https://youtu.be/dS8zEl4beB0
My interview with John Betz on electricity at KOPN on "Anything goes" Spring 2014
~enjoy~
=Peter=
www.peteranger.com
A basic principle of the universe
Wednesday, January 13, 2016
Wednesday, May 7, 2014
Our big blunder as we emerge......
Electricity
Where we went wrong as a species and why?........
___________________________________________________
Humans made
an enormous blunder with the discovery of electricity. After much meditation, I have come to the
conclusion that electricity is the most profound discovery to the emergence of
our species so far.
It demands that we
as humans take a close look at it.
It is so
hard for me to communicate ideas with the knowledge and perspective I have. A
good scientific writer friend said – “I tend to write very densilly” – so I
will try to be extremely verbose with this post.
Electricity is a very useful form of
electromagnetic energy…….
However,
integrating it into a complex planetary ecology has to be done in a certain way.
It was not done in
an acceptable way on this planet for our survival……………………..
Premise: The earth a natural
motor or generator of electromagnetic energy.
Our planet is a grounded highly
metallic sphere rotating in a magnetic field.
There is an enormous electrical potential difference between our planet
and atmosphere. All that is needed is to
make the connection between the two to generate virtually unlimited amounts of
pollution free electricity.
This has not been done.
The discovery of electricity came slowly we’ve known about
the static charges that build up because of friction ever since the first
person got static shock. However the
knowledge that electricity might have practical uses did not really begin to be
explored until about the time of the American Revolution. Benjamin Franklin is the most notable
explorer of this physical phenomenon, by flying kites in thunder storms, and
making some of the first simple generators of electricity. Reference 1.
It was during the beginning of the Industrial revolution
that N Tesla created the first DC dynamo for the generation of electricity.
Working for Edison at the time, who was a cheat, ruthless businessman, as well
as good at exploiting other peoples discoveries or stealing other artists creations.ref3
Tesla left Edison and went to Westinghouse and
made the first AC dynamo. Neither one of these industrialist investors (Edison
or Westinghouse) understood the ramifications or the need for how to integrate
electricity’s use into our ecology. Tesla was an enlightened scientist who had
a wide ranging vision of the significance of electricity as well as a
sensitivity for how electricity would transform our world. He also knew that if it was not integrated
into our ecology in a sound ecological way that it would have major long term
consequences. Ref 456
The discovery of electricity and its use, is a form of basic
useful electromagnetic energy, part of a larger spectrum of electromagnetic
energy. ie. Electron Energy. Electricity
is the most useful and significant form of practical electromagnetic energy
that we have discovered. Although we
have started using light and lasers as for communications, electromagnetic
energy created the emergence of electronics, of which we have all been a part
of, and makes possible the computer I’m using to write this paper. It is
functional electromagnetic ENERGY. Electricity is more significant, than fire
in a modern age.
However, the way that we create
electricity and how it needs to be integrated into a very complex ecological
system needed to be done in accordance to Tesla’s vision. If not, we see the ecological ramifications
we are faced with now in our current society.
The reasons for why electricity was
not generated in an ecological way are complex. I will address that in a bit.
After Tesla’s failure to convince Edison or Westinghouse in
how to integrate electricity into our world, he went to J.P. Morgan for funding
to begin building the generating system for electricity.ref8 It seems radical
to us, but his vision was to create a link between the earth and our
atmosphere. By creating a specific grounding system connected with large towers
in our atmosphere, it is possible to draw and transform the potential
difference between the ground and atmosphere and transform and generate pollution
free electricity. Tesla’s vision goes further, he then wanted to put this
energy into the atmosphere in the form of high energy radio electromagnet
energy. (very high voltage, very low amperage and wattage). Then all that would
be necessary was to have an antenna on your electric device to make use of the atmospheric
electricity, thus, transforming it into a practical useful electric energy.
Kinda like world Wi Fi electrical energy, if you will… Remember this was
happening before we built the electric infrastructure we have now. What Tesla
wanted to do, was to generate electricity from the naturally occurring
relationship between our planet and the magnetic field it revolves in. In doing
so he envisioned a simple, practical, clean way to make electricity available
by transforming the natural planetary dynamo that it is, into useful electric
energy and transmitting it into the atmosphere in a useful non polluting form.
Nikolai Tesla was
able to research and develop the first electrical generating system in his lab
in the New York
area and show that electricity could be generated from the potential difference
between the earth and our atmosphere. He then went to Colorado Springs and started building a much
larger electrical generating plant. The beauty of Tesla’s vision of generating
electricity was that it took advantage of a naturally occurring phenomenon of
our planet for pollution free electric energy.
You have to remember that at the beginning of the industrial revolution
that there was a lot of radical thinking about how we should live on this
planet. The population of the planet was
1-2 billion. From about 1882 to1920 the scientists of the time were looking at
a lot of things in relationship to the scientific discoveries of the time. It is very important to have an awareness of
the scientific thinking of the time in economics, our political system, and the
relationship between the economics and political thinking of the time and what
the scientific thinking was in the discoveries they were making available to us
as a species. In many ways the economic thinking of that time was incompatible
with the scientific discovery of electricity. Remember that in terms of economics that the
concept of state property and communism was a new prevailing idea in
relationship to the concept of a utopian society
It is necessary to
understand this with the generation of electricity in a different way economically
for its practical application on this planet.
In terms of economics you have to think rationally about the flawed
concept of ownership and property. Just
because you own a piece of property and can generate electrical energy from
fossil fuels do the people who owned that land have the right to the legacy of
the fossil fuels. The thinking of the time, many scientists at this time
believed that the future concept of property was communal. Remember the classic story of the interaction
between the Indians and New York
and the Europeans negotiating beads for land.
This is a wonderful example of how you think about property. The idea that you can own property was being
seriously questioned at this time. The
Indians of the America ’s
were more than happy to accept beads for land, because the idea or concept of
land ownership seemed ridiculous to them.
It has taken a very long time and in many ways not been realized that
the Native Americans that we invaded had a sound and wonderful way of thinking
and living in the natural world. The
economic thinking that came out of Europe had
a ruthless point of view about property in the generation of wealth. It is very important to understand this basic
economic difference in relationship to the generation of electricity. The real question we have to ask ourselves is
the generation of energy a product for sale by the makers of it, or is it a
birth right or legacy of our species. Tesla
envisioned the naturally occurring phenomenon of electrical potential that can
be generated from a naturally occurring relationship between our planet and
atmosphere as communal and or belonging to all of us. With that in mind, Tesla’s
vision was to create simple generating systems of electricity that took
advantage of this naturally occurring phenomenon between our planet and provide
electricity to the world by incorporating a small charge for the use of this
pollution free electricity in the cost of the product that uses the electricity
to maintain the generating systems.
Although this may
seem radical, it was not radical to the thinking of the time or maybe it was.
scientists and explorers make discoveries, and in general they have a very good
understanding and overview of the relationship between their discoveries in
relationship to how it might affect our world. in the case of electricity, and
the profound nature of electricity, it is necessary to incorporate a discovery
of this profound nature in a very specific way and Tesla knew that.
unfortunately, the economic philosophy or dogma of the time prevented it from
happening. It’s necessary, to look at
our nature as a species on this planet, since the beginning of civilized life.
The first specialized citizens created a hierarchal system that controlled
resources.
This hierarchal system
was incompatible with the discovery of electricity.
“I think it’s very
important to understand this in relationship to the discovery of electricity. In
many ways the discovery of electricity is so radical in relationship to our
emergence as a species, as was the discovery of fire and our ability to make
use of it.” That said, we really don’t
realize as a species, because electricity in many ways is so still so new to
us, but we are witnessing the ramifications of not generating it properly.
Tesla, had a vision, and that made him aware that the discovery of electricity
would radically transform us as much as fire had. This vision that Tesla had and his ability to
create the first dynamos to generate electricity is a fascinating story,
unfortunately in many ways the economic thought of the time prevented it from
being integrated into our ecology in an appropriate way. The other unfortunate fact is that the
discoveries of many scientists have ramifications, just like Frankenstein. In many ways scientific discoveries can be a
monkeys paw, because, how we make use of the scientific discoveries is not
always well understood, or put to use in a way that improves the human
condition. This is so true of many things that we’ve discovered as we’ve
emerged on this planet not just the discovery.
Scieentific discovery and science in not the basic problem it is how we
make use of it economically. I could
cite many examples like the discovery of nuclear reactions and other scientific
discoveries but for me the discovery of electricity is perhaps the most
profound discovery that we have made as a species and the ramifications there
of . At the turn-of-the-century and/or
millennium in 2000 my father and I talked about what the most significant
discovery of the 20th century was. Although the discovery of flight
and going to the moon in less than 70 years was significant, we both agreed
that electricity was the most significant discovery of the 20th
century, and with this in mind, it is also important to understand that with
the discoveries made during the industrial revolution that the prevailing
economic thought of the time did not change in ways necessary to incorporate
these discoveries. We live in a very complicated and poorly understood environment,
and it is necessary as we emerge and with our discoveries and more complex
technology that we’ve discovered, that, they are not only changing us, but
changing the world we live in. The unfortunate fact in relationship to these
discoveries is that we have an old ruthless way of thinking about the economics
in the relationship to this emergence, it really hasn’t changed very much in
over 8000 years.
“It seems to be a flawed part of our
psychological and, biological nature. Like the bible implies, we are flawed. Philosophically and economically; “Does might
make right”? What we have ask ourselves,
at this point in time, is, can we change this, and incorporate these
discoveries in a way that we do not destroy ourselves and the planet we live
on”.
I think the answer
may be no,
However, I will
endeavor to put in writing where we went wrong.
Carl Sagan implied in many of his
works of fiction, we are very violent species.
It seems clear to me from my childhood,
that our world is not unlike elementary school. Every classroom has its
psychopathic bully. Lord knows I certainly had mine and in certain respects
that’s the nature of our world and economic system. It seems to me that this
economic system that we've created favors the psychopath. Reference psycho-pathology.
It’s funny as I write this, to
realize that I might just be standing up to these bullies for the first time
with a good example of why electricity and its significance, that we might be
very close to destroying ourselves because of our economic system.
For
me the basic problem is the relationship to our economic beliefs and the
discoveries we've made as a species.
To
truly appreciate this concept, it will be very important to understand the
relationship between our economic thought and to a certain extent our biological & psychological thought in relationship to the discovery of electricity.
It’s
Christmas time of my 57th year, and I have known since my undergraduate
studies in the 70s where I studied economics, psychology ,and the history of
utopian though; that capitalism and a
term Joseph Sumpter coined called creative destruction, that the possibility of
integrating a more just and fair utopian way of living was not possible until
capitalism failed. So I became a photographer and I have had a fun with a career
as a photographer until now. Creative destruction is the idea that we are
always destroying the old ways of doing things in favor of the new and better
and many time simple more complex ways of doing something. A lot of you will be
thinking that that last statement was kind of an oxymoron. So let me try to
clarify. Einstein said that simplification of means and elevation of mind seems
to be the goal. Many times through creative destruction a simpler way of doing
something in a more complex way becomes a path to a better way of doing
something, and through this creation emergence occurs. This is a basic economic
concept in economics and science. Unfortunately, the foundation or precept or
basic idea of economics doesn’t seem to change. Economics is the idea and dogma
that supports the concept of ownership and property rights to the people with
wealth and power. Like I mentioned the first specialized citizens in a
civilization control this wealth & power and up until recently knowledge.
Economics is just the construct that supports a ruthless and unjust
distribution of resources.
What
I had not meditated in my youth on, however was the significance of electricity
in relationship to this problem and have now chosen to write about it.
Creative
destruction is at the heart of emergence. As explorer, scientists and artists
on this planet we are emerging by becoming more complex, and simplifying the
way we do things in complex ways and in the process of elevating our minds. Capitalism
always favors a simpler but sometimes more complex way or technology in order
to produce things more efficiently. Economically, creative destruction is basic
in relationship to understanding the path we have taken as a species. we are toolmakers and it has transformed us.
Emergence is the idea that complex systems create greater complexity but in
economic terms, creative destruction demands that capitalism is always favoring
a simpler more efficient way of doing something. Emergence is a basic principle
of the universe. And it’s important to appreciate this principle in
relationship to this discussion of electricity and its incorporation on this
planet.
Last
year the movie Cloud Atlas came out, and it’s all about slavery, I think it’s
very important as well to consider slavery, especially the corporate slavery
that we are experiencing in our times. That power in the form of controlled
resources and labor by a select few in a civilized hierarchy needs to be part
of this discussion. This fact that power corrupts is unfortunate. Like Carl
Sagan said we have so much potential as a species, but he really wondered
whether we could get past this fact that a select few powerful people without
empathy and to a certain extent under educated or ignorant people control our
destiny. This fact is very clear in his works of fiction. Or perhaps our
economic beliefs are just a very flawed outdated economic philosophy that has
not changed, but it needs to. Our survival depends on it. The discovery of electricity and how it has
been incorporated will create a very strong argument for this………….
In
a way electricity is the best modern discovery for making this point abundantly
clear. I just hope it is not too late. I
have have this over wellhming feeling of
dread. Like the good Germans who tried to stand up to the onslaught of facism,
I hope that I don’t go to my grave wishing I had done more sooner….
Capitalism
at its core is about exploitation.
In
other words, the person with the ability dominate others has the opportunity to
exploit labor and resources for what they call wealth and profit. This thinking
has been pervasive since our emergence of what we call a civilized world, What
we call slavery was our first and hopefully most ruthless form of exploitation.
It’s impossible to become powerful just working for yourself and in general,
generate much wealth from just your own labor. As an individual you are only
capable of producing so much. It is this very old way of dominating labor by a
select few that empowers them to exploit a certain percentage of other peoples labor
for there own, ie that the select few
are able create what they call profit for themselves from the labor of others
and in relationship to earths resources.
This
creates a conundrum.
Because
dominating and controlling people for your own benefit is intoxicating. We call
it power – it’s a rush, in psychological terms it may be the most significant
form of reinforcement certain people get to experience. It can also be considered bullyism and it is
at the root of psychopathic thought. It seems to be a part of our basic biological
and psychological demographic nature as a species. And as such may not be very
changeable. You can see monetary slavery propagated and defended by the dogma
that is the foundational principles of our current unjust economic belief
system of our civilized world. The recent movie Cloud Atlas is a good example
of this exploitation.
This happens because psychopathic
thought lacks empathy.
It
seems clear to me in December 2013, that this way of thinking economically does
not have a future for us as a species.
I
remember how the bullies I grew up made me feel, and the way I feel when I look
at our economic system is basically the same feeling. William Blake said that
the world was made for those who do not have a sense of self awareness. In 1978
I finished my degree in communications. And the one thing I've learned with a
degree in communications is that we don’t do it very well. This is a
complicated problem, because as we interact as a species using whatever form of
communication we choose it’s not well known whether what were communicating by
us-ie. by an individual is well understood by the other person as we intend.
Empathy when communicating or what we communicate and what we try to comprehend
is incredibly important. Without empathy we are not communicating. And it seems
to me like the people who lack empathy, control our world and our destiny as a
species, like Blake said the world was made for those without
self-awareness. Empathy is a great word,
and behavior, when you really understand its meaning, because a lack of self
awareness of yourself in relationship to others is basic to creating a fair and
just economy. I have had the opportunity
to interact with some of the wealthiest people on this planet and it is clear
to me that they grow up in a very different privileged ideology. I guess the
question is, is the ideology psychopathic or are the people in the environment
that they grow up generate psychopathic behavior/thought. Or is it just a
reflection of the environment that shaped us through evolution. An argument can
be made at this point as to whether our environment shaped us or we have shaped
our environment in relationship to the way the environment and our evolutionary
development occurred on this planet. I’m inclined to think, that it’s both. Our
emergence or evolution on this planet created a dynamic diverse variety of
different humans. At least in the way they think, and treat each other. Like
the movie cloud Atlas with its classic line:” the weak are meat and the strong
shall eat”. Which is just a poetic way of saying that certain people like to
exploit other people, it’s at the root of cannibalism which has a profound
symbolism, and the movie Cloud Atlas does a good job of showing this behavior.
It’s impossible for me to write these things without incorporating fundamental
art and knowledge and information that I've gained as I've looked at my
relationship to the world, I was born
into without incorporating a broad range of contemporary information. So bear
with me as I try to write differently for the first time incorporating a lot of
selected, and hopefully carefully selected ideas about how we are living in
this complex universe.
James
Joyce was an abstract writer and although his writing is rather poetic and fun
I think he got the idea across in Finnegan’s wake with the opening line the of the book. It’s basically a good example of
abstract writing and very poetic in creative and abstract ways. “riverrun, past swerve of shore and bend the bay brings us by commodious vircus of recirculation to Howith Castle
I
also know, that if I am successful in publishing this work or opus, that there
will be tremendous resistance to the ideas and concepts that I’m talking about
there may be a certain amount of danger to me personally for doing so. But like
a good German I hope it’s not too late I hope that I do not regret having not done
this sooner and that I could have done more. Einstein said that “in the middle of
difficulty lies opportunity”. It seemed to me in my undergraduate years that
there was absolutely no opportunity for things to change economically. During
the war years of the 70's that I grew up in and the discovery of the concept of
global warming and overpopulation it seemed to me after deliberate study that
there was not an opportunity to make or do this kind of project i.e. book that
might gain traction or of voice in our society at that time. Although the
protests of the Vietnam War were encouraging things just hadn’t gotten bad
enough the population needed to double and global warming needed to happen but
now there seems to be an opportunity to make a statement about our human
condition and prospect. Regardless of the failures of my baby boom generation
in the 70s the fight ain’t over.IN other words - Things have to get much worse
before real change can occur. But we as a species are ready for this change and
its over due……….
The
fight is for our own individual survival.
Individuality
is an incredible thing being here and alive in this body, however there are a
lot of different environments that each of us grow up in individually and it
shapes our thinking, there is also a genetic element to it. I’m inclined to
think that our environment and especially our childhood environment shapes the
kind of the individual we become. For me that environment was academic
intellectual and most importantly being taught empathy for others. This playful
artistic environment shaped the fundamental way of interacting I learned, making
it possible for me to engage scientifically, artistically, and rationally with
my world, coupled with the underlying concept of remaining objective about
everything in our world. in other words one should not become emotionally
attached or accept a specific belief ,idea, scientific discovery or established
fact in our system as a verity in relationship to this complex world we’re
living in, because, when do, you lose objectivity, you lack the ability to
emerge to the next level and lack a perspective that allows you to grow intellectually
in relationship to our collective environment.
Two
quotes are needed here:
First is one from a psychiatrist friend I had who
basically said;” that our emotions control us, and we like to think that we
have control over our emotions, but our emotions tend to control us”.
Emotions
are kind of a nebulous thing that in psychological terms we don’t really
understand.
The
other quote is by Leon Trotsky from his book the revolution betrayed, in the
introduction he’s quoted as saying;” whoever worships the accomplished fact is
incapable of preparing for the future”. One thing is constant, that our world
is dynamic and always changing.
So
what am I trying to say here? Our belief’s, our emotions, and ideas tend to
give us a certain amount of comfort about ourselves. When change occurs your
emergence occur's it changes our relationship with our beliefs and ideas. Most change
comes through discovery as we as humans are basically exploring our universe. I
wrote in college that human life is just matter trying to figure itself out. In the
process of that discovery things change. Our emotions and beliefs and ideas
during this process tends to give us a little sense of security happiness and
joy. However as we experience the process of rapid emergence, this basic principle of
our universe we are continually challenged to accept our discoveries.
It’s
remarkable that we have come so far so quickly in our physical world.
afterthought...
Some
of the discoveries in quantum mechanics are so mind-boggling, that sometimes I
think I’m in some child’s computer simulation. And for the most part it’s not a
very good simulation, there’s something wrong with the program. And by my way
of thinking, the crux of the problem is in the relationship to discovery, and
our ability to empathize and communicate how these discoveries should be used.
Because there is a very big difference between the scientists, artists,
explorers, and the humans who make these discoveries and the privileged ones in
our world who integrate them into our ecology.
Wednesday, February 19, 2014
A Early View of Emergence
http://www.commongroundgroup.
I found this link very interesting
I found this link very interesting
Tuesday, September 17, 2013
A historical view of emergence
A Brief History of Emergence
The emergence
phenomenon has been at work transforming the universe and our planet since the
beginning. It can be seen in the Big
Bang that began our universe and formed our solar system. As their telescopes reach further back in
time, astronomers continue to view the steps of the emergence process in
action: destruction, reorganization and
new creation.
Emergence can be
seen in the many epochs of time on earth before man, during which earlier life
forms were destroyed through various catastrophic events – whether caused by
celestial objects, volcanism or climate change.
Out of the destructive chaos, nature brought forth new, different life forms
that emerged from these chaotic reorganizations of the planet’s environment.
The first cellular
life appeared after the moon was formed 4.5 billion years ago after a theorized
collision between the earth and another planet-sized object. After another chaotic period of bombardment
by celestial objects around 3.9 billion years ago, prokaryotic organisms
appeared around deep sea vents, followed by bacteria that would eventually
generate an oxygen atmosphere and photosynthesis, eukaryotic cellular life
around 1.85 billion years ago, sexual reproduction and multicellular organisms
about 1.2 billion years ago, and protozoa about 750 million years ago.
Scientists note
that a “Cambrian explosion of life” occurred about 542 million years ago, leading
to what is known as the Phaerozoic eon, the first era of “well displayed life”
in the fossil record. That eon is
divided into three major eras, the Paleozoic (542 to 251.4 million years ago),
Mesozoic (251.4 to 65.5 million years ago) and Cenozoic (65.5 million years ago
to the present).
The first two eras
appear to have ended in chaotic extinction events that spawned reorganizations
of life on the planet. The Paleozoic ended
in what is known as the Permian-Triassic (the name is based on geologic time
classification) extinction event, which apparently wiped out more than 90 to 95
percent of marine species and 70 percent of land-based vertebrates. Life reorganized and adapted during the
Mesozoic “dinosaur” era, which ended in the more famous “Cretaceous –Tertiary”
extinction event, which wiped out about half of all animal species, including
most of the dinosaurs, and which was probably triggered by an asteroid impact
near what is now the Yucatan
peninsula. Since the Paleozoic lasted
about 300 million years, and the Mesozoic about 200 million years, one can only
hope that the Cenozoic will last 100 million years, which gives us about
another 35 million years to avoid the dinosaurs’ fate!
Similar to the
evolution of all life on earth, the emergence process can be seen throughout humanity’s
evolution, from its beginning 5 or 6 million years ago when Australopithecines
differentiated themselves from the other apes in the African jungle. It can be seen when Homo Habilis and/or a baffling family tree of later hominid
successors (Homos Ergaster, Erectus, Heidelbergensis, Rhodesiensis,
etc.), which anthropologists are still trying to figure out, emerged from
Africa at various times from about 2.3 million to 125,000 years ago and began
to use simple tools. It can be seen when
Neanderthals learned to use more sophisticated tools about 50,000 years ago and
when Cro-Magnons, the first modern humans, slowly took over the earth,
employing their modern, facile brains about 30,000 years ago. Emergence can also be seen, although
apparently not yet datable with certainty, in the inventions of language,
speech and, much later, writing and the alphabet – all of which helped humans
transmit ideas from generation to generation.
After wading
through pre-history, about which we know enough to merely speculate, some might
say emergence is simply evolution. And the
two processes are related. Evolution can
be seen as a description of the overall process from a macro point of view, a
series of points of emergence over time.
It remains to be
seen if we Homo Sapiens are the final
branch of humanity; perhaps some new species will emerge out of the chaos and
destruction we have created. Certainly,
today’s humans seem to sense that we are living through a period of emergence
as we forage forward toward the end of the Cenozoic. Today, many subconsciously acknowledge that we
are experiencing a chaotic time in which the old ways no longer work and that we
are groping forward toward something new, even though we don’t know what that
something is.
It may come as no
surprise that such a perception is by no means unique and has probably been
expressed by humans of every generation.
In fact, history is built upon periods and instances of emergence, as
transformative ideas sprout out of seeming chaos to create something completely
different from what had gone on before.
A major instance of
early emergence during the human age can be seen as people who had once been
hunter-gatherers learned to domesticate animals and grow crops 10,000 to 12,000
years ago in the Middle East, Nile Valley , and western Asia .
Pastoralism and then sedentary agriculture
emerged as nomadic tribes began to herd domesticated animals, and then realized
the value of living in villages and growing a steady supply of plant food.
Why did it
happen? The reasons are complex and the
subject of much study by anthropologists, but growing population mixed with
climate change in marginal areas clearly played a driving role. In locations in which food resources were
becoming scarce, the herder could park his food nearby and move it as necessary
rather than rely on the risky chance of going farther afield to bag good
game. Likewise, the farmer could grow
grain right in his or her own backyard rather than having to travel farther to
locate new and distant sources of food.
Food and animal
agriculture are perhaps the most important human examples of emergence, after
the harnessing of fire and the use of simple and complex tools. A chaotic environment drove humans to rethink
their situation regarding their food supply, and they solved their problem
using creative new solutions that would transform the lives of humans for
millennia.
In ancient Egypt , for instance, the oldest settlements have
been found on desert plateaus in Upper Egypt
early in the Paleolithic age[i]
and apparently resulted from peoples who gradually migrated from other areas
that climate change had rendered incapable of producing sufficient food.[ii]
Too many people competing
and fighting for limited resources created enough political chaos for which
pastoral and sedentary agriculture emerged as social answers to the new
reality. It is perhaps from this milieu
that the verbal stories of Adam and Eve took shape, as humans began to think of
matters of good and evil and of the secret, “god-like” knowledge that
transformed them from foragers into agrarians.
That secret knowledge
accelerated the emergence process, which moves quickly and exponentially as one
idea leads to another, jumping from one field of inquiry into other realms that
might seem completely different and yet are connected by the human element and
its master of strange connections, the mind.
Agriculture, both
pastoral and sedentary, sparked the emergence of a new idea, civilization, which
led to conflict between rival lifestyles.
Civilization created towns, which in turn led to priestly, political and
military elites; to governments; and to city states. Likewise, it led to new technologies that emerged
to handle the needs of the new way of life, such as plows, pottery and
textiles. People began to acquire the specialized
knowledge of particular trades, and the new ideas of property, wealth,
mythology and religion soon emerged.
Further chaos and conflict
over resources led to more warfare, urbanization, and the first empires, which
emerged about 5,000 years ago in the Near East and the Nile River basin
The ancient
empires emerged from chaotic struggles between city states that first begat
kingdoms and, after further chaotic conflict, merged through warfare to become
imperial realms. From the chaos of the ancient
Greek city states sprang Alexander’s Macedonian empire, which emerged as a
political construct aimed at bringing new order to the chaos. Its Hellenistic civilization too fell back
toward chaos and was later absorbed and transformed by the Roman Empire, which imposed
order for a long time on the chaotic soup of peoples centered around the
Mediterranean Sea in Europe, Asia and Africa . Likewise, the development of Empires in China , India
and the Americas
might be seen as similar attempts to impose order on chaos, emerging answers to
political problems of their time.
Following the
timeline, after the fall of the Roman Empire in the West, Europe
plunged into the deep chaos of the “Dark Ages,” but from that chaotic medieval
soup sprang the Renaissance, a vast emergence of grand proportion that produced
an explosion of new ideas across all sectors of inquiry. With the invention of the printing press,
ideas became open to more people, sparking further emergence. From the chaos of the religious and dynastic
wars of the 1500s and 1600s, the Enlightenment emerged, leading to many more
innovations and experiments across many fields of endeavor, even including the
political and religious experiment now known as the United States of
America.
Technologically,
the industrial revolution would create an unstoppable, exponential emergence
machine that has brought more changes to humanity than ever before. The industrial revolution brought science,
technology, government, commercial enterprise, and religion together in a new
way, institutionalizing emergence and driving it forward to generate change in
ways that would have been inconceivable to the peoples of earlier centuries. The idea of Progress became king in the West,
and the planet has never been the same.
Emergence in the Science of Warfare
In the human
sphere, because of the propensity toward warfare as a political problem-solving
strategy, the emergence phenomenon can be seen clearly in the evolution of
humanity’s tools with which it does its fighting. The emergence process has ruled man from the
time he first picked up that rock, stick, or jawbone of an ass and swung at his
rival in a heated rage, to today when he might push buttons and maneuver a
joystick to blow his enemy to smithereens.
Warfare is by
nature chaotic and destructive. Military
leaders know that, no matter how formulated their plans, once the fighters
engage in battle, all bets are off. They can only hope to adapt on the battlefield
to new situations that arise and to develop new systems to better manage the
“combat of the future,” whatever that may be.
When the need to adapt causes new, more complex alignments that
revolutionize the future of warfare, the new innovation created from the chaos
and destruction displays emergence in action.
But warfare also
creates new technologies. Therefore, to
see emergence at work, one only needs to study the history of warfare.[iii] First, however, one must dispense with the
myth that early man was a much more peaceful being than he is now. Although experts once believed that, more
recent archaeology tells a different tale.
Humanity has most likely always been prone to violence, as stories such
as that of Cain and Abel in the Old Testament attest, and deadly violence often
found expression in homicides or in primitive, tribal warfare between
groups. In War Before Civilization: The
Myth of the Peaceful Savage, anthropologist Lawrence H. Keeley tells us
that 90 to 95 percent of known societies engage in war and that tribal warfare
is on average 20 times more deadly than 20th Century warfare.[iv]
However, while the
desire to kill and the need to defeat one’s enemies have always been with us, warfare’s
true development as a science and/or art still closely parallels that of
civilization itself. Military
specialization, as well as greater sophistication in arms, tactics and
strategic use of violence for political ends clearly walk hand-in-hand with the
development of other core attributes of human civilization such as agriculture,
animal domestication and complex urban societies.
In fact, the
emergence of such complex societies about 5000 BCE is perhaps the “Big Bang”
that truly drove all later military invention.
When the great ancient cultures took root along the Nile and near the
Tigris and Euphrates rivers, they launched an
arms revolution that led armies to dump stone weapons in favor of bronze within
a few centuries. Soon people traded the
chaotic nature of alliances between family, clans and tribes for a declaration
of fealty to another human invention, the state, which then emerged as perhaps
the dominant driving force for humanity and its militaries for the millennia to
come. Indeed, the state might be seen as
the greatest weapon man ever invented.
A state means
goals, strategy and movement toward professional standing armies in the early
empires of Egypt , Sumer and Akkad . The chaos of the battlefield drove the
emergence of helmets to defend against the mace and body armor to defend
against swords and other hand weapons.[v] Armies learned that chaotic mass charges
don’t always work well, so the phalanx military formation emerged in Sumer [vi]
as a more organized alternative. This
disciplined fighting tactic clustered men with shields in a defensive grouping,
providing the ancient equivalent to the protection of an armored vehicle, and variations
of the tactic were employed for two thousand years.
Because the long
Nile oasis was somewhat more insulated from outside forces than the brewing mix
of invasion-crazy civilizations within and bordering Mesopotamia, ancient Egypt ’s military technology lagged behind Sumer ,[vii]
once again showing the necessity of a chaotic environment to the emergence
phenomena. However, Egypt eventually
obtained the better weapons developed by the Sumerians and used them to sustain
its more enduring empire. The Sumerian
and Akkadian invention of the composite bow, which offered two to three times
the firepower of a standard bow and allowed arrows to pierce armor from a
greater distance, provides one example of such technology,[viii]
and the wheeled chariot that emerged in Sumer as the first battlefield vehicle
-- developed later to its full potential by the Hyksos, Hittites, Canaanites, Assyrians
and Egyptians -- provides another.[ix]
Apparently, it
took the chaotic Hyksos invasion of Egypt in 1720 BCE to show the
Egyptians the benefits of the new bow and chariot, as well as the penetrating
axe, sickle-sword, helmet and body armor, and it would likewise take battle
against the Assyrians to teach them the value of cavalry units. [x] By the time Pharaoh Ahmose I expelled the
Hyksos from the Nile Delta about 200 years later, a reorganized Egypt emerged,
with a professional national military complete with conscription,[xi]
one of the many advantages a powerful state can provide.
The Hittites’ first use of iron in battle
about 1300 BCE marks the next great emergence in weaponry technology. Iron weapons were heated and hammered into
shape rather than melted and cast, which meant they were stronger, less brittle
and more reliable than bronze.[xii] And they became plentiful because they did
not require tin, which wasn’t easy to find.
The new Iron Age,
which lasted from about 1500 BCE to 100 CE, produced national armies composed of
citizens of states. The new armies of
the Egyptians, Hittites, Assyrians, Greeks, Persians, Macedonians and Romans
were larger, better organized, better trained, more mobile, and employed better
logistics, transportation, communication, siegecraft and artillery than their
forebears.[xiii] Emergent warfare technologies of the era
included such items as carts drawn by oxen, horses or mules to carry supplies,
roads and bridges, military maps, protective jackboots instead of sandals, and
naval warfare and support for land forces.
Better logistics allowed armies to travel thousands of miles, twice as
far as previous armies. For instance, a
Roman legion had a strategic range of 3,000 by 1,500 miles, which was ten times
that of a Sumerian army and double that of Egyptian armies of 1,000 years
earlier.[xiv]
However, as Rome ’s Empire aged, and
the military guarding its western half began to be infiltrated by barbarian
mercenaries, many of whom were skilled horsemen, a greater emphasis began to be
placed on cavalry, a trend that from one day would emerge the armored knights of
the Middle Ages as decentralized feudal armies took over for central
authority. In the Eastern
Roman Empire , the Byzantines also began to focus more on cavalry
tactics, although Roman infantry organization remained intact.
Eventually, the
Empire fell in the West, and a long period of political chaos and
decentralization ensued, except for brief interludes when Charlemagne united
much of Western Europe or other relatively
powerful kings exerted influence. Just
as outside tribes had overwhelmed the Western Roman state, the armies of Islam began
to take over the eastern provinces in the seventh and eighth centuries. At first, the Muslims fought with primitive
weaponry and armament, but gradually the Arab armies, like the Egyptians before
them, borrowed the weapons and tactics of their Byzantine and Persian
opponents.
The mounted,
armored knight reigned supreme in medieval combat. However, out of these centuries of chaos, during
which Constantinople fell to the Muslims and a great exodus of scholarly
knowledge headed for the West, a new time of great creativity dawned as ancient
knowledge was rediscovered. In military
terms, the new Renaissance outlook could be seen at the Battle of Laupen in
1339, when Swiss infantry defeated mounted knights by employing what amounted
to a Macedonian phalanx, and at the battle of Crecy in 1346, when English
archers defeated the French with inspired use of the longbow, reminiscent of
the advances of the composite bowmen of old.[xv]
By the end of the
Hundred Years War in 1457, infantry again become an important component of
armies. What made the difference? The new chaotic and creative Renaissance
brought the next major incident of emergence, that of gunpowder and the weapons
– muskets, cannons and mortars – that used it.
A line of men firing muskets simultaneously, for instance, created a
wall of bullets that was much more deadly than arrows. Likewise, the new firearms created the need
for truly professional armies with men who had been trained in specified skills,
and it would lead once again to an army of citizens from more than just the
noble class.
As subsequent
innovations brought better types of gunpowder, better locks to spark the
powder, and then cartridges – first made of paper and later combining powder
and bullet in a single metal container – the firearms continued to become more
useful and deadly. And each major
innovation meant new tactics. When the
wheel lock was invented, for instance, allowing a pistol that could be fired
with one hand, new techniques could be developed for cavalry to take advantage
of the deadly combination of pistol and saber.[xvi]
Similarly, the
invention of the bayonet allowed the jobs of musketeer and pikeman to be combined,[xvii]
the rifled barrel brought greater accuracy at a greater distance, and repeating
rifles and machine guns would increase the rate of fire exponentially. Likewise, consistent and regular innovation
would lead to improved artillery that could deliver shells accurately from
miles away. But all of these innovations
stemmed from the emergence of gunpowder during the Renaissance, that remarkably
chaotic and creative of times.
In addition, from
the Renaissance sprang the emergence of the nation-state as the dominant
political structure that would drive warfare into the modern age. Now people would fight for not just because a
lord or king said so, but because one’s country needed or demanded it. Now national pride became a consideration as
well.
As nation-states
developed more complex economic structures, new merchant and financial classes
arose, and by the 18th century, monarchs and their governments could
not go to war without them.[xviii] Then another chaotic era that would generate
creativity, the Industrial Revolution, would bring mass production of weapons
and interchangeable parts into play. This
chaotic new age of discovery and rediscovery gave way to the orderly
functioning of the modern age of the machine, seen in both the actual
mechanical instruments driving the factories and textile mills and in the
socially engineered bureaucracy of government and new ways to organize society. For example, in military terms, Napoleonic
France took the nation/state further than ever before by mobilizing the entire state
population for total war through conscription under an officer corps based on
talent rather than social class.[xix] Likewise, France ’s
main opponent, Britain ,
was in the midst of building its own empire, a world-wide commercial machine of
ordered trade and finance. The dance
between chaos and order continued.
Machines tend to
beget further machines. While perhaps
the greatest symbol of the new emerging reality was the machine gun, the new
and deadly combination of gunpowder combined with the practical destruction
capabilities of the machine would also lead to a revolution in Naval
technology, allowing for ships that would become gun platforms on water and
which could be used to squelch the enemy’s economy through blockade. And the pace of improvements to artillery
would likewise lead to changes in ship design, leading to iron, and later
steel, turrets and hulls. Naval
technology continued to move forward, bringing steam power, oil boilers,
dreadnought-class warships, submarines, torpedoes, depth charges, mines and
aircraft carriers.
Of course, there
would be no carriers without the invention of the airplane, which, along with
the automobile, was another revolutionary technology to emerge from the
churning chaotic soup of new ideas at the “turn of the century.” As the 19th Century gave way to the
20th, international exhibitions of technology such as the 1904 St. Louis World’s Fair
became fashionable, and inventors such as Thomas Edison, with his electric
light and telephone, and the Wright brothers, with their airplane, became the
heroes of the modern age.
The Dayton bike tinkerers
probably could not predict that, before long, mechanical firepower would be
brought to the skies, first with planes dropping bombs on land and sea targets,
and later with fighter planes shooting each other down in combat. In World War I, that trend began modestly,
with airborne observers throwing bricks and lengths of chain at each other, and
eventually firing pistols and rifles, doing their best to miss their plane’s
propellor.[xx] It would not be long before mounted machine
guns with interrupter devices, the first of which was designed by Germany ’s
Anthony Fokker,[xxi]
would rule the skies over the Western Front.
Looking back at
World War I, one can taste the delicious irony of an apparently orderly
international structure of competing empires and nation states unleashing such
devastation. Once the empires’ army
machines had been launched, they could not be stopped, and the seemingly
endless carnage reached unparalleled levels, producing 37 million in dead and
wounded, military and civilian. But out
of the destructive cauldron of World War I emerged much of what we think of as
“modern,” perhaps the greatest example of which was the idea that ethnically
similar groups of people should be allowed to form their own nation-states and
thereby govern themselves.
And in an
interesting twist, the creative chaos generated by World War I brought the
weapon that helped eventually defeat the machine gun and turn the tide, the
tank. As a modern answer to the ancient
chariot, it would help to break the stalemate on the Western Front. More importantly, the tank would play a
decisive role in the land battles that would decide Round Two a couple of decades
later.
World War I and
its aftermath brought socio-political chaos to Europe, with revolution in Russia , economic collapse in Germany , and
disintegration of the Hapsburg and Ottoman empires. But many great technological advances would
emerge in the years between the world wars, including major changes in
automobiles, aircraft, watercraft and rocketry.
The creative era
would lead to another, even larger world war that unleashed twice the
destructive power of the first, leading to the deaths of at least 60 million
people, and perhaps as much as 78 million.
Improved tanks, aircraft carriers, self-propelled artillery, bombers,
unguided rockets, radar and jet power all would emerge from the chaotic
destruction of World War II. But of
course, the most fearsome technology to emerge from the chaos was the atomic
bomb. For the first time, humans created
a weapon that had the potential to wipe out an entire city with one bomb.
In the years since
World War II, the two superpowers and their allies refined their nuclear
weapons so that they could devastate the planet within a few minutes using such
technologies as Multiple Independent Reentry Vehicles (MIRVs). When each missile can carry 10 separate
warheads with a range of 10,000 miles,[xxii]
such as the Trident II, damage multiplies quickly. Likewise conventional warfare had by 1980
become hundreds of times as lethal as in World War II[xxiii]
with the addition of such technology as combat helicopters. With the advent of smart weapons such as
predator drones and bunker busting bombs during recent conflicts, humanity’s
ability to destroy itself has grown exponentially in recent decades to the
point where military forces have the capability to destroy any target that can
be located.
Today, warfare is
based more on the amount of lethal technology that can be brought to bear on
the battlefield rather than the size of the force, and the linear tactics of
the past have been replaced by swirling tactics that require an army to fight
the direct battle in front, the deep battle behind the enemy’s lines and the
rear battle in one’s own defense.[xxiv]
In this sense, perhaps, winning a modern war has become an exercise in imposing
one’s ma’at on a particularly chaotic battlefield that includes attacks from
several directions at once.
The Path of Cain
Humanity’s journey
from the Garden of Eden along Cain’s path has been long and far, with its
capacity for deadly force providing just one example.
The allegorical
story in Genesis of the first man and woman’s discovery of self-awareness and
their emergence from God’s garden playground to begin the march toward civilization
presents a compelling tale that still holds allegorical truth today. One of these grains of truth may be that
each new discovery, each new instance of emergence, brings an element of loss. As humans emerge from one way of thinking to
another, they also must leave something behind.
The atomic bomb
certainly leaves little room for error in any march toward conflict. Gone are the days prior to World War I when
leaders simply mobilized their armies, and, once set in motion, they could not
be stopped.
But there are even
more apt examples within the civilian realm.
The invention of television and air conditioning led families to cocoon
indoors on hot summer evenings when, in earlier times, they might have spent
evenings outside, communing with their neighbors on front porches. The author’s grandmother told him stories
that in summertime in the early years of the 20th Century in St.
Louis a child would be sent to the local tavern with a beer bucket called a
growler, so named for the sound it made when filled from a tap. The adult neighbors would share the cool beer
on their front porches and discuss matters of import while the children played
nearby. Each sultry summer evening spawned
its own social event. Then, to stay
cool, they all would sleep on their porches, in their yards, or in the
park. Today, families claim they are too
busy for such neighborly activities; they’d rather stay indoors and play video
games. Technological emergence caused us
to lose a close relationship with our neighbors.
Similarly, when
Interstate highways were built through tight-knit neighborhoods in the 1950s
and 1960s, connections between people were broken in the name of suburban
growth. Once again, the price of
progress was a lost sense of community.
In the later
decades of the 20th Century, the invention of computers and then personal
computers brought new opportunities to study and analyze everything around and
within us. Some employees may have lost
their jobs to these gleaming new thinking machines. For a while, before the recent invention of
the Internet and then social networks, it seemed that computers might actually
be causing us to lose connection with our fellow human beings. Now, it seems that we may have lost control
of our lives as e-mail and newer methods of social networking take more and
more of our free time.
Much as the
personal computer emerged from the chaotic primordial soup of computer research,
consider the work it took to engineer missions that sent men to space and the
moon out of the chaos of scientists and physicians from many different fields
all working together, each with his or her own ideas. Yet something beautiful emerged in that small
step for man that was also a giant leap for humanity. Now those space scientists must look toward
longer missions, for which new protocols must emerge. Just dealing with the challenges of human
psychology and interpersonal relations on long missions looks daunting. If we can manage to keep a crew from killing
each other on a 250-day voyage in a tin can to Mars, the experience will be
bound to produce emergence on a scale unknown in human history.
The fact is that
we are not so different from those who have gone before. In many ways, our lives are a long quest for
meaning, as we try to impose order on chaos.
We look to find that order in whatever art, science or religion we
choose to pursue, and soon that quest leads to the next great idea that emerges
from the chaos.
Certainly, we
should learn to greater appreciate that chaos which breeds new ideas. Does each new emerging discovery make us more
like God, bringing brings us closer to the Almighty’s perception of creation? Certainly, the first agriculturalists must
have felt god-like as they “created” plants from the ground for the first time.
And maybe, just
maybe, as we surge toward a world population of 7 billion, as separate souls on
similar missions, woven into a tapestry of lives here on earth and perhaps
beyond, a greater understanding of the process of emergence through history might
lead us to a greater understanding of the Supreme Being’s design for the
universe. We can only hope.
[i]Steindorff,
George and Keith C. Seele, “When Egypt
Ruled the East,” University
of Chicago
[ii]
Steindorff, p. 9.
[iii]
Stofft, Willam A., Karl W. Robinson and Gary L. Guertner, “A Short History of
War,” U.S. Army War College
[iv]
Lawrence H. Keeley, War Before Civilization: The
Myth of the Peaceful Savage, Oxford University
[vi]
Stofft et al.
[vii]
Stofft et al.
[viii]
Stofft et al.
[ix]
Stofft et al.
[x]
Stofft et al.
[xi]
Stofft et al.
[xii]
Stofft et al.
[xiii]
Stofft et al.
[xiv]
Stofft et al.
[xv]
Stofft et al.
[xvi]
Stofft et al.
[xvii]
Stofft et al.
[xviii]
Stofft et al.
[xix]
Stofft et al.
[xx]
Gene Gurney, Flying Aces of World War I,
Random House, 1965, p. 14.
[xxi]
Gurney, p. 21.
[xxii]
Stofft et al.
[xxiii]
Stofft et al.
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