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Home | Booknotes | Essay Archive | Darwiniana |
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Looking backwards at our eonic sequence we see a system of stunning elegance, but operating on a level of abstraction that is still beyond our powers of full comprehension. We can, however, adopt a tracking approximation using our grid system based on the perceptions of its three interconnected turning points. Such a strategy is our only option in such a multivalent system where our terms of analysis are themselves output of the system. The useful feature of
the eonic model is that it makes a very good foundation for the study of world
history. We should close with a project for an historical database, as a
minimalist bibliographical outline, using the suggestions of the eonic model to
indicate a balanced survey of world history at its transitional hotspots. The
full version can be found at the author’s website. The purpose of this
outline, apart from jumpstarting an historical expedition, is to visualize the
whole of world history. Then imagine the outline expanding at each point, as you
recursively dig deeper at each point. Thus you can reach the whole of world
history via the separate entry points. If you actually try it, even as a gedanken
experiment, your view of history will start to transform itself, and soon you
will discover that so far from being a labyrinth or a chaos world history is
highly coherent, and easy to visualize as one whole, as one ‘image’.
Metaphysical elements will lurk in your reckoning of this, so be wary. As you
add the element of ‘fourth turning points’ this image of course dissolves
and reforms, but always, one should wager, with one and the same common
denominator. We will proceed
bibliographically through the eonic sequence with some brief remarks for each of
the designated periods. The eonic sequence is a ‘mere’ periodization, but
makes a good ‘table of contents’. It usefully projects an hypothesis against
all possible facts of world history and forces an examination of the whole of
world history. And the issues of diffusion, sequential dependency, ‘relative
emergence’ in phase, parallel interactive emergence versus cross diffusion,
the nature of self-consciousness, and much else, force the issue and drive one
to both assess at high levels and zoom in to detailed levels. Note also the
extreme selectivity of the model. This is really a way to force the study of the
whole, not stay within the selected confines! Imagine the software
for current database systems, and the command ‘Create Database’. That’s
what we have here with a minimal bibliography built around these transitions.
The eonic model thrives on sprawling detail, but here we have little space for
much. This can be taken in association with Chapters Five and Six, which
actually contains some of the data that might be in our database, which we
should keep as short as possible here. This database might easily grow into your
own world history, a project well worth the time since passive learning with our
eonic or any other jargon might not take at first. The value of the
eonic model is that we can survey the whole, but without getting bogged down,
say at the beginning. “Read all the books on the Neolithic’, then… We use
a multitasking approach, e.g. one book on each of the transitional periods, then
start over again like that. You will find your habits are fixed and rerouting
your attention to a balanced whole requires self-prompting effort. We tend to habituate
and dig deeper in areas we know something about. Changing habits can be hard.
Try as an exercise to find the right Dewey decimal zones in a library
corresponding to our major transitions. That gesture by itself will prove
instructive as new habits are instantly formed and the logistics of study sink
in. Instead of mere bibliographies, Dewey decimal zones of browsing are the real
stomping grounds for the eonic theorist, and the minimal sample of books, as
overlapping zoom targets, will land you in the right stack regions. Also
essential is the ‘fourth turning point’ switch of perception. Pick a point
or points outside the eonic sequence and trace its relations to the mainline.
The eonic model succeeds because it takes the flaw of most universal histories,
their selectivity, and turns that to advantage. Our tiny slices of phase
precipitate the whole, and should do likewise for a balanced study of the whole
of world history.
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