Tendency of the Universal Logic Process
to Evolve New Stable Forms
How new stable forms with new capabilities evolve during the random and programmed process stages
In this piece of writing we would like to focus particularly on one feature of the Universal Logic Process, i.e., the evolution of stable forms (with new functions and capabilities) in the random process, programmed process and intelligent process stages of its journey. In the random process stage, interactions between energy units or packets produce interconnections, resulting in the creation of specific forms, which in turn have their particular interactions, and interconnections. However, all interactions do not produce interconnections. Some result in a mere contact, that may terminate or disintegrate as quickly as it was made, while others may yield a sustained or stable contact, which becomes a connection. This means connections between different energy elements or packets are not permanent but in a dynamic state of coming into and going out of existence. Contacts which do not produce connections and consequently new forms are failed contacts, while those leading to stable connections making new and different forms are successful ones. However the process of failure or success does not end there. When connections assume a form, it (by randomly using its dynamic) may, or may not survive. This happens logically, on the basis of its properties, their causes and effects inter-se, and the external environment. If the form survives, it becomes stable and therefore has a longer life. So it appears, when the dynamic of Nature haphazardly hits upon a stable state (of form), it ‘wishes’ to preserve it. It has a clear preference for survival or producing contacts, connections and forms, which are relatively more stable. We may call it selection, bias or a tendency in the dynamic of Nature. This tendency is a part, and characteristic of the underlying logic of Nature’s energy dynamic.
Another characteristic of Nature’s energy dynamic is, when it randomly comes up with a stable form that has survived, it produces functions, and develops and multiplies them within that form. Forms must have functions because of having an interactive dynamic structure made up of discrete pieces of ‘dynamic energy process components’. Moreover, just as forms are stable and unstable, so are functions. Which implies stable forms must have stable functions, with capabilities of performing different tasks. All forms, functions and capabilities, appear as processes in Nature. And these processes can occur at a parallel level, and also sequentially. Functions being ‘creatures’ of a process appear first, to ensure stability, and then capabilities emerge, resulting in more functions. This in turn strengthens the relationship between the different components (out of which functions arise) and the form as a whole, ensuring further integration and stability of that form.The relevance of functions is first of all between components and the form. Although they also have another parallel process in relation to the environment, consisting of other dynamic energy processes around the form. Hence there are internal as well as external functions, which we call inner and outer (in relation to the environment) capabilities respectively. In nonliving forms these functions change only due to the dynamic of interaction between internal properties and the environment. While the dynamic of living things consists of proactively improving these functions and applying them. We can refer to this whole process as evolution.
When living forms evolve in Nature, they acquire the capability of using gene-based software for the making of their physiological as well as mental functions, because now these functions also have to be reproduced. In a life form survival consists partly of the specimen’s survival, and partly of the species through the reproduction of the specimen. In other words a living form has two lives—the life of the specimen, and of the species. Its functions and capabilities are also on these two planes. While the software plays the role of promoting this process. We must not make the mistake of assuming this software to be static. It is a dynamic energy process whereby a living form can go on improving its software based functions. As this process develops, it gives rise to a greater need for more functions and consequential capabilities and tools required for their application and further development. The dynamic energy state of living things has internal tools and components available for developing more functions and capabilities. Hence with the evolution of living things the whole process of Nature’s energy dynamic gets extensively busy. We can perceive that Nature has come a long way in its evolutionary journey. And this perception reveals a standard, perpetual pattern of its operation, which we have been referring to as the Universal Logic Process. This pattern is not something outside of Nature, but a product of what Nature is. We know that Nature begins with dynamic energy processes. And it is the features of these energies (their elements and processes) that give birth to and become manifest in the pattern of the Universal Logic process (relating to the emergence, development and evolution of phenomena). When the progression of this process reaches the stage of living things it becomes really lively. There emerges an increased and many-sided activity and consequent complexity because of the growing perceptual, emotive, intelligence and doing capabilities of living forms. And after a few billion years of their maturing human beings arrive on the scene with a highly advanced function of intelligence, and another unique capability which does not exist in other living forms, i.e., the intellect.
Universal Logic Process Acquiring a Vision through Human Intellect
What distinguishes the human species from other living forms is the capability of intellect in addition to intelligence, which in its developed form had already been acquired by living things since the evolution of higher mammals. The intellect emerges in our species with civilization. Intelligence is nothing more than a complex interactive software, (capable of adding to existing and developing new software, and capabilities for their applications), centered upon the survival problem of the individual life form. Whereas intellect also has an additional distinct characteristic. Its functioning is neither confined by the internal dynamics of the individual (in which it is located), nor by his immediate environment. So it has both the characteristics and functions of intelligence and also the capability of traveling outside these two confines. That is how it becomes separate from intelligence.
Once the intellect begins to go outside the above confines it can ask questions about various phenomena (starting from the species, galaxies, to even the origins of the universe) in Nature, and look for their answers through ‘thinking’. Wherein it uses the process of reasoning learnt from the experience of applying the intelligence software, and develops it as a mental process not dominated by software. On the basis of this developed reasoning process it asks questions about the unknown, and acquires the motivation to pursue their answers. This process of questioning and finding answers using reason continues to expand and develop in the mind of an individual. The experience and practice of the intellectual method can enable us to look at our own problems intellectually. The proficiency of the intellectual process enables it to acquire its own platform within our mental complex (as separate from other software based mental process), due to which one’s internal self also becomes something external or outside qua the intellect. For the intellectual process there is no real difference in dimension between our own selves as an outside thing, and the whole universe, including the Universal Logic of Nature; they are all on the same page. Consequently the intellectual process will be looking at the different forms and components in Nature, and their interconnections in the same way as we look at any composition, painting or a photograph, and evaluate it in terms of our like or dislike for it. At this stage our developed intellectual process will become capable of viewing and analyzing (which includes critiquing) all phenomena in the same way starting from the Universal Logic Process down to the humblest of specimens (i.e. all micro and macro phenomena). Once the intellect begins to unfold itself in the above manner we will realize that we now have a different vision altogether. It is as if the Universal Logic Process had acquired a vision, or a new characteristic. In the beginning, when the intellectual process emerged, we experienced it as a new capability for our own individual specimen but as it develops in the above direction we realize it is actually Universal Logic that has acquired a new capability of intelligent vision. A vision that is a product of the intellect and not the original software based intelligence of a biological specimen. When the intellect goes on to develop even further as the most dynamic process and product of the Universal Logic Process, then it will become a stable phenomenon, and thereby a standard feature of this process, which it was not when it emerged. So the intellect is born out of us but will become a feature of that universal dimension, which is not a closed loop but includes all products of its dynamic. The emergence and assertion of our intellect is an evolutionary process, which at our present stage of evolution we can visualize as acquiring a leading character in all our mental processes, and consequently a principal role in further evolution of our form as a species in Nature.
On this plane, we will find the intellect to be a very powerful tool for the restructuring of our mental processes, of which the intellect itself is one part. There are many other parts of our mental processes that are producing a large number of serious problems for us because of the mismatch (in terms of the lopsided growth of some functions at the expense of others) that has arisen amongst them over a period of time. These problems are appearing in all dimensions of our lives; within our internal selves, families, cities, societies, our species, and also between nations, in the areas of economics, politics and culture. The issue is, our animal or pre-intellectual human intelligence has acquired tremendous capabilities, but without a vision on the basis of which to integrate and operate the different parts of our mental processes. Hitherto the only vision we had arose from our emotive and mental software, while our capabilities have reached dimensions that cannot be handled by these software, which include our preferences, wishes, desires, temperament, habits, in short our whole personality. This has resulted in the emergence of numerous disparities between the components of our personality, such as between ideas and feelings, or intellectual understanding and the preexisting temperament of thinking and doing. But now if we start looking at our personality from the standpoint of the ‘personality’ of the Universal Logic of Nature, we will see how Nature ‘perceives’ us in our present state (internally and in relation to our environment). Just as our intelligent subjectivity would like to see us happy, healthy and productive, as individual specimens similarly if Nature now has an intellect and a vision it would also like to see a happy state of phenomena starting from the human being (the peak it has reached) downward. The Universal Logic of Nature experiences a sense of personality for the first time through the human intellect so that is where it would like to begin seeing things in a harmonious state, and not messed up by our ‘unintellectual’ intelligent subjectivity.
Notes
i. These stages have been discussed earlier.
ii. One can see this throughout all stages of evolution of the Universe since the big bang. In its first stage what is known as the early universe interactions in the dynamic energy state gave birth to elementary matter particles such as quarks, electrons, and neutrinos and their equal amount of anti-particles (called anti matter), but only a fraction of matter particles survived while the rest got annihilated in interaction with their anti-matter counterparts. Then quarks (of different varieties) connected to form not only protons and neutrons, which became the basis for the birth of atoms, but also other ‘exotic’ particles. See following related link (Retrieved from:http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=particle-containing-four-quarks-is-confirmed-for-first-time),which decomposed very quickly. Even neutrons that did not combine with protons, to form the atom’s nucleus, decayed into electrons or protons because of having a very short life of ten minutes. See related link (Retrieved from: http://www.linnaeus.uu.se/online/phy/macrocosmos/nuclei_formation.html). So we had more stable energy forms through those interconnections between quarks which became sustainable. Later on the first variety of atoms emerged, when free electrons came into orbits of atomic nuclei made of bonded neutrons and protons. And we know that many unstable atoms (called isotopes) formed, such as deuterium and tritium that decay quite easily, along with more stable atoms such as hydrogen and helium See following related link (Retrieved from: http://abyss.uoregon.edu/~js/cosmo/lectures/lec22.html). And the story of interaction continued to give birth to more complex atoms and then inorganic and later on organic molecules as the building blocks of life. One can visualize how many interactions and interconnections could not make it to form stable atoms, and then molecules from atoms. Only the stable forms, which survived, played a role in producing new and more complex form of matter. See the following related links.
iii. We do not mean here a conscious intent on Nature’s part but a tendency in it, whose evidence one can find in the progression of forms in Nature. If that tendency was not there in Nature’s logic then the random process would not have led to the evolution of new, more stable and complex forms.
iv. We are referring here to the fundamental logic, which is the source of the universal logic process and its energy dynamic.
v. Energy components of a form are not static but in a state of constant motion and interaction, hence the proper term of energy components should be ‘dynamic energy process components’.
vi. Taking the example of a nonliving thing, we can see that the atom emerges as a stable form in Nature, due the complex interplay of the functions that arise from the interconnections between it components (protons, neutrons and electrons), such as the strong and electromagnetic forces, which have the capability to hold the atom’s nucleus together and gather electrons around the positively charged protons respectively. Moreover, the capability of the electromagnetic force to attract electrons further results in the function and capability of the very strong attractive electrostatic force arising from the interaction between the opposing charges of electrons and protons, which in turn reinforces the stability of the atom by tightly holding the electrons in orbit around the nucleus, and not letting them break free. Then there are also functions pertaining to the weak nuclear force in producing the stability of the atom. So the atom is quite a complex form based on a balance arising from the functions and capabilities of the components that constitute it. And then we know that the working of the atom as a whole produces many other functions and capabilities in relation to its interaction with other atoms and energy forms, which is what has produced the variety of inorganic and organic forms in Nature, having more and complex functions and capabilities (both internal and external in relation to interaction). So as we move up the evolutionary ladder, functions and capabilities keep increasing in quantity, variety and quality.
This whole process, of functions giving rise to capabilities, which in turn give rise to more functions that reinforce the stability of the form becomes clearly visible and evident in living forms. For instance, a rudimentary perceptual function would have emerged first for stabilizing the form, and after that different perceptual capabilities of seeing, hearing, etc. must have emerged. According to Humphrey the capability of vision through the organ of eye must have evolved from the function of perceiving via photoreceptors on the skin surface of early life forms. And photoreceptors in turn may have developed from cilia (hair-like structures) on the surface of a cell serving both in motor activity and detecting local disturbances in the environment. (Humphrey, 1992, pp. 53-57). Other perceptual capabilities would also have evolved in a similar manner. This resulted in more functions and capabilities, for instance of intelligence (because of an increase in the quantity as well as quality of information received from the outside world), locomotion and movement of the physiological parts in a variety of ways, which further strengthened the capability of living forms to survive. So the relationship between the perceptual function and form as a whole strengthened and became critical for the stability of the form.
vii. Which means the role of the life form in improving these functions becomes dominant compared to the environment.
viii. These tools are in the form of both the capability of genes to modify existing and add new software, and mental capabilities such as perception, pleasure and pain, problem solving, and Will. These together produce new and more functions and capabilities in response to the growing needs of living things.
ix. In simpler life forms (before the developed mammals) the intelligence capability operates largely at the reflex level in accordance with a relatively rigid programme of responses developed through experience. But in higher mammals such as dolphins, elephants, dogs, monkeys and apes we observe a relatively dynamic intelligence software enabling many sided problem solving, based upon a larger real time mental memory (as opposed to merely genetic memory), and the ability of classifying and then connecting observations through thinking. There is accumulating evidence of these capabilities in higher mammals especially primates, which enable them to solve new problems for which they do not have existing referents in their programme. Of course these capabilities are extremely limited compared to ones that developed in human beings after language.
x. Through this method the intellect gathers more evidence, in the form of drawing similarities and contrasts from observations, and then classifying them. Classification is a necessary part of intellectual processing, as the intellect incorporates this classified data (preserved in memory) in its thinking and reasoning process. Through these steps the intellect begins to reason holistically about the information or data gathered for some intellectual question. Then it draws inferences from its thinking on a macro intellectual scale, (On the scale of the whole phenomenon itself and all layers of its interconnections with objective reality) and also evaluates these inferences for their validity or invalidity through testing, juxtaposing and verifying them. In this way inferences which do not survive get eliminated while those that survive become prototype answers for us.
With these shortlisted answers the intellect can set up experiments, to tangibly check and verify their objectivity by testing their repeatability. In result of which it can arrive at some positive knowledge about a thing or process, which is far more reliable than the knowledge gathered by the intelligence process based on observations and conclusions derived from cellular perception (both botanical and biological) alone. After this it can proceed to ask questions about the possible applications of this new knowledge, which we may now call ‘intellectual’ knowledge.
Broadly speaking the knowledge gathering process of ‘intelligence’ is based on the following steps. One, the primary data with which intelligence works is derived from tangible observation based on sensory data, which is basically received from our biological organs of perception that are actually cellular processes. We know that perceptual organs have evolved in response to the survival needs and sensitivity process of the biological cellular processes and not to objectively perceive the external world. So right from the first step the data received by our senses is defective from the standpoint of actual reality because it is fraught with the limitations of the cellular perceptual processes. Then in the second step again, when it is converted into ‘mental perception and observation’ then that is done according to the existing subjective software and programmes. There is no process of analysis or scrutiny to check the validity or invalidity of one’s perceptual and cognitive perception. Lastly, the problem solving and reasoning process employed by intelligence upon this ‘skewed’ perceptual data is again driven by the subjective agenda and for the purpose of achieving it.
xi. Which will now be based on a grasp of its aspectual aspects or components as well as its holistic reality.
xii. So far the intellect has been unstable because its sustained use (both quantitatively and qualitatively) did not become a general process but remained peripheral and sporadic. It did not become a dominant and therefore stable (i.e. dependable and repeatable) process and reality within the minds of people at large. In addition, it has so far remained lopsided, with the focus of its capabilities on the outside world while the mind of man remained largely beyond its purview. Consequently it could not have the all-encompassing dimension that the Universal Logic Process has, and could not therefore become a standard feature of this logic process. Hence we are submitting that before the mentological process (whose crux is the intelligence of the mind) our intellect could not become both a stable and a standard feature of the Universal Logic Process.
xiii. Today we can clearly see that our intellectual capabilities (based on our increased scientific and technological knowledge) are growing with great speed and rapidly spreading into many areas of our personal as well as external lives.
xiv. We are not saying its role will become primary in our daily lives but only in relation to our evolution.
xv. Contrary to mainstream views, which propose that our evolution is now complete, we would like to suggest that at the physical level it is apparently complete, but now our further evolution as a species has to be in terms of our mental processes.
xvi. For instance the growth of intelligence at the expense of the emotional/sensitivity process. Man has developed his intellect at the expense of his emotional process, which has been developing slowly and mostly in a haphazard fashion. The results of this lopsided development can be seen today in the form of growing emotional and mental distortions and contradictions at the peak of man’s intellectual achievements. To illustrate this we would like to mention here the situation of a cutting edge scientist. We can see that his intellectual processes are working at the optimum level in the field of say particle physics and he is coming up with extremely important insights and knowledge in his field. But among the numerous motivations which drive him in his work a dominant motivation could very well be of getting the Nobel prize for his work or to come up with those novel insights or knowledge which none of his colleagues are able to. So there his desire or wish based genetic emotional process, whose fundamental character is adversarial or vis-à-vis other individuals takes over and might also affect his intellectual work. He might give in to the tendency of coming quickly to conclusions in his work and not going through all the steps that intellectual labor requires. This tendency at the intellectual level is a translation of the urge for instant gratification in his genetic emotional processes. Hence one can see the disparity in growth between his highly sophisticated intellectual process and his basic emotional drives and motivations which in appearance seem different and developed but in essence are still primitive and intensely individual centric.
xvii. It is the intellect that is able to perceive and develop a sense of the Universal Logic Process as a ‘personality’. So this personality is actually the Intellect’s personality based on its new vision.