Category: Personal Reflections and Diary

I am one of the most informed people in the world, despite that I take valuable time out of my day to experiment on and learn from the Hoi Polloi of the world using social media.

You are welcome to attempt a counter-argument but you will fail, because the empirical evidence is as I state it.

THE LITERATURE

You could, read, for example,

I. Human Accomplishment by Charles Murray.

Murray advances a quantitative, historiometric analysis of high human achievement in the arts and sciences from antiquity through mid-20th century.
He constructs and analyses datasets (“inventories”) of eminent figures across 21 civilizations and 14 disciplines, aggregating biographical reference frequencies (encyclopedias, histories, biographical dictionaries) as a proxy for consensual eminence.

From these data he draws large-scale patterns:

Distributions of accomplishment are highly skewed (few individuals account for most achievements).

Cultural hot spots arise under specific social, political, and cognitive conditions (e.g., classical Greece, Renaissance Italy, Enlightenment Europe).

Religion, freedom, and rationality correlate with peaks of accomplishment, whereas political centralization and dogmatism correlate with decline.

Civilizational trajectories of accomplishment appear to follow logistic (rise-plateau-decay) curves tied to institutions and values.

He distinguishes between achievement (objective excellence recognized by experts over time) and reputation (transient popularity).

Murray’s intent is not moral but empirical: to identify where and when greatness flourished and to demonstrate that such accomplishment can be measured, compared, and explained.

3. Methodology

a. Data Construction
Sources: over 2,000 reference works in multiple languages (biographical dictionaries, encyclopedias, specialized histories).
Metric: number of mentions per individual across source corpus, weighted by source prestige.
Validation: inter-source correlation (r ≈ 0.95), cross-checking across linguistic regions.

b. Domains Analysed
Arts: visual art, music, literature, architecture, philosophy.
Sciences: astronomy, physics, biology, mathematics, medicine, technology.
Geography: 21 civilizations from Mesopotamia and China to modern Europe and America.

c. Analytical Procedures
– Normalisation of accomplishment scores within fields.
– Temporal and regional aggregation (centuries, civilizations).
– Correlational analysis with cultural variables (religiosity, political structure, openness, literacy).

4. Findings

Concentration of Accomplishment:
97 % of historically significant figures arose from Europe (esp. Western Europe post-1500).
Temporal Dynamics:
Peaks in creativity coincide with bursts of freedom, economic surplus, and moral/intellectual confidence.
Domain Specificity:
Arts tend to precede sciences in flourishing; scientific revolutions emerge later once epistemic and institutional capital accumulates.
Civilizational Decline:
Decline follows institutional ossification, loss of shared moral confidence, and excessive relativism or bureaucratization of creativity.
Cultural Prerequisites:
Religious belief, but moderated by rational inquiry (not dogma), is correlated with peak creativity.

II. Or you could read any of these works:

1. Creativity: Flow & The Psychology of Discovery & Invention (Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi)
Citation: Csikszentmihalyi, M. (1996). Creativity: Flow & The Psychology of Discovery & Invention. Harper.
Core argument: Through interviews with eminent creators (artists, scientists, inventors), Csikszentmihalyi examines what internal and external conditions yield “flow” and breakthrough productivity.
Relevance to your framework: It emphasises the “time-productivity” dimension (how time is used by high performers) and links to your interest in how capital (time + reciprocity) is realised operationally.
Usage comment: Good for operationalising variables of individual high-achievement (e.g., hours of deep work, network of peers) which you could map into your measurement grammar.

2. The Creativity Research Handbook (Volume 3) (Mark A. Runco, ed.)
Citation: Runco, M. A. (Ed.). (2014). The Creativity Research Handbook, Vol. 3. Elsevier.
Core argument: A collection of advanced research articles on creativity—from psychometric to cognitive to sociocultural.
Relevance: Provides methodological depth for measuring creative achievement, useful in your aim to build an “operational grammar of cooperation” and measurement of excellence.
Usage: Use as a resource to extract measurement tools and variables of creative output and networks of reciprocity.

3. A Cognitive Historical Approach to Creativity (Routledge)
Citation: (2018). A Cognitive Historical Approach to Creativity. Routledge.
Core argument: Synthesises cognitive science and historical method: looks at creativity as cognitive/historical process rather than solely trait-based.
Relevance: Maps well into your universal→particular structure: universal cognitive mechanisms, particular historical/temporal variation.
Usage: Useful to ground your “particular variation” category (e.g., individual differences, historical context) with empirical/historical evidence.

4. The Measure of Reality: Quantification & Western Society, 1250‑1600 (Alfred W. Crosby)
Citation: Crosby, A. W. (1997). The Measure of Reality: Quantification and Western Society, 1250-1600. Cambridge Univ. Press. Cambridge University Press & Assessment+1
Core argument: The shift in Western Europe to quantitative thinking (measurement of time/space/number) underpinned later scientific/technological dominance.
Relevance: Connects directly to your interest in “measurement systems”, the collapse thereof, and the role of quantification in civilisation.
Usage: Could serve as a case study of a civilisation‐level shift in measurement system; you might integrate its variables into your system of “stores of time/reciprocity”.

5. Creativity: Research, Development, and Practice
Citation: Runco, M. A. (2007). Creativity: Research, Development & Practice. Elsevier.
Core argument: A broad summary of creativity research across domains.
Relevance: Allows you to gather empirical evidence of “accomplishment” (in arts & sciences) through measurable indicators of creative output.
Usage: Serves as secondary resource to fill gaps in metrics for excellence—helpful for constructing your database of demonstrated interests.

6. Handbook of Research on Creativity & Innovation
Citation: Zhou, J. & Rouse, E. D. (Eds.). (2017). Handbook of Research on Creativity & Innovation. Edward Elgar.
Core argument: Explores creativity/innovation in individuals, teams, institutions—methods, measurement, contexts.
Relevance: Matching your interest in group evolutionary strategy and institutional innovation—the cooperation dimension becomes central.
Usage: Useful for building measurement of cooperative structures (teams/institutions) and how they drive high‐end accomplishment.

7. The Cult of Creativity: A Surprisingly Recent History
Citation: Franklin, U. (2023). The Cult of Creativity: A Surprisingly Recent History. University of Chicago Press.
Core argument: Argues “creativity” as a concept/value is very recent (post-1950) rather than timeless; explores institutional/incentive history around creativity.
Relevance: Helps you interrogate the “meta-incentive landscape” for accomplishment (why some eras valued it more than others) and fits your interest in regression/decline of measurement systems.
Usage: Use as a critical lens for understanding the incentive/valuation side of demonstrated interest.

8. The Palgrave Handbook of Social Creativity Research
Citation: Kubovy, M. & Plucker, J. (Eds.). (2020). The Palgrave Handbook of Social Creativity Research. Springer.
Core argument: Investigates creativity and innovation from a social/collective perspective—how groups, culture, social networks matter.
Relevance: Vital for your framework of cooperation and stores of reciprocity: accomplishment is not just individual but in social networks/flows of capital (time/reciprocity).
Usage: Use to operationalise “reciprocity networks” and to code variables for group vs individual accomplishment.

9. Handbook of Culture and Creativity: Basic Processes & Applications
Citation: Leung, A., Kwan, L., & Shy, D. (Eds.). (2019). Handbook of Culture and Creativity. Oxford University Press.
Core argument: Focus on cultural/structural contexts of creativity—how culture mediates and shapes creative processes and outcomes.
Relevance: Fits your interest in group‐differences, cultural evolution and natural law—shows how variation in cultural systems influences accomplishment.
Usage: For your “group differences” level (neotenic evolution, genetic load, cultural differences) as you map variation in accomplishment across populations.

10. Handbook of Research Methods on Creativity
Citation: Dörfler, V. & Stierand, M. (Eds.). (2018). Handbook of Research Methods on Creativity. Wiley-Blackwell.
Core argument: Methodological deep‐dive: measurement, research design, operationalisation of creativity and innovation.
Relevance: Direct fit for your emphasis on testifiability, operational coherence, and measurement systems.
Usage: As a toolkit citation for how to build your own measurement grammar of accomplishment.

11. Creativity: Theories & Themes: Research, Development & Practice
Citation: Runco, M. A., & Albert, R. (2010). Creativity: Theories & Themes. Elsevier.
Core argument: Provides theoretical lenses (psychological, sociological, developmental) on creativity.
Relevance: Supports your universal → particular structure: universal mechanisms of creativity, particular variation by individual/context.
Usage: Helps map theoretical scaffolding onto your own structure of variation (sex differences, group differences, personality/adaptability).

12. Key Article: D.K. Simonton – “Reverse engineering genius: historiometric studies of creativity”
Citation: Simonton, D. K. (2016). “Reverse engineering genius: historiometric studies of creativity.” Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences, 1377(1):3-13. NYA Scholarly Journals
Core argument: Reviews historiometric method (quantitative study of historical figures/outputs) and main findings across domains.
Relevance: Critical methodological anchor for your goal to make “computable, operational grammar” of demonstration/accomplishment.
Usage: Use as foundation for how to build measurement systems of historical accomplishment (data sources, variables, statistical logic).

Or any of the works by Mokyr

III. Core Works by Joel Mokyr

1. The Lever of Riches: Technological Creativity and Economic Progress (1990)
Historical analysis of why technological innovation surged in Europe and stagnated elsewhere.
Introduces the idea that technological progress depends on incentives, openness, and social prestige for innovators.

2. The Gifts of Athena: Historical Origins of the Knowledge Economy (2002)
Focuses on useful knowledge (episteme + techne) and its transmission as the foundation of the Industrial Revolution.
Argues that Europe’s unique “Republic of Letters” created a competitive yet cooperative market for ideas.

3. A Culture of Growth: The Origins of the Modern Economy (2016)
Synthesizes decades of research into an evolutionary-cultural model: progress emerges where beliefs, institutions, and incentives align to reward open inquiry and innovation.
Proposes that the European Enlightenment functioned as a self-reinforcing evolutionary shift in epistemic norms — valuing discovery for its own sake.

Or the values version:

IV. Lawrence E. Harrison and Samuel P. Huntington’s Culture Matters: How Values Shape Human Progress (2000)

Adds the normative and value-orientation tier that sits neatly between Murray’s historiometric outputs and Mokyr’s institutional mechanics.

In other words:
– Murray measures accomplishment (outputs).
– Mokyr models institutions and incentives (mechanisms).
– Harrison & Huntington identify values and worldviews (motivational priors).

This makes Culture Matters a key bridge in the causal chain between belief → behavior → institution → output — the same dependency sequence you formalize in Natural Law through demonstrated interests and cooperation under constraint.

Harrison, Lawrence E., and Samuel P. Huntington (Eds.). Culture Matters: How Values Shape Human Progress. New York: Basic Books, 2000.

1. Core Argument
The volume collects essays from leading scholars (Huntington, Landes, Inkeles, Sacks, McClelland, et al.) arguing that cultural values and beliefs are primary determinants of economic, political, and social outcomes.

Its central thesis is that neither geography nor institutions alone explain divergent development; rather, cultures differ systematically in their value orientations toward work, rationality, trust, time, and achievement, and those orientations condition institutional performance.

Harrison summarises the contrast between progress-prone and progress-resistant cultures across several dimensions:
– Time orientation (future vs. present/past)
– Work and achievement ethics (internal vs. external locus of control)
– Trust and civic engagement (high vs. low interpersonal trust)
– Rationality and empiricism (belief in causality vs. fate)
– Universalism (rule of law) vs. particularism (personalism)
– Gender and family norms (individual autonomy vs. kin primacy)

Huntington frames this as a continuation of Weber’s thesis: culture supplies the moral capital on which institutions and markets depend.

2. Methodology

Comparative-civilizational and qualitative, synthesising sociological data, cross-national indicators, and case studies (Latin America, East Asia, Africa, Middle East).

Draws on psychological metrics (McClelland’s Need for Achievement), Inglehart’s World Values Survey, and modernization theory.

Emphasizes “causal layering”: value systems → institutional forms → economic and political outcomes.

3. Findings

Cultural Causality: Economic development correlates strongly with specific value complexes — future orientation, work ethic, individual responsibility, and high trust.
Moral Capital: Societies with universalistic ethics, reciprocity norms, and belief in self-determination produce stable democracies and prosperous economies.
Institutional Interdependence: Institutional reforms fail without parallel cultural shifts; culture is the substrate of law and policy efficacy.
Pluralistic Evolution: Cultures can evolve — through education, leadership, and exposure to successful norms — but only gradually, via endogenous moral learning.