02.27.09
End of eonic sequence, end/beginning of history
Comment on Evolving freedom, and the ‘end of the eonic sequence’
Stephen P. Smith said,
February 27, 2009 at 12:02 am
“… At the end we will suspect that we are at the end of the eonic sequence since observing the eonic effect probably preempts its future action.”
Perhaps this is the primal or panpsychist consciousness, where the apparent tension (say Schopenhauer’s concept of will) finds its resolution! The tension returns to source, and the Eonic effect finds itself giving support to an innate vitalism where the spirit seeks freedom!Sounds like the “end of history!”
I am wary of vitalism, and the eonic effect is taken as a pure ‘system’: whatever is behind it. It would be nice to take a deeper step, but it is hard, with the Kantian apparatus of the noumenal…
The question of the end of history is interesting here, shrewd observation, you are right, and the echo is remarkable. The two ideas are not the same, but it makes one wonder what was going on in Hegel’s mind.
The ‘end of the eonic sequence’ may, however, not occur. Please note that at the end of the Axial Age a similar situation arose, and a very weird version of ‘end times’ futurism came into being sensing the coming of a future age, in the great confusion over Zarathustra, cyclical theories, end time theories, etc…
The point is that an awareness of a future of a cyclical system did not generate the breakup of the system, if only because so few people really knew the issues.
Again note the term of Hegel ‘cunning of reason’ (please don’t use this term on the eonic effect, despite its echo also): things happened to people without their awareness. But as self-consciousness emerges, the end of history in Hegel’s sense also arises.
More generally it is possible that something like what happened to Rome could theoretically happen again: the total collapse of civilization, a new milleunnium long slump, etc,…
But in practice I find that questionable. But as we compare science and scientism, we sense all sorts of ways the future could ‘decline’ without looking like it was declining: a cultural state of consciousness mechanization could arise, even at a high state of technology.
Like the Darwin debate.
In any case, it is a venture of peril, since the ability to generate the kind of high quality civilizational structures that we see in the eonic sequence is, by the argument, finished, and we are on our own.
Frightening.
There is a long section in the text of World History And The Eonic Effect on Hegel’s ‘end of history’. Last And First Men
Note: the relevance of Hegel is notable, but the terminologies are different, in the eonic model the end of the eonic sequence is the beginning of history
To see this, consider the example I always give: the third wheel on a child’s bike. While the third wheel is on the bike, the child is learning. At the end of the learning sequence, the child’s solo bike riding begins, and the child is then free to ride the bike alone, at the beginning of her, shall we say, history of bike riding.
Stephen P. Smith said,
February 28, 2009 at 3:21 pm
On vitalism: It is enough to note that something fundamental, or acausal, relates to life and evolution and provides the grounding of a space-time fabric that cannot otherwise be caricatured. One does not have to go as far as the felt fundamentality (as I have done), to understand this.
Contrary to common belief, the discoveries of biochemistry do not rule out my vitality hypothesis because such a pretense commits the fallacy of excluded middle. Its that simple!
Regarding the connection of the “cunning of reason” with the”end of history”: We might note that something fundamental remains beyond our egocentric awareness while this knowledge remains available to the cunning of reason (for those capable of precognition). The end of history points to the passing of conflict, however, when the egocentric awareness also discovers what is found fundamental.