Right, off you go.
I went to the terrific Egyptian exhibit, The Quest for Immortality. It will be in New Orleans in 2003.
I wonder how the pharaoh system could last for thousands of years. Did the pharaoh and priests manipulate the hoi polloi all that time, or did the common mindset compel such a system?
Churn up a bucket of water, and then stir the outer edge of the bucket. The outer edge of the water moves about in a circle, and the inner water will start to turn as well, although it's still churning. After a while, the churning ends and all the water is moving in unison. At the transition point from churn to harmonious stirring, it suddenly becomes easier to move the stick, and increase the stirring speed.
Now repeat the experiment, except start by stirring in a small circle in the middle of the bucket. Now the middle portion of water starts to move in a circle, and the churn appears to be pushed outward. Eventually, the water moves in unison, and there is again a transition point where the water will move faster with the same stirring effort.
I wonder which of these two experiments best represents conceptual transitions in society. Perhaps society is a fractal (scale invariant - something that looks the same regardless of the level of detail). When a phase transition occurs in nature (such as water to ice) it is preceded by scale-invariance.
The wand tour of the exhibit stressed that Egyptians didn't worship animals, but the forces (processes) that the animals represented. Most primitive statues depict very little facial expression, as if the subject is a veneer for the powerful processes of nature.
It's a strange person who can say that she loves her children, but would have swept them from existence if they had come about at a different time. But it's not surprising that there is such a process in nature.