Redundant concepts perpetrate illusions

Illusions can be directly attributed to redundant concepts the collective human mind has accumulated in its efforts to understand reality. These concepts as they continue to be in force, muddle up the human mind's further attempts to elucidate reality.

Illusions emerged and are propagated by the mental constructs human individuals create/d in order to understand nature's workings mainly by philosophy. In the myriads of concepts which they do not have a foothold in reality. Of course human individuals have employed their imagination in order to understand reality. This led/leads to the creation of abstract entities and rules of practice in order to be able to expand beyond a limited area. Being consistent, as what has been contemplated in the past had to be the starting point for what to be contemplated in the future. Need of continuity.

But the final goal is the elucidation of a particular process and the concepts needed to do so are finite and specific. That means a lot of the concepts invented need to be abandoned, their use being temporary, products of a transitional stage. Once the main concepts have been defined, the redundant concepts are not needed anymore. Their use obsolete. This can be seen in the words, that even in every day life have gone out of fashion, become forgotten and discarded. The same goes for models that redundant concepts have built and have been employed to explain natural phenomena.

In what is known as a paradigm shift, old ways of thinking, collective or individual, are completely abandoned, erased from memory never to be visited again, utterly overwhelmed by new ways of thinking, new ideas. When paradigm shifts happen to single individuals the change is so complete the old ways of thinking lapse into oblivion. If by any chance the old self appears, in whatever way at any point after, is confronted with disbelief. Old ways of thinking seem alien to the point the individual wonders how was it possible to have embraced such ideas and does not recognise itself.

In the book of Bill Bryson, 'A short history of nearly everything', there is an account of ways of thought, widely accepted, that have been abandoned. It was in 1796 that Georges Cuvier put forward for the first time a formal theory of extinctions.

"His belief was that from time to time the Earth experienced global catastrophes in which groups of creatures were wiped out. For religious people, including Cuvier himself, the idea raised uncomfortable implications since it suggested an unaccountable casualness on the part of Providence. To what end would God create species only to wipe them out later? The notion was contrary to the belief in the Great Chain of Being, which held that the world was carefully ordered and that every living thing within it had a place and purpose, and always had and always would. Thomas Jefferson for one couldn't abide the thought that whole species would ever be permitted to vanish (or come to that, to evolve)."

Deep-rooted religious beliefs were at question there. At the beginning the idea that whole groups of animals were repeatedly wiped out and replaced with new sets were ignored, resisted, mocked and ridiculed. Charles Lyell, who geologists admit as the father of modern geological thought allegedly said:

"Never was there a dogma more calculated to foster indolence, and to blunt the keen edge of curiosity."

Though it was he who proved to be calculating in that matter, despite what he has contributed for the advance of geology. And it wasn't until the 1980s that the theory of extinctions finally won and the old ways of thinking abandoned:

"It is a testament to the strength of Lyell's sway that in the 1980s, when geologists had to abandon just a part of his theory to accommodate the impact theory of extinctions, it nearly killed them."

In the same way have been abandoned and if not any remnants still lingering in the minds of people should be wiped out leaving no trace at all, are concepts that stirred the hearts and directed the lives of many people. Concepts which have been used to erect huge artificial divides among groups of people, nations and their use brought only strife and destruction.

Throwing overboard relentlessly whatever is remotely connected with what is not agreed now.

Single individuals, as well as all the structures built and maintained by individuals, have a tendency, for various reasons, to hold on to old practices and ignore the new. Such a tendency, to whatever degree is adhered to, suppresses progress and hinders natural development based on notions that what have worked well in the past, it works in the present and it will work in the future. Its influence becomes overriding and suppresses new ideas.

Usually development reaches a plateau, as the premises for their rise in the first place, presented as the initial conditions, confine and determine the extent to which they can develop or even the kinds of development possible. These initial conditions which can be taken as the foundations of the system(s) built, do not offer any room for further development. Any further development is impossible. Further development is only possible by acting on the very foundations that the system(s) are built. Shaking at the very foundations of the built system(s).

An example of such process is provided by the rise in France of the Bourbaki movement in the 1930s among young mathematicians, presented in this article from PlanetMath website.

The system comprising the state of mathematics in France at that period pushed young mathematicians toward a complete overhaul on the way mathematics were taught as they felt that older mathematicians were holding on to old practices and ignoring the new.

As it is stated:

"Bourbaki felt that the old mathematical divisions were no longer valid comparing them to ancient zoological divisions. The ancient zoologist would classify animals based on some basic superficial similarities such as “all these animals live in the ocean”. Eventually they realized that more complexity was required to classify these animals. Past mathematicians had apparently made similar mistakes : “the order in which we (Bourbaki) arranged our subjects was decided according to a logical and rational scheme. If that does not agree with what was done previously, well, it means that what was done previously has to be thrown overboard.”"

The notion, of throwing overboard what was done previously, if that does not agree with what is agreed in the present, no matter how widespread and deep-rooted it might appear to be. That goes along at every scale, even at the level of a single individual in its efforts to acquire meaning accomplished by the eclectic use of language and the subsequent application of that meaning to deal with everyday life phenomena.

"Someone should stick to language, as far as the words, the symbols used, serve their purpose, in achieving meaning, and then words should be discarded, thrown away."

Amending old and tried practices, ideas that held true in the past, instead of tampering with the initial conditions, the foundations, it will only alter superficially a given system, as the limits have already been reached. As what is required is to advance to the next stage, a higher state in the system's development where new, innovative ideas will find room to flourish and proliferate.

The prerogative of acting on the initial conditions is professed by the chaotic systems development. The sensitive dependence on a system's initial conditions, where tiny perturbations have drastic effects in the final outcome of a state. A force that is unstoppable and able to carry forward whatever changes have touched and are about the initial conditions of any given system.

Any attempts to stifle such drive, goes against the premises of natural development, futile attempts of a system in its dying throes to perpetuate its existence, destined to fail as it stands against a much larger force.