cCHAPTER 6
A NEW SUBSTANCE THEORY
REDUCTIONISM
Failure of Orthodox Reductionism
6.1.1.
The orthodox scientific worldview is grounded on a profound structural truth. In seeking to reduce all complex entities to simpler, and ultimately to absolutely simple, entities, it is impeccably rational in form – provided, of course, that it is not ‘nothing-but reductionism’ (a reductionism that overlooks the obvious fact that complex entities are associations, not just numbers, of simpler). Yet, despite this, as a true conception of the universe it is a near-total failure. And this is because its conceptions of the natures of the simplest elements to which it has succeeded in reducing human experience, are so utterly false as to render any explanation of how human experience has emerged as a synthesis of them, a total impossibility. Science is often criticised for its reductionist approach. But it is precisely here that its theoretical strength lies; its endemic weakness is the blatant incompetence it has shown in carrying out its reductionist programme. It has succeeded only in wedding profound truth to no less profound error. And yet to expect otherwise would be naive; scientists, qua scientists, are not ontologists. Here, then, is where ontology (rational cosmology), in its ability to complement science (empirical cosmology), finds its paradigmatic field of activity.Causes of this Failure
6.1.2.I would claim that empirical cosmology has established incontrovertibly that the realm of mind (the noosphere) has emerged out of the realm of life (the biosphere), which, in its turn has emerged out of the realm of matter (the hylosphere); but no less incontrovertibly, that it has failed to give a remotely satisfactory account of how this has occurred. It is perfectly true that some form of NeoDarwinism must always be central to any true evolutionary theory; but the explanatory successes of NeoDarwinism do not depend upon its ability to give a rational account – that is, a satisfactory explanation - of how organisms function: it needs only a certain number of empirically established general biological facts in order to realise its explanatory power. It is essentially untouched by the grossest errors in, and ignorance of, the more intimate details of biological processes. It is, of course, biochemistry which is central to our understanding of how living organisms function. But we cannot understand biochemical processes as rationally ordered sequences of events unless we first possess a rational understanding of inorganic chemistry. And we cannot hope to understand this unless we are in possession of a rational physics. And this is most certainly what we do not possess. We have every reason to believe that some 4·5 billion years ago, the most complex beings upon planet Earth were small organic molecules such as carboxylic acids. We know that as a consequence of a gradual process of complexification there now exist on Earth billions of human beings each possessing a complex inner life of perceptions, memories, ideas, feelings, volitions, and thoughts. With the physics we now have it is impossible to account for this. Therefore, on these grounds alone, there must be something radically amiss with orthodox physics. And, as we have seen, the basic reason for science’s incorporation of profound error in its theoretical foundations lies in its gross confusion of noumena (things as they are) with phenomena (things as they appear). In the most deadly consequence of this confusion - the error syndrome I am calling the Fatal Trap - we lay bare the essence of where and how physical thinking has gone wildly wrong. Incorporating this error syndrome into the theoretical foundations of classical physics meant that we utterly misconceived the ultimate natures of matter, force, radiation, motion, time, and space, and, a fortiori, the relations between them. The consequence of this radical physical misconception is that we have been wholly incapable of intelligibly relating to the physical world the whole vast superstructure of life, mind, and spirit which, as the empirical evidence reveals, has arisen out of it.
6.1.3.Of course, modern physics has been forced by its experimental findings to reject biliard ball mechanism, including the old container theory where space and time existed as particulars in their own right, irrespective of the locations and motions of any particles that might happen to exist within them. It is now realised that space and time are closely bound up with their material content; just as it is also realised that, in reality, substance and change are far more closely interfused than was envisaged in classical theory. But what has not been clearly seen is that if substance and activity are indissolubly fused, a spatial medium – inevitably inexplicable - is no longer needed in order to account for change. The Greeks made the wrong choice in seeking to conceive the bafflingly mysterious intrinsic changes in terms of the superficially obvious spatial changes; and this basic error was imported into the theoretical foundations of classical physics But, in reality, the only possible way to understand spatial changes is to see them as arising from intrinsic changes. So that the real physical situation is not that differences are conferred upon otherwise identical intrinsically unchanging ultimate particles by their positions and motions within some independently existing medium, space – which, in fact, possesses no independent existence whatsoever; but that similarities and differences among intrinsically changing unmoving “particles” collectively generate those kinds of relationship we term spatial.
6.1.4.The confusion of noumena with phenomena - projecting upon the objective world attributes that belong only to the experience of the perceiver – which still wrecks science as an ontological discipline, arises basically from thoughtlessly assuming that the real physical world resembles this world as it appears to us, far more closely than it actually does: which, ironically, is equivalent to radically underestimating the four and a half billion years of organismic construction that, as this same science has fully established, has gone into producing the world-as-experienced. And this radical confusion has been compounded by two further confusions arising from it. The first concerns confusion as to what physics is actually about. Is it primarily natural philosophy or technology? An activity devoted to understanding the physical world or manipulating it? These two aims are not intrinsically in conflict; such conflict was only latent in the classical era. But today, the obsolescence of the mechanical philosophy and the hijacking of physical theory by measure-number mathematicians make it imperative that we decide on our order of priorities. The second confusion, even more important, is that resulting from the fundamental misunderstanding of the relation existing between the abstract discipline of mathematics and concrete physical reality. This misunderstanding takes two forms: firstly, the mistaken belief that physical structures can be deduced from - instead of very occasionally suggested by – the forms of measure-number algebra; secondly, the almost inconceivably silly belief that measure-number equations are themselves the structural elements of the physical world. ‘The wisest of mankind’ got it precisely right nearly four centuries ago (The New Organon, Bk.1 Aph.XCV1): " ... natural philosophy ... is tainted and corrupted ... by mathematics ... which ought only to give definiteness1 to natural philosophy, not to generate or give it birth." And Kant, a century and a half later echoed him with, "... the mathematician, by employing his method in philosophy, can produce only so many houses of cards ... “ (Critique of Pure Reason, 2nd Edition, p.755). To which we might now add: God does not play cards with the universe.
6.1.5.So that a rational, and therefore true, physical theory must locate all fundamental changes within the ultimate ‘particles’ themselves. (Which is altogether as it should be, since whereas scientists are primarily concerned with what things do, metaphysicians are primarily concerned with what things are.) These changes must not, of course, be conceived as spatial – as some kind of oscillatory activity within the small region occupied by the ultimate particle (as in that quintessentially mechanistic misconception - the photon). The essence of this conceptual revolution is that these true ‘particles’ have no spatial dimensions – they are not ‘in space’ at all. On the contrary, they are ontologically prior to ‘space’: spatial relations emerging as one of their collective attributes. Hence, their changes can only be intrinsic - that is, changes of substance. Since it is change that is the ontological ground of time, and since, as we know empirically, these ‘particles’ persist through time, it follows that they really consist of a sequence of changes. They are, in fact, processes. Discovering the more precise nature of these processes puts us in possession of the key to the riddle of the universe. How are we to achieve this?
AN ULTIMATE ANALYSIS
Ultimately Simple Parts
6.2.1
Perhaps the most undeniable attribute of my experience is its compositeness. It is composed of a large number of discriminable parts. Each of these parts must either be simple or itself composed of parts. If the latter, then the same question can be asked of each of its parts. And so on, so that my experience must be an association of ultimately simple parts. There are two well- known objections to this conclusion. The first of these – the infinite regress argument – we have already dealt with (2.2.7.). To repeat, the essence of the rational rejection of the infinite regress, is that, ex hypothesi, there are elements of an experienced synthesis that cannot be reached from it, even in principle, by any number, howsoever great, of analytical steps. From which the conclusion follows that the experienced synthesis cannot be reached, even in principle, from these elements by any number of synthetic steps. But the synthesis exists; therefore, these hypothetical elements do not. More serious is the second objection, which I term the pseudo-holistic.Pseudo-Holism
6.2.2.We have just contended that, since the infinite regress argument is demonstrably false, every composite entity must be an association of ultimately simple parts. Is there any valid way of escaping this conclusion? There certainly exist arguments which claim to be able to do just this, but, on investigation, they all turn out to be so many variants of pseudo-holism. By "pseudo-holism", I refer to any of a number of ways of misunderstanding the holistic principle - the root structural principle of a creative universe. The holistic principle asserts that a whole (that is, a composite entity) is more than the arithmetical sum of its substantial parts. Of course a whole is this because it is the sum of these parts in their real state of interconnectedness (that is, association); not of these same 'parts' in an artificially conceived state of unconnectedness - in any event a contradiction in terms, since the very word "sum" presupposes interconnection of some kind.
6.2.3.All forms of pseudo-holism - teleology, the 'boot-strap' hypothesis, the Platonic theory of forms, etc. - in their different ways commit the same basic fallacy. They first abstract the whole from its parts. They then reify this abstraction, implying thereby that the whole possesses some kind of existence over and above that of its parts in their real state of interconnectedness. Finally, they attempt to account for the natures of the different parts in terms of their different contributions to this abstracted, reified whole. But, part P, by definition, is constitutive of whole W; so that claiming that W possesses an existence independent of P carries the implication that P can exist independently of P - which is nonsensical. The rational mind, even when it hasn't succeeded in laying bare the falsity at the core of this pseudo-holistic argument, always feels uneasy with it, because it senses, however obscurely, the presence of an empty circularity, with the parts explained in terms of a whole, which is, itself, explained in terms of its parts. An obvious question for the pseudo-holist to answer is this: If the whole is something more than the sum of its interconnected parts, what is this something more, and where does it come from? No intelligible answer has ever been forthcoming. The truth is that the relation between whole and part embodies, in point of interdependence, an obvious and undeniable asymmetry. Necessarily, a whole cannot exist independently of any of its parts; whereas, any of these parts, though not, of course, qua part, can exist independently of the whole. Thus, notes, as such, do not require melodies in order to exist. Melodies cannot exist without notes. The pseudo-holist, for reasons best known to himself, persists in overlooking this asymmetry6.2.4.
Certainly, the basic structure of language - expressing particulars as particular combinations of general words, many of which refer to abstracted qualities - plays a large part in perpetuating this fundamental error. As, likewise, do our altogether inchoate and woolly conceptions of substance, which make it seem all too legitimate to abstract qualities from the substantial entities in which they inhere. A third cause must be laid at the door of the Fatal Trap, since a perennial motivation of the spiritually minded is to avoid ultimate simple parts, with their supposedly inescapable mechanistic implications.The Concept of Qualification
6.2.5.
We conclude, then, that every experience is an association of ultimately simple parts. But now we seem to be confronted with an impasse. Consider any two ultimate simples: either they are wholly the same, partially the same, or wholly different. If the first, they are not two, but one. If the second, this would seem to imply that they possess parts, which, since they are simple, cannot be the case. If the third, they possess nothing in common, and so possess no ground of association. Where are we to look for the solution to this dilemma – if, indeed, there is one?6.2.6.
In analysing our experience into ultimate simples we have, of course, dissolved all grounds of association - that is, obliterated the very relations we are seeking to discover. And among these there is one ubiquitous type of relation which does hold out some promise. This is that an absolute one may be a relational many; that A in different contexts may be A1, A2, A3 etc. Everyday experience furnishes us with countless instances: as we say, "all things are relative". Such relativity applies to temperature, tone, size, health, wealth, and so on, almost indefinitely. That context may play a basic ontological role in our experience is suggested by the supreme importance attached to it by that class of persons most given to reflecting upon, cultivating, and moulding their feelings and sensations. I mean, of course, artists. "An apple beside a bottle is not the same thing as an apple beside a loaf of bread", proclaimed Cézanne, and Delacroix summed up the power of contextual relation in a single vivid image: "With mud I can paint you the skin of Venus provided you let me surround it as I will". But, as Pater contended, "All art constantly aspires to the condition of music", and one need go no further than the fact that a melody can be transposed to any key and yet remain essentially unchanged, to realise that contextual relationship is the essence of music. The profound ontological implications of this ubiquitous feature of experience have been strangely overlooked by philosophers - Hegel being the great exception.6.2.7.
However, it must be admitted that in all the foregoing we have been dealing with complex entities. What enables an A to be an A1, an A2, an A3, etc. in different contexts is that in each case what it has in common with whatever is limiting, or defining, or modifying, or - as I generally prefer to say - qualifying it, is different, and it is this which makes for a plurality of contextual natures. Thus, all musical notes are the same in possessing pitch - grounded on the number of cycles per unit time of some repetitive activity - and it is the different differences in pitch, heard as different intervals, that give the different contextual natures. The pitch-nature of each note is enriched by the existence of others: these promote it from a 'mere this' to a 'this rather than that'. And, in general, we can say that an A qualified by a B has a relative, or contextual, nature superimposed upon its absolute, or intrinsic, nature.6.2.8.
If simples could be qualified by other simples, this would, to say the least, enormously lessen the number of intrinsically different simples that would need to exist, since, on purely abstract grounds, there is no limit to the number of contexts which a single absolute might occupy. But, clearly, there would have to exist at least one other in order for the contexts to be created. But would only two suffice? From the seemingly limitless content of binary coded information it might seem that this could be the case. However, in this case such multiplicity is possible only because the bits can take up a limitless number of spatio-temporal positions. It is really space and time which are providing the contexts. But in our case we are starting - if indeed we are starting at all - with just two 'bits'. And from our analysis of the Fatal Trap (4.4.), it is clear that 'space and time' - that is, different spatial and temporal relational contexts - must be created out of the bits themselves. If we can find two 'bits' - that is, two intrinsically different simples - of such natures that they can qualify one another, then different 'positions' might arise in some way from the contexts of qualification. At bottom, what is required is that any qualification must, by its very existence, change the context of qualification. Schematically expressed: A→B (B qualified by A = B1, say) should so alter the context of qualification as to make a B2 logically possible, which, in turn, would create the new context for a B3, and so on indefinitely. And, of course, equally for B→A = A1 etc. or, indeed, a mixture of the two. But, before we can even attempt to ascertain whether this can be intelligibly worked out in concrete terms, we are compelled to find two mutually qualifying simples.6.2.9.
If we are looking for two independently existing simple absolutes we shall look in vain. For such hypothetical entities the gulf of separation yawns as unbridgeable for two as for two zillion. The only viable possibility is that one is of a purely privative nature, depending for its nature wholly on the other - in short, is created by it. Experience acquaints us ubiquitously with this type of situation, as, for example, in the cases of sound and silence, or light and darkness. Sound creates silence, just as light creates darkness, food, starvation, company, solitude, something, nothing, and so on. In each case the created is absence or loss or lack of the other. We shall, in general, use the term negation. John Stuart Mill (Logic, I II 6) asserted that " ... the non-possession of any given attribute is also an attribute ... ". From which it follows that when non-possession of a given attribute is the sole attribute, it is the entity. Plato, in 'The Sophist', expresses what is essentially the same idea: "Not-being is not mere nullity but 'otherness'”. And, indeed, all those ontologies - e.g. Taoism, NeoPlatonism, Hegelianism - which have postulated some kind of primordial unity as the ultimate ground of being have accepted that this can be determined to a multiplicity only via some form of negation. It is, then, by this route that we escape from our impasse.
QUALIFICATION SEQUENCES
The Ultimate and its Negation
6.3.1.
As the fons et origo of the Universe we postulate a simple, absolute One, which we term the Ultimate. We defer its definition for a few pages. The Ultimate (X) logically implies - that is, it generates - its own negation. Now, we cannot rightly claim that we have two simple absolutes, since negation exists only in relation to X. However, taking our cue from Plato (Not-being is not mere nullity ...), we can, for reasons of methodological convenience, express this primordial situation symmetrically in the terminology of qualification. We define negation of the Ultimate as Nullity (0) qualified by the Ultimate (X); in schematic notation negation is X→0. We cannot strictly speak of a state of Nullity (which is why there is no 0→X) conceived as utter non-existence, since the very notion of a state presupposes existence. Nothing (no-thing) presupposes a 'thing'. So that we can define Nullity only as "what not-being would be were there no being"; or, in more concrete terms: Nullity (0) is what negation of the Ultimate (X→0) would be were there no Ultimate (X). And it is clear that to say that the Ultimate creates its negation is exactly equivalent to saying that the Ultimate confers a nature upon what would otherwise possess no nature. This is because, since Nullity, by definition, possesses no nature in itself, its 'acquisition' of a nature is the same as that nature's being created. As I have said, to talk of Nullity at all is no more than a methodological convenience. We could, throughout, talk of negation without mentioning Nullity at all; but that would be needlessly to inconvenience ourselves by destroying the symmetry of qualification, and hence our X/0 notation. Provided we realise that ‘Nullity (0) qualified by the Ultimate (X)’ is synonymous with ‘Negation of the Ultimate (X→0)’, there can be no rational objection to this terminology.6.3.2.We are asserting, then, that the first state of the universe is the Ultimate (X). The second state is constituted by the addition of the logically implied Negation of the Ultimate (X→0) to this first state, thereby giving X + X→0. The third state consists of the second plus two logically implied simple (X/0) components, giving X + X→0 + (X + X→0)→X and X + X→0 + (X + X→0)→0. In short form, we write these as X→0→X and X→0→0. The fourth state expressed in short form will consist of X→0→X→X, X→0→X→0, X→0→0→X, and X→0→0→0; and so on indefinitely, the nth state of the universe consisting of 2n-2 sequences of n simples. This presents us with three main tasks, as the remaining subject matter of this chapter. Firstly, to explicate the above, in particular showing just how, in experiential terms, the contextual nature of each X or 0 differs from that of its immediate neighbours. Secondly, to define the ultimate One - which definition, to be meaningful, must, of course, be in experiential terms. Thirdly, to point out, and relate to our experience, the most obvious general features of this universal process.
Compresence
6.3.3.The first state of the universe, then, is the absolute - that is, non-qualified - Ultimate, which we shall be defining later in this chapter. Clearly, whatever this may turn out to be, it must certainly be causa sui, depending on nothing else for its nature. The Ultimate implies Negation of the Ultimate, which, as we have explained above, may be regarded as Nullity qualified by the Ultimate. Now, this second state of the universe, comparatively simple though it is, exhibits certain structural features momentous in both their cognitive and experiential implications. It consists of Negation of the Ultimate (X→0) in addition to the Ultimate. This must be so because Negation of the Ultimate necessarily entails the Ultimate (X→0 necessarily entails X); the two are thus structurally bound. Negation of the Ultimate in no way destroys or obliterates the Ultimate - whatever that might be supposed to mean. It is simply something else arising out of it. It is other than the Ultimate, but, in order to exist, requires the Ultimate’s existence The Ultimate and its Negation are mutually exclusive only in the sense that each is different from the other. The Ultimate now shares the Universe with its Negation: but there are two asymmetries in this sharing - two ways in which the two are not equal partners. And the structure of the whole Universe takes rise from these.
6.3.4.Firstly, since the Negation of the Ultimate has been created by the Ultimate, it is ontologically dependent upon it, so that a direction of ontological dependency has been established. This is popularly known as ‘the arrow of time’. Secondly, the Ultimate (X) and its Negation (X→0) are not equally part of the second state, which is constituted as such - that is, as an entity distinct from the first - by this addition of Negation. It is this Negation which defines the second state as such; the Ultimate (X) not doing this since it is also 'in' the first state. This addition changes the Ultimate’s status from being (as the first state) the whole universe to being only one of two parts of it. So that there are two changes creating this second state: the primary one of the added Negation, and a secondary one of change in ontological status of what this Negation is added to – namely, the Ultimate. This secondary change we term a decline in presence – or, as I prefer to say, compresence. The Ultimate has been displaced from the present by its Negation. And such decline in compresence on displacement by a newly qualified simple is a universal structural feature of the sequential process; all the existing simples of a sequence declining in compresence as each new simple is added.
Qualification and Time
6.3.5.This universal or sequential process is, of course, what we know empirically as the temporal process. Qualification is ontologically prior to time. That is, qualification defines time, not the other way about: B follows A because it is qualified by it; it is not qualified by it because it follows it. The nth state of a qualification sequence gives way to the n+1st because the n+1st simple is qualified by this nth state; in substantial terms this is what is meant by saying that the n+1st state comes immediately – that is, one instant – after the nth state. Each state, by definition, constitutes the present of the sequential process for one instant of time. Time is thus an abstraction drawn from the qualification process, each simple occupying one unit of time (instant or chronon, as preferred). Simples on different sequences do not, of course, qualify one another. But the sequences march in perfect step, all the simples of the same, nth, instant collectively defining the attribute of absolute simultaneity. Hence, the universe, unfolding instant generation by instant generation, is always the universe at the nth instant of time.
The Ontological Status of the Past
6.3.6.The addition, on a qualification sequence of the simple creating the n+1st state, necessarily requires the decline in compresence of all those simples comprising the nth state. That is, their compresence changes as they become part of the n+1st state. But what has happened to the nth state as such? Can we say that it no longer exists because it has just changed into the n+1st state? Certainly, the nth state is not the n+1st: that is, the nth state is no longer the present, since it has been displaced from the present by the addition of the n+1st simple. Now, all the constituent simples of any state are defined absolutely by being Ultimates or Nullities qualified to a certain degree. The degree of qualification of a simple, qua simple, because it is wholly determined by its predecessors, is necessarily unchanging. It retains this intrinsic characteristic through all the instant states into which it enters; but its degree of compresence is intrinsic only to that state, varying from state to state. In other words it is purely contextual, with this context changing with every simple (instant) addition. And this does not mean that the past degrees of compresence have ceased to exist in the sense of no longer being part of the universe, but only that they no longer exist as constituents of the “present present” – the Now. But, it may be objected, since the universe is always the universe at some particular present, to claim that “no longer being part of the universe” is different from “no longer existing in the present” is surely to do no more than quibble. And this would be a perfectly valid objection were it not that this togetherness or ordering of states in time – what I term proximate association – is not the only basic mode of togetherness operating in the universe. There is another mode which we shall be discussing shortly, and with which we shall be profoundly concerned throughout this work. This, which I term sympathic association, is grounded on intrinsic oneness, or similarity, between states. Through this mode, states of any degree of temporal remoteness can become associated. Each state, then, in itself unchanging, is able to enter sympathically into association of any degree of closeness with any future state. Henceforth, then, we shall distinguish between the sequential present, and the total present – comprising both the sequential present and past sequential states to the degree with which they are sympathically associated with it.
Further Structural Features
6.3.7.We now proceed to consider further basic structural features of a qualification sequence. Two adjacent members of any sequence are either contrasts →X→0 or →0→X or similars →X→X or →0→0. We have already discussed →X→0 , which will always be negation of the Ultimate (Nullity qualified by the Ultimate). Correspondingly, →0→X (as, say, in that part, X→0→X of the third state) will always be the Ultimate qualified by its negation. By this contrast to what it is not the nature of the Ultimate becomes defined. It, too, is now a ‘this rather than that’ as against a ‘mere this’; a particular one of two alternative states.
6.3.8.But a very different state of affairs obtains with the similars. We need consider only one of them in detail, since what applies to this will apply, mutatis mutandis, to the other. We will consider what, in fact, will be the other part, X→0→0, of the third state of the Universe. In what way is the second 0 experientially different from the first? If it is not, then we have the ontological absurdity of a distinction without a difference. We cannot, of course, contend that the difference is the second's occupying a different place in the sequence from the first, since it is precisely this difference, whatever it may be, which creates the difference in place. The difference in the two 0's arises from the difference between the X in state 1, by which the first 0 is qualified, and the X in state 2, by which the second 0 is qualified. The two O's are different because they are differently qualified. Relative to the first state, X has declined in compresence in the second; and the second O is O defined, or qualified, by this declined, or diminished, X. It is therefore less fully qualified than the first. As an alternative, we could say that the first O, positioned as it is between the X and the second O, diminishes the contrast; or, again, that negation (qualified Nullity) has declined towards unqualified Nullity. But with this addition of the second O the first has declined from its special position as the creator of the present state, qua present state. It is the qualified second O whose addition creates the third state as distinct from the second. Hence, the first qualified 0 declines in compresence. That already declined state of the original X which, as a consequence of its displacement by the first addition, was its contribution to the second state, is now, in its turn, further displaced by this second addition, and so declines yet further from its original compresence. When, as part of the fourth state, a third consecutive 'O' (belonging to one of four sequences) is added, not only is it less qualified than the second 0, but, as a consequence of its addition, the second and first O's, and the original, unqualified X, all decline in compresence. And similarly, in the above, when we replace Nullity with the Ultimate. As the Ultimate is added successively, 0→X→X→X→, each predecessor declines in compresence, and each addition declines in contrasted definition asymptotically from fully qualified Ultimate towards unqualified Ultimate. At the nth state of the Universe every qualification sequence consists of a succession of alternations of consecutive qualified Ultimates and consecutive qualified Nullities. Each block of consecutives is a waning contrast. The contrast arises, of course, from the otherness existing between the Ultimate and its Negation; and the waning, from the linked decline in compresence and qualification.
6.3.9.Since all previous simples of a sequence still exist to some degree in the sequential present, to what extent do those more remote from the present than another of their own kind - Nullity or Ultimate - contribute to qualifying that present? For example, in the sequence →0→X→0→0→X→0→0→0→0, what contribution does the more remote X make to qualifying the present 0? The answer is: none at all. There is no question of summing, or otherwise combining, 'their contributions'. One could say, as an aid to understanding, that the necessarily smaller 'contribution' of the more remote simple is comprehended, or swallowed up, by the greater contribution of the more proximate; that the weaker, differing from the stronger only in the matter of strength, is already contained in it: that up to a point they are identical, so that the qualification is made up of an identical, together with a non-identical, 'part' - which, of course, add up to the stronger qualification of the more proximate.
6.3.10.It must be clearly understood that when the nth state of a sequence is succeeded by the n+1st, what is actually happening is precisely this change from the one state to the other: a change consisting of an additional simple qualification accompanied by the decline in compresence of all the constituents of the nth state. So that the temporal process consists of a succession of changes.
6.3.11.Another point: we are dealing with degree of qualification and degree of compresence - that is, with questions of more or less. Is it possible to be more precise - in short, to quantify? Now, we can only quantify degree by deriving it from number – and it is clear from all that we have said so far that degree of both qualification and compresence is a consequence of the continual addition of qualified simples, each of which is a discrete unit step. Hence, qualification and compresence must be quantified in essentially the same way.
6.3.12.First, qualification: a simple qualified by its immediate antecedent (one ultimate step back) is fully qualified. Such full qualification is given the value 1. Qualification by a simple two steps back is given the value 1/2, and so on; so that in general, a simple qualified by another n ultimate steps back is 1/nth qualified. Again, as an aid to conceptualisation, we could construct a qualification profile for any sequence. For example, the regular sequence, 0→[X→X→X→X→0→0→X→X→X→X→0→0→X→X→X→X→0→0], might be represented thus:
Second, compresence: the present simple, which defines the present state of the sequence, is a part of only one state; the immediately antecdent simple has now been present in two states; its immediate antecedent, in three; and so on. In general, the simple n-1 simples remote from the present has been part of n states. Hence, we can quantify compresence as 1/1, 1/2, 1/3, ..... 1/n ...
THE ULTIMATE ONEThe Nature of the Ultimate
6.4.1.
We turn now to defining the primordial source, our Ultimate One. No complexities or profundities here: remember the words of Santillana (3.6.2.). "... as near to nothing as thought can make it ...". However, we do not want to get quite as near as Hegel, who defined the primordial source as "pure being" - being qua being ... being as such. Hegel rightly saw that the source must be defined in terms of something common to all experience, something of which every experience is a particular instance. But his definition is unsatisfactory because he failed to define 'being', leaving it as an empty abstraction. With our very precise theory of the structure of entities we are in a position to improve upon this definition of Hegel's.6.4.2Two components of the basic problem are obvious enough. We cannot define the Ultimate in terms of anything ontologically prior, since, in the very nature of the case, there is nothing ontologically prior. Also, for our definition to be meaningful, we must define the Ultimate in experiential terms. But since all experience necessarily derives from the Ultimate, it would seem that any such definition must involve circularity. However, though all experiences derive from the Ultimate, in a sense they still are the Ultimate, since they are no more than dynamic forms, or patterned processes, of the Ultimate and its Negation – which latter is purely privative, owing its existence solely to the Ultimate. So that, in effect, the Ultimate is the sole substance of the Universe. The universe, which arises by a process of necessary implication, can therefore legitimately be viewed as the fully realised Ultimate – the realisation of all that the Ultimate contains in potential. Hence, the whole universal process is one of self-realisation; or rather, since the Ultimate is the sole existent, self-realisation as such. The Ultimate is therefore the simplest, most enfolded – that is, least realised - state of this self-realisatory process: that of bare self-identity – self-identity, as such. The ‘self’ so implicated has no other nature than this.
6.4.3.How, then, are we to define this self-identical Ulimate in experiential terms? We should not in any sense that mattered be alive were our experience not affectively toned. We leave negative affect (suffering, in the widest sense of the word) alone for the moment, dealing with it in the next section. We shall find, in any case, that it owes its existence solely to prior positive affect (pleasure, in the very widest sense of the word) which is therefore primary. The universal process is essentially constructive, complex entities being associations of simpler, and ultimately of the absolutely simple, on the basis of their belonging together by their very natures. Such natural togetherness we call order. So that the process of self-realisation is characterised essentially by the emergence of ever richer and more varied order. It is constructive and holistic. Ultimately, greater life is greater order. This order we experience pleasurably.2 The Greeks, that race of thinker aesthetes, were rightly convinced that there exists some profound structural link between order and pleasure: that link which my Oxford Dictionary acknowledges when it defines harmony as "an agreeable effect of apt arrangement of parts". Hence, we are claiming that in positive affect we are experiencing the universal process’s essentially self-realisatory nature. Experientially, we may say that the Ultimate, as the minimal state of self-realisation is one of minimal positive affect. Here, at the simplest level, the two basic attributes of experience - structure and self-realisation - are identically fused. As pure positive affect, the Ultimate One is at once the self which is thus minimally realised, and the minimal realisation of that self.
Negative Affect
6.4.4.If positive affect is our experience of the essentially constructive nature of the universal process, it would be natural, and altogether correct, to assume that negative affect is to be associated with whatever is destructive in this process. The universe is certainly basically and overall a constructive process, but this in no way precludes its inclusion of subordinate destructive elements. It is even a prima facie possibility that the basic positive constructive aspect may actually require the inclusion of these destructive elements. Yet, on the face of it, there would certainly seem to be something self-contradictory about disorder in our conception, since, by definition, experiences form greater ones only if they belong naturally together, so that the experience of disorder would seem to imply the togetherness of experiences which are not naturally together. How is this seeming contradiction to be resolved?
6.4.5.The key to this resolution is to be found in the fact that one type of order can be wholly or partly dependent for its existence on another, and very different kind, of order. The dependent type owes its existence to the more fundamental. In terms of qualification sequences, a number of those belonging to the basic type of orderly system, collectively embody a further type of order quite different from that of the first. But perfectly orderly changes of the more comprehensive underlying system may have very different effects on the order of the localised dependent system. They may, of course, destroy this system, qua system; but, short of this, they will constantly be affecting its degree of orderliness as a system. The overall structure of a hierarchical system may remain essentially unchanged, even though its order is disrupted, adulterated or impaired by the substitution of lesser order for greater in one or more of its component sub-systems. We may think then of such a dependent system of changes to be capable of functioning in a great variety of degrees and ways below its optimum state (or states) of orderliness. In short, it can and will function in states of greater or lesser degrees of impairment brought about by the various orderly changes in the more fundamental system of which it is part. For this dependent system, such changes will either be in the constructive or destructive direction. The former will be experienced as positive affect, the latter as negative. It is worth noting that these negative aspects of the universal process also possess a positive side, since they promote the advent of greater order as a means of avoiding them on the part of the dependent systems concerned. In fact, this destructive dimension of the universal process constitutes an essential ingredient of all its more constructive realisations.
BASIC STRUCTURAL FEATURES OF THE UNIVERSE
Rational-Empirical Integration
6.5.1.A qualification sequence is a series of simple, generative, events, each of which is either the Ultimate or Nullity differently qualified. These simple entity/events are the ultimate constituents of the universe. All other constituents are, of course, composite: associations of these simple events (or simples as we shall usually call them. By ‘an association’ I mean a number of events unified in some way, and hence, as a manifestation of oneness, something in addition to a number of mutually unconnected simples. Now, a true explanation of the universe must fulfil three conditions: it must define the primordial source, it must show how this source logically determines a multiplicity, and it must identify within this multiplicity the associations that constitute the empirical world. We have already dealt with the first and second; virtually all the rest of this book will be devoted to the third.
6.5.2.On the one hand, then, we possess our ontological schema of qualification sequences (2n-1 by the nth instant of time) as disclosed by our ultimate analysis, and on the other, our human experience and the world as depicted by our scientific knowledge. And our task is to bring the two together in a rational synthesis: to show, in effect, how our empirical world arose out of this sequential world-ground. To do this entails working from both the analytic and the synthetic directions. Our empirical knowledge has established beyond all reasonable doubt that our human world has evolved out of a biological world, which has itself evolved out of a physical. So that the first field of human knowledge that we shall seriously attempt to engage with must be physics: seeking to account for the physical world, as so far revealed by our scientific evidence, in terms of our qualification sequences. This we shall do in the next chapter. In preparation for this and following chapters, we shall, in the rest of this chapter, draw attention to certain general structural features of our sequential matrix which are so basic as obviously to entail their being centrally implicated in the structures of the syntheses that evolve within it. Any references that we may make to the empirical world will be confined to the highest levels of generality.
Composite Entities6.5.3.
All entities (parts of the universe) are either simple or composite (complex). We have explained both the nature and origin of the simple entities (simples). All composite entities are composed ultimately of simples; that is, the ultimate constituents of every composite entity are simples. But, a number of simples, as such, is just a number of simples. Clearly, something more is required to make them a single complex entity - a unified diversity; something over and above their individual selves or any partial number of them. It is this unifying ground that associates them. Hence, structure - what associates parts to form a whole - is always holistic. This is as true when the parts are themselves simpler wholes as when they are simples. Every unified diversity is what we know as an instance of order. As a unity, a number of simples are, by that very fact, dissociated from all others. Any association divides the Universe into two classes of entity: those which belong to the association and those which do not. An association is not just all its constituents: it is also only those constituents. And since order is, in essence, nothing more than unity within diversity, it follows that, by its very nature, all order is self-selective.
6.5.4.
The structure of the universe is wholly defined by the ways in which its ultimate, simple constituents are, or are not, associated. Science thinks of the structure of the empirical world as determined by its causal connections, and frames its explanations in terms of the action of one thing upon another. But in this conception, all relations of causality reduce to the logical generation of the simples and their modes of association. The simples exist because of the self-defining nature of the Ultimate, and the implicative process to which, by logical necessity, it gives rise. And these simples are associated, as a consequence of their very natures, in all manner of ways. So that what we conceive empirically as causal connection is always finally resolvable into generation and association. Science attempts to explain the world in terms of what things do, but any ontological philosophy worthy of the name must seek to explain the world in terms of what things are. At the deepest level, therefore, answers to causal questions must be expressed in formal or structural terms, all explanation reducing to the explication of event structures, and hence necessarily analytico-synthetic in form. The essence of the reflective domain - the domain of thought - is that it seeks to render, as explicitly structural, connections which, as lived, are only implicitly so. For the truly rational thinker - the ontological philosopher - these structural connections must exist, so that to the extent that they have not been brought to light, experience remains a mystery.Periodicity and the Physical World
6.5.5.
A qualification sequence may usefully be conceived as an endless alternation of waning contrasts of presence and absence of the Ultimate. Every alternation occupies a certain number of consecutive instants - that is, it is of a certain duration. So that if these durations are constant or changing in some regular way over time, as they will be for all more structurally significant sequences, it becomes meaningful to think in terms of periods or frequencies of ultimate/negation (X/O) alternation. And since the ultimate spatially elementary 'particles' of the physical world are, in reality, qualification sequences, it follows that the fundamental structure of these ultimate 'particles', and hence of ordered groups of them, is either of a rhythmic, or periodic, nature, or based in some way upon this.6.5.6.The system of qualification sequences is all that exists - the universe. Now, the ultimate 'particles' of our empirical world are qualification sequences, but every sequence bifurcates at every instant, so that if, as appears empirically to be the case, the number of ultimate particles of the physical world stays at least broadly constant, it follows that, at every instant, on most – possibly all - of these sequences, one of the two X/O continuations belongs to the physical world, and one does not. Hence, the physical world – that world which mechanistic astronomy refers to as the universe (Hegel’s “spurious infinite”)- cannot, so far as mere number of sequences is concerned, be more than a minute sub-set of the universe. What is normally known as the physical universe together with all that grows out of it (for which I shall use other terms than ‘physical’) I term the Cosmos. So that I shall be using the terms ‘physical world’, ‘physical cosmos’, and ‘physical universe’ indifferently. The physical cosmos must, then, be a unified number, or system, of sequences self-selected out of the totality. These physical sequences must be separated from all other sequences through their collective possession of some unifying principle or principles to which they, and only they, conform. Clearly, since it is these X/0 instant selections that determine the Cosmos’s physical content, they must, collectively, be the concrete expression of the physical cosmos's unifying principle(s). In a word, these selections are made in accordance with some unvarying, or regularly varying, rule or rules. Such rules - or, as they are more usually termed, laws - of X/0 selection determine the essential nature of the physical cosmos. As we shall see, all physical sequences participate, though not to the same degree, in selecting the current X/O period of each - such gradation of selective effect being the ontological ground of spatial relation. In a physical world of n sequences every sequence belongs to n-1 pairs, so that the actual selection on any sequence is the resultant of n-1 individual selections. And, of course, this is operative on all n sequences at every instant. Moreover, through the constant operation of this selective law, the pattern of X/0 alternations of each physical sequence is continually changing, with the consequence that its selective effect on all other sequences is doing likewise. From what we have already said (6.5.5.) we should expect to find what is, in fact, the case: that all this mutual X/0 selection is really selection of period of X/0 alternation of some specific kind. But we shall be developing all these ideas in some detail in Chapter 7.
A Cumulative Universe
6.5.7.Apart from the actual generation of the qualification sequences, the structure of the universe is entirely a matter of modes of association: of what, among these sequences, naturally belongs together and what does not. Qualified Ultimate/Nullity (X/0) patterns – grounded ultimately in repetition - are not only associations in their own right, but enter, as components, into all greater associations. There are two, and only two, basic modes of association.
6.5.8.The first of these I term proximate association. The fundamental structural component of this mode is proximity in the universal process. Hence, position in time is an essential structural parameter. In short, the different components are united by their temporal relations: any further grounds of unity are dependent upon this. The rhythmic patterns themselves are obviously of this type, which is therefore fundamental. The physical world is a vast system of sequences grounded on proximate association. Everything, including spatial relations (l=ct), is time-based. The rules or laws of change which govern, and therefore effectually define, it are all based upon certain constancies holding among temporal relations.6.5.9.
The second mode, which I term the sympathic, is the precise opposite. Here, rhythmic patterns at widely different positions in the process are associated by their intrinsic sameness, irrespective of their positions in time. Entities are together intrinsically: by virtue of their structural similarity. Association, qua association, is always unity manifesting in diversity. Structure is precisely such unity, and structure arising from sympathic association is as much a type of it as proximate association. Entities (experiences) thus sympathically associated can be regarded as individual instances, manifesting at various places within the universal process, of a single concrete3 universal. If, of course, the different instances were all precisely similar, nothing structurally new would arise from such association. But differences in detail, and in context, ensure that matters are very much otherwise.6.5.10.
The structural feature of the universe as outlined in our theory which utterly distances this from the orthodox scientific world-view, is that the temporal process is not commutative but cumulative. In the orthodox conception, physical bodies, whether inanimate or animate, are dynamic configurations of unchanging particles. The particles are unchanging, but the spatial configurations they compose are essentially ephemeral. Indeed, orthodoxy, in so far as it thinks about the matter at all, now conceives the natures of things as given essentially by these patterns of spatial change. But each such instant configuration in the pattern replaces its predecessor even as it is replaced by its successor. Each exists only for an instant. How, then, can any pattern exist, if the advent of each step necessarily requires the obliteration of its immediate predecessor? Errol E. Harris4 expresses the essence of the matter thus:
“A structural whole revealing itself seriatim must somehow preserve the earlier stages as it progresses and amalgamate them with those subsequently appearing; otherwise no structure or order comes to light. Single instantaneous events present no order – even if they are not simple but have internal complexity. If each as it passes were utterly obliterated, no order could ever emerge. In some manner, therefore, for an order to be constituted, the earlier elements must be retained sublated in the succeeding events. A tune cannot be heard as such if the earlier notes are lost as they occur; a sentence cannot be understood unless the first words are retained in mind until the end – and the end is not the last note, or the final word, it is the tune, or the sentence, apprehended as a whole.”
Nowhere are the devastating consequences of falling into the Fatal Trap more starkly revealed, since the fundamental problems arising here are totally incapable of elucidation in terms of orthodox conceptions. In our theory, on the other hand, no such difficulties arise. The addition of a newly qualified simple in no way demands the ceasing to exist - whatever that may mean - of its predecessors (6.3.3.). On the contrary: it is precisely these, continuing to exist, that confer upon the new simple its particular qualification value; and which, declining in compresence with each such addition, constitute, with this addition, the basis of the complex changes which make up experience. At every instant each qualified simple possesses a constant qualification value, and a different compresence value, which remain unaltered by all future experience (6.3.6.). Hence, every experience is co-present with all future experience, but will, itself, be re-experienced only to the extent that it enters into association with some future present, and thus becomes part of this changing present. Such a type of association between past and present events is what we are terming sympathic.
6.5.11.We may usefully look at sympathic association in a slightly different way. The only thing that is different between some present experience and a structurally identical past one is that the former is in the present. But what prevents the latter from existing in the present? Only the addition of subsequent experiences. These, in being different from the experience in question, cannot exist together with it. But the less different they are, the less this incompatibility, and hence the less the past instance is prevented from existing in the present. Such compresence, then, between entities (experiences) exists irrespective of time or space - somewhat as one's seat in the theatre depends only on one's ticket number and not at all upon one's time of arrival or the door by which one entered.
6.5.12
Any experience which is part of the ongoing present – that is, is either composed of qualified ultimates being added to the totality of existing experience, or else, directly or indirectly, is being sympathically or proximately associated with these latest temporal additions – we term conscious experience. All other experience at that time, is unconscious. So that, at any time, all the experiential content of the existing universe that is changing is conscious, and all that which is unchanging is unconscious. A point worth clarifying is this: there could hardly be a greater difference at any time than that between conscious and unconscious experience. Yet, return to consciousness is achieved principally by sympathic association grounded on similarity between a conscious and an unconscious experience. How can this be? The answer is to be found in the fact that all experiences first arise seriatim, and there is no reason to suppose that sympathic association occurs otherwise. All experiences save the simplest are of a hierarchical nature – they are unities composed of lesser unities which are themselves composed of yet lesser, and so right down to the qualified ultimates themselves. Moreover, the uniqueness of any experience is always conferred by its highest hierarchical levels; as we descend hierarchically we find that entities become increasngly similar. Hence, the most usual state of affairs is, that at any time, the lower the hierarchical level the greater the number of entities that are sympathically associated. So that for much of the time it is only at their higher hierarchical levels that experiences are unconscious – in which case we may think of them as subconscious – of all degrees of consciousness ranging from the unconscious to the fully conscious. So that, to sum up, sympathic association is always operative between all entities at some hierarchical level. Degree of sympathic association perpetually fluctuates as both ongoing present and sympathically associated past proceed seriatim.6.5.13.As even this most cursory of surveys reveals, the structure of the universe is unsurpassably complex - so complex as to make the universe of scientific orthodoxy no more than a toddler's jigsaw in comparison. But of course. Since the temporal process is, in reality, cumulative, not commutative as in the naive, orthodox depiction, this latter is no more the truth than a hide is the living animal. How right Nietzsche was when he observed, "In what strange simplification and falsification man lives".5 As Hopkins6 put it “Withindoors/ House the shocks.” The seemingly limitless complexity of the universe is a consequence of the endless variety of constructive interrelations which arise between the instances of these two fundamental modes.
6.5.14.By way of further introduction to subsequent chapters, we will close this one with a few broad indications of how these two associative modes interact to produce the world as experienced. We have said (6.5.8.) that the great system of sequences we call the physical world is unified by proximate association. But, as a result of this proximate association, there arise at various locations within it small groups of sequences whose X/0 alternations evince an exceptionally high degree of stability and complexity of rhythmic pattern. Sympathic association between past and present instances of such patterned unities occurs and this association actually results in these physically selected sequences being modified by this selective influence from the past. We must never lose sight of the fact that, since all sequences exist, all structure is purely a result of their associations. We call this past selective influence on the physical world, mnemic causation; so that while physical causation operates on all sequences of the physical world, on a minority of them mnemic causation is also acting; that is, the cosmic continuations of this minority are jointly determined by physical and mnemic causation, rather than by physical causation alone. This minority, scattered here and there on planetary bodies throughout the physical world are what we know as organisms. The basic effect of mnemic causation is a tendency to sustain patterned rhythmic order in the face of the disintegrative effect of physical forces, thus vindicating Spinoza’s well-known assertion that “Everything in so far as it is in itself endeavours to persist in its own being.”7 This is the nature of the mysterious formative influence postulated by Errol Harris (4.5.3.). It makes possible organic systems of a patterned complexity immeasurably greater than anything that could result from physical forces alone.
6.5.15.Any organism’s environment is made up to a large extent of other organisms, on which its survival as an individual organism to a large extent depends. Hence, any complexifation of an organism complexifies the environment of other organisms, thereby calling forth further complexifications of these in order to survive within this more complex environment. Hence there is a tendency making for the advent of ever more complex organisms – and further stimulated by changes, slow or fast, in the inorganic environment. Now, so far, we have noted three basic consequences of qualification sequences (as distinct from mechanistic ‘particles’): (i) the persistence of the past; (ii) sympathic association of past with present; (iii) mnemic causation - the modification of physical forces by sympathic association. Made possible by organismic structures evolving to a certain level of complexity, we now find a fourth basic consequence beginning to emerge. This is the association, with the mnemophysical sequences, of sequences selected into the present of the organism entirely by the past. These physically associated non-physical sequences we term psychical sequences. They add vastly to the complexity of the experience of the psychophysical organism. Moreover, since, when the individual organism dies, its past persists, this persistent past can still select into the present psychical sequences which are now the sole constituents of a sequence system. Such sequences - not associated with a mnemophysical organism - we call spiritual sequences. Throughout this whole process of the increasing role of the persisting past in the organismic present, organisms are by no means isolated from other organisms; on the contrary, much interorganic mnemic and psychical influence between similar organisms – organisms of the same species at the animal level, and between kindred spirits at the human, occurs. This interpsychical association and influence is greatly facilitated by detachment from the physical cosmos.
NOTES & REFERENCES
1. We would now say ‘precision’.2. One often hears it asserted by scientists and academics (not, in general, noted either for emotionality or self-awareness) that only some of our experience is feeling toned. But such a view is merely the product of thoughtlessness and insensitivity. It is just that norms of feeling become established, whose wider departures only are adjudged affective. But, for Sherrington (1900), " ... mind rarely, probably never, perceives any object with absolute indifference, that is, without 'feeling' ... affective tone is an attribute of all sensation ... " (Quoted, p.148, The Puzzle of Pain, R. Melzack 1973). And Collingwood (The Principles of Art, 1937, Bk.II, Chap.VIII, Section 2, p.p.160-164) deals with the matter very satisfactorily at some length, including: " ... sensation and emotion ... are twin elements in every experience of feeling" and " ... the emotionless sensum, the 'sensum' of current philosophy, is not the actual sensum as it is experienced, but the product of a process of sterilization". All our experience is affectively toned.3. I say ‘concrete’ to distance this universal from the abstract universal of word-bound academia.4. Errol E. Harris, The Foundations of Metaphysics in Science (George Allen and Unwin, 1965, p.464).5. Friedrich Nietzsche, Beyond Good and Evil, part 2, section 24.
6. "The Starlight Night". Published posthumously in Robert Bridges' 1918 Edition of Hopkins' Poems.
7. Spinoza, (Ethics, Part III, Proposition VI).
