3.3 An Eonic Model
Last modified 07/04/2008
|
Once we formulate our problem, an empirical study of world history
rapidly suggests the answer to our problem. We can find 'evolution' in history,
in the sense of our macro process, and we can also see that Huxley having
formulated his problem found himself considering the evidence of world history,
zeroing in on the period of the so-called Axial Age. The most basic clue to the
existence of derandomizing intervals in world history is precisely this period
of rapid synchronous change in a global scene stretching across Eurasia. The
factor of isolated independent synchrony shows us a process that is independent
in some sense of its causal antecedents, transpatial, and fast-acting, and,
more, directly implicated via the consciousness of its innovators with the
actual content of culture. It is more than a mechanization of causal blocks, and
evokes the creativity of its 'organisms', men about the business of
civilization, that is species or near-species level organizations. The Axial Age
shows a clear direct action in relation to the question of religion, and what is
more shows a correlated action on the questions of human freedom. In short we
see in the Axial Age, in some surprise, what we can only call a macro factor of
something. But is it 'evolution'?
The answer here is 'yes', but we must qualify our usage, and see if we can grasp the significance of the Axial Age in a larger context. We do that very simply by seeing that the Axial interval might be too short acting and that a hybrid continuous/discontinuous process might be at work to 'straighten' the action of the fast acting short interval. We stumble at once on the so-called 'eonic effect' (a series of 'Axial Ages') with an attendant model of its action based on the nature of the consciousness and freedom of those inside it. That is, we can empirically extend the Axial Age observations to include a series of such, and realize that the action is on such a scale that we can only call it 'evolution'. Some kind of evolution. However, we should suspect that this is a very late stage type of evolution in the sense, which is not hard to derive, that it is involved with the generation of civilization, and more basically with the transition from passive to active organisms. In general, the relationship of the increasingly active organism to the macro factor requires careful handling, but we can see that our empirically derived observations of this 'evolution' show us directly how this can be, in the slow alternation of macro and micro levels of this 'double evolution', or the macroevolution and its other micro component, history itself, the actions of free men, or relatively free men evolving toward freedom. We can see that the question of Huxley's 'evolution #2' is directly involved therefore in history itself.
|
||
|
|
||
|
|
||