Discussion of Scientific Postmodernism

      Mention postmodernism in casual
conversations, as I have done, and you
will probably get one or more of the
following responses. Your listener may
have heard of a transitory "postmodern"
movement such as "postmodern art" and
think that you mean that. They may have
heard of a "modern" movement such as
"modern art" and think that you mean a
successor movement. They may reason that
since modern often means contemporary
and post often means after, postmodern
means after contemporary, but when is
that? They may simply be baffled by your
use of an unfamiliar term.
      Postmodernism means understanding
that all of history has three successive
periods--premodern, modern, and post-
modern--each of which is distinguished
by its unique zeitgeist (spirit of the
age), and understanding that humankind
is now in the third, postmodern, period.
The premodern thesis, modern antithesis,
and postmodern synthesis are the unique
sources of these unique zeitgeists. Both
the zeitgeist concept and the dialectic
(thesis-antithesis-synthesis) concept
come from Georg W. F. Hegel. I call this
understanding "Zeitgeist Postmodernism,"
it is the foundation on which Scientific
Postmodernism is built.
      Upon first encountering it, the
term "Scientific Postmodernism" might be
confusing since it was prior to the
postmodern period (during the modern
era) when the scientific method was
discovered and first put to use. I take
the term "Scientific" from the phrase
"queen of the sciences," where
"sciences" mean "fields of knowledge."
According to the original monotheism
hypothesis, religion was the queen of
the sciences and there was an ideational
emphasis as opposed to sensate emphasis
at the dawn of the premodern age. The
Copernican Revolution, dateable to
Copernicus's publication of On the
Revolutions of the Heavenly Spheres
in 1543, made mathematics queen of the
sciences and brought about a senate
emphasis at the dawn of the modern age.
A foundational crisis in mathematics of
similar magnitude, dateable to Kurt
Godel's publication of his incomplete-
ness theorems in 1931 and 1932, deposed
queen mathematics and restored religion
and similarly overthrew the senate
emphasis and restored an ideational
emphasis at the dawn of the postmodern
age. The concept of alternating idea-
tional and senate periods comes from
Pitirim Sorokin. I call this enhanced
understanding of Zeitgeist Postmodernism
"Scientific Postmodernism."

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