Brian Lehrer on WNYC radio asked that question “What happens after the revolution?” to discuss the experience of people that might apply to the amazing events in Egypt and the Arab world, and what follows.

I’m a scientist who studies the revolutions in natural systems that nature uses to create everything.  You discover causes later, and discover revolutions happening from the explosion of new relationships emerging.

Generally there is a kind of “calm before a storm” that becomes a “viral event” which then goes through a succession of stages.   The emerging system seems to “graduate” from one level of organization to another as much as people move through a succession of graduations in life, experiencing a “disrupting and remaking” its environmental relations.

The Egyptian revolution today is at the stage of  “immature new culture” needing to mature to find what to refine as their new national culture.  A similar challenge faced followed the dramatic collapse of the Soviet Union, now seemingly approaching the end of its second experiment with self-government.

There are better new tools for studying these events and histories, as seen in my study of  “silent” collapse of the Crack Culture in NYC from 1990-95.  You need some mathematical analysis to make sure you have quality data, but mainly just learn to observe how an environment is changing by the presence viral cultural or ecological events. Continue reading What happens after the revolution? →