08.16.07
The eonic effect and punctuated equilibrium
Question from chaosmos@yahoogroups.com
Re: [chaosmos] Gaia Hypothesis - Is the Earth smarter than us?
The eonic effect seems to be an interesting example of how world historical patterns or even evolutionary patterns may have the form of an intermittent dynamics. My main question about it is the following: in what way can we distinguish those intermittent patterns from the punctuated equilibrium induced by self-organised criticality (SOC) in complex adaptive ecosystems?
I am preparing a Third Edition of WH&EE in which i make an explicit connection with punctuated equilibrium.
In the previous editions I was tight-lipped about what was obvious, the eonic effect shows ‘punctuation’ of an ‘equilibrium’. The connection is so unmistakable that it can sock you in the jaw. The problem I had is that there is no independent or universally accepted definition of PE given the ‘we got there first’ definers of the term, viz. Gould/Eldredge, who tend to try and graft the idea backwards to selectionist Darwinism.
My PE is radically historical/evolutionary in the sense of ‘macroevolution’ and thus would tend to conflict with those who coined the term. So I was silent on the question. But it might help bewildered readers about the eonic effect to see the clear ‘gestalt’ of ’some kind of punctuated equilibrium’ right smack in our backyard of world history.
Solution: try and claim that the definition is ‘what they really meant’, and hope for the best in a chorus of howls of protest from Darwinists.
The other solution is to keep in mind that the presentation of the eonic effect (sometimes called the ‘eonic model’, i.e. the model=the eonic effect, but…as seen by an observer, also in time, inside the eonic effect, perhaps) is basically an empirical argument, and uses a theory of the evidence, short of a theory about or explaining the evidence. The theory of the evidence says that history shows something called the eonic effect, without explaining it. This theory proposes a frequency hypothesis, a set of (rough) transitions, etc…
Such a pattern of data, with its theory of evidence, is a mouthwatering opportunity for a complexity theorist, to say the least, to produce a theory about the evidence.
So the answer to your question about SOC is that this refers to a theory about the evidence. I am not quite able to explain just how something as vast as the eonic effect occurs, but the first conjecture from way back was roughlyin the realms of self-organization theories, kin to your SOC. So your guess is as good as mine.The question of models raises the question of science, of course, and the ‘eonic model’ zooms into the attempt at a science of history then pulls up short with a scheme of periodization only, to save the data to speak for itself.
So the issue is about a pattern of evidence that shows a strong interpretation as ’some kind of punctuated equilibrium’, and this in turn shows many suggestive resemblances to issues of complex systems, with a catch: there is also a resemblance to a classic Kantian theme of causality/freedom, as developed in the text/online, and this precipitates the issue of teleology in the form of ‘directionality’. I keep well away from teleology, but consider that directionality reopens the possibility of that quagmire question. That Kantian theme raises the question of surrogate Quantum Mechanical analogues, as much as complexity theory analogs. (No direct use of QM formalism will work) That is, quantum mechanics shows a two level treatment of wave equation and measurement. The difference between these two is a distant cousin to the causality/freedom duality, not to confuse the two discourses. We see two levels operating in the eonic effect, a micro and a macro. The exact nature of this ‘macro’ is tough to arrive at.To see the issue of directionality, consider that the punctations in the PE process aren’t just isolated drumbeats working against equilibrium but interconnected steps in a sequence showing a kind of recursive approximation to a potential future result. That’s hard to prove, but the data is unmistakable, and remains as a question mark near this vast pattern of data.
All in all the eonic effect shows the ’self-organization’ of complex civilization from mud huts in the Neolithic, and hunter-gatherer camps in the Paleolithic. Its relationship to complex systems and/or QM and/or Kantian themes remains to be resolved. The pattern as such speaks for itself and is comprehensible as an ‘abstract punctuated equilibrium’, three of whose punctuations are historically visible.
A problem that arises, again as in QM, is that the observer is himself inside of or dependent on the eonic effect, making objective judgements difficult. And those judgments, as Kant clearly indicates by his method can come in three types, causal judgements, moral judgements, and aesthetic judgements. So we would strictly speaking near a theory that can deal with that triple distinction.
For this and other reasons restricting oneself to a ‘theory of the evidence’ as an empirical ‘punctuated equilibrium’ is the first step, and hopefully not the last, but the complexity of such a system of world history is, well, VERY complicated.