5. The Pattern
Of Universal History
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The Eonic Effect
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| 5.8 The Eonic Effect | ||||
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We have it, the resolution of a dynamic in world history, the eonic effect, in a series of three turning points seen as eonic transitions, or stream and sequence intersections. And we have a remarkable answer to our question, to be into made into a frequency hypothesis, does world history show evidence of general sequence? It is truly a remarkable result, with some very deep structure indeed. Please note, however, that this is a description of a non-random pattern, not an explanation of how it works. We can, however, still call this ‘evolution’, and use the data to critique any and all accounts of the descent of man. Thus world history is our reference of last resort in the claims on theory for the descent of man. It is useful to consider the strange implications of what we have found. A truly extraordinary number of puzzles join together as one puzzle: issues of the Axial Age, religion, democracy, philosophic history, theories of the rise of civilization, birth of the modern, the mystery of Archaic Greece and the Old Testament, and a host of other questions. We can see that world history shows coherence, directionality, and that this reconciles the paradox of the transition from evolution to history. To see so many independent pieces of evidence interconnected increases the odds against chance in this pattern. Our apparatus of transitions soon yields to ‘understanding by coherence’ as the meaning of history begins to emerge, and our scaffolding yields to the particular after its bout with the universal. The first problem one might have is the sense of the impossible. There exists a something that can remorph whole cultures in short time spans, operating on all variables of the system, cultural, ethical, esthetic. We are brought to a series of ‘double takes’, what are we seeing? We seem to be pointing to the fantastic. But all we have done is introduce (differential) periodization. Further, we have found just what we suspected must exist, by reverse engineering arguments, once we see that slow continuous evolution won’t foot the bill. The data shows us the next candidate in the spectrum of evolutionary patterns. We are not required to explain the mechanism to point to the facts. It is no use whatever in saying this does conform to current views of science. It doesn’t. And reductionist science is clearly an incomplete account, as far as evolution is concerned. But the result gives many hints of being a strange sort of dynamical system, whatever else it may be beyond that. The data we have used is the data you use, everyday blocks of history. It is so generic we arrive at the result with nothing but the simplest outline version of world history. We have refrained from narrative filler because different versions would fit the bill. The result speaks for itself because it has a meaning, like pieces in a puzzle. Mechanization cannot have meaning and frequency defaults to tempo, perhaps like a biological clock. History seems to be doing something in the large, and even prompts redirection when the system starts to slump or deviate. It makes no sense, yet is transparent, as a rare glimpse of a large-scale system operating over five millennia. This is the only example of such a dataset in the scope of evolution by any name, and a reminder that throwing metaphysics at deep time and calling it science was a blunder. Close observation is essential. Beyond that we need a ‘reality check’, and a safe passage from the realm of imaginary history that we are used to, but which constitutes the factual hallucination we take as common sense. We are not indulging in dogmas, and our statements about three turning points should be understood by being challenged. Challenge them. Consider all interior points as possible rivals of our basic set. But also consider the content of these three eras, to see the way they monopolize creative starts, and reflect the mideonic difficulties. We are already attempting to create a ‘fourth turning’ point, beyond the modern, in a dilemma of continuation or renewal, and that is natural. But we should ask ourselves if we can match this rise of the modern with something new, or whether our sequential dependency inside its consequences is not a form of ‘one way history’. Note one interesting point. It is possible to refute our frequency hypothesis in the present by creating a new turning point now that breaks the sequence. We can see that it won’t happen soon. We cannot exit the sequential dependency created by the transition, although retrograde motion is possible. It is a unique event. We should observe the present and find examples where this has already happened. But in fact we have probably reached the end of the eonic sequence, therefore we should in some sense rise to transcend the dynamic from which we are emerging. This model thus computes its exceptions. The issue of causality (or some principle of sufficient reason) led to Kant’s antinomy, and we decided instead of seeking a consistent causal theory to instead embrace the contradiction and look at semi-causal eonic determination of the emergence of freedom via ‘free action’ as an eonic emergent. What ‘causes’ the discrete freedom sequence? This simply restates the Antinomy, so we lose the ‘causal model’, we are inconsistent, but achieve a different success in this fashion. There is no inconsistency in a descriptive model. The new type of model to match is a ‘discrete-continuous’ one. But it is not really a ‘theory’. We have a map of a series of ‘eonic determinations’ overlaid on the general field of ‘free action’. This is a very elemental ‘philosophy of history’, fretted just one step beyond a systems model framework. Note the sudden flowering of the philosophy of history near our divide. Our use of ‘discontinuity’ was descriptive, although it seems to suggest something ‘switching’ at regular intervals. In one way, it is like raising contrast in a gray photograph, suddenly the picture stands out. We must be careful here and not speculate. All we can say is that data that fits this method of discontinuous periodization is operating on two levels. The deeper level we never see. No matter how hard we try we will never through increased data ‘see’ that deeper level. The smile of the Cheshire cat is just fading away as we zoom in or out. We can elaborate at length on what we have, but we are essentially done. The strangeness of the result springs we can guess from the hidden teleology of a system that operates on a global scale. All we see is the ‘change of direction’, directionality, as a smoke detector for some teleology. Although we have a large number of further leads and projects to explore, we are essentially done. And our conclusion is that within the range of observation the data shows a system operating on two levels, that is, with something operating in the background that we don’t see. The point is that world history betrays what is not supposed to be there, a mainline developmental master sequence. But we start to do a double take with this pattern. We are forced to see the obvious all at once, but we cannot quite put our finger on how it happens. We should note in passing these forms of ‘judgment’ doing a causal-teleological wobble were classified well by Kant. Our eonic sequence shows clear directionality in the sense that, like a feedback device, something switches on to reseed, redirect, and reset a higher system. Finally, one might think that this is too thin for a pattern of universal history. It is and it isn’t. That problem is easily corrected. We have a series of branches and nodes constructed and we can expand and contract, always with the same pattern. We wanted to reach this point fast, but could have doubled, redoubled the number of pages getting here. That’s the mysterious beauty of this pattern. We could have made our treatment up to this point two times, ten times, as long, yet we would still be here, the same pattern. We are just on the threshold of ‘enough data’ to see this pattern of universal history. One might also object that it isn’t universal at all due to its selectivity of a few places and times out of a full planetary continuum. That again is the beauty of this pattern, it is universal, because it is selective. Eight hotspots and a process of globalization, World Civilization, comes into operation in a mere five thousand years. It should be called ‘the’ pattern for there is only room for one elephant, so to speak, and this pattern, apart from its extraordinary character, is also the most ordinary and obvious answer to the quest for such a constellation. This does not preempt whatsoever the possibilities of other independent cultural evolutions, other patterns, or causal studies of independent processes, such as the history of technology or economy. Far from it, the very nature of this pattern, by its intermittency, operates as a series of relative transformations on a greater whole whose independent motions are a given. The difference between ‘the’ pattern, and ‘a’ pattern can be controversial indeed, in the sense of ideological issues. Recall our statements about two universal histories. We have made this safe from ideologues, up to a point. Be wary however. Our two levels answer to this issue directly. The highest directs traffic, the broader level is the stuff of human history. The master sequence pushes us to new heights but in and of itself does nothing. We make no claim to have established a science of history by which bandits can force this model on others. We can both adopt the stance of science yet at the same time affirm our thesis as ‘advisory’, rather than final. Note however the irony, that this result is actually a full challenge to Darwin’s claim on the descent of man. We can explore the result. The point is that we operate on the assumption of something like ‘flat history’. A careful examination of the data shows that assumption to be very dubious, however strange the alternative. The pursuit of patterns of universal history has gone on and on, yet within the space of a few pages we have the result, a pattern of world history, and, whatever the difficulties, a very strong result, almost without trying, using plain vanilla historical blocks, sometimes merely changing labels, e.g. medieval extended to become ‘mideonic’. We succeeded because we stayed out of trouble with ‘historicism’ and made the critique of such our starting point. |
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