CHAPTER
06. SOCIAL ARCHAEOLOGY
Why beliefs never became matter – the Proof.
I had a look at the major pantheons of the human Gods - and saw that each pantheon had 5 key attributes. These attributes were included in the behavioural descriptions of all of the Gods in every pantheon.
In fact ALL of this Ethnological
data is simply what humanity remembers of the way they were - those 'elder
gods' before the fall of Atlantis.
All the alleged old ways are not
some natural progression of mankind from some stone-age state.
I needed to find some logic or
reason to the human races need to wallow about in the mud and vegetation - for
instance - what was the distraction ?
The 5 attributes of the Gods
seemed to be a recipe for a never ending and cruel soap opera.
To see how they equate, we look
at the expectations of the Human Race
and how we need a saviour or messiah to help us out - but which is true and which is false -
In order to analyse it all - I
grouped the key components of each godly attribute into sets.
The doctrine of objectivism that
has been emerging today has it that man is nothing more than an animal - an
organic creature, imperfect in a shitty world, sharing the food chain with
other animals, ruled by passion and blood and nature red in tooth and claw -
man the beast. The more I look into this barbarism, the more I see it to be a
Nihilist invention or perception. For in the cosmology of the ‘Gods of Animism’
- we are no more than dogs. We have no empathy, Grace or illumination, no
understanding of physics and reality, we have no strength and we have no
intellect.
The world of the warring tribal
monkeys of mankind has for millennia been about ‘piles of corpses, blood,
slaves and gold' to paraphrase Mein Kampf 'my struggle' by Adolph Hitler, [1925
CE].
Thomas Carlyle in Sartor Resartus
[1876 CE] was at a loss to understand confrontations of aggressive negation
from some 'underclass'. c.800 BCE, Plato, in Phaedo [Thomson editorial] alludes
to some systematic process of soul combat and death by 'drowning' - and even
John Lennon with 'all you need is love' wasn't able to stem the tide in the
late 20th Century.
The main geographical components
of the Human Condition are:
CLIMATE, TOPOGRAPHY, GEOLOGY,
VEGETATION, AVAILABLE WATER, ANIMAL LIFE,
Out of the fabric of our World we make our Gods and we make our reality
- a mudbath or bloodbath - but certainly out of that we make no Interstellar
Civilisation, no Free Energy, No Galactic Patronage - no Powerful Allies, not
yet !
T H E BASIC INGREDIENTS - THE RAW
MATERIALS
There are 5 major aspects to all
the Pantheons;
Fistly we’ll look at what the
Gods are supposed to achieve - then we’ll look at the stuff that Humanity have
traditionally associated with them.
The Gods: [allegedly] they
protect us, they nurture us, they destroy us and or they illuminate us, but
they don't give us the controls of a good spaceship.
1. PROTECTIVE ROLE (masculine)
Harnessed land and artefact production for defence.
2. NURTURING ROLE (feminine)
Harnessed land and its powers for perpetuity.
3. DESTRUCTIVE ROLE.
Negation of all structural values and the organic equilibrium.
4. HARBINGER
Unidentifiable aspect which would confer an overall advantage.
5. VOYEUR
Gods indulging and excelling at all Human activities concerned with learning
extensions or tools which augment the Human ego for personal evolution.
The following are HUMAN cultural
associations with Gods throughout history :
i.e. The raw cultural material
and ‘colour’. This is distilled from accounts of the various pantheons and
their cultural ingredients objects, global associations, environmental
significators and alleged social benefits and cues. Widely speaking, the
presence of and labelling of and colour of cultural objects appear arbitrary –
but not their implicit and often explicit significance.
They may not necessarily,
universally signify their allegiance outwardly to any professed ideology, but
the cultural ideologies themselves do fall into several broad social attitudes
and idioms.
1. PROTECTIVE ASPECT [present in
literature]
Gold, Grey, Blue, Yellow, Red
Green, Black. Hawk Vegetation Mirror Cat Lotus Sword, Serpent Seashell
Lightning, Dog Tree iron shoe, Lion Elephant
red dragon, blue eye, horned moon, black ram, head of a bearded man
2. NURTURING ASPECT [present in
literature]
blue, green, gold, red, black
cauldron tree crystal rod hand mares head bird amulets owl star apples spiral
ibis dawn iris water dolphins peacock falcon seashell child
3. DESTRUCTIVE ASPECT [present in literature]
fire, ice, lava, black basalt,
rocks sun, moon, lightning, waves. torch, spears, red mace, axe, skull withered
tree, sacrifice, chariot, fever, poison, broken vessels deceit, dragons,
trident, horn, snakes, white silks, decapitated heads, bestiality, rats, reed
pipes black opals, single eye, prophesy claw, lizard, wealth.
4. Harbinger / Messiah ASPECT
FALSE negates powers confers wisdom sells variables
TRUE GIVES KEYS SOLUTIONS
requires human
values/context conferred to the recipe
5. VOYEUR ASPECT – The Tools/theatrical
props of Lord of Evil.
SNAKE, MONKEY,
BULL, DWARF LIGHTNING, MOON, WAVES MUSIC, MAGICAL GIFTS, GIFTS OF MAGICAL
SPELLS, IMMUNITY IN BATTLE, AUGMENTED YOUTH, GIFTS OF ABILITY IN SPORT AND
BATTLE, RISKY MAGICAL ARTEFACTS DIAMONDS GOLD GIFTS OF UNFAIR ADVANTAGE IN
RETURN FOR SOMETHING
So like some bad joke - the
belief systems of humanity for millennia have evolved around some dark stuff
that’s nihilistic and some nice watery nurturing stuff that is reminiscent of
the watery Atlantean princess who first created humanity in Union with one of
the good Elohim.
There are to my mind 5 sets of
ingredients and 5 themes – but my next task was to translate these components
into Human values so that we can more instantaneously relate to the ideas.
I then reduce these behavioural
and aesthetic aspects down to the metaphysical characteristics that can be
attributed to the 5 god themes.
Basically all the Godly nonsense
of the Elder Gods and the way they have interphased with humanity to derail
their evolution can be put into sets of pros and cons. At that point when
simplified down to a few basic ingredients that don't involve references to
skulls and spears and bones but put in more scientific language we have the
beginning of a bit of logic and reason.
This is step
2.
The following are all the things
we have been taught to expect from our Elder Gods and, or, Evil’s illusions. Us
poor humans, us imperfect humans always need a bit of augmentation - and
non-telepathic - we are always at a loss to these cunning and evil ‘telepathic
bastards’.
I have simply distilled the scary
detail of all these belief systems down to the basic human psychological
attributes that they have come to represent for sets A-F of the ‘Gods
programme’.
STEP 2
Here is a list of typical human
ideas we associate with the behaviour of the gods.
set A. PROTECTIVE
mind/intellect, decision, efficient aggression, speed, manoeverability power,
invincibility, stealth, wisdom, environmental knowledge use of powerful
artefact, destructive
set B NURTURING
equilibrium, growth, fruition, future magic, endowed by the land children.
set C DESTRUCTION
greed, jealousy, hate, anger, vanity ingratitude to God loss of human values
set D & F Harbinger/ Messiah
provides solutions to Destruction (restoring equilibrium)
D. Absolutely
true
F. Absolutely false
set E VOYEUR - Temptation
I then prepare the metaphysical
descriptions of the 5 sets so that they can be equated in a logical hypothesis.
[using symbolic logic] i.e. sentential calculus
_______________________________________________________
Can you imagine - a human being
making logic out of 12 millennia of blood and gore - it isn't human –
The next step is to further
distil all the common aspects of the ingredients of each of those sets -
remember step 1 was full of skulls and colours and artefacts, step 2 was
actually what all these things have come to psychologically associate/
represent to the human race, and at this stage, step 3, we further distil these associations
contained in sets A – F into more compact definitions – i.e. we give these sets
of associations in A-F a theme - this is called metaphysics. [step 3]
THE SETS now become lighter and
easier to handle.
A. protective.
some aspect working towards the constant assistance of or decisive intervention
on behalf of, one specified geopolitical unit.
B. nurturing.
some aspect working towards the maintenance of a constant resource base from
which stability may evolve a perpetual harvest.
C. destruction.
any aspects which negate the consistency of A&B
F. harbinger/messiah
absolute solution to the imbalances created by C
or D. subversion and disguise of the true solution to destruction.
E. voyeur.
An inconsistent benefactor or nuisance excelling at all human play or battle activity,
whose various perfections and gifts foster inadequacy and therefore the
temptation into Human excesses
where set F is
the true messianic solution or the false messianic solution
At this point we now have several
useable ingredients.
What the following jargon or
logic really says is that :
1& 2 things are far from
normal - are bad and need a solution F, then for some combination of 'godly'
participants - there is some temptation. temptation leads to destruction and
deceit - 12000 years of evidence says yes to that. But something good can
negate that - the key system being maybe the return of Christ or Beings from
offworld, some intervention or some overwhelming truth that will empower love
and justice.
Sentential and Predicate calculus
are academic programming tools - and ontology means how things relate and
connect up within themselves - the consistency of relationships within a
system. Anima is the academic name given to the animal within us - as in
Animism - the worship of vegetation and the beasts.
THE FOLLOWING SET OF EQUATIONS
DESCRIBE THE LOGICAL OF PARADISE LOST AND SOME PARADISE REGAINED IN SENTENTIAL
AND PREDICATE CALCULUS - BASED ON THE FIVE SETS OF THE ANIMA CYCLE [ABCDE] AND
THE ONE KEY SET [F] (true or false messiah set)
PARADISE
LOST AND SOME PARADISE REGAINED.
1. Q = equilibrium
2. Q < standard empirical norm
[N]
at this moment in time.
i.e. Q < N
3. if (Q<N) --> therefore
F, where F is the key system/ solution
4. if (A+B) --> therefore
X((AE+B) v (A+EB) v (AE+EB))
for all human equilibrium, there
is some temptation X
5. if X --> therefore ((C) v
(C+D))
for some temptation, there is destruction or destruction and deceit.
6. if F= ( ¬ (CvD))
The key system is equal to the
negation of destruction and deceit.
7. ((C+D)v(CvD))+F =S
Destruction and or deceit, plus
the key system F[messiah], is equal to some solution S.
_______________________________________________________
I present this analysis hoping
that Humanity can break free from the old ways of death and destruction. 12000
years of worship, hope and delusion appear to be reduced down to a 7 line equation - which could theoretically
be programmable.
7 lines of logic describe 12,000
years of angst - an unbroken cycle of despair.
There is still time for us to get
our act together - for as the next model will show - there is an opportunity to
break the cycle now.
The Human Race for the past 12
millennia since the fall of Atlantis have been utterly predictable - as the
following model will show.
The idea that
there are peaks and troughs in civilisation, rises and falls of empires, wars,
renaissance, dark ages and space ages we are all familiar with. What might give
us a hard time however is just how predictable we all are.
Ok so I
started the model on a pocket calculator and recently scientists have been more
sophisticated by inventing the same idea as Novelty Theory - but let’s put it
this way - highly advanced evil Aliens would be using something much more sophisticated
than Microsoft Humanity version 1.0a
The idea is
based on a very simple piece of mathematics which produces peaks and troughs
over a period of time.
All the
numbers can be produced on the cheapest 8 digit calculator
When analysed
- those peaks and troughs seem to correspond in time to the ancient
civilisations of the Northern hemisphere starting around 10,000 BC [as
predicted by the new datings of the Sphinx etc], through; Sumeria, Egypt,
Greece, Rome, troughs at the dark Ages and Peaks at a maximum tech for the
first time around 2000 AD - then, as predicted by the latest research into
Mayan calendars and prophesies - a massive trough after the year 2000 AD !!
Although the
peaks and troughs themselves may also be deemed of arbitrary construction, though
some do appear to be roughly in the right place e.g. Greece greater and more
significantly technical than Rome, such that although Rome was a massive
civilised and conquering conglomerate, it never as a civilisation surpassed its
predecessors in invention. Rome surpassed itself on the scale of implementation
of those inventions that it borrowed, conquered or assimilated from its past or
its vassals. [Chant, C, 1999, ‘Pre-Industrial Cities and Technology’,
Routeledge Keegan Paul’ ]
However, the
best test of the model that is necessary and sufficient for it to ‘predict’ as
both Karl Popper and Dulhem would have it even in their diametrically opposed
stances within the Philosophy of Science i.e. Popper’s empirical Conjecture and
Refutation, 1963, that suggested test and falsify and discard, and Dulhem’s
‘Instrumentalism’ of the ilk that if it ain’t broke don’t fix it. Such as;
designs for Bi-planes or Dirigibles are a great working physical and
mathematical construct – so why change a good thing.
Each stance
requires rigid prediction within the terms of its own modelling strategy
however.
The peaks and
Troughs Model however, asserts a start point for the first row of its
computational digits as at the passing of the last Ice Age in Neolithic
Mesopotamia. From the Neolithic c.a. 9000 BCE, the emergence of agriculture and
tools that was eventually brought into perspective by archaeologist V Gordon
Childe (1892-1957) by his modelling of their emergence, enabled the creation of
an agricultural and urban revolution. First presented in ‘Man Makes Himself’ in
1936.
He would
assert that the driving influence of tool making, subsequent specialisation and
trade and infrastructure pushed out the boundaries of resource gathering,
exchange, barter and civilised evolution and organisation for defence or
attack. (discussed later below). This driving engine of civilisation and
artefact production is represented by the X squared constant in the model.
Sufficient for
the ‘Peaks and Troughs Model though, is that it attains in its own right a peak
of tool making sophistication, capable of manipulating the highest energy
investment strategies and products that only a highly technically advanced
electronics industry can produce.
If that can
happen once in the model, then it would mark the 20th Century and if
it happened again – it could be predicted when something better, or worse, may
evolve on the basis that the time scale supplied by Mesopotamian archaeology
for the Neolithic was correct.
It doesn’t
have to mean the end of civilisation though if an absolute disaster were to be
predicted – for if science could achieve some interstellar or even
interplanetary destiny, then the influx of new resources could reshape the
technological profile and success of the planets infrastructure.
Antecedent to
the 20th Century though, a planetary disaster was predicted by this
model !
In line with
Mayan ideologies about 2013 CE being a year of Earthly discord between the
planets surface and the Star such that the plates of rock on which the continents
sit would move about creating disasters, earthquakes, volcanism, tsunami etc
etc
The 2013A CE
disaster calculation for this pocket calculator only represents the current
resource base of our planet bereft of technological achievement - and if other planets
and other resources were added to the equation Now - the destiny of the Model
will Definitely Change.
It goes on
with more peaks and troughs into the future.
if you check
the following model out, and take an 'Instrumentalist cf. Dulhem'
approach -
i.e. it predicts, it is therefore a useful if reductionist model.
1. Intro to
the Doomsday calculator
2. The code in
BASIC
3. The
assumptions
4. The
metaphysics of the numbers
The Doomsday
Calculator.
It is based on
a very simple piece of mathematics which produces peaks and troughs over a
period of time.
All the
numbers can be produced on the cheapest 8 digit calculator
When analysed
- those peaks and troughs seem to correspond in time to the ancient
civilisations of the Northern hemisphere starting around 10,000 BCE [as
predicted by the new datings of the Sphinx etc], through; Mesopotamia, Sumeria,
Egypt, Greece, Rome, troughs at the dark Ages and Peaks at a maximum tech for
the first time around 2000 CE - then, as predicted by the latest research into Mayan
calendars and prophesies - a massive trough after the year 2000 CE !!!!!! ????
It goes on
with more peaks and troughs into the future.
The peaks and
troughs are numbers on a scale of eg. 1-8 produced by the simple maths - and 1
would be a hunter gatherer and 8 would be a high tech society.
[there is a
detailed interpretation of the model which you can see below.]
The
mathematics in the model also have mileage
because it is based upon a very simple law found operating in all of
nature and the cosmos. [power law]
The
Exponential Power Law in nature is based upon observations of cell growth in
e.g. bacteria, or the empirically measured performance of field strength in
gravity between mass, or between particles, or in electricity, the notion of
square roots or exponential relationships. The exponential power law therefore
is a Universal attribute of matter, including cell growth in Human biology, and
as has been recently noted by Kurt Lewin, in the psychological Field Strength
between personalities. (1952) ‘Field theory in psychology’.
Although by
using x-squared as a reductionist linear construct that will tend to iron-out
many local contextual details in the process – the overall goal of the model
was to have a strategy that would illustrate the emergence of a highly
technical civilisation with tools that represent very massive investment in
specialisation and the social infrastructure.
In that
respect, I think that it succeeded.
****************************************************************
In Basic, the
code is;
Line 01. x=1.1111111
Line 02. for n=0 to 300 [or as many other iterations
etc]
Line 03. print n, x
Line 04. x=x^2
Line 05. if x>99999999 then x=x/10000000
Line 06. next n
[thanks to Martin Lowe of Miracle Productions for the 1999
CE Visual basic formulae and code printout of my original 1976 calculations.]
That’s us in 6
lines of code - 12 millennia of nothing very much and a great deal of pain.
The peaks and
troughs are numbers on a scale of e.g. 1-8 produced by the simple maths - and 1
would be a hunter gatherer and 8 would be a high tech society. There is a
detailed interpretation of the model which you can see below.
The
mathematics in the model also have mileage
because it is based upon a very simple law found operating in all of
nature and the cosmos the laws of exponential growth in natural systems.
When it first
gets to the number 99999999 I assumed that that's the 20th Century.
Then I took
the date of Stone Age Civilisation/Ice Age, i.e. Neolithic Mesopotamia and calculated
the intervals in between, and got some results that I could deal with e.g.
Greece 800BCE, Rome etc, and what comes after the 20th century is a big dip.
It appears to
predict that without an input of new 'social fabric' from off planet that there
will be a substantial deterioration in social fabric on this planet in the 21st
century.
Answers to peer reviewed scientific criticism.
1. In no way
does the model depend upon the number of digits in the string being fixed - the
choice could be arbitrary such that there was enough complexity in the
arithmetic to allow for a reasonable amount of detail. The 8 digit pocket
calculator model proved sufficient.
2. The
'doubling effect' chosen to act upon those digits is to a certain extent also
arbitrary - though something akin to 'fibonacci' and the doubling trends seen
in nature and laws of physics and chemistry was preferred. More sophisticated
attentuations that accounted for more sophisticated criteria may introduce
un-necessary errors and ‘a posteriori’
after the fact assumptions. For in dealing with a known natural power law and
constant, the model would tend to produce more ‘physical’ rather than
‘synthetic and contrived’ results and bias.
3. The only
fixed requisite was a mathematical 'overflow' to simulate population extinction
upon exhaustion of resources.
4. - the maximum criteria for this model occurs
in an obvious way.
5. I don't
make claims for a direct 1 to 1 correlation of data.
6. It predicts
according to its own criteria
This model was
invented 22 years ago before all the Millennia and Mayan stuff, in fact when I
was a school boy in 1976, I first sat down with a pocket calculator and did
those x - squared multiplications and cancellations at the overflow and wrote
it all down.
This model co-incides
with the Mayan Prophesies and the idea that some disaster or other may occur
early in the 21st century.
The maths and
model are amazingly simple
The next part of this chapter will
illustrate how a
simple mathematical principle based on a natural power law
exponential and teleologic, can
model the immensely sophisticated technological artistry of Human
Civilisation on something
as small as a
pocket calculator.
A $5 pocket
calculator can achieve the Oracular status of prophesy model because
basically the power law used is an illustration of a natural law. Plant Growth, Animal
Populations, Bacteria etc all double up and grow in this way.
This doubling
causes peaks, then, when the local resources run out, the populations crash
into a trough.
It was true to
say though, that when I presented this model to a Doctor of Human Ecology at
the Department of Human Ecology, Buccleugh Street, Edinburgh University in the
late 1970’s he suggested in dismissal that; ‘we cannot predict all the ills of
the world on a pocket calculator.’
That is of
course true, but then as a young man interested in Human Ecology I had never
heard of the very famous V Gordon Childe and quite obviously, neither had he.
Childe’s ideas totally substantiate the ontology of my Peaks and Troughs Model.
But then you cannot rationally predict that all the PhD's of the world seem to
get PhD’s for 'sounding as-if they are attentive to their studies'.
The model is
made by taking a basic set of numbers
and repeatedly squaring them till
they reach the
limit of the calculator at which time the impetus of
the growth is taken as expended at the
overflow, the overflow status is then
removed, and the process begins again
utilising the overflow
numbers etc.
here’s the
philosophy of the science :
PEAKS
AND TROUGHS IN CIVILISATION.
These are the
philosophical assumptions upon which the Peaks and Troughs Model is founded.
[there are 6]
Lemma 1. Atoms
[numbers] when acted upon by a
unifying and generating principle (natural power law)
combine to form complexes of varying
magnitudes. The natural power law can be attributed to the tool-making
activities of mankind at the most basic and biological level of ergonomic
activity. In terms of social energy
manipulation by power needed to move mass from A to B through a common C the
rhetoric and politic of organisation is sufficient only in a basic biochemical
terms. For this scenario, only an existential state of conscious senses is
needed to identify the need for the acquisition and the retention of energy by
tool-making and construction in any given environment.
Lemma 2. In Analogy, Humanity acts on simple atomic
components to form complexes of great magnitudes - artefacts
capable of eventually evolving
advanced technological society whilst exploiting a continuously accessible and
constantly relevant resource base.
Lemma 3. The Doubling,
exponential power law
most seen in nature from plant cells
to fibonacci exponentials, gravity and particle behaviour,
and also in psychological transference.
In these existential aspects of demography represents, generally,
tendencies in all natural growth and the behaviour of natural systems.
The
simple exponential X2
has been chosen
to model this doubling effect though it
is recognised that
some natural functions that are
exponential in tendency are attenuated
by the intrusion of some other contextual factors. [i.e. The pure maths
of growth and doubling are interfered with by the chaos of the natural world]
Lemma 4. There are various constraints on exponential growth:
i.e. When the resources run out chaos follows.
[lack of resource, raw material, competition, and exceeding the parameters of the umbrella under which
growth occurs, exposes the process of growth i.e. the growing system and structure to direct competition
or entropy/breakdown, but as in the nature of biology, as represented by
Langton C, and Kauffman S, in Levy S, ‘Artificial life, 1993, pub Penguin. ISBN
0-14-023105-6 self regulating systems tend to self regulation and the emergence
of sophisticated states.
e.g. Kauffman
S, ‘Origins of Order: Self-Organization and Selection in Evolution’ Oxford
University Press, 1992 and also; ‘Autocatalyic Sets of Proteins’, Journal of Theoretical Biology, 119 (1986):
1-24.
Lemma 5. The fixed
limits of the model depict the
capacity of different magnitudes
of chaos outside of the civil umbrella to degrade growth.
In reality,
the 'Fixed Limits' of
this simple model
would themselves be variable, as each and every system is a
context and umbrella of some other, and each is in flux to
some extent.
It is the shaping power of restriction which helps to perpetuate the evolution of artefacts with time. [cf. Darwinism 1859 CE].
Lemma 6. An artefact is a tool which enables the
energies of the context to be
competitively accessed. It is a product of an energy transaction between two
systems occurring in such a way as to
facilitate easy energy exchange and
access. Along the lines of
least resistance. It makes it possible to fulfil the most potential with the least energy expenditure.
[most benefit for least cost]
Such an
artefact can be a tool, lever, a
well travelled goat track, or the route of an electrical
discharge as in Ohm’s Law or Fajan’s Rules in Physics and Chemistry, both
exponentially derived relationships between high to low materials through a
common medium.
At a
higher level of material organisation and civilisation, artefacts appear to be more greatly invested
in – in terms of complexity of tool making systems that have predicated greater
and more efficient tools within the constraints imposed by the relative
constancy of industrial supplies of energies and materials and capacity to
compete for them.
______________________________________________________
It depicts the
capacity of the umbrella of resources under
which man operates i.e. the
minerals and resources, soils and
harvest as the capacity of an
eight digit calculator to square a row of numbers.
The powers of the numbers most cheap calculators
can hold as:
10 to the
power of 8.
It depicts the
fabric the stuff we then make throughout history:- the numbers which
represent these resources as
being raised to various powers or
levels of crystallisation (sophistication of artefacts and
their systems).
These powers
of numbers represent the structure and
mechanics of the evolving civilisation - where the quality of the fabric
(high numbers) indicate a
significant degree of refinement, crafting, and the social and
biological necessities of behaviourism in social groups whilst using the available resource base.
For the
purposes of this reductionist model – the aspirations of social Graces within
evolutionary intelligence and spiritual conduct have been reduced to animistic
levels of consciousness called ‘epiphenomenalism’. This doctrine, inherent in
biochemical knowledge and other allegations about the quality of soul suggest
that the masses have selfish responses to pain and pleasure. These ideas were
espoused by e.g. the Platonic and Hedonist Sophist schools in Greece and later
in the 19th Century and 20th century in terms of more
indutrialised societies by Bentham and John Stuart Mill in the Utilitarian
Doctrine. As a judgemental model for quality of personal spirit in a person of
seven score years and ten these ideas can be seen to be shabby and are
elsewhere refuted here. Criticism of the lack of individual spiritual integrity
and capacity for selflessness within the mass of bright individuals that
contribute to making the loaves of bread for such philosophers is unacceptable.
In terms of
overall biological responses over large numbers and large periods of time,
where people agree to come back or be born or even just discover how nice the
mud and wargames are here for the very first time. Here, we even get to
discover how to dodge the pains of the Inquisition or the Gestapo. Thus JS Mill
provides a good social and human interest model to substantiate the pains and pleasures
of driving a very hard bargain all the way from being a Childe in Mesopotamia
in 9000 BCE to the dark satanic Mills and Mills bombs of the 19th
and 20th Century.
It wasn’t
really all that much fun, but we got here anyway .. !
Which is
pretty neat for a cheap plastic calculator but that is called metaphysics and
we are producing a simple model. If it weren’t for the fact that I got a fright
when I saw exactly where the high tek stuff happens, and calibrated it from the
rough date of the Atlantean deluge - and got another fright - I would have
dismissed this stuff completely by now - for after all it was only the idle
speculation of an eighteen year old school boy in the mid 1970’s.
The thing that
keeps it all going is the x-squared – that’s us breeding and building and
consuming and expanding - just as cells do mathematically in plant stems and
bodies.
The
exponential power law,
which represents the
constant application which provides the cohesion necessary
for social expansion.
The overall
picture is one
of structure building
up, overstepping its limitations and deteriorating or degrading to more chaotic states, and the complete
picture is not unlike the growth
format 'real' History was alleged to have taken from the fall of
Eden/Atlantis/Thule/Hesperides/Olympus etc
In order to
calibrate the results to determine
any meaningful correspondence with real archaeological data it is
assumed that the 20th Century was the first period in time to significantly fulfil the maximum criterion
for the model.
We invented PC
computers and jets in the 20th century.
This makes the
start date somewhere in the region of 12000BC.
The 'Peaks and
Troughs' model demonstrates the way that
social fabric
is built and invested in by using as its
basic bricks - powers of numbers - where 10 to the power
1 is the most basic, and 10 to the power 7 is the most invested.
Let the
capacity of the umbrella or
environment/resource base under which we grow be represented by
the capacity of an
eight digit calculator
to cope with
the exponential function x2 acting upon an eight digit number.
For the
purposes of the model, Man will operate upon/start with the most basic and low
powered significant number
that is representative of an
eight digit system i.e. 1.1111111 - well we’ve just been created and just been
flooded out.
This
represents the primal unit of
useful environmental possibilities open to early Man. E.g. Fire, flint
and stone and the odd buffalo and cave.
Optimal use of
the environment/resource base will
be realised in the context of
the model when a number less than or equal to but not exceeding the capacity of
the eight digit display
is attained.
I.e. Double up
as much as possible without triggering the overflow.
As the numbers
build up as we work away - we must make sure that we don’t hit the overflow -
overstretch our resources or our little society will crash as quickly as a
windows 95 operating system.
The number of
digits (8), is deemed sufficient to illustrate
the fluctuations of diverse factors,
but is up to a
point arbitrary i.e. the same model could employ 9 or 10
digits but not much fewer than
eight in order to
retain an aspect
of diversity.
Basically a
6-10 or plus any number of digits calculator can do this - it doesn’t have to
be eight - the number is arbitrary.
As Man's
constant growth and drive maximises
etc. applies itself to the
digits of the
resources, a successfully
used resource base is represented
by a high numerical power. The assumption is that for social,
population and technical growth, Man tends to act with or upon
smaller units to construct and invest time in larger units, converting resource base into socio-economic
fabric and artefacts.
In this
respect, Man's use
of power law
logistics is as mechanistic as any unintelligent system
in the Cosmos. I.e. Our growth is mathematically similar to any beast or plant.
The eight
digit ceiling that the operation
of the function takes us to (i.e. all the possibilities of growth that
can occur under the umbrella of the resources) is the point where the demand for resources to invest in the
socio-economic fabric overrides the capacity of the environment to
provide, and development is halted by
the limitations of the resource base. I.e. We use it all up and crash.
The ceiling
could be defined as the most socio-economic
fabric attained, produced and manufactured as a result of competitive investment - where demand for
growth does not outstrip the capacity to supply.
The higher the
powers benchmark left at the overflow, the
more
successful and
technological the society as it Fell. -
where the most successful result at calculator
overflow is 9.9999999
At this stage,
the overflow has been reached and the growth
of numbers on the display has been systematically deteriorated or knocked-back by a constant
in the calculator which is representative of the disintegrative properties of an overloaded system, the entropy of
which tends to disintegrate the
larger system down
to more basic
but logistically sound smaller systems and levels of organisation.
Demand outstrips supply.
e.g. a Rural
agronomy can return to Barbarism.
The anarchy
that follows overpopulation and collapse of
supply in terms of this Mechanistic model, can be defined as 'units of
production with no capacity to sustain the evolution of socio-economic fabric'
At this stage,
the re-application of Mans' driving
power law constant either maintains
or betters levels of the past, or the fabric of civilisation deteriorates
further, taking the level of numerical growth or 'socio-economic
integrity' with it.
The remnants
or 'husk' of accrued evolution - the
failed society, remains as a
number related to that which it once was
- and is then redeveloped.
At intervals
determined by environment and resource there
will be periods of optimal numbers or fabric - these are
peaks in Civilisation.
The following
narrative is a rough
guide to the
semantics/reasoning behind the interpretation of the power levels of the
numbers -generally speaking, each power
level represents an increasing level of sophistication of artefact,
information, technology and
social fabric.
1.0000000 ...
The population groups into a society. e.g. Nomadic
10.000000 ...
The Society is coherent e.g. Barbarism.
100.00000 ... A
Coherent society may organise to develop the
use of resources e.g. Agronomy/trade
1000.0000 ...
An efficient use of resource base provides
security for the organised society e.g. technical
specialisation – mining
10000.000 ... A
materially secure civilisation attempts to
expand by developing its
understanding of science
and natural resource.
100000.00 ...
From a materially secure base, the expanding
civilisation with an understanding of some science
and technology attempts to negotiate the pitfalls
of supply and demand as it attempts to exploit its
environment -
1000000.0 ... A
civilisation attempts to compensate for
economic variation from an unpredictable
environment, and will with proper co-ordination
of its massive energy demands, develop
competitively.
100000000 ...
With evolved understanding of economic and
natural laws, the civilisation manipulates the
capacity of the environment, physics, cosmology and
metaphysics/abstraction to produce secure
excesses to fuel huge areas/avenues of expansion
(needed to maintain fabric, investment and
supply) electricity etc
The latter category - 10 to the power of 7 (10000000)
has as
its definition 'an evolved civilisation with secure excesses
to fuel avenues of expansion'. There are, ten possible values
of 10 to the 7 - these are defined
below as general
tendencies towards prowess of information systems, capital and
technical achievement. These are very rough semantic guidelines.
1-30000000 ... Profit tends to
be inactive in the exploration of
natural
laws to any extent.
... The
cost and benefit of developing the tools
of
expansion
are considered in civilisations political interest.
... Profit
is invested in research and
actions which
maintain
civilisations expansion using natural laws and
systems
uncovered. E.g. Paleolithic, Neolithic, Bronze, Iron Age levels
of tool development and utilisation.
4-60000000
... The agencies of research are providing
insights
into
improvements in the use of excesses.
... The
manipulation of natural laws
and efficient
information
systems which maintain and preserve the
excesses of
expansion is politically
desirable in the
interests of civilisation. E.g.
Iron Age, Middle Ages, Early Modern
levels of
tool development and utilisation.
...
The profitable political
and economic use
of
natural
laws and of effective administration is uncovered.
7-99999999...
The control of natural laws and
information is
institutionalised in the interests of expansionist policies.
Profit from
excesses is channelled into agencies
which are
developing control of
natural systems which are
providing a technological and economic coherence
to the
evolution
and expansion of the civilisation.
.. The
laws of nature, science and information
are on tap for
politically desired directions
in civilisations evolution
e.g.
Renaissance – Industrial and Information Revolution levels
of tool development and utilisation.
THE RESULTS:
The results show the peaks and troughs of Egypt, Greece
& Rome, the Dark Ages, the climb of the Renaissance and the Hitek of the 20th
Century and shortly thereafter a calamitous plunge from the heights of high tek
literally back to the stone age.
This 2013AD plunge was predicted by the Mayans.
If, however, resources are introduced from other planets -
the picture can be made to change.
In this work, I have managed to reduce 12 millennia of human
existence down to a few lines of code. We have been toiling against all the
odds to assemble a civilisation that will reach for the stars.
It has taken War and Evil, subterfuge and sabotage,
temptation, betrayal, evil telepathy, disinformation and contempt, poison and
death to keep us down.
The Aliens that do so - realised a long time ago that the
Human Race would eventually come to fruition.
Our entire belief system can be presented in seven lines of
logic and our entire history can be presented in 6 lines of code in basic -
isn’t it scary how simple life really is ?
Know one thing - that 12,000 years ago the Aliens may have
started out with Macrohard Human version1.0a, but even they must have managed a
couple of upgrades since ??
Childe’s concept of an ‘Urban
Revolution’ in elucidating the relationship between technological innovations
and the emergence of cities in the ancient Near East is very useful and still
stands out today as an enduring set of constructs. The basic aspects of the pains and pleasures of biochemical
social philosophy that aid the conceptualisations of aversions and rewards propounded
by the Utilitarian school of John Stuart Mills remains to me as basic a
metaphysical statement about the character of society as fire is warm or it is
too dark to read.
At a more epic and more
socially detached and disassociated level of social commitment though, and with
the broad and perhaps even eventual use of set theory and great study may
eventually prove useful as an insight into individual social contribution and
depth of spirit.
There follows a proposed set
of better civilised ethics that should address the stark realities on offer by
Mills and other Existentialist educations.
THE GRACES OF EVOLUTION,
represent a core of ethical belief which is thought by the author to be central
to the founding of a Civilisation from fragmented factions, the undernourished,
underloved and undereducated. It ends with a few general rules for the
interaction of the Scottish Race and Scottish Civilisation with Extra
Terrestrial or, Ultra Terrestrial Lifeforms, and seeks to give guidelines on
the dangers of ignorance and lack of recognition.
THE GRACES OF EVOLUTION . 1. The
Soul and its Light is the highest gift of God's Creation. 2. Love, Dignity,
Honour and Creation are its fruits. 3. No Tradition is greater than the
Tradition of Love and Brotherhood inherited from God's Grace. 4. Variation is
created by the gift of Life and the enactment of Love and Brotherhood amidst
its suffrage, and is the Cornerstone both of Civilisation and of personal
evolution. 5. The evolution of Civilisation creates Traditions and Cultures,
but no fragment of Scots can claim ascendance on the basis of manufactured
rights alone. 6. Ascendant Humanity has the highest state of Grace, and all
Tradition that does not reflect the above-mentioned highest Human ideals,
should not be carried forward into the future. 7. The Cultures and Traditions
of Humanity are not all good. 9. The Tradition of Culture can be a celebration
of Human creation and variation that is not made base by the presence of soul
Failings. 10. All Humanity can benefit
from the varieties of established Culture, but not from all the psychological associations imposed upon Culture. 11.
Traditions have Geopolitical and resource-orientated decisions incorporated
into their motivations, and often incorporate displays of territoriality and
insult.
12. , however, it can embody and
celebrate the unique Geographical variation
and education derived from local environmental artefacts and conditions,
and the dignity and suffrage and love which binds fraternity under these
conditions. 13. The structural endowment of Tradition, its continuity, form,
and stability are a parallel and necessary umbrella for growth and evolution,
whilst, 14. A New Temple of
Tradition should be built from the Old: a vehicle for future Human Evolution,
untouched by the bias of History or Elitism, built upon the Cornerstone of
Fraternity - 15. It is the Temple of the Soul built upon the Tradition of Love.
THE TRADITION OF ELITISM . 16.
The endowment of limitless variation on a theme, and the capacity for creative
synthesis with it is God's gift to individuals. 17. The synthesis of Society is
both a logical and spiritual priority. 18. Society provides a secure umbrella
for creativity and consciousness. 19. The exclusion of variation and creative
synthesis from society is Elitism. 20. Elitism is usually justified in terms of
17. I.e. being a stronger aid to social synthesis and evolution, and, a social
necessity.
21. It disagreeably follows in
terms of Elitism that; Society must not be permitted to provide a secure
umbrella for all forms of creativity, and from
16; - AND also in Elitism 22. All
individuals are not endowed with discernible gifts from any Good God. 23. All
souls honouring; love, dignity, honour and
creation are not included in any or every elite. 24. The creative
synthesis of both honourable and
dishonourable souls are excluded from an Elite - 25. Some creative synthesis is
more valuable than other creative synthesis. 26. All valuable creative
synthesis takes place within an Elite. 27. All creative synthesis that has
substandard values together with all dishonourable creative synthesis is
allocated an undesirable status.
28. Contrary to elitism, however,
The evolution, expansion and adaptation of society to the limitless variation
of planetary and dimensional lifeform themes requires honourable and adaptable
values. 29. No one Elite recipe for the values of consciousness is infinitely
applicable to all Planetary and sub-atomic states. 30. Some non-elite values
are substandard to Earth's emergent, material time-space locality may elsewhere
predominate with
excellence over a preconceived
Elite Recipe. 31. The needs of the Race are best served by not restricting
honourable creativity to the confines of an elite. 32. Elites are an
undesirable Human Tradition that discriminate between Cultural attributes - and
cause conflict: 3. No Tradition is greater than the Tradition of Brotherhood
inherited from God's Grace.
THE TRADITION OF CONFLICT 33. Conflict
is a Traditional property of Matter and organised systems, inherited by the
Race. 34. The success of any organised system, its coherence, stability,
longevity, is based upon its competitive properties. 35. All conflict is over
direct acquisition of energy rights, or indirectly, over 'meta' - energy tools
(ideologies). 36. The evolution of energy metatheory (socio-economic
information) has or will remove direct human conflict from the arena of
biological stress and competition into software and vehicles of mechanisation.
37. Metatheories are the ultimate vehicles of Conflict 38. The better the
metatheory – the greater the accessibility of Stellar and Cosmic resource to
the proprietor Race. 39. The better the resource acquisition - the more
sophisticated an umbrella for Racial creativity and synthesis. 17. The
synthesis of society is both a logical and spiritual priority for those who
agree to do so.
40. With the aid of good
metatheory, Biological conflict can be raised to the level of Philosophical
debate, where the Tradition of Conflict is transcended by the Tradition of
Love, and the Tradition of Elitism is refuted.
THE TRADITION OF HONOUR . 41. The
purpose of personal life is to honour and acknowledge the potential of the body
we inhabit. 42. The potential for inner growth and balance and the outer
reflections of our efforts to find equilibrium, form the basis of our personal
life and behaviour. 43. Bringing our potential to the fore is to acknowledge
our Spiritual, intellectual and Social needs. 44. The purpose of Society is to
honour and acknowledge the potential of the Bodies and Spirits of the people we
interact with in our agreed Society. 45. The form of communication such
acknowledgement should take, should not compromise the vulnerability of others
in their efforts to grow.
46. This is honourable behaviour,
part of the Tradition of Love.
THE TRADITION OF EMERGENT
CONSTRUCTS . [EC]
47. Each emergent construct [EC]
has the right to;
food, shelter, medicine,
education and social commune at all scales of physical, biological or social
information, or energy 48. Each [EC] has a right to be honoured and loved. 49.
Each [EC] has a right to participate in the Traditions of Culture, Honour and
Love at all scales of Being 50. Each [EC] has the right, through education and
love, to recognise and reject dishonourable Traditions (c.f. Elitism) 51. Each
[EC] has a right to learn its special place in the Cosmos and to have their
Spiritual Destiny identified should they agree to be interested in our society.
52. Each [EC] has the right to be given the understanding of Physical and
Spiritual Relativity, in terms of our personal Covenant with God and with
Society should they agree to be interested.
For these are the heirlooms of
Evolution in our agreed social constructs.
THE TRADITION OF TRUST . 53. The
fruits of love are; the Tradition of Birthing Constructs, the growth of Culture
and Fraternity, and, both personal and social
evolution. 54. The evolution and continuity of social structure
encourages trust to appear. 55. To trust is to place one's vulnerability in the
hands of others. 56. To love is to nurture trust by; sacrifice, example, honour
and courage. 57. The synthesis of such bonds and, 17. The synthesis of society,
are both a logical and spiritual priority, for in this way - 18. Society
provides a secure umbrella for creativity and consciousness; an environment in
which - 58. The Tradition of Trust will flourish because the Graces of Evolution are attainable within such social
structure.
THE TRADITION OF JUSTICE . 59.
Justice illuminates both personal and social responsibility. 60. To be Just, or
to pass judgement on an offence against the Social Trust is to assess the
dishonour of such an offence and determine the degree to which the Social Trust
has been compromised. 61. The Social Trust is dependent on and nurtured by the
behaviour of Physical Laws and material and social integrity and our state of
social commune and covenant. Such that the maintenance Of life, and society and
the consequent appearance of equilibrium, cohesion and nurture would Enhance
our personal and social Covenant with Society and God.
62. To withhold from an
individual the rights to universal nurture provided by the Fraternal Offices of
Society by singular or co-operative actions is an offence against the Tradition
of Birth, Honour and the Social Trust. 63. The repair and shifting of
equilibria in any elite or non-elite system must be legitimate. 64. Justice is
the instigation of the most evolved form of good for the greatest period of
time. 44. The purpose of society is to honour and acknowledge the potential of
the bodies and spirit of the people with whom we interact. 65. Justice serves
the Tradition of Love and Brotherhood. 66. Justice maintains the evolution of
the Social Graces through the maintenance of universal social structures.
THE TRADITION OF COSMIC LOVE .
67. All energy is the Gift of God. 68. Some energy is unavailable for use. 69.
All energy has no beneficial property (time [n]) 70. Some properties of energy
are beneficial 71. Some beneficial properties of energy are exclusive. 72. No
beneficial properties of energy are universally beneficial. 73. There are some
attractive properties worth seeking. 74. As these allegedly beneficial energies
or beings are in unfamiliar/alien or unrecognisable formats - there are some
stresses to extant human identity. 75. No format is universal, but some formats
(Lifeforms) are Traditional to some formally constituted media (atomic
chemistry, material organisation/energy shells and processes) 76. All formats
are the Gift of God. 77. All souls are the Children of God. 78. Recognition is
an honourable quest. 79. Some recognition is temporarily disabled (sensory
debility/biologically) 80. No universal recognition process is ever fully functional.
81. All variety is unrecognisable. 82. All souls are unrecognisable. 83. All
Love is postulated (Assumed) 84. Lack of recognition
is ignorance. 85. Indulgence,
premeditated engagement with nihilistic interactions and ignorance is Evil. 86.
Evil is an offence against all dignity for it postpones creation, nurture and
evolution. 87. No Evil is beneficial.
[to civilisation] 88. Ignorance has no total control over a chaotic system/
Lifeform/Format. 89. Uncontrollable energy formats/beings are problematic.
90. All problematic
formats/beings have a useful context (elsewhere) 91. Some recognisable
formats/beings have no Scottish honour per given constitution of Format - their
being out of context to the situation they currently inhabit. 92. Energy
Constitution and physical presentation of beings is an
Ethical problem, centred within
the chosen media of the representation. We may not recognise or understand who
or what we see, but we Must be relating to the event in some way for it to be
seen at all. It is for us and or society to discern
the context of the contact 93.
The Utility and ability to Love of a
decontextualised lifeform can
only be alleged and never fully understood - thus is a greater risk to the
Human Graces of Evolution - if not this Beings’ own evolutionary prospects. 94.
Unrecognisable constitution of beings and their
representation requires a format
and media with which to communicate, although such may be dangerous to Human
Society if illegitimate. 95. Some problematic Lifeformats are sent elsewhere by
the energy constraints/cosmic impossibility of constituting a Format in the
physics of this time/space 96. Such Formats are not necessarily
ethically/morally viable in a human context. 97. Lack of human social
responsibility for the values and behavioural impact of such decontextualised
LifeFormats is attributable to senescence and social flaw. 98. The acquisition
of flaws is problematic. 99. The loss of ability and variation comes with the
acquisition of flaws. 100. A Plurality of flaws is an imposed Hell. 101. The
imposition of flaws on a sensitive e.g. Scottish condition can itself become a
calloused and restrictive casing of turbulent probabilities and dissipated
lifeforce/creativity - which could detain human evolutionary progress [cf.
'Karma'] as the soul moves between and operates each shell/incarnation it e.g.
A ‘Birth’ inside an insensitive 'mechanism'./'a low tech' Cyborg or Clone 102.
Some mechanisms are irrelevant to soul evolution 103. All mechanism has
contextual or re-contextualised use within society. 104. Ethics, Law and Love
should decide if a mechanism can Nurture in a Scottish context 105. Some
mechanisms have restricted use. 106. All energy has mechanical properties. 107.
The Nurturing Energies of the Cosmos is God's Gift. 108. The Tradition of Love,
Law, Justice, Honour, Birth etc are the recognisable ethics of the physical and
social format agreed of choice by Society.
The driving engine of urban
revolution modelled by V G Childe, remains today one of the best explanations
for the western spread of toolmaking social organisations and civilisations
from Mesopotomia. It tends to substantiate a constant driving ergonomic and
painful application of bone and sinew against heavy rocks, usually not always
an option that one could avoid in between tea breaks at the temple Quarry.
Childe’s
‘urban revolution’ is a monocausal theory of city emergence.[1] This theory places the onus on technology,
described as the “engine of historical change,” as the only significant factor in the
emergence of cities.[2] Childe understood the establishment of cities during an urban
revolution to be driven by the momentum of technological innovations (e.g. in
particular metallurgy) dating from the Neolithic Age (ca. 9000 B.C.E.) onwards. It can be argued, however, that neither the
Neolithic, the Urban, nor indeed, the Industrial Revolution was a sudden
event. Accordingly, the period of urban
‘revolution’ from the Neolithic age can be said to have taken place over several
thousand years (i.e. 9000 B.C.E. to approximately 3500 B.C.E.). Thus, although this can be called a
‘revolution’ in a broader sense, in that technology changed the face of
society, it was through the intelligent adaptation by human society over time,
to its emergent needs within variable environments, that these technologies
arose. It is with this secondary,
social aspect, at best hidden in Childe’s theory, which the social
constructionists took issue and attempted to develop.
Childe’s
theory is deemed relatively simplistic by this social constructionist school,
whose adherents adopt a theory of more complex interaction between
technological development, the environment, interest groups, and the evolution
of society. For example, the social
constructionism of Adams and Flannery are theories in which there are
attenuating influences on technological and urban growth.[3] Further, another adherent, Butzer, has
suggested that technological adaptation to factors within the environment, e.g.
climate, soil fertility, topography, etc., in other words, the overall ecology,
presents unique context-driven solutions to problems.[4]
Childe’s
‘technological determinism’ appears simple because it suggests that once
scientific and technological ideas and processes are identified as good ideas,
then they would automatically be adopted by a society quite independent of any
social, political or religious interests, in other words, that these ideas are
‘autonomous’.[5] The social constructionists, on the other
hand, would say that while the scientific and technological innovations, and
processes that follow from such ideas, are necessary for urban evolution, they
are not sufficient for its development.
Childe
suggests that the division of the prehistoric period into the Stone, Bronze and
Iron Ages is not altogether arbitrary. These classifications are based upon the
materials used to make the fundamental cutting implements and other tools of
production upon which social and economic organisation are based. For example, the efficiency and durability
of the tools used for the agricultural surplus would increase over time, making
it possible to create and sustain the specialisation of the occupations (e.g.
metallurgy, pottery, defence, construction, agricultural technology) necessary
for urban trade and city growth within a particular period.
Childe’s
central idea that technology is the determining factor of social change is
correct in as much as tools are central to the emergence of a civilisation,
such as the Neolithic, whether or not socially shaped. Technology, per se, is itself a tool. Thus, although the various technologies can
be shown to be environmentally, socially and religiously shaped, with or
without the shaping process, these technologies remain by default the tools of change.
Where Childe’s
theory of ‘urban revolution’ appears to be weak is in his idea that urban
revolution inevitably leads to city formation. For example, Catal Huyuk in Anatolia and Jericho in the Levant
are two examples of very large agricultural settlements that never made quick
or sustained progression into urban specialisation. Moreover, Carter (a
moderate social constructionist) argues that some urban developments were
restricted in their growth by impoverished soils, requiring transient
cultivation methods.[6]
The more
fertile soils of Mesopotamia, however, once again give credence to the broader
tenets of Childe’s ‘technological determinism’. This fertile crescent facilitated more permanent settlements and
consequent urban specialisation, due to the ability of its inhabitants to solve
a major problem, namely, irrigation. It
has been argued by Wittfögel that Mesopotamian cities arose specifically out of
the need to manage and guarantee the water supply.[7] Emergencies arising from unpredictable
spring floods necessitated great organisation of the water supply. Wittfögel suggests that this organisation
(‘hydraulic determinism’[8])
is the sole reason for the existence of Mesopotamian society. By effectively
managing the unpredictable water supply the agricultural surplus amongst the
fertile soils was thereby made available to the religious hierarchy. Thus, with the availability of mud bricks,
its desire for empire and its vision of a heaven on earth were, at least
theoretically, now possible.
Oates, in
opposition to Wittfögel and Childe, states that “large scale integrated
irrigation schemes did not appear in Babylonia until after the political
phenomenon known as the ‘city state’ was well advanced.”[9] She does not deny, however, that the
organisation of the water supply at any social level would be a strong cohesive
force.
In the case of
Egypt, monocausal (e.g. hydraulic) theories of city emergence seem less likely,
however, supporting better a social constructionist theory.
Social
constructionism, however, is too loosely defined as an agreement that if
something works and is agreed to work, then it is a useful tool. I do not
intend to use ideas of social agreements in this context, though I do advocate
that all tools should be socially constructed and agreed on, on the basis of
perceived and empirically tested efficiency, and if necessary, in due process,
falsified by the methods of empirical scientific method as outlined by Karl
Popper, in ‘Conjectures and Refutations’, (1963). Unfortunately in the 20th
Century, New Age pseudo-scientists, socially constructed the belief that a well
packaged and advertised plastic strip-light starter motor on a pendant chain
worked to scare away the television station called BBC or NBC thought that by
paying large amounts of money for such items that they did in fact contain the
extra terrestrial technology that they were alleged to possess. They also
partly worked, as any psychological placebo would, but nevertheless under those
circumstances of ‘social constructionism’ they should have kept paying their TV
license as they were ultimately totally bereft of any technology that did
provided a brain shield whatsoever.
In that
respect then, ‘social constructionism’ is here deemed unusable as a definition,
although it does pertain to the labelling and progress of a co-operative and
constructive process that does not break the light barrier into the age of
nuclear reactors, and safe empirical procedures and measurements, and high
degrees of social investment in highly technical infrastructure dependent on
narrow margins of tolerance within the turnover of sophisticated components.
Records
recently excavated in Egypt suggest that water rights and issues (e.g.
disputes, surveys, regulations) were managed by local interests, classes and
social groups, rather than by the state hierarchy.[10] Moreover, the social, environmental and
religious shaping of its society and technologies in ancient Egypt generated a
very different form of urban specialisation and hierarchy from that of, say,
Sumeria, due to Egypt’s relatively secure geographical isolation. Regular, predictable floods enabled a
religious caste to form, who in turn acted as guarantors of the continuity of
the flood cycle, an example of Childe’s monarchical regime claiming “magical
powers to influence the natural order” of the life-giving flood cycle.[11] Subsequent evolution of surveying and
information technology enabled a large workforce and agricultural surplus to be
monopolised by the religious hierarchy, who were then able to build in stone on
a huge scale. Thus, in the building of
pyramids, palaces and religious monuments, the religious beliefs of the
‘divine’ monarch and priestly caste shaped Egyptian society along the lines of
the ‘Rank-based’ society suggested by Flannery.[12]
In Egypt the
agricultural surplus and urban technologies, unlike Childe’s technologically
driven ‘Urban Revolution’, were well under social control. However, the acquisition of technologies in
Egypt by diffusion from Mesopotamia (e.g. irrigation, building, metallurgy,
etc.) does lend itself to the assumption in Childe’s thesis of the obvious
advantage of the new techniques, processes and solutions, which ripple outwards
from centres of high achievement, notably from Mesopotamia. On the other hand, the idea of diffusion
does not work well with regard to Egypt’s boat-building trade. This Egyptian technology, rather, lends
itself to the idea that unique technologies emerge as adaptations to unique
environments, in that Egypt was later at the forefront of shipping and sail
technology, finding the Nile a useful two-way transport route.[13]
Carter
suggests another view, which again moves away from Childe’s understanding of
urban revolution. Carter argues that a catalyst was involved in aggregating
tribal societies into a class-based territorial state, namely, authority and
not technology. Thus, it was the
intricately related role of temple, fortress and market place and not, for
example, agricultural technology which was the cohesive force. His view is that a revolution caused by
technological change has “long been abandoned”[14]
and that cities emerged over a long period of time due to social and economic
changes (e.g. political upheaval and famine) and to cultural adaptation to such
changes. In further acknowledging the
social shaping of cities, Carter, quoting Wheatley, states that the permanence
of any social institution is achieved by the process of validation by “some
instrument of authority.”[15] He suggests, therefore, that it was the
hierarchical leadership of kings, priests and military leaders, which formed
the catalyst that transformed a tribal society into an effective agglomerate of
interests, as would Adams.[16]
Childe,
however, did not disagree with the idea that both social and technological
changes had to be taken into account in any explanation of the origins of
cities.[17] Rather, the central issue between Childe and
his detractors was where the main emphasis of change lay, of whether it was
technology autonomously developed which instigated the formation of cities
(Childe, Wittfögel) or whether this was due to social factors (i.e. Adams,
Flannery, Hodges, Wheatley) or alternatively, of whether it lay in some middle
territory (Carter, Oates) with the emphasis on technological innovations
dependent upon social or environmental factors.
How useful is
Childe’s concept of ‘Urban Revolution’?
In the cities of Mohenjo-daro and Harappa in the Indus valley, Childe’s
end-based drive toward technological evolution appears to have hit a
cul-de-sac, as neither of these cities progressed beyond their “technologically
introspective” comfort zone.[18] Does Childe’s view therefore fail? I would say no. His idea of an urban revolution in which the emergence of a city
is driven by technology remains true to the extent that various tools were used
to reach whatever level of specialisation was needed for a particular city to
develop at all. However, the extent to
which social factors[19]
influenced and shaped this technology, as suggested by the social
constructionists, cannot be denied. That theory, I suggest, lends further
elucidation to Childe’s, whose theory fails to account for the non-development
of a city after it has arisen, e.g. those of the Indus Valley. Thus, the social constructionists better
explain the extent and breadth to which cities developed in the ancient Near
East once the diffusion of Mesopotamia’s technologies were in place.[20] Childe’s theory, on the other hand, explains
how these disseminating influences arose in the first place in the primarily
hydraulic society of Mesopotamia.
Endnotes:
[1] Pre-industrial Cities & Technology CHANT C & GOODMAN 1999, pub. Routledge ISBN 0-415-20076-8 (hereafter abbreviated PCT-text), pp.18-19.
2 PCT-text, p.15.
3 Ibid. pp. 15 and 44.
4 Ibid., p 45.
5 Hodges suggests that in some ancient Oligarchies technological growth was suppressed in the interests of social stability. This counters Childe’s belief that if technologies were obviously beneficial then they would automatically be used. See PCT-text, p. 17.
6 PCT-text, p. 7.
7 Ibid., p 18. Irregular floods and relative ease of incursion by invaders generated the need for static defensive works and a hierarchy to organise and utilise the water supply and agricultural surplus.
8 Ibid., p. 17.
9 Ibid., p. 43.
10 Ibid., p. 45.
11 PCT-text, p. 33.
12 Ibid., p. 44.
13 The emergence of water transport technologies in Mesopotamia may have been hampered by the inability to use either the Tigris or Euphrates for trade, since, as fast flowing rivers, they did not facilitate return boat journeys upstream. Thus, like Egypt, its unique environment and not social factors or diffusion, influenced, in this case hampered, its boat-building technology.
14 PCT-reader, ‘Pre-Industrial Cities & Technology Reader’ Chant, C ed. Pub. 1999, Routeledge, ISBN 0-415-20078-4 p. 13. Hereafter designated PCT-reader.
15 Ibid.
16 PCT-text, p. 15.
17 Ibid.
Additional bibliography.
POPPER K,
‘Conjectures and Refutations’ (1963) pub. Routeledge and Kegan Paul rev.4. 1972
The activities of a ‘Hidden Hand’
that intervenes and steers human history is a recurring complaint amongst hard
done by humans.
One may find reference to it in
modern conspiracy legends and myths penned by e.g. Trevor Ravenscroft in his ‘Spear
of Destiny’, or Roberts and Gilbertson’s ‘The Dark Gods’, however, merely
recycling historical rumour – often within the context of self-referential
non-academic bibliographies is ultimately fruitless.
Having operated as an Ethnologist
within the conspiracy community and having studied numerous amazing and
difficult to substantiate events, it is refreshing to find that had I merely
continued with a standard academic education at the UK’s OPEN UNIVERSITY, I
would have discovered what the academics already knew – there’s nothing as
strange as History.
OU COURSE AT308 provided two textbooks on ‘Pre-industrial
Cities and Technologies’ edited by Chant and Goodman, 1999 CE.
From these various academic
works, the editors drew upon the efforts of Social historians, Technologists,
Archaeologists and other Scientists to assemble a History of Technology.
The three examples cited here in
this paper however, disown the other academic comment and course material
supplied and deployed around these textbooks in other pamphlets etc as content
intended to emphasise the Open Universities’ own distinctive agenda in the
social sciences as opposed to some other UK Universities specialist leanings in
e.g. Philosophy, which can compete in the same scientific publications market
for shelf-room in bookshops.
The two course textbooks on
‘Pre-industrial Cities and Technology’ are definitive and sufficient enough to
supply all the material that I needed to write very good course essays with.
Any material quoted is
representative of the ideologies that are said therein by this teaching
University to give shape and form to the dilemmas of history that retarded the
evolution of science and technology on this planet.
This very popular Open University
Course AT308 has been very thoroughly
researched and discussed and has retained its rigorous framework for
technological evolution on this planet throughout the 2001 CE deployment of the
contradictory and refutational archaeological data of Michael Cremo, in his
startling publication ‘The hidden history of the Human Race.’
This amazing compilation of
archaeological finds presented without spin and with recourse to professional
scientific method could not have left even the subscribers to Charles Fort with
a sceptical overview of history. Although Charles Fort’s collection of strange
paranormal absurdities as witnessed can be dismissed as relative hear-say, the
archaeological finds as presented by Cremo were thoroughly researched by the
professional scientists who found them and carry the weight of scientific
legitimacy and falsifiability.
The Open University does pay
attention to such developments.
Recent AT308 Course updates in
2003 CE included the finding of a very large submersed agricultural settlement
in the Indian Ocean. The alleged contradiction it provided to the paradigm
supplied by V G Childe’s theory of ‘urban revolution’ – an expansion driven
along a militaristic infrastructure from the Tigris and Euphrates basin,
propagated by the continuity of trade and ideologies was dismissed.
Although the submerged buildings
in the Indian Ocean were numerous and ordered, seasonal cultivation and
pastoral needs did not particularly endear a fixed locality to inhabitants in
need of food and water throughout the entire year in ancient times. This could
also be deduced from the presence of tartan amongst red-haired mummies in
Dolmens in northern China. People were prepared to ‘shop around’ for a good
meal and beverage and place to chill in those days.
The alleged city in the Indian
ocean was downgraded by the OU to a mere agricultural settlement as the
morphology of the settlement and therefore its implied functions, as deduced from the oceanographic
scans did not immediately confer upon it the status of a specialised and
diverse place of; trade, skills, manufacture and habitation. Presumably the
restaurant and shipwright signage was a bit barnacled.
Open University Course AT308,
therefore, is a source of technological history that can be defined as a tool
for upwardly mobile education that is both stable, and able – a definition in
common with the cruise-liner ‘Titanic’.
The three examples of academic
breakage that illustrate an insufficiency in scientific reason to account for
the total failure of reality come from 3 continents and civilised epochs.
1. CHINA
2. EUROPE
3. SOUTH AMERICA
1. The slow boat from China.
China, from around the time that
the Huns, Goths etc were finishing off Rome circa 500 CE although also
experiencing the wrath of Kublai Khan in the north of China – began a tangential
approach to Civilisation that incorporated a more spiritual cosmology within
the approach of civilised values to community and society.
Drawing also on Indian
mathematics and astrological expertise, many important cultural exchanges took
place between India and China that included the import of; architectural idiom,
gunpowder components such as saltpetre, decimalisation and absolute zero.
[Chant and Goodman 1999, p. 271]
India therefore, was an important
supplier of religious values, images and ideas, of opulent religious
ideologies, ostentatious displays of wealth and empire. i.e. a good place to
borrow some gold from in the event of a crisis.
The industrialisation of China
was fraught with destructive and recurring rebellion and war, but in the main, the
vast country of 4.3 million square miles was well served by extensive use of
river and canal navigation and a very large stock of boats and ships over a
period of 1500 years from 500 CE.
Frequent wars amongst warlords
with the resources and aspirations to build and rebuild and relocate huge
capital cities would have created a frequent need to replenish treasure stocks
for mercenary campaigns and the industries needed to supply them.
Although it could be said that
the ‘silk road’ an 8000 kilometre road running from Chang’ an in west China to
Baghdad and Persia through the central Asian city of Samarakand through the
Gobi desert in northern Tibet was the domain of the Mongol Hordes and blocked
the opportunity to trade in the Mediterranean by overland commerce, the same
could not be said of the far easier journey south around the Malaysian
Peninsula and into the Indian ocean.
Consider that from the comfort of
one’s own expeditionary fleet, and borne south by favourable currents and
winds, there would be no absence of supplies such as fresh water on the far
shorter route to the places of known treasure.
It is strange therefore to
consider that from e.g. the Sui and Tang Dynasties circa 479 CE right up to the
Ming and Ch’ing Dynasties circa 1840 CE that this in fact, did not happen.
It may be that various aspects of
the bad things from the east intimidated the ancient warlords of China e.g.
Jesuit priests, Marco Polo (1271-1295 CE), or the Black Death 1347 CE but that the origins of rich Indian treasure
would not have escaped any well organised imperialist of those eras.
Whilst the Emperor Yong Le, in
the early 15th century sent naval expeditions into the Indian Ocean
to trade with India and explore east Africa, warmongering was rather restricted
presumably because of the possibility of an Indian alliance with Mongols.
The practise of even politically
correct Emperors and warlords outsourcing new resources stopped around 1433 CE.
[Chant and Goodman 1999, p. 289]
relate, however, that ‘ some civil servants .. disgusted by alien ..
government, withdrew from public life.’ [Chant and Goodman 1999, p. 291]
continue by saying that ‘Historians have documented new Mongol threats from the
north and steep increases in the cost of timber needed for shipbuilding to
explain the end of naval exploration. They have noted political infighting
associated with relocation of the capital…’ ‘It is hard to escape the view,
however, that something deeper than politics and the price of timber was at
issue. For the governing class to turn its back so abruptly on the rest of the
world, and also to lose interest in science and mathematics, suggests a shift
in values and a defensive, unadventurous outlook.’
[Chant and Goodman 1999, p. 282]
The Chinese navy, founded in 1132 CE, had sailing ships and also paddle-powered
and sail-less top armoured attack craft that could travel and manoeuvre
independent of wind direction and also move in reverse. All naval vessels were
equipped to catapult gunpowder bombs into the enemy. Cannonade were also in use
against the Mongol hordes as early as the 12th and 13th
centuries and would also have been available for military ships.
Although the Chinese navy failed
the stop the 18th and 19th century European expeditions
from e.g. the Dutch East India Company and then the English East India Company,
there appears to be no reason whatsoever for the superior Chinese navy not to
have over-ran the Indian Ocean, the Persian Gulf and the continent of Africa in
its quest for the resources that could keep the empire defended, or some
warlord in a mercenary campaign in the intervening 600 years after the founding
of the navy and the recognition of its uses.
The only academic explanation for
the non-conquest and non-exploitation of the Indian ocean, the Arabian gulf and
East Africa offered by leading academics is of a ‘defensive and
unadventurous’ outlook to which [Mr
Regis Huc in Chant C, 1999, p. 216] would add .. ‘patient and resigned shopkeeper mentality.’
The Chinese (warlords) in their
quest for the gold and treasure etc that would fuel their ambitions of
conquest, conspiracy and defence never thought about the possibilities for
conquest using the abundant surplus of shipping and the proven expertise
available to use it.
The non-use of a proven resource
base in India over a period of 700 years for the financing of huge mercenary
campaigns e.g. against the Tartar and Mongol hordes, or White Lotus rebellion,
because a gold hungry warlord was too lazy to send one of many thousands of
ships from this vast continent to re-explore the proven treasure centres of
India is ludicrous.
2. ‘A Horse, a horse, my Kingdom for a Horse …’
[Shakespeare
W, King Richard III, Act 5 Scene 4.]
From ancient Sumer c.a. 3500 BCE, it took 4000 years into
Europe to discover how to harness a horse for heavy loads and heavy plough by
adapting an ox harness.
Getting a new take on the yoke
harness used for Oxen such that a collar harness could be attached to another
draft animal with less muscles in front of the windpipe appeared to be
impossibly hard.
The sort of difficult discovery
civilisation makes once it starts using hot drinks in the cold jars it used to
drink from.
Taking 4000 years to get a handle
on a horse and how it breathes, however is a bit of a stretch of credibility.
The excuse of ‘unfamiliarity with
horse anatomy’ by Burford doesn’t wear in any of those war zones whatsoever.
The introduction of the heavy
plough in northern Europe in the 10th century CE created the
agricultural surplus necessary for the beginnings of; trade, specialisation and
urban revolution that became the European Renaissance in the 15th
century.
This inability to comprehend a
horse over 4000 years delayed intensive cultivation and intensive social and
scientific urbanisation, industrialisation and scientific invention by at least
400 years in Middle Ages Europe.
It was approximately 400 years
after the introduction of the use of draft horses on the heavy plough that the
Renaissance took place in Europe. [Burford A, in Chant 1999 page 29] and [White
L, in Chant 1999, p 99].
Warring nobles, Goths, Huns,
Mongols, Kings, Queens etc from about the time of the fall of Rome c.a. 500 CE
would have been requiring supplies and heavy transport to conduct their
campaigns often in the most difficult of terrain that could not always be
accessed by porter or river transport. In the absence of Oxen, siege engines
such as; ballista, rams, trebuchets etc and other applications of woodland for
military use would have needed use of much of the spare horses from the
numerous fallen in those battles.
500 years of stupidity before
someone effectively straps up a horse doesn’t seem credible.
Campaign after campaign, army
after army, necessity after necessity, battle after battle, retreat after
retreat, sagacious investigation of supply logistics from everyone who has ever
seen, eaten, butchered, harnessed, shod, ridden and or collided with a horse
later, and in 500 years cannot devise a contraption to allow it to pull a heavy
load without choking.
A bit much considering scorched
earth warfare between petty nobles and highly organised armies probably
required burger king ox steak cuisine and an overwhelming need to get half a
ton of arrows etc. to point B from
whatever stronghold it was required to over-winter in.
Regardless of who ate the local
Oxen, with hundreds of years of recurrent necessity in anarchic Eurasia [e.g.
600 CE – 1400CE], and always plenty of unoccupied medium cavalry horses to use,
in tens of thousands of combat dilemmas the military hierarchy were totally
unable to harness a horse to a cart without strangling it or to invent a better
harness to solve matters of large scale life and death than the Ox harness used
in ancient Sumer and Rome.
There were 20th
century schools of military thought that suggested that war was a driving
factor in the evolution of human industry, and would cite the benefits of the
cold war and the nuclear arms race as an influential factor in e.g. the
electronics industry.
The arms race in the 20th
century also became the space race and the subsequent development of
super-light and super-tough alloys, plastics and fabrics and the process of
miniaturisation could be seen to bring household benefits in; television
technology, cold weather gear etc.
That however, does not take it
away from the middle ages of Europe and their own early modern ways of
thinking.
Burford in Chant 1999, p36,
relates that oxen were sufficient for Rome, but had clearly forgotten that it
was the sight of massed horseman using short composite horse bow that had
seared its way across the static impediments to warfare created by Roman
thinking all over northern Eurasia.
From then on, efficient
mobilisation of arms and resources would be the best response to such threats,
as hard-hitting light cavalry could get everywhere at short notice.
Whereas the era of the beef
burger drive thru had clearly commenced – people in the dark ages clearly knew
what a horse was and how it could be variously used.
3. Getting stoned in South America.
The sites and structures of the
ancient Mayan civilisation in South America are impressive indeed. As are the
number of new age beliefs attributed to
the accuracy of sunspot predictions, the mathematics of Mayan chaos theory and
other aspects of astronomy and science that seem to show, according to irrational
‘hippy’ beliefs, a penchant for design that would have got them all jobs with
the George Lucas Star wars films at Hollywood.
Much as I rather empathise with
the sentiment of such imagery of perhaps a golden bee that looks like an
aerodynamic 20th century jet fighter in a ‘Von Daniken’ book – the
very thought that petroleum engines and considerations of atmospheric friction
appeared to be touted as evidence of space faring beliefs, enabled me to ignore
those crystal skulls and other such at least for the time being until I could
discover what it was that the population of the Mayan Empire actually did for a
living.
The impractical new age of the 20th
century never actually did any meaningful work and seemed to assume that
neither did their spaced out space brother counterparts from ancient but spacey
south America.
Myself, obviously being more of a
practical sort, reckoned that such a magnificent achievement as building walls
on those mountainsides that had polygonal 50 - 100 tonne blocks with angular
sides that could have made a very challenging xmas party game by ronco toys –
would have been hard even with the tools, metals and technologies available to
the concurrent pyramid and temple builders of; Mesopotamia, Egypt, Greece and
Rome.
To assemble the; geometric,
asymmetric, many sided, irregular, shapes and forms from which those massive
walls at Cuzco and Sacsahuaman were made would take; cutting tools, hoists,
ramps, pulleys, metal smelting and mining and a mathematical precision of such
finesse that even today in the 3rd millennium of humanity on this
planets surface, one still could not insert a razor blade between them.
Had I only but known - for the
hardest edged tools that the Mayans possessed was allegedly obsidian – a
volcanic glass that could be splintered to cut meat and textiles, and the
bronze Aztec blades later used against Cortez, the conquistador.
Neither bronze or obsidian are
hard enough to provide an impact on the metamorphic volcanic rocks of the Andes
mountain chain – and whereas there may be local and regional variation within
the static and drift geology, no skills within the construction industry were
cited in Chant and Goodman 1999, pps. 242-251 as being able to make the tools
that could cut those rocks to such precise geometric shapes. Muscle power and
earthen ramps by default were cited as the cause of these incredible and
massive and precise and ornate structures.
Worse still, it was with the
utmost horror that I came to a shuddering stop at p. 251 of Chant and Goodman
1999.
I can only quote verbatim what I
saw there …..
‘There are strong similarities to
the Egyptian pyramids. Like the Pharaohs, the Incas imposed a system of
compulsory labour on tens of thousands of captives. They hauled huge boulders
from quarries as in ancient Egypt, used log rollers, inclined planes and bronze
crowbars to move them. The precise shaping and fitting is thought to have been
achieved by the constant pounding of boulders by harder stones, a continuous
action maintained by a force of thousands of labourers working in shifts
(Gasparini and Margioles, 1980, p324:Hardoy,1973. p.465. )
I can buy the quarry stuff
where-by banging wedges into sandstone and limestone in e.g. Egypt one could
isolate and dislocate a large rough hewn boulder for subsequent refinement and
roll it away o rollers etc and haul it up a ramp. Also the geology of the
Andean mountain chain, although predominately Igneous and metamorphic rock
suggests that there was plenty of available materials to use of roughly
equivalent hardness to make both tools and building materials out of.
However the organisation required
to pound these massive and hard boulders into the precise polygonal shapes we
today see as precisely fitting would have taken immense effort by the use of
skills even if most of the civilian population worked along side the captives.
[e.g. as in the Chinese canal system upgrade near 9th century Tang
Dynasty, Chang’ an]
Give the hand tools used were of
roughly equivalent hardness or even harder than the boulders, the rocks
themselves would be in constant use and not much more than another factor of 10
or 20 % harder than the construction material. Not being diamonds, they would
need constant replacement too if used ceaselessly by thousands and thousands of
labourers, skilled and unskilled.
Given that there was no substance
harder than this cutting tool and that the cutting tool was an arbitrary shaped
rock of useful size, shape and weight for use in this sort of construction, it
would mean that the supervisors on these projects would need a relative army of
tool searchers to acquire tools of the right size and weight.
As the local stone tools got used
up, gradually, the search would have to widen to keep an army of thousands and
thousands of workers working efficiently in shifts and moderately supplied with
food and water.
Not every stone found that was
hard enough could be of use to deliver efficient craftsmanship
The logistics of such an
undertaking beggar belief. If the hand-tools sourced were too soft or too heavy
or too bulky, then the project
would slow down and the labour
force would expire.
I am aware of the Scottish saying
that ‘a bad workman always blames his tools’ but then at the same time – not
everyone was born to cut surfaces in rock like they were brain surgeons.
Perhaps it was the jealous cynic
in me – but that’s a lot of guys standing around with a sore arm for days on
end being unable to eat. I suppose that they would not come to any ‘arm.
However, the crème de la crème of
anaemic academic investigation still sticks with the heavy rock theory instead
of taking the light sabre approach for the 21st century.
In conclusion it is my belief
that the human academic paradigm cannot adequately explain or account for the
distribution and assets of ancient civilisation on this planets surface.
[1] Pre-industrial Cities & Technology (hereafter abbreviated PCT-text), pp.18-19.
[2] PCT-text, p.15.
[3] Ibid. pp. 15 and 44.
[4] Ibid., p 45.
[5] Hodges suggests that in some ancient Oligarchies technological growth was suppressed in the interests of social stability. This counters Childe’s belief that if technologies were obviously beneficial then they would automatically be used. See PCT-text, p. 17.
[6] PCT-text, p. 7.
[7] Ibid., p 18. Irregular floods and relative ease of incursion by invaders generated the need for static defensive works and a hierarchy to organise and utilise the water supply and agricultural surplus.
[8] Ibid., p. 17.
[9] Ibid., p. 43.
[10] Ibid., p. 45.
[11] PCT-text, p. 33.
[12] Ibid., p. 44.
[13] The emergence of water transport technologies in Mesopotamia may have been hampered by the inability to use either the Tigris or Euphrates for trade, since, as fast flowing rivers, they did not facilitate return boat journeys upstream. Thus, like Egypt, its unique environment and not social factors or diffusion, influenced, in this case hampered, its boat-building technology.
[14] PCT-reader, p. 13.
[15] Ibid.
[16] PCT-text, p. 15.
[17] Ibid.
[18] Ibid., p 20. The reasons for this have been put down to a lack of stimulation from trade and its relative geographical isolation.
[19] E.g. hierarchy, religion, culture and geography.
[20] PCT-text, p. 14.