these Futurists went on to become part of the Bolshevik Revolutionary movement.

Speculation!

Speculation

via

The Historical Development of Thinking in Mankind

involving Accurate Observation, Prediction, and finally Understanding

It is, at the very least, a veritable tragedy, that this absolutely vital trajectory in Human Thinking, has as its current culmination, after many millennia of Development, ended up within, perhaps, its most significant area of achievement, to ultimately be satisfied-theoretically only with... 

mere Speculation!

For, let us be absolutely clear, Mankind, when it emerged initially, had NO Language, and certainly no Logical Thinking as we now consider it. Human Thinking is entirely Man-made, and has developed along with Mankind's changing abilities and understanding: so it could only, at any time, reflect their current state of development! It is, most certainly, far from perfect, and must NEVER be assumed to be universally capable of formulating Absolute Truth.

For, what we now have, is this treasured currently final achievement: and we must be clear as to what makes it considered to be so special. It is considered to be the highest-possible Product of Pure Thought alone, in interpreting the Real World, without, in consequence, being able to both theoretically accurately Explain, and then further Predict what will happen next.

Of course, there will doubtless be a unified Chorus of Dissent, at this damning characterisation, but it is nontheless True!

For NO such wholly theoretically-arrived-at Predictions were involved in the usually accepted characterisation: they actually depend primarily solely upon Direct Observations as such, very carefully arranged-for, and NOT as Direct Predictions from Theory alone!

[For that could be Real Science and without such concrete proof the theoretical ideas are certainly not established]

So, to make such an amalgam work, the "theoreticians" follow up such hopefully-confirming observations, by the absolutely necessary inclusion of either New Free Parameters (and even concepts) or indeed both, which are so designed as to look like Theoretical Reflections of Reality, instead of Pragmatic, cleverly-invented tricks and workarounds!

And, yet another, illegitimate Rational System (when applied directly to Reality), is that of Mathematics, which is only ever brought in, by matching measured Data into General Mathematical Forms, having only unknown constants, and evaluating these via Simultameous Equations from that Data! That is how legitimate Data "becomes" a Mathematical Equation, which is THEN taken as The Law delivered by that Data.

It isn't! It is instead, merely the adjustment of valid Data into a Forever Fixed mathematical relation, turning the specificity of individually-measured Data into a Forever to-be-obeyed, purely Mathematical Law.

It can, and indeed is, then fed into the Amalgam, as a "Confirming Proof", that the overall system is both sound and sufficient! And, used, thereafter, to supposedly deliver "absolutely all possible" valid cases under that "Natural Law".

It isn't Correct!

For, I have been an exceptionally-able mathematician, literally all my Life, and have undertaken both significant research within that area - working with other world class mathematicians (in particular upon a modified Van Der Pol Equation, as an approximate model for a beating Human Heart), and have also written extensively upon the Philosophy of Mathematics.

I know exactly what Mathematics is, AND what it isn't!

Mathematics is an entirely Pluralist Discipline, dealing ONLY in Forever Fixed Laws, and hence incapable of accurately reflecting a Developing Holistic World, which actually EVOLVES!

The absolute clincher in proving these ideas, has to be Cosmology: because the essential Scientific means of confirming Theory is totally unavailable in Cosmology. Predictions are not products of Theory, but entirely delivered by fixed mathematical forms fitted up to past observations, which is certainly NOT Theory. For Theory would have to also Explain Why things happen as they do, and not just replicate what has happened before, at some point.

The Key is revealed when something New occurs! If the "theory" cannot deliver that new occurence, it isn't a Theory! It cannot deal with Qualitative Change in an Explanatory way.

Indeed, all Qualitative Changes, in all real Developments, are omitted in such "Laws", for they are then as they must be, merely Pluralist Laws. And, such a System will always be totally incapable of explaining the Evolution of Reality - from the Everyday, to the Cosmic!

And such Thinking, though it purports to be Theory: is, in fact, mere Speculation (pretending to be Theory).

Now, you might well wonder why, such a slip is so consistently made!

The reason is successful Technology, which (most of the time) doesn't have to know Why? but only How?

So the Engineer, within his carefully contrived-and-maintained wholly Pluralist Situations, can legitimately depend upon the relevant Formulae to deliver exactly what will happen. But, of course, that isn't Science, which has also to know Why?

If this short essay does not convince you of the truth of these ideas, may I recommend a thorough study of Current Cosmology, with its Big Bang Theory, its Inflationary Period, followed by its ever Increasing Expansion of the Universe, Dark Matter, Dark Energy, Black Holes, and even Multiverses! Do you think that they have all been Proven? Certainly not!

There are alternatives, however!

In 1970 Hannes Alfvén was awarded the Nobel Prize for Physics with his Theory of Plasmas (Electricity and Magnetism in all possible Spaces)!

For, it has since been extended into an alternative Theory of the Development of the Universe - based for the first time upon Plasma Theories, which have turned out to be likewise applicable in experiments in Laboratories upon Earth, yet acting in exactly the same way in the Cosmos.

They are Scale Invariable!

Process, Context & Recursion I

Recent contributions within the Electric Universe Group, regarding Markland and Birkeland Effects in Spatial Electricity and Magnetism, are certainly posing important questions concerning the "Supposed Diametrical Opposites" clearly involved at crucial turning points in the Development of the subsequent System.

For, these new questions strike at the very heart of the Standard Universal Pluralist Approach - still wholly dominant in literally all of the Methodologies throughout the full set of the Sciences. The Wholly Static Conditions always thereby imposed upon all Investigative Experiments, currently undertaken, in order to reveal, supposedly, the Forever Fixed Natural Laws involved, NEVER address the real interactions between them in our Actually Fully Holistic World.

Indeed, the Dialectics of Hegel, and even Marx, treat the evidently existing Opposites, as merely capable of completely cancelling each other out. Whereas, the new evidence says that they don't! They not only continue to exist, but actually to co-exist, in wholly new-and-varying joint Forms - especially within Electricity and Magnetism!

Clearly, after two and a half millennia of subscription to Plurality, scientists are mostly at a loss to cope with these crucial new interactions. And, it also, most certainly, doesn't help, that in Cosmology, the almost total lack of appropriate Experiments (or even the necessary conditions to arrange for them), as well as the fact that even the best-informed Oppositionists, being almost entirely from within a Technologist Community (EU), who unavoidably carry over into their criticisms of Mainstream Scientists, their own primarily Pragmatist Stance, which though opposed to the position of the Wholly-Theoretical Mainstream Scientists, nevertheless, still maintain the very same dedication to Pluralist Laws and Equations.

The problems are not only incredibly difficult to solve, but actually Totally Impossible to implement, without a Root & Branch Rejection of Plurality by both sides of the current split in Physics.

And, to Compound the Felony, the only current strand in Philosophy that attempts to reject Plurality for Holism (namely the Marxists), have never managed to extend things, comprehensively, into any of the Sciences - which is vital for, the absolutely Primary Task, in equipping all of the Sciences, with an essentially exclusively Holist Approach.

But, for that to be the case, that mammoth Undertaking certainly must be urgently addressed! And, to do this, we now know exactly where to begin! The only quesation has to be HOW?

For, in spite of the major contribution by Karl Marx to Capitalist Economics - as it then took him the rest of his life, to lay a sound and comprehensive basis in that Discipline, it hasn't, yet, even begun to be addressed in Science, and, instead, has, most devastatingly, veered well off-track into the Key maximally-flawed area of Modern Physics! So, let us briefly re-iterate the key and profound difference between Plurality and Holism in all of the Sciences.

It has two major aspects.

The first, is that with multiple, different and simultaneous factors, both active-and-mutually-affecting of one another, they are always unavoidably-involved in Reality-as-is: and thus will also, be generally, and both-ways recursive with everything-else involved, and, therefore, repeatedly, and significantly, modifying all involved components!

Yet, on the contrary, Plurality wrongly assumes that these are all Fixed Eternal Laws, and fundamentally independent of one another - ONLY merely-summing, and never modifying qualitatively and recursively with any of the others.

Now, even this major simplification would NOT be discernable in Reality-as-is, so scientists also artificially severely-reduced the factors present in Investigative Experiments, in order to ideally involve only, at best, a single factor, which would perform exactly the same, as when acting with others, but which here is eminently discernable for use in all possible diverse circumstances (when only comsidering that single factor)! And also, of course, unmodified by any other also present factors.

Second, the use of such Pluralist Laws necessarily separated the full set of required technological processes, into many wholly individual processes - each one allowing only the use of a single Pluralist Law, within the necessarily provided perfect environment for that Law to act (and no others), to perform each single step in the ultimately necessary individual laws, along with their required outputs.

But, this amounted to a strictly man-made, wholly artificial technological route to a finally required result!

AND, it DID NOT reflect exactly what happens in Reality-as-is.

So, to deal with such things theoretically: that is to actually advance Human Knowledge and Understanding, so that, exactly as had happened with Euclidian Geometry, and thereafter with Mathematics-in-general, the involved Discipline could then be cerebrally constructed, and also allow sound theoretically-achieved predictions, not merely pragmatically, but intrinsically, hopefully by some similarly Rational System of established facts and their Laws. BUT, that couldn't happen with the Real Laws for they were unavailable - totally ensured by the only methods currently available to Mankind!

They had only the old pragmatic means, along with the non mutually-relatable individual Pluralist Laws - and that simply wouldn't do!

Nevertheless, they did also have a truly valid Rational System - that of Mathematics.

So they cheated!

Even though the Pluralist Laws were valid only in particular tailored situations, the scientists derived mathematical versions of those Laws from measured Data!

And then related them rationally(?) to one another, though, of course, wholly illegitimately from those Equations delivered entirely from the wholly incompatible Laws. They merely assumed that they could do this; but they most certainly couldn't!

Don't get me wrong! Mathematics is a wholly valid Rational Discipline, and crucial to Mankind in dealing with Form... But, its uses to relate Scientific Laws, as revealed artificially in Science, is wholly illegitimate! To really do that, those involved must first understand, in detail, exactly what the actual HOLIST Nature of Reality-as-is consists of: and that has NOT yet even begun within most Sciences!

And, of course, the most crucial area resides in the mutual modifying affects of scientific Laws upon one another, which are ususually qualitative and distorting, whereas the usual assumption is that they are Fixed, and indeed Eternal, and usually only Sum and Complicate, rather than Qualitatively Transform one another.

Now, the possibility of arriving at "What Really Happens" has, because of Holism, always been a major problem, for every even small change in the Conditions of an Event, will always qualitatively modify what ensues. So, investigators always worked very hard to prevent such changes, for only then would the results always be predictable!

Mankind had successfully developed Pluralist Science! And for the most part, Pluralist Science was successful. 

But, in fact, there were many ways of assuming Natural Situations... And they all gave different results!

The Natural Way:

Non-scientists could only take Reality as its occurring naturally, so every way would be different, as various involved laws varied! So, an avaerage was the best that could be achhived - requiring several repeated measurements. But, of course, none of the individual measurements, or even the Average of them all delivered a real Law. Yet in everyday processes, and even in school experiments: this was the method used.

The Technological Way:

In Industry, the Natural Way certainly wasn't good enough, so there the Situation was controlled as rigidly as possible, by keeping containing conditions as constant as possible: and purifying the active components as much as possible!

The Scientific Way:

This takes the Technological Way as it Data and Primary Laws as means, but Theoretically it uses Mathematical Rationality to build further extensions into the Science's Discipline.

The Holist Way:

Now, Holism is still in its infancy, as regards Science-in-general, but has been extensively used in developing a Critique of Capitalist Economics, along with echoes in History and Biology, by Marx primarily, and by others less comprehensively!

But, the multi-millennia-long sojourn of Plurality within the Sciences, has in time, strongly enabled an effective Technology, while doing literally nothing for effecting also an Explanatory Science. For though that was sufficient to lead to a veritable explosion in Effective Technological Development, it also led all the Sciences ever deeper into the mire, explanation-wise - so that, by now, many demanding areas within literally all the Sciences are slipping into irretrievable purely speculative chaos, which will only get worse unless-and-until an effective Holistic and Explanatory Approach is extensively both instituted and developed, to finally allow the construction of real Explanatory Theories to be established.

But that, of course, is much easier said than done, for the old trick used within Plurality of establishing totally unchanging areas in which to both reveal and develop Laws, turns out to be either impossible or wholly self-defeating within Holism. The use of those Maintained Stabilities (that were once assumed to be permanent) is now impossible!

But, as it happens, (wholly Temporary) Stabilities DO indeed occur, in our Holistic World, but, in time, they will always collapse unto what are termed Emergences. In spite of their non-permanent nature, these stable interludes alone make possible the crucial introductions of various important Macro Forms of Organisation, above and significantly affecting all the possible single Processes of Plurality, actually contained within them.

For, individual Processes do NOT act alone, and, therefore, are NEVER sufficient to solely determine outcomes!

First they always are acting multiply together with others, both simultaneously and over time! And, as such, they require multiple, different and necessary resources, yet consequently produce multiple identical outcomes for each kind of process!

And they will always be accompanied by other different processes, with their resource requirements and consequent outputs!

And, these will often be essential to a particular concurrent process - both delivering its necessary resources, and requiring their ultimately produced outcomes!

Very clearly, you will NEVER be able to predict overall outcomes purely in terms of single well-defined processes. The overall Nexus of everything involved must profitably and continullay mesh!

And apart from internally produced resources, within the overall System, there will be necessarily-maintained inflows from outwith that overall System: and their relative abundances would enable one or two to effective dominate, via the abundance of their outcomes. With the usual kind of mix, with many difference processes, and measures of outcomes would quickly reveal which process was the most abundant and hence Dominant overall!

NOTE:

This reflects exactly what occurs in most inadequate School Experiments, supposedly effectively Pluralist!
Clearly, this account is far from complete and will be continued in a following paper!

Frege, Dummett and Plurality

Origins of the Current Crisis in Philosophy

In a recent proffering on Youtube, Michael Dummett explained both the current contributions, as well as the final failures of Gottlob Frege, concerning the Philosophy of Mathematics - but, as it turned out, he was also, in fact, actually revealing the widespread mistakes, as well as the many general inadequacies, throughout all past and present Philosophers (including himself), concerning that important area of Theory.

For Frege, along with all the rest of his co-thinkers, made (and still make) Logic - some kind of crucial "Absolute", coming both uniquely and only from Man, rather than being a failed attempt, by Man, to reveal an objective set of the real changing relations, within all of Reality-as-is! But, he is, most certainly, not alone, Mankind in general has believed this for the last two and a half thousand years - indeed, ever since the Greek Intellectual Revolution of the 5th century BC.

And, they made it seem to be the case, by devising a wholly new kind of Relation, which, for the first time ever, devised relations between certain Abstractions, rather than between existing objects, and which therefore could, within those special circumstances, and types of Abstraction, be wholly Constant. But, they were NOT abstractions like the names of concretely-existing things, they were instead ONLY of one special type of relation occurring between particular kinds of Abstractions!

As this is a subtle and even surprising kind of relation, I feel that I must give some original examples, used by the Greeks, in constructing Euclidian Geometry.

The first was The Point!

Now, this abstraction was composed of a totally disembodied Position. It had absolutely zero extension in the Real World, delivering only a Position, and nothing else, but as such DID indeed have relations with other such Abstractions

- such as The Line!

Now, this was defined by two Points and delivered a Direction. It, too, had NO extension in Space, but could genuinely be related to other such Abstractions, thereby beginning to define both a Direction - and ultimately Mathematics!

Next came The Plane - and then, an extended series of others, that because of the unique disembodied relations to others of the same kind, could indeed, deliver a consistent set of extractions from Reality, which could not only be useful, but, because of their nature, deliver a Fixed System of such relations.

They had invented a Pluralist System! Now, this could seem to be a useless, if consistent System, but it turned out to be very close indeed to what Mankind had found to be the easiest way, to not only make sense of a version of Reality-as-is, but also to actually make things too.

The only way to do anything with situations in the Real World, was, first, to hold them resolutely still - as in all technology and the Scientific Method itself. This necessarily involved keeping all used situations as simple and unchanging as possible, so they were already attempting to approach the perfection of what was to become necessary for Mathematics to be legitimately applied to it.

So, the new intellectual gains made by the Greeks, coupled with the well-established Pragmatism given by "If it works, it is right!", definitively defined the Technological Ideal for getting reality to behave as desired, and indeed as required!

Now, also, these procedures fitted in well with giving sizes to the actual processes occurring in Reality, because all the measurements, with regard to some kind of Scale, was as important in trying to explain phenomena causally.

And, long before Quantitative Laws were crucial in identifying under exactly what circumstances significant Qualitative Changes occurred, and thereby suggesting Causes! They could be loosely correlated to such changes in Qualities, even if the reasons extracted were NOT Quantitative Laws, but Additional Qualitative Explanations.

Thus, Separate Explanatory Reasons necessarily grew up alongside Quantitative Laws, which though they related to Quantitative values, NEVER actually explained Why Qualitative Changes occurred, but only When!

Indeed, no strictly Quantitative Law could EVER explain any Qualitative Change. They may be associated, but NEVER causally!

However - as they say - "The tail can wag the dog!". and it did so technologically, leaving the explanations as to Why, NEVER addressed.

So Technology developed apace, leaving Explanations increasingly unaddressed.

Indeed, any remaining causal Explanations were relegated to be an accompanying narrative ONLY.

So, these two approaches almost became Different Disciplines - named Technology and Science!

Therefore, the Technology was more about Delivery. While the Science was increasingly Speculative, rather than Explanatory.

And, the surprising thing was that these two cores were increasingly made subordinate to any Mathematical Relations that had been fitted-up to measured data sets, acquired by these two sets of Experts, who had somehow to work together.

But, in watching a recent historical account on YouTube, put together by Gareth Samual (See the Pattern), where his stepping stones to a Theory of the Ether were always the Equations resulting from the various theoretical investigations - always "validated" only by successful predicted use. But, literally NONE of them were correct, and Samuel explained that effective predictions could be achieved with formulae, in which as many as 20 different constants had been included, yet they had NO real physical determinators within Concrete Reality, and were merely only "adjusted-to-fit"!

Also in Drummett's extended piece upon Frege, he frequently referred to Logic as both Absolute-and-Given, which, most certainly it isn't!

So, the question arises, "Exactly where was that System of Reasoning originally established absolutely" - which without any doubt, was supposedly achieved in the Greek Intellectual Revolution, of the 5th Century BC, where it defined the elements of Euclidian Geometry as:

Absolute Relational Abstractions

which it was intended only to apply to these very unusual types of relational entities, which are certainly NOT the case generally in All Reasoning, and most certainly NOT the only ones used in what he calls Logic!

 

 

Real Abstraction: Why Art and Science Must Work Together!

Can Abstract Art help Science?

Yet, in spite of the well established Pluralist Aberrations, True Abstraction is still the ideal to be followed: but exactly “What that is?”, requires, for us, a necessary detour into the very best of 20th century Modern Art! 

You might think that the damage done by Pluralist Abstraction, was sufficient to permanently condemn literally ALL Abstraction as damagingly misleading: but that would be wrong too! Indeed, it must be clear by now that the Real Holist World and its multi-level Development, is such as to far outstrip currently Dominant forms of Abstraction. But, nevertheless, Mankind has not only survived, but has indeed developed prodigiously, so that many of their attempts at Abstractions must have had at least some crucial Objective Content - indeed sufficient to get us to this point at all! But philosophically, and from the Understanding of Reality-as-is requirement - NOT YET GOOD ENOUGH! 

But, something of what is required does actually occur, but not in Science and primarily, and largely unconsciously, it has appeared best in the Arts!

The question is how can we reconcile these very different types of Abstraction? 

This short excerpt was taken from the latest issue of SHAPE Journal entitled Holist Science II (73) - it can be found on page 15 in the paper called The Trajectory of Real Development I

Issue 73 of SHAPE Journal: Holist Science II

 

Issue 73

Understanding Reality

We attempt to understand our world in order to get the very best from it: but, it is certainly a breathtakingly difficult-to-understand world we find ourselves in. It is currently determinable only by two seemingly diametrically-opposite, yet generally-available overall systems of analysis, that directly appear to often effectively cancel each-other-out, and therefore consequently majorly undermine, both the possibility of understanding its underlying, driving trajectory - or even, alternatively, not being able to predict from any overall, perceived process, exactly what would happen next. So that, all attempts at revealing any particularly long-term set of objectives, at all regularly, appear to be always doomed to failure!

Yet, nevertheless, all short-term-and-local Realities do appear to follow some seemingly Fixed Natural Laws, but only if, along with such necessary time-and-locality constraints, so that we are constantly seeking out only Fixed Laws to enable such plans - until they, as is usually the case, finally fail.

Now, these two possible Stances were both established, at almost the very same time, some 2,500 years ago, but each of them, happening in very different areas of the World.

One of them, insisted that the Natural Laws were both Eternal and separable, but, as they were often acting simultaneously along with many others, one of the contributions was then usually largely Dominant, so that its outcomes would totally swamp all others, in their overall direct joint sum!

While, the alternative stance, instead, considered that the norm for all simultaneous contributions, was one of a constant variance of all acting Laws, so that outcomes were always changing, and all predictions just had to include an extended range of possible outcomes, with, in addition, a constant readiness to switch to an alternative, if a Key Indicator so suggested a sufficient change to merit the switch.

Certain extremes of these two, were undoubtedly delivered effectively: but, the bulk of cases were always very poorly served indeed!

The former case was later termed Plurality, and was attempted to be brought strictly to heel, by rigid and long-lasting controls upon idealised situations: but these still proved impossible, unless the number of active factors within a situation were significantly limited, which enabled a kind of Stability to be much more easily achieved-and-maintained.

Now, this was justified by the rapid and successful developments during the Greek Intellectual Revolution of that time, which ALSO kept the idea of all Natural Laws being Forever Fixed, but, as their contributions, to the overall sum, did vary in magnitude - that was the supposed to be the sole reason for the different outcomes, The Laws were still always Fixed, but their overall sum wasn’t.

That did not suit the alternative Stance, as its supporters insisted that the individual Laws themselves Varied Constantly to some degree. So that was seen as the reason for varying overall outcomes, as well as being the reason. for the Variety and Beauty of the Natural World, and, particularly, those involving all Living Things, which could never be seen as being due to Eternally Fixed Laws.

This view was later termed Holism.

But, of course, neither case delivered The Full Truth of Reality!

The problem was that simultaneously-acting Laws often affected one another, and changed their Effects. So, things were constantly in a moment-by-moment, consequent on-going, melee of multiple Changes in ALL contributions! This, initially, seemed to undermine all attempts to predict overall outcomes.

But that too could, and often was, also negated, by the fact of Temporary Stabilities, caused by the forms of the interactions going on within such multiple simultaneous sets of processes! For, though some of these, in turn, were caused by the Effects due to Diametric Opposites - but only ever within on-going, multiply-repeated processes.

For Cyclically-repeated processes involving such opposites, selectively eliminated all extraneous materials, so that ultimately, Pure, constantly repeating cycles were the main outcomes. And, these could balance with their equally Pure oppopsites to cancel-out. And, what also frequently “steadied-the-boat”, was the fact that in diverse bundles of such sets, including such Pure Processes, where stabilised sets simply repeated, whilever there were Correcting Processes for every change in an existing process, occurring within another of the same set.

So, constant repeating of effectively unchanging Cycles of the same contents, due to the above effects, necessarily delivered many Temporary Stabilities, as long as those conditions remained! For, in such constantly repeating Cycles of those processes, all Non-Opposite Processess would be effectively eliminated, leaving only the Balanced Opposite processes determining the consequent Stability.

When these did change, entirely-locally, they were termed Emergences: and when they changed much more generally, over wider, extensive Systems, they were sometimes called Revolutions!

Clearly Pluralist Science and Holistic Science are very different views of the same world!

NOTE:

It is clear, to this researcher, that, though the above does correctly show the effects of constantly repeating Cycles of processes, and, in so doing, selectively-eliminating chance ingredients, and even processes, to ultimately arrive at a constantly-repeating, overwhelmingly dominant unity of the same sort of processes - the actual mechanisms involved do not, at this stage, entirely satisfy!

And, in watching one of Gareth Samuel’s “See the Pattern” videos, about the processes taking place in the Sun, it became clear that he too was arriving at seemingly dominant sets of processes, that had been similarly refined into constantly repeating systems, that must have emerged from initially complex sets, that only gradually arrived at what he concluded were the final regular forms: so, it seemed likely, that these could have been arrived at in the same way as the processes I was considering.

In addition, it was clear that, in spite of their seemingly constant arrived-at state, they also were never permanent: so the ultimate transformations to other steady states might also reflect such changes elsewhere too.

What is usually generally called Science is actually no such thing: we might more accurately term it Technology, for as a wholly pluralist undertaking, it is not even derived from any dependable form of Science, which would have to be, to some degree, Holistic in its philosophical Stance, to be able to deal with Reality-as-is!

But, because that cannot be distilled into a collection of Pluralist Fixed Laws, the practitioners involved, by taking the route of greatly modified and controlled situations, did manage to effectively enable a Pluralist version, always limited to only very highly constrained situations - but sufficient to also deliver a wholly achievable, and increasingly broad and useable Technology.
But, of course, the required extension into a generally applicable Science, within which it was intended to reside a comprehensive and Explanatory Means, was always impossible! Indeed, researches have proved conclusively that a Science, based upon Plurality, can’t help us understand the natural world, even though a functioning Technology certainly gives us vast control over our environments - and has effectively transformed the world to suit our means of understanding it.

The revelation of these crucial flaws, were revealed very soon after the Greek Intellectual Revolution, by Zeno of Elea, who was able to demonstrate the failures of Pluralist Science in his work called Paradoxes, in which he was able to reveal irresolvable Contradictions in Movement, using the Rationality discovered legitimately in Mathematics, but then wholly illegally applied in both General Reasoning and the Sciences, and from which, they had done it, in spite of Zeno’s valid revelations.

In fact it wasn’t until the early 19th century, that Hegel took Zeno’s work and applied it more broadly to logical Opposites, that the truth was finally generally revealed, by Hegel’s follower, historian and philosopher Karl Marx, who began the mammoth task of applying those dialectical ideas, first to History in General, and then to a major Critique of Capitalist Economics! But, nevertheless, since Marx’s death in the 1880s, no-one has attempted the task of applying Marx’s Comprehensive Method to any of the Sciences, so that in spite of Lenin’s warning, in his book Materialism and Emporio Criticism, the most important areas have still NOT received the necessary treatment, resulting in the Copenhagen Interpretation of Quantum Theory, and a similarly disabled Cosmology!

 
And, in fact, Modern Holistic Theory, which has been wholly a product of the 21st Century, has not been applied to anything comprehensively, though many individual papers have already been published here in SHAPE Journal - and in the near future the writer of this paper is nearing the completion of an alternative to Copenhagen. While a short pamphlet upon Holistic Science is also completed, and will be published, in print, this Spring. There is still much to do.

Holistic Theory and Practice: Cosmology

 

The Real Tester for the Holist Approach in Science is surely Cosmology!

For, such is essentially only an "observation-only" sub-discipline, wholly without the absolutely necessary confirmatory contributions of Experimental Interventions, to verify-or-deny any Purely Speculatively-arrived at Theories, that investigators in the field are surely initially-restricted to. Unless, that is, there are confirmatory experiments, that would be possible in the Laboratory on Earth, and in the always-required controlled conditions, and hence could confirm relations revealed, which would also be applicable within Cosmology too.

Now, so-called Empty Space and Laboratory situations delivered, of course, the major differences in Ground, between those two very diverse environments involved. For, if Space really were totally empty, normal situations upon Earth, most certainly, were NOT! So, experimenters often established their experiments within totally evacuated environments, by both establishing and maintaining a vacuum, in which to carry out their experiments. And, for a while, that seemed to suffice.

Until, that is, James Clerk Maxwell embarked upon his major study of Electromagnetism, when he needed a defined Spatial Medium to help him adequately address his Subject: for without it he would be unable to complete his decided-upon task: it certainly wasn't a set of Properties of Nothing, and literally all useful prior contributions required such a Medium!

So, Maxwell decided to first model an invisible Substrate, entirely via what effects it definitely had upon all Events occurring within it. And then, he used his new definition of "The Aether" to attempt to solve his outstanding problems in Electromagnetism.

For many decades, this seemed to work, and much sound work was completed in this area. But, then the Michelson-Morely Experiment seemed to prove that no such Universal Substrate existed in Space - yet Maxwell's discoveries, predicated upon such a Medium, nevertheless carried on being used, BUT now in supposedly Totally Empty Space!

Needless-to-say, Physics then began to fall-apart as a solely Causally-Explicable Discipline, and fitted-up more and more Mathematical Formulae, which increasingly replaced Causal Theories as "supposed explanations"! Indeed, Henri Poincaré and Ernst Mach, with their Positivist Approach, which they called Empirio Criticism, then suggested that only an amalgam of Explanations AND Mathematical Formulae could deliver, theoretically, the objective Real Physical World.

And, by the time of Niels Bohr and Werner Heisenberg, the wholly mathematical Copenhagen Interpretation of Quantum Theory replaced all Explanation at the Sub Atomic Level!

But, this Descent had been inevitable: for, ever since the Greek Intellectual Revolution in the 5th century BC, and the establishment of the very first Rationally-Consistent Intellectual Discipline of Mathematics, with such evident theoretical power, within that discipline, it was exactly what could possibly revolutionise both General Reasoning and the Sciences, so it was wholly illegitimately transferred-over to both of these areas too!

Why was it illegitimate?

It was totally Pluralistic: so all its Laws were Eternally FIXED (as they were legitimately in Mathematics)! But, they are NOT so Fixed in either Everyday Logic or in The Sciences, as they are not fixed in nature.

And such was a major restriction on the ability of all these Important Disciplines to cope with Reality and its evidently self-moving Actual Development.

Yet, at almost the same time as the Greek Intellectual Revolution, in India, The Buddha was formulating Mankind's initial effort at describing and using Holism, which also, and crucially, began to address Qualitative Changes, which were wholly inexplicable within the Pluralist Approach.

Indeed, though The Buddha, and his followers could never complete what was necessary to equip Holism to also address all the issues across all Disciplines, it did significantly position Qualitative Change as the engine for all Real Development of the wholly New, and, it is not surprising that the best of his followers were acclaimed for their evident Wisdom: the Loka Sutta is a case in point, of the alternative reasoning of the Buddhists!

NOTE:

Now. it is clear that Mankind did not come Ready-made into existence, but evolved out of its animal prehistory, finally into a Thinking Species: and, as such, we had to Change Qualitatively, but NEVER directly, to ever better conceptions of their World. But, the climb could not be cumulative! Conceptions were never wholly correct, but always a mixture of better-and-useable ideas, along with others that were wholly wrong. And, to make matters worse, the flaws in the mostly correct ideas, contradicted the as yet unrealised features, in the rest, and worked against a speedy extension.

And also, both the prestige and the power resided unavoidably with the Pluralists, because of their extensive successes in mastering the world with Technology, and its valuable products: it predictably, via western Empires eventually ruled the World, until Holism re-established itself in a surprisingly Political garb - initially in the writings and actions of the historian Karl Marx. who began to establish a profound analysis of Economics in his lifes work, Das Kapital!

But while he certainly pointed the way towards a modern and scientific Holism, the absolutely crucial comprehensive application to The Sciences was never undertaken.....

...until NOW!

Elsewhere, this philosopher has completed a major holistic critique of the Copenhagen Interpretation of Quantum Theory, but the time has come to also address the mess that is present day Cosmology.

There is NO available Technology in Cosmology, especially as the whole of recent excursions into Space have been totally dominated by Pluralist "scientists" and technologists: absolutely no departures from the Fixed Laws of the Pluralist Approach have been allowed in their investigations of the cosmos.

So, when added to the above-described inabilities of Cosmology to even establish anything Explicable about our Universe, the clearly evident failures of present day version of it, cannot be hidden behind successful Technology: but they certainly try to do that!

From the Big Bang and constantly the Expanding Universe, to Dark Matter, Dark Energy and Black Holes, it is clear that Pluralist Speculation had nothing-of-value to contribute from that actually-existing Universe, to contradict the Pure Speculations, without any confirming-or-denying evidence from a properly investigated Reality, as they are unavailable to earthbound and pluralist-constrained thinking of the so-called "scientists" involved.

Until Modern Holist Thinking tackles these areas of study, as is becoming increasingly available on SHAPE Journal, Cosmology can never break out of its current manacles. And even Modern Physics as it is developed and taught currently, is incapable of having anything but an increasingly confusing and misleading approach to Reality-as-is!

The contradiction, on Earth, between Pluralist and Holist Approaches to Real Science, will be the initial battleground!

The fight has begun with the latest Special Issue of SHAPE Journal, dedicated (along with many other contributions in previous issues), to explaining the recent 21st century contributions to Modern Holist Science.

And a short introductory pamphlet, covering the same ground, will also be published in print, and available via SHAPE in coming weeks.

The current research is still at an early stage, but will carry on for the foreseeable future, as this undertaking is only one of the many offerings regularly available on SHAPE - with of course, many political contributions, and topics such as the Covid 19 Pandemic, and the now substantial Economic Crisis worldwide too.

Special Issue 72: Holist Science

 

Read Special Issue 72 of SHAPE Journal

The problem we’re faced with in developing a holistic approach to Science involves the unavoidable complexities and interactions of multiple simultaneous aspects of Reality-as-is. Indeed, they initially seemed to be so insurmountable, that Mankind came to believe that underlying all the evident and confusing complexity, there had to be an integrating simplicity at its heart. Otherwise, how could all the clearly evident regularity and even the exquisite beauty of the Natural World have arisen? Our forebears concluded that it might well be revealable, with the appropriate processing. For, if this could be achieved, the revealed Simple Laws of Nature (applied within those same ideal conditions) would allow them to be purposely used to Mankind’s own conceived of benefits.

In fact, a great variety of things coexist within all Natural Environments! For, as we are already beginning to understand today -

First: Single laws do not usually exist as such: they are invariably acting simultaneously. with many
others.

Second: The contributions of given factors, in a natural collection of Laws, will never be fixed, they will
all perhaps vary!

Third: Individual Laws will never stay exactly the same: they will be influenced and changed by other simultaneously-acting Laws.

Fourth: All Laws inevitably Act upon two different Levels of condition:-

a) RANGE LIMIT: Outside of a given range the law vanishes, and other factors can change the Law’s Limits.

Outer LAW Limits pertain

b): RANGE: Inside its Range the Law acts, but is nonetheless affected by others

Inner Law pertains

And Mankind’s simplification of all these (and more) effects was to effectively, as far as is possible, “hold a situation-still”, in order to study it. And, of course, how they did that would depend upon circumstances, and what it was they were attempting to reveal. Indeed, they didn’t mind movement and quantitative changes: they could be achieved sufficiently easily.

BUT genuinely Qualitative Changes - when things became something else - were always prohibited! And, all the Laws that were sought, were assumed to exist as such naturally, independently of all others, when they did appear together, they were assumed to merely SUM.

Such a stance conformed exclusively to what we call the Principle of Plurality - the opposite of the Principle of Holism.

Tories are using the pandemic to dismantle the NHS

 These videos are a must-see.

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

The Great NHS Heist film

Culture and Revolution

 Originally posted here 8th April 2020

As culture shifts across the globe workers are beginning to realise their importance and power again - but can this be harnessed against the Capitalist class which exploit them?

Building an effective opposition within the Neo-Con, post-industrial societies 

David Harvey, in a recent Democracy-at-Work offering, once again, with his usual eminently Marxist analysis, and profound cultural understanding, finds it necessary to dramatically switch the emphasis that the Left must take, in order to effectively combat the results of 40 years of Neo-Con Capitalism, which have clearly effectively de-unionised and de-politicised the Working Class Movements in Countries like the UK and the USA.

Now, there is a lot wrong with the TV series The Sixties (currently broadcasting on Sky in the UK), BUT, nevertheless, it does reveal much of that crucial tumultuous decade which prepared the ground for the later Neo-Con transformation of World Capitalism, which by the 1980s, with Thatcher and Reagan, was beginning to dismantle the traditional Working Class oppositional politics with the systematic destruction of its historical strengths within organised Labour, and, in the USA, the Cold War effective annihilation of all the Political Parties of the Left!

Yet France, with its Gilet Jaune Left Populism, and the current joint action with the still existing Unions' own General Strike, is demonstrating what can be done in favoured areas. And a single major crack in the Neo-Con System, still not recovered from the 2008 Economic Collapse, could this time precipitate an unrecoverable Crisis from the Capitalists point of view!

(Editor: the current worldwide health / economic crisis, for example)


The Socialist Agenda

But, the usual separation of major campaigns of "The Sixties", and the lack of a Socialist Party backing them all, guaranteed failure in spite of the remarkable numbers often involved.

BUT with a Common Socialist Agenda, and a combined fight, and, a concerted effort to prevent the always agitated-for separation of campaigns, which will always and inevitably oppose this necessary aim, and the "Please Everybody" demand from them.

It must be countered, by making the disenfranchised ex-Working Class the only reliable source for Real Change on every single front.

(Editor: they can no longer hide from the vital role 'key workers' play in keeping the whole system going)

And, within that sector, the major Class Objective will be in providing a Young Socialist Movement for the discarded Youth - just as we did successfully in the 1960s with the Labour Party's Young Socialists. That youth will thrill their de-classed elders, and energise the whole undertaking, as the introduction of the Youth did in the Civil Rights Movement of the Sixties in the USA!

The Left needs a Socialist Party committed to literally all campaigns, but always unified by socialist solutions, and energised by a commitment to Working Class youth, with activities and facilities concentrated upon where those Youth are, yet mobilising them as the spearhead!

And, contradictably, NOT seeking the support of the Educated or the Middle Class, while at the same time delivering the very best informed and well explained Theory. But allowing NO exclusions of our generalist demands, and the very best organisation when under attack!

Without such a unifying participation, individual campaigns will quickly rise, and just as quickly fall. So, every single action or strike must be immediately supported, not just with individual participators. but with banners expressing both support and Socialist demands.

And, demonstrations, no matter how small, and a march directly to support the fight, with food, and collections of money arranged for the fighters, from Working Class Estates, accompanied with the most vigorous chants and energy!

Noam Chomsky's Philosophy

Noam Chomsky's intellectual approach (and what it lacks)

After watching the latest video from Noam Chomsky on YouTube - another wide-ranging philosophical contribution upon Human Thinking and Understanding, with its relation to our changing Conceptions of Reality - it became increasingly clear that, to him, this was NOT the development of various different attempts to both formulate accurate accounts describing that Reality, only in the common form of an increasingly competent, developed Language, but also never, as a revealing critique of its current contexts of different Social Organisations, involving ideas for its necessary improvement.

In his dealing with the relations between that Thinking, and the Reality it was attempting to describe, he only considers the internal relations and inadequacies of such Thinking, as the only possible-and-effective means of in any way addressing our world.

It was a wholly intellectual approach!

However, in spite of great historical breadth and an increasing intellectual depth, he also insisted upon what he saw as its intrinsic and sometimes unavoidable failures, as well as its seemingly built-in limitations.

But, Chomsky is neither a Scientist nor an Artisan of any kind: he only contributed conceptions concerned solely with Thinking-as-such, without involving any concrete means of, not only testing his ideas in Reality, but also, as Mankind had always done, not finding solutions in any consequent, concrete interactions within that Reality-as-is!

And, towards his conclusion, it also became clear that he was exclusively describing the imposed, if diverse, stances of various sections of the Ruling Class, as the only possible, as well as unavoidable-and-natural consequences of the processes involved, in only that developing system, over time.

He considered it as the sole engine of all development. He is clearly an Idealist!

So, in spite of his apparently "leftist" reputation, he had literally nothing-to-say about what had occurred in Socialist Thinking, throughout his extensive and detailed contribution. It, overall, reflected the dominant Liberal/Left Stance, most clearly exemplified in US politics, and, consequently-and-crucially also had absolutely nothing to say about real Social Alternatives, or amazingly, even intellectually about the major Pluralist/Holist diversions in Human Thinking within the last 2,500 years!

He was, therefore, wholly preoccupied with only what he saw to be both the only real means of progress, as well as the Natural and unavoidable limitations of that same Human Thinking: and consequently-but-inadvertantly, went on to demonstrate that very same limitation, even in his own analysis, dictated by his chosen-and-privileged ideas of intellectuals ONLY!

Noam Chomsky on Natural Law

At no point, did he ever address the Idealism and Materialism aspects of Philosophy, and, in particular, had zero to say upon the Dialectical Materialism of Karl Marx, and its role in the Major Social Revolutions of the 20th century. Nor, of course, did he trace the declines, both in historical gains, and within its own self-defeating short-comings, in the hands of its Theoretical developments and Political Organisational Forms.

Frankly, by his contribution in this event, you would think that he had given an extremely comprehensive account, but that was very far from the Truth. Indeed, the actual significant interactions of openly Marxist Parties in the active motivation of the Masses, into effective political action, including their damaged successes in the largely still-feudal countries, such as Russia and China, and their universal failures in the advanced Capitalist Countries of the West.

And, of course, absolutely NO acknowledgement of the fact that Dialectical Materialism was never ever comprehensively extended beyond the area of Capitalist Economics - including absolutely no such attempt to develop that key methodology across the whole range of Sciences, or absolutely crucially into either Philosophy or Language - so that consequently, it had nothing to say upon the reactionary developments in Sub Atomic Physics, and no absolutely essential and transforming contributions in Biology - particularly concerning the study of Evolution.

It was clear that throughout this presentation, Chomsky was NOT explaining his position to ordinary working people - for his whole approach was aimed at privileged middle class intellectuals, like himself, as the language he used totally betrayed his target audience, very clearly indeed!

And, I have myself suffered from exactly that type of deliberate exclusion - for though I have worked as a professional educator all my adult life, my paternal Grandmother could neither read nor write, and my Father (her son) was always an unskilled labourer. Throughout my successful career, I always refused to ape "my betters", and kept my Northern Working Class accent! So, I was usually treated as someone, who wouldn't understand the intricacies of Real Intellectual Argument, until I deigned to join in and prove the theses of "my self-assumed betters" wrong!

The method always employed in such Public Lectures (and Discussions) always uses the Names or Titles of Arguments, rather than explaining their actual contents, so that, unless you are constantly involved in such ideas with all of your time, you would not know what they meant, and your consequent "lack of understanding" would invariably be put down to your stupidity. And so, to terminate any possible explanations from me, the deliverer would show great surprise at one's ignorance of such essential Titles!

My own education, concentrating primarily upon Theoretical Physics and Mathematics, of course suffered from the same "Intellectualism", as I am here describing with Chomsky. But my Working Class background indelibly imprinted by my upbringing and status, always impelled me to attempt to transcend its clear limitations. Initially this broadened my interests to include, first Painting, and then Sculpture, and finally Computing - and slowly, in particular, due to the way I was treated in my chosen career. I was first a schoolteacher among my own Social Class, and then later in a Grammar School (educating the children of the Middle Class), after which I spent 10 years in a Further Education College teaching mature Working Class students how to program computers, along with the very best skill training Engineers for Local Industries.

I finally, after many rejections, I got a post in Higher Education, but it was only possible by attempting to get such a post abroad. I got a job in a Polytechnic in Hong Kong, where I was soon promoted to Senior Lecturer. And returning home to the UK on completion of my contract, I got a similar post in Glasgow in Scotland, where within 2 years, I was promoted to Principle Lecturer.

I decided to terminate my teaching, and concentrated instead solely upon devising and producing tailor-made Computer Software aids for researchers across the whole range of disciplines, which significantly adjusted my conceptions of Theory: as I had to help deliver exactly what my Discipline Expert Required!

And during the 1980s, many important Programmes and published research Papers were produced.

Finally, in a Director of Computing role, first in Bedford and finally in London University, I worked with an exceptional teacher of Dance Performance and Choreography, to deliver the Control and Flexibility she required, in using recorded footage of exemplar performances, that was subsequently used all over the world.

This career was sadly terminated early due to ill health, but working entirely from home I continued producing original research and software tools, and when this became impossible due to my failing eyesight, I worked with my son, Michael, who by then was a PhD, and a lecturer in Leeds University, to attempt to tackle the inadequacies of Intellectualism in Philosophy!

SHAPE Journal was my attempt to tackle Philosophy differently... 

This undertaking has taken me 14 years, 12 of these publishing over 150 issues of SHAPE Journal and this blog, involving over 1,000 separate papers. The initial project was to tackle the mess descended into within Modern Sub Atomic Physics, particularly addressing the Copenhagen Interpretation of Quantum Theory, and the Modern Version of Cosmology, arising from the Copenhagen Stance. And latterly an extension of Dialectical Materialism in dealing with Modern Science...

Now, I will not even try, at this stage, to "correct" Chomsky's claims on the impossibility of explaining Effective Causal Explanations, which is the universal cornerstone of all his diverse arguments about the Impossibility of Real Understanding - because, in his particular restricted presentation of that problem, he was correct! 

But, in spite of his seemingly comprehensive arguments, he omitted (or more likely was totally unaware of) the effect of the alternative to his universally Pluralistic intellectual stance, in all the means that he referred to in his otherwise comprehensive treatment. And that was because, ever since the Greek Intellectual Revolution, almost 2,500 years ago, the only way literally ANY consistent and effective Rationality was considered possible, was by limiting the experiences involved to solely pluralist situations - which did NOT allow any real Qualitative changes, and, hence, would, if rigorously implemented, profoundly limit all relations to fixed exclusively quantitative Laws, so the Rationality involved could never ever explain the real Essence of an Evolving Reality, which is therefore definitely limited to both Constant Laws, and only episodic, and always inexplicable Qualitative Changes - NEVER involving significantly any reasons for those changes.

And, to ever address explicitly such changes, situations would have to be Holistic - as was defined at the same time as the Greek Intellectual Revolution, but wholly separately, by The Buddha, many thousands of miles away in India!

Now, neither subsequent Western Plurality nor Eastern Holism, ever dealt comprehensively-and-explicably with a qualitatively developing World, and Mankind's uses of their consequent ideas to understand Actual Development does not yet exist!

For, Reality does not conform completely, with either of these simplifications of it, mainly because, in both cases, the occurrence of the many, clearly obvious Stabilities, were never understood correctly!

Plurality, in fact, made Stability the basis of Everything! Whereas Holism failed to understand their persisting occurrences, completely, making Constant Change its credo! And Mankind, for a very long period indeed, could countenance no other method, when relying exclusively upon a Single Conformity occurring straight-through all possibilities.

The idea of an actually-existing Hierarchy of different Rationalities, at different Levels, as well as the actual causal connections occurring between those apparently independent Levels, were for a long period, totally outside of any such considered possibilities - until thinkers like Karl Marx and Charles Darwin began to reveal irrefutable evidence of such important natural transitions, simultaneously with innumerable contradictory components, strongly keeping situations as they were over long periods of time!

How can you even approach these questions without reference to Marx and Darwin?

Indeed, Contradiction was considered an absolute anathema!

And until Contradiction was properly understood (outside of the formalisms of Logic), such changes would certainly remain wholly inexplicable - and so they are inexplicable to Chomsky! In the universally-applied Mathematical Rationality, all Contradiction was dismissed as impossible, and therefore revealing an error of Logic! And, it wasn't until Mankind's breadth of Study was extended well beyond the Strictly Local, in both Time and Space, that such things could no longer be avoided.

Nevertheless, most "theorists" had developed their theories separated from the Real World, and instead as a wholly cerebral exercise, and so could never personally implement any of their then necessary experiments, so to even carry them out they had to employ skilled artisans and engineers, to achieve behaving systems for them.Yet, their both avid and universal subscription to the Principle of Plurality, could not be lightly dumped, as it did successfully "legitimise" the reliable Production of manufactured goods, both solved-and-delivered by those artisans and workers, and especially for the leisured intellectuals, who were never involved successfully in such activities anyway, and so didn't consider whether they were legitimate or not - but only that they delivered the objects and services that they required.

Yet, an ever-growing army of artisans and engineers, whose credo pragmatic credo was "If it works, it is right!", were increasingly rejecting the intellectual, theoretical stances of the scientists, and, in particular, the incredible-but-necessary theoretical assumptions of Modern Sub Atomic Theory, and always instead trusted their own Pragmatic arrangements and understandings, at which they were the consummate masters, and were always relied upon by those theorists, to make their experiments fit their way-out theories!

You may well wonder how this arrangement ever worked out, until, that is, you see the kind of Mathematics that the theorists always resorted to, to make it fit. For that Discipline, being wholly Pluralistic, naturally extended well beyond Reality-as-is, and well-into Ideality, so when the technicians were setting up the required experiment, they too could do the Maths, so they would physically organise the experiment to artificially deliver exactly what the Pluralist Theory predicted!

It was an unhappy coalition, as far as the pragmatists were concerned, and they increasingly began to look elsewhere for Real Theory. This situation has led, in Physics, to what is termed The Electric Universe alternative! And while this alternative was compromised by its Pragmatism, it has certainly challenged the conformist position in both Sub Atomic Physics and Cosmology, with valuable and demanding alternatives!

You can read more about the pros and cons of this in the latest issue of SHAPE journal: