The Kinematic Aspect
Dooyeweerd originally did not see the kinematic as an aspect, but later separated it out from the spatial and physical because combining it with them led to antinomies.
- "Mathematical movement" (Dooyeweerd's rendering)
- "Flowing & going. Introduces Change" (Basden's intuitive concept)
- Flowing Movement that has no cause
rather than:
- Speed (which is quantitative characterisation of movement)
- Mere changes in spatial position
- Changes in speed
In NC (vol IV, p.163) Dooyeweerd says "movement is not a change of place; but a flowing space in the temporal succession of its movements".
- Movement as such, even without objects (but see below)
- Animation
- Transport (when linked with economic
aspect)
- Flows, of anything. Especially fluid dynamics.
- Oscillations and waves [Stafleu, 2000].
- Maybe inertia (Duncan Roper)? Contra Aristotle's view that the 'natural' state is rest, Dooyeweerd saw movement as a natural state. See below.
- Kinematics (e.g. of Galileo)
- Animation ?? See below.
Duncan Roper on Inertia and Aristotle
Duncan Roper sent me the following email in 2010:
For me the soundest argument for the kinematical aspect in between the spatial and the physical is the notion of inertia that developed from Galileo and Newton. The View from Aristotle was that motion was somehow abnormal or unnatural. Thus things on earth moved because they were trying to find their 'natural state of rest' - in a world that presumably was trying to become static. The idea of inertia is that movement is an normal aspect of the functioning of the cosmos.
"Newton, in his first law of motion, came to formulate the idea of inertia in terms that open up the physical aspect - if a body deviates from uniform motion in a straight line, then it is because it is subject to a force.
"However, the significance for idea of inertia, in relation to the spatial aspect, is that movement - in all its anticipations - is a quite normal aspect of the being of the cosmos."
My comment: This is a useful insight, that, contrary to some Greek thought which held that rest and stasis are the 'good' or 'natural' states, movement and dynamism is indeed a 'good' and 'natural' state. Indeed, Dooyeweerd several times stressed that the cosmos and especially humanity are always 'restless'.
But to the extent that inertia presupposes mass (as it is defined in physics), then it must be of the physical aspect rather than kinematic. To be of the kinematic, inertia would have to be defined without reference to mass, i.e. as undeviating, unchanging movement. But even then I believe that from the kinematic aspect, movement can be changing, such as in rotation or acceleration.
Laws of kinematics obviously require laws of the spatial aspect.
- 'Movement' of money
- 'Movement' of the markets
- Bowel 'movements'
- Multilevel Flow Models, as follows below.
and some mentioned by Dooyeweerd (NC, IV:163):
- "flowing extension is a spatial analogy implying direction"
- "biotic movement is intensive and qualitative development; original movement approaches the modal meaning of life in its biotic anticipations through the intermediary of energy"
- "energy movement, cause and effect (operation)"
- "the movement of thought in the process of concluding"
Multilevel Flow Models (Lind M, (1990), "Representing goals and functions of complex systems: an introduction to Multilevel Flow Modelling", Technical Report 90-D-38 , Institute of Automatic Control Systems, Technical University of Denmark, Lyngby) represent many phenomena by flows, e.g. flows of matter, energy, information - which can be extended to flows of money, happiness, etc. It seems to be a model very much of part of the kinematic aspect, and to allow and encourage transduction from other aspects to this one.
- Hare and Tortoise. This is a paradox because the movement of
the two particpants is reduced to (changing) spatial position. For a full
understanding of kinematics, we have to go beyond mere changes in spatial
position.
How often we come across the concept 'the driver', referring to a major
class of (western) humanity. In recent decades, much has been done for
this mythical beast, 'the driver'. In this concept there is an element of
reductionism, in that it carries with it an assumption that the need to
drive, to move freely around in a metal box under one's own control, is
paramount. It has almost become a basic right. It has been elevated in
importance, to the extent that many other more important things are ignored
and damaged. Part of the centre of the concept of 'the driver' is
movement, and to that extent, this is a reductionism to the kinematic
aspect. (Another part is the idea of being under one's own control, which
relates to the formative aspect.)
Can there be pure movement in concrete form? That is, a concrete movement as such rather than movement of something. Apparently Dooyeweerd came to believe that all aspects before the physical could not have a concrete object. But I understand that it was not a major dogma of his, and that the question remains somewhat open.
Certainly, we have around us today a type of movement that Dooyeweerd would most likely not have experienced: that seen on a computer or television screen. There is no movement of physical things, but there is movement. Wertheimer (1912), the founder of the Gestalt movement, investigated this using alternately flashing lights and reported a kind of 'disembodied' movement, which he called 'phi' movement. Though he and many tried to reduce this to phenomena of the sensitive aspect, it would be dangerous to conclude that this is only sensory functioning and not true movement - just as it would be foolish to conclude that the black marks on paper are merely shapes and not words.
So perhaps computer and video animation is a kind of 'pure' movement that is concrete but without being of a physical body.
Animation might be closer to the kernel of the kinematic aspect than movement of matter since animation involves no matter as such. It is almost pure movement, insofar as we can distinguish the movement from the medium that hosts it (e.g. the film or computer screen).
Concurring with this view is that I find that when putting a multimedia title together that contains animation rather than a simple sequence of static frames then the number of factors I have to get right increases enormously. (The number of factors one must take into account seems to multiply each time we gain another (later) aspect.) Moreover, animation seems to convey a completely different meaning from mere positioning of text and graphics.
This is part of The Dooyeweerd Pages, which explain, explore and discuss Dooyeweerd's interesting philosophy. Questions or comments would be welcome.
Copyright (c) 2004 Andrew Basden. But you may use this material subject to conditions.
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. Written on the Amiga with Protext.
Created: by 16 March 1997.
Last updated: 30 August 1998 rearranged and tidied. 24 December 1998 added Multilevel Flow Models and a theme. 13 September 1999 added re phi movement and did a bit of tidying; added notes from Dooyeweerd. 7 February 2001 copyright, email. 27 September 2001 wee change to themes. 24 August 2005 brought up to date with .nav,.end, a few changes. 22 September 2010 Dooyeweerd's and Basden's kernel. 5 October 2010 Roper on movement and Aristotle.