Department of BioEngineering

Nagaoka University of Technology

Nagaoka 940-21, Japan

e-mail: kmatsuno@vos.nagaokaut.ac.jp

Keywords: Asynchronicity, Clock, Conflict, Consistency, Inconsistency, Kant, Newton, Synchronicity, Time

Could conflicts among humans be avoidable or unavoidable? This question of course does not anticipate an easy answer partly because our human history witnesses both our persistent effort towards avoiding human conflicts on the one hand and our occasional engagement in escalating those conflicts while initially intending to eliminate them altogether on the other. An easy answer to the deep problem associated with the occurrence of human conflicts is something we have to avoid at all cost. Nonetheless, the issue of human conflicts is too important to simply be turned away. Everyone of us could be not only part of ameliorating our own conflicts but also part of initiating new ones in return. The present ambivalence of our role urges us to see what conflicts are all about.

Every past conflict is historically unique, but conflict in itself is indefinite in its implication because its class property can only be defined negatively as the absence of internal consistency. An alternative to directly approaching the issue of conflicts would be first to call attention to how one can come to face with a consistent and harmonious situation through a means of descriptive consistency. Conflicts could thus be seen as collision of descriptive consistencies that are mutually incompatible.

Descriptive consistency as an analytical device for coping with the issue of conflicts is at most indirect. However, once one becomes sure of how descriptive consistency can be delimited, the outlook of conflicts embodied in descriptive inconsistency would be focused more sharply. In this perspective, what enables us to describe an arbitrary object in a consistent manner may provide us with a framework addressing the issue of inconsistency and conflicts.

A supreme form of observing descriptive consistency is found in logic that remains atemporal, in which the principle of the excluded middle holds. One cannot both assert and deny one and the same proposition at the same time. The principle is however more than simply about atemporal logic. It can also address empirical domain. If synchronous events are the case, the principle of the excluded middle can certainly apply to those events in the sense that no constituent part of synchronous events can become asynchronous among themselves at the same time. Synchronous events can consistently be described in reference to the principle of the excluded middle as if they are atemporal in themselves.

Synchronous events when described as an embodiment of consistency of course cannot stand alone by themselves. They require a marker distinguishing synchronous events from asynchronous ones. That is a clock. If there is a universal clock to be shared by all, identification of synchronous events could be accomplished by referring to time read out of the clock. If there is no such universal clock, on the other hand, it would become next to impossible to identify what synchronous events are all about unless time to be shared by all is available. As a matter of fact, we have witnessed availability of synchronous events without direct reference to real physical clocks. Isaac Newton perceived a scheme guaranteeing descriptive consistency of synchronous events in the absence of actual clocks.

A biggest agenda for a possible consistency among three of theology, philosophy and physics in the seventeenth century in Europe (Leydesdorff, 1994) was how to avoid apparent conflicts between communication of causation and the caused movement. If causation for moving a material body is to be communicated from somewhere else, one would become at a loss when asked how things could move when no communication of causation has arrived yet. Rene Descartes formulated this problem in his Cartesian physics, and yet did not provide us with a clear-cut answer. An essence of this problem can be stated as how one can synchronize two different clocks, since clocks assume both types of movement; one for the mechanical movement each clock exhibits, and the other for the communication for mutual synchronization. In fact, Gottfried Wilhelm von Leibniz formulated the problem as:

Although Leibniz was in favor of the third alternative because of his philosophical commitment to pre-established harmony in the form of monads, Newton came up with the second alternative, thus dispensing with material clocks altogether. In the eyes of somebody who takes care of synchronization between whatever clocks, there must be an immaterial clock to be consulted by all.

Newtonian resolution of conflicts between the communication of synchronization between different clocks and the movement each clock exhibits was to have recourse to absolute time. Newton (1687) stated:

What is significant to Newtonian absolute time is that it declares an occurrence of global synchronization without referring to any clocks. Once global synchronization is sanctioned, there would be no room for conflicts of whatever kind to survive, being contrary to our experiences in the empirical domain.

What is more, Newtonian resolution of conflicts was further strengthened by Kantian Transcendental epistemology putting time as a fundamental category of perception among others (Matsuno and Salthe, 1995). Time can be finite if one only refers to the finished events in the record, while it must be infinite or even indefinite if experiences yet to come are referred to. The present antinomy between being finite and infinite led Immanuel Kant to conclude that time is not something to be perceived, but a fundamental category intrinsic to the Transcendental Ego who can accomplish recognition of the outside world. Time is taken to be a fundamental category to describe all the rest in the world, instead of being something to be explicated by others. Kant took time as being most fundamental in order to maintain an epistemological consistency of the outside world, while Newton required absolute time in order to maintain an objective and ontological consistency of the world out there. In spite of the difference of their origins, however, Kantian time, like Newtonian counterpart, imposes upon the perceived object a global consistency without referring to actual clocks.

Strangely enough though, Newtonian-Kantian resolution of conflicts between the communication of synchronization between different clocks and the movement each clock exhibits dispenses with the real issue of how a global synchronization among real clocks could come into existence. The resolution for synchronous events assuming their global synchronization is in its essence a matter of imposition. Once the likelihood of global consistency ascribed to a global synchronization is focused, on the other hand, it would be required to come back to the original Lebnizian problem of how two separate clocks could get synchronized with each other. Synchronous events as a marker of conflict-free global consistency requires a means of examining whether they are actually synchronous. That is a clock and its synchronization with other ones.

Clock is taken to be a material constellation every constituent element of which moves in a synchronous manner with all of the others. A cesium atomic clock met in physics, for instance, exhibits the accuracy of its timing materialized in the form of quantum mechanical transition between an excited and the ground state of the atom, in which all the orbital electrons and the atomic nucleus join in forming an coordinated quantum mechanical motion perceived as a clock. Likewise, beating of a human heart demonstrates a biological clock par excellence. Every organ constituting a human body is synchronous with beating of the heart in the sense that any bodily organ is synchronously indispensable for normal functioning of the heart. In fact, beating of the heart has to be synchronous with respiratory cycle of the lung in the long run, otherwise a physiological compatibility between the heart and the lung in a human body would come to be destroyed. Every biological clock constituting an organism has to synchronize with all the other biological clocks constituting the same organism. Synchronization of biological clocks is thus a common denominator of surviving and functioning organisms. In this perspective, time can be seen as a local attribute pertaining to each local clock since there is no one who insists on a universal clock and time globally synchronized to it.

What concerns us at this point is how local time unique to each local clock could come to enlarge its extent through synchronization with other local clocks, of course, in the absence of globally synchronous time imposed by an external agency. Prerequisite to a conflict-free global consistency could be a likelihood of synchronization among the participating local clocks. This observation suggests to us that our dynamic proceeding in the empirical domain is in a form of interacting many local clocks. A pressing issue for the system of interacting many local clocks is to envision the extent to which their synchronization could be established.

What is unique to every clock is an autonomy maintaining its own movement. This autonomy can be maintained by a whole set of interaction between its constituent elements. However, the interaction for the sake of the autonomy cannot totally be synchronous because synchronous interaction does no other than yielding an equilibrium state that remains stationary. The synchronicity of interactions comes to imply that every interaction is in conformity with all the rest, and that there would be no impetus to move those interactions in one way or another. In contrast, every clock requires an asynchronous impetus to keep it moving (Matsuno, 1989). A cesium atomic clock, for instance, assumes that it has to be energetically excited in order to have a photon with an accurate frequency as a marker of precision timing to be emitted. Excitation of the cesium atom is not synchronous with the transition from the excited to the ground state. In the similar vein, our spring wrist watch that operates on synchronous mechanical interaction does assume an asynchronous operation of winding the spring.

Every clock of material origin incorporates into itself an asynchronous component in the sense that both action and reaction in the form of interaction cannot totally be enclosed within the clock itself on the spot. Material clock is open to asynchronous interaction (Matsuno, 1996). Clock as a material manifestation being closed to synchronous interaction while being open to asynchronous interaction thus necessarily interacts with other clocks in an asynchronous manner.

Synchronization between different clocks comes to imply a possibility of forming a bigger clock out of smaller ones through asynchronous interaction in the latter while leaving some leftover of asynchronicity to be passed forward. The synchronization is in fact an almost complete enclosure of the former asynchronous interaction, with the result of modified synchronous interaction. Only through the formation of a bigger clock, the extent of local time could be enlarged.

We have observed that one view towards achieving or perceiving a greater organization in our empirical world is to have recourse to synchronization between different clocks. A proton as an aggregate of three different quarks is a clock in the sense that the asynchronous interaction among the three quarks is almost completely enclosed in the proton in the form of synchronized interaction, but the enclosure is not quite perfect. The leaking of asynchronous interaction could serve as an impetus for forming a bigger clock through synchronization with others as exhibited in the sequence of forming a hydrogen atom, a hydrogen molecule and so on. Likewise, our human body is a macroscopic clock in that various interactions among different organs, being asynchronous otherwise, come to be synchronized in the body in the effect. Although the repertoire of clocks available to the disciplinary domain of physics is quite exquisite, the spectrum of clocks and their synchronization in the realm of biology are found to be far more extensive (Matsuno, 1985). Even more significant in enlarging the extent of clocks and their synchronization is our human cultural domain.

Asynchronous interaction as a factor driving a clock as a material manifestation of synchronous interaction lacks its internal consistency in the form of synchronous counterbalance between action and reaction on the spot. Nonetheless, no asynchronous interaction can be asynchronous anymore in the record because every interaction in the record is synchronous with the presence of the very record itself. Completed interaction of whatever kind is synchronous in the sense that any action counterbalances its reaction also found in the record. Asynchronous interaction only materializes in the middle of completing interaction. Consequently, every clock is in the process of enclosing asynchronous interaction while constantly leaving some leftover of ascynchronicity to be passed forward as a signal for further processing of a similar nature. Clock feeding on asynchronous interaction constantly precipitates synchronous interaction.

The present dichotomy between asynchronous and synchronous interaction for maintaining and even for synchronizing clocks now opens a new vista of our human endeavor towards a greater internal consistency, if any. Being responsible for a more encompassing synchronization between different clocks is asynchronous interaction that comes to disturb the pre-existing synchronicity. It is rather ironical to observe that some tolerance of local inconsistency as embodied in the occurrence of asynchronous interaction is prerequisite to the activity towards a more encompassing synchronization or consistency. Despite the present irony, however, we have seen that the activity towards a greater internal consistency, if any, could only be possible by feeding on local inconsistencies. We have to constantly disturb the movements of our clocks when we try to synchronize and to adjust them altogether.

The observation of having inconsistency for the sake of the activity towards a greater consistency or of constantly requiring conflicts on a smaller scale in order to eliminate conflicts on a greater scale seems rather counterintuitive. However, this is a consequence from prohibiting the occurrence of synchronous events on the global scale that could come to be called into existence simply by a decree. Once we are determined to take the position asking that time follows a clock in contrast to Newtonian-Kantian resolution to the contrary, it naturally follows that our effort towards avoiding conflicts on a greater scale lives with conflicts on a smaller scale. Newtonian-Kantian resolution of avoiding conflicts is of an imposed character at best. If we think our activity towards avoiding conflicts is participatory among ourselves, it would rather be imperative to tolerate and to live with conflicts to a lesser extent.

Leibniz, G. W., 1966. In: E. Cassirer (ed.) Hauptschriften zur Grundlegung Philosophie, Meiner,