It is now abundantly clear from the attention the SHAPE Marxist websites are getting, that there are still many socialists in the Ukraine, and citizens, with arms in hand, are taking control of many key buildings in a range of cities and towns.
Whether they know it or not, they are on the threshold of a Revolution! They do not want the further encroachment of European Capitalism, nor do they want the oligarcs that took the people’s institutions for their own, when the Stalinists were no longer able to keep control.
They want their country back, but this time run for its people!
Though the SHAPE sites are accessed all over the World, the current leading contenders are the Ukraine and Russia itself! What does that tell you about the people of these countries? And, these sites are avowedly Marxist, and do not hide their opposition both to Putin, AND to the Stalinists that preceded him.
But, these new activists must NOT be diverted into Russian Nationalism.
The Ukraine is yours!
Russia is currently a capitalist country, run by ex-stalinists who are now capitalist oligarcs!
The current “Cold War” is no longer between the Capitalists and the Socialists, but between different Capitalist powers and their sought-for hegemony worldwide. Yet, behind the false leaders, in Russia and the Ukraine are many who were, and still are, socialists, and want their country back!
Unite for a Socialist Ukraine!
All genuine socialists must support the rebelling citizens of the Eastern Ukraine!
Oppose the Ukrainian middle class who want capitalist advantages purely for themselves.
This issue has been compiled to
address one of the Key Questions in both Philosophy and Science, while
seemingly residing solely in the most esoteric regions of Pure
Mathematics.
It attempts to find an alternative to the currently universally accepted
formalism, and also the basis for all theories in Science, which is
dependant upon the usually unstated Principle of Plurality, but turns
decisively away from this now standard approach, to the alternative that
sees Reality as more properly characterised as deeply holistic.
It has become a truly major undertaking, not only because of the
difficult problems that have been encountered, but also because of the
significant breakthroughs that have already been achieved with this
alternative approach.
And, these gains have been primarily in what is usually termed
Mathematical Chaos. These achievements have been primarily
philosophical, for they have questioned the usually agreed ground for
this area of Mathematics, by a careful study of the implications of
iterative assumptions and methods, NOT, as is usually the case, in
pragmatic assemblies, but in the generation of the now renowned Chaotic
Forms that they can be persuaded to produce.
But, its status here is not solely dependant upon these researches, but
also, and perhaps even more importantly, upon extensive resonances with
these forms both in Physics and in Philosophical studies too.
The crucial and revealing studies have been in tackling the need for a
scientific methodology, based upon the assumption that Reality is not
pluralist but most definitely holistic, yet though this is often
conceded, NO feasible methodology or formalism has so far been achieved.
Holism, though probably the more correct view of Reality, seemed
incapable of providing Science with any means to rival those delivered
by the assumption of Plurality.
Yet, in this relatively small group of papers, a possible way has been devised.
It may not be what mathematicians want to hear, and the vast majority of
physicists, immersed up to their necks in the now consensus Copenhagen
Interpretation of Quantum Theory, will certainly be directly opposed to
these ideas. But, in the opinion of this theorist, these papers
represent a significant contribution, and lay down a sound basis for
further research, and, maybe even a Major Revolution!
In the last 15 hours I was surprised by the relative flood of hits on the first instalment of our new series entitled How Do We Get Socialism? There was a three-fold increase in the number of accesses that usually take place at this time in the week. Most of these hits have come from Russia... and this got me thinking.
I had noticed that in Putin's reasoning for his "annexing" of the Crimea, he had surprisingly referred to the Bolsheviks in a positive way. Why would a neo-capitalist do that? Also, why should "The West" react so strongly to this event? Russia is now a capitalist power just like them. Why should they react similarly to how they did when Russia was a socialist state?
There has to be more in this than meets the eye!
I immediately recalled the circumstances of Margaret Thatcher's re-invasion of the Falklands Islands in 1982, after they had been invaded by the Argentines. Not only was Argentina reacting to a political crisis at home, but so was Thatcher, with recession returning to the UK.
Could Putin be reacting to domestic problems in Russia with similarly nationalistic moves? For the increasingly positive reactions to Marxist articles on SHAPE and this blog, from this part of the world, seem to indicate that in that country there is now mounting support for a socialist Russia: this time in accordance with its original intentions, and not the Stalinist distortion.
Interestingly the other major number of hits came from the USA - either this indicates a surprising interest in Marxist revolution among the American populace (unlikely?), or maybe increasing activities of their spy-services in monitoring such subversive ideas on the internet - and have passed on their conclusions to their masters, who are now "acting accordingly"
I have also noticed a marked increase in interest from another country - in the Ukraine itself! Though I have a feeling that the "listeners" in the USA and the Ukraine have very different motives.
Now the real testing point for what is claimed to be Marxism today, is not, as you might think, in how faithful today’s theorists are to the writings of Marx, Engels, Lenin and Trotsky – frankly, any irresponsible spieler can cherry-pick from that century-old canon, with ulterior and even totally contrasting motives to our founders. It must be in what are the present day contributions to that philosophical standpoint that will reveal where they actually stand. And anyone ONLY quoting from the masters must never be trusted. Marxism isn’t a religion: it is a Philosophy and method, and must be constantly applied and improved. The best historical Marxists did not constantly refer to the Fathers of our Theory, they added to it day-by-day. Like Lenin, who had to rewrite much of political activity to be effective WITHIN a happening Social Revolution, for example.
So, what are our current Marxists adding?
For, perhaps the most important tenet of Marx and his colleague’s standpoint was that nothing is eternal: change, and how it occurs, is the absolutely essential basis for addressing things. So, no matter how excellent were the contributions of those first Marxists, they would be transcended as everything developed, and became something else. The essence of Marxism is never in the individual analyses, but in the holist, dialectical and materialist method.
As Trotsky said, “The revolution must be permanent!” You must constantly attend to every change occurring in any situation in order to understand it: any reversal of this, such as the fitting-up of the new, to some truth of old, cannot be correct. Understanding doesn’t come from past examples, but from a developing understanding of an ever-changing World – especially, of course, in a Revolution, but also true in all things, but maybe not at such a breakneck pace.
So, they deliver an excellent test, which sorts out the fakers from real, serious, dedicated and genuine followers of the Philosophy that Marx revealed to the World.
For example, bourgeois Physics has been in a major crisis now for 100 years, and the cause of this impasse is philosophical, and, as both Engels and Lenin, himself, believed, tailor-made to be solved by dialectical materialists.
The question must be, “Why hasn’t it been done?”
The fact that it hasn’t, in a whole century, should tell us something significant about the latest generations of professed Marxists. Even as a raw, ill-informed youth, aged 19, and with only my reading to guide me, I knew immediately that the Copenhagen Interpretation of Quantum Theory was rubbish, and I said so. (I was, at the time, a first year Physics student at Leeds University in England), but not only were my criticisms ridiculed by my tutors, but also by my fellow students both in the Physics Department, and outside, and including those who called themselves Marxists.
It may well have been impossible for a young student to demolish that standpoint, but it should have been easy for a real and able Marxist. After all, 100 years ago Lenin himself had taken the then manifestation of a very similar standpoint and demolished it totally in his book Materialism and Empirio Criticism.
Later on, I became politically active in a revolutionary Trotskyist organisation, but even there, my preoccupations with Physics were seen as a get-out, and, more or less, a diversion from the imperative “real tasks”.
But, the primary task then, as it has always been, was to develop Marxism, and the methodology of Marxists, not only in day-to-day activities, but also crucially in the serious disciplines of all human studies and endeavours. And, to win the best minds for the Working Class Movement, we would most certainly have to address the impasses in the theories of bourgeois academics on all fronts, and most especially those where they were so evidently in unsolvable crises – such as Physics! We should bury such nonsense with superior and revelatory theories.
Now, after a lifetime as a Marxist, and of being a teacher and lecturer at every level from Teaching infants to aiding graduates in Universities, and significantly, over a wide range of very different disciplines, I got from that involvement things that were totally unknown to my political colleagues, yet clearly amenable to the dialectical materialist standpoint and methods. At my best, I was a multi-discipline advisor to post graduate research in many disciplines, and even produced world-beating aids (believe it or not) in the Teaching of Ballet and Contemporary Dance.
But, in truth, I was pulling myself up by my own bootlaces, and it took many years before I was in a position to tackle the enhancement of the then current, inadequate versions of Marxism, and become a producing Marxist theorist myself. Then, the paucity of new and necessary work by competent Marxists was very soon becoming alarming.
The few, so-called Marxists writing upon the crucial impasse in Physics, for example, were, almost universally, bowing down before the idealist retreats in this Science. That on-going Crisis in Physics had begun to infect Marxism.
Lenin had perceived the threat many years ago, for some of the leading members of his Party were taking on the positions of the Empirio Criticists including Lunacharsky, and were repeating the nonsense put out by scientists like Mach and Poincaré. Lenin tackled it and demolished that tendency within the Bolshevik Party. Indeed, after the revolution Lunacharsky became the Minister for Education in the revolutionary Government.
Believe it or not, the current standpoint in Sub Atomic Physics is closely related to Empirio Criticism, yet considerably worse, for it is wholly idealist, and has abandoned materialist explanations entirely.
Truth is now supposed to reside ONLY in formal equations – extracted from carefully isolated, modified and maintained localities within Reality.
So, with that brilliant legacy, why has there been no final blow to such nonsense?
So, as an individual, and finding NO help anywhere, this Marxist had to address these questions in Science alone. Imagine where we would be now, if such an approach had been taken on across all the academic disciplines. We would NOT of course, change the minds of the leading incumbents there, but we would cause an influx of great and dedicated specialists into the Working Class Movement, NOT to transform it, but for themselves to be transformed, both in their own discipline, and in their political standpoints too.
So, what you will find in this series are the contributions to Marxism NOW! They will not at this stage cover all the disciplines, but they will certainly cover Sub Atomic Physics, as well as Cosmology and Evolution, and most important of all, an extensive set of ideas upon Emergences.
Well, it certainly isn’t Stalinism, which ruled for most of the 20th century in the "socialist" countries of Russia and China.
It isn’t solely a guide to political action for socialists.
And, in spite of what is claimed, it isn’t Scientific Socialism!
And, to also deal with its detractors, it isn’t the Devil’s work on Earth.
What it is primarily, and most importantly, is a Revolutionary Materialist Philosophy!
It has appeared to become many things since Marx turned Hegel “on his head, or rather upon his feet”. For, what Marx achieved was that he was able to carry over the significant gains of German Idealist Philosophy (where it profoundly addressed Qualitative Change) into Materialism, and thus transformed the previous ideas of materialist thinking from mechanist to dialectical. Hegel’s magnificent achievements were wrested from their idealist context to integrate qualitative development into the materialist approach. This was its primary, continuing, and essential contribution!
And, we must be crystal clear, for up to that point Science itself was, though revelatory and pragmatically useful, still purely mechanistic, and could not cope in any real way with qualitative changes and real creative development.
It was the brilliant contributions of Hegel that Marx wanted to integrate with both the achievements in Science, and the newly emerging understanding of Social Development in the History of Mankind!
And, be warned, as soon as this crucial transformation is lost sight of, forgotten, or shelved for later study, you will retrench back to prior forms, and turn these essential intellectual gains into lifeless rules, without any real, transformative understanding. You have only to read the words of innumerable self-professed, present-day “Marxists” to see where such an omission is certain to lead.
Now, I feel it necessary to start in an unusual place to re-iterate, and rejuvenate, this standpoint and method, and to indicate its necessary future development. I need to severely criticise Modern Science!
And the major criticism is just how unscientific it has become!
Alas, Science was always somewhat compromised from the outset, for in spite of being firmly materialist (which opened up entirely new ways of both studying and interpreting Reality, and, indeed, finding its natural imperatives), it had to significantly compromise its standpoint in several crucial ways.
Yet, the reasons for these mistakes were understandable. The concrete World was certainly not easy to study!
For, in all areas, it is a complex of many diverse, simultaneous factors, such that almost every single situation is made increasingly opaque by these many constantly varying factors. And this means that, at best, any evident relations could only be glimpsed momentarily, before vanishing again.
So, faced with this impossible-to-study blur, the first investigators had to seek around for those few areas where relationships appeared simple and maybe also understandable.
They found such a situation by looking upwards to the Heavens. And, there, among the stars, they did find relations, which did not vary or vanish: they were the most dependable relations anywhere. And, in the nightly and seasonal movements of the unchanging stars, they had a realm in which they could reliably match events to precise times, so the first measurements were calendrical, and enabled correct predictions to be extracted.
Hence the first scientists were astronomers, for in the night skies they found the first studiable patterns. And in places like Ancient Egypt, the matching of star positions with the timing of the essential Nile Floods enabled the organisation of a brilliant agricultural nation, and one of the most culturally rich civilisations of the Ancient World.
Now, that experience suggested that the whole of Reality was likely to be similarly organised, but was usually confused by the multiple conflicting factors, which inevitably made most things very difficult to reveal and then study and understand. But, the more ingenious investigators began to control situations, in an attempt to reveal the underlying relations, or “Laws”, which, it was thought, “made” the situation what it was.
Slowly, by isolating such areas, and removing as many confusing factors as possible, while holding others constant, these early scientists revealed quite clearly particular relationships that they could measure, turn into “laws”, and use (as long, that is, as they maintained these carefully organised circumstances).
This methodology was, and still is, what we call Science.
But, that initial contribution meant that while only in possession of such a “Law”, those scientists could not but attempt to go further and also attempt to explain why those things behaved as they undoubtedly did.
These further new considerations made possible an Explanatory View of Reality, and what much later became known as Scientific Theories. And it was then that these became THE major purpose of Science.
Now, let us be clear, several stages were involved in these revelatory methods, and it was only in the third and most significant Phase that the understanding of phenomena was attempted. And this is surely the most important, and difficult, Phase of all.
It has to be this Key Activity, which makes the whole thing scientific, and it is with this meaning that I say that certain professed “Marxists” are certainly not scientific, and their supposed version of Marxism is definitely unscientific.
But, we must not laud the gains of Science too much.
For, from its inception, and based upon the above described experimental methodology, it devised and formulated the fundamental assumption of the Principle of Plurality, which apparently validated both their practical methodology, and their derived theories. For this Principle insisted that complex Reality was composed of many different Natural Laws that were eternal, yet merely added together in various sums, could deliver all actually existing natural phenomena. It validated the usual selective and restrictive experimental conditions, achieved by the careful control, filtering and strict maintenance of its experimental situations, and were mistakenly seen as removing the blur of many other "laws” to be able to reveal, in all its natural glory, each purposely targeted “Law”. And the “Laws” so revealed and extracted were considered to be exactly the same, wherever they appeared and in whatever particular mix. This assurance was the ticket to validate the colossal development of Science, BUT it was also a false and crucially misleading straightjacket, for it really only allowed the Analysis of constrained and purposely stabilised situations. Plurality and its consequent assumptions and methodology made them the Science of Stability only!
Now, it has to be admitted – there wasn’t any other possible approach as far as those practising scientists knew, so they never hesitated in their prodigious surge forwards. And, in addition, they also seemed to have very reliable allies, who also fully subscribed to the Principle of Plurality: they were, of course, the mathematicians.
For, long before the first “scientific” investigations, Mankind had already tackled many of the patterns that occurred in this World, and, by intelligent simplifications, had developed both Arithmetic and Geometry. And, their conceptions of Reality were that the relations they were both finding and formulating via Patterns and Forms were, in fact, the “real determinators” of Reality. And, needless to say, these “Laws” were eternal, and hence in full conformity with Plurality!
Indeed, the data extracted by the scientists could always be fitted up with one or another of the mathematicians’ many standard Forms. These two disciplines seemed to be made for each other!
But, the philosophy of the mathematicians did NOT gel with that of the explanatory scientists, who desired to understand as well as accurately describe Reality. And, this saw the mathematicians’ Formal Laws as making Reality what it actually was. While the scientists had concrete Reality with its properties and consequent causes actually producing the revealed Forms or “Laws”. The mathematicians were idealists! While, the Scientists were materialists.
Nevertheless, on a thousand fronts, these two groups made a worthwhile alliance! Yet, never was there such a glaring example of Cognitive Dissonance!
And, of course, it couldn’t last forever, for the time would surely come when their differences would outweigh the advantages of such an uncritical alliance.
It did, however, survive much too long!
Indeed, the important turn by Marx could have provided a new direction for Science, and though colleagues like Engels made an energetic contribution in that direction, he wasn’t a scientist, and what was required was for the new philosophic stance to be taken up by full-time, professional scientists.
Now, the fact that this never happened was because marxists were forgetting their crucial bases, and concentrating upon too narrow a range of priority concerns, just when the most important general, philosophical questions were presenting themselves in key areas of Science.
The zenith of development in Marxism was clearly achieved during the successful Russian Revolution by the most advanced practitioners and theorists ever, with people like Lenin and Trotsky, during and immediately after that Event. But, unavoidably, and essentially, this trend in developing Marxism was almost entirely dedicated to intervening in the trajectory of a Revolution for the benefit of the Working Classes, and any serious attention to Science was completely left out in the cold.
Before the Revolution Lenin did attend to Science via his book Materialism and Empirio Criticism, where he both made important philosophical points, AND pulled back some of his Bolshevik colleagues from drifting towards the accelerating direction that Science was moving in.
But, the crucial task was never carried through. And, not only was Marxism diminished by this omission, but so was Science.
By the beginning of the 20th Century the dichotomy between Mathematics and Science was coming to a head - precipitated by both the discovery of the Quantum, and an increasing number of inexplicable anomalies, particularly occurring in Physics, and presenting a whole series of non-transcend-able impasses due to both Plurality and crucial unsolved problems of the Nature of Empty Space, the Propagation of Electromagnetic Waves, and also Action at a Distance. Indeed, the philosophical questions could not be delayed any longer, and by 1927 at the Solvay Conference, the only solution that kept both Plurality and mathematical Forms as primary was the abandonment entirely of Explanatory Theory, and a total subscription to the idealist belief in eternal natural laws as embodied in equations.
Now, this was the most significant opportunity for the only philosophical stance that could address these conundrums – Marxism, to step in, and by solving these questions gain tremendous genuine status among scientists and re-invigorate Marxist Theory in a very important area. Indeed, such a success would undoubtedly have gone on to involve many other disciplines, and recruit some of the very best minds to the Working Class cause.
But, that didn’t happen, and what claimed to be Marxism (in Russia and China) was nothing like what its initiators had intended it to be, and, as such, was incapable of addressing such questions. The prestige of the Russian and later the Chinese Revolutions gave credence to this mockery of Marxism, so no real continuity was remaining. It was down to individuals and small groups, without the numbers, resources or training to tackle such questions
So returning to the initial implied question, “What is Marxism?”, it certainly cannot be left in the hands of many who profess to be its current theorists. They are not Marxists and cannot tackle the crucial questions related here.
It is my convinced contention that the real Marxists can only be revealed by the solution of the current crisis in Physics. They who crack this impasse will reveal those who have both maintained and developed what its creators were struggling to achieve.
Now, this short piece was written as an introduction to a new series to be published on the SHAPE Blog entitled, “How do we get Socialism?”, which will be available in regular instalment during the rest of 2014.
Jim Schofield ; Marxist and Scientist, March 22 2014
Couder and Copenhagen: Is the Sub Atomic Really A Different World?
The following paper has a fascinating, yet demanding objective.
It intends to relate two sets of phenomena occurring in very different physical realms, in order to necessarily undermine the consensus Copenhagen Interpretation of Quantum Theory by the analogy of the sub atomic phenomena that it is supposed to apply to, with a set of phenomena created by Yves Couder entirely at the macro level, yet showing amazing similarities with those at the sub atomic level.
Couder, himself, at first merely glimpsed certain resonances between the two areas, but, thereafter, worked consistently to construct an ever closer analogue of that micro world, but entirely at the macro level. His objective was clear!
At the level he was working, absolutely nothing would be beyond revelation and analysis, and via such detailed explanations, he hoped to throw a revealing light upon the current, perplexing detours being “explored” in sub atomic Physics.
And, his efforts produced results far beyond what his expectations. For, his materials and arranged-for performances were merely based upon a single silicone liquid and a series of different oscillations, chosen specifically to cause both resonances and recursions.
What remarkably emerged was a stable sub system, which he termed “The Walker”. And, thereafter, one-by-one, he proceeded to create and display behaviours that were supposedly uniquely confined to the sub atomic realm! And, all of them were occurring at the macro level!
Of course, such things would not normally occur at that level, for in normal circumstances much more energetic and dominant macro oscillations would swamp the sort he was purposely creating and promoting. But, clearly, his main purpose was being fulfilled. These were not only confined to the sub atomic level, and the unique theory associated with them, which was also re-writing many tenets of Physics as it did so, and could indeed be profoundly mistaken! Couder even managed to make his “Walkers” perform “quantized “orbits!
Now, of course, many “Supporters of the Faith” dismissed his creations as mere coincidences, but they were most certainly wrong! Couder had produced a worthwhile analogue at a directly observable and analysable level, without the quantum, and in so doing unavoidably put in question the main tenets of Copenhagen. The “Key Things” at the micro level were indeed the quantization of energy levels involved in sub atomic orbits within the atom, encapsulated in the ubiquitous Planck’s Constant, “h”!
Now, if analogous situations could be created at the macro level, the key tenet of the Copenhagen standpoint would most certainly be brought into question, as the quantum could NOT be the cause in any of Couder’s macro set ups. Let us clarify what were being compared.
At the sub atomic level there were the descrete energy levels involved in the electron orbits within atoms, along with the seeming Wave/Particle Duality in many related phenomena.
At the macro level Couder, using oscillations, resonances and recursions, managed to create a stable entity, which he called a Walker that was composed of a bouncing drop, and also included a Standing Wave associated with it in the oil bath substrate.
And this surprising amalgam could be set to perform what appeared to be quantized orbits.
Though, many other analogues of what happened at the micro level were also achieved, it was this quantization that was the clincher. If Couder could explain that solely in terms of oscillations, resonances and recursion in an integrated stable system, the myth of Wave/Particle Duality and probabilistic predictions due to naturally indeterminate features would be scuppered. You could not claim such features in his Walker, and yet it displayed very similar behaviours.
Now, the questions were posed, but how could the theory at the micro level be demolished?
Clearly, a complete explanation of Couder’s Walkers was necessary, and perhaps the data could also be addressed in the very same way, as had been done for the micro situation.
If this were done, we might well end up with equations very similar indeed to those for the micro level. Yet, instead of Planck’s Constant, “h”, there would be another, which could not be explained away as the Copenhageners had done for “h”.
So, the initial task is clear – it must be to display the currently-used equations for a basic case at the sub atomic level – those for the Hydrogen atom, and a single photon (quantum) of electromagnetic energy emitted from the atom, occurring when a promoted electron returned to its base orbit. The required equations are shown below :
Now, before we go any further, we must dispel the myth that these equations direct what happens in Reality. Of course they don’t! They are nothing but purely formal descriptions of what has been extracted from that situation: they are the Forms that occurred there!
And, crucially, they are not unique to that situation alone. But, are in fact Universal General Forms that can occur in many other places too. This being the established case, they cannot be the causes of what occurs, but merely formal representations or descriptions. So, it should be possible, if analogous forms appear elsewhere to fit those same general forms there too.
Hence, ultimately, we would have the same equations representing both the micro level phenomena AND those for Couder’s Walker! The only differences will be in the particular constants necessary. Clearly, if that could be achieved, there would also be possible a physical explanation to accompany the equations for the Walkers, for it would be straightforward at the macro level to explain all the generalised phenomena. Absolutely NO magic Universal Natural Constants would be necessary. Everything will be explicable in terms of physical properties and relations. So, then we don’t just have a similarity of Forms in the two disparate areas: we have sound, physical analogues!
And, an alternative, physical explanation of the micro phenomena may well be possible, using the same sort of reasons, as did the job at the macro level.
So. This is the task!
But, it would be wrong to limit this critique to this pair of situations alone. The victory of the Copenhagenists would not have been so complete, were it not for other major, and long-standing flaws and contentions in the then current standpoint in Physics.
There had always been a continuing case of what is usually called Cognitive Dissonance, ever since the birth of Modern Science many centuries ago.
At the heart of Science were two opposite assumptions, which most certainly contradicted one another, yet both had proved invaluable in certain contexts.They were essentially the Materialist standpoint, involving Matter and both its properties and its inter-relationships, and the Idealist standpoint, which believed that Reality behaved entirely in accordance with eternally-existing, abstract Laws. Now, these are, indeed, opposites, philosophically, but could be “lived with” quite well. For, the materialist view would look to explain Reality in terms of matter and its properties, while the idealist view would concentrate upon revealing the natural quantitative relations in the most concise language of mathematical equations.
Now, clearly these can exist simultaneously in most pragmatic situations, but they were at extreme variance in the Explanatory Theories extracted from Reality. But, the basis for such a continuing subscription to both standpoints was made possible by both sides subscribing to the very same Principle of Plurality. For, this defining rule insisted that Reality was indeed composed of many different factors, which came together in an almost infinite variety of different sums to actually produce very different phenomena. The Principle claimed that these factors were never changed by their associations in the various arrangements: they all remained exactly the same in their pristine eternal states.
All variety was caused merely by different sets of factors and their quantitative differences, and that alone was enough to generate such infinite variety. The individual component factors were always totally separate in their natures: they were completely unchanged by all possible contexts.
Now, this was crucial to BOTH standpoints, for by careful construction of the conditions, under which investigations could be carried out, it would always be possible to so select and control these to make possible a clear revelation of a targeted factor. All other confusing factors could be either eliminated or held constant, so that the selected one would be effectively revealed. Now, something was indeed always revealed by these methods, and could be extracted and fitted up to an appropriate Form, but the assumption of it being exactly as it would be in totally unfettered Reality, was a consequence of this Principle of Plurality. It could not be demonstrated as the actual case in Reality: it could only be used in the exact same conditions under which it was revealed and extracted.
And, of course, these features were enough for both tendencies in Science.
They both accepted the extracted rule as being the actual available-everywhere “truth”. And, this meant that the idea of Analysis was always possible, and hierarchies of such relations could be conceived of as acting in what was termed Reductionism.
An overall general picture of Reality was delivered to both tendencies in Science, which defined an Experimental Method, plus an arrangement for effective use, and a hierarchical system of such explanations. The materialists were quite content with this, but so were the idealists, who by these means built up ever more eternal relations, which were the causes of all phenomena.
NOTE:
This was proved when Wiles finally proved Fermat’s Last
Theorem, because he was able to bring together many relations from a
wide variety of real world investigations, and weave them into his
“complete and ideal Proof”.
The two tendencies learned to live together, though never considering the other’s philosophical standpoint as anything more then a Belief!
Now, for those interested in Philosophy, similar Dichotomies had been recognised for several millennia, at least starting with Zeno and his Paradoxes, and occasionally raising it head, throughout subsequent history, until Hegel defined such occurrences as Dichotomous Pairs – the clear emergence of which not only signalled a crisis in our conceptions, but could, nevertheless, still co-exist for remarkably long periods of time, totally unresolved.
Yet, significantly, without a resolution of such contradictions real progress could never be achieved.
NOTE:
That doesn’t mean, of course, that NO progress at all could be
made, for it certainly could, but it would be, inevitably, an
aberrant growth, with some useful content, but lacking significant
understanding to allow major gains to be made. These growths would be
like etiolated plants, getting ever weaker and thinner until they,
finally and unavoidably, perished. Real
progress required that these impasses had to be transcended!
So, for centuries these two opposing, yet partially complementary, strands did indeed continue to co-exist. The trouble was, of course, that the halt in real understanding would inevitably, at some point, be impossible to ignore. Papered-over cracks would widen into unbridgeable chasms, and Zeno’s Continuity versus Descreteness dichotomy came to smash Physics asunder in the so-called Wave/Particle Duality, as a result of the discovery of the Quantum.
Sub Atomic Physics was banging up against this dichotomy constantly, with NO integrating new conception in sight. As long as Plurality was sacrosanct, the problem could never be even realised. Both sides in the crisis never questioned Plurality: it was both common and indeed essential to BOTH – and hence never even questioned!
But, it clearly WAS the problem!
And, its alternative in yet another Dichotomy needed to be addressed.
This opposite to Plurality was Holism! But, with this having the principle of “Everything affecting everything else!”, not to mention, “Change is always occurring!”, no systematic scientific method of investigation, or of Analysis in the formulation of phenomena. seemed even remotely possible.
NOTE:
Interestingly, the main exponent of Holism, The Buddha, had
lived at about the same time as Zeno – about 2,500 years ago.
All the methods occurring in Mathematics, Logic and later in Science, had been developed only via a belief in Plurality. Progress had been possible compared with the situation prior to this consciously-chosen Principle, NOT by addressing Reality-as-is, but by farming Reality via modified, filtered and then rigorously maintained Domains, in which relations could be both clearly displayed AND applied to achieve some intended purpose. To throw that away, for what appeared to be holistic chaos, seemed wholly reprehensible. So though artists, writers, religions and philosophers never totally abandoned Holism, it certainly had NO place in Logic, Mathematics and Science. Until, that is, Charles Darwin broke the prohibition with his entirely holistic theory of The Origin of Species!
So, with that entirely necessary diversion, perhaps we can return to the major crisis facing physicists in the early years of the 20th century? There was no getting away from it, current ideas were foundering upon the rock of Wave/Particle Duality. What had been seen as continuous waves, now sometimes only made sense as descrete particle-like gobbets of pure energy, or quanta, which became known thereafter as Photons. And, to compound the felony, particles like the electron, occasionally acted as if they were waves.
How, on earth could they be integrated into a new all-inclusive set of conceptions? They couldn’t! The real bases for these emerged dichotomies were NOT understood, so the physicists had to have a “revolution”: it seemed that they had to dump one or the other of their two co-existing standpoints! They chose Form, and totally rejected Explanation! They embraced Equations as the real essences of Reality – the actual drivers of all phenomena. They, and they alone could be trusted as being Truth itself! Explanation was demoted to fairy tales, which might give the appearance of truth, but were in fact totally man-made inventions. The Copenhagen Interpretation of Quantum Theory was precisely this new standpoint!
Now clearly, several things were necessary to retrieve the situation. The most difficult of these to get across, was undoubtedly the philosophic one of explaining and then debunking Plurality, and in its place promoting Holism: no one, at this stage would possibly “but that”, if only because Holism could not compete in supplying a delivering scientific method. So, it would have to be tackled initially experimentally with set-ups that totally torpedoed Copenhagen, and theoretically by showing fully working explanations in the relevant areas without any retreats into the Idealism of the Copenhagen standpoint. Two cases can be shown to have been successful in fulfilling these necessary objectives.
The first was by, this theorist, was the explanation of the seeming Wave/Particle Duality in the famous Double Slit Experiments, without any of the Copenhagen revisions.
And, the second was the Yves Couder, macro level experiments to reveal similar quantization features to what was occurring in the Sub Atomic level, yet existing wholly at the macro level, where the physical causes were clearly evident, and purely physical explanations could be extracted. The former of these two has been published as a SHAPE Journal Special Issue on the Internet, entitles The Theory of The Double Slits, and as a YouTube animation on its SHAPE Channel. While Yves Couder’s revelations are by now well known via his various academic journal publications, and have even featured on Morgan Freeman’s Through the Wormhole on TV.
We can treat it as something like an orbit – delivering thereby a magnetic effect perpendicular to the spin-plane (in other words along its axis of spin), but this would either involve an asymmetric positioning of the charge, or its even distribution throughout the volume of the entity, or, thirdly, the move-ability within that volume, so that, due to mutual repulsions, would situate the distributed charge on the surface only.
And, at the present time the indivisibility of the “unit charge” is considered unimpeachable, so these are not considered as at all possible. There is a fourth possibility, and that is that the electron of a joint particle made up of two components – a larger neutral component, relatively stationary with a smaller negatively charged component orbiting around it. Such a system would have to involve another force pulling the electron towards the central component, which doesn’t seem to exist.
Now, these seem to exhaust the possibilities, which might gallow the electron to have a classical spin, with its predictable effects. But, in addition, the quality that the electron does seem to possess, which is called its “spin”, is most certainly NOT classical spin, but something else. Nevertheless, this doesn’t seem to stop theorists allocating some of the features of classical spin to this property when it turns out to be convenient.
So, let us attempt to differentiate this “spin” from the classical property.
First it seems to be quantised into only TWO possible states or modes, which are conveniently called “up” and “down”. It is as if the spin can only take a single speed and be orientated in only two opposite directions.
I am absolutely sure that in considering these things , we inevitably trip up over our prior conceptions and characterisations . For example, we know that electrons (in a current), if directed throuch a circular wire (actually a coil), will deliver a magnetic field along its axis.
But, surely, “spin” cannot be the same, for, instead of a stream of charges having an effect, as they move through space in a particular way, The idea of a single particle’s spin, can only involve a single charge, and the impossibility of dividing that charge, seems to imply that we cannot distribute it in any way within the particle.
Now after this necessary preamble, perhaps we can get to the New Scientist (2951) article, which seems to be allocating ALL the magnetic effects to “electron spin”. (This is usually called having your cake and eating it, isn’t it?).
The key phenomenon that they use to substantiate this theory is that of the coursing of a current of electrons with a random mix of the two possible spins through a magnetised piece of iron, which actually transforms (“polarises”) all the electrons in the current to the same “spin”. Also, from these investigations, we know that a “polarized” (all-the-same-spin) current can reverse the magnetism of a magnet when passed through it. We know that a soft iron core within a magnetic coil will not only increase the effect, but will vanish when the current is truned off. Clearly that type of magnetism is temporary, whereas the single-spin current flow through a piece of iron is permanent. We always explained that phenomenon as being due to the circular motion of the electrons, whatever their individual “spins”
NOTE: So we have some interesting recursive phenomena here.
A current through a magnet will align all its electrons to have the same “spin” It will become “polarized!
If a polarized current is sent through a permanent magnet it can flip the magnetisation to the opposite polarity.
Presumably, a polarized current through an un-magnetised piece of iron will magnetise it.
These constitute an interesting set of possible recursive sequences and interesting possible results are implied by these “facts”.
We also know that if we stroke a piece of iron with a permanent magnet enough times it will also become permanently magnetised.
But, the old explanation in this scenario was that this organised all the electron orbits in the iron atoms to no longer be in random orientations, and to instead line-up to give a net magnetic effect instead of cancelling out.
Can both explanations be integrated?
For, the problem arises with two apparent causes of magnetism – the orbits of charged electrons, and their individual spins. It immediately makes you ask, “How would the spins perform in an orbit of the electron?”
Clearly, if the direction of the axis of spin could be in any of the two allowed directions, that might have various effects, depending on whether its orientation remained the same independently of its position in an orbit.
NOTE: in many areas of research of this author the possibility of recursions have been essential in explaining certain phenomena. And, the question is posed whether the position of an electron in an orbit might cause its spin to be changed by the direction of motion of the orbit, and thereafter the changed spin then deliver its magnetic effects, which was not happening, when that electron was moving freely in space. (There might be a correlation with the spins of planets in the Solar system, but there are even there odd exceptions.). But, certainly any allowed mix of different electronic spins within orbits would overall have a negligible magnetic effect.
But, once more comparing things with astronomy, we get synchronicity with a parent’s spin (in a planet, say), and that in its moon, so that the latter always presents the same face to the planet
The problem may arise from our conception of charge as a point-entity, with no extension , and inevitably produce concentric shells of influence around it in three dimension.
[But, even that is questionable in totally Empty Space, and things might be considerably different, if it was established that these is a re-active universal paving of that Space]
Magnetic effects, on the other hand, do not have that nature. Instead of perfectly even concentric shells over three dimensions, we have two distinct Poles, which define the axis of spin, and crucially impose a unique pattern of influence with lines-of-force seemingly going from one of the two poles out in a curve and back to re-enter at the other.
Immediately, we wonder at the fields of influence of a single spinning charge.
For it would seem to have two very different spheres of influence both, somehow, caused by the unit charge contained within it.
For, if it does, this is a very complex pattern of influence, and we even name them differently, with the concentric spheres as electrostatic, and the bipol;ar as magnetic.
Now, as will be seen later, it matters in what these extended influences are made. To suggest that they are there in totally Empty Space seems inconceivable. But, to consider the presence of some sort of Paving of Space by related individual particles would make these fields comprehensible. We would have units of the paving, which would be individually affected by the presence of the electron, and also affect each other to build the suggested and appropriate fields. (more of this later.)
Now, if we limited our considerations to an isolated single electron moving through Space, we might be able to disentangleany interactions – it either causes a change in, or is affected by, other entities in the vicinity.
But, the consideration of such a spinning electron in an orbit around a bigger entity of opposite charge, immediately complicates the pictures considerably. And, to make matters worse, we would have to explain the quantized orbits that the electron is most certainly limited to in that context.
Finally, when an orbiting electron, in an atom, is demoted to a lower-level energy orbit, it somehow emits a “disembodied” gobbet of pure electromagnetic energy, which we call a Quantum, and this can actually move, at the speed of light (186,000 miles per second) right across Empty Space.
Such pheneomena again seem to imply some sort of paving capable of handling these quanta, and propagating them, bucket-brigade fashion, to the furthest reaches of the Universe.
So, from such a complex entity as an orbiting electron (with spin?), we also have to explain its various interactions with such a universal paving. Not only directly, but also indirectly by that paving to other affected entities.
Now, this has been an attempt by this theorist in a particularly problematic case – the so-called Double Slit Experiments, which so confounded those involved in sub atomic Physics, that they abandoned the long-standing philosophical position of scientists as incapable of dealing with the anomalies revealed there, and therefore, took an entirely different approach relying solely upon the overall patterns produced.
Explanation in that context was abandoned completely!
Yet by alternatively having a moving electron affecting a universal paving of Space, and later, in turn, being itself affected by that paving, after both its disturbances and the electron had passed through the slits. The resultant phenomena were indeed fully explained (including the almost unbelievable vanishing of one result, to be replaced by a very different one, just by an attempt to observe what was going on beyond the slits).
Now, whether ot not, this new explanation will continue to stand up, it most certainly does effectrively tackle important questions such as we are beginning to have to deal with, and which the renowned Copenhagen stance certainly cannot!
Crucially, in the theory, the electron does cause disturbances in the Paving, which then can deliver wave-like phenomena, yet these paving units can also react back on the electron (in a subtle recursive manner) , for the disturbances were transformed by the Double Slit arrangement, so that when the paving finally reacted back they had been significantly changed.
Clearly, if such things can occur, we cannot simply rely upon reductive reasoning in our analyses, for, with recursion, we must be getting something more than one-way causation, and the result becomes a mixture of caused effects in both directions , which together produced the finally observed result.And, of course, this certainly could not be simply derived by pluralistic additions of the entities involved and their “constant & separable” qualities.
Now, of course, Mankind had to start somewhere, and that would be where simple relations could be at first glimpsed, and then later organised for, so that they couldbe investigated and their interactions quantified.
But such a purely first-order investigation, would, of necessity, be incomplete and certainly artificially oversimplified. And as Mankind consider ever more and very different phenomena, he would be, to an important extent, blinkered if continued to maintain this first-order approach as being adequate to deliver the full story. Clearly, such simplifications would tend to lead him in diverse directions, and studies would unavoidably split into ever slimmer and separate areas of investigation, if consistency was to be maintained.
At some point an holistic approach would have to overturn the plurality of the usual first-order methods.
NOTE: Some years ago, my son became interested in such things, and immediately cottoned-on to the fact of these processes of recursion in all kinds of development being completely unavoidable, AND hence undeliverable by the usual reductionist techniques, for such effects didn’t only happen once, but became crucial improving processes in all kinds of changes. He was, of course, correct, and now is a colleague in these endeavours.
And it seems to be here, in the hierarchy of interactions involving a single electric charge, that we should start...
Let us consider an entity involved in some sort of process of change!
It could be either changing in its position (moving), or it could be changing its actual nature (transforming) into something else.
Now, we have to ask, “Is the former a meaningfully possible conception?”, for, it will surely depend upon what it is moving with respect to, whether something other than itself, or even some substrate through which it is moving? And, in addition, we have to deal with the apparent fact that absolutely everything is always moving, so to isolate an apparent stationary state, or any particular relative movement cannot be the full revelation of its movement anyway.
And, of course, any variation in distance from something else will vary the effect that our object will have upon it and vice versa, so even separating out movement is leaving aside such changing interrelationships.
So clearly, apart from totally internally caused changes within our entity, all others will be indissolubly linked with relative positions to other affecting things.
Yet, it is clear, all our conceptions of a thing always actually extract it from its real, full context, and, by doing so, remove it from what makes it what it is. Hence, by defining it in that way, we are turning it into an eternal something, identified only by its then appearance and what we decide to call it! Can we do that without distorting it in a fundamental way?
Of course, not! When something is removed entirely from its real context, what is there left to determine it? Most certainly, there are its inter-relationships, and hence also its properties too. So, in even conceiving of such a totally isolated state, we can only talk about its appearance, if subject to absolutely no effects outside of itself.
Now, such an approach would appear to be impossible, or at best “ideal”.
The conception of something, independent of all external affecting factors, can only deliver an idealisation of the thing! For, in ignoring those causations, we are making it eternal, or, as-it-is-now, for we will never be in a position to predict all future forms. And, this will also be of NO value when it comes to it having any relations with anything else.
So, let us suppose, therefore that as a first approximation, we can isolate it in this way. If we could, what exactly would we have? Surely, only its appearance to us by whatever means we have to observe it? And, what will have given it that appearance?
There will be only those things still within it (and, of course, its now unavailable history). If considering it without any recourse to these will only allow a Naming and Describing, in order to recognise it when we see it again, and nothing more. We certainly don’t by any means understand it!
NOTE: This sounds very much like the patterns we discern in its appearance by our means of observing it, and nothing more! And it is these forms and patterns, that we measure and relate in scientific experiments, where we assume that we have removed all external distorting influences, and are getting only what we can from it alone.
The easiest of such measureables is surely Position.
And we measure this “ideally” with reference to some totally inert, non-affecting reference frame (which by definition cannot change it in any way at all). This was Newton’s method!
Now, the relation of a series of positions with respect to different times (another absolute reference system) gives us a relation, and it is possible that an Equation might be found to fit those data. But, in such, could there be any explanation of why it moved in that way? Of course not: it could be any number of things that caused it to follow that path. The equation can only be a description of the result of it being moved – an answer to “How?”, but certainly not to “Why?” And when we do so, and infer that there is a cause of the movement completely defined by the equation alone, it has to be total nonsense! Forms, which occur in innumerable contexts, cannot possibly ever deliver explanations, only the differently caused recurrences of universal formal patterns.
Now, we know that things appear to be totally unchanging for long periods, and therefore can as a first approximation, assume that they are constant. We also know that interludes of significant qualitative change are bound to occur – Emergences, when the thing will become, at first a whole series of intermediaries, until a new stability is finally established, when our thing will have become something else, which will then seem to be entirely constant once more!
So, though we might get away with, during periods of stability, a conception of any one thing being constant (or even eternal), it will not be the truth!
For, to get to the inevitable transforming period, things must have been getting slowly to a position where the constancy of many things is being undermined, so that the nature of the given entity, along with many others, will be rapidly coming into question.
Surely, the nearest thing to getting an accurate generally applicable conception of the thing must be when it is visibly changing, for only then are the things that are changing it revealed.
Yet, we insist in treating it in the very opposite way, and characterising it when it is temporarily constant. In doing this we are ignoring all the significantly contributing factors that are involved, and which will, at some point, change it into something else!
Indeed, we could use that characterisation generally, but have the details swamped by one or another dominance, that for a time will hide the many still present processes that continue to be present, and give once more the illusion of permanence to its current appearance.
Indeed, only careful analysis, moment-by-moment, during an emergent interlude, will reveal a host of affecting factors with each and every temporary mix, resolving into one temporary dominance after another. And, such a tumultuous sequence, will, in the end, have exposed a whole series of affecting factors, which can, and do, affect our entity, but varying in dominance in the differing sequence of contexts. And this set will even be true during its time as an apparently constant thing, during each period of stability.
Now, the observant reader will have noticed a set of assumptions, by the writer, as to “things-in-general” and “over time”, and that is indeed true! No matter what we do, we will always bring to our observations such basic assumptions. But, they are not the usual ones assumed by the majority of the human population. They are the assumptions extracted from a host of experiences, which have concentrated upon qualitative changes, and not, as is usually the case, assumed constant or even eternal factors!
And, it must also be admitted, that the most important generalisation has been the realisation of unavoidable alternate periods of Stability and Significant Change (Emergences) that characterise all development. And in these periods of change – the Emergent Episodes, there always arises the absolutely New.
Now, the key template Emergence, to be used as a general model for these episodes, has to be the Origin of Life on Earth, but there are innumerable others in the history of the Cosmos, all the way from the supposed Big Bang to the Emergence of currently living entities today.
Now, it was useless characterising something entirely from its apparently eternal features during some period of stability, and instead finding what constituted it during an Emergent Event would certainly be considerably better, but we will still have been totally unable to include what has emerged as totally new, within that complex transformation.
So, several questions are bound to arise!
Can we determine such brand new features, by studying the situation before the changes occurred?
The answer to this can only be, “No!” There will always be absolutely no trace of it prior to the transformation that produced it!
Can we, alternatively, therefore, study the situation, after the change, and trace our identified new factor back to its actual moment of birth?
Sadly, the answer to this will also be, “No!” And this is because the nature of such an origin is never a simple, linear causal sequence. On the contrary, it is the result of a complex, holistic mix that hasn’t exactly as such ever have occurred before, and a whole trajectory of changes delivering a myriad of temporary phases, all happening simultaneously and affecting each other, until some sort of final emergence of a new stability, containing these new features finally come to be.
Once again, the only place to have any chance of finding and studying the trajectories, which led to these new features, will be within the Emergence itself!
Now that, I am sure you will agree, is well nigh impossible! For, in almost all of these episodes, the process has already finished, before we discern its revolutionary new contents. How could we possibly investigate such things?
Well, surprisingly, there have been such interludes that were so investigated, though they happened at the Social level of organised matter: they were, in fact, Social Revolutions – particularly that which occurred in Russia. For there, the main revolutionary faction of the Russian Social Democratic Party was a Marxist organisation, and had this standpoint as the ground and method for understanding what was happening in the midst of revolutionary changes.
Now, these are not common occurrences, and when they do, the chances of there being an organisation involved capable of addressing these crucial questions would be extremely unlikely – especially as those current parties that profess such a standpoint have, in fact, long since abandoned it.
And, of course, such experiences are only very indirectly applicable in other areas of study.
The question of what to do in all these very different areas is what we have also to address. How can we investigate such Emergent Episodes?
Well, we have to actually construct a mini Emergence, and study that! And there are scientists who have attempted to do it.
Perhaps the most significant was Stanley Miller, in the experiment he devised and constructed based upon the known contents of the primaeval Atmosphere of the early Earth.
For, he was successful in his attempt, and at the end of only one week, he was able to show that amino acids had been produced, some of the most important building bricks of Life. Now admittedly, he couldn’t take his experiment further, nor could he reveal a single process that had occurred within his system. He could not penetrate his apparatus without destroying its natural systems. But, we can do this now!
This author has already re-designed a new version of Miller’s Experiment, but with defined physical paths for the movements of the substances involved to follow, and with time-based analytic tools positioned throughout. With such a set up, it would be possible to begin to disentangle the various active processes taking place and their sequences, and to do it for several simultaneous strands too – all related to a master timing system.
And, such experiments are not the only possible forms for Holistic Science.
Yves Couder decided to move the phenomena that continue to cause chaos in Physics from their Sub Atomic level with all its inherent difficulties, into a possible analogous situation at the macro level, where analogous phenomena could be much more easily investigated. His artificially conceived-of set up was of course nothing like that at the micro level, but he reasoned that such situations must involve the interactions of various different oscillations, involving both resonances and recursions. So, he constructed a surprising set up for his investigations. He started with a basis for his required structures, which was a shallow tray of silicone oil constantly subject to a given vertical vibration. He then released a drop of the same liquid onto the surface of this vibrating substrate. Of course, it was merely absorbed in the substrate. Yet, by varying the few parameters under his control, he managed to get the drop to not only cause a wave in that substrate but also bounce upwards again. Now, the upwards moving drop slowed down under gravity, until it reached zero velocity and began to fall again, to again to once more come into contact with the substrate. But, again merely by the available adjustments he found he could ensure that it not only bounced again, but would thereafter continue to bounce by always coming into contact with the substrate wave coming up. Such a permanent, continually repeating cycle could only be achieved by getting the required energy from the forced vibration of the whole substrate, and causing recursively a forced oscillation of the drop too. A Local Zone of the surface of the substrate had become a kind of standing wave, and the system of drop and standing wave (termed a “walker”) could move about across the surface of the substrate, and several phenomena that were similar to those at the sub atomic level were made to occur.
This was a remarkable kind of experiment.
It based itself on analogies and purposive constructions in the most amenable of areas, to attempt to reveal comparable situations to other currently impenetratable phenomena at the sub atomic level. What could be extracted from Couder’s experiments were indeed remarkable.
But, clearly the efforts of Darwin, Miller and Couder are merely the very first steps in developing a new approach to Science, which no longer insists upon both stability and total control to reveal “essences of Reality”, but purposely attempts to ride the tiger, and investigate Emergent Episodes as delivering the real truths about Reality.
This short set of papers by no means comprises a definitive
statement of the Modern Logic of Change that it purports
to deal with. They arose as a separated series of brief
explanatory contributions to various different research
areas, and hence, in their intended contexts both assumed
that context, and in addition each had a fairly limited remit
as to their objectives.
Nevertheless, on inspection of these clearly-philosophical
contributions, it became clear that they could indeed be
put together as a brief, if varied, introduction to what is
evidently becoming an extremely valuable approach to
Developmental Change.
Though there are some references to other areas of study, I
have modified the parts that would be meaningless outside
of the context for which they were originally produced.
Therefore, hopefully, these essays will indicate the path
that is currently being constructed – a Holist approach to
Science with an appropriate and useable methodology.
If this is the form of the neutritron, then even though overall it will have a zero net charge (like the atom), it will also have a zero net matter (unlike the atom)!
But, that will certainly NOT be the case in close proximity to the joint particle – that is locally!
So clearly in any interactions with other entities, which are physically positioned, so as to definitely be in close proximity, these will certainly be determined by very local conditions indeed!
Let us therefore consider the following image, which superimposes the fields of the two component particles upon their mutual orbit and the surrounding area, as viewed from a position perpendicular to the plane of that orbit.
Clearly, when seen in this way, very close to the joint particle, hardly anywhere is neutral, on either electrical or magnetic criteria. The intended colours for the two fields will, ultimately, in the final version, be RED for the positive electrostatic field, and BLUE for the negative field. In both the strength of the field will be evident from the depth of colour.
We will then clearly see strong electrostatic fields in the close vicinity of each of the sub particles.
And, as these fields overlap, they will neutralise.
Now the decreasing strength of the fields are indicated by the increasing paleness of the colours involved. And where the two fields cancel out completely (particularly in the line between the particles) the zero positions are shown as black dots.
In addition, of course, such a diagram can only present a snapshot instant of a continually changing situation, for as they orbit all fields will be changing continually in all static positions, so that overall there will be NO residual field effects over time – they will average out to zero.
Now, it is extremely revealing to consider the effect upon a static single point (depicted here using the black circle near x). For, due to its shown position it will of course be subject to a strong positive field. But now we have to follow the changes in the field at this point, as the two sub particles move round as they orbit one another.
Let us assume that the rotation is taking place in an anticlockwise direction, so that the orbiting particles approach new positions at z and w. Clearly the positive charge upon our stationary position near x will decline until it reaches ZERO, where the two fields exactly cancel out. Then, as the rotation continues until the moving particles reach y and x, the effect on our position will have risen to a maximum negative value.
Clearly, over a complete cycle this point will suffer a classical complete cycle of oscillation of the field, over time, resulting in the following pattern.
Now, of course, we still have to consider the unavoidable magnetic effects of the moving charges, which are essential to Maxwell’s formal representation of a disembodied electromagnetic radiation. So, could these necessary components occur too?
Considering our very simple diagram, we have a problem! For, both a single electron and a single positron orbiting together will again cancel their magnetic effects overall.
But, once more concentrating our attention, as with the electrostatics, on the effects during a single cycle of rotation at x, it becomes clear that there will be a magnetic fields, at a maximum at the beginning, which will decline first to ZERO then rise to a maximum in the opposite direction after half a cycle. The N and S magnetic effects will also be reversed, via a midpoint where thery exactly cancel out.
It is becoming clear that the magnetic effects at x will also oscillate, as did the electrostatic effects, but at right angles to the plane of the orbit.
Now, if all this is true, we can see why Maxwell’s purely formal encapsulation of electromagnetic radiation did indeed fit the bill in many circumstances. But rather than the overall effect, it would be in contrast be delivering oscillation effects at local levels. (See the full electrostatic and magnetic trace below).
Now, let us consider the alternatives physically!
Theory One: Electromagnetic radiation is a purely disembodied-yet-energetic oscillation of nothing, which which can hold and propagate energy over otherwise entirely Empty Space!
Theory Two: There is NO disembodied E-M radiation, but there is a joint particle with these E-M properties, which can propagate them either by movement of the receptacle particle, or by passing it on bucket-brigade fashion across a universe-wide undetectable paving of these units.
Now, of course, put like that the choice is surely “no contest”, but the failure to find any such paving, or even explain how such a vast structure could ever have come into existence always condemned such a suggestion as untenable.
Clearly, such a theory demands many as yet unrevealed things about Reality, whereas the other merely attributes all the necessary properties to Empty Space itself – that is to Nothing!
Now, though the new alternative does, in fact, work out nicely for propagation, that is certainly NOT the case with a single electron orbit within an atom. For the reversal of the magnetic component in the delivered propagation within its cycle of oscillation, seems to be impossible to generate directly via such an origin in the atom!
But, this might not be such a problem, if a prior-existing paving unit, with mutually orbiting particles of opposite charge receive merely a gobbet of energy at a given frequency. For the already existing, receiving structure would determine how than energy was internally distributed. Thereafter, both to other such units in propagation and finally given up to something else, the required full Maxwell form would be the quantum being dealt with, NOT as a wave in a medium, but as a pair of mutually orbiting particles with a receptacle-per-quantum.
So, it is merely energy at a given frequency transferred from the promoted electron orbit in the atoms to a paving propagation elsewhere.
What happens when the writer adopts the vocabulary of the consensus in his society?
It is usually explained as being an attempt to speak in a language everyone can understand – presumably to win him or her to a better and more profound standpoint. But it isn’t, and it doesn’t! Instead, it is bound to pull the writer into the “currently dominant” standpoint, where such definitions have been developed over centuries to fit what basic assumptions and explanations were readily available, and indeed, in common use.
And, the question has to be asked, “Who would have been in a position to both formulate and disseminate such concepts?"
Is it the man in the street? Definitely not!
It will always be the products of those in power: those will have the education to be able to express such things, and the wherewithall to be able to disseminate them through their “owned” organs of information.
Any radical motive cannot be easily maintained in such circumstances, and the prophet, in seeking resonances with an alien readership, and in order to get into print, can very easily become the apologist!
The contradictions in meaning between any revolutionary criticisms and the acceptance of the status quo, can never be resolved, as the words used only make any kind of sense in their currently employed meanings: and who is it that will be doing the using? The dominant standpoint within a society that produced the current meanings of that vocabulary will unavoidably be those of the people in charge, and NOT the mass of the population, who for most of their history couldn’t even read, never mind write!
So, the “radical Marxist”, attempting to make a living in the highest institutions of learning must explain things using the accepted vocabulary of those who will make up the vast majority of his colleagues, though couched in the occasional words that seem to be revolutionary (but aren’t!)
Slavoj ŽiŽek seems to be the perfect example of this!
On reading the Introduction to his book In Defense of Lost Causes, he manages to set the stage for this long book, by excusing the “failures” of revolutionaries, and he does it by revealing their clear good intentions. He even calls their “evident virtues” – idealism – a quality of trying to achieve a better world. But rather than the usual advice to therefore, “Give up now you’ll never do it”, he alternatively says that unavoidable failure is really the best that anyone can ever do!
Isn’t that stimulating?
“NO!” And, if you think that, you are right!
Here is the absolutely-guaranteed, safe revolutionary for you!
Does this self appointed prophet not know what Idealism really is? And it has absolutely nothing to do with Marxist revolutionaries. They are nothing if they are not the most realist operators in the world! Real philosophical Idealism is the direct opposite to Materialism, and Marxists are avowedly materialists! They commit to an entirely materialist standpoint, which takes Matter as primary, and attempts to explain things in terms of the entities present, their properties and their inter-relationships.
And, in case anyone is assuming that these Marxists see everything in purely mechanistic terms – the exact opposite is the case! Their standpoint is the only one that can both deal with real qualitative change, and is also essentially multi-disciplinary!
Indeed, these two philosophical words have very different meanings to what ŽiŽek attaches to them: and his meanings are those of the ruling classes, NOT those of committed revolutionaries.
Instead of the idealism of the status quo defenders, revolutionaries see Idealism as a standpoint that has the whole of reality determined entirely by eternal abstract laws, which can be totally encapsulated in purely formal equations. Contrast this with ŽiŽek’s chosen interpretation as a yearning for something better. And, if he were to be consistent with his chosen language, he would also use materialism to mean chasing after material gain, wealth and position. Not even remotely similar are they?
And yet, such very different meanings were considered crucial by real Marxists. Not only Marx and Engels, but also Lenin took this position, and wrote an important book entitled Materialism and Empirio Criticism to counter an idealist trend within the Bolshevik Party (led, I believe, by Lunacharsky, who after the Revolution became the Minister for Education in the Revolutionary Government)
So ŽiŽek’s introduction establishes an amazing position!
One side of it has already been established above in his choice of language, and the second must be his breathtaking apology for the catastrophes following the Russian Revolution, which he, along with the enemies of that revolution, sees as inevitable, but in his case somehow excusable too!
WHAT?
His "inevitable consequence" was no such thing, for it took Stalin many years, a World context of active hostility, and even military interventions by 14 capitalist powers, and, in addition, there was an externally, as well as internally wealth-sponsored Civil War, with the Royalists and Capitalist attempting to overthrow the Revolutionary Regime.
And, even then for Stalin to complete his proposed transformation, internal dedicated revolutionaries had to be successively removed, imprisoned and executed, or even pursued and assassinated (as was Trotsky) to achieve this supposedly “inevitable result”
It’s an odd kind of inevitability is it not? It’s a bit like the opposite of damning Stalin with faint praise to excuse this traitor to the revolution, both in Russia and worldwide!
Let us put our self professed revolutionary Marxist in his proper context!
You can picture a dinner party in London (say) where the “radical” ŽiŽek had been invited to entertain the gathering where various very comfortable academics could “discuss” ŽiŽek’s ideas without any rancour, and with conclusions such as, “All Revolutions are bound to fail!” and “Their idealism simply doesn’t match with Reality”, not to mention, “The inherent greed and insufficiency of people guarantees ultimate failure.” And, such a group beating up ŽiŽek with their mutually agreed vocabulary, could go home to their own comfortable beds, and sleep peacefully!
And such a description is certainly accurate, for this writer was similarly invited to such a Dinner Party for the same reasons, and with a similar bunch of invitees. The only difference was, that I didn’t speak their language, and if anything they went home worried to death!
Also, watching a discussion programme on TV yesterday, a wholly similar social situation was evident. And in a similar way to how I have described the certain treatment of ŽiŽek, with a similar Aunt Sally as he, it was clear that no matter what were the professed affiliations of the participants they all used exactly the same language, and just as effectively tidied away as ineffectual, idealist and bound-to-fail were all revolutionary threats.
Yet somehow major interventions, or their possibility, were constantly coming up in response to the Arab Spring, and you have to ask, which side they would be on when it came to resolving the situation!
P.S. And this is only in response to ŽiŽek ‘s Introduction!
Addendum
Once more into the breech, dear friends!
For, on thinking about ŽiŽek’s lead-in to In Defense of Lost Causes, I felt that I should do the same with the introduction to his book On Belief.
And it was indeed the right decision. For, he analyses the debate occurring in 2000 on US TV in which clerics from the Jewish, Roman Catholic and Southern Baptist faiths discussed religion and Heaven. The Baptist explained that many “good people” would most certainly end up in Hell, as they hadn’t committed themselves to Christ during their lives.
And such an unwavering “principle”, ŽiŽek likened to that shown by Lenin in his revolutionary activities in Russia, and in his “re-casting” of Marx’s position with respect to political tasks.
[Clearly this academic philosopher is scared to death by such intransigence!]
But, of course, such a supposed resonance, could only be found by a modern “opponent” of Liberal Capitalist compromise, and was totally disregarding of the actual political natures of these two completely opposite men. For it handily coupled the two extremes as essentially similar in their steadfast positions. It is, of course, total and completely irresponsible rubbish, and sees them both as steadfast in their “beliefs”!
And, to thereafter promote himself, as ŽiŽek does, as being on the same side as Lenin, is total nonsense. As Trotsky said when describing such people as ŽiŽek – “They wear the yellow jacket of rebellion, but are still fast asleep in their beds when the factory gates are receiving workers in their thousands”. That would be anathema to someone like ŽiŽek: he is an informed faker, and no revolutionary!
Even mentioning Lenin’s name in a book about belief soils Lenin’s real and significant contributions, and effectively demotes a revolutionary commitment to merely another kind of “idealist” belief! Clearly, this analyser of Society is no Marxist at all, and certainly no revolutionary.
He, though, takes, along with all the enemies of that revolution, a position in opposition to Liberal Capitalism and compromise, which will resonate very well with the Right in US politics.
What a remarkable stance, it is so full of contradictions, it is no wonder he is visibly in constant, jerking agitation when he speaks, but it will certainly get readers. For if he (even if only apparently) took a Leninist Bolshevik stance, he would be crucified as are all such dangerous outsiders, so he wisely appeals to all sorts of people, and he does it from an evidently impotent, yet “clever radical” standpoint. Can you guess which side he will be on when the time comes?
I vividly remember innumerable avowedly “marxist” tendencies in the UK, when the troubles escalated in Northern Ireland, they all supported the sending of troops “to defend the republican Catholics” against the then rampant unionist mobs.
But, whom were they used against?
Any Marxist would know that immediately!
That betrayal, more than any number of written treatises, revealed their real position. Only one tendency opposed the sending of troops and they were the nearest thing to revolutionary Marxists at that time. And I know this because I was in that tendency!
