Theory & Science (2002)

ISSN: 1527-5558

A Response to Common Questions Concerning the Article: "Postmodern Deconstruction Of Newtonian Science: A Physical-to-social Transposition of Causality"

L. Frederick Zaman III
Neural Engineering Research & Development
Hill AFB
Frederick.Zaman@hill.af.mil

Abstract

The letter below is in reply to an engineering undergraduate that obtained a copy of the above paper, who requested more information regarding my “basic standpoint.” I would like to publish it here for anyone else desiring the same. However, it seems that those wishing to pursue this subject further are often times more willing to do so off-line rather than in a public forum. Hopefully, the hesitancy to discuss this subject openly in public will gradually disappear as people become more familiar with the idea of nature’s immanent, internally directed, nonmechanistic acceleration forces; and realize that it is science truly in the best sense of the word. In the mean time, as in the case of “Jim” below which is a pseudonym, the identity of those wishing to pursue this matter further in private will be kept private.

Reference: your email about “Postmodern Deconstruction Of Newtonian Science: A Physical-to-social Transposition of Causality” published on the internet by Theory & Science (2001)

Jim,
I address below not only the questions you specifically asked but also several apparent misconceptions. The numbered paragraphs paraphrase your comments or what I regard as implied assumptions, which then are followed by my responses.

1. A background in philosophy is required in order to be qualified to assess the validity of the arguments put forth in Postmodern Deconstruction.

The “intellectual background” required to assess the validity of the arguments in this paper (hereafter referred to as “Postmodern Deconstruction”) does not lie in “philosophy” per se, but rather in the common sense understanding of force in Newtonian physics (which itself is philosophical in nature). Causality of course is one of the issues addressed in philosophy, but the basis of arguments in Postmodern Deconstruction is primarily “physical” rather than “metaphysical.” Classical physics presently is based on one philosophical perspective of force—the conventional mechanistic philosophy labeled “OEC” (Objective Event Causation) in Postmodern Deconstruction. The forces accelerating a body in OEC always originate outside and thus are externally impressed. What Postmodern Deconstruction clearly demonstrates, however, is that classical physics also can be based on a diametrically opposed, nonmechanistic perspective of accelerative force called “SAC” (Subjective Agent Causation), which also accelerate a body in accordance with the Newtonian equations of motion, but they nevertheless originate entirely from within the body accelerated and are internally impressed. The “subjectivist” and “objectivist” terms used in Postmodern Deconstruction have been shortened here to “subjective” and “objective” respectively, which seem preferable to the original terms. The “philosophical background” actually required to assess the validity of the novel, nonmechanistic world-view of SAC thus is essentially the same as that required to understand the common sense, mechanistic world-view of OEC presently dominating physical science. OEC and SAC are equally philosophical (metaphysical) and equally non-philosophical or scientific (mathematical-empirical). Postmodern Deconstruction is not for the philosophers who endlessly debate such matters, but rather for scientists, engineers, educators, and others of the modern world that will allow themselves the freedom of thought to consider that, in fact, the physical world may be nonmechanistic rather than mechanistic.

OEC and SAC in Postmodern Deconstruction truly are equivalent in their philosophical depth, which should become clearer as we proceed. In OEC the forces accelerating a body are externally impressed while in SAC they are internally impressed, but the equations and related experimental data (that which is currently available at any rate), are nevertheless the same for both causalities. Still, the issue concerning whether nature’s forces are those given in OEC or SAC must ultimately be a matter for scientists and engineers to decide rather than philosophers and literary deconstructionists—through additional study and experimentation. But, if this question about nature’s causality indeed is to be decided objectively, rather than by fiat as it is presently in favor of OEC, scientists, engineers and educators must first open themselves up to the alternative world-view of SAC and begin interpreting nature in nonmechanistic terms. And the way to do this is available to anyone with a cursory knowledge of Newtonian physics: (1) first review the Newtonian laws of motion, if necessary, and apply them in concept to particular problems of interest thinking all the while in terms of externally impressed forces (OEC); and then (2) reapply these same laws—the equations thereof—in concept to the same problems while thinking in terms of internally impressed forces (SAC). The orbital motion of moon and earth, bodies falling in a gravitational field, and contact forces are examples of problems that can be fruitfully addressed in this manner. This exercise is quite elementary, embarrassingly so for physicists and other science professionals perhaps, but it soon will become apparent to those who pursue this matter that the mathematical-empirical foundations of Newtonian physics truly are indifferent to the actual origin of the forces causing a body’s acceleration. And this exercise is not just for physicists and physics instructors, but for all scientists and others interested in seeing how the forces of the physical world may actually be nonmechanistic rather than mechanistic. The forces described by Newton’s equations of motion may be externally impressed and mechanistic or internally impressed and nonmechanistic in reality—it makes no difference whatever. Newtonian mechanics is underdetermined with regard to the origin of the forces it describes.

2. Postmodern Deconstruction holds that the perspective of force in classical physics labeled “OEC,” which is the conventional and generally accepted viewpoint, is an arbitrary social construct lacking in objective validity, which necessarily implies that there is no such thing as objective truth.

Postmodern Deconstruction argues not against objective truth, but against the establishment of a subjective impression of objective truth and calling that subjective impression objective truth. Newtonian mechanics, although this fact is downplayed in the university’s training of scientists (or perhaps sometimes outright denied), is composed of two components—one mathematical-empirical and the other metaphysical. The mathematical-empirical component includes the mathematical formulations of Newtonian mechanics, the solution of problems thereby, and the associated evidence given in experiment or design. The second, metaphysical component, which is everywhere tightly integrated with the first, is the mechanistic interpretation of force given when the forces are called, or implicitly regarded as externally impressed. It is this second component of Newtonian mechanics that Postmodern Deconstruction names OEC or Objective Event Causation, which is generally unacknowledged by physicists and some might dismiss as nonessential to the actual “doing of science” if the subject is brought up. Nevertheless, the metaphysical framework of OEC has been and continues to be absolutely essential to “thinking about science” when the subject is force in classical physics. Of course it is possible “in theory” to do without any metaphysical interpretation of force in a hard core positivism, whether OEC or SAC, but no one does this. All textbooks and all discussions about force in classical physics interpret force within the mechanistic framework of OEC, and anyone seriously proclaiming that a nonmechanistic SAC might provide an alternative account of force in university physics and elsewhere may well feel what seemingly is the wrath of God in science. Try doing it in your university science courses for example, and you might begin to see what I mean. And if you were to persist in trying to present such “nonsense” as being science, your professionalism might well be called into question.

3. Intention, perception and reality are very much interrelated and inseparable in Postmodern Deconstruction. This implies, however, that what is real depends both on what we perceive to be real, and what our intentions are regarding what we perceive to be real.

Postmodern Deconstruction shows that, indeed, there is another, nonmechanistic way to view the mathematical-empirical component of classical mechanics, which was called SAC or Subjective Agent Causation. In this alternative account of Newtonian mechanics, the forces described mathematically and observed empirically in physical systems are immanent and self-impressed rather than externally impressed. The mathematical-empirical component of Newtonian mechanics remains the same in either case, whether understood through OEC or SAC, but the causalities obtained are diametrically opposed. And it is in the alternative world-view of physics labeled SAC that “intention, perception and reality are very much interrelated and inseparable.”

What we have in Newtonian mechanics then, and classical physics as it is presently understood, is a tightly integrated synthesis of both objective science (the mathematical-empirical component uninterpreted as to the actual origin of the forces described and observed), and a mechanistic metaphysics of force subjectively applied thereto (OEC, wherein the forces are always subjectively interpreted as being externally impressed). Is OEC, which is the metaphysics of externally impressed force integrated into the present scientific perspective of force in classical physics, then an “arbitrary social construct presently lacking in objective validity”? It is indeed because neither the mathematics nor the experimental evidence to date demand any such interpretation, but this does not imply as some might believe that “there is no such thing as objective truth.” Postmodern Deconstruction most emphatically involves no such implication. What it does imply, however, is that the last word on the causality of force in classical physics is not yet in, despite all protestations to the contrary, for there now is at least one other way to interpret the forces of nature—immanent and self-impressed as described in SAC, rather than externally impressed as in the conventional OEC.

4. The subjectivist viewpoint of reality and scientific knowledge spelled out in Postmodern Deconstruction is common among students of the humanities and social sciences.

It is common among the students of the humanities and social sciences that what has been called objective science for the past three hundred plus years includes a large component that is subjective bias concerning the constitution of the physical world. What Postmodern Deconstruction does, however, is to demonstrate the validity of this postmodern truth objectively and without subjective bias. There is absolutely nothing in the mathematical-empirical foundation of classical physics that requires one view the forces of nature as being mechanistic, which is to say “externally impressed” on whatever object or body is being accelerated according to Newton’s laws of motion. There in fact is no place in the equations F = ma (second law) and F1 = –F2 (third law) to insert any data about the origin of the forces thus described. The external origin of these forces is always carried along in discussions with—and external to—the actual quantitative account, through the literary device of a “little story” (whether explicitly stated or only commonly assumed) concerning the supposed need that the forces in Newtonian mechanics are external. However, when one ponders what these equations really tell us and don’t tell us, we discover that—insofar as the math and data are concerned—the forces described could actually be originating within the body accelerated, and thus be immanent and internally impressed according to SAC. Claims by modernity that the success of modern science required the mechanistic world-view thereof simply are not true. However, the strong counterclaims made by some postmodernists, that scientific knowledge is socially constructed in its entirety and thus completely relative to culture, is equally nonsensical and clearly not supported by the work in Postmodern Deconstruction.

What Postmodern Deconstruction does affirm in postmodern thought and provides a theoretical foundation for is what Charlene Spretnak in The Resurgence of the Real (1999, pp. 65-79) calls ecological postmodernism, which she says could as easily be called (philosophical) cosmological postmodernism. This version of postmodern thought, unlike the more widely known school of thought you probably are familiar with that she calls “deconstructionist postmodernism,” isn’t hostile to science and scientific theorizing per se. Unlike their more familiar counterparts, and unlike the mechanists of the classical sciences as well, which generally are content with abstract models that need not be “real” in any conventional sense, ecological postmodernists seek a broad and deep engagement with the real. Ecological postmodernists seek to eliminate the violation, diminution, or distortion of the real by the current theories and methodologies of modern philosophy and science. They seek approaches to philosophy and science that, unlike the mechanical philosophy of the Scientific Revolution that continues to dominate the scientific vision of ourselves and nature, will harmonize theory and experiment with humanity’s felt experience of the real. They seek in the twenty-first century to reverse the modern disenchantment of nature, which the Romantic poet Blake called “single vision and Newton’s sleep,” in which specialists have no spirit and sensualists have no heart. They seek a post-modern world, in which the human ego is firmly grounded in the physical world but nevertheless transcends Newton’s spiritually alien clockwork universe. They seek to replace modernity’s freedom from nature with a post-modern freedom in nature. And all of these indeed are the goals of Postmodern Deconstruction as well—which is fundamentally concerned with an “ecological cosmology” in which mind and spirit, contrary to what the Enlightenment has proclaimed over the past three centuries, are located within rather than being external and alien to the natural world.

5. If OEC indeed is invalid as I suggest in Postmodern Deconstruction, then reality has no objective nature independent from our perception. But if reality has no objective nature independent from our perception, then how is it that the physical sciences are able to make concrete predictions that can be experimentally verified, while the social sciences cannot? The physical sciences are able to make concrete predictions that can be experimentally verified. For example, engineers using the laws and theories developed by the physical scientists have landed men on the moon. This undertaking involved machines with millions of moving parts, complex orbital mechanics and gravitational calculations, and yet, it still worked. But there is no corresponding example in the social sciences, where a theory has been formulated that resulted in concrete predictions, which in turn gave an effective solution to a practical problem.

As previously indicated, Postmodern Deconstruction in fact does not argue that “reality has no objective nature independent from our perception.” Reality in SAC is fully objective and exists independent of our perceptions, even though OEC is regarded as invalid. What SAC does is to objectify and naturalize our subjectivity in a way that directly corresponds with external reality. The universal assumption of the natural sciences is that objectivity can be guaranteed only when subjectivity is ruled out of bounds in science, and this is what OEC has accomplished in the past. There is another way, however, which is to include subjectivity but provide rigorous constraints that conform to external reality, which is the approach SAC takes. Subjectivity is present everywhere in nature, but it always operates in harmony with the objective realities of the external world. We are all subjective beings in life, but that doesn’t mean our subjectivity operates independent of the external world, at least not in SAC. And this is how SAC treats subjectivity: it brings our subjective existence into direct contact with the physical world outside through theory that incorporates both into a single conceptual framework. Scientists, physical scientists in particular, seem to have a lot of difficulty with this issue. They feel it is wrong, perhaps even immoral, to do this, but this is only their training and long standing tradition. Once subjectivity is seen as a phenomenon that can be objectively studied and theorized about in natural science by relating it to the forces and fields of the world outside, the morality issue disappears, and natural science then can study the “subjective world” and theorize about it in much the same way it historically has about the “objective world.” This is what SAC gives us the means for doing in principle. The subjective and objective become linked in theory in a way that the subjective becomes objective and vice-versa. The mind-matter and subject-object divides in human thought become false dichotomies in SAC.

Nature, as described quantitatively in the mathematics of classical physics (leaving questions of quantum and relativistic reality aside here) and observed in the empirical data, is objective without question; but it happens that OEC is a wholly subjective interpretation of the objective, mathematical-empirical foundations of science. What most people reading Postmodern Deconstruction seem to fail to do—and perhaps are psychologically unable to do—is to mentally disengage from the mechanistic world-view of OEC, which is the conventional metaphysics of classical physics. And the probable reason they don’t or can’t, generally speaking, is that this is never done anywhere in modern thought about the physical world: not in university instruction, not in research, and not in common sense discourse. The metaphysics of OEC has been so tightly integrated into the classical scientific world-view regarding force that removing it from one’s mental understanding of nature can be done only with considerable effort—which those ideologically committed to the existing mechanistic world-view will never make.

One of the reasons the social sciences have never achieved anything comparable to the physical sciences then, which perhaps is the main reason, is precisely because of the OEC world-view arbitrarily imposed on our understanding of the world by physical science. That indeed is the main point of Postmodern Deconstruction. The failure of the social sciences quite literally has been forced on them by the physical sciences’ dogmatic assertion regarding a mechanistic world. One begins to see this, however, only after the alternative SAC has been assimilated and its value in the understanding and interpretation of the social world becomes apparent. A second paper “A Physico-social Theory Of Weberian Ideal-types: The Newtonian Deconstruction Of Classical Sociology,” also published in the internet journal Theory and Science, makes this very clear. Once SAC has been correctly assimilated, the integration of numerous, disparate theories in classical sociology becomes a reality. And the synthesis thus achieved for the first time, makes possible an objective observation and theoretical treatment of the subjective dynamics of social groups, through a quasi-Newtonian SAC in which force is immanent, self-impressed, and self-directed (but externally informed). Other papers on the nonmechanistic world-view of SAC also are in review or in process; which address the quantum mechanical connections of the forces in SAC, the operation of these forces in American sociopolitical history, and other aspects of their operation in both physical and social systems. Once the truly egregious error of imposing an OEC world-view on nature by the physical sciences has been corrected, the advancement of the social sciences in terms of the alternative SAC world-view should rapidly follow.

6. We can build a machine to do just about any task we can think of, given enough time, but we will always have poverty, crime, illiteracy, war, famine, prostitution and stupidity(as well we should, life would really be boring without them, no challenge at all)

Perhaps “we will always have poverty, crime, illiteracy, war, famine, prostitution and stupidity” indeed, so long as the mechanistic world-view of OEC is allowed to dominate science, and thereby block the development of theories in the social sciences that correctly account for the immanent forces in society responsible for the above. And, in that sense, the hubris of those in engineering and the physical sciences concerning their ability to build machines, and by implication presume to understand nature, is an important aspect of the problems modern society now faces. And these problems may persist, and even get far worse in the future, unless and until the possibility of immanent forces within man and nature—as proposed in SAC for example—is permitted to become scientifically reputable so that scientists can pursue their study without fear of ridicule or ostracization. For the poverty, crime, illiteracy, war, prostitution, stupidity, and even famine, that has always been with us may be due to a fundamental lack of understanding of a causality that in both the physical and social sciences is fundamentally nonmechanistic. It might be safely assumed, however, that life will always be a challenge no matter how much progress science makes in the future.

The success of modern engineering and science noted above is due solely to the math and empirical data. It has nothing to do with the mechanistic world-view of OEC that has been arbitrarily superimposed. And to the extent that our public schools have provided an effective forum for the education of our nation’s youth, that forum has been used almost exclusively for doctrinaire support of the mechanistic world-view (OEC) identified in Postmodern Deconstruction. This can be changed, however, through the adoption of a SAC that is supported by both the physical and social sciences, and taught in our public schools and universities. The physical and social sciences then would have a common world-view that might enable the social sciences to begin emulating the amazing success achieved by the physical sciences. And the theories formulated by the social sciences then, for the first time in the history of modern science, might result in predictions that result in effective solutions to practical problems.

7. Postmodernists can argue that the success of the objectivists, like objective reality itself, does not exist. That it is only the perception of success created by the intent to succeed and the expectation of a successful outcome. This explanation doesn’t explain the failure of the social sciences, however. Am I and other postmodernists trying to fail? Probably not you say, but if we are, then we might be correct in what we propose.

The postmodernist movement has many failings truly, but there is a core within that movement that is genuine and has validity, and it is that core that must be separated from all the nonsense. And this is the objective of the work published in Postmodern Deconstruction. . ., A Physico-social Theory. . ., and others that will follow. Am I trying to fail? Indeed I think not. What I am trying to do is overcome the utter failure of classical physics and other natural sciences to provide a coherent theoretical foundation upon which the social sciences can build—which is categorically impossible so long as the mechanistic world-view in classical physics remains unchallenged (within its own domain). The pernicious influence of the mechanistic world-view in classical physics, in denying any theoretical basis whatever in nature for building up the social sciences, should be clear to anyone with an open mind on the subject.

8. Why is it that the adherents of postmodernism, who presumably are not trying to fail, nevertheless promote ideologies regarding science and culture that, if they are successful, will doom mankind to failure?

Jim, I don’t pretend to act as “an articulate spokesperson” for the postmodern movement, one reason being that it really isn’t “my movement.” I simply speak the truth as I see it, which agrees in some respects with the views of those called postmodernists but disagrees in other respects. This “movement” in truth belongs to everyone that senses something is drastically wrong with science as now constituted, notwithstanding the amazing success it has thus far achieved in sustaining material progress. This movement rightfully belongs even to those that don’t have the depth of understanding needed to effectively defend their views intellectually, which causes them to make mistakes—even egregious ones in some cases—in doing so. It took many years for the present mechanistic concept of force (here called OEC) to clarify itself in science and become generally accepted. How many of those early defenders of mechanism failed to have sufficient depth to adequately present their understanding of force from a modern, scientific perspective (Leibniz included?), and were viciously attacked for it? Very many probably. It may be some time as well for the immanent forces viewpoint of nature (here called SAC) to do the same, and attacks with the same viciousness undoubtedly will be launched upon the defenders of this alternative, nonmechanistic world-view. The seeming failure of postmodernism in science today, as it appears in today’s “science wars,” may be little more than a brief interlude, which is soon to be followed by the successful elaboration of a new, nonmechanistic world-view. The end result of this success, however, will not be the demise of science as today’s “science warriors” suppose, but rather its release from the stultifying dogma of the very unfortunate and misguided mechanistic world-view.

Jim, you indicated that, as a first semester student of an engineering curriculum in college, you feel unqualified to assess the validity of the arguments put forth in Postmodern Deconstruction. However, with a little effort on your part as previously indicated, this will no longer be true. Those who truly are unqualified to assess this work, and will likely remain so, are all professionals in science, engineering, education, and philosophy that are ideologically committed to the existing mechanistic world-view, and thus will never consider with an open mind the subject of the physical but nonetheless nonmechanistic world described in Postmodern Deconstruction. And you undoubtedly will meet many of these individuals as you progress upward in your education and future career.

I hope this answers your questions, and dispels some of the misconceptions that you (and many others as well) hold concerning the “physical-to-social transposition of causality” described in Postmodern Deconstruction.

Fred Zaman

Postscript:

Developments since the publication of Postmodern Deconstruction last year show that OEC is not only not the only way to view nature’s forces, it isn’t even experimentally consistent while SAC, on the other hand, is fully consistent with experiment. The mechanistic world-view of OEC was first conceived in terms of the external contact forces of push and pull, which occurred when two bodies came into physical contact. Mechanism was then later amended by Newton to include action-at-a-distance, whereby external forces are impressed upon bodies that are not in physical contact. And then, even later in the nineteenth century, the action-at-a-distance of mechanistic forces was converted into force fields of gravity or electromagnetism that exist in the intervening space between bodies and transmit external forces between them.

What is readily shown, however, to anyone willing to address the subject objectively and dispassionately, is that the “force field” concept in fact does not explain the existence of contact forces. The force field concept when employed here erroneously predicts that there can be no contact forces when two bodies impact or otherwise make contact, so that in theory impenetrable bodies don’t exist either. Two bodies simply merge one into the other as they press together, which is absurd of course. The reason for this absurdity, which is a necessary consequence of OEC when viewed in terms of force fields and applied to the contact forces of impenetrable bodies, is that that the surface charges of two bodies in mutual contact set up equal and opposed fields that mutually cancel, which produces a “null field” within the gap separating them. And a null field in principle cannot transmit the forces required in OEC for contact forces to exist. In OEC then, contradictorily, a force field that doesn’t exist, because of field cancellation in the gap between the surfaces of bodies physically making contact, nevertheless transmits through the gap the forces needed to produce the contact forces observed when the bodies make contact. Utter nonsense of course, but that is what OEC viewed in terms of field theory dictates.

The only option available in OEC is simply to abandon field theory and return to Newton’s earlier action-at-a-distance, where there are no force fields in the gap between two contacting surfaces. There is then no contradiction and OEC correctly predicts the existence of impenetrable bodies and their contact forces. However, there is a second option that can also explain impenetrable bodies and their contact forces while at the same time being consistent with field theory. When field theory is recast in terms of the immanent, internally impressed forces of SAC, whose geometric information fields are dynamically configured in space and time, it no longer contradicts the experimentally observed existence of impenetrable bodies and their contact forces. SAC thus is more consistent than the field theoretical version of OEC, in both experiment and everyday life, and logically should be incorporated into classical physics on this basis alone. However, physics as a human enterprise involves much more than reason and logic. Indeed, it may turn out that, because of the hubris of the Enlightenment which seems to be an element of irrationality within the human enterprise of physics and natural science generally, any such incorporation will be strongly opposed.

Relativity theory has overturned the metaphysics of Newtonian mechanics where the velocities of objects approach the speed of light or the acceleration forces of gravity become extreme; but Newtonian metaphysics remains firmly in place in the classical world of large objects where these conditions are not met. Similarly, quantum theory has overturned the metaphysics of Newtonian mechanics where the objects are extremely small, which is called the quantum domain; but once again Newtonian metaphysics remains firmly in place in the macroscopic world outside this domain excepting only relativistic systems. Given these facts of science, it is clear that any transport of the nonclassical concepts found in relativity or quantum theory beyond the bounds where they have been empirically demonstrated in nature, as sometimes done in discourse on the biological basis of mind and consciousness for example, is idle speculation that in truth lies beyond the bounds of legitimate scientific discourse.

There simply are no legitimately scientific applications of relativistic or quantum concepts in either biology or social science at present, because Newtonian metaphysics remains firmly in place here insofar as hard core science is concerned. What truly may be needed in twenty-first century science, then, is the pursuit and completion of a general program in the development of metaphysics for the sciences that the theories of relativity and quantum mechanics are only the barest beginning of. What may be needed indeed is the complete overturning of the conventional metaphysics of Newtonian mechanics, to include even all of classical physics proper where lie the biological processes that make mind and consciousness possible. And, once the overturning of Newtonian metaphysics has been accomplished in classical physics as a complement to and completion of what relativity and quantum theory have initiated, then perhaps it will be possible to objectively pursue a rational understanding of numerous other phenomena that presently escape scientific explanation, including those in the biological and social sciences related to mind and consciousness.

Indeed, relativity and quantum theories, which in their respective domains overturn the conventional metaphysics of Newtonian mechanics, may be just the beginning of a general theory of causality in science that overturns as well the metaphysics of Newtonian mechanics in classical physics. Justification for this metaphysically-based approach to doing science is given through a consideration of the contact forces of impenetrable bodies in terms of classical force fields, which as previously indicated surprisingly demonstrates that the conventional linkage of force and field in classical physics is empirically controverted. The contradiction is resolved, however, when the conventional external forces of Newtonian metaphysics are replaced by equivalent internal forces that follow Newton’s equations of motion, F = ma and F1 = –F2; and what are now regarded as force fields become instead geometric fields of information dynamically configured in space and time. A restatement of Newton’s laws of motion in terms of internal forces, as previously indicated in Postmodern Deconstruction, then completes the overturning of Newtonian metaphysics experimentally required by the contact forces of impenetrable bodies; which provides, for those sciences that traditionally have depended on—and thus also have been effectively constrained by—Newtonian metaphysics, an alternative nonmechanistic account of nature. Consciousness studies, both in the biological and social sciences, would be a prime candidate for the initial application of a general, nonmechanistic theory of causality.