10.10.08

Reviewing WHEE 2: a world macro system

Posted in reviewing whee, The Eonic Effect, Third Edition, World History and The Eonic Effect at 7:13 pm by nemo

The first in a series of two posts, Reviewing World History And The Eonic Effect
The first post emphasized the issue of the dynamics of the eonic effect. This resulted in a frequency hypothesis, which is then set aside, as we zoom in on the actual structure that we find, called the ‘eonic effect’. We don’t need to solve the question of its dynamics to assess its significance. In the same way we can see how a mechanism functions, ‘what it does’, without knowledge of its hidden details. The study of the eonic effect can change gears thus, to look at issues of mechanism, and/or questions of historical content. The way to do this is to create, not another ‘theory’, but a model using periodization to track the operation of an immense evolutionary dynamic embedded in history. This model is a mirror of the elegant way the eonic effect shows the operation of historical evolution on two levels, which we call ‘macro’ and ‘micro’. Consider the Axial Age, embedded in the eonic effect. The ‘macro’ is the ‘system action’ on a set of cultures, the ‘micro’ the free action response to the system action. This action operates directly on human self-consciousness.

Introduction The book begins with the question of history and evolution, and the paradox in the question, When did evolution stop and history begin. cf. online selection: http://eonic-effect.net/TOC/intro1_1_1.htm
From there we examine the legacy of Darwinism, and the basic problem, that of natural selection. We study the limits of standard theories in the Oedipus Paradox, and the problem of the limits of observaton.
We then announce our basic strategy: to demonstrate a non-random pattern in world history, something that is not supposed to exist.
Before proceeding we look at the ‘metaphysics of evolution’ in terms of Kant’s critique of metaphysics.
Chapter Two We embark on a description of the eonic effect as a sequence of three transitions, and then begin to construct a simple periodization model around the data. We note in passing our sudden suspicion that the Great Explosion is going to show something like the ‘eonic effect’, had we the data.
Chapter Three In this chapter we formulate an hypothesis of frequency, and then set it aside, waiting on further research, a falsifiable hypothesis we should note. We recast the eonic effect as an ‘eonic sequence’ of transitions, and then note the so-called discrete freedom sequence inside it, a spectacular mystery.
Chapter Four We proceed to resolve, in spectacular fashion the question of theory, as this must involve the antinomy of causality and freedom, and then show how this mirrors almost exactly the Kantian so-called Third Antinomy. The result is a model that can in a most elegant fashion handle causality and freedom, these two now transposed into ‘system or eonic determination’ and ‘relative free action’ in a dynamism of system and individuals.

Chapter Five And Six We then produce a long outline of history from the Neolithic to tthe modern transition, concluding with the so-called Great Divide at the end of the modern transition, as the modern transition cascades in a climax of effects, concluding in the early nineteenth century.

To periodize world history with a continuous-discrete model is disconcerting, but it gives expression to the reality we uncover of a hidden driver behind historical development. It is difficult at first to credit this, but a slow and meticulous study using the model shows a set of correlations too massive to be due to chance.
Another advantage to the model is the way it harmonizes the duality of evolution and history and shows a way to use the two concepts together on different levels. The result prevents the hopeless confusion created by the mis-application of Darwinism to cultural subjects.
This is but a few of the topics covered by the book, which creates a vast panoply of concepts that can transform our study of history. The eonic model is designed to leave the data alone, and makes an excellent way to study history in detail, armed with a sense of coherence as to the whole.
In the process we discover that almost all our evolutionary concepts so far are false or misleading when applied to human culture, and proceed to construct an new approach to its study.

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10.07.08

Reviewing ‘World History And The Eonic Effect’

Posted in reviewing whee, Third Edition, World History and The Eonic Effect at 3:50 pm by nemo

A question comes up: reviewing World History And The Eonic Effect
The task is not simple, so here are a few things to keep in mind:

The prime objective is to describe a beautiful discovery: a non-random pattern in world history. This is called the ‘eonic effect’. The term ‘eonic’ is a pun on ‘eon’ and ‘eonic’ (as in digital sampling electronics, type ‘eonic in google’ and see all the DSP companies listed).
Even superficial inspection of world history has often suggested a ‘macrohistorical’ dynamic at work, witness the rising literature on the Axial Age, smoking gun evidence of something going on in terms of a dynamic. But the literature on the Axial Age has ended in confusion, because of distraction of the emergence of two world religions in the Axial Age. But this period shows that this aspect of the Axial interval is not the real issue: many other things occur in sync, among them the Axial interval of the Greek Archaic. Still more confusion has arisen from Karen Armstrong’s book The Great Transformation.

A careful method is required to sort out this confusion.
In fact, the eonic effect is discovered by a different route, with a question (or a set of them):
does world history show directionality? is the main one.
Is there a science of history?
How do with reconcile freedom and causality in a ‘science’ of history?
How do we reconcile evolution and history?
When did evolution stop and history begin? (?? this odd ‘sillly’ question has a useful contradiction)

The first question about directionality can be answered by constructing a very simple model, called a discrete-continuous model, and seeing by trial and error if the data corresponds, and at what frequency interval. This amounts to throwing a sine curve at world history, we just might get lucky.

This kind of model is really asking if something is oscillating, or doing some kind of alternation in a sequence.
With a hunch about the Axial Age as a beat in such a macrosequence, we get lucky and easily find, to our suprise, a clear alternating sequence in a rough frequency of 2400 years, and transition intervals of about three centuries: presto, an exact model of the Axial Age.
A three beat sequence is not enough to be conclusive so we leave the issue as an hypothesis, and restrict our study to the three beats we see, taken as transitions:
The onset of ‘higher civilization’ (wrong term!): centuries just before and up to -3000,
The Axial point, centuries just before and up to -600,
The modern transition, centuries just before and up to 1800

This very crude model, on closer examination, produces a virtual cornucopia of deep structure, and significant correlations. With this basis the descriptions in the text will be clear. The correlations of data are so strong that we can see that we are onto something deep, but what?

Note our other questions: The text proceeds to answer the ‘but what?’ question by showing that the ‘eonic drumbeat sequence’ is really an evolutionary sequence, and that this sequence can be seen as an answer to the ‘science of history’ question: the sequence reconciles the freedom/causality contradiction in a very ingenious way. The model turns out to be about ‘oscillations of degrees of freedom’ in an ‘evolution of freedom’.

There is a lot more here, and many other ways to approach/derive the eonic effect, but that is one way to get a sense of the strategy in the book.

[The DSP metaphor, not very important, arises because our transitions seem to 'sample' elements of culture the larger sequence encounters in its direct path]

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