We can bring all our ideas together in a short summary of our eonic model, which dissolves into the background as it turns into an outline of history, starting in the next section, and the appendix. If the model seems complex, keep in mind that it is designed so that theory will be segregated from action. But before doing that we can bring in one last idea, the idea of a sort of floating ‘fourth turning point’, and can speak of ‘general TP4 exceptions’.  Later we will connect this to questions of ideology, especially the ideology involved in saying that TP3 is a major turning point. Our model is very powerful and summons up a classic distinction: freedom in the eonic system, and freedom from the eonic system. We fulfill the eonic sequence, and then we move out of it. System action yields to free action, which must self-evolve into Freedom.

TP4 exceptions Our eonic history is about what we see in the past. At all points the human agents were free to act in any way, and yet we see the system sets an overall direction. As the eonic sequence shuts down those agents are again free to act in any way, including the possibility of producing actions scripts that will undo TP3. In fact we are seeing that already. Since we have made no predictions, not even that anyone should agree with the direction (s) set by our system. We can see however that TP3, which is now something more than the splitting outcomes of rival ideologies, would be hard to undo! The real problem is the phenomenon we see in antiquity after the Axial interval, a slow but steady collapse of general advance. A great many ‘general TP4 exceptions’ attempted to wrest control of history and the future in that mideonic period.

Nothing in our formulation preempts the possibility of a special kind of TP4 exception: setting up a plan of action that will contradict/undo TP3 by creating a new ‘turning point’ out of synch with the eonic sequence, thus proving it false! In fact, this possibility goes a long way toward explaining much reactive anti-modernism, postmodern critique of the Enlightenment, and much else. And it shows that our affirmation of the eonic sequence contains an ideological element. This however is no objection to our basis thesis which is not, to repeat, a set of statements about historical laws, but a set of observations about the relationship, in the past, between an ‘eonic system action’ and ‘free action’. These issues should come home to roost at the end of our model making, but for the moment we can say that undoing TP3 would likely prove very difficult, the result being instant chaotic decline. Consider the rapid fall off after the Axial interval. We should do better to preserve the gains of eonic evolution! Just at that point we realize our difficulty in even defining the ‘modernity’ we associate with TP3. We must graduate to the immense task of realizing our model as what it also is: a simple periodization map turning into a world history chronicle.

From evolution to history The way we have set up our model, in some fashion, automatically answers all these objections. Our task is not reactive anti-modernism, but a genuine self-consciousness that can both realize and transcend the eonic sequence, as we ‘exit evolution into history’. That, however, is not so simple.

Thus there is a strange solidity to our thinking: we have built in a principle of falsification! But let us proceed to recapitulate our basic ideas. The data of the eonic effect, with its shades and hues brought out by the accompanying eonic model (it's like a high-contrast effect given to a photograph), gives us a complete but high-level snapshot of a strange new entity, the 'eonic evolution of civilization'. To summarize our terms again: We have connected the ideas of evolution and history, bypassed the problem with laws of history. We then created a simple model, and connected this with a key theme of the philosophy of history. This model is simply a matrix of periodization, in which we keep a careful distinction of 'system' and 'free activity'. The slow alternation of the two creates the eonic effect. Note that ‘theories’ and models are part of the output of our system.

Observers, embedded agents What is our status as observers of this system? We have already answered this. We have a model that carefully defines ‘theory’, ours at least, in the present, and which preempts the Oedipus effect by switching off after the close of our pattern, so that ‘theory’ applies only to the past, looking backwards. Theory is a codependent evolute in the eonic sequence. The outcome of the transitions are a series of action scripts, i.e. potential domains of 'action realizations' on eonic themes, sequentially dependent on the 'eonic emergents'. 
The question of the observer is crucial since such observers chameleon the ideological emergents of their own transitions, e.g. the redactors of the Old Testament, expressed the output of the system as 'action scripts'. We would like to replace all these observers with a scientific eonic observer, but that is not so simple, since science has no categories for this kind of analysis, as yet. However, to be an eonic observer requires only basic operations, e.g. periodization, and can be done independently of the ideological content of the eonic sequence (maybe). 

Let us recall our already defined terms. Note that our frequency series shows the eonic sequence, and that in between we have the mideonic periods which show a series of oikoumenes created by diffusion. 

Stream and sequence We have created two levels to our model, and we can consider the history of a particular culture the stream aspect, and the intersection of that with the larger evolutionary process the sequence aspect. 

Consider the example of Greece. The stream of Greek history is one thing, and proceeds as the tale of a culture or cultural complex over many millennia. But its intersection with the 'eonic sequence' produces a transition in a larger process. This is the characteristic Axial Greek period, issuing from the Dark Ages into the so-called Archaic, then Classical periods. This is actually a very efficient way to 'evolve' a whole through an isolated series of parts. 

Diffusion and oikoumenes Each transition produces a diffusion field leading to a new oikoumene. The Hellenistic is one classic example and appears almost immediately in the wake of our Greek Axial transition. 
Sequential dependency This process creates a broader rubric than causality. Each successive culture in the diffusion field shows a kind of loose determination created by the transition. 

The reason for this is the inability of the successors to match the creative intensity of the transitional period. People begin to look backwards and form a tradition based on the transition. Many of the seminal innovations are in fact lost as time goes on. Greek democracy fails to endure, or example. The world of empire takes over. The great flowering of Greek tragedy simply stops immediately at the end of the fifth century. To understand sequential dependency consider this case of tragic drama. To overcome this dependency effect we would have to be able to produce tragic dramas 'on demand' as it were! Clearly in this one case we are still the downfield sequence unable to freely 'transcend history'.

This approach allows us to deal in a useful way with directionality without the confusions of teleology. This model is really about two levels, and we see the stream level and the level of the eonic sequence. These two levels are braided together and this matches the dynamic driving 'eonic evolution'.

Discrete-continuous models The type of model we use is a so-called discrete-continuous model because we see a discrete series of turning points overlaid on a continuous pattern of world history.

The switched off present The elegance of a discrete-continuous model where the 'system' takes the discrete series aspect, and 'free action' the continuous history aspect, is the way the character of the system changes as we enter our present. Note that we are outside the 'eonic series' and have been executives of the output of the system.

Nothing could be simpler than this approach to modeling: We change our mental software in a very simple way and the data makes sense! We simply take our three turning points and turn them into discrete transitions three centuries in length in an eonic sequence overlaid on our second universal history, TP1, 2, 3 become:

Transition 1: birth of civilization -3300 to -3000
Transition 2: Axial interval -900 to -600
Transition 3: rise of the modern 1500 to 1800

Isn't this a bit artificial?  Yes, it is, or seems so at first, but it doesn't really matter since a rough match is quite sufficient. These transitions create a fishnet, and only approximate an unknown functionality, but undoubtedly map out statistical regions.

Eonic emergents, relative transforms Our observations are based on the way stream phenomena show 'relative transforms' as they become 'eonic emergents'. The Axial transformation of 'monotheism' is a 'relative transform' (it existed before) and by definition thus an 'eonic emergent'. 
Note that we cannot define the 'essence of a transition', e.g. modernity, since each one is a spectrum of eonic emergents forming no simple philosophical unity. Approximations, e.g. 'Scientific modernism'  or 'Enlightenment rationality' are only approximate up to a point. 
'System action'/'free action' The question of causality and freedom yields to 'system action' and 'free action', which in the eonic sequence are also called 'eonic determination' and 'free action'. Evolution yields to history, as the degree of freedom increase, Freedom growing out of 'free action'. 
Self-consciousness The medium of action, and emerging freedom, is self-consciousness. This is also the medium of eonic determination. True freedom lies beyond and outside of eonic determination, which happens in the mideonic periods or at the end of the eonic sequence. 
These terms allow us to efficiently describe the eonic system in general terms beyond the actual content. 

There is nothing dogmatic or even fully derived in this matrix. It simply works if we take it that way. It is like the schedule in a school. The timing of classes is given, system action, but the content is 'free action'. Later we will consider foundationalist questions and ask what foundation we can give to this model. One approach that avoids metaphysical foundationalism to adopt a 'circular epistemology' as explored by such figures as Hegel. IF we set up a model, however arbitrarily, then as we enter into its implications we see in practice its basis in reality: there is an extraordinary match to the data. More generally we explore a theory of the evidence, short of a closed depiction of mechanism, which is always beyond observation, by definition, for reasons we will see.  But as an approximation it encompasses the statistical regions of innovation that form the cluster effect of our pattern. Too many pieces of a puzzle fall into place for the model to be too far off the mark. 

Relative beginnings The nice thing about this model is that we can start anywhere. We have, as yet, no absolute beginning to our series, although we proposed a frequency hypothesis extending it backwards. But that hypothesis is not necessary for the use of what we have. In fact, we suspect that our transitions create a net increase in complexity, information, and self-organization in a way that is not causally sequential with its antecedent periods. 

End of Sequence? Note that we are outside the last transition and that this switches off in our past: our current action may or may not express the aggregate directionality shown, which is highly complex in any case, comprising multiple parallel streams. Thus the teleology, if any, inferable from the continuation of TP3, may be quite different from that of the overall sequence. We are left with a question, have we reached the end of the sequence? 
Modern unidirectionality? The puzzle of the Axial Age synchrony is matched by the mirror image puzzle of the absence of geographical synchrony in the modern transition, leading to endless confusion about a Eurocentric Western civilization. But as we enter intensive globalization, the realization that the modern transition, with its frontier focus, is a transient interval in a greater eonic sequence resolves many paradoxes at one stroke. An Axial phenomenon in a shrinking world would have proved disastrous, and the transcultural latency of modernist universalism gives a rubric for an eonic first: a globalized oikoumene. 
Economic cycles It is important to see that we have transcended the economic interpretation of history. But our method, even as we bypass the economic interpretation of history, resembles the stance of economists studying economic cycles. Economists produce theories about cycles in the past, looking backwards, and their model switches off in the present, and they have ‘free action’ in this present (i.e. the ability to modify the cycles, maybe). Predictions may still be possible, but free action can change any such prediction, at least theoretically.  
Note: Economic evolution? An essential issue is to see that while the question of economic systems is braided with this pattern, the two are not the same. Look at TP2. Multiple eonic emergents cluster there that are not economic by category. We can’t use economic explanations for the sudden appearance of world religions, philosophies in a spectrum, and everything else, including flowerings of art.  

We have produced an ‘idea for universal history’, and it is important to understand it, since such histories are open to challenge on various grounds, among them ethnocentrism. It seems as if the modern transition is a form of Eurocentrism, but in fact we have bypassed that completely, at least in principle. The rise of modernity takes place in a local frontier area in a phase of transition, and begins to globalize almost immediately thereafter. The question of ‘Western Civilization’ never arises.

In the same vein, nothing in our model excludes the independent emergence of civilization in multiple areas. Our eonic series shows a predominance of effect, but has no monopoly on invention. Quite the contrary, we see that our eonic sequence tends to 'sift' the prior achievements of the cultures in its direct path and amplify them for 'general distribution'. The greater totality of human cultures has many latent resources inherited from the Paleolithic, and our eonic sequence performs but a selection of cultural factors from this totality. There is hardly another explanation for the way it seems to contradict itself, as it spawns two world religions in parallel, the atheist Buddhism, and the monotheistic proto-Judaism. In each case the prior stream was there, but as they intersect with the eonic sequence the latent cultural potential self-organizes into vehicles useful to the dominant theme of globalization. 

Thus, there is nothing in our account to preempt the possibility of the independent emergence of civilization in the New World. And in fact, without a trace of prejudice against this magnificent zone of human cultural achievement, the fact must be admitted that these civilizations are a bit anemic and sluggish compared with the high-octane fast-paced advance occurring in the Eurasian field. We suspect that we see an example of what the independent evolution of culture without a macro driver would be like. The Eurasian landmass, with a center of gravity, or rather, diffusion, in the Middle East is clearly a more efficiently compact field of operation, giving a small investment in a series of hotspots or transitions a big payoff in the rapid spread of civilization to its far corners. Notwithstanding this view of the New World civilizations we nonetheless suspect a strong element of diffusion is at work in the emergence of the Olmec, Mayan, and other New World cultures, a question with a considerable controversy. More on this issue later.

Let us note in this context that we have produced an 'idea for a universal history' and this produces in reality two universal histories. 

Two Universal Histories Attempts to produce universal histories suffer from the selectivity of their focus. Our approach has a built in failsafe: even as follow an eonic mainline we encounter the set of cultural streams that crosses the boundary of the sequence. And the totality beyond that is as much our real subject as the selective mainline of advance. We thus have two, or multiple universal histories, encompassing the totality of human culture. 

This raises issues that are still incompletely realized aspects of world history. We don't know but we can only assume that we have exited the eonic sequence in the final stage of the 'evolution of freedom'. We have no secure grounds for claiming to be outside of the eonic sequence. After the Axial Age, most of what is necessary for the conduct of civilization was present, yet the system collapsed and went into mideonic decline. Science, and democracy virtually died out.  Despite many myths of a future cyclical coming age the eonic system was able to restage an unexpected system return. But as we observe the eonic effect we suspect its future return would collide with anticipation. We must suspect the eonic series terminates as we become aware of it. Expectation of future return created hopeless confusion in previous eras, the myths of the last times being examples. Hegel's version, a myth of another kind, might help to stabilize such extravagance.  This end of eonic sequence is a true beginning, the birth of true history, but under dangerous conditions, since we have to ability to conduct cultural change on the scale of the eonic effect. So, we must learn. 

That’s it. Our model is simply a grid on the surface of a planet, showing a sequence of transitions between different regions, sometimes with parallel connections.

 We have arrived at the idea of an ‘evolution of freedom’. To summarize, our thinking the temporal sequence of our transitions can only be called 'evolution'. There is hardly another term that is appropriate, notwithstanding the seeming contradiction with the normal account via the basic vehicle of that 'evolution': free activity. Actually our eonic pattern solves this problem for us, and the factor of its intermittency allows us easily to create a construct that can reconcile the seeming contradiction. Thus there is a simple way to blend the two in a mixed 'causality/freedom' system of the type we have mentioned already.

Vehicle/passenger There are innumerable examples of such mixed systems. Think of an ocean liner and its passengers. The ocean liner is the system, the free action of the passengers operates within the constraints of that system. We can use the term 'evolution' for the system, and 'history' for the free action. Note the way the meanings of the basic terms shift: determinism/free will turns into 'system action' and 'free action', the latter not necessarily 'free will'. We don't need to posit free will to study such mixed systems (maybe we should anyway, but the minimum claim is all we need to proceed). 

System and free activity If we are going to make good on the idea of evolution in history we must carefully delineate the action of the 'system' we say is doing 'evolution' and the activity of individuals inside that system. In general this would be a contradictory situation since we consider 'history' to be free activity not influenced by anything else. But in an intermittent or eonic system this problem has an ingenious solution, which we will pursue as we go along: we can use both ideas braided together.
Eonic Observers It is not only legitimate but illuminating to bring the idea of evolution into our recent past, then our present, then even the future. Something strange happens to theories. We suffer a crisis of objectivity, in the way we ourselves as 'eonic observers' are carrying out as 'free activity' the output of the system. If religions, philosophies, or political action show determination in the phases of our eonic sequence, our continuations of that output in the middle intervals has a problematical status. But in fact there is no problem at all, this is an ingenious way to 'do evolution'. 
Evolution of evolution One consequence of this is that, as we have already seen, the idea of evolution, indeed science itself, is itself an eonic phenomenon. It is born among the Greeks (and Indians), dies out, and is reborn in the next step in the eonic sequence, with a timing down to the decades of eighteenth century that is almost spooky. We may legitimately ask if Darwinism didn't distort instantly the reborn idea, Lamarck having had the better idea. Darwin confused the idea with that other eonic innovation, the free market ideology of Adam Smith, or so we suspect. 
There is a problem here. We can't produce a theory using the output of the system in question. We would need a timeless 'meta-theory' that is 'beyond history'. We don't have such a thing. We use the output of the system, Science in this case, to do the 'science of evolution'. Let's hope it works, up to a point. But it is a temporal continuation of the eonic sequence itself. We can however proceed empirically with an 'evolutionary map', an historical description that uses periodization. We may not have a meta-theory, but we can count on our fingers, i.e using periodization analysis, to map out our 'evolution' into history. 

With these caveats we see that the eonic effect is best described as a relationship of evolution and history taken together. Evolution takes the 'system' designation, history the 'free action' response to the system. The eonic effect shows the characteristic ‘rolling out’ (Latin, e-volvere) connected to a developmental sequence that we associate with the abstract dictionary definition of the term. And yet at each stage it is simply people doing something in a particular place and time. 

Self-consciousness/creativity The paradox we have created is simply solved by considering that 'free activity' can change its character, its state of consciousness. These changes are the factor of 'self-consciousness', any form of heightened or altered awareness. In particular the 'creative consciousness' we see in the eonic pattern allows us to reconcile the system action with individual action. The system generates creative intervals. But it is the individuals who carry out the whole thing. 
We must be careful here not to let our system monopolize creative action. Creativity is potential at all times, so we are merely saying that, for some reason we don't know, there is a larger system that impinges on this potential. Whatever else is the case, we are learning that we have a potential, but that it is sluggish. We would want to 'evolve the freedom', or rather 'self-evolve the freedom' to create at any period, and not depend on the eonic jump-start sequence. 

Here is the interesting part: we are suddenly in a head-on collision with biological definitions of evolution. Since this new meaning for the term 'evolution' seems to violate Darwinian usage, we can agree to qualify the term ‘evolution’ as ‘eonic evolution’, as we go along. Eonic evolution is a stepping sequence of turning points. And we tend to separate ‘history’ and ‘evolution’ in our minds as two separate entities. But in fact we are confronted with the apparent contradiction that what we mean by history is also evolution, and what we mean by evolution, at least for man, is also history. This problem becomes acute with the eonic data, since the random flow of historical events is seen to be joined by a larger process operating on a stupendous global scale. We have stumbled on Big History, as macroevolution, with a vengeance. To repeat, we have solved this using a mixed 'causality/freedom' system model, one we are in the process of constructing. But we already have the gist. The next chapter will provide some details.

Of course, it makes no difference what we call our pattern, it is something to be reckoned with in and of itself. But we are suddenly suspicious that on the scale of five thousand years we are one tenth the way from the Great Explosion, and such a large scale process puts a question in our minds about what we actually mean by the 'descent of man'. Whatever we think the phenomenon of the eonic effect shows ‘developmental or evolutionary’ processes that can operate over the long range, act globally via localized transient effects, remember its tracks in a sequence stretching over millennia, involve itself in all issues of culture, from art to philosophy and religion, and this even includes the question of the cultural evolution of political systems. There is something confusing here still, that we will have to sort out. How is the free activity of individuals going to be evolution? Thus, this is not the same as saying that this process actually generates these effects in some determinate matter, and as we ponder the common denominator of all the different focal points of the eonic effect we are driven to a higher level of abstraction where the effect seems one of a kind of relative transformational process, or amplification, intensification. And in that process the free activity of individuals, without determinism, has to remain a relevant factor. As we will see, that's the beauty of the eonic effect, it solves this theoretical problem for us, as we will see. 

Self-evolution? Our 'evolution of some kind' produces quite naturally a successor: the idea of 'self-evolution' of man in the wake of the eonic sequence. This requires pulling yourself up by the bootstraps to actually carry out some evolutionary process induced by the system. We have in fact already invented this idea, and called it 'history' as free action looking for 'real freedom'. 
Micro/macro This self-evolution as history would in fact correspond to the 'micro' aspect of our 'macro' component. Note that microevolution in this case does NOT mean natural selection. It means replicating 'creative self-consciousness' at the highest level of quality attainable in the wake of the eonic sequence. 

Consider just how different this is from Darwinian thinking with its focus on survival of the fittest. Survival is an invariant requirement at all stages, we can jhardly deny that. But it is a gate-crasher that too often interrupts the chances of real development. It is a fact of life, but not the source of evolution. Our 'eonic religious processes' are moving instead to induce qualitative upgrades to 'free action and thence to integrate groups of individuals and cultures over large areas into ethical communities. Injecting selectionist thinking into this mix, well that's life, but it isn't evolution. We have found one source, or example, of the 'evolution #2' that we were looking for. 

There is a problem here, which is that this is a discussion of the Axial period, while our present shows us in a secular one, frequently trying to transcend these religions. As we go along this should be a simple issue to resolve, in general, although in practice great confusion arises on this score. 

Eonic observers again We have stumbled on a very strange kind of system, one in which we, as 'eonic observers' are also 'eonic agents'. We are defining our very high-level system in terms of its 'action sequences', e.g. religions, political systems, scientific enquiries. But these are also system dependent. We are taking the emergence of religions, the creation of science, the development of political systems as evidence of our pattern. And yet these are open categories free to our modification. It seems to confuse two things. We propose our own action as evidence, yet we are the ones free to make that evidence as we please. This is no trivial issue. The evidence of TP3, modernity, could altered on the spot choosing to undo modernity, quite a real danger since we in fact see such initiatives in our current world culture. 
Eonic agents? In fact, we have defined our material in such a way as to prevent this paradox: we are only making statements about the past. Our transitions are finite intervals, and the most recent one is a fait accompli, and our eonic data is secure. We can regress to the stone age, wreck our eonic sequence, do what we please, but the eonic sequence so far is a fact. We are outside that sequence, in a new state of history, whatever that is.  In fact, as we will see, there is something solid in the eonic sequence. It can slump, deviate, or forget itself, but overall it sets an overwhelming trend in a certain pattern of directionality. Undoing TP3, the project of a host of postmodern conspirators, has shown how the momentum of modernity would be hard to undo. 
TP4 exceptions!? Let us introduce one way to formalize this seeming paradox by considering the possibility of a 'fourth turning point', one freely created by ourselves, designed to contradict the eonic pattern. A gang of irate postmodernists bands together to try and undo TP3. The point here is that nothing in this kind of system forbids this. It seems we should vigorously defend our eonic sequence from this possibility but the nature of a system evolving freedom has to be inherently dangerous. It has no final guarantees. It merely sets direction. The rest is up to us.

These remarks give a complete summary, and anticipate our future creation of an eonic model. Enough to see that our eonic sequence in producing an unexpected Big History, and this in turn barges into the category of 'evolution', 'evolution of some kind', and  treads on the toes of the Darwinian version. This 'evolution' is so sophisticated that it may leave us unable to objectivity evaluate what it is doing. We aren't external observers. We are sequentially dependent on the system's action, executors of its intermittent action. 

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