5. The Pattern
Of Universal History
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An Eonic Model
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| 5.8.2 An Eonic Model | ||||
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Our macro sequence is as obvious to high-level observation as it is obscure to analysis. We can construct a simple model to assist us here. There’s nothing to it. Given the data of the eonic effect, a model of Big History can be devised almost without trying. The reason is that, just as ducks like water, so our historical data is well adapted to this type of model. The eonic model is the next thing to try after flat history fails. Actually, we are already done, and have only to summarize our results. This model is crude but instantly uncovers a dynamic in action and won’t allow us to get away with any more claims that history is emerging at random. That’s that. Our three turning points become transitions. Guesstimating a three-century interval, and about 2400 years between transitions we get: Transition 1 birth of civilization Transition 2 Axial period Transition 3 rise of the modern The real purpose of this model is to distinguish two levels, as with our distinction of eonic determination and free action. The sequence shows clear directionality, but we can’t confuse that with teleology. What’s more we have the discrete freedom sequence in the core of the pattern. That makes causal statements a bit difficult. So the theory would have to be about theories exploding, a theory that contradicts itself. But nothing prevents us from making a model to describe this situation. In practice the model can be replaced with a simple type of timeline, but the real purpose of this model is to discipline our stance as observers in the present and to distinguish directionality from teleology. The reader might note the artificial cutoff in the modern transition, as with the discussion of 1848. We use the model to set up a (falsifiable) frequency hypothesis, with a butterfly net or grid, to test the core eonic effect against future research. Does the hint of monotone sequence hold up? Our stance is ‘relative free action’ against the givens of the eonic pattern, and is really a question, what is the status of our ‘freedom’ in the present? Our thinking tends to avalanche between causal and teleological foundations. But once we decide, we seem to get it wrong. We can rescue our data by using the idea of ‘fuzzy transitions’ that can go either way, and in fact simply describe a directional system. We should adjourn to the realm of Kant, one of the rare students of teleology also disciplined by science to describe the way ‘teleological judgment’ induces a double take on organic wholes. Thus, the model gives us a way to produce a map of historical evolution, even though its dynamic is invisible to us. Although it is lightweight, it can seize the high ground against most other theories. It is useful because it freeze-frames theory formation itself prior to completion, as a ‘theory of the evidence’ examines the nature of a theory about that evidence. We reach a last base camp, and stop, to view the summit of the Big Theory, considering various means of final ascent. Don’t worry about fancy details. The point is to make contact with history as one whole. Consulting the Appendix, open a timeline database for historical study based on the eonic matrix. Bring in the general TP4 exception sequences (e.g. Christianity, Islam, Marxist/postmodern anti-TP3 ideologies). Slowly but surely the pieces will start to fall in place. This requires a balanced study of science, philosophy, theory formation, social ideology, and religion—everything in fact. Theories of history are always controversial, and models have limits, but a model with known limits is actually more useful than a metaphysical construct. A grid pattern What are we seeing in the eonic effect? We are not describing a miracle but using periodization as a butterfly net to isolate/approximate a non-random pattern. We can obviously confuse the net with the phenomenon. We will construct a perhaps over-reified butterfly net with an idea of eonic sequence, three-century transitions and divides, and an eonic grid system to attempt to describe the eonic effect in more detail. This model is like an erector set for theories, and we can try ‘scratchpad extensions’ to complete it with various points of view. Limits of the model Every model has limits and our eonic model revolves around the idea that ‘either history is random or non-random’. As the data avalanches toward ‘non-random’ the model springs to life, but like the Three Point approximation to Pi simply comes to a stop short of a finer interior analysis. Like an infinite series whose first term (i.e. ‘flat history’) is wildly off, but whose second term starts to converge to something reasonable, the model (probably) reflects only a top layer of some deeper structure. No active agent As we examine the eonic effect we compulsively introduce an active agent that can ‘do fast history’ in the transitions. The model replaces that agent completely, leaving the dataset truncated. We can make no safe statements about an active agent, although our language might slip as we sneak in terms like ‘nature’ as a noun for a verb. This creates a teleological agent, and that can lead to disastrous confusions. The model is strictly phenomenological, periodization, dates, timelines and correlated data, circumstantial evidence. Scratchpad extensions Our model is idiot-proofed by sticking to periodization and an empirical map. We succeed because we stay shy of the hard stuff. That gives us a base camp near the summit of the Big Theory. Then we can turn around and propose ‘scratchpad extensions’ to explore variant theories, a good one being the clear issue of Kantian ‘transcendental freedom’ lurking in our argument. This difference between basic model, and extensions changes our stance completely, and creates success, where attempts at completion always fail. Theory disappears into the background, and we are back to where we started, assessing eonic emergents as de facto givens, but with a keener sense of coherence, causal nonsense extracted from discourse. The result, in the filter of our ‘representations’, looks like a complex system, with a catch, it crosses the boundary of facts and values. It is a pretty smart system. Odorless, tasteless, invisible forces have their finger in the evolutionary pie, caught in the act, at close range. Once pointed out this structure suddenly becomes obvious to high-level inspection but looks too fantastic to be possible. Some force, law, or process of evolution appears to remorph whole time-slices of culture in short bursts of change. That’s what the evidence shows, and all we can do is point to it using indirect methods of periodization. In relation to this we must be careful in distinguishing certain periods from others. All history is homogenous. And yet certain periods stand out. Why? This is a job for our distinctions about self-consciousness. There is no unique association of states with our pattern. Self-consciousness is potential at all times, yet executes the pattern in a particular time. It is the factor of creative innovation in clustered patterns. The ‘Axial’ Age is the same as any other age, yet the factor of creativity or self-consciousness stands out. And that is remarkable, something we could not have guessed. Note however that creativity and self-consciousness are potential possible at all times. That is the whole point. This eonic history is trying to amplify sluggish human potential. We have to select ideas from a more comprehensive evolution of (natural) philosophy inside the eonic evolution of civilization to do theory. Is the result theory at all? We are always at the software level, without direct access to the deeper ‘machine code’. We see that there are limits to attempts at theory. As we close on the present, we wonder if our subject is evolution, or ideology. But we have already defined two levels, with evolution at a different level than our own ‘free action’. Nonetheless, almost because of the limitation built in, we can speak of evolution (becoming history) in the present, or future, without confusing this with the particular ideologies emerging. Darwin’s selection seems to center around Adam Smith, grafted onto a distinct eonic emergent in TP3, the idea of evolution. We are going to make a different selection, with an earlier idea of evolution, ca. the era of Lamarck (i.e. a two-level evolution combination), with an idea from Kant. Since we are inside our pattern selecting from its output to do theory, we are far short of true objectivity. At least we are honest. We can expose Darwin’s game as we go along. He claimed to have founded a science. Theory as data As our pattern expands, we notice that philosophy/science show subsets that are themselves pattern correlated, both a source of method, and a form of eonic data. Something strange happens in our model. Our situation resembles the Lisp programming language, where data and programming are in the same category. We have to explain the ‘evolution of science’ as data, for example. That explodes any easy notion of objectivity. We will soon see that the philosophy of history is ‘data’, due to its eonic correlation. Can we take output of the system to do ‘theory’? The problem resembles blur in a focal image, a limitation corrected only by protracted study. At least we can claim one thing in our favor. Reductionist models always oversimplify, restrict the analysis to a limited set of elements. The result is that they seem rigorous, but don’t apply to reality, at step one. Instead, we have to take a complete totality in all its aspects over many millennia. It is nature’s problem not ours. It makes sense, once you think about it, that a system, a real system, will be able to act on all possible parameters of culture over a long time scale in frequency sweeps. Standard science is too timid here, not surprisingly given the stupendous complexity of the system we see. And once we adopt that approach we find the result shows a sudden simplicity. Take a deep breath. It’s better than Hollywood. But you will have to take your popcorn to the library, frame by frame with good bibliographies. Our views of history are subject to the taboo against large-scale structure. We have noted already that we need to ‘deconstruct flat history’ to see that Big History is inevitable, there’s no going back. The term ‘deconstruct’ is from contemporary postmodern discourse and generally applied to the ‘deconstruction of metanarratives’, at first sight the opposite of our usage. But these postmodern critiques are really of teleology mixed with ideological preconceptions. We can easily answer to those objectives and ‘deconstruct the deconstruction’. If Big History is a problem, then flat random history as normally taken makes no sense either and causes endless theoretical confusion. So what’s left after two deconstructions is the eonic effect. The critique of metanarratives backfired. Once you say there are nonesuch, one starts to stand out, a dialectical irony. Standard theories can’t allow themselves discontinuity in their toolkit, and the contradictions of ‘causal sequence’ run rampant. This type of model induces the illusion of some ‘ghost force’, but reference to such in our model is illegitimate, unless clearly accounted for in some extension to the known list of forces given by reductionist science. That does not preempt a purely empirical model, with its suggestion the ‘basic list of forces’ is incomplete. We are left to wonder. But we will soon see that our system leaves behind a clue, in what we called the ‘discrete freedom sequence’. We can see already that ‘causality and freedom’ are at play in tandem. We can explore that further as we go along. But our system is a black box, and we can extract only limited amount of information about its deep core. Our situation resembles that of the economist, who discovers ‘cycles’ through periodization, and whose models, discovered looking backwards, must end in the present. Predictions may be possible up to a point, but free action can always in principle falsify them. Note thus that a cyclical economic dynamic changes its character in the present. This is the exact situation we find ourselves in with our eonic model. A comparison: economic cycles: If our terminology seems confusing, use an analogy to economic cycles, and the science of such, quite different from the causal theories of neo-classical economics. A system of cycles has a preferred present where an observer, looking backwards, correlates data using periodization, empirically given, there to detect a dynamic. He doesn’t need a theory about that dynamic to take action to shape these cycles. These cycles can show aggregate progression. No doubt some predictions are possible, but the key point is that the system has a formal boundary in the present, and further the history of that system is one of such previous presents, free action, albeit under loose system determination. But in the small, the free agent acts on his own choices. This system determination must confront his free action in the present, where he can modify the behavior of the system, even turn it off, in principle. Note that his theories therefore are an independent influencing factor, and make a difference to the system’s function. Please note however that we are going to critique the economic interpretation of history, and that our ‘cycles’ are something quite different, operate over millennia, and even seem to have a fixed frequency. So you already know this kind of dynamic we see in ‘eonic theory’: we use it all the time. Observe how economies are built up around ‘free action’, the options of the economic agent, in the context of a system. Neo-classical economics wishes to parametrize this ‘free action’ as a measurable utility, something we will certainly not do. The nature of ‘free action’ is the separate stream of consciousness arriving on the boundary of history, there to interact with ‘eonic determination’. But economics is one of the few subjects that studies ‘free action’ in the large in this sense, so there is nothing exotic as such in our use of this distinction. |
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