The Question of Time:
Toward the New Acausal Science of Life
 

David Myatt

 
 
 
 
Part One: The Question of Time

     In many ways, the concept of Time is central to the science of Physics. However, this concept has not really been understood, and modern theories - starting with the theory of ‘relativity’ - have what are basically absurd notions about ‘time’.

    According to this absurd modern approach, time is the ‘fourth dimension’ and this abstract dimension is taken as actually existing, as an entity in itself with time being understood as a quantity which can be measured. From this, speculative conclusions (e.g. those of ‘special relativity’) have been derived concerning ‘time-reversal’ and such like. That is, a mathematical model has been constructed to represent something which actually does not exist, and from this model certain consequences are abstracted, with these consequences being interpreted as if they were real or could be real, and used to explain what is real or observed.

    The fundamental mis-understanding derives from that abstract concept of modern physics ‘Space’, with this ‘Space’ being regarded as ‘four-dimensional’ and represented by a transformation of four co-ordinates, three being spatial, and one representing time. However, this abstract ‘Space’ does not exist in reality, just as an abstract linear ‘time’ which is measurable does not exist. This abstract Space itself (or more exactly, this space-time continuum) cannot be measured, or represented, by a co-ordinate system, a ‘frame of reference’ or anything else simply because it has no actual physical existence - such a ‘space’ is purely imaginary and therefore matter, energy or ‘force’ (such as gravity) cannot be represented or measured in terms of this ‘space’.

    This statement is of fundamental importance, and to explain it fully a brief digression about physical theory is in order. Physics deals - or rather should deal - with what is observed, or what can be inferred or deduced from observation. A physical theory is or should be a model of what is observed or what can be inferred from observation. Such a theory should be as simple as possible, and be consistent - i.e., logical. A theory should be able to account for observations made about the phenomena with which that theory is concerned. The theory itself can be expressed in mathematical terms, by equations linking something to something else, with the abstract quantities of mathematics representing some physical quantities. This mathematical expression often enables predictions to be made - that is, it shows some new relation, hitherto unknown or unobserved, between two or more physical quantities or properties, or it shows some new phenomena or behaviour of physical properties or quantities which could be observed if looked for. The importance of experiments is that they enable such relationships to be observed, and new relationships and phenomena found. What must be understood is that the mathematics is a tool, an abstraction - it is not the reality. This reality is only and ever discovered through observation or experiment. What is not observed, not capable of being observed, or not capable of being logically deduced from known observations or experiments, should be considered not to exist, and therefore should not be the concern of physics or even of science.

    What has happened over the past hundred years or so is that speculation, based on abstract theories, has been accorded prominence over observation and direct experiment. Furthermore, the abstractions of speculative theories have been mistaken for what actually exists. This is particularly evident in the theories of relativity, in cosmology and in ‘particle physics’. Logic and observation have been forced aside by speculation and childish fantasy.

    Consider the now well-known theory of ‘black holes’ in the cosmos. No such ‘holes’ have ever been observed, and the existence of such holes has been deduced from various speculative theories which themselves are not based on observation but instead rest on other abstract theories where what is abstract has been mistakenly said to actually exist or be real - e.g. the gravity of a large body causing ‘space-time’ itself to curve, and the assumption that therefore gravity is somehow the very curvature of this ‘space-time’. Another well-known theory, with no reality, based on inane speculation, and which is totally illogical and unreasonable and therefore unscientific, is that of ‘the big bang’ according to which the universe originated from some enormous explosion in some small agglomeration of primal matter. Where this matter came from is never explained, just as what was ‘outside’ the boundary occupied by this matter is never explained, except by illogical assumptions such as ‘nothing was outside or could be outside since that finite matter was then the universe’. How this finite matter could then ‘expand’ into what did not exist is also not rationally explainable, and so on.

    However, the fundamental problem of physics goes much deeper than modern abstract theories, and concerns what is meant by time and matter themselves, and how we represent these in order to understand them.
 

The Organic Nature of Time

    An abstract four-dimensional space-time continuum does not exist because what exists is matter (and/or energy) which changes. There is not, nor can be, any ‘external observer’ which matter - such as a specific object - is at rest relative to. This means that no abstract co-ordinate system, using an abstract time, can be used to represent that matter, its motion and its changes, including its effects and/or interactions with/on other matter. This abstract system must be replaced. This further means that we must not only discard theories based on an abstract space-time continuum, but also look beyond Newtonian physics.

    In essence, matter is an expression of the fundamental change which governs the universe. This can best be explained by defining what ‘time’ is. What we have hitherto called time is merely a form of this fundamental change, and this time cannot be abstracted, in discrete magnitudes, out of this flowing, continuous change. Time is properly a measure of the change of physical matter or energy, and is already implicit in that matter because that change in part of the nature of that matter itself.

    One may visualize this by considering matter to be part of a flow, part of a continuous change rather than discrete objects existing singularly in ‘space’ at a certain ‘time’. Such a perception of time and matter takes us back to fundamentals about matter, motion and force itself, and enables the foundations of a new understanding to be created, an understanding which can and will revolutionize physics.

    The mistake hitherto has been to assume that this fundamental change which is time is somehow separate from the matter which changes. Consider two forms of matter, one conventionally said to be ‘living’ and one conventionally said to be inert, or dead. The first is an acorn which roots in the ground and from which an oak tree grows. The acorn is the oak tree, as, in discrete linear terms of an abstract ‘time’, the oak tree at 1 year of age is the same oak tree at 10 and 100 years of age. However, we could represent this another way as a continuous flow of change. This, one might have:

where a is the acorn, b the tree at a certain age, and c the tree at another more advanced age.

    The second example is some sub-atomic particle a created by some experiment involving high energies and bombarding a target. This is said to have existed for t seconds before becoming two different particles b and c, which then decay into other particles after a further short period of time. What actually has occurred is that there has been a change of energy which has been observed at a specific point - that is, a is b and c, with b and c not being separate, discrete, particles but rather a after such a change. In effect, b and c have ‘grown’ from or out of a and are therefore its 'descendants', its change of living form. In this instance we would have:

    Such a change is always organic; that is, continuous. If we view an oak tree at a certain ‘time’ - say on a specific day at a specific hour when that tree is 50 years old – we obtain an image or impression of that tree at that time. At another time, it will have changed, perhaps in a way we cannot observe. But because it is organic, it is continually changing because it is living - growing, or decaying. This change itself depends on other things around the tree on the soil, the climate and so on. That is, it does not live in isolation; it is itself part of a larger organism, in this case the living system which is our own planet.

    An abstract time and an abstract space have distanced us from the realness of matter - physics has considered discrete, separate physical objects in isolation and then tried to work out the effects on these objects of other, discrete, separate objects., often from the viewpoint of an observer in a static ‘reference frame’. The realness is that all matter is alive in the sense that all matter can and does change. Thus a so-called dead inert object, such as a lump of rock which is an asteroid in orbit round our sun, is alive because it can and does change - it is formed, or born, and it will be changed. We only view it now as inert rock because we catch a glimpse of it in our brief moment of time of some thousands or tens of thousands of years. But it is changing, slowly, in its own way, as such things do; it is already on the way to becoming something else. In effect, it has its own ‘time’ of change, of living - which is far vaster than our own. The physics we have so far evolved is the physics of our discrete time, not the real time, or change, of the living, organic, universe. As such it is mostly an inert physics, just as the technology developed from this physics is an inert technology and not an organic, or living, technology. No wonder we cannot yet hope to travel among the stars using this inert technology.

    Basically, we cannot impose a strictly limited, and discrete, concept of an abstract ‘human life’ time onto what hitherto has been regarded as inorganic or inert matter, and then so classify that matter as ‘dead’ and, just as importantly, as unconnected with, as separate from, other matter in the universe.

    This misunderstanding has led us to mistakenly posit an external frame of reference onto matter and see that matter as being ‘at rest’ or ‘moving’ relative to this frame, as it has led us to classify that matter and its changes according to a non-existent abstract time of discrete moments. Physics has therefore constructed equations which link these moments of this abstract time. Thus we have evolved an ‘abstract time’ technology consisting of forced links between separate, discrete, entities or objects. This inert, discrete, technology is limited in both conventional time and space, whereas an organic technology, founded upon matter as a living continuous interacting change, is not so limited.

    This current technology arises from constructing crude mechanical machines from individual, discrete, components, and then trying to connect these components together in a way which ‘works’. These components are themselves manufactured in an artificial way and linked together statically - without the flexibility of adaptation, mutation and change which living organisms possess.

    A physics based on the organic nature of time, and which thus expressed the organic change present in all matter, would be capable of being the foundation for an organic or living technology. A good example of an inert machine is a computer. This is constructed from discrete components, linked together, and these components and the links between them, derive mostly from electronic theory - from controlling the flow of electrons in circuits. These electrons are understood as separate, discrete, particles. The resulting machine, the computer, while remarkable in some ways compared to a bronze-age cart pulled by horses, is still primitive, inflexible, inert, unadaptable and very, very stupid. An organic computer would evolve - it would grow from something to become a computer; it would be alive and so adaptable.

    In order to create this new technology, a new revolutionary physics needs to be created which does away with discrete representations and an abstract time, and which considers matter as a connected form of change. From this will arise a new understanding of materials and of how those materials can be used in a connected or organic way. The whole basis of electronics and electricity - charge and the flow of electrons - will be understood in a new light, with a new field of study arising from a realistic understanding of what charge and electricity actually are.

    The first stage in creating this new physics is .to examine the fundamental problem of motion, as well as matter and force itself, and this will take us back beyond Newton and Galileo to Aristotle. The next article in this series will outline this new organic approach to motion and matter.

 

 

Part Two: Aristotle and the Acausal Cosmic Being



    The importance of Aristotle is that he accepts Nature, and the cosmos itself, as things which can be understood, or apprehended, by our consciousness and the use of reason. Furthermore, for Aristotle, Nature is a wonderful, often beautiful, "striving-to-become" – it strives to become what is ‘immortal’. That is, it strives for more order. The pursuit of understanding by the use of reason can and often does fill us with awe and joy - it inspires us. and raises us, as mortals, to a higher level. This Aristotelian striving to know by the use of reason, this Aristotelian awe and joy, form the basis of science and in the fundamental sense it is these things which make us human and civilized.

    In contrast to the life-enhancing ‘striving-to-become’ and the joyful enquiring of Aristotle, Plato, for example, views the world and nature as imperfect and often ugly. Aristotle looks upward, toward what is immortal, while Plato looks downward from an abstract and almost lifeless ‘perfection’.

    Aristotle provides us with the essentials we need to begin to understand the cosmos, Nature and life itself. These essentials are: (i) that the cosmos exists independently of us and our consciousness; (ii) that our understanding of this ‘external world’ depends upon our senses - that is, on what we can see, hear or touch; (iii) that logical argument or reason, is the means to knowledge and understanding of and about this ‘external world’; (iv) that the cosmos is, of itself, a reasoned order subject to rational laws.

    The importance of these essentials needs emphasizing, for they enable us to avoid the idle speculation, the confusion and the irrational assumptions and conclusions that mark the non-scientific attempts at ‘understanding’. For example, what is beyond our senses and our direct experience cannot form the basis of understanding, and is therefore irrelevant - for what is important to understanding is what is known, what is perceived by us. Using these Aristotelian essentials, we can soon appreciate some of the most important conclusions which Aristotle himself reached. These logical conclusions, based on the essentials we have accepted, form the basis of our own enquiry. They are:

    (1) Since the cosmos is an order, a changing, which we because of our consciousness can understand, the change, or movement, of things in this cosmos does not have a beginning as it does not have an end. Therefore, any speculation about the ‘origin’ of this cosmos is idle and useless because the cosmos is eternal.

    (2) This changing of the cosmos - the movement within it, its cycle of growth, decline and growth for example - is itself dependent on something. This is the timeless, or eternal, ‘prime mover’, or ‘First Cause’, which itself does not move, as measured by time. Time itself is the measure of movement - that is, time is implicit in, or is a part of, movement. Expressed another way, time is the measure of change.

    (3) All life implies ‘ordinary’ matter plus an extra "something". Our own human life possesses more of this extra "something" than other life. Thus do we and we alone of all life that we know have ‘consciousness’, an awareness of our surroundings, and ‘the desire to know’.

    If we use slightly different terminology, we can at once understand these things better. The cause of movement itself must be a-causal, that is, "beyond the causal". The ‘prime Mover’ - or the being of the cosmos itself, the ‘cosmic Being’ - is thus acausal. Movement, and thus change, are causal. It is the acausal which causes, or drives, the movement of the causal, of ordinary matter. Furthermore, we can say that it is this acausal which is the extra "something" which life possesses. That is, life is a contact, or intermingling, of matter with the cosmic Being itself, with the acausal.

    The science of Physics describes the ordinary matter of the cosmos and its movement, or change. This description depends on ordinary or causal time. But this is an incomplete description of the cosmos because it considers such movement in isolation, in purely causal terms, whereas the cosmos, and the matter within it, is both causal and acausal. Furthermore, the changes which Physics describes are described by an earth-derived and earth-bound causal time based on our own planetary-sun cycle of change.

    What needs to be understood is that this other aspect, the acausal, can be experienced and known - that is, it exists in the physical sense, can be discovered by us, and known. It is not ‘immaterial’ in the sense of being ‘spiritual’, and neither is it unknowable in the sense that a supreme god or omnipotent being is unknowable. The best way is to consider this acausal as another type of 'matter' or change, different from ordinary matter and ordinary, causal, change as measured and understood by causal, earth-derived, time. This acausal is most evidently manifest in living things - in we ourselves, and in the aspects or life-forms of Nature.

    To make this acausal real for ourselves - to fully understand it - we have to somehow discover, describe or capture and express this acausal in some physical way. We must find some means of describing the changes of this ‘acausal matter’ in terms of ‘acausal time’. For this, the mathematical descriptions used by Physics to describe the changes of ordinary matter will not do because such descriptions describe such changes in terms of causal time, even when non-Euclidean geometry is used.

    One way of capturing the acausal is to develop a truly organic technology - that is, to create living machines from organic material. Such an organic technology would be totally different from the current concern with "molecular electronics" and "nanotechnology" because these concerns still depend on manufactured, discrete and dead electronic components which themselves are based on descriptions of causal matter using causal time. Electronics, for example, is a means of describing the changes of a particular type of causal matter - electrons - over causal time, and enables components and circuits to be built to alter and control the flow of electrons. Thus, for example, using organic ‘molecules’ to store data is not a genuine organic technology, because: (i) such molecules are manufactured to do one or two specific, inert, tasks; (ii) such molecules are not basically alive as independent changing organisms - that is, not possessed of the acausal; and (iii) they would still be somehow connected to, and dependent upon, electronic components. A truly organic technology uses one type of acausal matter, living matter, and its changes, or growth, in a living way to produce an organic machine made entirely of organic matter, with no dead, discrete, manufactured components - electronic or otherwise. We ourselves would interact with, or control these organic machines in a living way, for example by using our "thoughts" (via "biofeedback" or something more sophisticated) or a living symbiotic relationship, such as the relationship of a hunting man with his well-trained hunting dog. In either case, the parameters of change, of control, of such organic machines would be natural or living ones determined by the acausal, or living, changes of that organic machine – rather than determined by causal, inert, matter such as an electronic, electrical or mechanical circuit. In the example of the hunting dog, the parameter of control is the relationship which exists between the dog and its master. Such a truly organic technology would enable us, for instance, to build or create an organic space-ship capable of traveling between the stars, with this ship being a living, existing, being, capable of living or existing in interstellar space, and having some kind of symbiotic relationship with its crew or its controller.

    However, to create this technology it is necessary for us to understand the basics of acausal matter and acausal change, and to do this we need to develop a new Physics - and if necessary a new mathematics - to describe such things. Before even this can be done, we need to understand what acausal matter itself is, and how to describe its change, as acausal time - that is, we need to know exactly what both causal and acausal matter are, and what both causal and acausal movement or change mean.
 

Causal Matter and Causal Time:

    The description of causal, or ordinary, matter and its movement or change involves the use of a frame of reference, or geometrical co-ordinate system, whether this be an absolute one, as posited by Newton, or a relative one, as posited by modern Physics. Space is defined by this frame of reference - for space, in the physical sense, is said to exist between two objects, or points, which are themselves described by fixed co-ordinates of a frame of reference. Space is simply ‘extension’. In this simple sense, causal time is the duration between the movement of an object, measured from some starting point in a frame of reference, to the measured end of that movement in the same frame of reference.

    The notions of ‘force’ and ‘energy’ are used to describe changes which an object or objects can undergo, and such changes are dependent on the mass, velocity (or movement), rate of change of velocity and the distance of movement of the object or the other object(s) which affect or cause an object to so change. Force, and energy, are basically expressions of the changes of causal matter over causal time.

    Modern physics assumes these things - force, space and time - exist, of themselves. That is, that space exists and that a particular force, for example the gravitational force due to a massive object, exists in the space around that massive object.

    Whatever the reality of such concepts in actual, cosmic, terms, they have hitherto proved useful in describing the motion and behaviour of observed and observable physical matter, as they have provided a basic understanding of the known physical cosmos. So long as such concepts are based on what is known and observed, so long as they are rational, and so long as the observed reality confirms them and their logically deduced consequences, then they are valuable. They cease to be valuable when they are not based on what is known and observed, when they cease to be rational, or when there is no observed or known reality to confirm or contradict them and the speculations derived from them.

    In the overall, cosmic sense, the Physics of causal matter, and the laws which form the basis of this Physics, should be considered to be a special, or limiting, case of the living or organic cosmos described by the laws and processes and concepts of acausal matter and acausal time. That is, the laws, process and concepts of acausal matter and acausal time should also describe, as a special case, the laws, processes and concepts of known physical matter. The new Physics of acausal matter and acausal time should reduce to the old Physics of ordinary matter when the conditions for such ordinary matter apply.
 

Acausal Matter and Acausal Time:

    Acausal matter is ordinary matter plus an extra "acausal something" - rather like a charged particle is ordinary matter plus the extra "causal something" of charge. For the present, and for convenience, we shall call this extra "acausal something", acausal charge.

    The basic properties of acausal matter are:

    (1) An acausal object, or mass, can change without any external force acting upon it - that is, the change is implicit in that acausal matter. by virtue of its inherent acausal charge.

    (2) The rate of change of an acausal object, or mass, is proportional to its acausal charge.

    (3) The change of an acausal object can continue until all its acausal charge has been dissipated.

    (4) Acausal charge is always conserved.

    (5) An acausal object, or mass, is acted upon by all other acausal matter in the cosmos.

    (6) Each acausal object in the physical cosmos attracts or repels every other acausal object in the physical cosmos with a magnitude which is proportional to the product of the acausal charges of those objects, and inversely proportional to the distance between them as measured in causal space.

    Acausal time is implicit in acausal matter, because space, as such, does not exist for acausal matter - that is, such acausal matter cannot be described by a frame of reference in causal space. Separation, in the sense of physical space measured by moments of causal time or a duration of causal time, does not exist for acausal matter because such a separation implies causal time itself. Hence the principle that an acausal object or mass is acted upon by all other matter in the cosmos because all such matter can be considered to be ‘joined together’ - to be part of an indivisible whole. In the abstract and illustrative sense, we could say that all acausal matter exists in the physical world described by causal space and causal time as well as existing simultaneously in a different continuum described by acausal space and acausal time. with this ‘acausal space’ incapable of being described in terms of conventional physical space, either Euclidean or non-Euclidean. This ‘acausal space’ and this ‘acausal time’ are manifested by, and described by, acausal charge itself - that is, by the extra property which acausal matter possesses because it is acausal.

    The properties of acausal matter, enumerated above, form the basis for the new Physics which describes acausal matter and its changes, and it is no coincidence that many of them express, for acausal charge, what the ordinary Physics expresses for ordinary matter and electric charge, since the acausal charge is what makes any matter which possesses it alive or organic - a living, changing, organism. When this acausal charge leaves or is dissipated away from an acausal object, then that object becomes ordinary physical matter, obeying the laws of ordinary Physics. Such matter is then ‘inert’ or ‘dead’.

    Furthermore, these basic properties of acausal matter enable us to really begin to understand, for the first time, the real nature of the cosmos, as they can show us the way toward developing a truly organic technology and an organic medicine capable of replacing the rather lifeless, primitive and often damaging medicine of the present which relies on traumatic surgery and drugs.

 

Part Three: Life and the Acausal Charge

    Life implies the following seven attributes - a living organism respires; it moves; it grows or changes; it excretes waste; it is sensitive to, or aware of, its environment; it can reproduce itself, and it can nourish itself.

    The acausal charge or charges which a living organism possesses is what causes or provokes the physical and chemical changes in an object so that it exhibits the above attributes. For instance, a living cell could not be made from its molecular constituent parts and then be expected to suddenly become ‘alive’. The process of life occurs only when acausal charges are present in addition to the ordinary matter (of elements, molecules and so on) which make up the substance of an organism.

    An organism - something which is alive - obeys the ordinary laws of physics (with one known exception) but is also subject to the laws which govern acausal matter. Ordinary matter, or a dead once living organism, does not obey the laws which govern such acausal matter. The one known exception is the second law of thermodynamics - a living organism represents an increase in order: a re-structuring of physical matter in a more ordered way. This change toward more order may be said to be 'powered' or caused by the acausal energy of acausal charges. The causal energy changes in organisms, which can be described by ordinary chemical reactions between elements and molecules - that is, in terms of chemical energy – are produced or caused by acausal charges. In effect, such chemical reactions are one of the physical manifestations of acausal charges in the causal continuum. Being ‘alive’ means ordinary physical matter is re-organized, or changed, in a more ordered way. A living organism possesses the capacity, by virtue of its acausal charges, to create order, to synthesize order from the less ordered physical world. Life implies an increase in order in the causal continuum.
 

Detecting Acausal Charges

    The acausal charges which organism possess by virtue of being organisms should be capable of being physically detected. That is, they should be capable of being observed, by us, and should be capable of being measured quantitatively using some measuring device devised for such a purpose. Following such detection and measurement, observations of the behaviour of such acausal charges could be made. Such observations would then form the basis for theories describing the nature and the laws of such charges. The result would then be the construction of organic machines and equipment, following the invention of basic "machines" to generate, or produce, moving acausal charges.

    A useful comparison to aid the understanding of such a process of discovery, measurement and theory, exists in the history of electricity. Static electricity was known for many centuries, but not understood until the concept of positive and negative charges was postulated. Later, instruments such as the gold-leaf electroscope were invented for detecting and measuring such charges. Other instruments, such as frictional machines and the Leyden jar, were invented for producing and accumulating, or storing, electric charges, and producing small ‘galvanic currents’ or electricity. Then the great experimental scientist Faraday showed that ‘galvanic currents’, magnetism and static charges were all related, and produced what we now call an electro-magnetic generator to produce electricity. From such simple experimental beginnings, our world has been transformed by machines and equipment using electricity, and by the electronics which has developed from electricity.

    It is obvious that acausal charges cannot be detected by equipment based on electricity - for example connecting a living organism (such as a plant) to some equipment designed to detect or measure electrical charge, either static or moving, or electrical resistance or whatever. Some changes in, for example electrical resistance, may be measured when such an organism is connected to equipment designed to measure electrical resistance, and when that organism undergoes some sort of change, but it is some physical physiological or chemical change which is being observed not the acausal change caused by acausal charge. To detect acausal charge and thus some acausal change something acausal has to be used. This means that to detect acausal charge something alive - some organism or organisms - has to be used, and the change in that detecting organism somehow observed on the physical level, perhaps after that detecting organism has undergone some physical or chemical change as a result of ‘detecting’ an acausal charge or charges.

    Thus, to establish the new "organic science" - and to develop the fundamental laws of the Physics of this new science - practical experiments need to be conducted and observations made. It is such practical experiments - at first to detect and measure the basic acausal charge - which are the next step forward.
 

 

D.W. Myatt

JD2444231.79187 (1979 CE)

(Revised JD2446790.04182   1986 CE)