*The Four Levels of Process*

by Arthur M. Young
I would like to make a brief description of one of the basic ideas on
which the theory of process is based. While I don't see why the idea is
difficult, and believe it to be essential to any understanding either of
the nature of the universe or of the nature of the self, it is something
not recognized by scientists and missing in the literature. Therefore it
is urgent to make it known.
What I refer to first came to my attention back in college days when I
read Bertrand Russell and encountered his logical types. As Russell, who
had the knack of vivid expression, said, "The class of elephants is not
an elephant." Others have said, "The map is not the territory."
When I met Gregory Bateson at a conference at Lindesfarne, he applied
the notion of logical types to distinguish ratios (relationships) from
objects. "The price of eggs is not an egg," he said. But when I
expressed the possibility of more logical types, Bateson said I was
wrong -- "violating the rule of logical types." I know of no such rule.
In fact, since Bateson had likened logical types to the derivatives
(which also deal with ratios) and there is a rule for derivatives
(successive divisions by time, i.e., /ds, ds/dt, ds/dt²,/ etc.), he had
in effect provided just the rule needed to support more logical types.
Another giant of science, Eddington, placed great stress on the fact
that science deals with the relationship structure of the universe, and
distinguished between things and relationships between them. Thus a map
might show the geographic position of towns and cities, and this would
display one kind of relationship. A list of the populations of cities
would also show relationship.
So far so good. But do these two logical types -- elephants, and the
class of elephants -- have anything in common? Why should I ask this
question? Because I need to show that since they do share one property
there must be other types which do not have the property shared by a
class and its members.
What then is this property? Both are /objective./ The animals that roam
the jungle or inhabit the zoo are physical objects. The class of
elephants, or the concept elephant, is a mental object in the sense that
it can be communicated. This suggests that since there might be some
aspect of an elephant that was not objective -- in fact since we have
both a physical and a non-physical aspect of the elephant -- there might
be a non-objective, physical and non-physical aspect.
Such would be the /need/ for the elephant, which would be physical and
something else that is non-physical /and/ not objective. This I will
venture to say (without proof) is the /purpose/ of the elephant. It
might be thought that this is physical, but I have to begin somewhere on
what I propose to show, namely, that there are four and only four major
aspects to the elephant (or to any object) and we can define the two
that remain as opposites to the two we have already mentioned, the
physical object and the mental object. While physical describes the
animal itself, there is another term that is more appropriate to the
description of logical types. This is the term particular, which stands
as distinct from the class of elephants, which is /general./ I can now
define four logical types:
Particular objects correlate to physical things.
Classes are general, correlating to concepts.
Value is general, based on need.
Purpose is particular.

The last two I will call /projective,/ as distinct from objective. Here
we must be careful because the mind would have no difficulty describing
the value of an elephant, but this is not what I mean by value. Perhaps
we could shift to eggs. The price of eggs is objective; it can be
communicated. The value is something that will vary with persons; if you
were dying of starvation an egg would have great value.
And purpose is different again. Your purpose might be to eat the egg, to
raise chickens, to make Easter eggs.
1. Particular objective Solid Object
2. General objective Plane Form
3. General projective Line Value, scale
4. Particular projective Point Purpose, direction

But permit me to reverse the order and begin with purpose:

Point Purpose, direction Particular projective Origin, first cause
Line Scale, time, value General projective Motivation
Plane Form, concept General objective Identity
Solid Physical object Particular objective Practice

These four can also be correlated to other fours:

ARISTOTLE'S
CAUSES JUNG'S
FUNCTIONS ANCIENT
ELEMENTS TRANSFOR-
MATIONS
Purpose Final Intuition Fire Rotation Spirit
Value Material Emotion Water Scale Soul
Form Formal Intellect Air Inversion Mind
Object Efficient Sensation Earth Translation Body

Having shown this with enough examples to indicate its wide application,
we can add a description of their dimensionality.

Level I is zero dimension in the sense that it has no extension, yet it

has all the angles. While in comparison to the other levels it can be
thought of as a point, it is really a circle with a small radius. In the
light of quantum physics, which teaches us that an infinitely short line
would be associated with infinite energy, we cannot say the radius is
zero; we say rather no extension. It is an origin, the origin of angle
-- it being understood that angle is a measure that does not require or
is not concerned with the length of the lines which would describe an
angle.
Level II is one dimension, a line, but it is not a finite line (a finite
line is only possible in two dimensions which provide the cutoff points
which define it; on one dimension these cutoff points are not
available). As one line it measures absolute scale -- temperature, time,
far-awayness (which is also the radius in spherical coordinates).
Level III is two dimensions. It is important to realize the two
dimensions are presented at once, in simultaneity; there is no time
here. This is the space of comparison, measure. It is the blueprint, the
form, the 3-view of a house or other shape to be made. It is outside of
time or does not include time.
Level IV is best thought of as a combination of Levels II and III. It is
the particular object, the result of "forming" (Level III) the
"substance" of Level II. As Aristotle's efficient cause it is the work
of the carpenter forming the material of Level II (wood) into the form
(Level III) of the table to make the object (Level IV).

This "dimensionality," as I've described it, draws out the implications

of dimension not usually expressed, and not possible to express in the
most common application of dimension, that of Cartesian coordinates with
x, y, and z axes. However, if we shift to spherical coordinates, we can
see a use of dimension in the sense that I'm describing. Spherical
coordinates include:
1. An origin around which angle is measured.
2. A radius which shows how far away.
3. Longitude and latitude, which measures East-West as longitude, and
North-South as latitude.
4. Each of these dimensions is cumulative; it includes the one that
precedes it.
Thus a distance near the north pole is expressed in angle modified by
the cosine of the latitude, so gets shorter as we near the north pole.
Likewise both the latitude and longitude measure greater distances as
the radius increases. Thus /scale/ is portrayed in spherical coordinates
(which is not the case with Cartesian coordinates). The same is true for
/orientation,/ also not expressed in Cartesian coordinates. (See
Constraint and Freedom: An Ontology Based on the Study of Dimension
<wwexc.html>.)
Thus we have a number of exemplifications of a fourfold division of
things which is necessary for the complete analysis of any subject. The
simplest of these fours is the metaphor of point, line, plane, and
solid. When I first used this example I thought of it as a bare
abstraction even though it was suggested in the Emerald Tablet, which
described the descent of the spirit or monad into manifestation as the
soul, as "like a point into a line."
The Dogon myth of creation goes a step further when it describes the
first word of God as like lines coming out of his mouth, the second word
of God as lines crossing these lines as in weaving (making pattern or
form possible).
Then I began to realize that the simplicity of point, line, plane, and
solid contained a richness of meaning which could tell me much more
about what is basic. What had first appeared to be an ultimate reduction
at the same time opened the door to vistas of meaning that intellect had
no access to.
Thus when we realize the point contains all the angles, that angles are
directions and point to goals, we can then introduce purpose into a
formulation that gives it the formal status it requires.
Similarly the line which is not a finite line between two points, but
the line which begins at an origin and extends through another point to
infinity, does not stop, because to do so there must be another
dimension cutting across this line to terminate or define it.
If we let ourselves do so we can think of this cutoff function as what
is referred to in the Cronos myth by Gaia having Cronos cut off the
testicles of Uranus to put a stop to the endless birthing he was forcing
upon her.
The extension introduced by this Level II line before it is terminated
by Level III is thus not a length (a noun), it is/ longing/ (a verb).
This makes it possible to see it as the origin of time, of force, of
desire, of binding (as in force, but also as in spellbinding) as
illusion (not delusion; by illusion I mean the feeling of reality, the
investment of emotion we make when we see a good movie or play).
It is this powerful force that draws us into manifestation, into matter
-- it is what /matters/ -- and is the meaning of the very word matter,
which comes from the Latin /mater/ or mother, the Gaia of the Greek myth
of creation. Even in the absence of pain or pleasure we feel it in the
flow of time; we look forward to the future.
In contrast the third level forces us to stop and think. In fact the
intercourse of time has to stop/ in order to think,/ to compare
experience. This is reflected in myth where we have reference to the
immobilized tree god, the castrated Uranus. Or if we return to the
simple point-line-plane metaphor, we have three points, which determine
a circle (as well as a plane). This circle makes a boundary between self
and not-self; it gives identity. In physics this is the first entity to
have an identity, the atom; in animals it is the stomach; in humans, the
ego; in the spirit-soul-mind-body sequence it is mind as well as ego --
not just awareness, but the /con scio/ of consciousness, the knowing
/(scio)/ and /con/ (together), knowing two things together, which
ultimately makes possible inference, and from inference to the use of
cause and effect, instead of being the victim of cause and effect, the
beginning of the ascent.
But that is not my topic here. We must first lay the foundation for what
we can build on later, and it is these same four levels that will become
the steps to our higher evolution.
And there is still another description of the levels that can assist in
comprehending their significance.
The first and fourth levels can be thought of as the world of Being and
the world of Becoming respectively -- Being because Level I just is: "I
am that I am"; Becoming because it involves change: "I will be what I
will be." This change requires time to distinguish one state from
another, and space to distinguish between what causes the change and
what does not cause it. Thus, to refer once more to the learning cycle,
at the second stage the child touches the hot stove and feels pain. Time
is necessary to distinguish before and after. It is only after this
experience, at Level III, that the pain is associated with the stove, an
object having a location to be avoided. This is also the origin of
/conscio/usness, because it is more than awareness, it associates the
/pain/ with an /object/ in space -- /con scio,/ knowing both together.
This reference to the learning cycle suggests that we here have the
origin of time and space, which is much too drastic a view to accept.
Nevertheless let us look at another venerable reference with this in
mind. I refer here to the /Timaeus/ of Plato. Timaeus says that the
Creator God made two worlds, the world of Being and the world of
Becoming. But it was necessary to have means connecting them. Then comes
the remarkable part: "Because of the three dimensions of space there
must be two means." Here the reference shifts to mathematics, explaining
that the "means" between the extremes of a³ and b³ are a²b and ab². No
further explanation is given.
Since I had already described Level I, or a³, as three degrees of
freedom, and Level IV, or b³, as three degrees of constraint (the time
and place), it would follow that a²b represents one constraint (that of
time), and ab² two constraints (that of space)! So time and space are
the means connecting the world of Being and the world of Becoming. Both
Being ("I am") and Becoming ("I will be") are particular, whereas means
must be general. This is evident in Russell's distinction between a
class and its members which we started with. The elephant is a
particular member of the class of elephants, so the class is general. So
too value is general. "I like music" implies more than one musical
composition.
This may not be what was meant by "means" in the Timaeus, but the
description there is like a blank check; it allows one to fill in what
conforms to the definition a²b and ab². Time with its one dimension and
space with at least two dimensions conform to the requirements. If it be
objected that space is three-dimensional, I can point out that in the
more sophisticated treatment of dimensions involved in spherical
coordinates, one of the three space dimensions is the radius, which
always includes time, and/or scale. It is also the case that three
dimensions can always be described by three of more "views" of a house
-- for example, plan view, front view, side view. These views are
two-dimensional. The eye too sees two dimensions in the image on the
retina. One doesn't "see" depth, which requires two eyes and measurement
of small differences of direction (parallax).
Another tradition views the world of Being as including thinking or
concepts, which are referred to as /Non-Being./ This might strike the
modern reader as too negative a description of consciousness, but let's
take this other view as a kind of medicine. Why do scientists insist
that spirit and soul do not /exist/? The word exist must mean to be /out
of/ "isting" or being. Thus we speak of the /ex/-president as the person
who was president and no longer is.
Or think of the present moment; does it exist? The very thought of the
present is a verb in the present tense; we don't know what it is until
it's over. So it is correct for the scientist to say the soul and spirit
do not exist. Spirit /is/, soul /is/; it is concepts that /exist,/ and
science deals in concepts, maps, relationships which are derivatives of
what is. A relationship between things can be established only after the
"things" have been identified.
So we could say both the world of Being and the world of Becoming
include aspects that don't /ex/ist. Eddington asks if a bank overdraft
exists. I would prefer to place the bank account, whether overdrawn or
not, in the world of Becoming, and perhaps replace the word becoming by
having. This makes it easy to see that /not having/ has a positive
aspect in that it creates need, and need is the human equivalent of a
force. In science the photon's creation of the first so-called
particles, or protons (called pair creation) also creates an enormous
force 10^39 times gravity. This force is so great that nothing can exist
until it neutralizes itself in the joining of positive and negative
"particles" (proton and electron) in atoms that do exist.
Translated as having, we can define force or desire as "not having," and
just as important as having, because it and Being (both of which don't
/ex/ist) supply the dynamic that makes the universe evolve, not only
making it go but creating it in the first place.
Perhaps you will say this is mere play on words. Yes, but it's better to
play on words than let them play on you -- and this is just what makes
the statement of the scientist that spirit does not exist mean the
opposite of what he intends, since even the present doesn't exist,
which, in the present context, is a truism, but was not so intended.
But to take this out of mere play on words, I can refer to the greatest
book on the truth behind manifestation, the truth of spirit, /The Cloud
of Unknowing/, of unknown authorship. It recommends that we go about
with a cloud of unknowing around our head. "In all other things," it
recommends, "use discretion, but in this none."
Those who favor Eastern tradition will find the same testimony in Zen
philosophy and the Tao.
Perhaps I've gone too far. Maybe, but my point is to show that what is
not objective, what does not /ex/ist, is also important just because it
has no outward and static permanence; it is dynamic and creative.
And we do not have to wait for science to discover this unpredictable
unknowing. Science has already found it in the quantum of action, alias
uncertainty, and I would be repeating myself to refer to what John
Archibald Wheeler, perhaps the most eminent physicist now living, said
of this quantum of action (1982): "For all we know it may someday turn
out to be the fundamental building block of all that is, more basic even
than the particles or fields of force or space and time themselves."
And I must again point out Bacon's remarkable prediction in his essay
"Cupid or the Atom" (1609) of the quantum of action discovered by Planck
almost 400 years later. This Cupid, said Bacon, father and most powerful
of all the gods, was born of an egg of night. This Love, he says, is
introduced without any parent at all (and was therefore first cause).
The attributes which are assigned to him are in number four: he was
always an infant; he is naked; he is depicted as blind; he is an archer.
Bacon goes on to interpret these attributes: an infant, because at the
origin of things; naked because without properties; the blindness, he
says, "makes the supreme divine providence all the more to be admired,
as that which contrives out of subjects peculiarly empty and destitute
of providence . . . to educe . . . all the order and beauty of the
universe."
His last attribute, says Bacon, is archery, "meaning that which acts at
a distance, for all operation at a distance is like shooting an arrow .
. . and without this no motion could be originated."
As I said in Foundations of Science <foundexc.html> (1984), this is an
exact description of the quantum of action. It is at the beginning of
things (since it creates particles); it is without properties -- no
mass, no charge, outside of time and space; it is uncertainty (blind);
and it is responsible for all action at a distance.
To conclude then, this first level or first cause, this quantum of
action, this Cupid, is what can also be called /purpose./ It has been
omitted from science because it is ineffable, uncertain, cannot be
measured. It is also a whole. Only when it is divided into its
components is there something to measure, space, time, and mass. Thus
the quantum is not another measure; it is the /whole/ whose parts can be
measured.
The next step might be to assign the parts or components to the three
remaining levels. But we need a rationale for so doing.
This rationale has the advantage that it uses division to supply the
meaning of the levels -- most easily seen in what we mentioned at the
beginning of this essay, the derivatives. I said that Bateson's
reference to the derivatives as logical types gave me the right to
correlate the second derivative to the /value/ of eggs (Bateson had
already correlated the eggs to position, and the price of eggs to its
first derivative). This gave me permission to extend the correlation to
make the second derivative correlate to the value of eggs, and the third
derivative to their purpose.
Since the goal is a position, and position is what we started with,
there can be no more than four -- position and its three derivatives. We
can confirm this in another way. Since derivatives are obtained by
successive divisions by time, this limits them to four. Why? Because
they are independent measures, and independence requires that they be at
right angles. There can be only four right angles in a circle; therefore
time has the ultimate dimension (in terms of angle) of 90 degrees. This
then is the fourfold of Level III.
Level II can be recognized as threefold because it deals with time:
past-present-future. This requires a measure that has the ultimate
dimension of 120 degrees (because 3 x 120 degrees = 360 degrees). I have
found mass can be given this measure, and so can L x T, which would be
the "longing" (the extension that includes time but is not cut off by
time). This is still not a proof, so I have to make it an hypothesis
that Level II is division by three.
We can then see that Level IV, which was the combination of substance
and form, or of time and space, correlates to the combination of these
measures 1/3 and 1/4, whose product is 1/12, and assign this measure to
the measure that remains, i.e., length.
Most easily understood is Level III. I had for some time before I met
Bateson recognized that there are four derivatives. The third must be
that which changes or controls acceleration, and the fourth that which
controls or governs control It is through this third derivative that we
control a car (by pressing the brake or pressing the accelerator). Our
control in turn is governed by position of the car, and we stop the car
when we get to our goal. The goal is a position, so we are back to the
same category we started with, a position in space. This means that
there are only four time derivatives.
Similarly Level II divides the whole into three -- past, present, and
future -- or stimulus, act, and result. One of Newton's first
realizations after he devised the derivatives was that acceleration
times mass equals force. In similar fashion we can say that velocity
times mass equals /momentum,/ and position (or length) times mass equals
/moment,/ and a fourth, recognized in aeronautics, control times mass
equals mass control.
Since the derivatives are actions, and their multiplication by mass
leads to states or conditions of matter, we can think of mass as a kind
of embodiment, result, or manifestation of the four derivatives. Thus:
Mass x acceleration = Force
Mass x velocity = Momentum
Mass x position = Moment (as in leverage)
Mass x control = Mass control
But we are talking about Level II, so there must be a third term to
stimulate the action.
Stimulus Action Result
Impulse Acceleration Force
Belief Velocity (change) Transformation
Data Observation Significance (moment)
Fact Control Accomplishment