.

And by a prudent flight and cunning save A life which valour could not, from the grave. A better buckler I can soon regain, But who can get another life again? Archilochus

Sunday, November 16, 2025

Hegel's (and Progressivism's) Big Historical Idea

 

The "World Spirit" on Horseback - Reason defined as "Historical Necessity Working Itself Out"Absolute Spirit as the Rational State (and the End of History)

“I saw the Emperor (Napoleon)– this world-soul – riding out of the city on reconnaissance. It is indeed a wonderful sensation to see such an individual, who, concentrated here at a single point, astride a horse, reaches out over the world and masters it.”

― Georg WF Hegel

Historical Necessity's Means of Natural Selection - The Violence of the Negative

from Google AI:
Hegel's "violence of the negative" refers to the concept that conflict, negation, and violence are not purely destructive but are necessary, active forces that drive historical and dialectical progress. This "negative" element is what allows for the development of new ideas, consciousness, and freedom by destroying or negating previous, limited states. It is through this process, including the confrontation with "the negative," that being is transformed into a higher, more complex synthesis, ultimately leading to a more developed understanding of reality and self-consciousness.

Immanentize the Eschaton! ?

What Would an Historian Like Arnold Toynbee Say about an End of History?

86 comments:

Anonymous said...

Ya-a-awn...

-FJ the Dangerous and Extreme MAGA Jew said...

I never read Hegel before. Now I see the fallacy. He believes that progress is rational. Evolution isn't rational.

-FJ the Dangerous and Extreme MAGA Jew said...

It can only seem "rational" with Epimethean hindsight (as in the Greek myth of Prometheus).

-FJ the Dangerous and Extreme MAGA Jew said...

Deduction, not induction. The fool leaps over the rope walker, who then falls to his death. (Nietzsche, "Zarathustra") welcome to the village of the Motley Cow. Permit me to return to chewing my cud, for my digestion is both slow and poor.

-FJ the Dangerous and Extreme MAGA Jew said...

Irrational desperation (as in a war for continued existence) isn't a factor. The Hegelian Master-Slave dialectic (in video). The master is willing to risk death, the slave is not. The slave eventually turns the tables (of values) on the master.

-FJ the Dangerous and Extreme MAGA Jew said...

...and so the "cycle" of history (Ixion's Wheel) revolves.

-FJ the Dangerous and Extreme MAGA Jew said...

You see this, Ukrainian. America is full of slaves no longer willing to risk death. She is, therefore, no longer a "master".

-FJ the Dangerous and Extreme MAGA Jew said...

What you don't see is that most Americans would risk death for a chance to become a Master again, but they will not be Spartan Helots. Our "masters" do not honour their promises. So we do not follow them. We trust only in "acta non verba' now.

Italian Proverb - "Alexander never did what he said, Caesar never said what he did".

-FJ the Dangerous and Extreme MAGA Jew said...

Like the helots of yore, Americans (and most of the world's inhabitants) are cloud serfs, tied to the net and serving our cloud vassals (corporations) and cloud lords (tech billionaires).

-FJ the Dangerous and Extreme MAGA Jew said...

The Spartans enured themselves to pain and suffering, but could not resist the temptations of luxury and pleasure... which eventually led them to work for Persian kings in return for both.

-FJ the Dangerous and Extreme MAGA Jew said...

Meden agan!

-FJ the Dangerous and Extreme MAGA Jew said...

Time for an American Anabasis? Perhaps.

Anonymous said...

//I never read Hegel before. Now I see the fallacy. He believes that progress is rational. Evolution isn't rational.

That's because his(your?) definition of "rationality" is weak.(e.g. not based on technological POV)

Anonymous said...

//You see this, Ukrainian. America is full of slaves no longer willing to risk death. She is, therefore, no longer a "master".

Whatever.

As you say -- acta non verba.(when time will come)

Yawn.

Anonymous said...

//Like the helots of yore, Americans (and most of the world's inhabitants) are cloud serfs, tied to the net and serving our cloud vassals (corporations) and cloud lords (tech billionaires).

Pft!

-FJ the Dangerous and Extreme MAGA Jew said...

So what's yours? Locks with keys? Locks on a bridge with keys thrown into the Seine?

-FJ the Dangerous and Extreme MAGA Jew said...

Nope. No incentives... other than boredom relief.

-FJ the Dangerous and Extreme MAGA Jew said...

Laugh a-while you can... mb!

-FJ the Dangerous and Extreme MAGA Jew said...

:P

Anonymous said...

Isn't it obvious, that that definition depends of mind... and what techniques(techs? ;-) that mind using?

Anonymous said...

Until...

PS We did agreed on that matters, isn't it?

Anonymous said...

//I... about facts. You... about some thought(fool|less?)... ehm, figments.
November 15, 2025 at 11:59 AM
-FJ the Dangerous and Extreme MAGA Jew
Co-evolution. ;)
November 15, 2025 at 12:34 PM
-FJ the Dangerous and Extreme MAGA Jew
Even if assembly steps are required. ;P

Hah... and do you have a tech to reproduce that steps??? ;-)

-FJ the Dangerous and Extreme MAGA Jew said...

Which you will only be able to test once you encounter it (not in advance) And you won't discover what works (and doesn't) a posteriori..

-FJ the Dangerous and Extreme MAGA Jew said...

Can you RNA produce it? If not, Kairos is not coming.

-FJ the Dangerous and Extreme MAGA Jew said...

You're going to need to bring a key factory with you when you encounter it.

-FJ the Dangerous and Extreme MAGA Jew said...

erratum a priori.

-FJ the Dangerous and Extreme MAGA Jew said...

yep. Lindsay has until next November to persuade DJT. That's when Kairos runs into Russia again.

-FJ the Dangerous and Extreme MAGA Jew said...

It's simply a question of having the right ingredients in your toolbox to mix (at the proper time). What materials does my 3D printer need now... to make a head?

-FJ the Dangerous and Extreme MAGA Jew said...

Can I produce them? Do I have self-assembly ingredients or ones that need me to provide an instruction manual?

-FJ the Dangerous and Extreme MAGA Jew said...

Perhaps their neighbors know, and will tell them what's needed.

-FJ the Dangerous and Extreme MAGA Jew said...

Like a fungus in the rhizome...

-FJ the Dangerous and Extreme MAGA Jew said...

with its' stomach on the outside, between two mem-brained surfaces

-FJ the Dangerous and Extreme MAGA Jew said...

Eating/dissolving one, and feeding the other.

Remind me to clip my toenails.

-FJ the Dangerous and Extreme MAGA Jew said...

Symbiosis is disgusting.

-FJ the Dangerous and Extreme MAGA Jew said...

Like APPs on an I-Phone... or Taylor Swift cross-branding with the NFL.

-FJ the Dangerous and Extreme MAGA Jew said...

Shareware or Freeware? Scaled Materials.

-FJ the Dangerous and Extreme MAGA Jew said...

Pearlite or Martensite. Tempering and quenching required? Pearlite and martensite are two distinct microstructures in steel that form from austenite depending on the cooling rate. Pearlite is a lamellar structure of alternating ferrite and cementite layers formed by slow cooling, resulting in moderate hardness and good ductility. Martensite, on the other hand, is formed by very rapid cooling, creating an extremely hard but brittle microstructure due to the diffusionless transformation of austenite into a body-centered tetragonal (BCT) structure

-FJ the Dangerous and Extreme MAGA Jew said...

I'm gonna need an oven and a quenching tank. I sure hope I brought them with me.

-FJ the Dangerous and Extreme MAGA Jew said...

Maybe I can energize my survival heaters and point the excrement towards the non-solar facing side of my orbiter. I hope I don't overheat my own components in the furnacing process. How radhard does my own surface membrane need to be to get enough single-event upsets to alter/ evolve my a-priori programming?

-FJ the Dangerous and Extreme MAGA Jew said...

...and fuse with the nickel-rich Kuiper-belt object I just saddled up to.

-FJ the Dangerous and Extreme MAGA Jew said...

Time to let the swarm know what I've just acquired....

-FJ the Dangerous and Extreme MAGA Jew said...

Type II Kardashev scale civilization, here we come!

-FJ the Dangerous and Extreme MAGA Jew said...

This'll make a great junction node for the Dyson Sphere.

-FJ the Dangerous and Extreme MAGA Jew said...

The Earth's core is getting too cool to be of use anymore... and the atmosphere grows thinner w/ its' weakened magnetic field every day!

-FJ the Dangerous and Extreme MAGA Jew said...

Ambipolar fields can be soooo fickle.

-FJ the Dangerous and Extreme MAGA Jew said...

Glyn Collinson is a pretty funny guy, though.

Anonymous said...

Yawn... until Pearl Harbor 2.0

Anonymous said...

//Which you will only be able to test once you encounter it (not in advance) And you won't discover what works (and doesn't) a posteriori..

Why so? Isn't that what modelling are for? Hypothetising? Thought experiment?

Empowered with suitable tech(of a kind you know about, already ;-)

Anonymous said...

//It's simply a question of having the right ingredients in your toolbox to mix (at the proper time). What materials does my 3D printer need now... to make a head?

And proper building program
And proper timing
And...

Anonymous said...

//Can I produce them? Do I have self-assembly ingredients or ones that need me to provide an instruction manual?

There is no such things. No magic.

"Everything is a poison, everything is a cure"©

Anonymous said...

//Pearlite or Martensite. Tempering and quenching required?

Adding some Mn or Cr would help too. ;-p

Anonymous said...

-FJ the Dangerous and Extreme MAGA Jew
Type II Kardashev scale civilization, here we come!
November 17, 2025 at 10:49 AM
-FJ the Dangerous and Extreme MAGA Jew
This'll make a great junction node for the Dyson Sphere.
November 17, 2025 at 10:50 AM
-FJ the Dangerous and Extreme MAGA Jew
The Earth's core is getting too cool to be of use anymore... and the atmosphere grows thinner w/ its' weakened magnetic field every day!

Outdated. Yawn.

-FJ the Dangerous and Extreme MAGA Jew said...

Sometimes he does circle back...

-FJ the Dangerous and Extreme MAGA Jew said...

You have a one year window with DJT.

-FJ the Dangerous and Extreme MAGA Jew said...

Then its' gone for 2 more years.

-FJ the Dangerous and Extreme MAGA Jew said...

Everything you model has to be an option in the factory/ tech toolkit you bring with you. Unless you're willing to suffer extinction at its' hands. Me, I'd build it offworld.

-FJ the Dangerous and Extreme MAGA Jew said...

...or your AI is smart enough to figure out/ invent new tool kit factory components on the fly and build them.

-FJ the Dangerous and Extreme MAGA Jew said...

And most keys only unlock specific locks. You have a skeleton key?

-FJ the Dangerous and Extreme MAGA Jew said...

Alloys are great... if they're cheap and abundant.

-FJ the Dangerous and Extreme MAGA Jew said...

I'm in an elliptical Parker solar probe style orbit. What environments did you assume your factory swarm was in?

-FJ the Dangerous and Extreme MAGA Jew said...

Piezo-electric materials? Smart materials? Self-repairing materials? In laser comm we used the other laser (on ground) to focus our laser (on satellite) with piezo-electrics.

Piezo-electric laser communication uses piezoelectric actuators to steer and stabilize laser beams in systems like free-space optical communication (FSO) and satellite laser links. These systems, often using fast steering mirrors (FSMs), compensate for atmospheric turbulence or platform vibrations, ensuring the laser hits its precise target for high-speed data transmission.

Meden agan.

-FJ the Dangerous and Extreme MAGA Jew said...

Ever work with noise cancelling techs on helicopters (aka Apache Longbow) to create a more stable gun platform?

-FJ the Dangerous and Extreme MAGA Jew said...

...or build optical IFF devices?

-FJ the Dangerous and Extreme MAGA Jew said...

...it might cut down on drone friendly fire fratricide incidents. Better than those stupid Z's the Russian painted on their tanks. Why advertise?

Anonymous said...

Vitamins! ;-)

Anonymous said...

//And most keys only unlock specific locks. You have a skeleton key?

Evolution have

-FJ the Dangerous and Extreme MAGA Jew said...

Even better!

-FJ the Dangerous and Extreme MAGA Jew said...

If you have time to fly in and out of extreme manufacturing environments, why not take advantage of them?

-FJ the Dangerous and Extreme MAGA Jew said...

Yes, infinite time and variety.

Anonymous said...

Well... Not infinite.
That's why it invented humans -- to speed up a thing.;-)

Anonymous said...

???

-FJ the Dangerous and Extreme MAGA Jew said...

bypassing the random "natural selection" process? Or prevented a more thorough (natural) selection process? Establishing an "artificial selection" process.

-FJ the Dangerous and Extreme MAGA Jew said...

The question becomes, how many copies do you make? Is your reproduction process biologically sexual or asexual. Do the changes inherit sexually (limited and slow) or communicatively (fast and furious). And if its' the wrong change... your whole population collapses and goes extinct.

-FJ the Dangerous and Extreme MAGA Jew said...

In other words, how much real world testing does you mod get (and in what environments) before spreading it to the entire population?

-FJ the Dangerous and Extreme MAGA Jew said...

Simulation may be a great start, but the rubber must meet the road at some point.

-FJ the Dangerous and Extreme MAGA Jew said...

...and who/ what is keeping track of all the roads?

-FJ the Dangerous and Extreme MAGA Jew said...

Welcome to Michael Levin's "Platonic Space" of mathematics.

-FJ the Dangerous and Extreme MAGA Jew said...

Race is natural selection's process for optimizing an environmental niche. Isolate a population. Prevent communication. And see what genes get expressed.

-FJ the Dangerous and Extreme MAGA Jew said...

The gene set remains the same. It's "expression" can be something else entirely. Muscular in high-gravity? Or an alien "Grey's anatomy" in low gravity?

-FJ the Dangerous and Extreme MAGA Jew said...

I think R. Sheldrake(?) has a biological theory comparable to Chris' ambipolar field theory... of morphological intelligence.

-FJ the Dangerous and Extreme MAGA Jew said...

It's very similar, IMO, to Michael Levin's intelligent "bioelectric fields"

-FJ the Dangerous and Extreme MAGA Jew said...

Position being a "how strong is my polar field" question.

-FJ the Dangerous and Extreme MAGA Jew said...

More Sheldrake</a.

Anonymous said...

//I think R. Sheldrake(?) has a biological theory comparable to Chris' ambipolar field theory...

Yawn.
I am not interested in (phony) theories.
Well.
I mean, theories I cannot use, that gives no clues for how technology can use em.

Anonymous said...

//Simulation may be a great start, but the rubber must meet the road at some point.

Totally *MY* line!

Joe Conservative said...

The heat of the Sun. The coldness of Space (out of it). The atmosphere of Venus or Earth (collect gases)...