Thursday, April 17, 2014

Part 5 -- How Humanity Saved the Biosphere. The Laws of the Time Continuum [The Necessity of Evolution].





To My Readers,



Below is the fifth part of my multi-part re-rendition, in this blog, of a rare, classic text, written by an anonymous collective author, one which -- very early-on, in the 1970s -- '''smelled a rat [smelled the 'Rocke-Nazi' rat -- in my opinion, the biggest, rottenest rat in all of human [pre-]history to-date -- the most rabid, the most massively "ambitious" mass torturers, and mass murderers, in all of human history, who make the bloody Vlad The Impaler pale to an infinitesimal in comparison] in the "Global Warming", "People Are Pollution" rap''', and circulated, in <<samizdat>> fashion, a rather comprehensive warning to humanity about this new "eu"-genocidal ploy, which remained scarcely-known until years later, when an updated version of this text became available on the world wide web.


The internet version of this text is entitled --

Crises by Nature:  How Humanity Saved the Biosphere   



For the Resumption of Humanity's Ascent, and, with it -- and by means of it -- the Regeneration of Our Planetary Biosphere,

M. Milankovitch












Crises by Nature
 How Humanity Saved The Biosphere

by
Capitalist Crisis Studies
[with modifications by M. Milankovitch]
Table of Contents









V - The Laws of the Time Continuum
(The Necessity of Evolution)


What we have in this sequence of supersessions, it seems to me, is evidence suggesting a ‘Law of the Necessity of Evolution’, pertaining to ‘process-entities’, such as planetary biospheres, which constitute significant subtotalities, self-distinguishing sub-unities, of the Cosmos. 

This conjectured law, characterizing what we might name the ‘Temporodynamics’ of such entities, can be formulated aphoristically as follows: ‘continuum is evolution’; ‘to continue is to evolve’; or ‘only that which evolves can continue’.  

Alternative formulations include: ‘Only that which becomes can be’, and, in a more Einsteinian vein: ‘Evolution is the necessary substance/content of the space-time continuum’.

Evolution, in this conjecture, is not ‘necessary’ in the sense of inevitable.  

It is only that, taking, for example, a biosphere, if it fails to evolve, it will rapidly lose its presence. 

It will be ‘left behind’ the present, in 'Langolier-like' 'lapsation' from any future-presents prescence/existence.

The occurrence of relative evolutive stagnation at, say, the species level would be taken as a signpost that the species is not the ‘sub-totality-of-reference’ for this law; that the necessity of evolution resides at the level of the larger whole, of which that species is but an organ, and also that this necessity rule refers to a time-scale appropriate for that larger whole.

All of these formulations hinge on the meaning assigned to the term ‘evolution’. 

Here ‘evolution’ means increase in the ‘density’ and ‘intensity’ of the organization of matter-energy. 

It means change toward increasing negentropy — taking into account that “negentropy” is a measure of the degree of organization, and the “information content”, of material organization. 

Designation of a universal unit of measure for this generalized energy concept called “negentropy” remains an unsolved problem. 

However, Chardin’s concept of ‘complexity’ in his “Law of Complexity-Consciousness” c44 provides a useful provisional yardstick, despite the quasi-atomistic tendency to presuppose “elements” as if self-evident and independent of their whole. 

This ‘Chardin-complexity’ value of a system is a composite measure of (1) the number of elements fused to form the system, and (2) the number of interconnections among those elements.
  

‘Evolution’ then refers to movement of systems in the direction of higher values of this ‘complexity’/degree of  organization/negentropy. 


Certainly a molecule, grasped as an ‘internalization’ of the atomic milieu; as a ‘(meta-)atom’ composed of atoms, has, ipso facto, a higher complexity-value than one of the atoms of which it is composed, since the make-up of the former is precisely a ‘connection’ of a multiplicity of the latter! 

Likewise cells — as ‘molecules of molecules’ or ‘[‘atoms of atoms’] of [‘atoms of atoms’]’ — would exceed both molecules and atoms in complexity-value. 

By the same argument, “multicellular” organisms exceed “unicellular” organisms — and societies exceed multicellular organisms — in complexity-value.

‘Evolution’, as defined here, corresponds to LaRouche’s “perfection” c45 (meant in the sense of an unending, unbounded process of ever more perfect-tion; not in that of an already attained, static condition of “perfect” being).

 

The idea behind this conjecture, stated loosely, is that of the impossibility of ‘standing still in time’.

The proposed law is a more specific version of that tenet which resides at the heart of dialectical thought and which expresses the dialectical sense of the essentially dynamic nature of reality. 

I mean the ‘constant change’ theorem --  ‘change is’; ‘only change is constant’, or ‘not-constancy is the only constant’  — the theorem about the ‘meta-constancy of in-constancy’. 


Asserted in the negative, this theorem becomes ‘(static) being isn’t’, or ‘this too shall pass away’. 

Its various formulations go back all the way to Herakleitos [ed: a.k.a. Heraclitus] at least, and no doubt before. 

Reading the Hegelian rendition of this basic dialectical tenet, we can readily notice that, throughout this report we have merely been exploring, for that particular “finite being” which is the planetary biosphere, the relation of self-termination and self-supersession which Hegel asserts to inhere in all “finite beings” whatever --
“When we say of things that they are finite, we mean thereby... that Not-being constitutes their nature and their Being.”

“Finite things are, but their relation to themselves is that they are related to themselves as something negative, and in this self-relation send themselves on beyond themselves and their Being.”

“They are, but the truth of this Being is their end.”

“The finite does not only change,... it perishes; and its perishing is not merely contingent, so that it could be without perishing.”

“It is rather the very being of finite things that they contain the seeds of perishing as their own Being-in-self, and the hour of their birth is the hour of their death.” c46


Each of the successive stages of the biosphere we have studied here rests upon an appropriation of a part of the non-biosphere, of the rest of Nature outside it, a part which is limited and exhaustible. 

Thereby, each of these stages lacks self-subsistence; is vulnerable, on one side, to using-up that ‘external’ basis of its reproduction and, on the other side, to an accumulation of results of its own operation which are also ‘outside’ its appropriation, unusable to it or even ‘toxic’ relative to it -- inimical to its continuation.

 Each stage is therefore self-negating. 

Each terminates its own operation after a definite span of that operation, as the overall result of that operation itself. 

Its self-reproduction passes continuously (‘continuum-1y’) into its self-destruction. 

Further continuity demands transformation, transcendance of that stage; qualitative change.

Only a new morphology, one no longer restricted to the old basis; one capable of utilizing, instead of being damaged by, the accumulated results of the old reproduction-process, and/or also capable of utilizing new, vaster reaches of the Nature outside of it, can provide [meta-]continuity. 

This continuum is thus a kind of ‘meta-continuity’, resulting from, and achieved in and through, qualitative discontinuity. 

That is, this new morphology, we conjecture, in each case, necessarily involves not just a shifting of basis — as from ‘atmosynthesized’ organic molecules, to CO2 + photons, to fossil fuels, to hydrogen or (heavy) water and Boron as fusion fuel — but an expansion of basis as well. 

Each successive crisis would then resolve itself by an expanded self-totalization of Nature, bringing a wider sphere of the Cosmos into richer connection with itself, through the agency of the ‘growth front’, or ‘meristem’, of cosmic evolution (locally, at least, this ‘meristem’ is Earth's biosphere).



This whole conception suggests an extension of the Einsteinian theory of General Relativity.

In that theory, the space-time continuum is deformed in the vicinity of concentrations of matter-energy to an extent proportional to the mass of the concentration. 

This deformation of the geometry (or better, to eliminate ‘geo’-centrism, of the ‘topometry’) of space manifests for us as accelerations in the spatial motion of objects in the vicinity of such concentrations, i.e., as the mysterious “force” of “gravitation”. 

The greater the mass, the sharper the associated bending or “curvature” of the space-time continuum, and the greater the corresponding accelerations and forces. 


But General Relativity can describe only the “mass” of the bodies and their spatial or ‘external’ motions (changes of relative position in physical space). 

The bodies appear for this theory only as featureless, ‘dimensionaless’, ‘inside-less’ mass-points, and as the "world-lines" into which those mass-points extend. 


But what about the internal organization of these bodies? 


Shouldn’t two bodies, of equal mass, but of different degrees of organization (negentropy), correspond to differing deformations of the total space-time continuum (since their behavior, their total “motion”, will be different)? c47 


The ‘total’ space-time continuum is the total (universal) field.  

If, as Einstein claims, the aim of field theory is “the description of objects existing in space, and the formulation of laws governing their changes in time” c48, how can this theory be considered adequate to itself — to its own definition — if it excludes “changes in time” other than mere changes of place, changes of location — changes of relative position, relative velocity, etc. 

That is, what about the ‘internal changes’ or ‘internal motions’ -- of self-reorganization -- of bodies; the kind of change or motion that constitutes their evolutionary “changes in time”? 



Further, doesn’t evolutionary change also exhibit acceleration? Evidently, it does. c49 



Certainly, if the transitions from “non-living” to living matter and from living matter to ‘conscious matter’ (us) are taken to represent equal evolutionary steps, equal jumps in negentropy, then tremendous acceleration is evident, the first transition having taken so much longer than the second (in our vicinity, at least).


In terms of the readily recognizable succession of levels of organization — namely atoms    molecules    cells    multicellulars    societies — there appears to have been even an accelerating acceleration in evolution, though the exact time-relations here are still very uncertain.

 

We might then attempt to refer the accelerated evolutionary ‘motion’ of concentrations of mass-energy — such as galaxies (wherein pre-atomic matter may have evolved), stars (wherein the higher atomic species are believed to have evolved), and planetary oceans, etc., to the ‘curvature’ of the space-time continuum associated with their degree of organization or negentropic level. 

That is, such a representation would homologize with the way in which General Relativity represents the accelerated spatial motion of bodies, by a curvature of the local space-time continuum associated with mass. 

In our proposed generalization, not just the “mass” of a body — a rough measure of part (1) of Chardin’s criteria of ‘complexity’; the “number of elements” — but also the degree of self-interconnection of that mass, the second part of ‘Chardin-complexity’, would operate on the structure of the field, or on the shape of the universal continuum.

Though space and time cannot be radically separated in this theory, we might for emphasis say that, while General Relativity connects spatial motion or ‘external motion’ to the curvature of especially the space-continuum, proportional to the local mass-energy magnitudes, this generalization would in addition connect ‘temporal motion’ or  ‘internal motion’ (evolution) to the curvature of especially the time-continuum, proportional to the local ‘complexity’, or negentropic, magnitudes. 

The more evolved the matter in a given vicinity, the more sharply curved the continuum, and the greater the associated ‘force’ and ‘acceleration’ of evolution. 

Hence, the observed continuing increase in the acceleration of evolution of a body in its own vicinity.

 
Represented in “force”, “acceleration” , and “velocity” terms, the mathematical modeling of the evolutionary movement might require a new generalization of the “vector” concept. 

Classically, vectors are conceived as “quantities” which have direction in space as well as [quantitative] magnitude. 

The vector of evolutionary force would, on the contrary, have its direction along time; ‘timeward’. 

A ‘chronector’, we might call it. 

Such ‘timeward vectors’, or ‘chronectors’, would be closely related to self-forces, describing self-activity, the action of self-development, and described by vectors pointing ‘selfward’, back at their sources:  self-reflexive vectors or ‘reflexors’.

 
Instead of as being merely ‘time-oriented’, i.e., of ‘pointing’ into a temporal dimension conceived as pre-existing, perhaps we should conceive ‘chronectors’ as being  ‘time-generating’. c50 


Once we supersede the concept of Newtonian “Absolute Time”, conceived as “flowing at a constant rate, unaffected by the speed or slowness of the motions of material things” c51, to arrive at the notion of the ‘Relativity of Time’, the need for such a modification becomes clear. 

In the Relative concept, Time is the product of material change, including ‘evolution’, and disappears without it. 

Time varies in its rate of “flow” locally, because local processes vary in their rates. 

Time can only be measured by comparison of the rhythms of change of different material processes.

Time is nothing but ‘change-in-general’. 

The “universal independent variable”, t, of mathematics is really but a representation of some other process, external to the process being "timed" by t — of a designated ‘clock-process’, such as one completed revolution of the Earth around its common center of gravity with the Sun, taken as a unit of time — against which the process at issue is being measured and to whose rhythms its rhythms are being compared.

This perspective on time points to a concept of ‘temporal acceleration’ linked to those of ‘evolutionary acceleration’ and ‘evolutionary [self-]force’. 



We leave off further investigation of the “Law of the Necessity of Evolution” or “Law of Evolutionary Space-Time Continuum” proposal at this stage, however, for its further ramifications would take us far afield. c52 

The foregoing is offered as a sketch of the possible broader implications of the ‘dynamic geometry’ we have uncovered in the special case of the evolution of the biosphere. 


The general conclusion of immediate practical import to be drawn from it is that only growth of the productive forces can save the planet — growth as instantiated in measures such as an international crash program to develop fusion power, and internationally-planned agricultural development of desert areas, irrigated via coastal, combined fusion fuel [e.g., “heavy water”] production, and desalinated-water production, plants, which are inherently also moments of a program-of-transition to world socialism as political-economic democracy [NOT as Stalinist/Leninist/Trotskyist/Maoist/Castroist, police-state/totalitarian state-bureaucratic-ruling-class state-capitalism]. 

This program is inherently a program-of-transition to world socialism as political-economic democracy since the high level of the general rate of profitability, vital to the capital-based economy, AND TO ITS PRESENT RULING PLUTOCRACY AS SUCH, could not survive, AS SUCH, given the vast write-offs of fixed capital-value, imposed by competition from fusion power, i.e., could not survive the competition-enforced ‘technological-obsolescence depreciation’ [‘technodepreciation’] of the fixed capital of the vast and predominant petroleum/other-fossil-fuels sector of capital [the present, globally-ruling “Dictatorship of Petroleum”]. 

They are therefore also so since the very advent of fusion power is therefore being fought to the death -- even at the cost of their planned murder of ~ 95% of the human race -- by the presently, globally-ruling Petroleum/Finance Plutocracy, the real authors of the "Eu"-genics, "People Are Pollution", Pro-Humanocide, "Zero [i.e., Negative] Population Growth", "Limits to Growth", "Zero [i.e. Negative] Economic Growth", "Small [i.e., Impoverished/Powerless/Starved-to-Death] is Beautiful", "Peak Oil", "Global Warming", "Global Climate Change", anti-science, anti-technology, "Animalist", "Earth-First-ist", Neo-Mystical ideologies that this global ruling class, of social parasites and of social pathogens ['pathocrats'], hopes [with considerable foundation in facts so far] to dupe the majority of humanity into acting against that majority's own interests, and into failing to act for its own interests, so as to facilitate, and acquiesce in, its own serial mass murder -- a series of Stealth Genocides, already "well" underway, until that plutocracy has the power to impose Open Humanocide globally.







TO BE CONTINUED.


 NEXT:    

Part 6 --  The Dialectic of Nature.






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