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Process Over Event: Big History and the Emerging World View Process Over Event: Big History and the Emerging World View

Process Over Event: Big History and the Emerging World View - PowerPoint Presentation

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Process Over Event: Big History and the Emerging World View - PPT Presentation

Ken Baskin and Dmitri Bondarenko Presented at IBHA 2016 Amsterdam Netherlands July 1 2016 The Processual Worldview Emerging over the last 30 years A new way of seeing reality struggling to be born ID: 791833

linear history world science history linear science world processual processes newtonian universal mechanical book process mathematics modernity worldview stuff

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Slide1

Process Over Event:

Big History and the Emerging World View

Ken Baskin and Dmitri Bondarenko

Presented at IBHA 2016

Amsterdam, Netherlands

July 1?, 2016

Slide2

The Processual Worldview

Emerging over the last 30 years

A “new way of seeing reality,” “struggling to be born” (

Pagels

, 1988)

An ongoing flow of many processes – sub-atomic to galactic – crossing each other, driving each other to adapt, separating and moving on

Whitehead’s “unison of becoming” (

Process and Reality

, 1978)

Slide3

A Processual Concept of History

Shift to a processual worldview

Our effort to treat history processually

Surprising conclusions we reached

Slide4

The Mathematical Gateway

Science emerged from Late Medieval Christianity as figures such as

Kepler

, Galileo, Descartes and Newton used mathematics to decode God’s second book, the Book of Nature

Mathematics, they believed, was the language with which God had created the world

Because they were limited to linear mathematics, the worldview they would help fashion was mechanical

Slide5

Newtonian Mechanism

Mechanical

Metaphor

Clockwork Universe

Matter

Dead “stuff”

Composition

Distinct “things”

Causality

Linear cause

and effect

Change

Deterministic

Perception

Reflection of knowable world

Science

Search for universal laws – undeniable

truth

Slide6

Kuhnian

Shift

Newtonian

Ouroboros

: Newtonian scientists found areas where linear science could no longer explain the evidence – wave/particle, relativity, quantum physics

Enter the computer: Linear vs. non-linear math and the emergence of Complexity Theory

Slide7

Process vs. Mechanism

Mechanical

Processual

Metaphor

Clockwork Universe

Universal Ecosystem

Matter

Dead “stuff”

Energy structures

Composition

Distinct “things”

Nested Networks

Causality

Linear cause

and effect

Systemic processes

Change

Deterministic

Adaptive/Emergent

Perception

Reflection of knowable world

Construction drawn from unknowable world

Science

Search for universal laws – undeniable truth

Effort to build best possible models

Slide8

Axial Age vs. Modernity

Rapid population growth

Accelerating technological innovation

Socio-political innovation

Devastating warfare

Resulting in better ways to manage more complex human communities

Slide9

Our Book – Axial Transformation

Slide10

Cultural History as Punctuate Equilibrium

Slide11

Insights I: Modernity

Redux

As a phase transition, a period in which human society had to reinvent itself

Current period – learning from Modernity

Need to redefine state sovereignty –

Brexit

Limits of Capitalism

Redefining Science as

ground from

which culture emerges

Slide12

Insight II: Processual History

Thirty Years War as result of economic and technological processes that were centuries old

Chinese processes – technology (guns, printing, commercial machines) and proto-Capitalism

Mongol invasion and first trans-European trade (

c

. 1250-1350 CE)

Results – increasing wealth, Indulgence corruption, merchant class aligns with Protestants, printing as gateway to Reformation and Religious Wars

Slide13

Conclusions

Surprised at how different history

seemed – danger of seeing post-transformation events as unique, as in

c

ulture or

religon

Power of applying tools from other disciplines, i.e., Complexity Theory, Evo-Devo, or Biosemiotics

Thickness of history suggests many explanations can coexist

Promise of Big History: The Marxist shall lie down with the Capitalist and neither need be afraid