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World History And The Eonic Effect is about the
detection of non-random evolution in world history. One of the most
tenaciously held views of Darwinists is that of the random character of evolution.
What are we to say if the visible evidence of history contradicts this
assumption? One of the strangest aspects of current thought is the way we
apply a speculative generalization about deep time, which we have not
observed, to history, which we can observe, at close range, and whose
character is something very different. The discovery of the eonic effect
prompts us to create a very simple kind of model that can approximate the
complex non-random pattern that we discover whose correct interpretation is
that of 'evolution', evolution of some kind. In the process we must ask, what
is the meaning of evolution? That the evolution of man shows something more
than a genetic scenario is unexpected, and yet forced on us by the facts. We
need to recalibrate our understanding of what we mean by evolution by devising
a model that can free us from the 'theory trap' that haunts the
oversimplifications of Darwinism. We can do this by asking a paradoxical
question: when did evolution stop and history begin? And how is history
different from evolution? That this could not happen instantaneously suggests
a Great Transition between the two, and in fact this Transition might take the
form of a series of transitions of short duration in a sequence of
alternation. We have by reverse engineering derived the basic properties of
the eonic effect: an eonic sequence of transitions alternating between the
'evolution dominant' and 'history dominant' alternations of a developmental
series. We can actually detect a fragment of such a sequence in world history
itself, as it expresses a directional mainline against the backdrop of world
history in its totality.
The text begins with a critical examination of Darwinism and
its emphasis on natural selection. We look at the limits of Darwin's theory in
the such questions as the evolution of ethics, and examine the legacy of
Social Darwinism. This forces us to consider the liabilities of the so-called
Oedipus Paradox, the basic contradiction in standard theories, as we move
toward the construction of a new type of theory in the eonic model.
We then proceed to map out the basic pattern called the eonic
effect, so reminiscent of the idea of punctuated equilibrium. We also note the
phenomenon of the Axial Age, as a sub-pattern of the eonic effect. The
treatment is comprehensive and proceeds to lay the foundations of a new kind
of model using periodization expressing the Great Transition from evolution to
history.
The text then constructs two outlines of world history, one
going from the present to the past, the other from the past to the present,
with an interlude in between exploring an 'idea for a universal history', and
Kant's Challenge so-called, in a connection of our model with a classic theme
of the philosophy of history.
Our last outline explores the modern transition, the last
phase of the eonic effect, and concludes with an examination of the questions
of ideology and future action, in what has become a model of the 'evolution of
freedom'.
The text encompasses a huge range, from the issues of Old
Testament archaeology, to the argument by design, theories of
self-organization, cyclical theories/myths and the views of Toynbee and
Spengler, Karl Jaspers and others on the Axial Age, the mystery of Archaic
Greece, the evolution of religion and the case of Indic religious evolution,
the emergence of civilization from the Neolithic to the rise of modernity, the
place of Kant, Hegel, Marx in the philosophy of history, the Kantian paradoxes
and antinomies as these impinge on the study of causality and determinism in
history, and much else.
The result is a new way to harmonize the question of evolution
with the study of history, a theoretical self-defense toolkit for preventing
the confusion of selectionist theories applied to history. And this allow us
to bring the idea of evolution to bear on historical research, without the
confusion usually created by such projects. Our model on two levels shows us
how to braid the two together without the collision of concepts that makes
Darwinism a tragically dangerous and misleading pseudo-generalization from the
age of scientism.
Booknotes
Overview, TOC, and Selections
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