Tag Archives: physics

Light and Life (PDF)

[An extract from my next book–some speculations on energies]

Light and Life

The forms of nature are subtle and far ranging. When one moves from the lattice structure of a crystal or the dance of electrons in a superconductor to the coherent oscillations in the human brain, the distinction between animate and inanimate begins to become blurred. Indeed a particularly striking suggestion is that light itself may play a key role in living systems.

Light has a powerful mythic history in the creation of the world. In the Judeo-Christian religion light was a result of the first act of creation and, in this sense, everything that exists comes from light. Light fills the entire universe and there is not one region of space, however remote, that is not criss-crossed by complex patterns of electromagnetic radiation. Indeed, the random noise that can be picked up by a microwave dish facing an empty region of the sky is believed to be the actual radiation present at the Big Bang origin of the universe. The radiation that once filled the embryo universe is present everywhere and, as space expanded over billions of years, so this aboriginal radiation was stretched out into longer and longer wavelengths until it forms the hiss that can be picked up by a microwave dish today.

(Foot Note: However, I do not all together accept the Big Bang convention that the universe was created at a single instant in time. The discussion of the previous chapter suggests that there is no fundamental level or origin to the universe. The “Big bang radiation” may nonetheless be the residue of some spectacular event occurring within a particular range of energies and space-time.)

Even the smallest region of space is filled with radiation from the extremely low frequencies of the Big Bang remnants, through the range of radio waves, from visible light and into ultra violet, and so up to gamma rays of the highest energy. This radiation comes from stars, supernovas, quasars, the event horizon of black holes, and from the twisting magnetic fields that stretch across vast regions of empty space. Moreover all this light is carrying information–it conveys information about it origin, in a nuclear process deep within the heart of a star, or as matter hurtles into  a black hole. Every volume of space is alive with electromagnetic radiation and, therefore, packed with an immense amount of data about the whole universe.

Light is a highly efficient way of encoding and transmitting information. Think also of the large number of telephone calls, television programs and telecommunication channels that can be carried on a single beam of light along a fibre optic link. This light stretches to the limits of all space so that each tiny region of space contains an amount of information that far exceeds the memory capacity of all the largest supercomputers put together. Indeed, every time you look into the night sky some of this information enters your eye and then unfolds within the brain to give a picture of the universe of stars and galaxies.

Light is information and communication. But what is truly remarkable is the recent highly controversial idea that light may play a central role in all biological systems. One of the active workers in this field is Fritz-Albert Popp of the Institute of Biophysical Cell Research in Kaiserlautern, Germany who is also associated with the Centre for Frontier Studies at Temple University, Philadelphia. While his ideas are not accepted by all physicists they are certainly striking in their implications.

For many decades it had been speculated that electromagnetic fields are associated with living systems. But research in this field is extremely difficult to carry out, since for every good, well documented experiment there are many others that can never be duplicated. Nevertheless, a number of experimentalists have been looking at this proposed bio-radiation and have suggested that photons, quantum particles of light, are emitted from the DNA molecule.

DNA is the key molecule in the nucleus of every cell and now it seems that this same molecule may be giving off a very weak level of radiation–just a few photons at a time. Experimentalists who have investigated the nature of this radiation believe that it is coherent, just like laser light only enormously weaker in its intensity. A biological molecule, DNA, seems to be acting like a laser and producing collective vibrations in an electromagnetic field.

If this is eventually confirmed to everyone’s satisfaction the question must be raised as to why. Nature does not normally do things without a reason. Why should the central molecule of life be emitting a very weak form of laser light? What could be its purpose?

An immediate answer is communication. Admittedly it is just a conjecture but one that scientists like Popp are willing to make. Suppose that DNA is using electromagnetic radiation, coherent light, to communicate inside the cell. Light can penetrate across the cell and is ideally suited for transmitting information. could it be that the cell uses a two level communication system–slower speed communication via conventional molecular processes that take place around the DNA molecule and a much higher speed communication within the whole cell using coherent light?

Scientists are also looking at coherent radiation from individual cells. The idea is that the entire organism may be swimming in a “living”, vibrating electromagnetic field. It may turn out, for example, that coherent light is being used as a communication system throughout the whole plant or animal–between DNA and the cell, between cell and cell and between organ and organ. The entire organism may therefore be a complex flow of information in which each cell and organ is responding to a constant flux of electromagnetic messages.

A living being would be a complex communications system in which coherent light ties together all its activities of metabolism and change. The very coherence of light would therefore be acting to preserve an even greater coherence–that of a living, changing organism. In this sense, light is active information. It is a global and active information that stretches across the cell, indeed the whole organism, and coordinates its efforts.

Individual animals may even be able to communicate with each other using electromagnetic radiation, just as do cells in a body. Indeed, one may ask if information, in the form of the coherent dance of fields of light, is the essence of all life and the way that complex living systems coordinate themselves?

At this point some readers may feel uneasy, for the idea of a complex flux of electromagnetic radiation which controls the activities of an organism begins to sound like a “life force”. The idea of such a field of information has echos of an elan vital, or of an aura of energy which surrounds the organism and is supposed to indicate its state of health. But in fact this is just what several scientists are indeed claiming–that the radiation given out by healthy cells is quite different from that given out by those that are sick or dying!

Could it be that health is an active flow of information within the body while sickness is a breakdown in that flow–an impoverishment of information? The ever changing flux information carried in within the electromagnetic fields and in the complex interlocking of a wide variety of chemical reactions must so subtle that, to an external observer, its very complexity may almost appear as chaotic. Indeed, it is very difficult to distinguish between chaos and a flux of ever changing complexity. So, when sickness occurs the overall coherence of these complex and subtle field of information will begin to break down until all that is left will be the various individual processes–a simple ticking over of the machinery as it were. This could explain why scientists discover what looks like chaotic behaviour within the heart or brain is characteristic of health, while simple regular heart beats, for example, presage a heart attack.

This idea that living systems are sustained by highly complex fields of cooperative information may characterize not only living organisms but entire ecosystems, societies and indeed of the whole planet. Life is always fluctuating and exploring, while simple oscillations are more characteristic of machine and dead matter. Simple stability spells death while vitality lies in the ability to support a complex and subtle pattern of global fluctuations. An ever flowing, ever changing pattern of meaning becomes life itself and the boundary between the animate and the inanimate begins to dissolve.

The whole field of electromagnetic bio-information is controversial but it is nevertheless engendering some interesting research and raising a variety of significant questions. Is it possible, for example, for an organism to gather electromagnetic information about the environment and then feed it back into itself? If this is true then an electromagnetic sense must be added to those others of sight, sound, touch, taste and smell. Indeed there is already considerable evidence that many animals use electromagnetic sensors to help them navigate.

The surface of the earth is alive with electromagnetic signals. In addition to the magnetic field of the earth there is the radiation from the sun that falls on the earth and its upper atmosphere. There are slow oscillations in which the electromagnetic field of the whole earth vibrates at a frequency of between seven and eight times every second. There are also waves of the activity high in the ionosphere and magnetosphere whose effects are ultimately felt on the surface of the earth. Indeed, the whole earth is a vast and complex sea of radiation whose strength and pattern varies very subtly from place to place, for the information encoded in each location is affected by the chemical composition of nearby rocks, by minerals, underground streams and surface water. This radiation pattern is also modulated by the daily fluctuations of the earth’s weather.

So within any tiny portion of the earth’s surface there is encoded a vast reservoir of electromagnetic information, not only concerning the global state of the earth but also the details about the particular local area. As a bird flies through the air, an animal moves across the surface of the earth, or a fish swims in the oceans, so it may be picking up and responding to a sea of electromagnetic information that is far more complex than that in any radar signal or radio broadcast. Moreover, the organism may even be picking up the faint electromagnetic signals and modulations given by its prey or other members of its pack. It is quite possible that some of this vast reservoir of information is decoded by the animal so that direct information about its surroundings is constantly being received.

But electromagnetic information is only one of several possibilities for a vast ocean of information carried through sound. For a small mammal this sea of sounds paints a detailed picture of all the transient patterns of life and movement within the immediate environment. An animal not only responds through the ears to what is “heard” but possibly at the cellular level to high frequency vibrations and to low frequencies that cause the whole organism to oscillate in sympathy. The animal will be aware of the way its own sounds are reflected back and transformed by the environment. It will constantly be interpreting the complex symphony of bird song, insect sound and animal cries. When it comes to whales and dolphins this matrix of vibrational information may extend throughout the ocean for several hundred miles. And add to all this a sea of smells which, to a dog, can produce a vivid impression of the world around. Every living being is immersed in a rich, subtle and multilevel ocean of information.

DNA: A listening molecule

If DNA is responsible for sending coherent photons into the cell then is it also possible for this radiation to be modulated and bounced back from the environment where it is detected by the same molecule? Could it be that DNA can actually “listen” to the environment around it?

The DNA molecule is a vast repository of information, indeed it contains the whole history of the cell’s ancestors and evolution. This information is then expressed by directing, in exactly the right time sequence, the synthesis of various proteins which become involved in, depending on their nature, growth, regular metabolism, or repair. DNA is therefore pictures as the chairperson of the board, the active principle at the top of the hierarchy.

But there are difficulties connected with such a one way flow of instructions. For how precisely is the correct information selected at just the right moment for its expression? If the cell turns out a particular protein too late or too soon then it will disrupt its whole metabolism. Moreover, only a very small percentage of all the information stored in DNA appears ever to be used. What is the function of the rest, those silent areas of DNA? Do they simply contained garbled messages and discarded information from far back in the cell’s evolutionary history? Or could they have the potential to exercise a useful function?

Suppose that DNA could actually listen and respond to the world around it. Suppose that a cell operates in a democratic fashion so that DNA becomes a venerated elder statesperson rather than a dictator. DNA would be like a giant set of reference books on metabolism and the synthesis of various proteins. And, as with a reference book, the actual information that is selected would depend upon a wider context–on the whole cell and on the organism of which it is a part, even perhaps on the external environment.

The electromagnetic dance within the cell carries the data on the ever changing context of the world outside and could play a role in selecting specific information from DNA. In this way, the genetic code would then be part of a much greater language, the conversation of the whole organism, a conversation that even extends far out into the environment. The DNA molecule itself would be constantly informed about its wider surroundings and, in turn, certain of its “hidden information” could, for example, be made active. It is even possible that the whole cell could act in an intelligent way and cause modifications within its own DNA. In other words, a mutation of the organism would be the cooperative response to some overall change in the global context in which the cell lives, rather than a purely random and purposeless event. Evolution would become a cooperative process, the outcome of a constant dialogue between other lifeforms and their entire environment.

The idea that life is a complex dance of meaning and information lead to yet other speculations. One idea that at first sight looks completely crazy, yet has been seriously proposed, is that food may contain not only nutrients but also information! When a  predator hunts its prey, so this theory goes, it is not just seeking a source of protein but a source of information. In consuming its prey it is ingesting a complex structure of information. In this way, information is passed between species.

While this idea sounds pretty far out it is not too distant from that held by many indigenous peoples who view food a nourishing the whole of a person and not just the physical body. To the hunters of North America, caribu and buffalo is “good medicine” and a person thrives by taking its meat, for it does more than supply bodily energy. According to this view, food acts to feed a person at many levels, so that certain foods that happen to be high in protein could in other ways be “bad medicine”. Likewise, a Chinese shaman will perform an act of divination using the bone of a sheep or goat. The animal eats only of pure grass and drinks of pure water, the shaman says, therefore the “universal” will be strong within the bone so that it can hear and see.

Could it be that this “universal” of Chinese tradition is in fact active information and global meaning? Is the web of life, the dance of predator and prey, one great ballet of ever changing information? And is evolution the intelligent and continued development of this symphony of meaning? Indeed if the individual organism is viewed as the manifestation of coherence and information then the whole history and pattern of life’s unfolding on earth must be seen in the same way. Synchronicities now become just one more aspect of this greater dane of meaningful patterns.

By introducing information as a key player we also see how the division between life and the inanimate has begun to dissolve. We realize that all coherent systems can never be fully reduced to interacting components, for they are responding to a collective dance, a dance which represents the essential authenticity of that particular level of being.

Power and Love Principle in Social Organization (PDF)

Oct. 26, 87.

Dear Pam

Enclosed is a report of what I have been doing.

Yours

Sam

There are some physics in this, if you’re interested.

POWER AND LOVE PRINCIPLE IN SOCIAL ORGANIZATION

A Paper to be presented to CPREA, Ottawa

June 1, 1982. Session VIII.

S. Kounosu

Department of Physics

The University of Lethbridge

Lethbridge, Alberta

Abstract:

Social organizations require the co-operation of their

constituents. One way to secure the co-operation is coercion by

Power of various forms. Newtonian Physics provides a paradigm of

the Power way of system constructions. It is a “forced” relation

among constituents. Another way to achieve co-operation is

through Love. Both ways are as old and basic as Life phenomena,

and one can observe them even in ecological systems. However, the

dynamics of Love are not well understood. In view of the high

energy cost of maintaining power-system structures, this

underdeveloped state of Science of Love is of a grave concern.

This paper is written as a plea for serious considerations and

developments in social dynamics of Love. Implications to

International Peace are discussed.

Power and Love Principles in Social Organization.

1. Power Principle and its Newtonian Metaphor.

It is almost a tautology to say that a social organization requires

the co-operation of its constituents. For without some ways of maintaining a

practical degree of coherence in their interactions, a collection of

individuals can hardly be called “social”. And we expect some mechanisms for

“organization” to sustain functional structures and appearance of a constant

order to claim its identity. Although a collection of atoms (individuals)

like the “ideal gas” of statistical mechanics may be discerned as a

paradigmatic metaphor behind some social theories such as the social

contract theory and the equilibrium economics, society is not a collection

of randomly acting independent individuals.

To keep an order, which may well be even nominal, the society has to

plead, guide, persuade, manipulate, coerce, force or eliminate unwilling or

misbehaving members within. Order costs effort and energy—as is the case

for Entropy cost for mechanical systems, and we have power structures to

carry out the task. If we call the way of organizing our society

“civilized”, then it is distinguished by its high energy cost before its

merits are listed. Our education system is a part of the power structures as

such. If the internalization of the social order is not, sufficient, it is

followed by the penal system. We rely on the “adversary system” to bring out

the best of our justice. The process of justice is at a sublimated level,

but its metaphor is like boxing and its final outcome is at the hands of the

sovereign authority which is the apex of the power structures and has the

right to kill humans. We note that we have never denied the power of the

sovereignty to declare nuclear war and annihilate the human race.

In terms of economy, we have a system of distributing unequal rewards

among us. This has been justified by a hope that competitions for higher

rewards stimulate higher performances and result in a net gain of economy

overriding the cost of the reward system. The competitions are not just for

possession of more material things, but more intensely for controlling

power. To enjoy a high level of consumption is one thing, but to accumulate

“Capital” is quite another thing. We enjoy our high level of consumption and

we are proud of it, if not identifying ourselves with it. However, the

consumption has to be sustained by the capital (means of production) which

is not merely machines and factories but also control of human labor. The

term “accumulation” may not be appropriate for the human-social side of the

Capital as such, but it had to be built with accumulative energy input. And

the distribution consumption side of the economy had to be controlled so

that the construction-accumulation of the production side goes on. Unequal

distribution of reward or “competition” is a technology developed to achieve

the accumulation and maintenance of the power structure.

The unequal distribution of rewards also act as a deterrent to those who are

unwilling or are incompetent players of the game. The threat to livelihood

is a sublimated form, but it is a threat to life and violence. But, since

economic inequality relates and simulates political power structure and what

is conceived as “civil order”, the violence is condoned as a legitimate

exercise of power.

In terms of our inner thoughts or intelligence, we regard that which

is successful in climbing up the ladder of the power structures to be the

high quality one. And we try to attain it, or rather we think we ought to

attain it. Our education system supposedly helps everyone with this ideal,

but the “success” is only relative to failures, like in the “Zero Sum Game”,

and the system only intensifies the adversary competitions. The school

system often acts as a “filtering system” by which “inferiors” are labeled

and it prepares them for inequality that they are likely to face. Freud went

so far as to say that civilization is an illusion. Illusion is distinguished

from “delusions” of the “mentally ill” in that “illusion” is good for the

economy whereas “delusions” are useless, if not damaging. According to

Freud, I imagine, the “Reality” is an illusion which the controlling power

of the economy takes as a set of reference points for its operations. We

assume that the power has the right to “cure” those who have difficulties in

accepting the “Reality”.

In summary, the power is regarded as necessary and an ideal, if not

“the only”, means around which any society has to construct itself. I call

this the “Power Principle”. The power principle says if one desires

anything, apply “force”. If one has a problem, apply “force”. Might is the

answer to all. Thus, human relations are imaged as motions of objects that

have to be forced, and therefore the “intelligent” and “realistic” way of

dealing with them is to apply “force” as Newtonian physics suggests. The

ultimate expression of the power principle is Nuclear War. Chemical,

Biological weapons are relatively easy to prohibit, but Nuclear weapons,

since it represents the power principle of our civi1ization, cannot be

banned easily unless we change the fundamental image-metaphor of how we live

The terms like “force”, “energy”, “power” are terms of Newtonian

physics. I shall not argue whether our ways of social organization are

influenced by image and language of physics, or physics as such is merely

one expression of our ways of organizing. According to L. Mumford (The Myth

of the Machine), machines are modeled after political structures which

existed long before the modern science and technology appeared.

Mumford’s argument is convincing, particularly with respect to the

popular image as a metaphor or paradigm of what machines are; perhaps

physics is a refined expression of a popular paradigm, or even merely a

refined language organization. Terms of physics are borrowed from existing

language. And without the acceptance and support of society, even with mis-
interpretations of popular understanding, science would not have developed.

In the age of specialization and professionalism, popular image-metaphors of

“science” may not coincide with what “science” is doing for (and to) them.

But there has to be a shared

paradigm which makes up a positive feedback loop.

On the other hand, however, it is doubtful if modern society could

have developed in the way it has without the patterns of thought emerging

along with the modern science. The Bourgeois Ideals, the Capitalism, and the

Central Government System appeared along with the Science and development at

roughly the same accelerated pace. And their “take off point” may be traced

to about Galileo’s time.

To be sure, ideals or ideas expressed may not correlate with practice.

At least, time lags are noticeable. I imagine that the image of “machine”,

which may be very o1d as Mumford suggested, could not come into social

practice until some means of converting fossil energy into some forms

similar to human labor were developed. That requires developments in

science, so that the “idea” can be connected to “know-how”. That is, the

idea or image has to be refined. And the idea has to win the support and

cooperation of the society. Willingly or unwillingly, knowingly or

unknowingly, our ancestors made the investments into the development of this

civilization which had a long lead time.

As economists commonly point out, developments as such are slow —

i.e. with time lags — at least at the initial stages. Society supports the

necessary investment for a long time only on a basis of vague notions of

what would come out of the process. It had nothing more than metaphor to go

on. And unless the whole circle of the inter-related developments

constituted a “Positive Feedback Loop”, the system would not have “taken

Galileo needed the accumulated wealth of Italian textile merchants

like the Medici family or the cultural affluence, confidence, and interest

in science such wealth provided. Contradictions and resistances were there,

like the “friction” of Newtonian mechanics. But as a whole, the positive

feedback loop was formed and set into motion.

And the history of the past 400 years of European style development,

which now includes North and South America and some Asian countries, is very

impressive. There we find the roots of our faith in “science” or

“rationality”. Right or wrong, the history so perceived provides the

metaphoric foundation for what terms like “science” and “rationality” mean.

It is not that non-European societies did not have some notion of

“Force”, but the notion of Force even in Newtonian mechanics is rather

static. “Power” as “rate of flow of energy per unit time” is a dynamic

notion. Admittedly it is only a slightly different semantic variation in

terminology, and even physicists today may not make the distinction in

colloquial usages of the term, but the fact that “power” in mechanics

provides a distinction is an indication of a linguistic development and a

corresponding shift in metaphor.

Physics may be nothing more than a linguistic system of model

(metaphor)- making and rules of language for efficient communication. Or one

might say physics is an art of “saying things”

like rhetoric. But “saying things” in certain ways have far-reaching

consequences. Relativity and Quantum Mechanics are the prime example of how

important it is to have a certain way of “saying things”. I cannot tell

whether notions, ideas, metaphors, images come first and generate language

appropriate for them, or language forms come first and generate ideas. I

imagine they are also in the “feedback loop”-relations, if not in a “vicious

If so, it is vain to attempt to “explain” the relations in terms of

the linear mechanics of the “Cause-Effect” rhetoric. We need the language of

“system-dynamics” to describe such relations. Unfortunately, we are in a

process of developing such a language and, at the moment, we are not able to

give an appropriate description of the loop structure that can be accepted

as an “explanation” on a social scale.

At the moment, the best practical language at the social scale is that

of Newtonian mechanics. And within this language, or the metaphors it

provides, only the “power” makes sense. People may not have formal training

in the mechanics, nor are they necessarily conscious of the mechanics

implied by their saying and thinking. But social practices are guided by

languages of the society.

But to the extent we do have to communicate for social life, economic

activities, political commotions, and to the extent that we may be able to

change our languages with less energy than changing social practices, there

is hope to break the vicious circle. Our “thoughts” may be nothing more than

the “Form” in language, as Plato seems to have suggested — that is, we

start our “thoughts” from expressions in a language and we end our thoughts

in some expressions in a language—, but we note that language also

And to the extent Newtonian language and metaphors of Power were

important in the Western history, we can hope to make some input for the

future by generating or, more modestly, by stimulating development of the

physics of Love (Language of love). We note that even Newtonian mechanics

taught us about time lags. If one tries ordinary statistical analysis, the

“force” and “motion” do not correlate at all. This is because “force” is a

term in the second order time derivative. As a number of objects or entities

in dynamical description increases, the leading term in the description of

the system as a whole gets to be higher and higher in the order of time

derivative. That means the effects of the “higher order forces” would

manifest in longer time lags. We should not be impatient, according to

Newtonian Theory.

Of course, we need not believe in Newtonian mechanics. Personally, I

am very critical of it. But as a learning process, one could follow the

mechanics to a point. After all, Newtonian mechanics is the best we

developed so far, even though a few flaws are known.

In a way, all of our descriptions, intellectualizations and

theorizations are not only linguistic models but also simplifications. Our

brain may handle a huge amount of information, but in terms of our

“intellect”, we can only handle a few terms at a time. Social

complexities are beyond our mechanics, unless we appeal to metaphorical

imaginations. In this, Newton already introduced terms like “force” which is

a “ghost term” as E. Mach, Albert Einstein et al pointed out. Yet the “ghost

terms” are the essential ones in the system of “saying things”. The western

history attests to the importance of the “ghosts”. By this I am saying that

terms like “Love” need not be “unscientific” and “irrational”, any more than

“force” and “power” were.

Mach rejected the term “atom”, saying it is a “ghost”. He was correct

in saying so, as the Elementary Particle physics later came to the same

view. But for the Elementary Particle physics to develop and vindicate Mach,

it was necessary to “believe in the “atom” and search for it until then.

Mach was wrong in the development strategy. Mistaken ideas are often a more

useful means of learning than the correct one, for if we have the correct

answer, we have no motivation to learn any further. At least this is my

excuse to dare introduce a “dynamics of Love” as a heuristic device for

I imagine there is a need for studying the Power Principle much deeper

than I outlined above. There are criticisms by social scientists against

“physics” —society, social phenomena are not simple like planetary motion,

obviously, but the “Scientism” in social studies is far more powerful than

the critics appear to estimate. And the basic metaphor of “science” is the

Newtonian Mechanics. If it is difficult to get out of the metaphor, then

second best would be to know what the metaphor is. Perhaps soul searching in

Newtonian mechanics may be the way to overcome the myth. As Zen and

Motorcycle Maintenance tells us, one needs to perform a Proper burial ritual

to go beyond Newton.

However, in order to give some sense of direction to the search, I

would like to present my speculations on the dynamics of love and discuss a

few implications. If my story is of some interest, then I shall come back to

Newtonian mechanics in detail. I think “history” is like “dream

interpretation”, which would be of no interest unless it suggests future

possibilities, if not hope or even “prophecy”. For that matter, knowing

“what is of fact” is of no consequence unless it relates to “What shall be”

(T.S. Elliot). If you find “prophecy” objectionable, then replace the word

with “prediction”. The latter sounds “scientific”, but I would not know the

difference, except for the false pretense the latter semantic carries.

2. Love Principle

—why and how to talk of it—

Love may be everywhere. And there may be many kinds of love. But, in

comparison with the rather elaborate vocabulary for Power Mechanics, we have

only poorly developed means of describing love phenomena. The unbalanced

development of our language concerning Power and Love reflects our sense of

value, priorities, and different sensitivities about the two.

In addition, our “scientific” or “intellectual” vocabulary is

dominated by nouns and visual senses — of objects named and metaphors or

images derived thereof. But in the context of discussing “love” on a social

scale, “love” is more like a verb. It could be replaced by “loving”, but in

the sense we say “rain” for “it rains”, I have retained the simpler form.

I intend here to use the term “love” as a dynamical term. It is not

referenced to a thing or object, not even to an “essence” of platonic

atomism. It needs no object(-ive) “existence”. We recall that terms like

“point” and “line” in geometry need no objective existence, and their visual

images and metaphors are more or less arbitrary choices in subjective

interpretations or “animations”. Terms like “force”, “energy”, “entropy”,

are also of this kind. Some physicists like P. Bridgman even insist that

“electron” is not an object as it might be suggested by its noun name, but

an operational term referring to a set of “doing things” and “measuring-
detection” procedures-processes. “Electrons” is understood as “it

electrons”, in the sense we say “rain” for “it rains”.

Thus the “love” here needs not to have an object(-ive) existence like

vitamins or hormones that can be crystallized in a test tube. It needs not

to be seen in a genetic code under an electron microscope. Somehow it could

be sensed by body sensations, but needs not to have any visual sensation or

perception. Hollywood movies might give us visual images of “love”, but that

is not the kind I shall talk about here. I think visual images, models and

metaphors are helpful to us, and I intend to give several of them. However,

they do not constitute complete pictures of “love”.

My intention here is to start discussions on love by rather “heartless

descriptions” of the “social engineering of love”. It is only a small part

and suggested as a starting point of learning processes. If this paper is

taken by the readers as something like “Soft Technology”, I shall be well

satisfied. As it will soon become evident, even this limited treatment is

difficult enough for me. I am sure that there are many people who know Love

better than I do. And they might point out that my difficulty is due

precisely to such a “heartless” attitude of “system engineering” which is

necessarily limited in scope. Love, by its fundamental nature, has to

encompass everything of life and environment, as they might say. I am aware

of what E. Fromm and H. Marcuse said about love-eros. Their works are indeed

impressive and perhaps there is nothing to add to them. But I

detect a Platonic Atomism in their rhetoric and attempt a dynamic approach

as an alternative here. Like many geometries, alternative approaches need

not inherently be better or worse. Thus I shall try a typical simplification

of physical science here.

For a start I shall try “love” to be any tendency of interaction to

form cooperations. Symbiosis, herd instinct, collective behavior of magnetic

materials, emergence of quasi-stable structure out of random motions, or

even “anti-entropy” may be taken as a metaphor for love at this level of

“Love” as collective behavior of many-body dynamics can be discerned

among soldiers at battle fronts. The huge organization of war effort cannot

be maintained without the “love” of millions of people. Nuclear weapons

could not have been produced without the cooperation and support of many

people. Therefore, one could say that Nuclear Holocaust, if it comes, is a

product of “love”. If people did not accept, obey, and feel good about

identifying themselves with their hero-leader, the Holocaust of the

concentration camps could not have been possible. Without supportive wives

at home, men at work for Capitalism would have become monks and probably

become extinct in a few generations. As for “behind every successful man

there is a woman”, we would say “behind every successful social institution

and development, there is love”. The state of “living together” constitutes

at least “circumstantial evidence of “love” in this broad sense.

The crudeness of the above examples is purposely made to minimize the

image of “nice and sweet love”. “Love” can be nice and sweet, but it need

not be so, and the primary interest here is on the social phenomena-dynamics

of love, not on the romantic aspects of love. Love on a social scale can be

just as infatuating as that of Romeo and Juliet, though it may not

necessarily be “romantic”.

But it is more important to look at the “low-intensity” types with

longer time-scales, like the toil of mothers looking after their offspring.

This type is rather like a “daily routine”, always present and forever

caring, if one takes notice. Even within the Power-centered civilizations,

people do live together, accepting, accommodating, sympathizing,

understanding, communicating, and taking care of the unrewarding “minor

details” of life.

In this connection, it is interesting to note that the experimental

and empirical ways of science (knowing) introduced by Galileo are deviations

from the Greek tradition and closer to Love in that they require enormous

care of minute details of interaction with the environment. But in the

abstract theoretical expressions, they are acknowledged only as supporters.

In practice, the means actually defines what science is. But the end claims

the glory. It is the way we present and image our “knowledge”.

Power cannot exist without Love. Just like the “Macho” or “Man-God”

image, the power takes, or rather needs, all the credit, rewards, and public

appearances, and it can not get enough, whereas Love is content with the

invisible, unrecognized, unrewarding supporter’s position. Power gets its

energy from exploiting Love.

Love has to do with “quality of means, process”, not the “end”,

“purpose”, “intent”. Love is not an “answer” or something that one achieves,

like when heroes finally win over the monsters. It is not “value” or

“evaluation”. It does not look for “what”, but rather is concerned with

“how”. It is the opposite of “intellectualization” and “rationalization”. It

is close to randomness accidents, particulars, that our intellect tends to

look down on with contempt. Sweeping generalizations of our intellectual

expressions are impressive. I fantasize that “Love” adores that, but the

sweeping generalizations have to come from the nitty-gritties of particulars

and have to go back to the chaos of life experiences. The image of love here

is dangerously similar to that of the one who stays pregnant, cooks, cleans,

and cares for everything that comes along in random chances. Unfortunately,

that has to be done if our life process is to continue. The only way out is

to give recognition to the love as such, and for everybody to share the

burden. If we are to replace the love with the power-way of doing things,

the energy costs of the necessary tasks would be forbidding.

Engineers know that any mechanical system has to have plays and

tolerance. The system also needs “lubricants”. One cannot control systems

beyond a certain scale with dogmatic order, even though the metaphor of

intellectual description may be “deterministic”. Machines are not. In cases

like Nuclear Power plants, one can conceive safety devices upon safety

devices, but the probability of failure increases if too many safety

controls are build into the system, for safety devices could also fail. That

is, even a mechanical system, if practical, does not operate on the Power

Principle a1one. It needs something analogous to what we shall call Love. I

attempt here to decipher Love Principle from such engineering principles. I

acknowledge my image of Love is not necessarily a popular one. And I am even

afraid that I am degrading love by pulling it down to the engineering level

of discussions. But I am not saying this is all there is about love. It is

only a small part, or a starting heuristic metaphor. I hope our learning

about love is limitless. And I think this way of “knowing” love is tolerated

by the Love principle.

This is analogous to what physicists and mathematicians do to “Non-
linearity”. The “non-linear” simply means situations for which linear theory

description fails. The linear theories and descriptions are simpler and one

can have sweeping generalities, provided linearizations are good

approximations. In fact, in linear descriptions, one rarely needs to be

conscious of the “approximateness” of the description. Tolerance is

automatically assured in the structure of the descriptions themselves. If

the description fails to accommodate tolerance and cannot maintain

stability, the axiom of the linear language automatically rejects such cases

to be outside the universe of the discourses.

Of course, we encounter difficulties. We cannot manage everything by

the linear way of describing and thus knowing things and situations. But our

sciences have developed only as simplification by linearization, thus

whatever we excluded is called “unscientific”. Today, we have a rise of

interests in non-linear phenomena and the prejudice is diminishing. However,

the simplifications strategy of scientific knowing has to be maintained.

This is partly because the intellectual part of our brain cannot handle

complexity. And if “science” is to be useful socially, it has to be

reachable by anybody who is patient enough to follow the rules. The practice

may deviate from equality, say in professionalism, or elitism that thrives

on the monopoly of “scientific expertise”, But even Professionalism has to

claim the universality of science to justify the power of the monopoly

position. And if professionals have theories at all, the theories are based

on simplifications that they can understand.

Interestingly, however, the recent rise in interest for complexity

came about because of computer developments, which can be understood as a

part of the development of our language skills. We can now delegate “simple

routines” to computers and afford to think and talk about complexities. Or

it may be a sign that we have come to realize that we humans cannot compete

with machines In doing simplified routines. If human existence is to be

rationalized, then the image of “rationality” based on simplification cannot

be maintained any longer.

Ironically, our “intellectual basis” is now threatened by the machines

our intellect has created.

Francis Bacon warned about the “cheapening” of intelligence by the

science that was rising in his time. But “science” as such has a historical

role to play. It did prepare the next stage of evolution. Just as Marx was

wrong in predicting the fall of Capitalism within his time, prediction of

the fall of “science” may well be wrong. But no social structure we know of

stayed constant. The vicious circle dynamics supporting such structures may

be stable, but as much as the structures are manifestations of dynamics,

they can only be quasi-stable, that is ephemeral”. Physicists today think

that even the Proton, the fundamental substance of all material existence,

may decay, as much as the Proton is dynamical. And the Greek idea that Order

has to be an eternal constant and therefore “knowledge” has to be eternal,

is slowly fading in our science.

And an idea, metaphor or paradigm that we are describing relatively

fast changes in references to relatively slow quasi-stable structures — a

Buddhist mandala — is gaining popularity. This is a generalization of

Relativity and, perhaps, abhorred by those who like to entertain the feeling

of security in constancy. But as Galileo said, the Earth moves. To say it is

another simplification is vain, if the intent is to defend the old myth. The

paradigm of science already starts shifting.

Here I rather like to exploit the paradigmatic (metaphysical-
metaphorical) nature of our intellectualization (science) to propose and

encourage the dynamical ways of thinking and

talking. Love may not be a suitable subject for this infantile stage of

dynamical language to talk of, in that it can describe love only in contrast

to the Power that the previous language of mechanics talked of. But that

hopefully becomes a translational bridge of two languages or a part of the

transition between the two.

3. TOWARD DYNAMICS OF LOVE.

If we are to extend Newtonian mechanics to describe Love phenomena, it is

perhaps possible to represent some features of Love in higher order terms in

time derivative.

“Force” in the Newtonian language is a term in the second order derivative.

“Power” is “the rate of Energy flow per unit time” and thus it is also a

term in the second order.

One notes that the effect of a “Force” is not immediately visible. It takes

a certain time-lag before we can see the effect of a “Force” in changes of

positions. If one is to take a statistical correlation analysis between a

“Force” and “change of position”, one would not find any relation, let alone

“Causality”. Of course one can take a correlation analysis between “mass

times acceleration and “Force”. The correlation would then be perfect

because the two terms are identical by definition. Since it is a tautology,

it would be vain to hope for discovery of “Causality” in mechanics by

statistical analysis. Social scientists are warned here that Newtonian sense

of mechanics cannot be arrived at by statistical analysis. As to “Cause”,

Newton himself declared that he is not explaining the “cause”, but merely

describing how things move”. In essence “Force” is a ghost term invented for

convenience of description. In Newtonian language then, “Love” would be

another ghost term representing a certain quality referring to the “how” of

motion. If such a term achieves some efficiency of description and thereby

assists us in our competence to communicate, then the term is amply

One of the features of Love as a higher order term is obvious, without any

further specification at all. Love as such is not visible in motion (change

of state) directly. It would take rather a long time before its effects

emerge. In short time scale measurements, Love would not manifest. It may be

that we have to wait a long tine in the evolutionary time scale to see what

Newtonian mechanics deem that the universe of discourse is complete within a

linguistic space of the zero-th and first-order terms — positions and

velocity. For this reason it does not require having any higher order terms

than the second to talk of dynamical situations. However, if one is to talk

of many-body situations – any more than two –. the system of description

consisting of the zero-th first and second order terms in effect make up

higher order description.

In Newtonian mechanics, a situation with N bodies with 3 degrees of freedom

for each can be described in a system, of 6N first order equations. If the

equations do not contain “crosstalks” of terms, each equation can be solved

as if it is for a single body in vacuum. In general this cannot be done. The

“crosstalks” are representations of interactions. In some fortuitous cases,

we can find “collective” motions which are waves extending over many bodies,

but equivalent of individual motions. And even in such cases, the over-all

system itself can only be represented if we desire to talk of the system as

an entity like “society” – by a 6N-th order equation.

A love phenomenon between two people, treated in mechanics as one between

two atomic individuals with only one degree of freedom is already complex

enough that it requires 4-th order equation.

We do not like higher order equations, for we are usually incompetent. So if

possible at all, we like to treat things 1n the first order, or at most in

the second order. That is, atomistic and individualistic talks and thoughts

are simpler. The ordinary practices of Newtonian mechanics, thus, are

limited in lower order treatments. And the wide practice generated a habit,

if not a prejudice, that if someone is to talk in higher order terms, we do

not fear it is “scientific” alone comprehending it.

Ordinary undergraduate texts in physics do not mention “Three-body

Problems”. Intellectuals educated in such limited mechanics become social

scientists who might entertain an idea that to emulate such mechanics is

science, if not “knowing” in general. Despite most people being aware of co-
operative dynamics and Love, talks on such subjects are consequently

regarded as “unscientific”, if not “irrational”, “sentimental”, etc. But the

trouble is not with Love. It is in our incompetence in talking and thinking

I am not saying learning of higher order equations and many-body mechanics

would make us competent in Love affairs. After all, mechanics can only do

certain limited things. Not all features of Love phenomena can be understood

in mechanics. But if we are to entertain the idea of “mechanics = knowing”

at all on the phenomena of systems like social, political and economical

ones, and particularly Love, the higher order terms may be essential in

talking-thinking of “how the system as an integrated whole behaves”.

Higher order systems, aside from the time-lag mentioned before, have the

possibility of “loop-structure” — positive and negative feed-back”–. In

the context of talking about social phenomena, this loop structure is very

interesting. I imagine that so-called “Dialectics” is referring to the loop,

though the language of dialectics is too obscure to be mathematized.

(However, the Catastrophe Theory is of interest in this connection: see R.

Even the second order systems already show the possibility of the loop

structure. And electronics engineers use the concept routinely. The loop can

easily be deciphered in linear approximations as the “eigenvalue” of the

matrix describing mutual interactions (cross talks). The “eigenvalues” are

invariant within projective transformations of references. It is arbitrary

in what “terms” or “measurements” are used in descriptions of the loop.

That a dynamical system contains loop structures is invariant even in a

topological sense. That is, it matters little if we perceive the system or

situation differently. If needed, we can use most any “measurements”,

“scaling”. This feature is a great advantage for social-human studies. In

fact, “measurement” need not be of that which mathematics defined as

“measure”. Social and human scientists are, in topological dynamics, no

longer required to pretend that they are “measuring” in a rigorous sense.

One can even employ “poetical

license” in descriptions, for topological characteristics are invariant

under “poetical license”. This would avoid a great deal of trouble in

In case one is interested in “non-linear” phenomena — say, the “diminishing

return” in economics, for example –, the topological approach is the only

sensible one. I am saying the traditional “quantification” is for the birds,

if not a fraudulent sham. For the situation the system is indeed non-linear,

the approximability by quantitative language is no longer assured. The only

thing meaningful is the “Qualitative” description about quasi-stable

generalities of the situation system. This teaches us humbleness in our

imperialistic tendency to “know”, “predict” and “control” the situation by

quantifications.

If President Reagan’s economic advisers are somewhat less dogmatic and admit

that economics is an approximation and could possibly be wrong, I think

people in the US might find a better way of living together.

The dogmatic attitude of contending “truth” and “being absolutely Right” is

prevalent not only in economics but in politics and particularly in the

military. People know that, in such areas of human endeavors, things are not

easily theorized, comprehended, and controlled. But, paradoxically, the

inherent uncertainty, or rather the suppressed awareness of incompetence

with regard to the situations tend to call forth strong dogmatic knowledge

claims. Assertion of “truth” is used to soothe our anxiety.

Hitler was a great hero and leader because he knew how to exploit the

psychology of people in perplexity. And what is striking is that the

traditional knowledge claim by “science” resembles the psychological trick.

That is, the “Power of Knowledge” is the same as a quasi-religious notion

which emerges and is entertained by people in crisis. “Science” in the sense

of the love affair of learning is often replaced by the “Power of Knowledge”

in such a situation. People demand that “science” is the Messiah who solves

all problems. They would be terribly disappointed if “science” is shown to

be incomplete, or worse, is said to be a love play. People would complain

why they have to foot the bill for a show in space, such as sending men to

the moon at a cost of 30 billion dollars.

If the popular image of “science” is a kind that is powerful enough to blast

away mountains to lay a highway through, then it is natural that people

expect the same science to blast away “Evil Forces” such as U.S.S.R. or

China with hydrogen bombs.

If the image of “science” is the kind that cures the disease of completely

helpless patients and it is often imagined that patients are completely

ignorant of their own state –, then scientists and experts say it is the

Truth and has to be done. People are not requested to learn anything about

their own life but are ordered to act as directed by the authorities.

I think our “science education” is a great propaganda machine. And I even

wonder if “Peace Research”, conceived as a science, is also part of it.

I have said nothing about “indeterminacy” or “uncertainty” that exist in

fluctuating environments or in the Quantum States in this talk about Love

Dynamics. Although I think it is essential to consider “catastrophes”,

“random”, “chaos” in Love dynamics, it is beyond the scope of this talk.

There are also some implications and suggestions from Quantum Mechanics and

Relativity. However, I shall not go into this here, for I am afraid that it

might be taken as a continuation of the scientism that I criticized.

Even without Quantum Mechanics and Relativity to talk of Zeno’s Paradox on

position and motion and time dimension in a dynamical sense, Newtonian

mechanics already suggest our “intentionality” in knowing. To know “what is”

of facts and situations is of little use even in the Power sense of

knowledge. The knowledge as such is valued for its implications as to “what,

shall be”, if not what “ought to be”. We call it prediction, but it is no

different from “prophecy in religious contexts. Our Science as it stands

today is not devoid of religious tendencies; it is political and psycho-
therapeutic as well.

Positivist philosophy in science today would like to eliminate the

“intentionality” from science — here again we see an example of the slip

from “what is” to what ought to be” –. But elimination of the

“intentionality” may be elimination of science-knowing. Rather, one is

advised to recognize the intentionality and treat it with respect; when we

include time dimension in dynamics, it is unavoidable that future and past

come to play active roles in the dynamics. It is possible that loop

structures are made in time dimension. Cyclic phenomena in many human and

social fields are well-known. They may be projections of loop structures in

time dimensions. If we are to talk of these phenomena, the rhetoric-logic of

“what is” is no longer competent. Love that is seen as a higher order term

contains this sense of dynamical time dimension. If we are to talk of these

phenomena, the rhetoric-logic of “what is” is no longer competent.

We note that talks in love relations often contain references to time.

Paradoxically, the feeling of Love transcends Time, yet the transcendence is

based on a feeling of time in a holistic sense, not in mechanical time. That

is, the negation of time in Love is negation of Newtonian time, not the time

of Relativity. As such, I contend that in Love the dynamic Time is regained

by negation of clock time as a Passive parameter. We are not quite free from

the clock time of Newtonian mechanics — it is the foundation of our

intellectual order as it stands now — but we try to see future

possibilities in our love relations and endeavor to “promise” (prophecy)

meaningful relations to grow.

That is, Power of Knowledge and Love are two different ways by which we try

to deal with time flow, anxieties as well as aspirations, uncertainties and

hopes. In Love we accept and take Time in trust and as such it needs not to

be aware of the measuring-controlling sense of Newtonian time. Thus it would

appear to be playful, sensual, or childish. We know that in love we would

die sooner or later, but

that does not bother us at all. Perhaps death, i.e. the ephemerality,

finiteness of our existence is the reason for Love. At least, while we can,

we like to have a beautiful life. It is not by accident that we have the

myth of Chronos (Time) as the god of death. If the clock time is the order

of the universe, then in love we negate its power over us. But, in terms of

modern physics, we need not depend on the clock time for our intellectual

order. We can take dynamical time, if needed, in a topological sense. There

we are not bound by the clocks. Somehow, love contains very good

understanding of time in 4 or higher dimensional frames of reference beyond

the primitive one in the Power sense of knowledge.

4. Love against Taboos

Our notion of love is formed, or rather deformed, other taboos.

Perhaps, left in the natural state unconscious, involuntary functions of our

body. To a conscious feeling, we need some resistance suppression to

heighten our senses.

The Greek myth of love supposes that the original “Man” was a union of

male and female. Only after separation, both genders can experience love in

an attempt to regain the original union. Hegelian philosophy takes the

dialectical view in that from the separation emerges the desire of reunion.

Love as such is a “negation of negation”. In that sense we might say that

without the Power Principle dominating us, we may not be able to recognize

the Love Principle.

Of course we do not need to take naive dialectics of the “opposition

of poles” perceived in the linear metaphor. The dialectical opposites can be

of two different dimensions, or on two different levels. We can recall

examples like the opposition of “point” and “line” in Zeno’s Paradox or

“position” and “momentum” in the Uncertainty relation. The dialectical

oppositions are metaphysical or metaphorical choices in geometries, any of

which need not be superior to others. But we have one in our mind to

coordinate, organize our actions and feelings in reference to it.

Interestingly, brain physiologists tell us that our middle brain, the

Cephalum, is responsible for orgasm. The same part of the brain is also the

one which imagines and projects future states of our body, coordinates

contextual references and organizes actions. That sounds like what we refer

to as “mind”, but its function appears to be one that constructs

metaphysical or metaphorical geometry.

The Cortex part functions on the basis of the over-all structure

provided by the Cephalum as a computer assisting “mind”. Perhaps love is one

element of geometry of the “mind”. And incestuous taboo may be another

important element of it.

Incestuous taboo is not a direct opposite of love in the linear sense.

It only opposes Love with certain specified objects and in certain specified

forms of expression. Our biological organs, save the “mind”, may not be able

to recognize the taboo — in fact Oedipus could not recognize his mother in

the woman he married. This is a social-cultural phenomenon and, as such,

artificial. Love as we recognize is not natural, nor purely biological.

There are certain physical and biological bases and tendencies, but they do

not dictate deterministically what we can do, feel, or think.

The Bible, for example, says “Love Thy Neighbor” on the one hand, and

“Thou shall not covet Thy Neighbor’s Wife” on the other hand. If we are

logical we might say the Bible allows us to covet our neighbor’s husband. Or

we might interpret the Bible as commending a certain homosexual relation.

Of course, here I am deliberately sacrilegious in playing with logic.

But I dare to suggest the interpretations of the moral commands, for they

are sexual taboos imposed on love. And there would likely be some political,

economical motivations or implications behind any taboos.

In cases like the Biblical metaphor of love we might consider social

benefits, such as protection of private property right or prevention of

communicable diseases. Marx contended that the family system is the

prototype of “property” which acts as the production unit. And the Divisions

of Labor started with distinctions of male and female roles in the

production of children. Whether one agrees with Marx or not, discussion of

Love soon gets into the social domain. Biology, or even Psychology, is then

irrelevant. For the good of morals, politics, economy, or whatever we might

say, we have to have civilized taboos against indiscriminate love. And in

turn the taboos define what we recognize as Love, either in accordance with

or against the taboos.

Monogamy may be good or bad. That matters little. It is one of those

nominal values in our artificially, if not hypocritically, constructed mind.

Society appears to be unaffected by practices of violation anyway. But there

is an important consequence from the seemingly harmless exercise of our

“Minds”. That is, we accept social control of Love. A society can set up

taboos against “love of the enemy”, “love of undesirables”, or “love of

inferiors”. We have many peculiar practices in this regard.

In Japan, only some 50 years ago, mothers were obliged to love,

respect and honor the firstborn male child above and beyond her other

children. Like in many other Western countries, her position in a family —

which is the “Property”, the “Capital” — was that of a slave laborer who

produced offspring and reared them. Her love had to be properly channeled.

In the U. S. the term “Nigger Lover” was a derogatory word only until

recently. In Canada today, a “Commie Sympathizer” would not be considered to

be a good Christian, although the “commie” might be the neighbor. If you are

Polish, you ought not to love Russians. A Cuban girl who happens to love an

American may be accused of “consorting with the enemy”.

In business exchanges we supposedly do not mix love. Doctors should

not love patients. Teachers have to avoid relationships which might be mis-
identified as love. Military officers cannot talk of love in their line of

duty. Bureaucrats are not permitted to consort with citizens. Political

heads and Captains of industry are here to give orders, not to display love.

Most institutions in our society are organized to carry on routine tasks and

we refer to love only as deviations from mechanical routines.

It is not that love does not exist in our social organizations. On the

contrary, at least the “fusing” kind of love that Sartre talked of in his

Critique of Dialectical Reason, is essential for the existence of the

organizations. But love as such is not admitted, not allowed to be

recognized under ordinary circumstances. Love has to be hidden so that the

order and edifices of the organizations can be maintained.

During the Industrial Revolution, peasants in England and Ireland were

obviously not loved. Even Marx did not show too much love toward peasants,

and distinguished industrial workers as the “Proletarians” would push

progress ahead, overcoming the reactionary resistance of the peasants. The

capitalists, of course, exploited the peasants, if they did not wish to kill

them en masse like during the Great Famine of 1845-1847.

Due to such denial of love, we have an advanced technological

civilization and the middle class triumphantly emerged and flourished. If

people lived the Love Principle, like Ivan the Fool of Tolstoy did, like

Christ and Buddha preached, or some of the Utopian Socialists recommended,

we would not have this affluence we enjoy now. Not only that, we would not

have developed science-technology, would not have achieved education of

intellectual elites.

We of course today can point out that civilization as such is based on

the subsidy of fossil energy resources we have been plundering. We have

pollutions that threaten our lives, if we do not care about other life-forms

and the environment. We have been escalating the Nuclear Arms Race as a

logical consequence of the way we “progressed” and the neglect and

exploitation of Love. But such is our “Intelligence”.

A popular magazine “Psychology Today” (April ‘82) had an article on

the differences between what “experts” and “laymen” think (value) of

“intelligence”. The article itself may not be of any significance, but it is

interesting that the “laymen” apparently consider or value competence in

social contexts, such as “accept others”, “sensitive to other people’s needs

and desires”, as the meaning of “Intelligence”. The “experts” had no such

notion in what they mean by “intelligence”.

If one tries psychoanalysis on those psychologists who talk of

intelligence, 1t is obvious that the professionals are conditioned by their

training and by their political and economic interests. In most any

profession, as Max Weber said, sorts of traits as “accept others”,

“sensitive to other people’s needs and desires” are not only irrelevant to

their professional competence, but also detriments, hindering their increase

in prestige and income. Scientists are supposed not to be 1n love with

people. There are more important things to do, if the scientists indulge in

secret love affairs. Love does not bring professional advances or rewards to

Love of humanity, if we ever become conscious of it, has to be in

violation of the general rules of conduct for economic, rational beings.

Love is done in violation of taboos. Needless to say, not all taboos are

irrational. On the contrary, most taboos are rational relative to the frame

of references societies take for their operations. And, interestingly,

taboos are often violated without substantial damage to society, as long as

the violations are covered up.

What we perceive as the situation is more important than what we are

actually doing. Without the nominal perception of the way we live together,

we can hardly maintain social coherence. Thus we invent an intellectual

picture of the way we manage to live in this world. The science of

“Intelligence” is just an example. It is a part of the picture we have

constructed.

If the Nuclear Holocaust comes, it is a necessary consequence of our

efforts in developing and organizing an intelligence as such. I often wonder

if Peace Research, even as a manifestation of the Love Principle, is not

relative and depending upon the intelligence as such.

Here I like to believe in the dialectics of double negations. Perhaps

the only humanly possible way to learn about Peace was through the mistakes.

A. Eddington has said that Physics was a series of mistakes upon mistakes.

Yet, we cannot deny that physics did learn something, if not of Nature then

of the way we talk and think. We understand our mind a little better, thanks

to the mistakes.

However the trouble is that in the realm of politics and economics, we

have never acknowledged our mistakes. We have not learned from the Vietnam

war, or the many, many wars before that. We have a notion of sovereignty

which is a Neolithic heritage we got from ancient religious-political

institutions. And the might of the country we associate ourselves with

persists in our mind on the basis of our secret love for it. The love as

such is one deformed by the taboos.

In comparison with our deformed practices of love, the kind of love

preached by men like Wilhelm Reich appears innocent. I must confess that I

do not understand the Orgone theory, let alone believe in it. But that does

not say that the ordinary notions of love in our society make better sense.

If we do not like extreme expressions like those of Reich, we can look

at notions like “Fraternity”, “Solidarity”. “Fraternity” was one of three

ideals that the French Revolution talked about, along with “Liberty” and

“Equality”. In the course of revolutionary history however, only “Liberty”

and “Equality” survived to our age. “Fraternity” was a pre-revolutionary

ideal among French workers. But it was pushed aside in favor of the other

two. The Declaration of Human Rights in 1789 talks of “property right” as a

part of “liberty”, but doesn’t even mention the term “Fraternity”. I do not

know what has happened to “Fraternity”, but reading Marx et al I sense that

it was deemed utopian and “Unscientific”, if not “Reactionary”, and

The term “Solidarity” appeared in the recent Poland crisis. The

Russian translation of “Solidarity”, ironically, would be “Soviet”. And the

“Soviet” is supposedly the supreme authority of the Communist State. But

what is happening in Poland, and elsewhere, does not seem to have any

relation to the term “Solidarity” nor “Soviet”.

The Capitalist system is, of course, not a system based upon

“Fraternity” or “Solidarity”, nor for that matter “Brotherhood” or

“Sisterhood”.

Perhaps Marx was right in saying that, as long as the “State” exists,

repression remains. The “State” as such is the embodiment of the Power

Principle. And to this we might add that subjugation of Love under the Power

Principle is the essence of our intelligence. However, we do not need to

eliminate Power in the absolute sense. Instead of the Utopian ideal of the

“stateless society”, we might try a sensible balance. Perhaps, a little more

recognition and respect for the Love Principle is all.

I shall not say any of these things are right or wrong. But if “Peace”

has anything whatsoever to do with how we humans live together, the problems

of Love have to be examined seriously.

5. Practice of Love and Implications to Peace

Love is not easily controlled nor contrived. One cannot reasonably

expect a love response from the other side of interactions. Love, in a

dynamical sense, is remarkably stable, or rather persistent. It tolerates

disturbances, interferences, environmental fluctuations, and even abuses.

But to initiate someone or some group of people into love dynamics is

difficult, and even if it is successful, love responses are unpredictable.

And it is often noted within our experiences that one might fall out of love

without visible cause or on account of some silly little thing, just like

falling in love. Another thing about love is that it is a mutual affair,

though it may not exactly be equal in dependency, effort, and appreciation.

These are characteristics of Love. One may look at love from an

“Engineering” point of view and analyze it in terms of physics. But that

does not make the engineer or physicist become the creator or controller of

love. We may appreciate and understand love. However, unlike other objects

of knowledge, we are not likely to manufacture a Love Bomb for national

defense purposes. This is an interesting contrast to things which our

science has claimed to be knowledgeable about. At last we have found

something safe to study without worrying if there can be abuse of knowledge,

of pollution-entropy increase. The knowledge of Love, if there was any,

would not drive us out of the Garden of Eden. In fact I hope for the

opposite, though I like to stick to science and refrain from Utopian

speculations.

Despite the unpredictability and uncontrollability of love, however,

there are a few clues to the Art of Love and there seem to be ways to

encourage Love. Or rather it appears that human beings are born lovers –

“genetically programmed to be lovers”, as hard-nosed scientists might say —

, and unless otherwise educated or conditioned, they keep on learning the

art of loving. We can try to remove hindrances, suppressions and

inhibitions. If necessary, we might even try un-educating ourselves in order

to regain love.

The basic step in love, despite all its complexities, appears to be

very simple. That is, we can start with close contact. In fact, most people

know this and avoid close contact. Something happens to our perception or

mode of thinking-feeling operation when someone or something comes closer

than a certain distance so that our visual field is fully occupied. I even

feel this in reading books, in contrast to listening to someone across a

table. Most of the time I am unconscious of it, however, occasionally I

notice a funny feeling that “I” am not in my brain but in the book.

In the “contact” situation, as the prototype of love, we note that our

sense of self becomes confused. I do not think it has to do with

“altruistic” motivation as much as it has to do with difficulties of

maintaining the metaphor of “Self”. In a too close distance we face the

epistemological problem of where the region of “I” starts and where the

“other” starts. We cut our fingernails and hair quite often, but in ordinary

circumstances we do not feel or think that our “I” is diminishing. We eat

food, but we cannot tell when and where the food becomes part of the “I”. In

short, we do not

really know what “I” is, except for the spatial region around our body. If

anything comes into the volume of space conceptually marked as “I”, we have

trouble maintaining the metaphor of “I”.

Of course the volume of space demarcated as “I” is perceptional. It can

be large or small. We do not carry a hard shell around us. And senses like

“Privacy” may even be “psychological” or “intellectual” constructions with

no reference to physical space.

Our sense of kinship and family is generated in close and frequent

contact, but the perceptual “space” is not a physical one. We note

intermixing of time dimension in our perception of relations in this regard.

The sense of family originates in close physical proximity in which the

members of the family live. However, this sense can be extended in physical

space on the strength of perceptual juxtaposition in significances. A dog

can be like a member of a family, but sons and daughters who live in far

away places are considered to be more important in value. To an extent, this

might be due to historical conditioning and social construction of values.

Or more immediately, the sense may depend on memory, if not nostalgia. But

we do note that the sense of “living together” can be extended despite

physical distance and remoteness in time.

There the sense of “I” is extended to include family. It is, perhaps,

because the “I” in that context is the sum total of experiences which

necessarily include interactions. “I” cannot be purely “”individual” like

atoms, independent in isolation and be constant in environment.

Interestingly however, in terms of intellectualization, and in

particular in legalistic contexts, we have the notion that family as an

integrated entity has a will. It is treated as a “person”, that is a

metaphorical projection of “I” to somewhat larger entities. Business

corporations are also this kind of pseudo-“I” and are often treated as

“persons”. There also appears the sense of “Property”. The “property”

belongs to families or other pseudo-“I”. And it is the “property” that

identifies unity in these cases. Just as much as the body was the visible

identity of “I”, the property is the identity of the pseudo-“I”. It is not

by accident that the French Revolutionaries insisted on Property Rights —

against frequent arbitrary confiscation by the ruler of the state — as the

central item in their concept of Justice and Liberty. I think these

revolutionaries were not ignorant of the fact that Justice and Liberty are

abstract concepts. But humans need some media to express concepts, even if

the visible objects are symbolic. Without something to relate the sense of

“I” to, there can be no “I”. Unfortunately, that suited the Capitalism

rising at the time, and the ideal of “Fraternity” without having any visible

medium of expression withered. Marx’s analysis of “Family and Property” was

significant, but it appears to have missed the pseudo-“I” aspect of the

The next step of extending the “I” on a social scale is that of

community – tribe, village, city, artisan guild, religious communion –. It

may be noted that before the Industrial Revolution, peasants were

“communist”, even before the term was invented in the political

vocabulary, and lived off “commons”. The “Commons” were exterminated by the

Enclosure. For Capitalism needed “private property” to dominate the economy.

Historically speaking, the notion and practice of “Family” as the property

owner came after “community”. This is an interesting example of how an

economic system as an expression of the form of people’s relations to each

other affects the way people develop the sense of “Pseudo-I”, or rather

“We”. The “We” is the way people organize activities on a social scale, Just

as “I” was. Of course the social interactions are diverse and often get into

conflicts, if not exploitation and suppression by one part against another.

Thus the notion of “We” is difficult. It used to be that only the Sovereign

King was entitled to speak in terms of “We”. The rest of “we” were not

amused by the peculiar language protocol, but it shows that words and

consequently concepts are politico-economic, even at the simple level of

saying “we”.

The difficulty of “I” also appears in national boundaries. We do not

really know what “my country” is, due to the same epistemological troubles.

This, however, does not prevent us from entertaining quite seriously the

metaphor of “I” and “my country”. Roughly speaking, we can take a

geographical territory as “My Country”. It is a good approximation, though

not absolutely definable. And our international relations are interpreted on

this kind of geometry and we organize our actions based upon the metaphor

mental image. As long as everybody is far away, this meta-geometry is

practical enough. But unfortunately, our interdependency brings in contact.

Then we have trouble 1n maintaining the mental image of the individual

“Self” and the independent “sovereign Country”.

Because of this incompetency of our mental image, we on the one hand

avoid “close contact” with others at a personal level, but we insist on

“national territory” as a protective shell.

We also have metaphors like “Race”. Sometimes the image of “Race” is

mixed up with “nationality”, or “citizenship of a country”. “American”,

“Russian”, etc. is sometimes used as if they were races i.e. Russian

attitude about Jews” etc. But to be fair we have to admit the mix-ups are

natural. After all, who are the “Jewish”, or “Spanish”? What is “Japanese”?

We may trace certain genetic traits or bloodlines in history and get to

certain geographical regions as the origin of the name-labels. But tracing

semantic usage in etymology does not tell what “race” is or what happened to

“race” in the meantime, if it has to do with biology. For that matter, we

are all monkeys, of some varieties. “Americans and British” were right in

calling Japanese “yellow monkeys”, except they forgot that Dr. Darwin, the

eminent scientist of whom they are very proud, told them a century before

that they themselves were some kind of monkeys.

In the face of biological diversities and complexities, it is

ridiculous to maintain metaphors like “Race”. Yet, we even have to fight

wars on the meta-physical basis between people like “Arabs” and “Jews”. We

even have linguistic trouble like “Anti-Semitism among Arabs”, although

anti-Arab and anti-Jew sentiments artificially created on the metaphysics of

“race” do hurt people now living in that particular region of the world.

In one sense the notion of “We” is beautiful. It lets many people

overcome the narrow, self-centered life and makes them somewhat competent to

live together. But on the other hand, the notion of “We” is just as

difficult as the notion of “I” and when the notion is perverted, “we” as

such lead people into bloody fights, not mentioning the difficulties it

creates in social interactions.

The inescapable fact is that neither “I” nor “We” is “Independent”.

They exist on mutual interactions and mutual dependency. However undesirable

we think it is, we cannot eliminate interactions. The only thing we can do

is to try to make the interactions as one-sided as possible. We have to have

relations, thus we try to the best of our intelligence to make the relations

un-symmetric, unequal, less mutual as we can manage. It is a simple

mechanical principal that in an equal, mutual, two-way flow of energy there

can be no “Power”.

Even in “knowing”, modern physics tells us that it is a mutual

interaction between the “knower” and the ““knower””. But the trick is to

minimize the effect on the “knower” and maximize it on the “knower”. That is

where the “Power of Knowledge” is generated. Nature tends to follow the Love

Principle of mutuality. But our Science has to try to cheat Nature into

asymmetric relations. In the contexts of social relations the ruling class

has to maintain differentials and gradients for its existence.

The maintenance of asymmetric relations requires a great deal of

effort and restrictions and inhibitions of Liberty for both sides of the

relations. We construct institutions, including the sense of Justice, to

protect the inequality. Only in love relations we forego our intellectual

preoccupation with denying mutualness. We do then enjoy the liberty and

natural justice as well as Love itself. There we find a foundation of Peace

— Liberty, Equality and Love –.

Viewed with this projection, our effort towards Peace is the effort to

extend the scope of the primordial “contactual love” to a social scale and

encompass the whole wor1d. And if this conjecture is plausible, we have a

lot to learn from children in the way they find playmates.

It is not that the formal contractual ways to make international

organizations are invalid, or that the scientific efforts to convince and

assist governmental structures for Peace are unimportant. But there is

another dimension to Peace, which is not just controlling violence or

managing conflicts. For humanity to learn Love, the impending Nuclear

Holocaust has to be prevented. While spending on huge armaments, it is

difficult to encourage understanding among nations. Thus we have to de-
escalate the arms race. Conflicts in many regions of the world have to be

managed. Starving children have to be fed. Those tasks are urgent. Yet even

those tasks would be he1ped by the understanding of Love and can be used for

learning love above and beyond the Hollywood movie romances; there seems to

be no other basis for Peace than Love.

6. In Summary

I. Love is discussed here as a negation or alternative to

I.1. The formula “Double Negative = Affirmative” is used,

I.2. There are other approaches; Love from ethical, religious,

II. There is one advantage in trying Newtonian mechanics of

II.1. As in the case of geometries and various mechanics,

II.2. As in the cases of geometries and various mechanics,

Power. And Power is taken as a term in the language of

Newtonian Mechanics. Thus, Love appears here as a

deviation from Newtonian World View.

however, as a provisional means. (The principle of

Exclusion of the middle from the Classical Logic may not

be valid. However, I have not come to the logic of Love

in this paper.)

or spiritual side (young Hegel, Feuerbach, Theology of

Liberation), and Love from poetical side.

Love. Newtonian mechanics is the dominant language of

intellectualization today and understood well. Therefore

defects become easily visible.

terms such as “point”, “line”, “force”, “energy”,

“power”, and “love” and “undefined” terms. Terms

(notions, concepts, ideals, metaphors) acquire and

develop-evolve their “meanings” in their usages,

applications in practices, and in feedback loops in

historical time-dimension.

theoretical structure (linguistic systems) are neither

true nor false. They provide organization for talking and

thinking. The power-centered theorizations, ideologies,

political-economical rationality are just as metaphysical

(metaphorical) as love-centered ones. This paper is a

part of comparative study of alternatives.

III. The Power concept in this paper is that of the

Bourgeoisie-Technological society, including both the

Capitalist and the Communist versions. (For this concept

of power, see C.B. MacPherson Democratic Theory: Essays

in Retrival Oxford U. Press 1923.)

III.1. In the Ideals of the Bourgeoisie Revolution: Liberty,

Equality and Fraternity, the last one was lost in the

historical development thereafter. I notice Liberty and

Equality are incorporated in Power centered sense of

political economy. But the Fraternity (Love) is not. I

sense a prejudice against Love and suspect the root of

the troubles of the Bourgeoisie-Technological society,

including our logic of power which leads us to Nuclear

War.

III.2. The concept (notion, metaphor) of “I” (individual, self

ego) in the Bourgeoisie-Technological society of ours is

an “Atomistic” one. It is a possible construction

(theorization), provided interactions (mutual dependence,

love dynamics) are negligible or neglected.

Newtonian mechanics, which we take as the basic model of

“science”, if not intellectualizations in general, was

developed to deal with simple situations with weak

interactions. That is, we are incompetent to think and

talk of Love.

III.3. The metaphor of “I” gets into troubles in Love affairs.

We fear our realization of our own incompetence. Thus we

defend “I” by force.

The more fearful we are, the stronger we cling to our

ego. Our intelligence, rationality, and their language

are developed within this context, by and large.

III.4. If natural fears were not strong enough, we can add

social-political ones like “Scarcity”, which drive us

into a frenzy of wanting to have things. (As to the

development of the notion of “Property Right”, see

MacPherson, for example. Marx, Proudhon et al talked

about this at length.) The notion of Power of ours is

from such an environment — and the environment as such

is made out of such a notion, perception, in a vicious

circle type of dynamics —.

IV. Love stands in a different dimension from Fear. It does

not require having a strong concern for Ego. It is not in

defense of “I” or “Private Property”. It does not appeal

to “Force”, “Power”, “Coercion” and not even “Duty”,

“Obligation”, “Contract”, “Right” etc. of the power

centered social mechanics.

IV.1. It is interesting to ask an inverse question. Namely,

how is it possible at all to lose the sense of “I”,

(individual, atom, Ego) that we have constructed with

enormous efforts in our history? Love simply wipes it off

from our mind-intellect. How come we do not fear this

awesome disaster of Love which annihilates “I”s into

chaos? Many philosophers said that Love is irrational.

Yet we fall. Are we stupid or crazy? Moreover, we can

observe at least the “Fusing” kind of love in most social

organizations. (See J.P. Sartre Critique of Dialectical

Reason. NBL. 1976. For “Fusing” kind of Love.)

IV.2. My contention is that Love is not irrational, but our

“rationality” is incompetent. Our intellectual vanity

makes us say, whenever we fail, the object projected is

irrational. It is we who love and it is we who fail to

understand what we are doing. (Love is not an “object”,

though the modern physics would say that what are so-
called “objects” are symbols, manifestations of dynamical

processes. Thus we need no “objective” existence of Love

to be victimized or to enjoy it.)

IV.3. Love is needed for the making of social organizations.

Nationhood is impossible without some feeling of love,

though it need not take extreme expressions like

“Nationalism” or “Patriotism”. Wars would be impossible,

in the scale by which we recognize wars, without the co-
operation of millions of people. Nuclear Bombs could not

have been produced without some love to maintain

coherence of organized efforts. If we do not expect love,

however perverted and exploited, in a Nationhood, we

would not demand that the Sovereignty act to protect our

private properties, let alone fight wars on behalf of our

interests, at great costs to the nationhood.

IV.4. Therefore, we must understand Love, either in a positive

or negative sense. To say it is irrational is of no help.

Our intellectual vanity may need defense, but our life

suffers more by the neglect. However, it seems that we

have to construct alternative geometries-dynamics to deal

with Love, which appears not to be easy.

IV.5. It is instructive to look at the biology of Sex.

Biologists today say that Sex is disadvantageous to the

“Survival of the Fittest”. A-sexual reproduction is twice

more efficient than the bi-sexual reproduction. It

puzzles the biologists why and how the majority of life

forms adapted bi-sexual reproduction in their evolution.

The Darwin notion of the egoistic individual gene

struggling in an adversary environment appears now to be

rapidly becoming a superstition, a bigoted ideology, in

biology today. “Competition in power struggle” does not

seem to hold water.

The biologists suggest that survival concerns the “Gene

Pool”, rather than individual gene. However, even with

this socialism of genes, the phenomenon of Sex is not

understandable. Perhaps, the whole eco-system has to be

considered in the Evolution, though even then the puzzle

of Sex may not be solved.

At any rate, biological studies do not support our

assumption of the “aggressive” nature of life forms.

Rather, Love is more fundamental for life.

(See W.S. Moor et al. “Sex in Random Environment” Journal

of Theoretical Biology vol. 92. pg. 301. 1981. And

references therein. It seems that this line of studies

was initiated by J. Maynard-Smith “What Use is Sex? J.

Theor. Bio. Vol. 30. Pg. 319. 1971.)

V. Our notions of “I” and “Nation” are analogous. The analogy

comes, not as a realization of the similarity, but

because we, as many “I”’s, demand the nation to be in

conformity with our notion of “I”.

“I” is the embodiment of “sovereign will” (B. Russell

talked about this in his book Power), conceived in a

strong perspective of “adversary”, “hostile” environment

and political economy. In the bourgeoisie system of ours,

the “I” is the exclusive owner of properties, by means of

which the sovereign will try its best to extract

satisfaction. To this “I”, the other “I”s are instruments

for attaining what this “I” desires. “Power” notion

conceived in such a context is that of “ability to secure

the conformity between the will of one man and the acts

of other men” (James Mill, quoted by MacPherson).

An atomistic aggregate of such “I”s may concede to the

advantages and enter a collective contractual arrangement

in which they accept a certain set of restrictions. But

the “collective” of “I”s as a whole would then be obliged

to pursue what is yielded by the “I”s. The “Sovereignty”

of a nation, having a “Will”, exclusive properties

(territory) and seeking the maximum power is made by the

contract (supported in the metaphor).

Despite it being a social entity, the egoism conceived in

the adversary perception of the world persists in the

notion (metaphor) of Nation and it is demanded to act

accordingly.

V.1. If the above contention offers even the faintest clue to

the troubles of our society and particularly to the

problem of Nuclear Arms Race, phenomena of Love appear to

be very interesting subjects of studies for Peace.

V.2. Love phenomena do exist and function even under the

dominance of Power ideology-intellectualizations. Whether

humans are stupid or crazy, they do fall in love, despite

good advice by the “rationality”.

We can take advantage of such human nature for Peace. Or

we can construct a dynamics of love and replace the

obsolete “rationality” based on power. “Force” is not the

only possible term in description of motion. Love as a

term in dynamics may not lead to “Causality” (and

Determinism) and as such it appears wishy-washy. But

Newtonian “Force” is not “Cause” either, if one examines

the mechanics critically. The term “Force” only provides

animated illusion of Causality and hence “order”. It is

largely psychotherapeutic by linguistic symbolisms. In

view of the impressive effects of Newtonian metaphors,

our Love dynamics need not be any more “scientific” than

Newtonian Mechanics. Rather, we can use Topological

languages, as Poincare et al did. This allows us

“poetical license” and makes our task a bit easier.

VI. In Peace research, Love appears indispensable and

inevitable. It seems to provide convenience for s

integrating various studies.

S.K.

On “Time” and “Eros/Passion”. Ver. 24/7/1987.

Note for Phys 2020.

Physics and Society

24/7/87. S.K.

On “Time” and “Eros/Passion”.

I. Introduction.

We divided this course, for convenience, into three parts. We have now come to the Part III: “The Future of Science”. You have heard what mistakes scientists, including this professor here, had made, in the past up to the present. Now it is your turn to make your own mistakes. I stress here that it is you that creates “the Science of the Future”. I have concerns for the Future, but all I can do is to watch you from my grave.

However, talks on Future are talks in Hope. And perhaps, it may be helpful if I give you some encouragement. I shall do so, in a manner peculiar to physicists. Namely, I give you a lecture about “Time”. And I shall point out where “Eros/Passion” can be located in the Time Dimension. What the Physics of Time has go to do with “Eros/Passion” is the punch line of my story.

In addition, I like to tell you what I learned from Native Science/Philosophy. I shall discuss the Native Metaphysics of Time in comparison with our dominant, Euro American Metaphysics of Time. This has also to do with the Spirituality of Native Americans. In order to discuss that I have to talk of the relation between European sense of Time and its Eros/Passion. And like the most things I talk about, the relation is on a two-way feedback. By trying to appreciate what other cultures offer, we understand our own better.

[References]

As background and further readings, I refer you to a few books here.

A.N. Whitehead Process And Reality Free Press. 1929.

H. Bersson Time And Free Will Harper Torchbooks. 1910

V. Deloria Jr. God Is Red Laurel Book. 1973.

J. Highwater The Primal Mind Harper & Row. 1944.

M. Berman The Reenchantment of the World Cornell U Press. 1981

H. Mareuse Eros And Civilization Vintage Books. 1955

M. Foucault  The History of Sexuality (3 vol.) Vintage Books. 1978

M. Jammer The philosophy of Quantum Mechanics John Wiley 1974.

II. The Future is “Nothing”. But then, Why talk of Future?

1. The first thing I would like to draw your attention is that “Future” is not “Fact”. The “Future” does not even exist in the Materialist sense. If you are still thinking that science such as Physics is about “Facts”, then you would say that “Future” cannot be a subject of science. Talks of the Future are talks of “nothing” (as yet).

Logically, you are quite right. But you also note that it is meaningless to know anything, if there is no Future, any systematic knowing takes a finite Time. If you did not think there would be a “Future”, you would not have invested the time and efforts to know anything. Besides, the most impressive displays of the “Power of Science” has been its ability to “Predict”. But, “Prediction” is a version of “Prophecy” and it is a matter of “Teleology”. It concerns with the question of “Belief/Faith” about unknown Future.

2. Science may be just a set of descriptions of what has happened, as some philosophers contend. Or Science may be just “attempts to explain” what have been observed in the Past.

I suppose “description” and “explanation” are parts of Science. Bt without some “illusion” of the Power to Predict, Science would have been a hobby like “stamp collection” and commentaries thereof. Certainly, such a hobby would not have impressed people enough for them to give the Billions of Dollars in grants. It could not have been a profession, let alone being edified and valued as an intellectual discipline — and, you would not have been forced to take physics course by the “Authority” , which does not recognize your intense hatred of Physics hammered into your heads —.

You venerate “knowledge” in general, because “Knowledge” is useful in your Future. !!!

And you pay for it.

[I have reservation as to the above assertions. I would view that “intelligence” is a matter of your own Creation. The “Dead Knowledge” in books or in computer memory is not useful, unless you use them. It is your use that is the value, not the “Knowledge” itself. However, let me stick to the “common belief” of our culture for now.]

At any rate, thinking of Future is inevitable. The Future is not a “Fact”, but it does affect science. The Future is “nothing” (as yet), but it is very important to us.

3. You can take an extreme pessimistic position to say “Humans cannot possibly know anything about Future” and even accuse me that I am “Irrational” and “Irresponsible” to talk of Future that I know nothing about. Or you might judge that I “lost touch with Reality” (insane), where “Reality” consists of Facts only.

4. But, I point out that at least some of you also commit the same “sin” or “insane act” of thinking and talking of the Future. I give you a familiar example.

In the typical Love Affairs, of which some of you have had a great deal of experiences, there are frequent references to “Commitment”. If you have not heard the word, and have no idea about what it means, let me explain it to you by an illustration.

——

In the play, My Fair Lady, [A.J. Lerner. Coward-McCann. 1956], the climax comes in Act II, when the heroine asks: “What’s to become of me?” A professor of Linguistics, Dr. Higgins, made a bet and successfully taught this poor girl Eliza from the East End slum to say correctly “Rain in Spain falls mainly on a plain” and to be admitted as a lady by the High Society.

Incidentally, even a great physicist, Michael Faraday had to learn the same in order to be admitted to the Royal Society. British society is a Class Society, where the art of “Snobbism” flourishes. And in the art, to have a mastery of the peculiar language (lingo) is very important.

At any rate, after the smashing success in the demonstration of his power of knowledge in Linguistics, Dr. Higgins has no further use of Eliza. The experiment is over. The scientist predicted the outcome and indeed it became “True”.

Was the girl happy, having been well accepted into the High Society and charmed most anybody? No.

She complains; “It is good that you succeeded in your science. But what about me?” She is asking for a “Commitment” for the Future.

In her case, the “commitment” she is seeking is not “security”. For she had all manners of guys chasing after her. The question is rhetorical and actually a confession of her “vulnerability”. She fell in Love with this arrogant son of b…, who think of her no more than an experimental animal picked up from the gutter of London slum, and treated her like a slave who brings his slippers while he reads news paper.

His idea of marriage was probably with a lady from a “Proper Family” with a big dowry or high society connections for his patronage.

The enlightened feminists today would say that Eliza is irrational, if not insane. They would say; “To hell with guys like that!”. Of course, Professor Higgins has all that “correct” power words, such as “Purely Subjective”, “Your Imagination”, etc., to talk back.

But the “commitment” is also “vulnerability”. It is a gamble on the unknown, unpredictable Future.

Materialistic girls today may think that “commitment” is a guarantee of future comfort. I know even radical revolutionary women, such a s Rosa Luxemburg dreamed of a nice cozy house with white picket fence, of being taken to Sunday walk with kids, and all that sort of things I do not blame girls to wish that. But, no one can guarantee the Future in such a sense. Girls know that, yet ask for “promise”. The reason for this is not “commitment” as guaranteed material security. It is, if any, more than that.

You might say that it is a commitment to “Share the Fantasy” (hope, faith) of the Future. It is not an exaggeration to say that the commitment asked was the “meaning of life”. In fact, even colloquialism refers to it as “Meaningful Relationship”.

———-

5. Now, you are certainly right to think that such a problem is not a matter of “Physics”, (a pun intended). But I am going to tell you Physics of such matters, any way.

You know that the Future is not knowable and that you are vulnerable to all sorts of accidents, dangers, happenings, circumstance, contingencies, etc. The fact that you are the wisest and nicest guy in the world does not make you invincible. You would like to deny it, but whoever you are, you are just as vulnerable as everybody.

So, you accept your vulnerability and go on living. One of my friend is a Christian minister. He told me that the name of Judeo-Christian God is “What Will be, will be” (Que sera sera.). I would say that is “reasonable” enough. But, then, why people fall in love and become more vulnerable than they already are? I blame “Eros/Passion” for the insanity. Of course, I think it beautiful, I mean tragically beautiful. The idea may be that human existence is vulnerable any way and therefore one has nothing to lose by falling in love. One might just as well be possessed by Eros and be Passionate.

And, I beg you here to note that it is all because of the Time Dimension. If we had no Time, we would have had no trouble like that. You might, of course, say that you have no Time nor Energy for Love Affairs, let alone thinking about Time. But by that you are saying you are dead.

6. [For those who are hardnosed businessperson, I mention one problem in Economics of Profit Maximization. This is known  as “Arrow’s Paradox”. It so happened that even in a perfectly deterministic world, the “profit” (or “utility”) depends on the Time Interval chosen for the calculation of the maximum.

What is profitable in short term is not necessarily profitable in long terms. That is, the maximum cannot be calculated without choosing a time scale.

If one takes the Economics of Profit (Utility) Maximization as the proto-model for Rationality, the Rationality cannot exist for indefinite Time interval for which Humans may exist. Since you do not know how long you live, you cannot calculate how to get the Maximum out of your wife or husband.

You might say: “One who laughs last, laughs the best”. But the problem is that we have no idea when the last is. Economy is irrational.]

III. Time is not a thing. Then, what is it?

1. O.K. you understand why we have troubles. It is because of Time. And because we have troubles, we think and talk about Time. But what is this thing called “Time”?

Well, “Time” is not a “thing”. It is “nothing”. It does not exist, in any objective, material, sense.

It is a way we think and talk. It is a mere “concept”, or a mere “word”. What is worse, there are many different senses to the same word “Time”. Even in the Physics of General Relativity, there is a well known ambiguity as to which “t” in the equation is the “Time”.

You may be asked by your friend “Do you have Time?” Your friend may be asking if yo have a watch to tell what Time it is then. Or the friend may mean to “have” or “spend” a Time together.

And, the “It” of the utterance “What time is It?” means nothing. The utterance is saying “What time is the time?”. That is worse than the “It” of the “It rains”. And, nobody “has” Time, hence can “spend” Time.

But, don’t be silly. They are “Idiomatic” expressions. You say “It rains like dogs and cats”. Since you have never seen hundreds of dogs and cats falling down, that is a bad metaphor. But, you know what the expression means as your friends know. Idioms are like the “Joke #19” which do make you and your friends laugh. Or, Idioms are like Rituals in language art, commonly shared by a community.

“Time” is an Idiom. By our linguistic habit or ritual, we supposedly understand the idiom. That is, until some crazy physicist or philosopher asks, “What is Time?”

If you were Wittgenstein, you might say that “Time” ought not to be placed as the Subject of a sentence. This is a typical case of “pseudo-philosophical” problems created by misuse-abuse of sentence structure. “Time” ought to be treated as an “Adverb”, not a “Noun”.

[Some Physicists are fond of doing Wittgensteinian tricks with words. They say “Electron” is a Verb, just as “Red” is an adjective. There is no such “thing” as an “electron” nor “red”. But then, is “Energy” a “verb” or “adverb”? It is ambiguous. And the ambiguity is essential to our art of language. In mathematical logic, we found that what is precisely definable is meaningless. (I shall explain this to you later). So, we try to find “meaning” in the ambiguity. This is the “Uncertainty Principle of Linguistics”.]

But you would complain that saying that Time is not a “noun” does not help you much. You are right! In order to know the Idiom, we have to know in what sort of occasions, we use the word “Time” (and associated words), like anthropologists do to people of other cultures. Only in our case, we have to play the role of the anthropologists (outside observers) to our own “peculiar” thinking and language habits. However, it turned out that it is easier to observe others. To us, “I” is the most difficult thing to know. We would, therefore, start with “Time” senses of other cultures and hope our learning of others help us to know ourselves.

2. Let us, therefore, take our “prejudice” that American Indians do not have the sense of Time.

In God Is Red,  the author Deloria says that Natives have no sense of Time. Deloria is a Native. Well. Is it true?

First of all, I like to tell you that the American Natives had a well developed Astronomy. Mayan Calendar was very accurate. There are archaeological sites all over North America which indicate that the Indians observed Time. Perhaps, it is possible that the Natives lost their “ancient” science under the colonial repression. And they themselves might believe that Indians do not have science. If so, it is a bad superstition, if not a self-imposed racial prejudice.

[Do you know our mathematics came from Arabs and East Indians? Today, it seems that Arabs and East Indians themselves think that Mathematics is European invention. The repression, and racial prejudice are internalized. This is sad. And I must tell you that you yourself may have the same underestimate of yourself. You think without me teaching Physics, you cannot do Physics. That is a sad superstition. I am just as stupid as yu are, if not worse. You can do anything, if you think you can.]

That “Indians don’t have the sense of Time” may refer to their apparent habit of not being “punctual”. They agree to a Time of a public meeting. Only after one hour later, some people begin to trickle in to the meeting! Even then, they do not show any sign of concern about Time. We hear such stories many times. And Natives themselves talk and laugh at that.

The trouble is, however, that Americans, Canadians, and Japanese are the same. In village meeting, etc., people come one hour later. When U.S. occupied Japan, Americans used to give Japanese lectures about the importance of Punctuality. To be modern civilized people, one has to be punctual. The lecture sounded very good. But when I came to the U.S. some years later, I find out that trains never run on Time. In Japan, if train is late, they pay money back. And usually Japanese trains keep accurate Time, say like within 10 seconds of the scheduled time.

In hunting of Buffaloes, the Natives had to coordinate their actions within the accuracy of a split second. Otherwise, Buffaloes would escape and the village go hungry. Natives do keep appointed Time, that is, when they wanted. Don’t you believe the myth like Indians have no sense of Time. They do not come to the meeting on Time, because it is an expression of “protest”. It is not “dignified” to show up on Time for town meetings etc. They are saying that they do not want to live by Whitemen’s “Norm”.

[Be aware girls or boys who let you wait on date. It is a well known trick. You are being hooked! Besides, she or he is demonstrating “who is the boss” in the situation.]

So were Japanese peasants. They, perhaps unconsciously, wanted to insult government officials by making them wait for hours. That is why they came later. They knew what is the Time very well. Interestingly, they had much faster communication to know what officials are going to say. And American occupation officials often embarrassed by finding out that people already knew what their Head Quarter is planning before they themselves were informed.

The “Punctuality” was a Christian ritual invented by monks in monastery. Japanese did not want to behave like Christians. They found out that trains in Christian countries never run on time, so they now run their train exactly on time without feeling guilty. It is their own Norm, not Euro American Norm.

Likewise, if and when Indians wanted, they can be very precise. They have an advantage of “dreaming” beforehand what is going to happen. [See Highwater.]

3. But, if you take Time to be some line-like segment punctuated at the Beginning and at the End, then it is right to say Indians and Japanese lack the sense of Time. I point out to you that the Punctuated Linear Time is distinctively Judeo-Christian. And the peculiar sense of Time is “Religious”, with a sense of violence for the punctuations. They mark and sense Time by “points”. Euro Americans often say that the “birth” is traumatic. And the “death” is dreaded. They constitute “events” with a “religious” significance, or traumatic impact.

In a contrast, Indians and Japanese do not understand the trauma and dread. Rather, to them, Time is “Continuity”, not “Punctuality”. Japanese trains run on Time very accurately, because rail men are preoccupied with making “connections” to other trains. It is not for the sake of making punctual events.

And, Birth, Death occurs more or less “natural” to them. Japanese peasant women used to go work in field in the morning, give birth in the field, carry the baby and vegetables on her back home in the evening. The events do make impacts, but not as much as Euro Americans get. There is not “religious” significance to the events, let alone “sins”, disasters, etc. The happenings are “events”, but taken as “course of events” in “flow”. That is, their sense “events” includes “Flow of Time”, not “Point”. In physicists’ language, the Euro American Time is Newtonian, whereas Indian Time is that of Relativity (Einsteinian).

Besides, the Native Time is not only continuous but also “internal”. It is their own Time, not something imposed by external authority, such as God or Physics. If they say Time is a part of Universe, then the Universe is something to which they participate. It is not external.

[E. Husserl” Zur Phenomenologie des innern Zeitbewusstseins discussed an “Inner Time”. But his was the European Time. I would call it “Ego Time”. It is subtly different from Indian Inner Time.

The difference clearly shows up when Indians talk of their ancestral Time. The tense in such talks is in “Present tense”. European cannot do that. Because the Past is no longer in the Inner Time.

However, Existentialists, such as Kierkegaard in The Concept of Anxiety apparently came close to include “continuity” in Time. But, here again, it is European Time. I shall explain the difference between “Anxiety” and “Eros/Passion” later.]

They may go to work in a factory and may be forced to punch Time Card. That is alienated external Time. They would resent that. In our bourgeoisie life, we worry about Time, such as the end of the month by which time we have to pay all bills and mortgages. Small merchants have to worry about Time, for the interests on their debts are counted by the day, week, or month. The Time as such is external. It is not “your making” that the Time passes. You do not participate in the making (creation) of Time. (God did it.)

4. To be sure, in Newtonian Physics, physicists do make “events” by observing them. There, the “Egos” of the physicists are involved, and the scientists do take credit for the events. The young observatory assistant who saw the latest Super-Nova became a hero, just because he happened to see and registered his “discovery” in the sacred record kept by the institution of Astronomy before anybody else. [See Discovery. June 1987.]

However, the “observations” have to be according to the official ritual code. Newtonian Physics requires that the observation to be externalized by use of “scientific instruments”, such as telescope, measuring sticks, etc., and they must be expressed in the edified format of description, such as saying “at a point of Time; t = 02:15:32 at a point of location x = 12.45, y = 0.66, z = 302.14” to make an “event”. By such “Initiation Rituals” or “Editing Rituals”, the personal experiences are converted to a “Scientific data”. The ritual procedure “purifies” and eliminate the “human experience”. The Science that replaced God’s Truth cannot allow contaminations by human experiences. That is how the Time is externalized.

Even Einstein’s Relativity is understood by many scientists as a physics consisting of “events” which are just the same as those of Newtonian events. It took emergence of Quantum Physics to break this “God’s Eye View” of the world to do science.

[The “God’s Eye View” is the one pretends that the knower, as a superior being, is outside of the world that is observed. That gives “Objectivity” and “Value Neutrality” to Science and Scientists.

However, by doing so, scientists are alienated from the Nature. They become “outsiders”.

The communication becomes one-way. You get information from the object, but you give nothing to the object. This is a perfect “intellectual colonialism, exploitation”.

To be sure, this is only a religious-ideological fantasy. In real life, we cannot be like God. There is no such thing as “Value Neutral Knowledge” possible to humans. Humans cannot be outside this Universe, or what Buddhist call “Vicious Reality”.]

6. Then came Quantum Physics. The first public “event” marked the emergence of Quantum Physics in the Euro American Time was a public lecture give by W. Heisenberg in Chicago in 1929, Heisenberg announced “Uncertainty Principle” in the lecture (note that he did not do so in an academic paper.)

Among the audience in the Chicago lecture, there was a poet. The poet was Robert Frost. He narrates his reaction. [The Norton Reader. (Ed.) A.M. Eastman 3rd ed. Norton & Co. 1973 p. 519.]

“The other day we had a visitor here, a noted scientist, whose latest word to the world has been that the more accurately you know where a thing is, the less accurately you are able to state how fast it is moving.

You can see why that would be so, without going back to Zeno’s problem of the arrow’s flight. In carrying numbers into the realm of space and at the same time into the realm of time you are mixing metaphors, that is all, and you are in trouble. They won’t mix. The two don’t go together.”

The poet was absolutely right. This is perhaps surprising to the most scientists today. For they think poets would not understand anything about physics. And around 1930’s, the “second class” physicists were saying that there is only 3 intellectual giants who understand Quantum Physics in the World. Actually, the “3” was an exaggeration. They probably meant, Niels Bohr, Erwin Schrodinger and Werner Heisenberg. But there were others such as Louis de Broglie, Paul Dirac, Wolfgang Pauli, et al. Hideki Yukawa’s work on Nuclear Force/Meson Theory was done in early 1930’s in Japan. There were a lot more physicists who understood the new physics.

Besides, what a French Philosopher, Henry Bergson was writing on Time in 1890’s was very much in agreement with Quantum Physics. In terms of “operational approach” and “uncertainty/probability” that the new physics came to rely upon, there were philosophers like, C.S. Peirce, John Dewey. And, Poetical Philosophy of George Santayana, Existentialism of Martin Heidegger were already there. In retrospect, we can now appreciate their commonness with Quantum Physics. Only those “second class” scientists did not understand the new physics.

Robert Frost made reference to Zeno’s Paradox of flying arrow. According to Aristotle’s record based on a “hearsay” Zeno, some 2000 years ago, already knew that Newtonian Physics was wrong.

[See also The Reenchantment of the World p. 144-145.]

And more interestingly, Frost was saying “physics is a set of metaphors”. Physics, like poetry, is a linguistic art. Frost knew that in 1929. This is remarkable. Yet it is only an honest statement. Scientists who had psychological hang-ups about “Exact Truth” could not admit that, for the admission would destroy their “religious/ideological” superstition/prejudice. Physics inherited the notion of Absolute Truth from Judeo-Christianity.

As F. Capra in Tao of Physics tells, for non-Christians, it is no big deal to say human intelligence is limited in its capacity to know. However, I point out that since non-Christians had no enigma, they did not develop new physics either. To have problems is important, if you are to learn something. If there is no problem, there is nothing to learn. In this sense, even mistakes are valuable. You ought to think of this “dialectics”.

[I bet if your girl/boy friend is totally “predictable”, then you would lose interest.

Passion would become stronger by pains.

Goethe said ones who do not know the taste of tears would not know love.]

7. Now, the statement of Heisenberg, summarized by Frost is simple. (Frost is accurate, however.) But this does not mean that there are no more implications. In fact, there are several serious implications.

One of the implications is that the Uncertainty Principle suggests that “measurement” (knowing) of exact position of a thing affects and changes the state of the thing. It tells that you cannot know people (thing) without changing or hurting the people (thing). Knowing is interactive, not “neutral”. A psychiatrist, social worker, or teacher to know a client is to change the client, either for better or worse. And the psychiatrist, him- or herself, is affected by knowing. Extending this a bit, one can say that if nothing changes, you did not learn anything.

In relation to our question on Time, the above implication of Uncertainty Principle suggests that “knowing” is “irreversible”. By knowing, you change things. Once changed, you cannot get the innocence of the ignorance back. This in turn implies that in the world where “knowers” exist, the Time can only go one way, though there are other interpretations.

[There are other interpretations such as Time is actually consisting of two-way flow, one from the Past to the Present, and one from the Future to the Present. When two flows (waves) of “Event-Fields” meets, “an event” happens.

And, Time could be “circular”. Then, the above means that the orientation of rotation is in one direction on the Time Loop. Left-hand oriented World and Right-hand oriented World would be different. We do have some observational hints to this.]

This is known as “Arrow of Time” (One-direction-ness of Time). Before Quantum Physics, Statistical Theory on Heat Phenomena, etc. suggested this “one-way-ness”. That was known as “Entropy Law”. Since Statistical Theory relies upon human estimate of probabilities, one can take the Entropy Law as a part of Quantum Physics, and related to the “Knowing Interaction”.

That is to say it is “Knowing” that pushes Time. If there is no knowing (learning) like in the Garden of Eden —, there might not have been Time. And, if you apply “Dialectics” here, you would conclude that if there is no Time, there would have been no knowing.

One could possibly try a “Theology”. Namely that the God that does not change must be ignorant and does not have Time. It would be “Eternal God”, only because he/she cannot Learn anything. Learning means Change. Change means “sensitivity”, but it is “ephemerality” as well. “Stability” (of an institution, system) is incompatible with “Sensitivity” (change, learning). But then, you might apply “Uncertainty Principle” to this dialectical pair, and get to an accommodating compromise for the both. Interestingly, Physicists also call the Uncertainty Principle “Complementarity Principle” (Co-operative Dialectics).

[Ref: M. Janner cited above.

F.A. Wolf Taking the Quantum Leap Harper & Row 1981. Lethb. Pub. Lib. 350. 12.

K. Wilber (ed.) The Holographic Paradigm. Shambhala 1982.]

IV. Physics is (or physicists are) crazy. But what it has to do with Eros/Passion?

1. In a book Responsibilities To Future Generations [E. Partridge (ed.) Prometheus Press] 1980 contains, as the conclusion, “Love of Remote” by Nicolai Hartmann. The article is a partial reprint of a paper in a journal Ethics [vol.2. 1932. p. 311-331.]

Hartmann wrote:

“The Platonic Eros — when we strip it of everything else and attend only to its ethical substance, is deeper absorption of the idea, great passion for it, personal commitment to it. Thsi passion brings it about that a man is transported beyond himself and beyond his environment. It is a man’s losing of himself in his work, his inward life in what is not yet, in what is ‘still on the way from Non-being to Being'” it is the abandonment of the present for what is future, uncertain; the sacrifice of his life for another life, for one more valuable, but one that is not his own.”

I do not like words like “Platonic”. One who does not have courage to say “Eros” pure and simple, it is better that one does not say eros at all. It is nonsense to speak of “strip”, Eros is not a stripper. It looks like an “essence” because Eros manifests in everything and anything. But Eros is a Dynamics, not an “essence”. Taking away the contexts, the contingencies, the environment, the flesh and blood, Eros cannot exist. All these are typical in European Intellectual talk.

Eros/Passion does not care if it is “carnal or not”. Need I say anything as to the silly “Platonic”?

And, it is not as if there exists an entity, or “essence” (atom), called “Passion” and that drives people (he and she) to care for the unknown future either. It is the whole relationships and dynamics spanned over the long time dimension that is the Passion. Even the theological notion of Passion in Christianity had the Time Dimensional sense, which is narrated in N. Kazantzakis’s Grek Passion etc.

But the rest is great.

You do not know, but you care. That is Eros/Passion.

It is on the Time Dimension/Duration, that Eros/Passion becomes sensible, feelable.

If I may add anything to the description, I would include the Time in the sense of History. Time Dimension covers both the Future and Past.

It is the “Continuity”, without insisting “Identity”.

That is: Eros/Passion is for “ephemeral beings” to create. It is not things like “immortality” (egoism, megalomania).

Eros/Passion is like “weaving patterns” that emerges in the “networking” of many relationships, including oppositions. Think of each line of thread to be an image of life in time dimension. What many threads make up is the Eros/Passion. (Granted, it could also be a Hell.) That is, in other words, a “Holographic Time Pattern” emerging in the Ephemerals.

How can we “see” it? No, we cannot see by eyes. We can only see actors and actresses on the stage. The “Play” itself is invisible. You can hear “sounds in sequence”, but you can only sense “music”. [E. Husser} The Phenomenology of Inner Time Movements.] It is a kind of flow of life that carries you. Perhaps, when you finish your life, you may be able to say, “I lived a Passion.”

———

I tried to tell you where you might encounter Eros/Passion in terms of Physics. I hope my story made some sense and be of some help to you.

 

Newtonian View of Universe is lonely: Atoms in the vast empty space-time is a reflection of the way the modern men feel of their existence (PDF)

I. Newtonian View of Universe is lonely.

— Atoms in the vast empty space-time is a reflection of the way the modern men feel of their existence —

1. Introduction. Where we stand now.

Newton formulated his Mechanics, some 800 years ago in the beginning of the Industrial Revolution. It was an instant success. What was new in the Mechanics was the Mathematics of Differential Calculus, which was a language capable of constructing descriptions and predictions on the basis of “infinitesimally” small segments. According to the Mechanics, if one knows a very very small fragments of the universe, one can know everything, including what will happen in the future. The sense of power generated in the minds of people then was enormous. For the first time in the history that it knew, human intellect became powerful enough to replace “Prophecy” by “Scientific Prediction”.

One must appreciate this revolution in human intellectuality. Before that time, people had suffered from “false prophets”, “demigods”, and corruptions of religious institutions etc., for long time. Often, their spiritual needs were taken advantage of. Finally, people got a “sure thing” which was “true” as far as they can see, and accessible to anybody who learned the art of the language. It encouraged and empowered Europeans to go out for the adventures of colonial explorations and manufacturing industries. It liberated their minds from fear of unknowns. Man no longer needed to fear the Nature!

It was not that there was no navigational technology to get to New continent. Columbus already knew navigation by stars in 1400s. By the seventeen century, accurate clocks were in navigational use to tell the position of a ship in the middle of ocean, within a precession of 100 miles or less. But for a large scale transoceanic trades to develop, a few brave men and desperados were not enough. They needed something more to make range number of people to feel “confidence” in themselves, not only for the voyages, but also for “investments”. Newtonian Mechanics gave that. Spaniards may have braved rough Atlantic Ocean in their quest of Gold in the New continent. But they were not free from the sense of “adventure” in the haphazard voyages. British after Newtonian Mechanics had “deterministic knowledge” of the Future. They could rationally calculate their fortunes, thinking that occasional failures and accidents were exceptions, not the rule. In the peak of the British colonial trading, the returns of investments were like 400%. There were risks and losses, of course, but the colonial trades were not risking for 10% profits like investments today do.

Today, even English speaking people, by and large, do not know the meaning of the trade and consequently would not understand what a great confidence giver Newtonian Mechanics was. They think that Newtonian Mechanics is just a “physics”. It was the backbone of the Imperialism, if not the essence of the culture. And one ought to note that the “Power” of the Europe name from the “confidence” in knowing the universe. we know that people and group of persons can perform a lot efficiently when with confidence. If we are to think of ways to empower people, the first thing to do is to build confidence in themselves.

But, you might ask me; “Why then is Europe in decline today?” What happened to the confidence by Newtonian Mechanics? Did the physics change?

The physics indeed have changed. But I shall talk about that later. It is more important to think about what we think as “knowing” first. The knowledge of Newtonian Mechanics was a “knowledge” at the particular historical situation. It was the “environment” that made it “effective” and “powerful”. Newtonian Mechanics contained many flaws from the beginning. It was merely one way of “perceiving” the world, not a “Truth”. As much as it was useful in the circumstance, people can take it as a “Truth” and “the Description of Reality”. At least it was advantageous to believe in it, say for the “power of positive thinking”, even though it was not true, or even be wrong.

But, Newtonian Mechanics contained metaphysical assumptions which were not visible. Newton himself did not see himself making assumptions. A philosopher I. Kant was very much impressed by Newtonian Mechanics and wrote a critique — ironically titled as “critique of pure Reason” —, but he failed to see alternatives to the implicit assumptions. He ended up saying that Newtonian Mechanics is the Truth, and all human thinking ought to copy the style. Today, in retrospect, we would say that the metaphysical assumptions are like “prejudices” in the sense they can not be justified, though they can be believable immediately.

In Mathematics, and Logics, the basic assumptions are called “Axioms”. They are not “prejudices” because they are explicitly said. The first “Axiomatic” system known to the European science was that of Euclid Geometry. (Euclid himself did not axiomatize the Geometry, but Geometry was simple enough to be reduced into a set of axiomatic propositions soon after it was rediscovered by Renaissance scholars.) It so happen that the scholars instinctively suspected one of Axioms of Euclid Geometry. The suspected axiom was that about “Parallel line”. The axiom said that there can be one and only one parallel line to a any given line passing  a given point outside the line. Other axioms were short in expressions — such as “There is a point on a line between two points on the line” etc. —.

If you have done some geometrical exercises, you would know that the Axiom of Parallel line is very powerful one used very often. You would say that the axiom cannot be false, otherwise the whole Euclid Geometry word collapse. You are right in one sense, that is, the axiom is not false. It so happen that there were two alternatives to the Parallel Axiom. And without changing any other axioms, one can build two different geometries known as “Non-Euclid Geometries” There are “not false” just as Euclid one was. And Einstein et al found good uses for Non-Euclid Geometries and many others which they made up after the discovery of the freedom in geometries.

Kant was wrong only in that assuming that “There can be one and only one Truth”. It turned out that there can be many “truth”. Or one could say that there is no “truth” in any of geometries. Mathematicians and physicists today prefer the later version. They would say that “science” is not knowledge of Truth. Science try to be “helpful” to people, not asserting the authority of being Truth.

Unfortunately, the majority of “scientists” and academics even today are still in the medieval habit of asserting Truth, and do not like to acknowledge “non-truth” status of their “sciences”. They are ignorant of the foundation of science. I would imagine, even after you learned of the freedom of choices in theoretical constructions, you do not like to admit that what you are believing is “non-truth”. Your intellectual megalomaniac tendency would not like to settle for being merely “helpful suggestions”, but like to assert “Truth”. Intellectualism is an expression of “Machismo” which is also a cover up for the fear of modern individual cut off from Love relations.

One has to appreciate how lonely and fearful it is to see Newtonian cosmology in order to understand why the modern intellectualism had emerged with the triumph of Newtonian Rationality in the Industrial Revolution.

It is a contradiction of Dr. Faust who was an all-powerful intellectual on one hand and yet being a lonely kid looking for Love on the other hand. Dr. Faust, in the play written by J.W. Goethe at the time Germany was coming to the Scientific-Technological Age. Goethe was a writer, poet, a close friend of a philosopher Hegel, but also a “scientists” as well. He did understand the “pang” of the coming age. The pang was intellectual in the case of Goethe, but did convey, the pain and bewilderment that many of people, particularly the newly emerging “proletariats” under the misery of the industrialization, felt. One may have to read Marx’s account of the lives of laborers then. Our capitalism was built not only on the blood and sweat of working people but also on the alienation of the people driven out of communal life — i.e. a network of affectionate relations among peasants —. We note, however, even Marx thought it a “progress”. It required up-rooting of the old “Cosmology”. If we are to look the “adapting problems” of the Natives in North America in a parallel with the history, we would also see the significance of “Cosmology”.

Then, what so terrifying was Newtonian Cosmology? We are so brainwashed that we do not see the problem. We would say that Newtonian worldview is the true view of the Reality. It cannot be viewed in any alternative way. The Space-Time is there as Newtonian Mechanics says, independent of whatever we feel. We recall faintly that Einstein changed the worldview completely, but only a few among us dare to look at the universe in alternative senses.

Not that Einstein got it right, but he opened possibilities for different Cosmology. After Relativity of Einstein, there emerged Quantum Theory which stayed puzzling for a long time, but now coming to suggest us alternatives to Newtonian view and stimulated revival of “communal” senses of the universe. Thanks to those developments, we are now in a position to look back Newtonian World View and sense the problems in it. We no longer need apology in talking of our feelings in the ways we look at the Nature and the World, if not “Spiritual” Realms.

2. The Characteristics of Newtonian view of the World.

The characteristics of Newtonian view of the World are summarizable in a few brief statements. It says;

1) The Universe is a large empty Space-Time. Isolated Atoms exist in the vast vacuum. The Atoms are independent from each other and incapable of changing.

ii) There is no “Cause” — the Religious notion of cause is denied by Newton, his “Force” is not “cause”, despite the popular misunderstanding to be otherwise.

iii) There is no “Prophecy”. There is no “Purpose”, “Reason”, but accidents of conditions.

iv) Changes have to be “Forced”. And motions can only follow course “determined” (dictated) by the Mechanics of the Force. One simply has to be powerful enough to supply all energy needed for the desired motions.

v) Human Intellect is capable of knowing everything and to any accuracy desired. Hence, the courses of motions are controllable by Human Intellect.

vi) The Universe and everything taking place in it can be ‘measured” and treated in “Linearized Approximations”. (This is not from Newton himself, but held by the followers.)

Against such a set of assumptions, there have been several objections. A notable one among pre-Einstein time was that by E. Mach. Mach contended that there can be no such thing as Atom. He viewed that everything and anything is “related” to each others. An object is nothing but a symbolic representation of a “nexus of relationships” perceived by humans as a thing. The Universe then, is far from being “Vast Vacuum”, “Nothing”, “Emptiness”, but the theatrical stage of the relationships to unfold upon it as a drama. Even a minute grain of sand cannot move without moving the entire Universe in a complimentary mode. Mach advocated what we now call “Holistic View” of the World.

Oriental natural philosophy some three thousand years before stated that nothing is immutable, unchangeable, nor independent. We have yet to hear from Native Philosophy as to those issues.

Even within the Classical Physics, since emergence of Electromagnetic Field Theory in the 19th century, the “Empty Space” view of the Universe gradually gave away to more “sticky, filled-in” feeling of the Space. The vast “vacuum” of the Universe became something other than “nothing”. Rather, the “Field” concept made people to imagine and feel that there are “flows” of something invisible to us but nonetheless affects motions within. We can look at many pictures which M. Faraday drawn for the “Field”. They are remarkably beautiful. C. Maxwell who mathematized Faraday’s images into equations, also have drawn pictures, such as the Universe filled with “vortexes”. The only step missing was rebellion against the “god-like regularity” of Time Measure of Newtonian Universe. When the Time is also understood as a Dynamical entity, Einstein’s Relativity was born (1905). In that sense, we can view that Relativity was the first step by the modern intellectual to regain the “Enchanted Universe” that ancient people had.

[After reading this, don’t you ever say that Indians do not have the concept of time. they had a “Relativistic” sense of time. And in occasions like hunting Buffalos, they had to have split-second precession in their coordination of actions. they did that by “spiritually tuned in”. Otherwise, they could not survive. We, on the other hand, only have the “clock time” and have hard times coordinating our actions with people. We only know how to compete in Time, not cooperating. In WWI and II soldiers were often killed by the artillery fire from their own side, because of in-coordination in Time of the scale of minute.]

Interestingly, by Relativity, Time ceased to be an absolute measure, symbolizing the Newtonian Rationality. We now can appreciate why “primitive” people used to talk of Time as if an animated entity. Hegel’s notion of “spirit” as something to do with “Historical Time” was an attempt to revive the ancient Myth. But it was not understood in the Age of Newton. It would be respectable now, except that Hegelian sense of “spirit” is almost forgotten by the modern bourgeois intellectuals. [See Hegel on “Reason in History”. The famous remark of Marx “Knowing is not mere interpretation, but changing of the World” was in reference to Hegel’s Philosophy of History. Marx did not actually negate Hegel but stressed actions, Hegel did not deny “practices” either. The rhetoric of those Germans are excessively colorful, but often misleading. We need to read them with less polemical intensity but with more meditative reflection. Then we can appreciate what problems they were struggling with. Both of them tried anti-Newtonian view, but could not win the day. In terms of physics, I would make a parallel between the Electromagnetic Theory of M. Faraday and C. Maxwell with Hegel and Marx, respectively.]

We can compare such thoughts with the Western notion-prejudice of individual and see what implications the Western society led by Individualism has to pay for the assumption. Of course, the Western culture call it “Science” and deems the thinking in the mode to be “Rational”. Aside from punishing “individuals” for their crime and make them pay taxes, the western Metaphysics has no useful function. Rather, it forced upon itself many problems, among which Alienation of human lives and fighting wars and competitions are but two examples.

As noted before, the Western Metaphysics did make people to seek Power, Domination, in a conceit. But the results are less than praiseworthy. Its ill-effects and “pollutions” (both in substances and on minds) overweight any benefits that it brought upon the humanity. It was an “inappropriate” physics, in that sense.

The conceitedness comes in thinking that the “individual” can control deterministically whatever motion-change one desired. Humans simply do not have the energy to supply the motions. Rather, things do not happen by “Force”, but by “Triggers” in the sense a huge avalanche can be triggered by a mere whisper, when it is ready. Humans parasite on the Gifts of circumstances. Humans depend on the conditions of the Nature, just as a baby depends on the Mother. The baby cries and the Mother comes. But it would be a caricature of conceit, if the baby thinks it control and command the Nature, let alone “Force” the Nature.

The conceit from ignorance for itself is rather innocent. The western scientism went further than that. In its megalomaniac conceit coupled with the “lonely” view of the universe drive it to “conquering” other people in the context of colonialism. They could not see the relationships that come back to themselves. Their notion of knowledge was “isolationistic” and they thought they are above and beyond reactions. They saw everything including people as “objects” to be taken advantages. People in the old communal life would not dare thinking like that. But the age of science made it legitimate and praiseworthy calling it “rational”, “intelligent”.

The generosity of the Nature and people of the colonies let the “spoiled child” of the Europe abusing them go on a while. We note that even Marx failed to recognize the Gifts of the Mother Nature, in terms of fossil energy resources which enabled scientists and technologists to enlarge “productive power”. The industrialization would have been impossible without exploitation of the fossil energy resources. Marx did not see it, because he was like anybody else at the time believed in the hostile view of the Nature and thought that economy is based on “scarcity”, rather than “Gifts” of plentitude.

In retrospect, we would say that he ought to have noted the impossibility of the exchange economy without surplus. The origin of exchange economy is in Gift Giving in the surplus plentitude, not in the postulated “scarcity” of the Classical Economics. But the Newtonian View of the universe is a fearful one. What is not hostile cannot be taken serious by it. And, here we might reflect on the distinction between “Work” and “Play”. Today, we might operationally define “work” to be that which is pained and “Play” to be that which is not paid. But, then we have trouble as to house works that many of women do. They are not paid. Are they not “works”? In terms of the Gift economy, we can appreciate them as “Gifts”. But what the theory of economics do with “gifts”? It brushes off gifts as “irrational”. Although Marx advocated “dialectical” thinking, he could not deviate from the culture of theRationalism prevalent in his time. What is not either “Forcing” nor “Forced” is irrational and could not be a part of the intellectual work.

[As to the origin of “Economy”, Max Weber. The Theory of social and Economic organization would be a good introduction. K.H. Wolf, The sociology of Georg Simmel; K. Polanyi The Great Transformation, are also recommended. The later developments in the filed called “Economic Anthropology” are interesting, but I do not know good introductory text. Marx is said to have learned something from Iroquois Indians, but it seems that he missed a great deal, perhaps because it was a secondhand knowledge. For this, see M.K. Foster et al (ed.) Extending The Rafters.

Native Americans appear to have no compunction to write books about their wisdom. They probably do not understand the western intellectual hang-up about “writing on stone” to make oneself “Immortal”. My native friend, despite my prodding, pleadings and coercions, remains very “shy” about writing anything. It reminds me of Inuit way of non-assertion. It appears that they do not think they can be of great help to others, perhaps because of the long memory of oppression on native culture in the North America. Only way to get to their wisdom seem to be “stealing” the wisdom held in deep secret by snooping around them. It is almost as bad as asking questions to zen masters.]

As to the “Cause” and “Prophesy”, the modern physics after Einstein, came to think of various interpretations, including the “Time that goes backwards” and “Multi-dimensional Time”. The problems are not solved. We know without “purpose” that projects our thoughts into the Future, there can be no use of knowing anything. Yet, it is the most troublesome problem in sciences. It involves Time dimension where our ordinary Logics fails. I would say that the notion of “knowing” in the western intellect is an illusion. But then, we need something as alternatives which are not yet found.

I would imagine the future of cosmology has more to do with time or Time Dimensions than spatial extent of the Universe. Christian metaphor of the “one Linear Time as a measure” is too incompetent to deal with the universe. We need a dynamical sense of Time(s) which perhaps creates and annihilates. There are some attempts by physicists as to those kinds of Cosmology. At moment, however, ordinary people would reject them as insanity. They appear to be comfortable in Newtonian illusion and much rather stay in it till some catastrophe to drive them out of it. Basically, it is Fear of unknowns that keep them there. Unfortunate thing about the state of “Freeze in Fear” is that the catastrophe so invited by it may be worse. A good therapy in such a case is to suggest “crazy” cosmologies as fun-fantasies of tinker-toy plays. One cannot be creative in the defensive posture. To be courageous and creative, one way is to behave like children playing with the Mother Universe. Suppose there were some elements of eroticism in the play, I would imagine she would laugh and forgive us.

As to the “Linear Approximation”, I need to talk of mathematics a bit. The Differential calculus, which Newton, Leibniz and Seki invented almost at the same time, is a way of imposing Linear net of “Measures” on what are not Linear.

And Newton’s Mechanics talks of the “second order” terms in the linearization. The mathematical expression for “Force” reads as “the rate of changes of the rate of changes” (of positions of atoms/objects). The change is not linear when pictured on a graph paper. The graph paper is the ideal of “the net of linear measures”. The deviations from straight lines on the graph paper is like “sins” and needs “explanation”. Scientific “explanation” is a ritual of “exorcism”. By explaining one is pardoned. In that sense “explanation” is an “excuse”. And by the ritual, one gains a confidence.

Newton’s genius is in that he came up with a way of explaining: away the deviation from a straight line (linearity) by saying in the second order linearization one get a straight line. If not, one go on to the higher order differentials. Another psychological advantage is that by “differentiation” one get a number which gives an illusion of “constancy”. Hence, even though the differentials are not “objects” but rather “relations”, one can refer to them as if they are “objects”. Given our fear of motion/change, this conversion of “changing relation” to “constant object” is a good psychotherapy. But there is a price to be paid for it too.

The notion of “Measure” itself is a way of converting unknowns to “constants”. We humans are “ephemeral”. We know that. And that is why we desire “eternal constants”. Our science is from such a “sentimentality”, though we think we are “macho” in doing sciences.

Another thing to be noted is that the Linearity ideal also comes in the way “Statistics” is used to assert knowledge. We note tha Newton could not have reached to The Laws of Motion by statistical Analysis of co-relations. But, we still cling to the linear notion and correct all sorts of statistics. Mathematically, it is easy to see that Statistics does not “prove” anything. The best it could do is the “negation of negation” — double negatives of the kind such as saying “I have no evidence to say you have not killed your mother”, which the statistical scientists take as a good ground to say “You have killed your mother” —.

However, you try to tell that social scientists today. You would be considered insane. Because they “believe” in statistics as th only scientific way to know something. Even if they understand your mathematics and an elementary exercise in logic, they cannot stop their “belief”, because their intellectual pride and incomes depend on it.

The “Measuring” is, in mathematical jargon, a “mapping”, “projection” onto the line of Real Number. Why such a simple operation is thought so important? The answer seems to be that scientists and the public in general worship The Linearity. Something curved is “crooked” and evil. If it come back to make a loop, that is the dreaded Vicious Circle which the Western Religions tried so hard to negate. There is nothing in Newtonian Mechanics, as a mathematical system to object to Vicious Circles. And in fact, the loop structure is very important in Engineering of “Feed Back”. But the Western Science is not completely free from its religious heritages. Despite its brave renunciations, the Western Science is a part of Christianity, and carries taboos on thoughts.

[As to these points, perhaps Max Weber may be a good reference. See The Protestant Ethics and The Capitalism. L. White The Historical Origin of Environmental Pollution is also a good reading. “Some of my best friends” are Christian ministers. They agree on these, and go on to Liberation Theology. If you like to have “antidote” to my “poison”, perhaps H.Kung On Being a Christian, and Does God Exist, may be of good reference, though Kung is an excommunicated theologian. Interestingly Kung talks on Mathematics at a length. Mathematics and Physics are products of the Western Culture, yet they contain the seeds of their own death. From a point of view of the “Ephemerist”, that is good. The life of any individual entity, dogma, institution, ought to be finite, so that they can be replaced by better ones. That instance of eternal constant, immortality, is the problem.]

After going through the troubles of mathematics, modern science, and relate them to our environmental and social problems, we would come to convince ourselves that we do not need any apology talking of “Spiritual problems” of the Modern Age.

[J. Habermas edited a book titled “Observations on The Spiritual Situation of The Age”. MIT press 1985. It is a book in “Social Science”. But to use titles like that is no longer “crazy”. I suspect it may even become “fashionable” soon.]

If we look at the present situation with respect to Nuclear Arms Race, at an annual cost to us like 800 billion dollars, it becomes outrageously obvious that what we lack is not “scientific knowledge”. Scientific knowledge is good, if helps us. If not, we need to think them out. Science does have its way of death within itself. If one does enough of “scientific investigation” on the science itself, its limitations and even follies become undeniable, In that sense self-critical “sciencing of science” is important.

Another way of getting out the old science is to listen to what are repressed. As the cases of axioms demonstrated, opposites of widely held beliefs may be worth studying as the means of gaining alternatives. It is said that a great truth is great because its opposite is also true. Or one might say when one (system) becomes self-closed, its life is near the end. It means the loss of learning capacity. It happened to Euclid Geometry, and to Newtonian Mechanics. Hopefully our curiosity for unknowns would not die. Certainly, it appears that the curiosity with Cosmology is in its rise now.

 

28 December 1988 Personal Correspondence on Rocks, Physics, etc.

Dec. 28, ’88

Dear Pam and Woody

Happy New Year. This year will be a year of Take Off for you (so my fortune cookie says). I wish great success for your Science. That makes you very busy, But I have a favor to ask for you. If it is possible for you (or one of you) to come down to Lethbridge and give a talk on Native Science, say in March, could you kindly do that for me? I have a course called Integrated Studies 2009 “Current Issues in Wars and Peace”. It is given Tuesday/Thursday 1:40-3:00. The Theme of the course is “Paradoxes Of Progress” and I intend to touch on Colonialism/Imperialism. [I shall send you the course outline.] I would like to have a lecture, story or discussion led by you. If possible, let me know.

Yours

Sam K.

To Pam: Please look at the picture book enclosed. Also there is a one story about “Stone Book”, which might be of interest to you. The style of painting may be called “Super-realist” — “Super” meaning “superposition” of two “manifolds” (spacetime-s) —. I am tempted to try painting like that. It might be possible to do talking and thinking in the same manner. I tried one time a poem in two voices (“Dodos did not make it”). Writing in the Super-realistic stylism may be a fun. Of course, it is a taboo in English (called “mixed metaphors” etc.) and readers would be confused. Worse, Psychiatrists would say you are schizophrenic. Zeno’s Paradox is a mixing of “Being” and “Becoming”, which is illogical in European Languages. [*1]

But in Eastern Philosophy (Yoga), it was well known technique to go into “schizophrenic” state (controlled in some sense by a company of a master/assistance, and considered to be dangerous) to remove the “dictate” of rationalization and to get in touch with the repressed part of mind.

The advantage (and trouble) of Quantum Language is also coming from “Mixed Metaphors” — say in “Particle/Object” metaphor and “Wave/Field” metaphor —. People have troubles in talking individual and Social matters in the same breath. Environment and Human Will are in two disconnected worlds in our usual way of thinking. Even most Biologists do not see the same dichotomy in Evolution Theory. Blackfoot language does mix “Being” and “Becoming” in one word, but I do not know if People are taking any advantage. I get an impression that people who come to university are thinking in English.

I am reading about an article in a book about D. Bohm’s Implicate Order. It has to do with Double Field (Manifold, Universe) that undergoing what Physics calls “Deformation under Stress”. It is a General Relativistic idea that the Universe is made of the “Stress” of Space-Time, but this article tries a Space-Time including “Becoming” manifold.

The Double Space-Time is just like “Rock” is formed under great Cosmic Forces. The “Rock” stores that dynamics liek Trees store their life stories as Tree Rings. What we sense and recognize as “Existence”, “Mass”, “Spin-Rotation”, etc., are manifestations of the “Stress”, which comes from “Becoming” part and relates to Implicate Order. (The word “Stress” in ordinary usage connotes something undesirable, but that has little to do with what Physics calls by the same word. You might understand the “Stress” as something like the explosive “Anxiety” that young lovers experience. You note that for them that is the “Meaning of Life”. They are wrong only in seein it as individualistic/narcissistic sense. But they are not too far off the mark.)

Chinese, Japanese knew of “Vein” which is used as a metaphor for “Reason”. They talked of “splitting Rock by the Reason” etc. What Relativity tries to do is to find “Vein” in Space-Time, or the “Stress Dynamics” that generate the Space and Time, as well as Matters within.

[see also Paul Davies. The Cosmic Blueprint Simon & Shuster 1988.]

When Newtonian Physics made Space-Time to be nothing, it ironically turned out that Space-Time had to be harder than Steel — because it transmit Light wave, and, since the harder the Medum is the faster the wave propagates, Space-Time that transmits Light Wave had to be very hard —. Now, since Relativity, Space-Time became somewhat Soft and Movable (Feminized). It also connotes that Physics changed from that of objects in Motion to Fields in Interaction.

The ways of thinking Social phenomena that give rise to policies, ideologies, prejudices at this time are by and large still Newtonian. People tend to think and talk in the metaphor of “Objects in Motion”, though some changes in the ways of thinking do show up sometimes. That is why it is interesting to hear you explaining how Native Science works in Human-Social phenomena/situations.

At any rate, I am doing what so called “Finsler Geometry” now, and trying to see what it tells me about Rock and Dream. What is interesting about Finsler Geometry is that it has “double Space-time” (or “Double Manifold” : one is static “Being Part”, like the Geometry that Einstein et al have explored, and another dynamic Becoming Part which is not about “objects”.) I think it is closer to what Faraday was dreaming some 150 years ago. I might come to share the Dream, though it may take a few years for me to get to the stage. And by some luck, it might be what you told me about “Rock”.