The Canto of Ezra Pound as a Process Model
The discipline of the scientific method has directed human thinking and learning not only in what are called the hard sciences,, but also, particularly within the last century, in the less predictable areas of human under­standing and behavior. For scientific study of such fields, human scientists have evolved a variety of models, one of which is a process model: “…defined as a formal plan describing a particular method for reaching a defined goal, a systematic way of describing how an individual or a system moves from point A to B. Such models usually consist of a number of interrelated steps which are sequenced in time. The plan may be stated mathematically, in system language, or in prose form. Such a model tends to be more descriptive than explanatory, more proba­bilistic than certain, more dynamic than static, more open than closed—in short, a plan involving a variety of steps and options leading to a goal.” The philosophy of Henri Bergson was influential in redefining the idea of process for twentieth century man, and, influenced by his ideas, the artists and writers who developed the Vortex movement of 1910-1920 were contem­poraneous with Albert Einstein and Michael Farraday in physics as with Alfred North Whitehead and Bertrand Russell in mathematics. The form of the vortex is familiar today in three-dimensional models of the double helix in human cells and DNA in biology, in models of the process of atomic fission, in Noam Chomsky's use of Markovian process models in linguistics; study of any of such vortex models can contribute to a knowledge of how process works.
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