Paper Description:
In Decline of the West, Oswald Spengler casts a panoptic gaze across the 8 great civilizations. Every High Culture goes through a lifecycle similar to that of an organism, starting with a springtime birth, moving through a period of flourishing and growth, and then eventually entering a period of decline and winter. Spengler identifies eight major High Cultures or civilizations: Babylonian Culture - Ancient Mesopotamia. Egyptian Culture - Ancient Egypt. Chinese Culture - Ancient China. Indian Culture - The Indian subcontinent. Classical Culture - Ancient Greece and Rome. Often referred to as the Greco-Roman civilization. Magian Culture - A composite that includes early Jewish, Christian, and Islamic cultures of the Middle East. Mexican (or Aztec) Culture - Pre-Columbian Mesoamerica. Faustian Culture - Representing the Western or European civilization, starting from the 10th century AD and continuing into Spengler's present. The term "Faustian" is derived from Goethe's "Faust", symbolizing the restless spirit of the West, always striving and reaching for the infinite. These great cultures are distinguished from one another by their mathematics. By their music and art. By their symbolism and their life-feeling; their soul image. By their money. Silicon Valley: 9th Great Civilization Mathematics: Computationalism; the merger of mathematics and computation. Religion: Spiritual Techno-Utopianism; Transcendence through Technology. Arts: Poetry of @repligate. Generative Reality; Generative Art, Virtual Reality; Augmented Reality. Philosophy: Informationalist Physicalism. Science: Bayesian Epistemology; Causality. Politics: Generative Democracy. Economics: Mechanism Design; Cryptocurrency. Societal Structure: Decentralized Fluid Meritocracy. Architectural Style: SolarPunk / CyberPunk. Soul: Culture of creative heroism; gold rush, psychedelia, manifest destiny. Music: Generative Music; Techno; Ambient, Chillstep, Trance. Free