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
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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
Slide2The 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)
Slide3A Processual Concept of History
Shift to a processual worldview
Our effort to treat history processually
Surprising conclusions we reached
Slide4The 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
Slide5Newtonian 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
Slide6Kuhnian
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
Slide7Process 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
Slide8Axial Age vs. Modernity
Rapid population growth
Accelerating technological innovation
Socio-political innovation
Devastating warfare
Resulting in better ways to manage more complex human communities
Slide9Our Book – Axial Transformation
Slide10Cultural History as Punctuate Equilibrium
Slide11Insights 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
Slide12Insight 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
Slide13Conclusions
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