The conceptualization of science in civilizations

[Aristarchus]

Some university professors have revisited Oswald Spengler, who was a mathematician and self-ascribed historian, his famous tome being The Decline of the West. There are negative connotations regarding Spengler, because he once subscribed to Nazi doctrines, although he later disassociated himself with the Nazis, because he rejected the Nazi superior race ideology and was "ostracized" by the Nazis because of his criticisms of their liberalism - and Spengler believed that - racial mysticism played a key role in his own worldview

However, as with Johann Gottfried von Herder and Arnold Joseph Toynbee, Spengler remains one of the premier historians and a point of reference, since many of his predictions have turned out to be prescient.

In Chapter X: "Faustian and apollinian nature-knowledge" from The Decline of the West (the abridged version), Spengler directs his attention to the conceptualization of science in particular cultures/civilizations, being that all cultures/civilizations are living organism that are born, rise, decline, and then dissipate. I find this knowledge useful when we consider the crisis in cosmology that is currently taking place, and the reliance on authority from the establishment science over the investigation of empirical evidence that counters the status quo of the establishment [emphasis mine]:

Each Culture has made its own set of images of physical processes, which are true only for itself and only while it is itself alive. The “Nature” of Classical man found its highest artistic emblem in the nude statue, and out of it logically there grew up a static of bodies, a physics of the near. The Arabian Culture can be symbolized by the arabesque and the cavern-vaulting of the mosque, and out of this world-feeling there issued Alchemy with its ideas of mysterious substance like the “philosophical mercury,” which is neither a material nor a property but by magic can transmute one metal into another. And the outcome of Faustian man’s Nature idea was a dynamic of unlimited span, a physics of distant. To the Classical therefore belong the conceptions of matter and form, to the Arabian (quite Spinozistically) the idea of substances with visible or secret attributes, and to the Faustian the idea of force and mass.

~ Spengler, Oswald, [Helps, Arthur]. (1991). The Decline of the West [Abridged, Translator, Charles Francis Atkinson]. New York: Oxford University Press. pp. 190-191.

The force-dogma is the one and only theme of Faustian physics. There is no Western statics – that is, no interpretation of mechanical facts that is natural to the Western spirit bases itself on the ideas of form and substance, or even, for that matter, on the ideas of space and mass otherwise than in connexion with those of time and force. The reader can test this in any department that he pleases.

The Late Renaissance imagined that it had revived the Archimedean physics just as it believed that it was continuing the Classical sculpture. Even Galileo was still under the influence of the Renaissance feeling. He therefore limited the idea of force to contact-force (impact) and his formulation did not go beyond conservation of momentum (quantity of motion). He held fast to mere “moved-ness” and fought shy of any emphasis on space, and it was left to Leibniz to develop – first in the course of controversy and then positively by the application of his mathematics discoveries – the idea of genuine free and directional forces (living force, activum thema). The notion of conservation of momentum then gave way to that of conservation of living forces, as quantitative number gave way to functional number. Newton it was who first got completely away from Renaissance feeling and formed the notion of distant forces, the attraction and repulsion of bodies across space itself. Distance is already in itself is a force. The very idea of it is so free from all sense-perceptible content that Newton himself felt uncomfortable with it – in fact mastered him and not he it. To this day no one has produced an adequate definition of these forces-at-a-distance. No one has ever yet understood what centrifugal force really is. Is the force of the earth rotating on its axis the cause of this motion or vice versa? Or are the two identical?

This symbolic difficulty of modern mechanics is in no way removed by the potential theory that was founded by Faraday when the centre of gravity of physical thought had passed from the dynamics of matter to the electro-dynamics of the aether. The famous experimenter, who was a visionary through and through – alone amongst the modern masters of physics he was not a mathematician – observed in 1846: “I assume nothing to be true in any part of space (whether this be empty as is commonly said, or filled with matter) except forces and the lines in which they are exercised.” Here Faraday is metaphysically at one with Newton, whose forces-at-a-distance point to a mythic background that the devout physicist declined to examine. The possible alternative way of reaching an unequivocal definition of force – viz., that which starts from World and not God, from the object and not the subject of natural motion-state – was leading at the very same time to the formulation of the concept of Energy. Now, this concept represents, as distinct from that of force, a quantum of directedness and not a direction, and is in so far akin to Leibniz’s conception of “living force” unalterable in quantity. It will not escape notice that essential features of the mass-concept have been taken over here; indeed, even the bizarre notion of an atomic structure of energy has been seriously discussed.

~ Spengler, Oswald, [Helps, Arthur]. (1991). The Decline of the West [Abridged, Translator, Charles Francis Atkinson]. New York: Oxford University Press. pp. 210-212. [/i]

This rearrangement of the basic words has not, however, altered the feeling that a world-force with its substratum does exist. The motion-problem is as insoluble as ever. All that has happened on the way from Newton to Faraday – of from Berkeley to Mill – is that the religious deed-idea has been replaced by the irreligious work-idea. In the Nature-picture of modern physics Nature is doing work; for every “process” within the meaning of the First Law of Thermodynamics is or should measurable by the expenditure of energy to which a quantity of work corresponds in the form of “bound energy.”

Naturally, therefore, we find the decisive discovery of J. R. Mayer coinciding in time with the birth of the Socialist theory. Even economic systems wield the same concepts; the value-problem has been in relation with quantity of work ever since Adam Smith, who vis-a-vis Quesney and Turgot marks the change from an organic to a mechanical structure of the economists which correspond exactly to the physical proposition of conservation of energy, entropy and least action.

If, then, we review the successive stages through which the central idea of force has passed since its birth in the Baroque, and its intimate relations with the form-worlds of the great arts and of mathematics, we find that (1) in the seventeenth century (Galileo, Newton, Leibniz) it is pictorially formed and in unison with the great art oil-painting that died out about 1630; (2) in the eighteenth century (the “classical” mechanics of Laplace and Lagrange) it acquires the abstract character of the fugue-style and is in unison with Bach; and (3) with the Culture at its end and the civilized intelligence victorious over the spiritual, it appears in the domain of pure analysis, and in particular in the theory of functions of several complex variables, without which it is, in its most modern form, scarcely understandable.

The Limits of Further Theoretical – Not Technical – Development

But with this, it cannot be denied, Western physics is drawing near to the limit of its possibilities. At bottom, its mission as a historical phenomenon has been to transform the Faustian Nature-feeling into an intellectual knowledge, the faith-forms of springtime into the machine-forms of exact science. And, through for the time being it will continue to quarry more and more practical and even “purely theoretical” results, results as such, whatever their kind, belong to the superficial history of a science. To its deeps belong only the history of its symbolism and its style, and it is almost too evident to be worth the saying that in those deeps the essence and nucleus of our science is in rapid disintegration.

~ Spengler, Oswald, [Helps, Arthur]. (1991). The Decline of the West [Abridged, Translator, Charles Francis Atkinson]. New York: Oxford University Press. pp. 212-213. [/i]

[Aristarchus]

Reading again the article from Hannes Alfvén, Cosmology: myth or science, I discovered similar themes that are presented in Oswald Spengler's tome, Decline of the West. Spengler often refers to Goethe and Nietzsche when establishing his historical weltanschauung.

As a prelude, before delving into issues and observations from Hannes Alfvén's article mentioned above, I would like to establish how Spengler borrowed ideas from Nietzsche in viewing great cultures and civilizations as living organisms that follow a seasonal procession of nascent, development, alienation, and decline. The alienation is a result of civilizations loosing contact and understanding of its "prime symbols," which is instigated as a civilization becomes metropolitan - people move into cities, become irreligious, and loose the affinity to nature from the birth of prime symbols born from a contact with a rural setting during the springtime of its development. The idea of the irreligious is not to be confused with the denotation of antireligious, for rise of the period of irreligiousness is based upon atheistic values that eventually succumbs to a "second religiousness," but the latter does not prevent the succumbing of a civilization heading towards its decline.

Here there is a mother-landscape behind all expression forms, and just as the town, as temple and pyramid and cathedral, must fulfill their history there where their idea originated, so too the great religion of every springtime is bound by all the roots of its being to the land over which its world-image has risen.

... Every Culture actualizes here its prime symbol. Each has its own sort of love - we may call it heavenly or metaphysical as we choose - with which it contemplates, comprehends and takes into itself its godhead, and which remains to every other Culture inaccessible or unmeaning.

~ Spengler, Oswald, [Helps, Arthur]. (1991). The Decline of the West [Abridged, Translator, Charles Francis Atkinson]. New York: Oxford University Press. pp. 324-325.

In this very century, I prophesy, the century of scientific critical Alexandrianism, of the great harvests, of the final formulations, a change of feeling (neuer Zug von Innerlichkeit) will overcome the will-to-victory of science. Exact science must presently fall upon its own keen sword. First, in the eighteenth century, its methods were tried out, then, in the nineteenth, its powers, and now its historical role is critically reviewed. But from Skepsis there is a path to "second religiousness," which is the sequel and not the preface of the Culture. Men dispense with proof, desire only to believe and not to dissect.

Science exists only in the living thought of great savant-generations, and books are nothing if they are not living and effective in men worthy of them. Scientific results are merely items of an intellectual tradition. An orgy of two centuries of exact scientific-ness brings satiety.

~ Spengler, Oswald, [Helps, Arthur]. (1991). The Decline of the West [Abridged, Translator, Charles Francis Atkinson]. New York: Oxford University Press. p. 221. (emphasis mine).

In understanding this perspective, Spengler borrowed a concept from Nietzsche and applied it to all great cultures/civilizations throughout history, i.e., taken from Nietzsche's treatise, The Birth of Tragedy. In the latter, Nietzsche addresses the decline of Ancient Greek tragedy, for he saw the two earlier ancient playwrights, Aeschylus and Sophocles as providing a catharsis for the Greek populace in the form of tragedy that represented the two distinct ideals of the Hellenic period, that being the Apollonian, which represented the rational mind/knowledge, and that of the Dionysian representing the mystic/intrigue. Aeschylus and Sophocles dealt with the pure aspect of Greek stage tragedy, which was born out of the festival of the gods, most notably, Dionysus.

Although Aeschylus introduced the second actor in the play, and Sophocles the third, it was Euripides that radically transformed the Greek tragedy with involving a preponderance of dialogue. Euripides was an admirer of Socrates, and believed in questioning everything to reach a resolution to philosophical questions, including placing the gods in a negative light. It was this over intellectualization that Nietzsche saw as an imbalance that eventually marked the decline of the Hellenistic period, and Spengler adopted Nietzsche's positing for all declines of cultures/civilizations throughout history. It was this imbalance between the rational and the mystic that had Euripides employ a kind of vendetta against the gods - the mystic - the intrigue. Later, one could argue that Euripides confronted his approach with a contrition marked in his posthumous and last work, The Bacchae.

In the article by Hannes Alfvén we see the above articulated in the following:

Perhaps one could also find an echo two millenia later, when Descartes proclaimed: De omnibus est dubitandum (We should question everything). However, this is not altogether correct because Descartes had also inherited the Galilean scientific tradition according to which controversial issues should be settled by reference to experiment and observation. But there does not seem to be any basic logical conflict between Descartes and the agnosticism of Rigveda and the Buddha.

http://www.ias.ac.in/jarch/jaa/5/79-98.pdf [emphasis mine]

Is this example reflected by Descartes significant of a beginning of a decline and loss of "prime symbols" for the Occidental World? Furthermore, can we see that even Buddha with his predilection towards "agnosticism" perhaps could be recognized as an irreligious development away from the traditional Hinduism? However, there is something more than a mere rejection of science on an empirical level, but, as we can see with the Platonic frame of thought born out of the Socrates school of philosophy, it is a reliance on a priori inductive reasoning that becomes the dominant force driving the pursuit of scientific thought. It is, therefore, this imbalance marked by a readily unavailability of a culture/civilization to its prime symbols resulting in an irreligiousness leading to an inadequate second religion that provides the impetus of a science towards a weighted concern on the a priori approach.

Neither the Pythagoreans nor Plato cared very much for a comparison with observations. The Pythagoreans formed a secret society with no real contact with the rest of Greek society. Indeed, traitors were severely punished. The rules of Plato’s Academy included: “Let none who has not learnt geometry enter here,” and he advised all scholars to “concentrate on the theoretical side of their subject and not spend endless trouble over physical measurements to the neglect of theoretical problems.”

Ibid [emphasis mine]

This mathematically based cosmology did not come into serious conflict with the ancient myths. They became to a certain extent incorporated, and a jungle grew up of mathematics, astronomy, astrology, and myths from many earlier cultures. Gods and spirits of all kinds began to settle on the crystal spheres, soon causing a population explosion. For example, one group of constellations depicts how Perseus saved Andromeda from Medusa, whose terrible head is represented by a variable star. Still more dramatic is the giant hunter Orion, who, followed by the Big Dog and the Small Dog, lifts his club against the red-eyed Bull.

Ibid [emphasis mine]

This chaotic conglomeration of mathematics, astronomy (including cosmology), and myths from many religions has turned out to be a permanent ingredient in our culture. Today, after more than 2000 years, it has as much vitality as ever. Newspapers and periodicals usually have astrological columns; every jeweller sells pendants and pins with signs of the zodiac. From the point of view of our commercialized society, there are many more dollars in astrology than in astronomy.

Ibid [emphasis mine]

Here, above, we see a second religiousness reflected in today's science in the form of the big bang theory trying to reconcile itself to the doctrine of Creatio ex Nihilo, and its ever growing pursuit of a priori inductive methods emphasized with beautiful mathematical models. Mind you, I am not concluding that Hannes Alfvén is representing the argument that I am positing, but I am simply using his article as a reference point for what I perceive as regenerating systemic and endemic problems that take on significance relating to understanding humankind through the lenses of history, in that these issues are now pertinent to our current cosmology in crisis.

A very important conclusion from the Big-Bang cosmology, which is seldom drawn explicitly, is that the state at the singular point necessarily presupposes a divine creation. To Abbé Lemaître this was very attractive, because it gave a justification to the creation ex nihilo, which Saint Thomas had helped establish as a credo. To many other
scientists it was more of an embarrassment because God is very seldom mentioned in ordinary scientific literature. There seem to be rather few scientists (but among them Whittaker and Milne) who, like Jastrow (1978) in his book God and the Astronomers, explicitly draw what seems to be the logical conclusion of the Big-Bang cosmology, viz.,
that the universe was created ex nihilo by God. “When the scientist has scaled the mountains of ignorance, he is about to conquer the highest peak; as he pulls himself over the final rock, he is greeted by a band of theologians who have been sitting there for centuries." However, most of the Big-Bang believers prefer to sweep creation under the rug. In fact, they fight against popular creationism, but at the same time they fight fanatically for their own creationism. Peratt (1983) suggests that the creationism extra muros is inspired by the Big-Bang creationism intra muros.

Ibid [emphasis mine]

It is our occidental belief that Western civilization is a concatenation of all preceding history - that we are somehow processing our knowledge from this stream of history towards a unified theory. I propose that this is not only a false assumption, but an illusion - even perhaps delusion. Our minds cannot conceive what they are not currently fitted to belief, making the Alpha and Omega, including seeking an origin an absurd endeavor, for we only currently have three percent of our human DNA activated, and what new conceptualizations are to come through further evolution of humankind will lead to knowledge that was once perceived as hidden - even unattainable.

[JaJa]

Aristarchus,

Fascinating read - thank you;

And, through for the time being it will continue to quarry more and more practical and even “purely theoretical” results, results as such, whatever their kind, belong to the superficial history of a science.

Amongst the many illuminating things that Robert A Heinlein had to say was this;

"One can judge from experiment, or one can blindly accept authority. To the scientific mind, experimental proof is all important and theory is merely a convenience in description, to be junked when it no longer fits. To the academic mind, authority is everything and facts are junked when they do not fit theory laid down by authority"

Perhaps a quote that sums up the current state of affairs for me however is;

"Never underestimate the power of human stupidity"

Stupidity seems to move in large groups, or if not in large groups, then in isolated pockets but with the ability to wield extraordinary power and influence over larger groups. It is clear and has been from a very young age, in my very humble opinion, that science (not all disciplines - but a fair sized chunk) provides more laughs than it does useful information. The troubling aspect to Heinlein's observations that I am sure others would agree with, is that there is an underlying smell of a rat - somewhere.

Our minds cannot conceive what they are not currently fitted to belief, making the Alpha and Omega, including seeking an origin an absurd endeavor, for we only currently have three percent of our human DNA activated, and what new conceptualizations are to come through further evolution of humankind will lead to knowledge that was once perceived as hidden - even unattainable.

It may very well be that the Mind cannot conceive the pictures or words that can paint an alternative because we have effectively been taught to look down a tunnel - but intuition or a "gut-feeling" that something just isn't right most certainly does ignite some-thing, some-where, within certain individuals. If it didn't, we wouldn't have pioneers that champion change.

JJ

[StevenJay]

Stupidity seems to move in large groups, or if not in large groups, then in isolated pockets but with the ability to wield extraordinary power and influence over larger groups.

That's probably because, "In individuals, insanity is rare; but in groups, parties, nations and epochs, it is the rule." - Friedrich Nietzsche

[Aristarchus]

Thank you JaJa and StephenJay for your responses.

I think a more delineated approach is recognizing that the population as a whole is subject to falling into the fallacy of Groupthink - and this relates to the false dilemma arguments that are perpetrated by the mass media and then ingested by the public. As Germany became consolidated into one nation from smaller independent states, Nietzsche saw the development of the "urban mass media." The mass media helps the modern State define common interests, and the latter sets the stage for providing no alternatives leading to false dilemma arguments. We see the false dilemma arguments play out in the most puerile form when we see the talking heads on television programs (programming being the operative word here) each yelling at each other with the same worn out platitudes and rhetoric denoting their cause or beliefs. My assertion, based off my reading, is that this represents a culture/civilization in decline. There's a kind of desperation and falling back onto nostalgia - the past - a sense that something is being lost, which, in a sense, it is, since the birth of new ideas are stifled, ridiculed, and signified as threatening or even subversive. Everything takes on a political paradigm as to what is acceptable and definable within the mass market of years consolidating any idea and thought into dogma. Thus, a culture/civilization no longer defends or propagates the principles and prime symbols that created its development, but rather, simply perpetuates a way of life and believing.

This is the frustration that we're discovering with the current trend found in the common consensus of science, which explores no other alternatives, even at the expense of hoisting theoretical physics over and above the empirical and observational - and where inference is substituted for observation. There's a political process involved that serves an ideology to promote a line of thinking, such as the BB theory, dark matter, dark energy, black holes, etc. A populace that is conditioned repetitively through media outlets about cosmological concepts predicated upon a creation from nothing, unobserved mysterious forces, trapped light, is one that will retain a compliancy to authority. Imagine, how can individuals hope to discover enlightenment when confronted with the awe of being in this universe where light can be trapped within a black hole - where existence is an act of a peculiar singular event. One is then programmed into nihilism, and an individual's hope is destroyed, except, of course, if it is offered as a promise by the State. In the 19th century, it was the quaint materialism that guided the politicalization of science, but with new breakthroughs in quantum mechanics with its intriguing introduction of perceiving our existence in a different light, the emphasis upon the theoretical over the empirical became the modus operandi of explaining observations that retrofit the culture's/civilization's paradigm constructs of preferred conceptualization.

I'm not advocating that science today does not offer intriguing insights. or that it totally lacks observational data, but the data is skewed to predicate upon cultural/civilization assumptions. I take an interest in reading the space.com forum, and find amusement in reading this longing for heady days of the Apollo missions, each blaming whatever political party is currently holding the Oval Office. Truth be told, there are many obstacles to overcome concerning space travel - and this goes beyond political considerations and money. For example:

A Force Field for Astronauts?

The most common way to deal with radiation is simply to physically block it, as the thick concrete around a nuclear reactor does. But making spaceships from concrete is not an option. (Interestingly, it might be possible to build a moonbase from a concrete mixture of moondust and water, if water can be found on the Moon, but that's another story.) NASA scientists are investigating many radiation-blocking materials such as aluminum, advanced plastics and liquid hydrogen. Each has its own advantages and disadvantages.

Those are all physical solutions. There is another possibility, one with no physical substance but plenty of shielding power: a force field.

Most of the dangerous radiation in space consists of electrically charged particles: high-speed electrons and protons from the Sun, and massive, positively charged atomic nuclei from distant supernovas.

Like charges repel. So why not protect astronauts by surrounding them with a powerful electric field that has the same charge as the incoming radiation, thus deflecting the radiation away?

Many experts are skeptical that electric fields can be made to protect astronauts. But Charles Buhler and John Lane, both scientists with ASRC Aerospace Corporation at NASA's Kennedy Space Center, believe it can be done. They've received support from the NASA Institute for Advanced Concepts, whose job is to fund studies of far-out ideas, to investigate the possibility of electric shields for lunar bases.

Evidently, the magical technology of the late sixties and early seventies was not enough to prevent us from reinventing the wheel, but perhaps that is a topic for the Mad Ideas section of this forum. Suffice for now to state that the banter I read on space.com represents a longing, even if it entails delusions for a concept of an ever expanding outreach of scientific knowledge and a concatenation of history that simply doesn't exist, because, in essence, the causality presumed in history is an illusion.

This is not to negate the intuitive genius of Hannes Alfven or a Giordano Bruno. For that kind of genius surpasses the whack-a-mole mentality of empires that simply are born, develop, rise to greatness, and then decline as undulating waves throughout history. Just as I believe that the spiritual truths of enlighten mystics speaks more to the individual than it does the collective conscience, the latter representing a narcissistic new age nocturnal emission. Both science and religion have succumbed to the purely dogmatic, the former due to it diluting the empirical, and the latter due to a loss of contact with its esoteric.

I am not a pessimist, but quite the opposite. I find that we as individuals can incarnate and embrace an eternity of discovery beyond the restrictions of political paradigms that soon or later infect the scientific process and methodology. In the words of Max Planck:

“Science cannot solve the ultimate mystery of nature. And that is because, in the last analysis, we ourselves are a part of the mystery that we are trying to solve.”

“A new scientific truth does not triumph by convincing its opponents and making them see the light, but rather because its opponents eventually die, and a new generation grows up that is familiar with it”

[JaJa]

Hi Aristarchus

Are we talking about a civilization in decline here in the literal sense, an implosion from the inside, or are we identifying a very limited way of thinking that has backed itself into a cul-de-sac and therefore has nowhere to hide. After all, a civilization or its infrastructure isn’t measured on the strengths or stupidities of its sciences although admittedly I would agree that “science” certainly holds a great deal of clout when it comes to a unified paradigm of thought.

If it wasn’t for the part-civilized manner in which we go about our business compared to how we did things say two or three hundred years ago it would be terrifying - enough for anyone to contemplate a level of conspiracy that can boggle the mind. This stifling of new ideas, which can and does take on the guise of insidious attacks (to maintain a grip on a status quo) is an enigma in itself.

But is this suppression and control the foundation of an organised scheme, something that goes back to the days of say Tesla (when electricity wasn’t such a taboo) when J P Morgan financed the Wardenclyffe Tower only for him to realise (perhaps) that Tesla wanted to give the world “free” unmetered energy.

From what I have read about science in the 19th century, electricity in space was as popular as Einstein’s GR/SR is today, but then it became “outlawed” for want of a better term. For me personally, something doesn’t sit right when legends such as Tesla are rarely mentioned in education books sponsored by the state.

JJ

[Goldminer]

The unwashed television gawker will never realize the conspiracy and theory are two distinct words that probably should not be used together. They will never realize that the conspiracy theory that a bunch of illiterate Saudis unable to even rent a Cessna, navigated sophisticated airliners into the WTC, which allowed kerosene, which is unable to cause steel to even weaken at the open air combustion temperatures that ensued, to bring down three buildings into their own footprints, is the silliest theory currently out there.

Real science took a vacation in Oklahoma City, then again in New York, and Washington DC. Let's not even mention Banking and Cancer research!

[Aristarchus]

Are we talking about a civilization in decline here in the literal sense, an implosion from the inside, or are we identifying a very limited way of thinking that has backed itself into a cul-de-sac and therefore has nowhere to hide.

I'm not sure implosion would be an operative word here for our purposes. What I refer to is the decline of civilizations based off the German historian, mathematician, and philosopher, Oswald Spengler, who appeared to have borrowed the concept of cultures/civilizations as living organisms from Johann Gottfried von Herder. However, in an effort to be definitive, Civilization is the destiny of a Culture, and the German language makes a distinction between these two words and concepts. The process of a culture/civilization as living organism was described by Spengler in seasonal cycle:

Oswald Spengler. The Decline of the West. An abridged edition by Helmut Werner. English abridged edition prepared by Arthur Helps from the translation by Charles Francis Atkinson. New York: oxford University Press

Spengler, in his Decline of the Westmakes two central points relevant to our concerns: that histories of various cultures--his principal point of comparison is Classical (Greek)--can be shown to follow a similar pattern and that all aspects of a culture--art, politics, mathematics, science--have related underlying principles which differ from culture to culture. He reaches conclusions about the current position of Western culture (in the 1920s) and how one can best live within it. Mo

Spengler views cultures as "organic" by which he means that the follow a life pattern, one he names by analogy to seasons. The spring of a culture is the time of the origin of its basic principles, the time of the birth of the religion of that culture. He believes that all great cultures have behind them a great religion. A culture acting "in form" (a comparison to athletes who are at the peak of their form) is in its summer, when all aspects can be seen as working under the principles at the basis of the culture, and when great accomplishments are made--the artifacts of lasting value.

Our culture, as compared to other cultures, is one of directedness and will; Spengler refers to it as Faustian. We see our religion as requiring us to convert others. Our art has a perspective, a point of view and direction. Our music is directed toward a tonal center. Our science is about forces and changes. We apply it to change our world. Our mathematics goes beyond the static geometry of the Classical world to deal with the calculus of tendencies and averages.

All cultures come to a Civilization phase, an autumn when this breaks down. Mega-cities are characteristic of this time. Politics is motivated by money, and move through Imperialism and the Period of Contending States to Caesarism, a period of despots. Science no longer reaches certainties. People no longer accept common principles or goals, they fight all rules from the past. The arts, rather than working in ways that seem obvious to the artists and the people, follow fashions with constant changes of style. Later in this culture after a period of atheism, people turn to a religious renewal based on the religion developed in the spring of the culture.

Spengler sees our culture as having finished its summer in about 1800--1770 in literature and with Wagner in music. He views developments in all the arts as evidence of decadence. His advice to those living in the Civilization phase is to look for the direction of movement and contribute positively to it--the Civilization will move in the direction of its Destiny, regardless of our choices. We can choose to contribute or to have no impact.

This stifling of new ideas, which can and does take on the guise of insidious attacks (to maintain a grip on a status quo) is an enigma in itself.

But is this suppression and control the foundation of an organised scheme, something that goes back to the days of say Tesla (when electricity wasn’t such a taboo) when J P Morgan financed the Wardenclyffe Tower only for him to realise (perhaps) that Tesla wanted to give the world “free” unmetered energy.

Interesting question, which would demand further contemplation on my part. Perhaps, we could revisit this issue on the New Insights and Mad Ideas threads, using this topic/thread as a cross-reference.

For my purposes on this topic, I am first trying to establish an academic view of the history of science as it relates to the preponderance of mathematical models in today's theoretical physics, as opposed to the empirical positivism that was at its height in the 19th century. Whereas, the former appears to indicate a phase in the decline of a civilization represented by an over-intellectualization combined with an alienation from our culture's/civilization's prime symbols. For Spengler, our culture/civilization is the Faustian symbol of unlimited space that is best represented in Western/Occidental music.

One example is that an incredible amount of funding is being poured into these theoretical physic projects (CERN, etc.), while our manned space flights are limited to near-orbit ventures.

However, in Spengler's, Decline of the West, we find this interesting footnote, which you might be intriguing to you:

One may be permitted to add that according to legend, both Hippasus who took to himself public credit for the discovery of a sphere of twelve pentagons, viz., the regular dodecahedron (regarded by the Pythagoreans as the quintessence - or aether - of a world of real tetrahedrons, octahedrons, icosahedrons and cubes), and Archytas, the eight successor of the Founder, are reputed to have been drowned at sea. The pentagram from which his dodecahedron is derived, itself involves incommensurable numbers. The "pentagram" was the recognition badge of Pythagoreans and the (Greek sic, incommensurable) their special secret. It would be noted, too, that Pythagoreanism was popular till its initiates were found to be dealing in these alarming and subversive doctrines, and then they were suppressed and lynched - a persecution which suggests more than one deep analogy with certain heresy-suppressions of Western history.

Oswald Spengler. The Decline of the West. An abridged edition by Helmut Werner. English abridged edition prepared by Arthur Helps from the translation by Charles Francis Atkinson. New York: oxford University Press c199 [1926, 1928, 1932]. p. 48. [footnote].

Thanks again for your well-considered contemplation on this topic.

[JaJa]

Aristarchus

I'm not sure I could stomach another conspiracy theory on new insights and mad ideas but I would be very interested to exchange views or thoughts on the work of Helena P. Blavatsky - if any thread is to be started.

Unfortunately, I am not an academic that can add to this thread, I have more questions about his work than I do views, perhaps you could answer two for me?

If democracy is the political "weapon" of money and the media is the means through which money operates a democratic political system, what was Spengler's view on the "origin" of the money. According to him the penetration of power (through money) within a society was a marker of a shift from Culture to Civilization.

Did Spengler's views on religions incorporate the Kaballah? You see, Big Bang cosmology (a so-called newish theory) has uncanny resemblances to Kabbalist Cosmological Wisdom. I find it intriguing (if this article is accurate) that ancient Kabbalah rabbis inscribed conclusions of what are the premises of modern BB cosmology in their holy book.

http://sites.google.com/site/oldshepher ... icalwisdom

JJ

[Aristarchus]

I'm not sure I could stomach another conspiracy theory on new insights and mad ideas but I would be very interested to exchange views or thoughts on the work of Helena P. Blavatsky - if any thread is to be started.

Helena P. Blavatsky was unique and driven. We can credit her with compiling the Vedic teachings and indexing them in an easy format for readers in the Occidental world, as well as those spiritual sources from other ancient cultures. I was quite the student of Blavatsky during the 80's when I was reading the Secret Doctrine. I would think that aspects of Theosophy and Science would make and intriguing discussion as a topic on New Insights and Mad Ideas.

H. P. Blavatsky devoted much space in her Secret Doctrine and elsewhere to the discussion of scientific topics. She also received many prominent scholars of all disciplines who came to speak to her. She stormed the strongholds of materialism and, though almost invisible to the world, laid the basis of a more spiritual evolution of science in centuries to come. She was often aggressive in her tone because she had to destroy the old to allow the new to be born. More than a century later, it is our task to further help the new child to be born and prepare the basis for a healthy adulthood. Theosophic commentators in the 19th and 20th centuries, though reacting to the scientific impulses of their day, referred to universal themes which are as pertinent now as they were then, and we have not yet pondered the full depth of their words. No doubt their works contain an almost inexhaustible source of wealth, for there is hardly a subject of interest for science, philosophy, religion, or human welfare to which they have not referred.

There is great value in examining science from the perspective of theosophy and the profound non-Western knowledge we have at our disposal nowadays. For example, we may look at the hypothesis of morphogenetic fields strongly promoted by biologist and science historian Rupert Sheldrake. He maintains that fields exist, comparable to gravitational and electromagnetic fields, which are of a nonmaterial character but nevertheless influence matter. They define the form which potentially will manifest in the arrangement of molecules that build the physical bodies of plants, animals, minerals, and even astronomical structures, and on a smaller scale internal structures of atoms, etc. These fields are supposed to account for, or describe, the coming into being of the characteristic forms of embryos and other developing systems. In such books as A New Science of Life and The Presence of the Past, Sheldrake elaborates his ideas in great detail and accounts for regulation and regeneration. He also states that "morphogenetic fields play a causal role in the development and maintenance of the forms of system at all levels of complexity." Through "morphic resonance," acquired characteristics can be transferred to other morphogenetic fields independent of our current notions of time and space, and become patterns or habits. Thus, through learning, evolution proceeds. The fields, finally, also account for movement, psychological tendencies, behavior, habits, etc. He maintains that nothing can be said about the origin of the manifested universe and how the first forms, from which others evolved through learning and morphic resonance, came into being.

However, it should be noted that Spengler considered Theosophy as something for "dabblers," since it did not comport with the "prime symbols" and religious notions developed in the springtime of the Occidental culture.

If democracy is the political "weapon" of money and the media is the means through which money operates a democratic political system, what was Spengler's view on the "origin" of the money. According to him the penetration of power (through money) within a society was a marker of a shift from Culture to Civilization.

I believe the above is an idea that would be more attributed to Friedrich Nietzsche:

Both Friedrich Nietzsche and José Ortega y Gasset were alarmed by the development of the modern State, which matured to ascendancy in the late 18th Century. In the 1860s and ‘70s, Nietzsche witnessed Otto von Bismarck forge his native Germany from a collection of dozens of independent political entities into a German Empire with a strong central government, mass conscription, national welfare programs, universal manhood suffrage, and an urban mass media.

... Both Nietzsche and Ortega understood the growth of the modern State as a force originating in the rise of mass political participation. Consequently, they were concerned with the State’s orientation toward the mass—the pedestrian and commonplace—and with its hostility toward exception, high culture, and the individual. “The mass crushes beneath it everything that is different, everything that is excellent, individual, qualified and select,” is a maxim Ortega wrote in The Revolt of the Masses, but that is a maxim often echoed by Nietzsche throughout his own writings.

http://www.strike-the-root.com/nietzsch ... juxtaposed

When I have time, I will try to deliver the text from Spengler's, Decline of the West, as it pertains to his ideas on democracy, but just as with the prime symbols related to religion, Spengler does not draw collorary ascription of a one fits all regarding democracy through the ages. For example, the democracy in ancient Athens was quite a different political reality to the modern era concept of democracy. I believe Spengler discusses the issue of democracy starting on page 362 of the book I cited on this topic.

Did Spengler's views on religions incorporate the Kaballah? You see, Big Bang cosmology (a so-called newish theory) has uncanny resemblances to Kabbalist Cosmological Wisdom. I find it intriguing (if this article is accurate) that ancient Kabbalah rabbis inscribed conclusions of what are the premises of modern BB cosmology in their holy book.

I was able to take a cursory glance at the link you provided, but I would not attempt to add anything significant at this time, but only to comment that the 42 letter name for God is not supposed to be uttered except by the most adept Kabbalist. I have read the Big Bang theory used to justify the teachings of those that follow the Qur'an, Bible, and, yes, even the atheists (the most dogmatic of the three). The fact of the matter is that the Big Bang has its roots in the Vatican doctrine of creatio ex nihilo.

I will recommend to you privately when I get a chance books on Hermetics, which are devoted to the teachings of the Kabbalah and these books will clearly be more associated with the EU model (IMHO).

[JaJa]

Aristarchus

Thank you for your thoughts and for the offer to provide information - this is appreciated, although please don't feel pressed to dig it out on my behalf.

I will, in due course start a thread on Science and Theosophy and hope you will engage in this with me, I find both volumes of The Secret Doctrine revealing and fascinating.

JJ