The world of nature is ultra fractal

In French : Le monde de la nature est ultra fractal

Whatever the scale at which they are considered, fractals have the same degree of complexity. This is for example the case of the coast of Brittany: whatever the scale of the map, it is shredded. Magnify the detail of a fractal reveals a pattern similar to that of the entire drawing.

Examination of a natural object - whether the whole universe or a speck of dust - let appears, when the scale is changed, a series of views of the same complexity - but unlike Fractals they are not similar.

Consider the universe. Its geometry is non-Euclidean (space is curved). At the level of everyday experience the geometry is Euclidean. We find clusters of molecules in the grain dust examined by electron microscopy. Later we will encounter atoms, then the probability waves of quantum mechanics. Farther particles appear. We could go on, we could also select other scales ...

In the thinnest detail of nature lies, as in a fractal, a complexity which is equivalent to that of the whole. However each of the scales follows a peculiar geometry. This adds another kind of complexity to the complexity of the fractal. Nature, being essentially complex, is "ultra-fractal."

*     *

The examination of any physical object - your hand, a pencil, a speck of dust - can never achieve a detailed and complete description. This despairs those whose only absolute knowledge can satisfy the thirst for knowledge, but "absolute knowledge" is a mirage consisting of words that should not be juxtaposed.

The destiny of every human being is the both comic and tragic theater of the dialectic between the ultra-fractal world of physical, human and social nature and the world of values that animate his intentions. . This dialectic is the action.

To act he doesn't need an absolute knowledge: he needs only a relevant knowledge, that is to say a knowledge that is adequate to the action he intends to achieve. This knowledge, being expressed in a finite number of concepts, will always be simple compared to the complexity of nature.

The concepts that are necessary to driving - identifying obstacles and signals, anticipating the behavior of other drivers - select for example, in the complexity of the visual spectacle, a finite number of events. It is the same for all our actions: explicit thought is always simple and it is best to reserve to nature the qualifier "complex" ("complex thought", expression dear to Edgar Morin, is an oxymoron) even if a thought can be complicated in the sense that its acquisition requires a long apprenticeship. By cons the process of elaboration of thought is complex because the brain belongs to the world of nature.

*     *

The contrast between the simplicity of thought and the complexity of nature invites to postulate that this complexity is unlimited (that is to say not only infinite as a right line, but without limit). This hypothesis is an axiom because we can neither prove it nor demonstrate the opposite.

This axiom has the consequence that any mathematical theory, that is to say any logical structure based on a non-contradictory battery of axioms, is the model of a phenomenon belonging to the world of nature: thus the non-Euclidean geometries, created as an exercise in pure logic, provided subsequently a model for the geometry of the cosmos). If this was not the case, this theory would be a limit to the complexity of nature.

A mathematical theory can wait a long time or even never encounter the phenomenon it models because, being not revealed by experiment has revealed, this phenomenon remains is buried in the complexity of nature: but we are sure it exists. This confers to the math a radical realism, with an obvious caveat: if any mathematical theory models a phenomenon, it does not model all phenomena. It follows that the ambition of a "Theory of Everything" in physics is a mirage.

Creative intelligence

(Tranlated from: L'intelligence créative)

Creativity is a mystery. As we tend to spontaneously reproduce our conditions of existence we are fundamentally conservative, even those who call themselves "leftists." How is it then that we may yet evolve?

In any business, in any institution, conservative forces are struggling to ensure the sustainability of the organization and, as we well know, the leaders never understand anything new. The economic reasoning is not enough to explain why so many innovations happen: for an enterprise embarks on a new project it is not enough that innovation seems profitable, the potential profitability must also have been understood or at least glimpsed. How leaders "who never understand anything new" can nevertheless understand finally the value of an innovation?

These two mysteries are similar to the one the evolution of species confront us. If parents pass their genes to their children, how is it that one species can evolve, that forms life takes can diversify? The answer, as we know, lies in the mutations: genes are not transmitted all the same.

Mutations are random, most of them are harmful and their carriers disappear. Some, however, are so positive that they will benefit their holders in the competition for reproduction: hence evolution.

Does not happen in our minds, in our institutions, a phenomenon similar to this one that would explain the creative thinking in the individual and the innovation in the enterprise?

What is a "concept"?

(Translated from: Qu'est-ce qu'un concept ?)

"What is a concept? " asked once a friend of mine. I had used this word while we were talking about economy.

 This friend has suffered like me philosophy in the last year in high school. She may not have been paying attention, it may be that his teacher was a mediocre philosopher or poor teacher. To understand the philosophy, told me a philosopher who thought of his own experience, one must have reached at least the age of thirty years, have formed a family, have children and practice a profession ... What can we understand at the age of eighteen?

 I admire the choice and depth of the readings of this friend, if not their extent, but this fine and intelligent person kept so unpleasant memories of the course of philosophy that she close her ears when she hears one of the terms of the technical vocabulary, in particular "concept".

It is therefore normal that she does not know what it means. I begun to understand it when, working at INSEE, I questioned the relevance of the classification of activities and the relationship between statistics and economic theory.

*     *

"A concept, I said, that's an idea associated with a definition." As it meant nothing to her, I had to develop.

François Jullien, Zhong Yong, Imprimerie Nationale, 1993

French version

François Jullien gives, by publishing this translation, an important contribution to our understanding of Chinese philosophy and its relationship with our own philosophy.

The goal of Western philosophy is knowledge enriched after Kant by the critic of knowledge [1]. The goal of Chinese philosophy is wisdom, shēng. But the wisdom of the Chinese lies in an articulation of the personality that is strange for us - not because it would not exist by us, but because we do not give him any attention.

Our culture followed two paths to knowledge: at first the truth revealed by Scripture and dogma, and then from the Renaissance Science constructed by combining theory and experimentation. Our intellectual history is marked by the rivalry between these two approaches but the Chinese have followed neither one nor the other.

One of the presentations of their philosophy is the Zhong Yong (pronounce Djong Yong) which, with the Interviews of Confucius, the Mencius and the Great Learning, was used for a thousand years to train Chinese scholars. It is written in the indirect style favored by the Chinese: where we would use definitions and deductions they prefer hint and suggestion. One can hardly understand this text if one does not access to a comment.

François Jullien, The silent transformations, Seagull Books, 2011

Version en français

François Jullien presents here, more clearly than in his previous works, the confrontation between Chinese thought and European philosophy. By placing in front of the other, he highlights what each of them has neglected, what it does not want to see.

Is Philosophy an expression of our culture, of the way of thought that the Indo-European languages structure (subject - verb - complement, declensions and conjugations)? Or did she, starting from the Greek source, structure the way we think? It is indeed vain to try to distinguish cause and effect: the two phenomena, inter-weaved, enclose us in a familiar circle.

Our representation of the world proceeds by concepts and definitions with clear contours. It is suitable for mathematics, it encourages the construction of science, but it does not help us to think our aging, the landslides of our emotional life, all these slow changes whose term takes us by surprise.

Aristotle and the Business

(Translated from Aristote et l'entreprise)

When the name of Aristotle is uttered, many ears close. How boring! How pretentious! And yet, if we speak like students in a high school, he was not so stupid, this Aristotle…

Consider the four types of causes he has counted: final, formal, material, moving (or efficient) cause. For a long time I did not understand them, but as I kept some memories of the course in philosophy I could see that computerization was the material cause of the financial crisis (see Comprendre la crise) because it has made this crisis possible - and if you cogitate a little, you understand that once the crisis was possible, it was in fact inevitable.

Wondering what place could play in our businesses the three other types of causes, I discovered to my surprise that they stack in a familiar pattern.

If Aristotle were alive today, he certainly would be interested in the business, because it is the locus of the action of mankind in the biosphere - but French philosophers, in their majority, prefer to denigrate business rather than observing it.