Arthur M. Young
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- This article is about Arthur M. Young, the inventor and philosopher. A different Arthur M. Young was a professor of classics at the University of Pittsburgh
Arthur Middleton Young (November 3, 1905, Paris, France–May 30, 1995, Berkeley, California) was inventor of the Bell helicopter, as well as a cosmologist, philosopher and author. He founded the "Institute for the Study of Consciousness" in Berkeley in 1972. Young advocated a process theory, which is a form of integral theory. These theories attempt to integrate the realm of human thought and experience with the realm of science so that the concept of universe is not limited to that which can be physically measured. Young's theory embraces evolution and the concept of the great chain of being. He has influenced such thinkers as Stanislav Grof.
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[edit] Life and work
Arthur was the son of Eliza Coxe and Philadelphia landscape painter Charles Morris Young. He was interested in developing a comprehensive theory of reality from an early age. He felt that to acquire the intellectual tools needed for such rigorous study, he should first develop an understanding of mathematics and engineering. With this decision he was following a career path similar to that of philosopher Alfred North Whitehead, who was a mathematician before he developed the first process philosophy. Thus after graduation from Princeton University in 1927 Young searched for a suitable invention to develop. In 1928 he returned to his father's farm in Radnor, Pennsylvania to begin twelve solitary years of efforts to develop the helicopter into a useful device. Young married Priscilla Page in 1933.
Young's private experiments with helicopter design had mostly involved small scale models. After twelve years on his own using the models, he took his results and models to the Bell Aircraft Company (Buffalo, New York) in 1941, and the company agreed to build full-scale prototypes. While the war was raging in late 1941 he filed for the key rotor stabilizer bar patent, assigned it to Bell and moved to Buffalo to work with them. In June of 1942 he moved his five-person team to Gardenville, New York, a hamlet on the north border of West Seneca, New York, where they could work in relative secrecy. The first test flight of the prototype Model 30 occurred in July 1943, and on May 8, 1946 the company received Helicopter Type Certificate H-1 for the world's first commercial helicopter, the Bell Model 47. This was the "whirlybird" popularized in the M*A*S*H movie and television series and was so successful that it continued to be manufactured through 1974. A design, as well as a utilitarian success, it was added to the permanent collection of the Museum of Modern Art of New York in 1984.
Young had become profoundly disturbed by the development of nuclear weapons at the end of the Second World War, and like a number of other very forward-looking and independent thinkers decided that humanity needed a new philosophical paradigm.
In August of 1946 Young recorded in his notes the idea of the psychopter— the helicopter as the "winged self", a metaphor for the human spirit. By October of 1947 Young felt his work at Bell was complete, and he turned to the next phase of his career as a philosopher of mind. He was divorced from Priscilla in 1948 and later that year married artist Ruth Forbes (1903–1998) of the Boston Forbes family (and a great-granddaughter of Ralph Waldo Emerson). In 1952 they organized the Foundation for the Study of Consciousness in Philadelphia, the forerunner of the Institute for the Study of Consciousness.
[edit] Books
- Consciousness and Reality: The Human Pivot Point, Charles Musès and Arthur M. Young (editors), 1972, New York: Outerbridge and Lazard, ISBN 0-87690-028-7
- Geometry of Meaning, 1976, New York: Delacorte Press, ISBN 0-440-04991-1, reprint ed. 1984, Robert Briggs Associates, ISBN 0-9609850-5-0
- The Reflexive Universe: Evolution of Consciousness, 1976, New York: Delacorte Press, ISBN 0-440-05925-9, corrected ed. with introduction by Huston Smith, 1976, Anodos Foundation, ISBN 1-892160-00-5
- The Bell Notes : A Journey from Physics to Metaphysics, 1979, New York: Delacorte Press, ISBN 0-440-00550-7, reprint ed. 1979, Doubleday, ISBN 0-385-28067-X
- Zodiac: An Analysis of Symbolic Degrees by Eric Schroeder, (editor A.M. Young), 1982, Robert Briggs Associates, ISBN 0-9609850-2-6
- Mathematics, Physics and Reality : Two Essays, (120p.) 1990, Anodos Foundation, ISBN 1-892160-07-2
- Which Way Out? and Other Essays, (206 p.) 1990, Anodos Foundation, ISBN 1-892160-03-X
- Nested Time: An Astrological Autobiography, (editor Kathy Goss), 2004, Anodos Foundation, ISBN 1-892160-12-9
[edit] Broadsides
- The Foundations of Science: The Missing Parameter, (26 p.) 1985, Robert Briggs Associates, ISBN 0-931191-03-3
- The Shakespeare/Bacon Controversy, (26 p.) 1987, Robert Briggs Associates, ISBN 0-931191-05-X
- Science and Astrology : The Relationship Between the Measure Formulae and the Zodiac, (48 p.) 1988, Anodos Foundation, ISBN 1-892160-06-4
[edit] Related essays
- John S. Saloma and Ruth Forbes Young, Theory of Process 1: Prelude - Search for a Paradigm, (38 p.), ISBN 0931191122
- John S. Saloma, Theory of Process 2: Major Themes in 'The Reflexive Universe', Robert Briggs Associates, Mill Valley, CA, 1991 (50 p.), ISBN 0931191130
[edit] See also
[edit] External links
- Arthur Young homepage
- Biography of Arthur Middleton Young (PDF file).
- Young interview transcript from Thinking Allowed PBS television series
- Recordings of Arthur M. Young – extensive video and audio archive of Young and the Instiute for the Study of Consciousness
