Back when I was in high school and college, there was a BBC series that was rebroadcast on PBS called “Connections“, and as has become the custom with most shows on public broadcasting in the US now, it had an accompanying book, Connections
, nominally, and in this case likely, written by the presenter of the series, James Burke.
This series (and book) showed how seemingly disparate discoveries in science and technology were connected together, hence the title.
For example, did you know that restrictions on the ivory trade created a connection between billiard balls and the development of the atomic bomb?
The series and the book were filled with odd but relevant threads that run through the history of science and technology.
There were two subsequent series named (inevitably, sometimes with the numbers as superscripts to imply “squared” and “cubed”…) “Connections 2″ and “Connections 3″, along with yet another series that focused on connections between events that were a bit more momentous, called The Day the Universe Changed.
It was the first series and book (both sadly very hard to find now) that had the most profound effect upon the development of my thought.
Other things I have learned have also had significant effects on the patterns of my thinking.
For example, the thought-experiments, the gedankenexperiments of Einstein or Schrodinger that ultimately revealed the limitations of Newtonian Physics when it came to the realm of extremes, where in acceleration or size, and resulted in the formulation of the theories of Relativity (both Special and General Relativity) and Quantum Mechanics (with all of its permutations).
In other words, Newtonian Physics was sufficient to explain the vast majority of everyday phenomena, but the universe changed (or our perception of the universe changed) once the failure of Newtonian Physics was revealed in the extremes.
Our perceptions went from a clockwork system of Newtonian Physics to the relativities of an Einsteinian universe and the probabilities and uncertainties of Quantum Physics.
That change in perception created an upheaval that had not been seen before in the argumentative but ultimately sedate realm of science, and that kind of shock has not happened since.
Einstein provided many different insights into Physics, not just the Theory of Relativity. He also provided insights that helped lead to the development of Quantum Theory. The class that had the largest effect on my mode of thinking when I was in graduate school was in Statistical Mechanics, which provides a Quantum Mechanics foundation to Classical Thermodynamics, which is a field that causes most engineers to groan and proclaim, “I hated that class!!!”
Learning the quantum statistics that underlie the classical conceptions forced me to look for the hidden foundations behind the conventionally accepted “realities”, and my world has never been the same.
A “quantum leap” in physics is a very small change in energy states, but in common parlance it has become slang for a huge change in fundamental beliefs and principles, in no small part because of the foundational shift in thinking required to change from Newtonian to Quantum realities that Physicists were forced to undergo at the beginning of the Twentieth Century.
We are in sore need of a “quantum leap” now.
Simple, linear thinking was fine for a bipolar Cold War world, but in our brave New World Order which is far more disorderly than those who boldly proclaimed an end to history imagined, linearity and bipolarity are both luxuries we can ill afford.
Our old model to understand the world and its threats is completely inadequate. The world has changed, yet we are like the Physicists at the turn of the Twentieth Century, still using Newtonian Physics to try to understand and make predictions in the complexities of an Einsteinian universe.
Classical Physics worked for many years, for centuries, and in many situations still provides results that are useful on a practical scale. When the situation changes because of scale of either relative velocity or size, or both, the Newtonian models break down and yield results that are completely wrong.
Simple, linear thinking worked for many years, for centuries, and in many situations still provides results that are useful on a practical scale. When the situation changes because of the scale of either relative populations or cultural collisions, or both, the linear models break down and yield results that are completely wrong.
Linear thinking in a complex, multifaceted, nonlinear world is simple-minded at best, and can lead to catastrophe.
Yet, most thinking on both the left and right in America is still linear, us-versus-them, whether “them” consists of the political opposition or “the terrorists”, whatever that nebulous term really means.
For in the end, what does “terrorism” mean? In these days when we are about to commemorate the 60th anniversary of the first use of an atomic weapon in warfare, and where we recently commemorated the 60th anniversary of the liberation of the death camps created in Europe by the fascist regimes led by Nazi Germany the question has not been fully answered, and not the least because of the tactics used by the victors of six decades past.
Germany set up a deliberate mass-murder holocaust directed against a group because of their religion, and Japan practiced genocidal warfare on a scale still not fully recognized in the West. Both Germany and Japan were defeated by the United States and allies using tactics that today would be called “terrorist” by the bombing of cities in nominal aims of disrupting production of vital war materiel in campaigns that by even the standards of the day were indiscriminate. The fires of Dresden and Tokyo stand in accusation of the terrorist aspect of the assaults.
These tactics are defended as what was necessary to defeat evil.
In these days of the Global War on Terror, who has the privilege of defining what is “evil” so that terrorist tactics can be used to defeat it?
If “evil” is that which seeks to destroy your culture and way of life, then can we truly call the Islamofascists “evil” when in their eyes the West, led by the United States, is destroying what they believe to be the basis of Islamic culture and way of life, and they use terrorist tactics to defeat what they perceive as “evil”?
“Evil” and “good”, the two sides of the edgeless coin of bipolar thinking.
One side or the other, impossible for the coin to land on a nonexistent edge that might bridge between the two sides.
Bipolar.
Simple.
Clean.
Easy.
The simple, bipolar-linear thinking of those who cry, “All Islam is evil” and “Kill the terrorists” and “If you’re not 100% in agreement with me, you’re against me!” leads to the kind of contradiction where a simple change of viewpoint makes what was once “good” become “evil”, where the only difference between the Islamofascists and “us” is what and whom we choose to protect, and not how we define “evil” if “evil” is “that which is trying to destroy our culture and way of life”.
There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio,
Than are dreamt of in your philosophy.
-William Shakespeare, “Hamlet”, Act 1 scene 5
At small scales or high relative velocities, Newtonian Physics breaks down, and if actions are taken based upon the predictions of Newtonian Physics, disaster can follow. Even in the (comparatively) simple Physics involved with space shuttle and satellite operations, NASA takes Einsteinian factors into account.
Should we do any less when determining strategy for the survival and success of our nation?
What are the fundamentals?
What are the forces that underly the effects we see?
How can we blunt those forces and redirect them to paths that do not result in more enemies for us?
Do not merely label the opposition “evil”.
To fight and conquer in all your battles is not supreme excellence; supreme excellence consists in breaking the enemy’s resistance without fighting.
-Sun-Tzu
While “torture them until they spill all” may be satisfying on a visceral level, does it really move us towards our real goals?
The best vengeance is living well.
We cannot live well if we create as many enemies as we kill or imprison.
What are the fundamentals?
What are the forces that underly the effects we see?
How can we blunt those forces and redirect them to paths that do not result in more enemies for us?
Even with a full toolbox to support him, for a simple-minded man holding a hammer every problem is a nail, and the results are disastrous, predictably so for those who see the toolbox, but sadly not for the simple-minded man who only sees the hammer in his hand.
We must stop using Newtonian Physics in our Einsteinian universe.
Yes, the math is harder now, but are our goals not worth the effort of thought necessary?
—
UPDATE: I have posted a follow-up to clarify some points entitled “Forest and trees“.
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