or Revolutions as the Quantization of Aesthetic Gestalt/Belief Systems

The philosophical idea of Popperian falsification is a myth: an ideal that science does not and cannot (currently, if ever) live up to. For example, in discussions on the up-and-coming Electric Universe model orthodox-adherents will refuse to abandon the standard view until there is some piece of data that it absolutely CANNOT explain and which can ONLY be explained via the Electrical Universe model.  As they aptly demonstrate, theories are as infinitely (indefinitely) flexible as the human mind that invents them. And by this logic we'd never have abandoned the Ptolemaic earth-centric model of the solar-system. No doubt one could invent all sorts of contraptions to account for ALL of our current data with this old model. Nobody would believe it through all the contortions, but it could be invented. There was no one piece of data that could not be explained by the old model, but which fit only the new one. Rather, as the model failed to predict event after event, it had to retrofit itself to new complexities which its infrastructure was not robust enough to deal with (analogies with software programming and "legacy code" are abound). These new ad hoc explanations kept piling on and on and people kept on believing in them long after they ceased to have any causal, reasonable or rational explanation. They just kept getting more and more absurd until the new model looked much more appealing next to this fantastic and growing Rube Goldberg machine of epicycles in deferents in epicycles.

In the end aesthetics is king. We like Copernicus because he UNIFIED and SIMPLIFIED our increasingly complex rational-empirical world-view. And this is precisely the advantage being experienced by the Electric Universe view. It gets rid of the mental clutter of ad hoc retro-fit after retrofit to constantly unexpected data, and unifies and simplifies them under one far more powerful force discovered after the foundations of the gravitocentric model were laid.

So, the shift is a gradient. Some folks are sensitive to slight changes in the force of simplification or parsimony and readily adopt the new, more aesthetically appealing and predictive model, while others are more conservative and cautious, preferring the safety that comes from large numbers of fellow believers in a "standard view".

What a beautiful image and thought experiment to resurrect these old models and fulfill their trajectory into infinite absurdity. If we could get a snapshot of them all compared side-by-side with one another, rising and falling one after the other: a series of curves beginning in unbelievable simplicity, peaking in the collective belief in robust predictive-explanatory power, and receding into indefinite complexity and absurdity as it fails to predict and explain more and more data, with the lag rates for retrofitting expanding further and further into the distance of limited returns...

Every theory? I don't know. Maybe we are approaching an asymptote....or maybe that's just another expression emanating from this infinite cycle.

Quantum physics was not a proper paradigm shift. It was an attempt to maintain the old classical metaphysics of the particle bias in the face of new evidence to the contrary, e.g. the "wave-nature". It wasn't a revolution, but a necessary kludge to hold the old, tacit metaphysics of Democritus and Leucippus inviolate, even at the expense of science as we know it, and the law of causality.

So, no, this type of quasi-revolution---taken about as far as it can go and on it's last legs now---simply wasn't explained or predicted by Kuhn. It just doesn't fit within his model and shows it's limitations, not its incorrectness. When taken into account, it's really a hybrid of a revolution and a normal-science saving of the phenomena. It just expands the Kuhnian toolset.

This is why quantum physics still has a "background-dependent" mathematical infrastructure, while Relativity has moved on to the post-classical infrastructure of "background-independence." In qualitative terms, this is the move from the classical "solid-bias"---a monolithic "absolute space, such as that of the solid classical ether, and leading to the solidity underlying the particle-bias---to an inherently dynamic and infinitely fluid space-time, such as that in Sorce Theory, and described mathematically, to a degree, in Relativity.

from SpinbitZ I, p187

 

We will never find the sense of something….if we do not know the force which ... is expressed in it. A phenomenon is not an appearance or even an apparition but a sign, a symptom which finds its meaning in an existing force. The whole of philosophy is a symptomatology…

— Deleuze, Nietzsche & Philosophy

An instance of these distinctions in action can be seen in the different forms of scientific explanation.  Nomothetic explanations are general case explanations using laws governing and derived from generalized categories, whereas idiographic explanations recognize the immanent  idiosyncrasies of the individual object or event and attempt to tell the story of that particular event/object.  An example of a nomothetic explanation would be the mechanical laws of physics, such as F = MA, whereas an example of an idiographic explanation would be the explanation of a medical case file culled from an exhaustive examination of the patients history of symptoms; a symptomatology.

It may indeed be the case, given the transcendent bias, that the nomothetic explanation exclusively is imposed on the immanent world of the quantum because we expect things to get ultimately and categorically simple in our post-medieval and foundationalist scientific mind-set.  Without recognizing the infinite difference of immanence (Leibnizian/Prigoginian active-space/matter), we can’t see deviations from these categories and laws for what they are; emergent properties from immanent complexity.  And so we assume that conceptual randomness, opposing our simplified categories, rules in this domain, rather than recognizing the limits of the nomothetic explanation and the need for the idiographic. 

 

This is a classic example of the transcendent-bias in action.  Given the Principle of Infinite Determinism, above, the resolution to the conundrum is simple.  Embrace the immanence of univocity and there is no need to discard the idea of causation or determinism when our categories and laws give way to the idiosyncrasies of the individual object-event.  The call for randomness, in every case, can be seen as the conflict and break-down of the nomothetic categories in the entropic face of infinite difference and idiosyncrasy.  Randomness, then, calls for the idiographic methodology, in a univocal polarity of explanatory function between the nomothetic use of the principle of the same and the idiographic use of the principle of infinite difference. 

Indeed, the laws were formed as general cases from a symptomatology in the first place.  In our foundationalist mind-set we simply expected them to govern absolutized categories, with absolutized laws, rather than real idio-singularities of infinite difference in interactions of infinite detail.

The Univocity Framework, therefore, opens the way beyond the closed oppositional forces of the categories of Representation, to a recognition of the need for an evolutionary history—a symptomatology—for each individual “particle,” in order to get a full account of the infinite determinism equals indeterminism of any single event-object, and indeed to account for the “arrow of time,” in the eternal NOW.  No two events are alike or ultimately predictable, not because there are no determining factors involved (i.e. randomness), but because there are infinitely many.

Finally I published my book. Here's the link for the free ebook and the print copy.

http://www.lulu.com/spinbitz

I set the price as low as lulu.com would allow. Money's just not the point. I just got my print copy and its really gorgeous. 740 pages with 100 illustrations for 20 bucks!

Here's the back cover blurb:

SpinbitZ Volume I, presents the fundamentals of Interface Philosophy whose purpose is the illumination and integration of abstract philosophical concepts through the integrated use of the imagination and its percepts. Interface Philosophy effectively constructs a set of philosophical "graphical user-interfaces" at the vision-logic level of cognition. It is thus a philosophy of vision-logic interfaces, employing the "triune interfaces," or "cultivated thirds" hidden within the polarities of every duality, dichotomy, controversy and paradox to build a consistent system for the effective understanding and resolution of their key esoteric truths, rather than for their dualistic and reactionary refutation. In using these interfaces to trace a nondual thread of rationality to its historical roots, it is discovered that only the dualistic, exoteric (or commonly understood) forms of rationality begin with the Greek trinity: Socrates, Plato and Aristotle. By reconnecting to the earlier nondual truths of Heraclitus and Parmenides, the conceptual axis-mundi itself (what Lao Tzu called "the door to all wonders") is found spinning at the core of Zeno's paradox, and thus at the core of nondual rationality. Through a fusion of Art, Science, Mathematics and Philosophy—and with the help of nearly a hundred detailed diagrams and illustrations—this embryogenesis of rationality is traced as it reconnects to the alternative lineage of philosophy uncovered by Deleuze, with a nondual fusion of the systems of Spinoza and Leibniz.

In esoteric Theosophy it is said that in the "shock" of the interface between Spinoza and Leibniz "the essence and Spirit of esoteric philosophy would be made to appear." Unfolding through these vision-logic interfaces, this Interface Philosophy finally appears to reconcile many of the dualities plaguing the history of exoteric rationality. In its nondual interface with empiricism and Integral theory, for example, a detailed sketch of an Interface Epistemology is unfolded. Operating at the crossroads of the ontic-epistemic (reality vs. knowledge) and subject-object polarities, the evolutionary symbiogenesis of the exoteric dichotomies at the foundations of human knowledge is examined—illuminating and reconciling the "ontic-shadow" of post-modernity.

The process of reanimating these hidden nondual truths of rationality demonstrates that mathematics itself mirrors this holarchic structure implicit in the embryogenesis of the concept. This is because mathematics, as the art and science of pure relation, employs the most rarefied and abstract form of the concept, e.g. numbers and operations. Unfolding in layer upon layer, this Interface Mathematics transitions from the "oppositional forces" of dualism, ultimately again to the "intensive," integral or "second-tier" truths, and to the originary axis-mundi of the nondual. In making mathematics visible, visceral and understandable—a Vision-Logic Coordinate System is constructed revealing two fundamental axes of conceptual thought (one of which is this axis mundi or immanent/transcendent axis). Spinoza's "three infinities" are then shown as the triune interface, or cultivating third between these binary axes, for illuminating and reconciling the many paradoxes and controversies of infinity—e.g. Zeno's, Galileo's and Cantor's—as they wind their way into the truths of our modern mathematics of the continuum and set-theory.

see http://www.spinbitz.net for more info

perplexed by Saturn's hexagon?


run the following links through your analogy engine...

http://www.physorg.com/news66924222.html

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cymatics

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=7253148167 375317006&q=cymatics

This is easily the most informed view of global warming I have seen to date...

http://www.holoscience.com/news.php?article=8gfbewe7

And the dialectic continues...

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=9005566792811497638&hl=en

The other day I was asked "what is the purpose" of my forthcoming ~600 page SpinbitZ: Volume I (of II), The Tao of Rationalism.  I wasn't given much of a chance to respond, but it got me thinking a bit more clearly.  I thought I'd respond in the form of simply quoting a section from the introduction to the volume.  Hope this helps...

BTW, if anyone would like to get a ~500 page sneak peak at this beast in progress--snapshots from the womb, so to speak--email me and I'll send you a link.

__

SpinbitZ is a toy: a playful, whirling, churning, folding and unfolding set of concepts, created, and to be used, ultimately for enjoyment.  It is not to be taken deathly seriously, as an attempt to unveil THE TRUTH about reality.  This conceptual toy emerged slowly but spontaneously as the most creative, difficult, artistic, rigorous and enjoyable endeavor that I have ever undertaken. 

Toys are not just for the young of years, but also for the young at heart; for the learned and experienced of all ages and levels of development.  All animals play, and as psychologists tell us this play serves a critical function for flexing, strengthening, and even creating, mental muscles, skills, perspectives, patterns and intuitions that can be used for other applications later on.  The Rubik’s cube, for example, was played for hours, or even days, and months on end by the most serious of scientists and mathematicians. 

As Deleuze says, “Joy emerges as the sole motive for philosophizing.”  While this is necessarily a personal (algedonic) motive for philosophy, there are certainly transpersonal and evolutionary layers of motivation as well.  Indeed while SpinbitZ can be seen as a sort of puzzle for the ever-curious, unlike the Rubik’s cube (or simply to a much higher degree), it is a puzzle that while figuring it out, while playing with the toy, a valuable meta-perspective and conceptual toolset will begin to emerge into the curious and open mind of the reader.  It then becomes a visual interface for playfully understanding, integrating, cross-fertilizing, and inter-harmonizing many aspects of human creative endeavor; from art, to science, to philosophy, and to mathematics.  This is its value and function, to integrate the fragmented forms of knowledge and conceptual endeavor through a perceptual “vision-logic” interface; a meta-paradigm, meta-system space.

This is indeed the deeper creative and evolutionary function of philosophy, because—as R. Buckminster Fuller (perhaps the foremost inventive, visionary, pioneer of the 20^th century) argued—in a world of increasing specialization, if no-one specializes in comprehensive generalization, then who is looking at the big picture?  In that case we are indeed “divided and conquered” by our own educational system which forces individual specialization into one narrow field of study in order to “have a career” and “make a living.”  Indeed, geniuses like Fuller often have to step entirely outside “the career,” and outside the educational system itself (Fuller was expelled from Harvard) to do just that, on behalf of humanity; to take a step back and get a good look at where we, as the whole of human-kind, are at and where we are heading—and most importantly evaluating where we could go if we could take stock of our options and get creative.

That, as well, is the function of meta-paradigm and meta-system explorations such as SpinbitZ.  To create and expand a system in which we can take a step back and begin to scientifically or rigorously compare, contrast, integrate, cross-fertilize and cross-catalyze more specialized systems themselves (such as science, philosophy and mathematics and their subsets), and ultimately to transcend-and-include the useful parts and let the not-so-useful parts fade away, or come to rest in the archive to be made use of later.

I found a repository of lectures by Deleuze which are very useful at an introductory level.

http://www.webdeleuze.com/php/sommaire.html



Enjoy!

Rough Notes on a Peristaltic, Vascular Communication and Transportation System for Planet Earth in the Nanotechnological Era

I recently fixed up and uploaded some old notes of mine exploring the mind-boggling possibilities opened up with a mature nanotechnological infrastructure.  Enjoy!

http://home.comcast.net/~spinbitz/Articles/SZ_Earth2.0.htm

From the introduction:

An active polymorphic, Utility-Fluid* nanotechnological substrate is loosely outlined which could be used to form a multi-scale object, matter/energy transportation, transformation sensor/effector system which could span the Earth, fill and extend the atmosphere and transform it into an active participant in near and sub-terrestrial events.  The Utility-Fluid system bears a behavioral macro-level resemblance to John Storrs Hall’s (JoSH) "utility fog," (see http://www.nanotech-now.com/utility-fog.htm) but the similarities between the two systems rapidly diminish at the unit level.  Rather, this system uses a "utility fluid" (UFL) model for its architecture as opposed to a gaseous or "utility fog" model, and it is possible that this would provide for a very different set of capabilities at the meso and macro levels.