Modernism, Postmodernism, and Digitality
Kurtosis has Confluence
We have seen how the model of signal processing can be adapted to the population pyramid for the stochastic. But there are many population booms that only have a few interesting moments of clarity, and thus do not raise to the level of a cultural system on a large enough scale. This does not mean that one cannot study small cultural systems but if there is to be a large cultural system then a second function must be present to make a confluence. There must be a g(x) as well as an f(x). the problem is that the signal processing model does not capture what we need for the basis of the cultural system: and that means we need to look elsewhere. Fortunately, the area of confluence is quite large and we only need to pick one area which causes a different form of confluence.
Remember that what we need is a final result that mimics the sigmoidal curve in a particular fashion: going from the visionary to the revolutionary, and that means that the curve upwards of ex is what is required for the visionary, which seems to be a long slow movement, towards the fast upwards movement that the sigmoidal curve.
Why probability theory? In signal analysis, the objective is to have one of the two equations be the entirety of the data and the other one is the spark. This works well for populations because the Dirac Delta function mirrors conception, which is the start of a potential life. But with probability, both f(x) and g(x) are involved in the final output. This makes sense because everything that is observed requires the interaction of particles. Thus the probability theory is a different kind of confluence and specifically we can use a random event. But not just a random event but a Gaussian distribution. We can do this because humans are in a variety of ways along a bell curve. But unlike the Population Pyramid, We are not interested in the middle section but in the outer extremes where one or a small group of people it upon a new idea. That is kurtosis Is about the extreme ends of the curve rather than the middle. What happens when a cultural system evolves is that there is an explosion of the middle for a variety of reasons, and out of that comes individuals who have ideas that do not fit the cultural system that they are involved with.
But why do they decide to use a different cultural system than the one they are used to? We see this in a large variety of fields but we need to express why this is the case. The answer is extremely obvious: the problem that they face cannot answered in the existing cultural system with science, art, or industry. That means they need to step outside of the cultural system and look at things anew.
So what was the postmodern movement before it was conceived of as a postmodern system? The answer is that it took the ideas of the modern and transfigured them in ways that were not expected inside the modern. Some examples are in mathematics von Neumann’s theory on games with no hidden information, In industry the need to build a large number of objects for use in war such as tanks and supply ships, and in art by the simplification of art to its essentials. Each of these required a different way of looking at the problem and when they were combined they became a new system. But we are talking about the visionary to revolutionary mode where the postmodern system is an adjunct to the modern system. The modern system was involved in the Second World War which it had to win or it would be crushed underneath a different cultural system.
This means that we can use a Gaussian random distribution for f(x) and a stochastic one for g(x) and that will show when the cultural system turns from a slow visionary model, in which individuals are searching for a solution to individual problems, to a revolutionary model where the ideas have become overwhelming and more people are attracted to the new system. Later on, we will examine why the new system takes control and becomes the dominant one, but that will be later.
What happens is that there are collections of individuals who are grouped together to solve a particular problem that cannot be solved in the old manner. And simple example of this is the difference between uranium fission and plutonium fission. Uranium fission is simple: two masses of uranium are targeted at each other and when they collide fission happens. However, plutonium requires an implosion from many directions. The uranium model was understood in the simplest of terms but the plutonium model required the gifts of von Neumann (again) and he and others devised a spherical detonation charge. This was even in the way that the two weapons were named: the uranium model was designated “ the thin man” after the book and series of movies where the “Thin Man” was a detective and The explosive was considered a “gun-type” weapon whereas the plutonium one was labeled The Fat Man. The uranium weapon had a problem in that it needed uranium to reduce down to U-235, which was a small fraction of the total uranium, whereas plutonium could be manufactured quite easily and was the basis of all of the atomic weapons afterward. In other words, the modern type of weapon, uranium, could only build one whereas plutonium could build many because plutonium was easily manufactured from uranium. It was also the case that the uranium bomb did not need to be tested because it was simplicity itself whereas the plutonium weapon needed to be tested. This was the Trinity test.
This is why I assert that the reason that a new cultural system becomes possible is because it finds examples of problems of the old system that cannot be solved by the old system itself.
This actually makes sense: any cultural model must make simplifications. Those simplifications eventually mean that there are problems that the old method cannot solve even though it solves many of them. When the problems become too unsolvable the new cultural system begins to take shape. When be problem is of sufficient importance then the new model becomes the default. Winning the war was a crucial problem that divided into many steps: and the result of two of these became the basis for part of the new model: the enigma machine which was originally sold in Poland but in a more complex form was cracked in Bletchley Park used the idea of rotating calculators that would solve the set of variables that allowed the Allies to read German and Japanese encryption, as well as the aforementioned atomic bomb. But when one looks one finds other problems which need to be solved: one was the need to quickly erect bases in close proximity to the areas of fighting. The means was to build a base out of very similar materials and construct them in very quick ways. This when brought home was the pattern for suburbia’s rise, because a house in suburbia could be manufactured out of the same materials.
This is what comes from the kurtosis of new structures: the simplification of components that built the atomic bomb, the V-2 intercontinental ballistic missile, and the code-breaking of the enigma.
That means that if we take a Gaussian distribution and modify it so that it is no longer an equal chance but a distributed chance which then imitates the kurtosis, we can then model the curve. The curve is how the different materials are constructed and produce similar kinds of features for example at MIT there was a building that was rapidly constructed and no one thought it would last for any length of time because it was constructed out of simple parts. It lasted almost 50 years.
But it also means that at some point the g(x) is no longer necessary because the structure and elements of that g(x) are no longer in force and a new system replaces the old.
This means that a g(x) means that Gaussian distributions with unequal chances can be constructed. And we can form diagonals along appropriate lines. It is only necessary to map the transition to a simulation that maps to a model.
This means that instead of a spike of a DD, which contains only when it happens, to Gaussian curves intersect to form the curve of the system from visionary to revolutionary. What is important is this is another example of the Central Limit Theory. This is because at any given time the pressures that exert themselves on one group of people often tend 2 assert themselves on other groups of people: this means that the atomic bomb, building bases, the V-2, and a host of other things are all compressed by similar kinds of restrictions, and therefore different individuals come to the same ways of doing things. Because the central limit theory is based on the idea that randomness will form a Gaussian distribution, the g(x) will often be the same.
Thus a problem that we are solving tens to pressure other people who are solving similar kinds of problems to the same end.
