Raphael Neelamkavil,

Lately, I have become aware that communities seem to gather around a concept. The concept can be anything, such as: Many Worlds, Dark Matter, Big Bang... This extends across most disciplines. Members of a community will support each other by citations or extensions of their work. This may lead to the 'lag' about which you ask. I have no opinion as to whether this behavior extends to publishers.

Communities are not limited to mainstream ideas. They can be about any view and in any discipline. They seem to exist in politics as well as in science. The rapid communication of today likely exacerbates the problem. It is worth noting that the perpetrators of this behavior could easily be the victims of it as well.

Richard Marker, thanks. I think this sort of grouping is also to be seen under peer reviewers. Most of them seem to reject anything that does not belong to the school of thought in science or philosophy to which they belong.

Of late I came to experience the work of some peer reviewers of some prestigious journals. Not of course in connection with my work, because I do not publish articles, circa the past more than 10 years.

The peer reviewer's comments were shown to me by an author whose article I had already read and corrected. But I had a high regard for this work. After seeing the peer's review of the same, I felt I should revolt against the injustice. I do not mention the concepts and words in it because it would expose the man himself.

A second peer's replies came. The author showed me the printout of it. It has not so inhuman as the first, but terrible enough. Not in its critique of what the author wrote, but in its self-defence and defence of one's own school...!

I remembered my professor on Wittgenstein during my MA. The Professor assigned topics for the final paper to be written as part of the evaluation of the course. I was not very happy with the topic: Wittgenstein's few lectures on religious belief, of which only the class notes taken by a few of his students have been published into a little work.

But I did a detailed work on it, by citing also Wittgenstein's major works without forgetting their historical development. As I submitted the written stuff (about 17 pp.), he blasted at me: Who are you to criticize Wittgenstein? I myself am a Wittgensteinian, and I have not exhausted studying his works and their implications even by now. And You...!

I kept silent. I did a few changes in it in order to publish it as a article. He tried to block its publication. Another Wittgensteinian was instrumental in it too. Then I sent it to another publisher. They accepted it because they had no Wittgensteinians on board....

Earlier this week I took out the Word file of the same. It is decades old. I read through it. I felt nothing wrong about it. I felt happy I did it. If I get time, I will brush it up and publish it again -- this time in a collection of articles.

I SUGGEST THE FOLLOWING IN THIS CONTEXT: When a group is formed, they block many things new. In fact, the written rules of each publishing house and journal had to incorporate clauses against the incurring of academic injustice against the progress of science and thought.

Raphael Neelamkavil,

I have long ago come to terms with this. It is simply the way the world works. I do appreciate your supportive remarks.

My revelation came from an article in Science News, a weekly newsletter, in the mid-1990's. A heart surgeon from Central America had developed a procedure to excise portions of an enlarged heart. He had a 50% survival rate. Since the normal outcome was 0%, his procedure was a break through.

The surgeon tried for three years to inform others of his technique. Finally, he presented at a conference on a separate topic. Instead of presenting the designated topic, he presented his break through surgical technique. Before they could stop his presentation, the Mayo Clinic had picked up on it.

I knew after reading about this surgeon who had both credibility and an easily demonstrated topic that the chances of ever gaining an audience was almost nil. Nevertheless, I continue to persist.

This is just the way that life works. I would not look for a culprit in the process. The publishers have their own challenges and must deal with the different communities. I think the best for which one can hope is to find someone with whom your thoughts and findings can be shared. There are no villains, everyone is constrained by this.

Thanks, Richard Marker. This is the reason why I do not publish articles now. It is a long long process. I try to develop my ideas into books. I keep them for long, in the course of time they may become better. And if some average publisher accepts, I will publish them. I was a professor for 10 yrs. But now I am not, and this is by choice. I want to dedicate my time for writing and publishing. But this state of not being a professor is really bad for publishers. Let it be! This is my attitude.

Richard Marker, one more point to make, before discussing another point on publishers:

I left teaching not because I hated it. My parents were well accepted as high school teachers, and both my brothers are known well as professors. I myself enjoyed teaching.

But I left teaching philosophy merely because such a work in India was tiresome and did not leave time for reading and writing. So I came to Europe. Just to study and do research. Here the resistance was initially very high. But now I get some academic acceptance.

More than the acceptance due to the 2 doctorates, I would appreciate really earnest academic discussions with excellent professors in my fields. Hope this will be possible in the course of time.

Now about publishers: It is true that they need maximum business, maximum money. But the reviewers could be open to other modes of thought, other schools of thought, other sciences with their peculiar methods and conclusions, and above all, a conscious thrust on generic methods and generic sciences.

This is possible if the university teachers train their students in that manner. Of course, it is there in the Academy. But its strength as of today is questionable in many experts in the sciences and experts on philosophers.

I cannot change all these. Hence, I try to do whatever research output I can.

I feel that peer reviewers of books and articles may overly reflect their preferences and prejudices on the acceptance or not of articles and books for publication. If the publishers appoint at least some broadly educated and open-minded paid specialists to evaluate the peer reviewers' contributions on books and articles, the situation may improve. Much injustice may be overcome, though not all.

How to philosophize? How to philosophize in the sciences?

https://www.researchgate.net/post/How_to_philosophize_How_to_philosophize_in_the_sciences

Let me show a basic truth about scientific and philosophical advancements, in order to argue that publisher-preference for the state of the art stuff with some minor suggestions for improvements is merely out of fear of non-selling. PEER REVIEWERS ARE JUST A PREY TO THIS FEAR.... Now read:

“A new scientific truth does triumph by convincing its opponents and making them see the light, but rather because its opponents eventually die, and a new generation grows up that is familiar with it.”

– Max Planck, Scientific Autobiography and Other Papers, London: Williams and Norgate Ltd., 1950, pp. 33-34.

But rather than of a new scientific “truth”, it may be true of a new scientific-systemic “revolution”. This true also of philosophy and the philosophies of various sciences.

Examples are what some scientists, technologically oriented philosophers of science, and linguistic analysts have done in a century or more to the contributions of Alfred North Whitehead and Edmund Husserl – all in the name of the triumphalist purity of science and self-sufficiency of language analysis – and of Plato and Aristotle in the name of interpretations. These sciences and their philosophies must be reborn through new theoretical re-examinations of the concepts of space, time, causality, matter, energy, etc.

ANYONE WHO WANTS something new will stand up and take courage to think and to take risk. If the publishers are not courageous, then peer reviewers had to be! Do we find so much of courage in the peers?

NEW GENERATION SCIENCE AND PHILOSOPHY: HOW?

I believe that relativising induction and deduction and connecting them with one another under some very general framework of thought will be a grand starting point to revolutionize the foundations of the whole of philosophy and science, and of logic and linguistic analytic philosophy in particular.

Induction or Deduction: Mutually Exclusive in Logic, Science, Mathematics, and Philosophy of Science?

https://www.researchgate.net/post/Induction_or_Deduction_Mutually_Exclusive_in_Logic_Science_Mathematics_and_Philosophy_of_Science

Minimal Metaphysical Physicalism (MMP), Panpsychisms, and Monisms

https://www.researchgate.net/post/Minimal_Metaphysical_Physicalism_MMP_Panpsychisms_and_Monisms

I happened to speak with a publisher a year ago. The insider-requirement that I was told is that any publishable book should discuss as many contemporary authors as possible. Even if the new ideas and arguments within the book, not belonging to other books and articles, are many and of very high standard, publishers would look for a long list of recent works in the bibliography, because this is for them the only way to assure quality.....!

True, the peer reviewers need not be ready to evaluate new theoretical inputs, mostly because they have their own policy of self-promotion by way of promotion of their own school/s of thinking.

I think this is one of the biggest problems of publisher lag in scientific and philosophical publishing.

I tell you, I have guided dissertations in various fields within philosophy (especially philosophy of science from various viewpoints like pure physics, cosmology, metaphysics, epistemology, value epistemology, ethics, philosophy of religion, and even philosophical anthropology), psychology, sociology, Indian history (just a few, but religious, especially Buddhist and Hindu history), and Indian philosophy. BUT I HAVE NOT ATTEMPTED TO SEE DIVERT THE DISSERTATION IN THE DIRECTION OF MY OWN PERSONAL PHILOSOPHY OF SCIENCE, METAPHYSICS, EPISTEMOLOGY, etc.

My question: If there exists the kind of publisher lag that I have suggested here, what would be the space and the ways of original thinking, developing own theories, etc. and yet getting them published? Certainly there will be resistance. But would there be enough space for hope for radical originality?

A Trans-Pragmatic Truth Paradigm for Science, Technology, and Philosophy (with implications also to the publishing industry)

https://www.researchgate.net/post/A_Trans-Pragmatic_Truth_Paradigm_for_Science_Technology_and_Philosophy

I have been revising this short discussion paper of mine in RG. It is an attempt to correct some basic attitudes in physics. Just now I have written an introduction to it. Please read it here. In a few days I shall upload the whole lead-text of this discussion for your reading and comments. Here please find only the introduction:

FOUNDATIONS OF AXIOMATIC PHILOSOPHY AND SCIENCE

1. INTRODUCTION

I get surprised each time when some physicists tell me that either the electromagnetic (EM) or the gravitational (G) or both the forms of energy do not exist, but are to be treated or expressed as waves or particles propagated from material objects that of course exist. Some of them put in all their energies to show that both EM and G are mere mathematical fields, and not physically existent fields of energy propagations from bodies.

This is similar in effect to Newton and his followers thinking honestly and religiously that gravitation and other energies are just miraculously non-bodily actions at a distance without any propagation particles / wavicles.

Even in the 21stcentury, we must be sharply aware that from the past more than 120 years the General Theory of Relativity and its various versions have succeeded in casting and maintaining the power of a terrifying veil of mathematical miracles on the minds of many scientists – miracles such as the mere spacetime curvature being the meaning of gravitation and all other sorts of fields.

A similar veil has been installed on the minds of many physicists by quantum physics too. We do not discuss it here. Hence, I have constructed in four published books a systemic manner of understanding these problems. I do not claim perfection in any of my attempts. Hence, I keep perfecting my efforts in the course of years. The following is a very short attempt to summarize in this effort one important point in physics and in the philosophy of physics.

I BELIEVE THAT THE TRADITION OF LAPPING UP WHATEVER THEY SAY BASED ON THEIR MANNER OF USING MATHEMATICS SHOULD STOP FOREVER. PHYSICISTS ARE NOT TO BEHAVE LIKE MAGICIANS, AND THEIR READERS SHOULD NOT PRACTICE RELIGIOUS FAITHFULNESS TO THEM.

The Fallacies of Space, Time, and Spacetime in Physics

https://www.researchgate.net/post/The_Fallacies_of_Space_Time_and_Spacetime_in_Physics

Physical and Exact Sciences and Axiomatic Philosophy: Introducing Grounding (long text)

https://www.researchgate.net/post/Physical_and_Exact_Sciences_and_Axiomatic_Philosophy_Introducing_Grounding_long_text

Causality and Statistics: Their Levels of Effect and of Explanation

https://www.researchgate.net/post/Causality_and_Statistics_Their_Levels_of_Effect_and_of_Explanation

Essential Reason in Physicists’ Use of Logic: And in Other Sciences Too!

https://www.researchgate.net/post/Essential_Reason_in_Physicists_Use_of_Logic_And_in_Other_Sciences_Too

Preprint ESSENTIAL REASON IN PHYSICISTS' USE OF LOGIC: IN OTHER SCIENCES TOO

How Does Physics Know? The Epistemology Presupposed by Physics and Other Sciences

https://www.researchgate.net/post/How_Does_Physics_Know_The_Epistemology_Presupposed_by_Physics_and_Other_Sciences

Preprint MATHEMATICAL SOURCE OF FLAWS IN COSMOLOGICAL THEORIES: MATHE...

Preprint THE EPISTEMOLOGY PRESUPPOSED BY PHYSICS AND OTHER SCIENCES R...

PHYSICAL-PROCESSUAL REPRESENTATION OF IRRATIONAL NUMBERS

https://www.researchgate.net/post/Physical-Processual_Representation_of_Irrational_Numbers

THE ONTOLOGY BEHIND PHYSICS

3.1. Traditional Physical Categories

https://www.researchgate.net/post/The_Ontology_behind_Physics

https://www.researchgate.net/post/Grounded_Physical-Ontological_Categories_behind_Physics

Grounded (New) Physical-Ontological Categories behind Physics

Preprint THE ONTOLOGY BEHIND PHYSICS: CRITIQUE OF TRADITIONAL PHYSICA...

A SIMPLE GAME-CHANGER CAUSALITY FOR PHYSICS: Beyond the Two Millennia

https://www.researchgate.net/post/A_SIMPLE_GAME-CHANGER_CAUSALITY_FOR_PHYSICS_Beyond_the_Two_Millennia

https://www.researchgate.net/post/DEFINITION_OF_THE_ONTOLOGY_BEHIND_PHYSICS_5_Paragraphs

DEFINITION OF THE ONTOLOGY BEHIND PHYSICS (5 Paragraphs)

THE ANOMALY IN MATHEMATICAL / THEORETICAL PHYSICS (Short Text)

https://www.researchgate.net/post/THE_ANOMALY_IN_MATHEMATICAL_THEORETICAL_PHYSICS_Short_Text

Here a serious and somewhat complex matter to discuss:

NON-FOUNDATIONS OF ‘WAVICLES’ IN EINSTEIN-PODOLSKY-ROSEN PARADOX: Bases for Quantum Physics to Evolve (Maybe a physical-ontological Breakthrough)

https://www.researchgate.net/post/NON-FOUNDATIONS_OF_WAVICLES_IN_EINSTEIN-PODOLSKY-ROSEN_PARADOX_Bases_for_Quantum_Physics_to_Evolve_Maybe_a_physical-ontological_Breakthrough

Preprint A SIMPLE GAME-CHANGER CAUSALITY FOR PHYSICS Beyond the Two Millennia

AGAINST COSMIC ISOTROPY, CONFORMAL CYCLIC COSMOS, ETERNAL INFLATION, etc.: A Critique of Identity, Simultaneity, Cosmic Repetition / Recycling, etc.

https://www.researchgate.net/post/AGAINST_COSMIC_ISOTROPY_CONFORMAL_CYCLIC_COSMOS_ETERNAL_INFLATION_etc_A_Critique_of_Identity_Simultaneity_Cosmic_Repetition_Recycling_etc

Preprint ESSENTIAL LOGIC, EPISTEMOLOGY, AND ONTOLOGY BEHIND PHYSICS, ...

WHAT IS THE MYSTERIOUS STUFF OF INFORMATION? A Short but Clear Definition

https://www.researchgate.net/post/WHAT_IS_THE_MYSTERIOUS_STUFF_OF_INFORMATION_A_Short_but_Clear_Definition

Preprint COSMIC ISOTROPY, CONFORMAL CYCLIC COSMOS, ETERNAL INFLATION:...

THE PLANCK ERA / QUANTUM ERA and “DISAPPEARANCE” OF PHYSICAL CAUSALITY: “OMNIPOTENCE” OF MATHEMATICS

https://www.researchgate.net/post/THE_PLANCK_ERA_QUANTUM_ERA_and_DISAPPEARANCE_OF_PHYSICAL_CAUSALITY_OMNIPOTENCE_OF_MATHEMATICS

Preprint PLANCK ERA or QUANTUM ERA,and ”DISAPPEARANCE” OF CAUSALITY. ...

Preprint IS THE VELOCITY OF LIGHT SACROSANCT?

Preprint CAUSAL HORIZONAL RESEARCH: A METHODOLOGY IN PHYSICS Raphael ...

https://www.researchgate.net/post/WHAT_IS_INFORMATION_WHAT_IS_ITS_CAUSAL_OR_NON-CAUSAL_CORE_A_Discussion

Deleted research item The research item mentioned here has been deleted

Preprint LINGUISTIC HERESY OF DENOTATIVE ABSOLUTISM: PHYSICAL-BIOLOGI...

https://www.researchgate.net/post/ONTOLOGICAL_DIFFERENCES_OF_CHARACTERISTICS_OF_ARTIFICIAL_AND_BIOLOGICAL_INTELLIGENCE_ALGORITHMS_AND_PROCEDURES_Against_Exaggerations

https://www.researchgate.net/post/WHY_EXACTLY_THE_WAVE-PARTICLE_DUALITY_Phenomenal_Ontological_Commitment_POC_as_the_Solution

https://www.researchgate.net/post/UNTENABLE_REIFICATION_OF_CONCEPTS_IN_PHYSICS_With_Examples

Preprint WHY EXACTLY WAVE-PARTICLE DUALITY? Phenomenal Ontological Co...

https://www.researchgate.net/post/DO_PHYSICAL_QUANTA_EXIST_Why_Should_CONSCIOUSNESS_Be_Treated_Quantum-Biologically

https://www.researchgate.net/post/HEIDEGGER_How_a_Philosopher_Destroys_His_Own_Thoughts_Coherence_and_Adequacy

Preprint FROM PHYSICAL ONTOLOGY TO LINGUISTICS AND INFORMATION

Preprint UNIVERSAL CAUSALITY AND THE PHYSICAL-ONTOLOGICAL DEFECT OF N...

Preprint DIFFERENCES IN THE CONCEPTS OF CAUSALITY IN METAPHYSICS AND ...

Preprint BEYOND CAUSAL ITERATION QUANTIFIABILITY IN LINGUISTIC SPACE-TIME

Preprint BEYOND THE CAUSAL ITERATION METHOD. Short Text (Beyond Judea Pearl)

Preprint REFERENCE, APPLICABILITY, AND ADEQUACY OF UNIVERSALS, INFORM...

Preprint DENOTATIVE ABSOLUTISM. A 20TH CENTURY LOGICAL AND LINGUISTIC HERESY

Preprint INEVITABILITY OF COSMOLOGICAL, ONTOLOGICAL, AND EPISTEMOLOGI...

Preprint Introducing GRAVITATIONAL COALESCENCE PARADOX: COSMOGENETIC CAUSALITY

Preprint Chapter 6. COSMOGENESIS IN QUANTUM COSMOLOGY

Preprint Chapter 9. GRAVITATIONAL COALESCENCE COSMOLOGY Part I

Preprint GRAVITATIONAL COALESCENCE COSMOLOGY (22 pp.) Part II