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:

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

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

      Delete
    3. 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.

      Delete
    4. 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.

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

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

      Delete
    7. 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".

      Delete
    8. 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).

      Delete
    9. 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.

      Delete
  2. //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)

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

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

      Delete
    3. 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..

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

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

      Delete
  3. //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.

    ReplyDelete
  4. //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!

    ReplyDelete
  5. //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??? ;-)

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. 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?

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

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

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

      Delete
    5. Eating/dissolving one, and feeding the other.

      Remind me to clip my toenails.

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

      Delete
    7. 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

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

      Delete
    9. 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?

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

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

      Delete
    12. Type II Kardashev scale civilization, here we come!

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

      Delete
    14. 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!

      Delete
  6. //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 ;-)

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. 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.

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

      Delete
  7. //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...

    ReplyDelete
  8. //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"©

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

      Delete
    2. 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.

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

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

      Delete
  9. //Pearlite or Martensite. Tempering and quenching required?

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

    ReplyDelete
  10. -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.

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

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

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

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

    Evolution have

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

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

      Delete
    3. 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.

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

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

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

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

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

      Delete
    9. 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?

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

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

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

      Delete
  12. //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.

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

    Totally *MY* line!

    ReplyDelete