Our historical outline, matched to the eonic sequence, is both a world history in embryo, and a set of statements about historical theory. Since theory and historical narrative don’t always square well, we need to formalize the distinction and create a means to keep the two separate.  However, the eonic effect shows a beautifully ingenious structure that reconciles these two modes very easily, and all we need to do is create a simple type of historical model, the eonic model, that can double as a world history and a theoretical periodization that will substitute for misleading causality statements about historical laws.

Catch-22 for theory One reason to think in terms of a model is to distinguish this from an historical theory. Darwin’s ‘theory’ of natural selection, as we have seen, scrambles the clarity of the discovery of the reality of evolution. Here, with the eonic effect, we can see an evolving system, and yet we never see directly the dynamic behind the eonic sequence. Later we will see this as a confirmation of one of the key ideas of the philosophy of history.

The next chapter will pursue this further, but keep in mind that a bare outline of the eonic effect is sufficient to get the point. The scale of the eonic effect is so great, yet with an inherent simplicity so elegant, that we need a way to integrate our perceptions, and balance this with some 'damage control' concepts to reckon the inherent contradiction of 'causality/freedom' that shipwrecks all historical evolution/philosophy of history efforts to create a science of history. This model to be developed (actually we have already completed it in essence!) is an approximation and somewhat artificial, but once we see the eonic effect we realize that almost anything is better than the hopeless confusions of and endless flounderings in 'flat history' which is constantly scrambling the two levels of operation, macro and micro, suddenly shown by the eonic series. We can explore some of the basic ideas.  The eonic effect is a free gift and fits like a charm into something we can call a ‘discrete-continuous’ model. The term ‘discrete’ refers to the distinct series of counting numbers, 1,2,3, etc, as opposed to the continuous field of ‘measure numbers’ (the real numbers, so-called).

Discrete-continuous models The eonic effect is a mouthwatering invitation to a certain type of model that we will call a 'discrete-continuous' model, i.e. it has two levels, one a discrete series, the other the continuous stream of history. It is like a ratchet: discrete set of levels is reached on a continuous scale of height.
Mixed 'Causality/freedom' systems We have already touched briefly on a type of mixed system where a system and free activity interact in a balance of effects. This will be the key to the eonic model, and this will also allow us to set up a formal description of the eonic effect as a 'evolution of freedom'. 
Stream and sequence Our model is simply a special type of periodization time-line, with 'eonic transitions' between different age-periods, and shows the way a master sequence is generated from the cultures and civilizations (culture streams) on which it operates in an intermittent series. These transitions are a series of relative transformations of the streams, visible in in the emergentist character of the data itself (eonic emergents). 
Discrete freedom sequence Inside our eonic sequence we discover a 'discrete freedom sequence' that will provide one clue to nature of the causal action behind the eonic effect. 
Sequential dependency The mirror image of the 'eonic sequence' is the set of 'mideonic' intervals between transitions. This is the 'real history' of people and cultures operating outside of the master sequence, showing the obvious contrast in its inchoate confusion. We call these mideonic periods sequentially dependent on the transition sequence, and the effect is on of taking the results by diffusion of the transitions and creating a series of oikoumenes, religions, or even empires. This is the proving ground for the evolution of freedom. 
Directionality A long-range series clearly provokes the need to consider the issue of evolutionary directionality, and reconsider the current confusion over evolutionary progress. 
Economic history A subset of both history as a whole and the eonic history is the economic history of mankind taken in toto as the set of economic worlds created in the emergence of civilization. Once we see the eonic effect we realize that while the economic factor is critical it is not the most fundamental aspect of the overall evolution of civilization, and we have a way to produce an elegant account of economic evolution that is distinct from the 'eonic evolution' of the whole. And this will tell us something about where Darwinism goes wrong.
Ideology Even as we create a way to study ideologies wholesale we discover the inherent ideological basis for any historical model whatsover, and are forced to accept this limit on any theory of historical evolution at the outset, just on the threshold of a science of history.
Eonic Observers To see this inherent ideological aspect we should consider the following point: the 'system output' (which we will call action scripts) of our transitions is a set of religions, philosophies, states, and art forms. Are we outside this spectacle of transformations? No, in fact we are the recipients of the output, which we can barely manage to maintain, let alone improve on. We are embedded 'eonic observers' using the output of the system to model the system itself. This is a limit on our objectivity. 

The first step toward our model is to declare ourselves 'eonic observers' and make zoom targets out of the elements of theory we will use to create that model. Probably our efforts are sequentially dependent on the scientific revolution in TP3, and the philosophy of history (we can call 'philosophy of history' the study of 'mixed causality/freedom systems'). We notice that both these have strong eonic correlations. Our eonic action script, to create a model, is thus in the science stream, among others. 

The case of the missing centuries solved? We previously wondered why there seem to be two scientific revolutions, the Greek and the Modern. Clearly these 'revolutions' are eonic emergents, and show transformation in the eonic sequence. Science almost dies out in the second mideonic interval, but is reinjected into stream history in the modern transition. It is a fragile high-level eonic process, and flunked a survival of the fittest test and had to be restaged in the eonic series. 
Evolution of Evolution One of the problems for any hope of theory for the eonic effect is the way the history of science is itself bound up in the pattern. Something is driving science at a higher level than the continuous history of scientific, and also evolutionary, thinking.  

As this remark shows we are dealing with something more complex than a theory of evolution based on natural selection! 

Finally, we must consider, as noted, the crisis of objectivity created by this pattern of the eonic effect. Its action is a series of subactions left in its wake, and these become religions, ideologies, sciences. We are immersed in this action, and must consider the lineage of our own beliefs, which are descendants in all cases of the eonic emergents appearing in the transitions. Two good examples of eonic emergents are 'liberalism' and 'science'. If we consider science, it is an eonic emergent, and our 'action sequence' in its wake follows its initial logic, or else might deviate from those initial conditions, but show direct descendence. Note this point. Science itself is a subevolute in the eonic pattern. Statements about the history of science (or any other category, e.g. religion) should reflect this fact (as indicated in our thinking about the 'case of the missing centuries').  We can do science, but this is not the same as the 'action sequence' of science bound up in the eonic sequence. Further, can we be sure that our thinking matches the high quality starting point we see in the eonic series? To describe the birth of Greek philosophy, an Axial eonic emergent, for example, requires a very high level of philosophical and historical knowledge. Can we be 'meta-philosophers' and correctly account for its (eonic) history? We have seen this problem already with positivism, which downshifts from the quality of early modern philosophy, an enigma whose context, we discover, is itself eonic. This downshifting can lead to insidious misunderstandings. 

To conclude, we must insist that while our eonic pattern gives us a partial simplification, the full data set we have invoked is very large indeed, huge, almost beyond computation. Consider the history of  'monotheism'. A full account must describe transformations in every generation since the Axial Age (and before), since this 'entity' transforms itself repeatedly and shows a different character at different stages of the past 2400 years. And the correct determination of the history behind the Old Testament remains a daunting task. And yet, from a high level, we can see that Biblical contains a disguised mythical account of the Axial Age birth of a form of monotheism. This history, however, can easily be taken for granted, and tends to become garbled by the lenses of the Protestant Reformation, which, ironically, is still another 'relative transform' at the next stage of our pattern. Objective descriptions of monotheistic history are thus a crisis of objective standards, and the depictions of believers or believers alike are problematical because of the constantly shifting ground.  

In any case, one purpose of the model we will create will be to allow us to describe and periodize a phenomenon in its basic dynamics without having to be super-observers or experts in all its content. Simple periodization, like counting on our fingers, is straightforward and independent of the content being periodized. 

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