If some were annihilated, like QAnon pockets, isn't that just part of the breeding ground's environment at work? — frank
And I'm thinking, the period after post-modern is post-apocalypse. :yikes: Hope not. — Wayfarer
I was always taught (sociology, sorry) that postmodernism begins mid 20th Century, esp 1960's. I think the theory's slippery lack of specificity is telling and appropriately ironic. I guess you are trying to align it to a bigger picture. — Tom Storm
I'd say anyone who is even passably science-literate and not given to perverse conspiracy theories would agree, but I don't know how many of each of those categories there are. I'd say the conspiracy theory crowd are a fairly small minority, but I don't know about the science-literate. — Janus
My belief is that post-modernism describes a real social condition and period in history, that the 'modern' period began with Newton's publication of his Natural Principles and ended with Einstein's publication of Special Relativity. Between those two bookmarks, the belief that the laws of nature reflected God's handiwork still clung on but the discovery of relativity theory and then quantum mechanics swept all that away. Postmodernism proper begins around the first two decades of the 20th C. 'All that is solid melts into air'. 'Things fall apart, the centre cannot hold'. — Wayfarer
There MUST be published papers written with this thing. — hypericin
Well, I think most people place their hopes in improvements of human life due to medical science and science;based technology. — Janus
This is my first exposure to the subject and I was favorably impressed with your description of the issue; so much so that I fell right in with the description of postmodernism so completely as to see it — James Riley
Self-disgust had nothing to do with it. Empires shed their empires because they could not hold on to them any longer. Then too, the natives were getting restless, never a good thing for the regime. — Bitter Crank
There's even something called postmodern architecture, based on deconstruction. — Manuel
It's just quite baffling that they never really gave a good response to Sokal and Bricmont's books or arguments. — Manuel
I think you would first still need to agree that po-mo had provided a particular lens through which to view things. I am not sure this can be readily established. — Tom Storm
And yes I do think people in general are as committed to the modernist project as ever. — Janus
Having said that, I do think that it's fair to say that postmodernism was a movement in literature and philosophy I suppose, depending on how you view Derrida and company. But I don't think it was a historical epoch. So I can't answer the question you pose. — Manuel
Is that post modernism, or just the result of ordinary cynicism and conventional scapegoating, the product of political failures and concentrated media ownership? I think the internet has simply helped to concentrate and organize some eternal problems. — Tom Storm
Digression - I re-read part one of Don Quixote recently and it showcases many of the alleged po-mo literary devices; parody, self-reflexivity, irony, pastiche, double coding and that was in 1605. This ancient novel showcases an astonishingly contemporary sensibility. — Tom Storm
Communism untethered to a metanarritive? — hypericin
As I see it the meta-narratives only "fell" among a select group of academics. Outside of that "circle jerk" the meta-narrative of modernism is alive and kicking hard. — Janus
God intended nothing other than survival, maintenance, and contingent harms along the way. — schopenhauer1
My point was that archeological and genetic evidence says we have to consider that violence and proto-war may have been part of the prehistoric human world. — frank
It seems to me that the scientific methodologies roughly consist of a move (process) from coherentism to provisional/tentative/falsifiable foundationalism. — jorndoe
If you know anything about Verlinde's entropic model of gravity though, I would be curious to hear how something like that might relate to this entropic model of expansion, if you'd care to pontificate on that. — Pfhorrest
Nowadays it seems to me that the mindset of many has become that Free markets are the only way to go and Planned market strategies are set to become a thing of the past — dclements
Then let's imagine a system just like that, except that n itself -- the width of the image -- is also variable. There's still only the two white pixels in it, whose positions are also variable. — Pfhorrest
Stirring the system up sounds like it amounts to the same thing as spreading the particles around — Pfhorrest
if the universe ever got to a point where there's almost no way to increase entropy by moving existing energy around, we might start to see violations of conservation of energy too. — Pfhorrest
I'm just talking about the toy system of points on a line. Let's look at our variation on that, the 1-by-n bitmap with two white pixels on a black background. For the sake of illustration let's set n=8 for now. There are exactly two (I mistakenly said one before) states where the white pixels are separated by 6 black pixels: if we call the pixels A and B and represent black space with underscores, those are the states: — Pfhorrest
I imagined to myself a little thought experiment or visualization: a toy system consisting of two points on a line segment, so it would have a very simple 2D configuration space, with obvious (err... note on that later*) peaks and valleys of entropy in it giving an obvious entropic arrow of time. And then, to that model, I added a third variable, and so a third dimension to its configuration space: the size of the line segment. Because higher-entropy states would be available on larger line segments, the entropic arrow of time would naturally point down the dimension of the configuration space that represents the size of the line segment... — Pfhorrest
In other words, in a completely empty space, the entropic arrow of time will be toward a larger completely empty space. But if there's an even steeper entropy gradient in the other dimensions of the configuration space, thereabouts the entropic arrow of time will be angled further away from straight down the dimension of the configuration space representing a larger line segment: in other words, if there's any process that results in higher entropy faster than making more space, that will happen first. — Pfhorrest
There is exactly one state of the system where the two points are maximally far apart. There are increasingly more states of the system where the two points are increasingly closer together. The most common distance-apart for the two points to be, out of all the possible configurations of the system, is zero. — Pfhorrest
Given that hunter gatherers are the very people we tended to violently slaughter to steal their land for our empires, is it really too far of a leap to posit guilt as a reason for preferring the latter? — Isaac
Nymphomaniaca don't derive pleasure from sex? That's weird. — frank
Like that slaughter house they found in North Africa a few years ago. A whole village wiped out. — James Riley
Encroachment on "my" hunting grounds, tit for tat, blood feuds, etc. Some was just dick-measuring raids/warfare. — James Riley
My ability to read is a nymphomaniac. — frank
If you could be bothered to read your own links, you see that you pointed to an article on chimpanzees. We aren't descended from chimpanzees. Nobody in the science of human origin looks to that species to understand our own. — frank
The point is: I'm looking at archeology and genetics, you're looking at prejudice that I think goes back to Hobbes. My justifications kick your justification's asses. — frank
My impression had been that the violent savage theory had been recognised as too hasty and probably not unrelated to the fact that it was devised by backwards honkies who, let's face it, have never been great with representation. — Kenosha Kid
That points to prehistoric war as the norm. — frank
Anyway, if I understand right through my sleep-addled brain, you're suggesting that it's not so much (as I was speculating) that maybe some law of preservation of free energy (/ some kind of equivalent symmetry) requires that more space and so energy be created to counteract the increase in entropy, but rather that the increase in space and so energy requires (or makes room for the possibility of) thermodynamic action to counteract the decrease in entropy. It's not things winding down that inflates space, but inflating space that keeps things wound up. — Pfhorrest
The thermodynamic arrow of time and the second law of thermodynamics are thought to be a consequence of the initial conditions in the early universe. Therefore, they ultimately result from the cosmological set-up.
By our current best understanding of physics, the universe as a whole is not a closed system, because there's new energy being created everywhere all the time by the expansion of space. — Pfhorrest
The second law of thermodynamics is itself a time asymmetry.
So, could perhaps the second law of thermodynamics itself therefore be responsible for the creation of new energy via the expansion of space, which in turn undermines the effects of the second law on the universe as a whole? — Pfhorrest
Our genetics indicates we have around twice as many female ancestors as male. That points to prehistoric war as the norm. — frank
Then what was all this about? — Marchesk
So you know, I'm certainly willing to reconsider this, but I'm not sure why or how you've come to that conclusion. — ChatteringMonkey
The written record doesn't go back much further does it? How would we know whether they were prone to racisme or not? — ChatteringMonkey
So where do you want to draw the line on Christianity, Constantine? — Marchesk
I just don't agree with your post summarizing historical conflict as largely Western European — Marchesk
I guess things were peaceful enough under Egyptian, Roman, Aztek, Chinese, Assyrian, Persian and Mongul rule. It's true, slavery was based on being conquered rather than skin color, but as long as you paid your taxes to the Emperor/Pharaoh/King, and your religious practices were accepted in the empire, it was all good. — Marchesk
Yeah, because prior to Christianity, everyone in the Middle East got along swell. Jews, Samaritans, Assyrians, Babylonians and Egyptians never had any cause to fight each other. Those damn white Christians, like Jesus and Paul, messed everything up /s. — Marchesk
Let's make people put their property where their mouth is. — James Riley
People have been saying 50 years for a bit too long. — Lil