Big History specifically and purposefully looks at history from a much broader perspective, knowing full well that it's going to miss the complexity of large portions of what is going on at the much smaller scales. But it does this because different structures and ideas emerge at these larger scales. We see different types of things going on that we don't see at the smaller time scales.

If you analogize it to a chess game, there are some very simple and straightforward rules which are responsible for a terribly complex potential number of moves and games to be played. Most history has been studied at the level of "let's take a look at the first three moves of a game of chess" or let's look at the last three moves. This type of close examination doesn't allow for the broader sweeping view of entire games. Both Boris Spassky and a typical four year old could play the same 4 opening chess moves, but the complexity of competing against them diverges rapidly as the game progresses. By looking at the bigger picture, one can better appreciate what is happening later in the game. This also gives one a better platform for analyzing smaller portions of the mid-game as well.

I would suggest that Christian's audio lectures in [book:Big History: The Big Bang, Life On Earth, And The Rise Of Humanity|7956320] do a far better job of showing this viewpoint than his text [book:Maps of Time: An Introduction to Big History|745703].

I would say that big history is anything but "new age-y pseudo-science", and because it is rooted more heavily in physics, cosmology, biology, chemistry, microbiology and various other hard science disciplines, it is actually on more solid grounding than most other history-based courses. Those who have read C.P. Snow will recognize that big history has a grounding in both of the "two cultures" rather than being solely entrenched in just one. It's somewhat akin to taking a complexity theory-based approach to economics compared to the older 18th and 19th century simplified approaches followed by Adam Smith, Keynes, et al well into the 1980's. With approaches to economics exemplified by Kahneman/Tversky or more modern schools like the Santa Fe Institute, there is more being uncovered by shifting paradigms and taking more nuanced approaches to the subject than using the simplifications of the past.

Taking new approaches doesn't necessarily invalidate prior work in these fields, it just provides a broader basis for how all the various parts interact to create a larger whole.

Christian is without a doubt a historian through and through, and is quite upfront about his general lack of scientific expertise and background. He has however spent quite a bit of time working with and consulting physicists, chemists, biologists, and other scientists to supplement the appropriate portions of his bigger thesis. I would say though, that he's got firm footing in both of C.P. Snow's "Two Cultures."

Christian references Prigogine only once, though includes two Prigogine related footnotes in the last quarter of the text. He's not as Prigogine-centric as [author:César Hidalgo|13831217] is in his recent [book:Why Information Grows: The Evolution of Order, from Atoms to Economies|25472587], which touches on some of the related physics of information theory and entropy (and general complexity theory - although I don't recall him using this specific term) as they relate to economics. I'd classify Why Information Grows as a "big history" book, though Hidalgo wasn't aware of the conceptualization of "big history" when he wrote it.

I wrote a slightly longer review of Christian's book(s) on my blog: http://boffosocko.com/2012/06/17/big-history/. (Perhaps I'll have to move more detail over into my GoodReads review.)

#bighistory

@davidgchristian meet @cesifoti; vice versa. You should be aware of each others' work. #BigHistory #CollectiveLearning #Complexity

This seems like an extension of Colin McNamara's post a while back, which Eric Waldstein is quietly referencing by copying the two of us: https://www.yammer.com/bhpteachercommunity/#/Threads/show?threadId=493899391

I'm also reminded of some of the simple examples that Warren Weaver and John Robinson Pierce presented shortly after the publication of Claude Shannnon's seminal work "The Mathematical Theory of Communication" which, because it underpins ALL of the modern day communications revolution (digital communication, computers, satellites, cell phones, etc.) since the 1940's, is often cited (along with religious texts like the Bible, the Koran, etc.) as one of humanity's most influential written works. [http://worrydream.com/refs/Shannon%20-%20A%20Mathematical%20Theory%20of%20Communication.pdf]

Shannon had previously taken George Boole's new "algebra" from the late 1800's (now known as Boolean Algebra, which underpins most of modern logic) and applied it to electronic circuits. Though somewhat technical most advanced high school algebra students should be able to read and understand most of Claude Shannon's MIT master's thesis, which itself is often cited as one of the most influential theses ever written. [http://www.cs.virginia.edu/~robins/Shannon_MS_Thesis.pdf]

In any case, Pierce in particular does some simple exercises relating to language in his book "An Introduction to Information Theory: Symbols, Signals and Noise" [http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0486240614/ref=as_li_tl?ie=UTF8&camp=1789&creative=390957&creativeASIN=0486240614&linkCode=as2&tag=bighistory-20&linkId=ITZN6S4HHWRWDZZB] Amongst a bevy of interesting topics, he has a chapter on "Language and Meaning" as well as examples of the built in redundancy of languages and "error correcting" which mathematically allows us to have crossword puzzles as word games.

This also to some extent, underpins our ability to look at the following paragraph and understand what it says. All the letters have been jumbled (mixed). Only the first and last letter of ecah word is in the right place:

I cnduo't bvleiee taht I culod aulaclty uesdtannrd waht I was rdnaieg. Unisg the icndeblire pweor of the hmuan mnid, aocdcrnig to rseecrah at Cmabrigde Uinervtisy, it dseno't mttaer in waht oderr the lterets in a wrod are, the olny irpoamtnt tihng is taht the frsit and lsat ltteer be in the rhgit pclae. The rset can be a taotl mses and you can sitll raed it whoutit a pboerlm. Tihs is bucseae the huamn mnid deos not raed ervey ltteer by istlef, but the wrod as a wlohe. Aaznmig, huh? Yaeh and I awlyas tghhuot slelinpg was ipmorantt! See if yuor fdreins can raed tihs too.

Pierce's book, while it does have some small amount of math, should be generally readable by most high school students. He also provides a simple model of language in his chapter "A Mathematical Model" which many may find interesting, or be able to pull some interesting examples out of. This particular book is also an excellent example of the intertwining of the ideas of physics, mathematics, engineering, psychology, thermodynamics as well as the ideas of emergence, convergence, and allows for the increased complexity and collective learning that underpins the philosophy of Big History.