Reflection Upon the Paradox of Spacetime and Universal Absolute Motion

 Leibniz remarked that Newton's supposition that a body set into motion without any other forces acting upon it would continue in a straight line was insupportable. For said body could just as easily be supposed to continue to move ad infinitum in a curved line. 

Indeed, as Nicholas of Cusa showed due to the principle of coincidence of opposites in the limited imagination of the infinite in the realm of human cognition, there is no difference between straightness and curvature. For that matter, likewise there is in fact no difference between infinite motion and infinite rest. 

However, in the concrete physical medium, there is no infinite motion. The speed of light is the greatest possible speed of electromagnetic propagation. Thus providing a boundedness for three dimensional extension to "go over" via Riemann's principle of n+1, into a kind of 3+1 dimensionality at right angles to the totality of the other three spatial dimensions. Thus giving rise to a what is called Einsteinian spacetime. However, one caveat here is that spacetime is not continuously traversable in either direction, but can only proceed up to the speed of light forward in the dimension of time. (This is why all talk about reversibility of time and thereby entropy is nothing more than vain imaginary reasoning.)

As Einstein correctly hypothesized mass is proven to be converted to energy as the square of the speed of light. However, as we have noted above that entity can have no physical meaning such that we cannot multiply the speed of light at all for absolute space except as a relative term in spacetime. Thus were developed by Einstein the overall field equations involving measurement tensor geometries describing the effects of gravity as a form of curvature of spacetime. Hence the complaint that Leibniz made against Newton's pairwise attractive force of gravity is a false, magical action at a distance is overcome by Einstein's revolution in physics.

It is remarkably consistent that Einstein's own complaint about the statistical assumptions of quantum mechanics are likewise faulty. For the use of statistics for the sake of making consistent measurements  can never magically stand in the place of causality. To date, the edifice of the standard model of particle physics that rests upon quantum mechanics statistical wave function that Einstein criticized as based upon mere chance rather than lawfulness has not been resolved. 

If it were possible to add the universal manifold of motions of any one frame of reference "at rest" like the earth, what would be the set of nested variables involved? As a thought experiment let us make an attempt. We know at the largest scale that our Milky Way galaxy is moving as a part of the Virgo cluster group toward the "Great Attractor" group of galaxies which in turn comprise portions of the super cluster called Laniakea.  However, the cosmological constant lamba that is the basis for some unknown "dark energy" that is expanding the fabric of space time. This must be added to this velocity as well.

From the very largest scales, our rotating planet is moving within the solar system, which in turn is rotating within our home galaxy the Milky Way. If we could actually correctly model all these motions within motions relative to an "absolute space" reference frame, and that is a big if, then it is my intuition that many of the problems associated with the great paradoxes of the big bang, dark matter, dark energy and black holes in the context of quantum physics standard model may become resolved in an analogous manner by which Einstein superseded Newtonian mechanics. This would serve as the basis for a unification theory for the forces within the inorganic realm of reality, however it cannot in itself account for the transfinitely higher ordering of the biophysical, just as the biophysical cannot account for the human noetic domain.  

The Universe within 500 million light years, showing the nearest galaxy walls

Galaxy filaments, walls and voids form web-like structures.

Physical Reality or Mathematical Formalisms?

Today, we have a crisis in physical science that mirrors and maps onto the corresponding crisis in culture. This has to do with the irrationality of the provably false belief that a statistical array that apparently coheres approximately with some physical function may be substituted for causality. 

This has led to the embarrassing absurdity of a sort of latter day cargo cult quasi religion of string theory. In which we find an inextricable tangled mess of a imaginary figment known as the multiverse landscape of possible parallel worlds where reality is left completely and irremediably behind. If only these stultified probability junkies had picked up and comprehended Leibniz on the issue, they might never have been entranced futilely babbling to each other ad infinitum about unprovable yet putatively "beautiful mathematics."

As LaRouche has repeatedly pointed out about so called pure geometry given in the most advanced treatment to this date by Riemann, it is inadmissible to attempt to substitute, as in the manner of an algebra, it (pure geometry) for physical reality. Indeed, the great Riemann explicitly warned of just that in his groundbreaking doctoral thesis. 

"A decision upon these questions [i.e. of curvature type and dimensional manifold] can be found only by starting from the structure of phenomena that has been approved in experience hitherto, for which Newton laid the foundation, and by modifying this structure gradually under the compulsion of facts which it cannot explain. Such investigations as start out, like this present one, from general notions, can promote only the purpose that this task shall not be hindered by too restricted conceptions, and that progress in perceiving the connection of things shall not be obstructed by the prejudices of tradition.

This path leads out into the domain of another science, into the realm of physics, into which the nature of this present occasion forbids us to penetrate." 

And yet, that has been precisely the path taken that has led us into the present abyss. It is clearly an irrefutable tautology that statistics is not causality. However, it is also the case that irrationality is not beauty. And yet our would be authoritative cultural establishment has ordained the opposite. 

The mathematical forms taken from Riemann (for example the Riemann Roche theorem) have been "mapped" into statistical wave functions and become "reified" as physical substance. This has transformed Riemann's principled challenge of the false sense certainty of Euclidean space into the false axiomatics of "statistical space."  

Such perversity is nothing new. In fact it can be found at any historical epoch wherein the arbitrarily imposed will of an oligarchy is radically challenged. In particular in Plato's dialogues that record the open questioning of that very irrationality by Socrates resulting in his judicial execution by mob rule. This proceeds in the course of the Republic where Thrasymachus represents the justification for such arbitrary rule by force. This today is the essence of  the push toward geopolitical tyranny of global neoliberalism that goes hand in hand with the intellectual disability of and crisis of probabilistic "sciences."

 

Endosymbiosis of Mitochondria as Nicholas of Cusa's Principle of Contracted Maximality

 As I have insisted within these pages and elsewhere, Nicholas of Cusa is not a mystic. In fact, the truth is precisely the opposite. And anyone professing to identify Cusa's works as such, merely demonstrates his of her intellectual shortcomings. 

By the phrase "just the opposite" I mean to say that the method of philosophic dialogue that Cusa develops is the basis not for mysticism but rather it is the basis for scientific investigation. I shall demonstrate this in what follows. 

We do not know, and will never know precisely when and how the mechanism of cellular energy throughput came about in the history of the biosphere. We do know that the remarkable near universality of the mitochondria as the locus of the energy throughput via the engine of the enzyme ATPase supplying ATP as the source of energy to the cell. We know that this constitutes an endosymbiosis, in which the cell's nuclear DNA is separate and distinct from the encapsulated mitochondrial DNA. This constitutes a unity as the basis for the very organization of life across the boundaries of its aerobic and anaerobic forms. 

The principle for this process of development of our organic existence is twofold. One is the necessity of the capture and useful reduction of energy underlying and differentiating the living and non-living states of matter. The second principle is the process of subsumption of opposites in the manifold contractedness of substance.  This occurs via that which Riemann established as the equivalence of degrees of freedom through added dimensionality. This is understood as the orthogonal movement of n dimensions to n + 1 dimensions. 

Thus for all history, the subsumption of the mitochondria into the cell, constitutes a nodal event that rather efficiently demonstrates that which Cusa identified as learned ignorance. For we will never know precisely how this came about, however by investigating this very biophysical irony, if you will, we know that we shall progress upon the pathway of humanity's necessary mission of conquering disease and extending our "healthspan." We do this not as an isolated goal, but instead as the complement for humanity's larger mission of space colonization.

It is likewise not accidental that the scientific progress in the investigation of the inorganic realm hinges upon a subsumption of a different, restricted kind. That is both matter and anti-matter somehow are related as a basis of energy throughput of that nonliving realm. How it is that there is a sort of directionality of the priority of matter over anti-matter in the evolution of the cosmos will never be precisely known. However, we know that in investigating this, we will likewise afford humanity the ability to achieve a new degree of freedom in energy throughput. For it is known that the potential of matter/anti-matter reactions will bring about a new regime for providing thrust for that very same mission of space colonization identified above. 

Once again, we as a unique species are by our nature fitted out to carry out these scientific investigations. In any one historical epoch of such necessary endeavours, we understand that we are merely providing guidance and a potential pathway for what future generations must achieve to further the true mission for humanity. And once again, we return to the principle of "investigation" cited above for both the inorganic and organic realms. This time however we are applying the principle of subsumption of opposites as Cusa develops in his Docta Ignorantia in a different manner. 

Firstly, even though the history of mankind pivots around two different and opposed principles, it is only by the utter defeat of one upon which our continued existence hinges. The organization of society by an irrational oligarchy whose goal is itself destructive of the means and ends of civilization's necessary missions must be once and for all overcome. Now, achieving that does require an uplifting of humanity out of such infantile irrationality. It means extinguishing forms of oppression such as the mechanisms of financial looting of the physically productive economy. In this case it is not a relation of symbiosis that we are dealing with so much as parasitism.

However, there is a precise meaning for the unity of opposites as Cusa developed in his great work De Docta Ignorantia. It is in the national language cultures and philosophical and religious beliefs that apparent opposites can and must be overcome. The ongoing cooperation of eradicating poverty, defeating disease and colonizing space is the basis of creating a new degree of freedom for humanity. Moreover it is by the production of beauty in the arts that we inspire progeny to take up that very same mission. This represents the principle of the Contracted Maximum in human history and as such qualifies the philosophy of Cusa as the basis for scientific progress. 

Nicholas of Cusa (1401-1464), detail of relief ‘Cardinal Nicholas before St. Peter’ on his tomb by Andrea Bregno, church of St. Peter in Chains, Rome

Time Out of Mind: Revisited

 Avicenna remarked that he was not of the Ismaili sect as has been claimed. It is also stated by the narrator Cide Hamete Benengeli of Don Quixote that Avicenna said however that the whole world is mad.

The so called Union of Concerned Scientists has recently moved their doomsday clock a tick closer to midnight. Perhaps the fuse will be lit in some unexpected corner of our interconnected globe. 

We suspect that humanity has been in control of fire for perhaps 400,000 years now. (This has been updated to 670,000 years ago!) I hope to live a vigorous age of near 100 years by 2050 AD or so. My grandparents were born in the latter part of the 1800s. So that more or less covers the span in three generations of some 200 years. So we need a mere two thousand (3.35 thousand, updated) of those units of time to arrive at the point that mankind first used fire. Before that, really, you can't call anybody hardly human.

Now, we know it takes the earth some 200 million years to circle the milky way. That's about that a thousand times longer again from when we became, in a sense, truly human by cooking our food. In about ten million years from now our planet will be bobbing along the Milky Way's spiral arm closer to the Virgo Cluster of galaxies and receiving a huge dose of radiation from the shockwave of cosmic rays. 

Our human minds, our consciousness are able to conceive of the vast spectrum of time that clusters of galaxies like the milky way produce such shockwaves that impinge upon us. We can view these shockwaves as relics of radio waves and estimate in several billion light years when the merger of these clusters caused these shockwaves. 

Now we are told by theoreticians of quantum physics that in the act of viewing the probabilistic  "wave function" associated with the very smallest particles of matter causes that wave function to collapse. But the human mind was produced by the vast scope of the unfolding of and in time of the universe. This is a paradox that has been caused by viewing the mathematics of probability as reality. 

The solution is to know that the potential of collapse of human society can be averted, but that it requires us to realize and act to change our assumptions about reality. There is no final fate of this wonderful universe as we might imagine from the limited perspective of mere deterministic mathematics. Humanity has vital missions ahead of us. 

One is to utilize what we have so far grasped scientifically to eradicate poverty and more effectively combat disease among us. Another is to move off this planet and conquer the limits of dwelling in "outer space." The lessons we learn about the power of shockwaves in the immense vastness of time and space for accelerating matter and anti-matter will propel us to worlds we know not where but may only imagine. 

First we must conquer the tyranny, the madness that chains us to a failed system of beliefs. For we are not hapless animals merely here for the ride as victims of fate. The time since we conquered the power of fire is hardly an instant in the face of the long arc of cosmic time as we know it now. The future is determined by our willful choices. Time is what we make of it, not of what it makes of us.

Shockwaves of Galactic Clusters and Implications of the Microcosm and Macrocosm Interrelationship

 I have repeatedly brought attention to the seminal work of Bernard Riemann on the principle of shockwave propagation. Keeping in mind his insistence as well that the physical geometry outside the range of our limited human or better yet perhaps mammalian perceptions may bring into play the alternative curvatures of of non-Euclidean "space." 

In this regard, the discovery of the presence of shockwave formations of merging galaxy clusters in the radio wave spectrum as so called radio relics is very important research for moving the frontiers of scientific progress forward. This is especially due to their almost unimaginably vast structure at the same time propelling the very smallest particles' acceleration to relativistic speed of light velocities.

 This is the indissoluble connection that is always apparent of the macrocosm with the microcosm as Nicholas of Cusa demonstrated in his "triune" principle. The very large and the very small macrocosm/microcosm connectedness as an analogue of the human relationship of the universal creator with the individual person via creative reason, in non religious terms.

The curvature as the shockwave front nears the limit of transmissibility for the medium of electromagnetic propagation proceeds naturally from a positive spheroid type to a negative horn. Indeed, Riemann is again proven correct that the physical system precedes choice of mathematical geometry. The various types of further such potential particle accelerations and scatterings, etc. are the platform upon which we can be confident scientific progress accruing to the future benefit of humanity will necessarily proceed as both Riemann and Cusa would surely agree. 

MeerKAT radio contours (magenta) on A2384 XMM-Newton image. Credit: Parekh et al., 2020

" The origin of the radio relic is puzzling.(...) This radio relic could be the result of shock wave propagation during the passage of the low-mass A2384(S) cluster through the massive A2384(N) cluster, creating a trail appearing as a hot X-ray filament." V. Parekh, et al.: https://arxiv.org/abs/2009.02724

Gauss and Riemann Understood from the Standpoint of Vernadsky, Leibniz, and LaRouche: Updated

 In nearly all descriptions of the principle conformal mapping one sees displayed a simple globe whose south pole is situated at the origin of a Cartesian x,y two dimensional plain and rays from the surface projected through the north pole. This represents a transformation from the flat plain to the positively curved sphere. 

By Original: Mark.Howison at English Wikipedia This version: CheChe - This file was derived from:  Stereographic projection in 3D.png:, CC BY-SA 4.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=56357179

However, the great Carl Friedrich Gauss developed a different type of mapping of irregular extended curvature onto a unit sphere: the "Gauss map." Here the normal from the curved surface that is given by the differential curvature (but not its magnitude) is mapped by a parallel projection onto the unit sphere. It is the tendency for change at that "point" that is being mapped which is something altogether different than a mere point in the above mapping.

Now, in an extended surface the map will show an orientation as one moves across the surface. Also, importantly since on any surface the same normal can be repeated there can be many sheets or layers. This could for instance pertain to the Einstein gravitational tensor directional locus of curvature mapped from the known universe. Also, it has been shown that the visual perceptual apparatus operates in an analogous manner of mapping. There exist "grid cells"in the entorhinal cortex of the mammalian brain  that are activated based upon location, direction and distance orientation.

The great student of Gauss, Bernhard Riemann developed this principle yet further with his surface function. It is a surface that combines different sheets of a multi-valued function through singular branch points of that function. Here, our attention is turned from curvature per se to how a function that can take on many values. Viewed from the standpoint of an n dimensional manifold, a branch point might provide a pathway to a new degree of functional freedom to an n+1 dimensional manifold as Riemann detailed in his doctoral habilitation dissertation. 

The conception of a singularity where a function branches becomes especially important in physical terms beyond the mathematical formalism. This can be shown in systems that undergo a critical condition and emerge into another regime or phase change such as in plasma physics. It can also be thought of as supplying a means of representing a multi-valued function of proteins in biophysics. There are a whole host of examples where proteins may have more than one role in disparate biological functions and sometimes wholly contrary ones. 

Indeed, the most important case of this principle comes into play for the human economy. If we view an invention as a kind of creative singularity for the functional "space" of the physical economy. That is, due to the development of a new degree of freedom the economy "goes over" into a new functional set of relations via the branchpoint of that invention. 

No matter, which type of extended space  we have to deal with the principle of Leibniz' monadology comes into play. For as Leibniz clearly proved, the mind, or soul if you will, is not an extended substance. That is, it has no parts. Now this is what Riemann is referring to as its "compactness" in his statement "The mind is a compact, multiply connected thought mass with internal connections of the most intimate kind. It grows continuously as new thought masses enter it, and this is the means by which it continues to develop." Likewise, all true infinitesimals or monads have no parts. Leibniz called the non-mechanical force arising therefrom "vis viva." If one looks at the human economy as an extended functional system of physical relations one can perform a type of mapping of its distinct elements that operate together in much the same way as a Gauss map. The normal to the "curvature" is the inter-relationship of types of physical goods produced and operatives for the entirety of the reproductive cycle of the economy. In this way, we have a mapping characterized by distinct categories that were developed by Lyndon LaRouche's correction of Marxian economics.

This type of mapping of physical inputs and outputs can be carried out as energy throughput for the entire planet's biosphere for instance. Which brings us to back to the issue of "vis viva" and types of lower and higher monads. Firstly, it is clear that Leibniz qualified the human mind as the highest type of monad. Also that it, the substance of mind or soul is imperishable. How is this so? To show this, we must investigate the concept of pre-established harmony of the monads. In all "spheres" of reality as defined by Vernadsky, i.e. Lithosphere, Biosphere, and Noosphere there is a type of connatus that bounds it, hence its compactness. (Here one should adduce an Astrosphere to Vernadsky's as mankind enters the age of space colonization.) Now Leibniz proposed that not all monads have a kind of window upon the world.  Some, however operate as a window for the higher monads. Such are the cilia signaling cells and the place cells, for instance. I would contend that this idea represents a type of mapping of the particular frame of reference of the monad to the universal. (It is of no small import that Einstein's principle of relativity is just such a kind of distinctly Riemannian mapping.)  It is here that the harmonics comes into play and it is also in that sense that this enduring non perishable lawful relationship governing all reality makes this the "best of all possible worlds." (So much for ill begotten theories of stochastic and lawless chaos of the rule of irrationality.) 

To conclude this survey, next take the physics of pressure waves that Riemann presented in his 1857 paper "On the propagation of planar airwaves of finite amplitude." In this paper Riemann in essence has predicted so called sonar shockwaves. For in any medium there is a governing and limiting characteristic rate of transmission. At the point of going beyond that, a singularity occurs where the curvature goes from a positive spherical (or technically for the case of spacetime hyperspherical) to a negative Mach cone type. 

Now this is representative of the manner in which a nonlinear progression is pre-established in the ongoing composition of external and internal reality is distinctly cognized by human noetic or creative mentation in the arts and science. The searching out of such anomalous singularities is the true method for the production of necessary human progress. And here I will end this brief overview to remind my audience that whether these principles come to the fore in human relations will determine either the pathway to a new Renaissance or a new Dark Age.

Since I wrote this post there has been dramatic progress in research on the nature of grid cells. I am happy to report that my intuition that toroidal action is indicative of a principle of metastability across many facets of physical reality has been confirmed yet again. It turns out that the topology of grid cells in the brain take the form of a torus. This confirms to me that in the domain of animal life, there exists a wonderfully built in capacity for a sort of problem solving skill that relies upon a surface that has both positive and negative curvature embedded within it. Recalling that Riemann pioneered non Euclidean curved surfaces and the propagation of shockwaves (that result in negative curved horn surface in a series of Mach cones) as a student of Gauss, it is only lawful that this particular geometry would be in the words of their great predecessor Leibniz be pre-established. See this wonderful linked video. 

The Unfinished American Revolution

Today America is in the throes of roving riots of anarchists fomented by a concert of Democratic Party leftists, radical environmentalists, "Eastern Establishment"media, and globalist foundations and financiers. Today's so called color revolutions of which the current umbrella movements of Black Lives Matter and Antifa in the US are components are being spread and paid for by vehicles like George Soros' Open Society, the Tides and the Ford Foundations, among others. 

In order to comprehend the way in which these forces are threatening this nation, it is necessary to learn and apply the lessons from the battleground of history both recent and as far back as antiquity. I shall first go into my own background from some nearly fifty years ago.

I had gone from high school to the University of Buffalo in 1971 majoring in mathematics. In my case, I was thoroughly disillusioned from the start when I attended there a seminar for mathematics majors. On the first day of that seminar, the instructor stated that there was no other motivation for the study of pure mathematics than mere exercise for the brain. This repulsed me. I had not entered the University with a mind toward obtaining a career and had a New York State Regents scholarship that left me owing nothing. Therefore, I felt free to explore and see if there might be other less completely worthless course of studies than this University's mathematics department could offer. I decided to leave several mathematics courses I began as "incomplete." Instead I veered toward philosophy, literature, art, music, linguistics and classical studies.

I took some courses with something there called Vico college, sort of a University of Chicago "Great Books" copycat. Their premise was the rather Hegelian idea of Vico's that the history really only came into it's adulthood with ancient Rome. This stuck in my craw due to the fact that I considered the Roman Empire to be the epitome of evil. As pat of a course in that college I wrote a paper about Virgil's epic poem the Aeneid. My thesis that when Aeneas returned from hell through the false gate of ivory, it was symbolic of Rome's founding upon falsehood. (I have since recently learned, to my surprise, that this idea has gained some adherents.)  As my little foray in writing the short tale A Little Fugue attempts to show, what I found at that University's stock of intellectuals was quite rotten. The reading materials presented for classes in the history of ideas was dominated by a sort of agreement that existentialism and the new left were the current unchallengeable paradigms for academia. Now, of course, if you as a student desired to avoid this you could try to ignore it and bury your head in your seemingly apolitical course of studies. However virtually all fields of study were tainted by this "culture."

However, one very important and lifelong influence I did encounter was in a course I took there in logic. The reading list included Leibniz' writings. This really threw my worldview at the time into a profound crisis. Up until that time I considered myself to be a non religious thinker. However, Leibniz proof of the existence of God in the Theodicy I could simply not refute or ignore. It has always been my habit once I discovered an interesting author to read everything I could not only by that author but in connected background material referenced. This quickly led me to realize that there was a whole historical counter to the disgusting existential zeitgeist of the 1970s American academia. For example the study of philology rather than linguistics. The development of mathematics not in isolation as a hermetic category of mind games, but as integral to human development. However, none of this nascent viewpoint of what critical thought dawning upon me was available at this university. 

It was with this at this point that I decided to wade into to the rather bizarre world of new left politics that I encountered. I took several mostly non credit courses on the agenda of radical thought. Not just on the economics of Marx but courses on the left's impact on literature like so called social realism. I had all but dropped out of college at this point; I was at an impasse and intellectual crisis in my young adult life. 

Then, I made an abrupt decision and became part of the so called LaRouche movement. The organizer who I first encountered from that movement on Main Street in Buffalo asked me if knew that there was an impending financial collapse coming and what was my idea of the economics needed to change things. I stated that I was veering towards Marx' ideas. This prompted her to provide me with the first pamphlet called "What Only Communists Know: the Italy Lectures." And to provocatively and forcefully tell me something to the effect that "we are not atheists." This of course intrigued me to no end, given my recent wrestling with Leibniz. I became a "contact" by giving her my phone number. I avidly read the material was quite impressed by the original level of thought that opposed the then emerging zero growth environmentalism of the "New Left." After I received several "briefings" on the phone, I attended a meeting of a US Labor Party/ NCLC local in Buffalo. Upon the close of the meeting, I was invited to help distribute literature. I agreed. So began my twenty some years as a political organizer. 

This brings me to the subject on this blog post. Around the lead up to the Presidential election in 1976, LaRouche's US Labor Party issued a pamphlet called The Party of International Terrorism. Unfortunately, this pamphlet seems to be unobtainable online. However, that pamphlet provided the evidence that foundations including the Rockefeller Brother's Fund and the Ford Foundation, allied with the Democratic Party, were financing and responsible for creating terrorist groups like the Weather Underground, for instance. Today, some 45 years on, American cities are literally burning once again due to the instigation and financial "generosity" of these same and new such "philanthropies." The financial bubble created as a result of the deindustrialization of the post industrial, free trade, information age, consumer economy has been bailed out and blown up beyond anyone's wildest imaginings. The Green New Deal being touted by the City of London and the Democratic Party would lead to a total economic breakdown even beyond the current rotten destruction of our infrastructure and cities.  

So what must be done? The rediscovery of the economics of the American System of Alexander Hamilton and finishing of the American Revolution is the answer. The principles that hearken back to the writings of Leibniz have not changed, only the current circumstances to which those principles need to be applied have. If you take the future welfare of this nation seriously you should help bring about their implementation.