03.17.10
History, complex systems, and the eonic effect
An email exchange at the history and theory listserve over
an essay by Niall Ferguson in Foreign Policy on complex systems
and empires:
John Landon _historya@history-and-evolution.com_
(mailto:historya@history-and-evolution.com)
Subject: Niall Ferguson’s “Complexity and Collapse”The classic question, from the philosophy of history, haunts any attempt to apply complexity theory
to history: unless you deny the possibility of freedom history can’t be a causal system.So we encounter a basic contradiction, like an antinomy of Kant, 1. there must be science of history, or science fails, 2. there can’t be a science of history, or freedom fails.
This classic dialectic animated the realm of Kant, Hegel, et al. at the dawn of modern historicism.The curious verdict of that period is that you need a ‘science of freedom’, a phrase that emerged from attempts to reconcile the contradiction indicated. The idea nosedived into metaphysics, but its core is significant. Instead of causal situations consider situations where ‘freedom’ is implicit.
As an example consider a system with choice, e.g. a computer mouse. The mathematics of causal computers is one thing, but the mathematics of the computer mouse is about an intrinsic freedom of the user, reflected in the code for a mouse, a distinctly clever form of computer code.Take another example: an ocean liner and the passengers. The causal mechanics of the ship is paired with the relative free actions of the passengers on board. We can examine a context where ‘freedom’ of some kind is blended into a causal system, as the two coexist. That might be one (of many many) approach to an idea for a ‘science of freedom’. Such a science would be difficult, but the basic idea is well-defined.
In any case no attempt to create a science of history in the conventional sense is likely to succeed. That’s a drastic, revolutionary consideration, but current science will attempt a thousand ways to get around the problem.
The curious thing about world history is that it will respond to an idea of the ‘science of freedom’. Approached in that way we discover a remarkable complex system at work! It resembles punctuated equilibrium, a phrase we can use metaphorically.
The data for the Axial Age is a part of that data.
The discussion of empire is related to all this. We see that the ‘punctuation’ phase of the Axial interval is matched by the lapse into equilibrium in the subsequent period(s).
The verdict on empire, then, is that it represents the system returning to steady state, which, in fact, if a fairly good portrait of the medieval period up to the modern period.
This interplay of punctuations and equilibrium periods reduces world history to a system on the spot. Taken descriptively.