08.18.07

Gaia, the eonic effect, and leapfrog evolution

Posted in The Axial Age, you've got mail, The Eonic Effect at 3:35 pm by nemo

Continuing the discussion on Gaia and the eonic effect, here, I am asked a set of questions, Re: [chaosmos] Gaia Hypothesis - Is the Earth smarter than us?

The question of synchronous emergence in the eonic effect is indeed puzzling, especially in the data of the so-called Axial Age.

The eonic model makes a distinction between what I call technosequence (technological discovery and evolution) and ‘eonic sequence’, the eonic process itself visible in its punctuated transitions. The point is to distinguish the innate powers of human intelligence, which converge on various discoveries, generally technological, and the process of the eonic series itself which far surpasses the possibilities of human invention in its integration of whole cultural time-streams over several centuries, i.e. the period of Axial Greece from -800 to -400 is packed with innovators, making us think there is a larger dimension ot discovery inside the eonic series. This complicates understanding. But the basis issue is clear. Your suggestion about the synchrony of individual inventors may be true, but the synchrony of separate ares undergoing large-scale transitions is harder to explain.
We have a few clues, one found by asking a question, what is our system doing as it ‘evolves intermittenly’?
The synchronicity of the Axial period actually has a possible rationale, if not explanation, visible in our intuition of what it is doing, one aspect of that being ‘globalization’. That is, this system seems to have a clever strategy. To ‘evolve’ a totality via a series of localizations is problematical. How do it? First it is necessary to derive the rationale of alternation or intermittent punctuations. Suppose some ‘evolver’ process tried to control a whole global totality all at once? Impossible, intractable. Work on isolated localizations, and let the results diffuse. Saves energy. With respect to the isolated localization, should the evolver exert continuous control? No, it would overdetermine the result and create an inflexible frozen result of robots. So, one way out of that is to balance over- and under-determination by working in a short interval and then stopping the action. The localization then is on its own to realize the effect. You can see that in the Axial Age. Suddenly the macro factor stops, and individuals begin to work with a set of new materials, with what result, history shows.
Now, suppose we saw one transition in a fixed place, with all the effects to reach the totality via diffusion. OK, fine, but what next? Return to the same local spot to continue? No, that would unbalance the result and make that localization a sort of ‘empire of influence’ trying to control its diffusion field. No, better to fix the intermittent evolver series in different places. The problem is that a new localization will have to start all over in an untouched region. No, that won’t work. So do the new localization just at the boundary of the diffusion field of the old. Something may be lost, but at least the basics will have reached the fresh frontier area.

That’s a pretty strange explanation.But the eonic effect shows all these characteristics! The eonic series of punctuations is 1. intermittent, and 2. always returns to a new location just near the old, on its frontier. Suddenly we see the spectacular rationale behind it all. Note how the first step in Egypt/Sumer is intermittent, produces a large diffusion field, then in the next step we see exterior frontier areas take up the next step. Presto, we see why Archaic Greece and a little spot in Canaan suddenly start taking off. They are near enough to the old sources to be ready, but far enough to escape the domination of the past. That’s what I call the frontier effect. The eonic effect follows this rule in variants in all cases. Remarkable. How is it that these two areas, outside the mainline, took off and in a few centuries surpassed the source areas?

In general, after that difficult preamble, the pattern of the eonic effect shows this kind of globalization strategy. The ’start in one place and expand logic’ will fail to globalize properly, and peter out in frozen empire, so a break in the unilinear sequence is needed, if the system can leapfrog its antecedents, but leapfrog not so far as to have to start over, and not so near as to be part of the frozen area. The sudden spread of Eurasian transitions in the Axial transition breaks the pattern of unilinear development by producing a diversity of five parallel experiments. In each case these new areas have had rich diffusion from the Sumer/Egypt phase. Check it out (the Old Testament makes it blazingly clear it is a diffusion child of Sumer/Egypt, Abraham from Ur, and Moses from Egypt, myth or not, it is a drama of diffusion). The logic is not necessarily the same process five times, but a similar process five times, with the chance of five times the diversity tuned to a common master chord. Thus we see Lao tse/Confucious, Indic religion-philosophy/Buddhism, Canaanite religion monotheized, Greek philosophy/Pre-Socraties/proto-science, etc…
These all have common echoes yet they thrive by their diversity even as they proceed to a common generalization via separate routes and different experiments that might prove mutual failsafes against the failure one or the other. The overall effect is achieved. A miniscule set of five localizations creates a convergence of globalizations.
Note that modernity, the modern transition, is the next in the series. We don’t quite see the same synchronous effect. But the reason is obvious. After the diversity of the Axial experiments, a new unity of global civilization from a single source is needed, even at the risk of putting all one’s eggs in a Eurocentric basket, quite temporarily. Five separate localizations worked well enough in an age of bullock carts, the areas were isolated enough to make separate experiments fruitful. But the modern case is different.That synchronous effect in an era of less separated regions would prove disastrous and end in collisions cancelling each other out.
In fact, this is what we see. A rapid fire modern transition, with universal themes, then a rapid de-Eurocentralization globalization from that as the original localization area performs its task then starts suffering ‘empire syndrome’, even as modernity as globalization shifts its center of gravity to new areas beyond Europe, but with, by and large, the universal themes sown in the transitin.
We are seeing that process dramatically in our own times!

In general then, this is one possible perspective on the synchrony aspect (or lack of it) we see in the eonic effect. It is quite tricky to get this picture into one’s mind without following the logic at each step.
But the result explains all the stubborn data in a remarkable way. It still doesn’t explain how a synchronous effect on this scale is possible. But it shows what this ‘evolver’ is doing. The trick of producing globalization as a kind of cultural implosion via a set of cleverly placed localizations is quite ingenious!

In answer to your question then, we see a series of cultural streams and a macro process proceeding in its own time to produce a transient effect in a series of cleverly placed localizations, these tending to precipitate globalization of all cultures together in relation to these localizations. Many are still stuck in the idea of Western Civilization producing modernity. But that has missed the point, and threatens to brake the result which shows a modern transition in a Euro-sector as a frontier transition, proceeding rapidly beyond its boundaries toward globalization.

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