May 6, 2008

Gaia Declares Hudna

By Allan Nadel

A desire to understand the universe seems to be hard-wired into our brains. However we need a worldview (from the German Weltanschauung which means, literally, "world view"). Continuing with the computer metaphor, a worldview corresponds to a disc operating system, a framework for receiving and processing data.

Worldviews have changed over the course of history. The ancient Greeks thought that otherwise inexplicable events such as thunderstorms and falling in love were the results of whimsical actions of Zeus and Cupid, respectively. Shakespeare and his contemporaries believed in a heavenly harmony that was replicated here on earth. Thus the sun ruled the sky just as kings ruled on earth; events such as comets or regicide, upsetting the proper harmony, were greatly feared

These ideas were replaced in turn by historical inevitability:

What the bourgeoisie, therefore, produces, above all, is its own grave-diggers. Its fall and the victory of the proletariat are equally inevitable.

Despite the demise of Communism in Russia and Eastern Europe, Marxism is still held in reverence by academics in many countries, while the rest of us wait in vain for the intelligentsia to provide us with a new Weltanschauung.

Actually, the idea of historical inevitability preceded Marx by several hundred years. In the autumn of 2001, I developed a sudden interest in Islamic theology, and learned about the divinely ordained conflict between Dar al Harb and Dar al Islam:

[9.29] Fight those who do not believe in Allah, nor in the latter day, nor do they prohibit what Allah and His Apostle have prohibited, nor follow the religion of truth, out of those who have been given the Book, until they pay the tax in acknowledgment of superiority and they are in a state of subjection.
...

[9.33] He it is Who sent His Apostle with guidance and the religion of truth, that He might cause it to prevail over all religions, though the polytheists may be averse.

However, it's permissible to declare a hudna

"If Muslims are weak, a truce may be made for ten years if necessary, for the Prophet made a truce with the Quraysh for that long, as is related by Abu Dawud" ('Umdat as-Salik, o9.16).

Still on the topic of historical inevitability: it is now settled science that anthropogenic global warming is imminent. So I was surprised to read, in the May 1, 2008 edition of the highly respected scientific journal Nature:

Antarctica's deep ocean waters are getting colder after years of warming (page 15)

and in the very same issue

Using this method, and by considering both internal natural climate variations and projected future anthropogenic forcing, we make the following forecast: over the next decade, the current Atlantic meridional overturning circulation will weaken... global surface temperature may not increase over the next decade, as natural climate variations in the North Atlantic and tropical Pacific temporarily offset the projected anthropogenic warming. (page 84)

Also we may be seeing the smallest sunspot cycle in 100 years, and a possible reversal of the Pacific Decadal Oscillation into its cool phase.

What does it all mean? I need to develop a Weltanschauung. Let's see....a hudna is 10 years; the meridional overturning circulation (whatever that is) will weaken over the next 10 years; a sunspot cycle is just over 10 years; the Pacific Decadal Oscillation ...anyone see a pattern here?

Has Gaia declared a hudna?

As Yogi Berra said, "It's tough to make predictions, especially about the future." This is especially true when one states categorically that a certain outcome is inevitable. Marx was almost certainly wrong about the collapse of the bourgeoisie; we can only hope that Mohammed was wrong about the universal Caliphate, and there is some recent suggestion that Al Gore was wrong about an imminent global warming catastrophe.

Maybe we should all declare a hudna regarding predictions.