09.01.10
Difficulty of eonic model?
Comments of difficulty of eonic model
Arnhart, who operates the NOTORIOUS Darwinian Conservatism blog and is frequently gunning for me, asks an interesting question even as he tries to set me up here, but he misunderstood the point I was making. This issue was raised with a reader of WHEE who told me he wanted the third edition, because it had the full model, which the fourth edition tends to put in the background.
That led to my spur of the moment comment.
But the fact is that understanding evolution has been made difficult by Darwinism, which is so simple, so dumbed down, that the brains of Darwinists must have atrophied.
Further these remarks ony apply to an attempted theory, not a theory as such. There is no theory of evolution in WHEE: such things are impossible for Kantian reasons.
The eonic model is too clever to claim to have solved the evolution question, unlike naive and ambitious Darwinism. It merely shows that world history shows evidence of a dynamical macro driver.
The actual content of the eonic effect is transparently clear,and a dose of empiricism to challenge Darwinian speculation: world history has a clear structure and non-random patterning.
The eonic model is simply an extra put in the notes in this edition.
In any case, if you are driving a car, then it is clear that there is a hybrid situation where a machine and a free agent are working together in a unity of opposites. Is that clear? If so, you have understood the basic idea, and I shouldn’t have said noone understood me.
Larry Arnhart said,
ugust 31, 2010 at 6:23 pm ·
“But I have never met anyone who undersood it”Why?
nemo said,
September 1, 2010 at 11:27 am · Edit
Good question: I am exaggerating, of course, many have understood the basics, but the combination of novel ideas as a whole is considerable. An identical statement could be made of Kant’s thinking, and for the same reason. But in fact I offer a clever way to understand Kant without reading his main critique first.
In fairness to myself, I have not put it to a test by asking via a poll how many readers understood xyz in the book: the online book has had a huge audience, suggesting the difficulties are mostly at the edges: the core material speaks for itself. But what I meant was that you lose 1. Christians because of an Old Testament critique, and 2. Darwinians, because of a critique of Darwinism, 3…..
That’s a lot of readers to lose at step 1. And the minute you even refer to Kant, many flee in panic. And Kantians stay away because the academic Kant world refuses to challenge Darwin, and can’t even discuss Lenoir’s book on Kant and evolution.
As with calculus, all it needs is a short course with will to learn. It isn’t that hard! Look at Kant’s Third Antinomy: if that makes sense, then my model will makes sense. We could honestly say that noone has understood Popper on historicism, or Isaiah Berlin on historical inevitability, so I am in good company. This question is unavoidable, and the sad reality is that most students of history have been confused to the point of idiocy by Darwinism.
Something like this approach is essential to reconcile causality and freedom in history, but standard science training blocks the realization that that is important. If you think natural selection will produce free will (Dennett), it is not surprising few get beyond the first step.
Nor is it my fault: if you look at what Karen Armstrong did to the idea of the Axial Age (in part to attack me indirectly) you can see why people have problems with visualizing world history. The mess she made of that material is beyond belief, but was heavily promoted, even as she lied to create her public.
The source of the problem lies in the complexity of world history and the need to set aside propagandas, Darwinian and/or Christian-historicist, to see the reality of what happened. A way must be found to reconcile science and freedom issues, but current science publics have been brainwashed out of seeing the problem.But most of all, anyone who criicizes Darwinism never really gets readers, unless he is a rightwing conservative proponent of ID arguments.
Why, Mr. Arnhart. I might close by blaming you for peddling Darwin oversimplifications. So, Mr. Arnhart, it’s your fault.