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8-14
15-21
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43-49
50-56
57-63
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71-77
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85-91
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113-119
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Purpose
and John Saloma1991explain:
therefore process projects a goal.67
attain its goal, these means being determinate or predictable if they are to be
effective. The free, initiating, creative play of purpose needs fixed laws,
constraints, and a deterministic framework through which to realize its goal.
Young’s process paradigm deals expressly with this interplay of freedom and
constraint.”68
in science, among biologists especially, who, while they must be strongly
tempted to invoke it at every turn, avoid it as reformed alcoholic avoids a
drink. Physicists avoid it because their problems don’t require it. And yet we
find one of the greatest physicists Max Planck1949saying that: “...the
historical development of theoretic research in physics had led in a
remarkable way to a formulation of the principle of physical causality which
possesses an explicitly teleological character.”69Let us note then that the
purposiveness is associated with that aspect of light known as the principle of
least action.”70
that process has direction, that it builds on itself, that it must use means, that means
must be determinate. The dynamic we call process has purposiveness—there is goal
seeking.
Arthur Young, The Reflexive Universe, 1976, ibid
68John S. Saloma, Commentary to the Theory of Process, The Theory of Process 2, Robert Briggs
69Max Planck, Scientific Autobiography and Other Papers, Philosophical Library, New York, 1949
70Arthur Young, The Reflexive Universe, 1976, ibid
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to theory that modern science has scrupulously avoided. since at least Sir
Francis Bacon, science has limited itself to the consideration of objective
reality, rendering itself a partial theory of the nature of reality. Young’s aim
in the Theory of Processis to achieve a comprehensive theory or
metaparadigm that includes and is thoroughly consistent with the best
science but which is capable of dealing with nonobjective, nondefinable
aspects of reality beyond the accepted limits of current science.
into the nature of reality. At the most general level, process or time-structure
exhibits several features. It incorporates “the arrow of time”, the basic
asymmetry of time, always moving ahead from the past through the present
into the future.
Young’s theory and a good starting point for a systematic consideration of his
ideas. Process is a description and an interpretation of how the Universe
works. Young uses the term interchangeably with “time-structure”,
suggesting an underlying and definable dynamic. Process is initiated by a
purposive, goal-seeking thrust, an initial venturesomeness that pushes it
ahead. At its most fundamental level, the Universe is a process put into motion
by purpose, analogous to a learning experience. Ancient cosmologies speak of
God wanting to know himself, seeking to actualize that which was only
potential. This same undeniable thrust toward actualization is the essence of
what Young means by process.”71
understand both purpose and goal, if we are to understand dynamic Universe. Purpose
begins with the simplest stage of process in Universe—Light. Youngexplained:
comes in whole
units (quanta) which cannot befurther divided. Light, moreover, is
immaterial; it is without charge, rest mass or other properties. It is outside of
space-time. Clocks stop at the speed of light and the photon can traverse an
unlimited distance without loss.
John S. Saloma, Commentary to the Theory of Process, 1991, ibid
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establish the photon on an objective basis; he cannot give it a position or
predict it. If he does detect the photon, as, say, on a photographic plate, it is
annihilated and has no future to predict. The layman, on the other hand, is
bathed in a world of light (as well as other radiation, including heat and radio
waves); it is of no concern to him that the light he sees by no longer exists after
he sees it. Not having taken the monk’s vow of science—that the Universe is
objective—he participates in the Universe, and this participation, as well as
all chemical and other interactions in the Universe, is due to photon exchange.
electron, we must disturb it. Since, in theory, it is impossible to know the exact
position and velocity of a particle, we can only predict probabilities. What
Heisenberg failed to note is that when this principle is applied to photons, we
cannot predict at all. Physicists cope with this problem by considering all
photons to be “virtual”, which means that they are unobservable. Science thus
comes back to where it started, before it decided to exclude what was
unobservable.
“Ordinary life is very Tao.” Spiritual teaching has always emphasized the
ineffability of the highest principle: “What is the sound of one hand clapping?”
Such enigmatic expressions warn that the ultimate essence is not a thing, it is
no thing.”72
light as first cause:
and time in seconds, quanta of action are counted with no necessity of
specifying the kind of unit. This implies their fundamental nature: Actions
precede measure, they are prior to the analysis which yields grams, meters,
and seconds.”73
Arthur Young, The Foundations of Science: The Missing Parameter, 1984, ibid
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discussing the photon and consciousness begins by quoting
Francis Bacon1609:
either great or lucky: great, if they knew what they were doing and invented
the figure to shadow the meaning; lucky, if without meaning or intending it
they fell upon matter which gives occasion for such worthy contemplations.
most ancient therefore of all things whatever, except Chaos, which is said to
have been coeval with him; and Chaos is never distinguished by the ancients
with divine honor or by the name of a god. This Love is introduced without any
parent at all; only, that some say he was an egg of Night. And himself out
Chaos begot all things, the gods included. The attributes which are assigned
to him are in number four: he is always an infant; he is blind; he is naked; he is
an archer.
Love I understand to be the appetite or instinct of primal matter, or to speak
more plainly, the natural motion of the atom, which is indeed the original and
unique force that constitutes and fashions all things out of matter. Now this is
entirely without parent, that is, without cause. For the cause is as it were
parent of the effect; and of this virtue there can be no cause in nature,
therefore neither kind nor form. Whatever it be therefore, it is a thing positive
and inexplicable. And even if it were possible to know the method and process
of it, yet to know it by way of cause is not possible; it being next to God, the
cause of causes, itself without cause. That the method even of its operation
should ever be brought within range and comprehension of human inquiry is
hardly perhaps to be hoped; with good reason therefore it is represented as an
egg hatched by night.... For the summary law of nature, that impulse of desire
impressed by God upon the primary particles of matter which makes them
come together, and which by repetition and multiplication produces all the
variety of nature, is a thing which mortal thought may glance at, but can
hardly take in....
Arthur Young, The Reflexive Universe, ibid
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affected by age, whereas the primary seeds of things, or atoms, are minute and
remain in perpetual infancy.
considers them rightly) are masked and clothed, and there is nothing properly
naked except the primary particles of things.
it seems that this Cupid, whatever he be, has very little providence, but
directs his course, like a blind man groping, by whatever he finds nearest;
which makes the supreme divine providence all the more to be admired, as
that which contrives out of subjects peculiarly empty and destitute of
providence, and as it were blind, to educe by a fatal and necessary law all the
order and beauty of the Universe.
distance; for all operation at a distance is like shooting an arrow. Now whoever
maintains the theory of the atom and the vacuum....necessarily implies the
action of the virtue of the atom at a distance: for without this no motion could
be originated, by reason of the vacuum interposed, but all things would
remain fixed and immovable.”74
—Francis Bacon
continues:
called attention to the fact that Cupid is depicted as a person because first
cause must have the potential to become everything which evolution can
produce. I emphasize this point in criticism of current theories which treat
consciousness as an “epiphenomenon”—that is something which emerges late
in evolution.
epiphenomenon than to acknowledge that consciousness was there in the first
place. But such acceptability is deceptive; it gives us an IOU for the
Francis Bacon, Wisdom of the Ancients, 1609, Quoted by: Arthur Young, The Foundations of
Science: The Missing Parameter, Robert Briggs Associates, San Francisco, 1984
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consciousness in the origin of things; it cannot arise from the increasingly
specialized parts which develop as evolution proceeds.
“consciousness” properly applies; the later developments—particles, atoms,
molecules, cells, etc—are means or vehicles in which the photon invests. The
theory we are exploring requires that we view the photon as possessing or
controlling the molecule rather than the other way about. We recognize that
the photon is the seed principle or life spark. It is the whole from which other
more highly organized entities evolve.
cycling, and therefore conscious in that it acts and reacts. Such consciousness
is not of course consciousness as we know it; but as it applies to its own
activity it is sufficiently similar to have the potential for consciousness.
Admittedly, this is a great mystery, and we are not explaining it; but we are
giving it the importance it deserves. We have identified the quantum as just
that ingredient needed to explain the thrust of life, to account for life’s freedom
and its urge to surpass itself. It is remarkable that we find further
confirmation in the ancient Greek myth of Cupid, first and most potent of the
gods. In Bacon’s interpretation, written three hundred years before Planck
discovered the quantum of action, we have a description of just those features
which the quantum was subsequently found to possess.
motive power; a Universe, as Bacon said, where no motion can be originated,
all things....fixed and immovable. The drive or dynamic which is required for
evolution is thus needed apart form evolution. This drive, implicit in the
quantum of action, has been recognized by science in that it is now known
that all commerce between particles, atoms, and molecules is due to quanta of
action (photons). What has not been realized is that life and consciousness are
implicit in this same drive.”75
—Arthur Young
Arthur Young, The Foundations of Science: The Missing Parameter, 1984, ibid
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This expansion of our understanding cannot occur in isolation. We cannot understand
ourselves separate from Universe. Science2001has discovered that reality is inclusive.
R. Buckminster Fuller1975explains:
metaphysical experiences of Universe, which the physicists thought they had
to exclude from their more limited definition of the finite physical portion of
Universe. The metaphysical embraces life which is weightless as well as all
the weightless experiences of thought, including all the mathematics and the
organization of data regarding all the physical experiments, science itself
being metaphysical. Metaphysical generalizations are timeless, i.e., eternal.
Because the metaphysical is abstract, weightless, sizeless, and eternal,
metaphysical experiences have no endurance limits and are eternally
compatible with all other metaphysical experiences. What is metaphysical
experience? It is comprehending the relationships of eternal principles. The
means of communication is physical. That which is communicated, i.e.,
understood, is metaphysical. The symbols with which mathematics is
communicatingly described are physical. A mathematical principle is
metaphysical and independent of whether X, Y or A, B are symbolically
employed.
stand for Universe, Mstand for
metaphysical and Pstand for the physical, then the most comprehensive
generalization would be that which has U=MP. An eternally regenerative
Universe results from the metaphysical times the physical. We could then
have a subgeneralization where the physical P=Er•Em, where Erstands for
energy as radiation and Emstands for energy as matter.
lifein this formula? It is not physical. Whatever else lifemay be,
we know it is weightless. At the moment of death, no weight is lost. All the
chemicals, including the chemist’s life ingredients, are present, but life has
vanished. The physical is inherently entropic, giving off energy in ever more
disorderly ways. The metaphysical is antientropic, methodically marshalling
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