Summary of the Central Equilibrium Problem

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Players

1. Thinking at the epistemological level.

2. Thinking at the ontological level.

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Strategies (epistemological level)

1. Optimism (the unknown gradually shrinks relative to the known thanks to philosophy and scientific research).

2. Pessimism (it is impossible to understand the world as it is; one can only form a subjective notion of it).

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Strategies (ontological level)

1. Idealism (consciousness/ideas generate reality).

2. Materialism (fluctuations of particles generate “reality” or “behavior”, as well as “ideas of any kind”, with no inherent hierarchy whatsoever).

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Games (personae/identities)

1. Idealism + Optimism (iconic figures: Voltaire, Thomas Paine, Thomas Jefferson, Benjamin Franklin).

2. Idealism + Pessimism (iconic figures: Tomás de Torquemada, Hassan al-Banna, Israel Aumann, Moshe Feiglin).

3. Materialism + Optimism (iconic figures: Vladimir Ilyich Ulyanov [Lenin], Mao Zedong, Nicolae Ceaușescu, Pol Pot).

4. Materialism + Pessimism (Nash equilibrium). Main trait: a very strong tendency, in rhetoric about ethical, economic, and policy questions, to weave in as many concepts as possible that invite narrative interpretation—“Zionism”, “the territories”, “peace”, “democracy.” Go figure what any of these mean. The procedures “we will do and [only then] we will hear” and “see and sanctify” are enforced, with regard to Darwinism in the animate and inanimate realms, strictly—every department, every campus, every university. Regarding Darwinism (animate and inanimate) there is zero narrative tolerance at the interface between the public’s consciousness and the formal authoritative outlets of explanation. (My narrative about “collective phenotypic traits”, which says that changes in them do not exceed the bounds of “traits of the species”, is met with a sour face in every department, every campus, every university.) The same strictness is not applied under Materialism + Optimism. See the case of Yuri Petrovich Altukhov. (Iconic figures: Shulamit Aloni, Naomi Chazan, Yuli Tamir, Oskar Dirlewanger.)

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Incentives

(Key to the incentives: “governmental stability”)

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Axiom 1 (based on Vilfredo Pareto’s “circulation of elites”): Every politically organized society/governing system is composed of two elements:

1. The administrative dimension (high ability to purchase an investment apartment): built of the “six arenas of control in public life” (capital, elected officials, media, judiciary, security apparatuses, academia). This dimension is the “non-productive sector”, rather the “sector that directs production.” Main trait: an average age in the last third or last quarter of life / the age of prostate problems (mostly men). The strongest arena: academia. Why? Because we are not worms. Main vulnerability (in light of Western science and philosophy): Darwinism in the animate and inanimate (ontology).

2. The civic dimension (low ability to purchase an investment apartment): the taxpayer, the debt-payer, the rank-and-file child-raiser. This dimension is the “productive sector.” Main trait: the remaining age cohorts. Under market-economy/uncertainty conditions it cannot attain a state of “economic security” or any form of continuous satisfaction. Confusion, vigilance, and constant tension toward the unknown = a market economy that governs itself/forecasts itself.

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Axiom 2: The administrative dimension “generates situations”, the civic dimension “finds itself in situations.” Why? The administrative dimension controls the positioning, intensity, and diffusion of “ideas”, including the positioning/intensity/diffusion of the very idea that “ideas” are unimportant relative to particle fluctuations. The civic dimension receives ideas only. In short: a young man in a fighter jet who, at the press of a button, kills a thousand people does not “generate a situation”! The owner of the levers that position, intensify, and diffuse ideas (meta-narratives: “Whoever is for the LORD, come to me”, Homo habilis, Homo erectus, and Homo ergaster) does generate situations!

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Axiom 3: The very existence of any politically organized society/governing system, under market-economy/uncertainty conditions, is not an “objective value” in terms of the exact rules of the market economy. Such societies/systems come and go constantly. The “eternal existence” of any one of them, as a “value”, is not forced by anything—unlike, say, ecological systems.

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Axiom 4: Western science and philosophy are the sole source for distinguishing truth from falsehood; from them we learn, in general, cooperation vs. non-cooperation. For example, only Western science and philosophy can teach whether:
A. The findings of Weismann’s barrier and Hardy–Weinberg equilibrium—which arise from legitimate scientific research and compel the mind to (1) posit a hidden factor that introduces new information into the genetic pool of the world of species (assuming—and we are obliged to assume—that the development of the world of species is analogous to embryonic development), and (2) interpret the appearance of Darwinian adaptive variation via a tension between the potential phenotypic expression (embedded at the species-level genetics in its entirety) and the actual phenotypic expression beginning at the subspecies population level—do or do not receive reinforcement from the later sources: (1) molecular biology (clarification of gene-replication control mechanisms), and (2) paleontology (Gould & Eldredge’s punctuated equilibrium showing much stability versus little development precisely where one might expect otherwise).
B. Whether the phenomenon of cosmic expansion, as mediated to us by formal authoritative outlets using terms recruited from the world of plastics and rubber processing, constitutes a first-order piece of evidence or not, compared with another candidate for first-order evidence: namely, matter’s ability—in stage 1: to emerge, of its own accord, ex nihilo, specifically along one of the two operative directions implied by mass–energy equivalence; Stage 2: to self-organize—still by its own initiative—into celestial bodies, as the developmental pathway of “the individual endowed with a program that guides its own development.”.

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Axiom 5 (based on the “Development” entry in the Hebrew Encyclopedia): The circumstance-, time-, and place-dependent dominance of a view of physical reality as a whole through seeing entropy as a special case of development (“the new cognition”), at the expense of seeing development as a special case of entropy (“the traditional cognition”), is learned from Yeshayahu Leibowitz’s concept of the “unconscious metaphor.” That concept stands on three pillars:

1. Treating “systems of change” in nature that are not “the individual possessing a program that directs its development” as if they too were processes of “development,” is nothing more than the recruitment, by way of metaphor, of the phenomenon “the development of the individual possessing a program that directs its development” in order to describe various processes in science and culture, imagined and not imagined.

2. Such treatment of those “systems of change” should be attributed to certain publics that began to appear as politically organized societies only in the twentieth century (national-capitalism, national-socialism, communism).

3. As a rule, such treatment will lead both to the importation of terms from the world of plastics and rubber processing into the discipline of astronomy—to describe the universe and/or the processes that occur in it, imagined and not imagined—and to turning science into an opposition to popular science. That is, under any conditions, both the metaphorization that recruits the phenomenon of “the development of the individual possessing a program that directs its development” and the importation of plastics/rubber terminology into astronomy will always occur first due to collective-cognitive factors, not first due to empirical-scientific findings.
   Implication: for each of the two paradigms regarding the meaning of “development” (entropy-as-special-case-of-development vs. development-as-special-case-of-entropy), there is a cognitive foundation which—though manipulable—does not depend on “will” (the foundation itself is not acquired).

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“Governmental Stability” as the Ultimate Incentive under Market-Economy/Uncertainty

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“Governmental stability” (imagined value = 1) vs. “lack of governmental stability” (imagined value = 0), under market-economy/uncertainty, and subject to the interest-profile of the age cohort typical of the administrative dimension (“governmental stability at any price for ~the next four decades”), is directly influenced by the choice between cooperation and non-cooperation vis-à-vis the civic dimension—at both the ontological and epistemological levels.

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Implications

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Meaning of cooperation at the epistemological level, in relation to “governmental stability”, under market-economy/uncertainty: opening a path toward domains where the following do not exist or are violated: (1) a collective subconscious; (2) partial attainment of Piaget’s fourth stage among the civic dimension; (3) the two-cultures split (C. P. Snow) of the educated stratum = a threat to governmental stability under market-economy/uncertainty (value = 0).

 

Meaning of cooperation at the epistemological level—substance:

1. The commandment of laying tefillin is an entirely human category (not a category combining human and supra-human involvement).

2. “Prophecy”/“Service of a Speaking God” is an expression of political activism in the style of the ancient world—a by-product of a failed attempt by a handful of elders to impose order, authority, and policy (“do as I say, not because I desire it, but because God commanded”).

3. Julian Huxley—the first formal neo-Darwinist—= narrative agent; Carl Sagan = narrative agent; Richard Dawkins = narrative agent; Yuval Noah Harari = narrative agent.

4. The religious of the twentieth century in general, and of the post-WWII era in particular, are a human reaction to pseudo-science and pseudo-Enlightenment (national-monotheism, fascism, communism, liberalism). The reaction has four forms: (A) Yeshayahu Leibowitz; (B) Israel Aumann; (C) Uri Zohar; (D) beheadings.
   (Meaning of cooperation, epistemology = the young feel curiosity/identification; the old feel tension/anxiety. Why? Under market-economy/uncertainty the old strive to engage with the world of ideas—controlling ideas means controlling fate; the young strive to engage with the world of cemeteries—controlling combat skills raises one’s chance not to die in battle.)

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Meaning of cooperation at the ontological level, in relation to “governmental stability”, under market-economy/uncertainty: opening a path toward domains where the same three conditions (collective subconscious, partial Piaget-stage-four, Snow’s two cultures) do not exist or are violated = threat to governmental stability (value = 0).

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Meaning of cooperation at the ontological level—substance:

1. The theory of an expanding universe from a certain zero-point (Big Bang / elastic universe) is not a scientific theory so long as there is no clarity about matter’s ability, first, to appear ex nihilo by its own initiative (as one of the two directions implied by mass–energy equivalence) and, second, to self-organize into heavenly bodies—by analogy to the development of an individual with a program that directs its development.

2. Later findings—such as the clarification of gene-replication control mechanisms and Gould–Eldredge’s punctuated equilibrium—reinforce the conclusion that the potential for subspecies-population adaptation to environmental conditions is embedded in the structure of the species’ genome.

3. That conclusion is old and arises, as ever, from:
   A) August Weismann: we are not free from positing a hidden factor that introduces new information into the genetic pool of the world of species (heritable mutation or not), assuming—and we are obliged to assume—development of the world of species by analogy to embryogenesis.
   B) G. H. Hardy & Wilhelm Weinberg: although actual changes occur in genotype frequencies at a given geographic site (i.e., at the subspecies-population level), these do not alter the statistically stable equilibrium between genotype frequencies and allele frequencies at the species level. Hence Darwinian adaptive variation manifests as the tension between the species-level potential phenotypic expression and the actual phenotypic expression beginning at the subspecies-population level.

4. The publication of “Evolution: The Modern Synthesis” during WWII (October 1942) is an ad hoc solution—in the form of institutionalizing the principle of “ordered randomness”—to the problem created when gradualism (the biometricians’ proposal) was canceled by the heritable-mutation route for “new information” entering the genetic pool (the Mendelians’ proposal).

5. The stories about Homo habilis, Homo erectus, and Homo ergaster (the challenges they faced, the tools they made, the circumstances under which they “advanced” along the spectrum of mental retardation) are comfort tales of the same genre as stories about the three Patriarchs and Elijah the Prophet—evidence of conditions under which even a Darwinist may find himself humming the song “Al Nevakesh” (“Let Us Not Ask”): “There are hidden things we will not understand or know; we also do things that seem to have no reason; not everything must be probed and questioned; sometimes it is permitted not to know it all.”
   (Meaning of cooperation, ontology = the young feel curiosity/identification; the old feel tension/anxiety—for the same reason given above.)

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The Song “Al Nevakesh”

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The song “Al Nevakesh” is like a Rosetta Stone—a single song that serves as a key to understanding the essence of epistemological pessimism as a whole, and therefore paves the way to understanding the essence of Western philosophy as a whole. Epistemological pessimism, in brief: canceling the option of cynicism & opportunism as an ad hoc, “natural” solution to the objective need for a social order and public administration that are as efficient and stable as possible under market-economy/uncertainty — by appeal to forces that produce “things too wondrous/hidden for you”, in whose name every generation is channeled not to demand and not to inquire (pragmatism at the expense of transparency under market-economy/uncertainty). “Al Nevakesh” joins the list of answers — to all the big questions that arise in the discussion of decision-making processes — that Israeli thought alone supplies (there is no need to search elsewhere): The link between Zionism and Darwinism — Rafael Falk; Heredity, in all its components, does not explain the development of the world of species from a single common ancestor — Yeshayahu Leibowitz; The hereditary mutation cannot serve as an information-introducing factor that is efficient, evolutionarily, into the world of species — Dan Graur; The assumption of God’s existence is a product of reason — Yuval Steinitz; The Jewish people created by Zionism in the second half of the twentieth century — a banal offspring of the Cold War — Avishai Ehrlich; The “Big Bang” phenomenon is not a “scientific theory” — Yakir Aharonov/Jacob Bekenstein; Yair Golan is a national-socialist, not a politician — Yair Golan himself; The cat from the film The Matrix — Israel Aumann.

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Pareto Efficiency

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In the Central Equilibrium Problem we obtain a Nash equilibrium (1:1) that is not Pareto-efficient. How so?

Here, Pareto efficiency is tested through the distribution of resources/opportunities to realize skills and intellectual potential across the entire collective (the administrative and civic dimensions together), locally or globally. Why? Because ontological and epistemological thinking cannot be owned by any actor, organized or not. That is the baseline assumption.

In the Nash equilibrium of the Central Equilibrium Problem:

1. Administrative/ontological thinking (Player 1), to ensure—under market-economy/uncertainty—the highest-possible intensity of governmental stability for the remaining third/quarter of future human life-time, does not cooperate with the civic dimension at the ontological level.

2. Administrative/epistemological thinking (Player 2), for the same purpose, does not cooperate with the civic dimension at the epistemological level.

Both players fear the other player’s cooperation with the civic dimension, which (they believe) would reduce the imagined chance of achieving maximal governmental stability for the remaining third/quarter of future lifetime.

The actual outcome: a “National-Monotheism” Nash equilibrium (dominance, in science and culture, of post-Darwinian materialism together with epistemological pessimism). Implications:

1. At the level of state institutions, higher-education institutions, and state symbols, a hybrid type is welcomed: a “God-fearing Darwinist.” (Apart from Tomer Persico—who else in the world can declare himself such a thing?!)

2. There is a negative correlation between science and popular science; “science” (in the broad sense: science & philosophy) becomes an opposition to popular science—linked to the mainstream current in philosophy (deduction, idealism, rationalism, optimism) and to the meaning of “development” as formulated in the Hebrew Encyclopedia.

Under the “National-Monotheism” Nash equilibrium, the players’ desired outcome indeed appears (post-1988, the year A Brief History of Time was published), but necessarily at the expense of the civic dimension’s life. A “National-Monotheism” Nash equilibrium cannot but lead to war. This is an axiom. (“If you lie—you kill; kill ten—you’ve killed a thousand; kill a thousand—after that no one counts.”)

Conclusion/Recommendation: To reduce as much as possible the likelihood of war, lower the average age of the administrative dimension from 60–80 to 20–40 (combined with popularization of the Central Equilibrium Problem—everyone should know it and the conditions under which it yields a Pareto-inefficient Nash equilibrium).

A “National-Monotheism” Nash equilibrium will always be desired by the administrative dimension, under market-economy/uncertainty, if its average age is 60–80—desired equally by those anxious about the dominant character of epistemological thinking in the public information sphere (Israel Aumann, Haim Druckman, Dov Lior, Shlomo Aviner, Moshe Feiglin) and by those anxious about the dominant character of ontological thinking there (Yuli Tamir, Amos Schocken, Oren Harman, Yuval Noah Harari, Yair Golan).

In such an equilibrium we will, for example, see ancient tradition symbols integrated into national ceremonies (heaven forfend), integrated into the symbols of a “people’s army”, and integrated into the rhetoric of “elected officials.” From combining Dov Lior with Oren Harman, or Israel Aumann with Yuval Noah Harari, after Stephen Hawking, we will not get new Dov Liors, Oren Harmans, Israel Aumanns, or Yuval Noah Hararis—and certainly not new Yaakov Hazans or Meir Yaaris. Instead, a hybrid creature will emerge—Hebrew-speaking, upgraded (heaven forfend).

The “National-Monotheism” Nash equilibrium marks the extremely unchallenging (intellectually) and safest default the administrative dimension (age 60–80) can choose—as a solution to the identity question. It also precisely defines the first-order strategic target of critique: the kingdom of “Diuma”—namely, as ever, the authoritarian elites (those positioned, in the public information sphere, as the exclusive guardians of the interpretation of “development”: whether only “the individual with a program that directs its development” “develops”, or also “everything else”)—not the economic elites. Politicians and businesspeople are not first-rank royalty (unless we are worms!), because they are not the instance that professionally handles, in real time, the question of the collective level of risk we take on the possibility that there exists a coherent factor that injects new information into the genetic pool of the world of species—and the social implications of such risk. (After Julian Huxley, the degree of risk was high; after Stephen Hawking, it is low.)