Part II. The Psychohistorical-Dialectical 'Meta-Equation' of Human-Social Formations ‘Meta-Evolution’. Narration. Preliminary Considerations.

Full Title:  Part II.  The Psychohistorical-Dialectical 'Meta-Equation' of Human-Social Formations ‘Meta-Evolution’.  Narration.  Preliminary Considerations.





Dear Reader,

The present blog-entry is the second blog-entry in this series on the psychohistorical-dialectical modeling of human history, focusing on the "social formations" [cf. Marx] aspect of that history.


Regards,

Miguel







Part II.:  Narration -- Dialectical-Mathematical-Model STORY of Human Social Formation -- 
              
Categorial Progression Generic Reconstruction of Past-to-Present Human Social Formations.  





MODELS OF HISTORY -- Preliminary Considerations on Psychohistorical-Dialectical Modeling.




Please Note:  Throughout this part, we employ two key ancient scientifico-philosophical terms.  Their resurrection serves well to catalyze the transition to a ‘trans-modern’, dialectical science --


1.   « Monad », which means, e.g., “qualitative Unit”, “qualitative logical Individual”, or “qualitative Element” -- one of the constituents represented, collectively, by a “category”, and;


2.   « Arithmos » [plural:  «arithmoi»], which means a “category”, e.g. an “ensemble”, a “multitude”, a ‘“population”’, or an “assemblage” of «monads» -- i.e., of “qualitative units”, of “qualitative logical individuals”, or of “qualitative elements” -- all of which «monads» share a common quality, or a common predicate, i.e., a «categorema» in common; a “kind”.



Please Note Also:  Many of the special, technical words employed below are also hypertext links to definitions of those words [usually for the first occurrence of each such word only].

Equation #4:  The [Psycho]Historical-Dialectical ‘Meta-Monadology’ of Human-Social Formation(s).

The F.E.D. solution to this equation exhibits an «aufheben» progression.

That progression features the ‘Qualo-Peanic’, ‘ meta-fractal ’, ‘meta-«monad»-ic’ ‘archéonic consecuum’ process / structure which characterizes dialectics in general, and the dialectics of the  F.E.D. psychohistorical equations in particular. 

This equation, so interpreted, constitutes a ‘dialectical [meta-]model’, and one which also tells, generically, [an aspect of ] the psychohistorical story of Terran humanity itself, to-date.

This ‘dialectical [meta-]model’ is, in part, one of a ‘physical dialectic ‘, or ‘«physis» dialectic’  [although the Ancient mind might have called it ‘‘‘the [his]story of the «anti-physis»’’’] — indeed, models an aspect of ‘The Dialectic of Nature’ within its ‘human-social’ epoch.  

It is the ‘dialectic of human-social formation(s)’, in terms of the «monads», and of the «arithmoi», of human settlement / governance structures. 
 

However, it is also one of ‘«psyche»-ic dialectic’, of ‘cognitive dialectic’, or of ‘ideo-dialectic’.

It is so because of the “memes”, and the gains in collective human cognitive capabilities, required to attain, and to sustain [to socially reproduce, for periods of centuries and more], these rising levels of human «species» self-organization; of ‘“complexity/consciousness”’ [cf. Chardin].

As noted earlier, F.E.D. has stated that they view these successive human ‘‘‘social formations’’’ [cf. Marx], as partly physical, ‘meta-geological formations’ of the Earth’s surface, i.e., as ‘archaeological / meta-geomorphological sedimentary layerings’ — ‘[human-]natur[e-]al’, ‘megalithic meta-encrustations of the Earth’s crust’.

The ‘meta-dynamics’ of the ‘meta-evolution’ of these [this] ‘[meta-]dynamical [meta-]system[s]’ of such human-social formation(s) constitute(s) an «autokinesis», and an « auto-onto-dynamasis » at the level of ‘human-social ontology’ -- a creation of new kinds [of human-social productions, and of human-social relations of such productions]. 

The systems-progression, or ‘diachronic meta-system’, of these successive “social formations” systems, is grasped as a ‘self-«aufheben» self-progression’ of ‘Qualo-Peanic’, ‘meta-fractal’, ‘meta-«monad»-ic’, ‘archeonic consecuum’ processes / structures, when we grasp each of its successive «arithmoi» of human social formation «monads» [e.g., the global assemblages / «arithmoi» of living village units, or of living chiefdom units, or of living city-state units, etc., as of some epoch in Terran human history when any one or more of them are extant] as a ‘collective human subject[-ivity]’, or as a ‘collective human agent[-ivity]’.

This systems-self-progression is therefore one that qualifies as a[n] ‘[psycho]historical-dialectical process’ per F.E.D.’s definition, and as psychohistorical given this ‘subject[-ivity]’. 

The reader is referred to Supplement B (Part III, page B-23) of the F.E.D. Introductory Letter for the classical _NQ_ ‘formulaic’ rendition of the ‘dialectical meta-model’ re-rendered narratively below [link: http://www.dialectics.info/dialectics/Primer_files/4_F.E.D.%20Intro.%20Letter,%20Supplement%20B-1,%20v.2_OCR.pdf ], and in the series sequel to this blog-entry.

Parsimony. The human, psychohistorical story that the narrative, in the ensuing sections, recounts, is “unembellished” and “generic” -- it invokes no more of the human drama of this human history than is given explicitly in the  F.E.D. standard solutions for the categorial terms that it narrates.  It is “generic” enough that it might apply equally well to any sufficiently human[oid] species of any other planet in any other stellar/planetary system than planet Terra of system Sol.  ‘Intendedly’ so.

‘Helicity’.  Moreover, the narration below instantiates a “helical narrative”, and is close to a “model-generated” narrative, emphasizing the recurring, self-similar aspects of the story of the equation, and of the ‘temporal qualo-fractal’ that the equation generates, repeating the form of the narrative account as much as possible for each, qualitatively different, qualitatively expanded, qualitatively higher epoch / whorl.

Nonetheless, the cumulative, unprecedented, non-cyclical aspects of the story, and the overall progressive gain in ontological plurality / complexity / richness / “determinateness” from epoch to epoch, also demand telling in the course of the apt description of the connotations of the equation, differing in each of its successive epochs / whorls, and thus pre-refuting any ideology claiming ‘ontologically-statical’, or merely “flat-cyclical”, merely circular psychohistorical motion.  

This helical ‘qualo-fractal’ ‘content-structure’ should not be mistaken as one which fits into any helical graph-trajectory, confined to any known single three-dimensional mathematical, analytical-geometrical space, with purely-quantitative axes, whether of the R, or the Q, or the Z, or the W, or even the N variety. 

This kind of helix transcends such confinement.

Each whorl of such a standard-number-spaces-transcendent helix, though ‘qualo-fractally’, generically similar to each of its predecessor whorls [if any], and to each of its successor whorls [if any], is also qualitatively, ontologically different from each of them, as are they from it.

No doubt metrics can often be defined, that quantify generic common features of a whole succession of such whorls, and which, for each such generic feature, map back into a helical trajectory in, e.g., an R³, purely-quantitative mathematical space.   

But each such mapping, by itself, will fail to capture the ontologically-dynamical, quantity-transcending ‘qualo-fractal’ helix in its totality.

‘Heuristicity’.  HYPOTHESIS:  The algebra of an arithmetical language that is limited to the expression of “unquantifiable” ordinal “qualifiers”, interpreted as representing ontological categories, cannot be other than an “algorithmic heuristic” algebra, and that is what we have in the NQ_ algebra as a tool of cognition.

The algorithmic layer of this “algorithmic heuristic”, the layer of the “minimally-interpreted” -- “ordinal qualifier”-interpreted -- generic NQ_ arithmetic, exhibits only a doubly-relentless generic qualitative ordinality, with its <<genos>> told by q, together with its species, told by the subsumed N numeral, n, in q_n --

{ q₁, q₂, q₃, . . . }   =    

{ the quality of first-ness, the quality of second-ness, the quality of third-ness, . . . }

-- relentless, both, first, at its subscript level, and, second, at its superscript level.  That relentless ‘subscriptal’ ordinality is presented horizontally, in the rightward direction, below, and that relentless ‘superscriptal’ ordinality is presented vertically, in the downward direction, in the same list, below --

q₁¹  =   q₁;  

q₁²  =   q₁ + q₂; 

q₁³  =   q₁ + q₂ + q₃;  

q₁⁴  =  q₁ + q₂ + q₃ + q₄;  . . ., etc. 


The logic, the “followership”, so far, is strictly ordinal. 

However, when the generic ordinal qualifier for “the quality of first-ness”, q₁, is “interpreted’ or “assigned” -- identified with -- the specific «arché» or “ultimate ancestor” ontological category of a specific categorial-progression “meta-genealogy” -- in this case, with the earliest known “socio-ontological category” of human social formation, the scavenging/foraging “band”, b -- then the symbol q₁, and its “followers”,  may take on new meaning, new “intension”, new connotations. 

And, thereby, a new level of “followership” -- of their special ‘‘‘logic’’’ -- emerges, beyond that of the mere “qualitative ordinality” of the generic, algorithmic arithmetic, a special ‘‘‘logic’’’ which is a heuristic, intuitive, connotative logic -- a logic of “connotative entailment”.

For an NQ_ model to “work”, the meanings of the category-representing terms of its categorial progression must follow from one another, and from their own subscripted, interpreted epithets, specifically, connotatively, semantically, not just generically, algorithmically, syntactically.

The solution of an interpreted NQ_ equation’s “poly-qualinomial”, or ontological categorial progression/cumulum is a determination of a meaning, of an intension, of a connotation, for each «arché»-subsequent term in that heterogeneous sum of category-symbol-terms.

Each such solving meaning, should intuitively follow from the given meaning of the «arché» / first term, and should also intuitively follow from the meaning of every already so “solved-for”, predecessor term of the term now being “solved-for”, all the way back to that «arché», or originating, meaning-given term, in accord with the “canons of interpretation” codified in the procedure-narrative of the F.E.D. solution-method, the “organonic algebraic method” for solving Seldon Function equations.

That is, in this case, if generic q₁ is identified with specific b, with the “socio-ontology” of the prehistoric, “hunting and gathering”, scavenging and foraging bands of [proto-]humans, then, for a user of the NQ_ cognitive tool who is also versed and immersed in knowledge about -- in the reconstructed phenomena / phenomenology of -- prehistoric human social formation(s), a meaning, a solution, for the next specific term, for the term that corresponds to the generic q₂, for the term Db  =  q_bb, must suggest itself, if the model is to “work”.

This means that, when such a user “self-inquires” in the form of “self-asking” the question --

“¿What known, past human social formation corresponds to the algorithm-generated description / definition:  “The term q_bb designates a “band OF bands”, an «arithmoi» of “meta¹-band” social formation units, such that each such unit is made up out of a heterogeneous multiplicity of [former] “band” units as its sub-units”?

-- that a user-known prehistoric formation -- in this case, “camps”, q_bb  =  c -- must come to mind as the answer to that question; as the solution for that term.

For an NQ_ model to “work”, such apt, symbol-connotation-evoked “comings-to-mind” must continue, from epoch t = 1, all the way out to epoch t = max., i.e., to the maximal ordinal epoch needed to reconstruct all of the incremental ontology “begat” by the «arché» in question in history so far -- in this case, in the history of human social formation to-date, i.e., to epoch t = 7.

This criterion of model success applies most unequivocally to the solution / “semantification” of the “self-hybrid” or ‘”auto-hybrid” terms -- the terms of the form Dx  =  q_xx.

For the “merely hybrid”, or “allo-hybrid” terms, of form q_yx..., it has been found that some of them may be rightly “solved” to be “impossibles”, i.e., to be “inoperative terms”, so named by analogy with the unused terms often encountered in specific applications of the generic Lagrange Equations.   



Thomas K. Simpson describes, as follows, the process by which James Clerk Maxwell derived the specific dynamical equations of the electromagnetic field, using the generic Lagrange Equations.   


Maxwell did so by honing down the full possible ensemble of generic terms of the latter to those that were actual for the specific case of electromagnetic field dynamics:

“...Maxwell approaches the construction of his own electromagnetic theory with a clear initial vision of the shape it must take.  He does not begin with a collection of basic empirical results and seek a merely complete and convenient set of equations which will save the appearances."  

"Maxwell knows at the outset that his theory must take the form of the equations of motion of a moving material system; these, as we have seen, are Lagrange’s equations of motion, which in Maxwell’s view simply explicate mathematically our a priori concept of matter in motion."  

"A priori, Maxwell’s equations are merely a special case of Lagrange’s equations."  

"Therefore, Maxwell’s program for a “dynamical” approach to electromagnetism must be this:  beginning with Lagrange’s equations of motion, identify the generalized coordinates and velocities which characterize an electromagnetic system, and then determine by experiment which of the possible coefficients are actually operative in this particular science, and what relationships exist among the coefficients and the coordinates."  

"Lagrange’s equations, thus related to electromagnetism and sifted of inoperative terms, will be the basic equations of electromagnetism."  

"At the same time, they will characterize in broad strokes a particular form of connected system.”

[Thomas K. Simpson, Maxwell’s Mathematical Rhetoric: Rethinking the Treatise on Electricity and Magnetism, Green Lion Press [Santa Fe:  2010], pages 272-273, emphasis added].

Of course, this solution-method, as a heuristic method, and as a “semantic” method, will, even more so than the methods of mathematical logic, of formal-logical “followership”, involve differences of opinion about solutions.   

It would be naive to expect otherwise.   

And «vive les differences»!   

Civil dialogue about such differences regularly evokes new insights, and new and more fruitful hypotheses.   

Applying the NQ_ “algorithmic heuristic” method can conduce to greater clarity in such dialogues.

NEXT --
  


Psychohistorical-Dialectical ‘Meta-Equation‘ of Human-Social Formations ‘Meta-Evolution’.

  
Part II. A.  Epoch t = 0.  bands.