Luke, I am resending this revised for general distro to my log, and a few 
other lists. 

From consiliencep:  snip: ...David Christian’s essay here is an 
> intellectual gem (<A HREF="http://www.fss.uu.nl/wetfil/96-97/big.htm">http://www.fss.uu.nl/wetfil/96-97/big.htm</A>) (please also 
> reference <A HREF="http://www.ucpress.edu/books/pages/9249.html">http://www.ucpress.edu/books/pages/9249.html</A>,  
> 

I find the essay fascinating, and I am also a bit 'miffed', if not frustrated 
or jealous.  Any consideration of Big History has to get straight on 
Darwinism. But since no Univ Press will publish a critique of Darwin, I will bet that 
the issue is finessed in the book. Yes? Darwin's account of the descent of man 
is unproven, and almost certainly wrong. If that can't be said in the 
scholarly public then we wait til it sinks in. 

So it is left to hombres like me to tackle the first problem first. The text 
of WH&EE could easily be upgraded to Univ Press status, but the regime of 
Darwinism is almost absolute. Big shots like S. Gould say history has no purpose, 
evolution has no purpose. As far as history is concerned, Gould is wrong. Too 
many people have to admit they are wrong. This paradigm is encased in mental 
cement, the more hopeless because it is 'smart' cement. 
I say all this because people don't suspect that lone rangers can in 
principle do the job better than the sluggish scholarly circuit. We are still in the 
limbo where people think Guns, Germs and Steel is on the verge of a science of 
history.

The idea of Big History from the Big Bang is terrific. But a not so big 
history of the emergence of civilization is all we can manage to start. 
The reason to insist on the point is that world history shows a signature 
structure, which my eonic effect just barely 'encloses'. It is deep and 
beautiful. Consider the (non-random) appearance of Greek tragedy in light of my 
distinction of eonic determination and free action. These 'dramas of free action' 
mirror man's 'relative freedom' in a macro system. 
In general no system of history will work that can't explain the non-random 
appearance of some great art! 
 
That and other examples show why conventional science never gets anywhere 
with history. 
The eonic effect shows how this macro system leverages the differential 
between consciousness and selfconsciousness. These little nudges, in a giant scheme 
operating over millennia. Thus evolution is working directly on 
consciousness. 

That's pretty arcane! We are barely tadpoles on the shore here. 

It is a beguiling riddle. Hegel almost got it. I think his conception of 
Geist threw him off track. He gave up to soon, so to speak. Actually his idea is 
pure Spinoza, and potentially closer to some new science than we think. 
Whatever the case Hegel wasn't quite there, but got some of the pieces which everyone 
else misses.  Forget idealism and all that for a moment. He took Kant's 
Challenge and tried. 
Kant's Challenge springs from the soil of this three critiques. And the 
indication taken together is of the need to balance our Newtonian thinking with 
some disposition toward the forms of ethical, esthetic (and teleological) 
judgement. 
Science cannot manage that. But the eonic effect shows how we can balance 
that in priniciple. 
Hegel's solution is classic, almost too classic. He's a better philosopher 
that I am! But the issue is slightly different. The data responds to a simple 
model, we should be suspicious of where we are going wrong. My point about Hegel 
is that he is so excoriated that noone has the nerve to consider essential 
issues of consciousness in relation to Big History, art, philosophy, history of 
science, even the macro aspect of religion (from a secular viewpoint)
I think the key is Kant's Dialectic in his first critique. We see how nature 
automates philosophy, at least we almost see it! 

 We need more data, and that is arriving. Someday we will laugh at Darwinian 
presumption.
I start from a higher level of abstraction than Hegel and hence am free of 
him, and thus free myself from Hegelian clutches, something self-proclaimed 
materialists can't seem to manage. Free of Hegel I can admire him, although I 
dont' use him. 
Marxists are not free of him, and thrash in the bits and pieces of his 
system. 

My point is that the riddle of history is addressed by that Big History of 
philosophy, whose relationship to the history of philosophy itself (also 
science) is demonstrably macro. The point is essential to consider because 
reductionist thinking simply turns into bad philosophy. 
That puts reductionist science out of the ball park. Reflect on Kant's Third 
Antinomy, the exact point at which science fumbles and never knows why. 

Thus Kant's Challenge appears with perfect timing as the key riddle to be 
solved. Current science throws people off track. 

Anyone, make sure the eonic model doesn't get lost. I can't keep this up 
forever, working without funds. I am quite sure the Big Shots will try hard to 
destroy every trace. In the past three years, they have destroyed all my posts at 
Popper's Critical Cafe, the old Kant-l, the old Hegel-l and banned me from 
the Marxism list, the Pen-l, five or six other lists. I find these guys 
remarkable. Why worry. Armed with the eonic effect data, one holds the winning ace. 
They won't suceed, if a guy like Dembski can make a fool of them. But the design 
argument won't work either, at least in theistic form. But what a laughing 
stock, done in by Creationists. 

Follow the eonic sequence, with the necessary reading, to get the riddle. 


Keep posted, second edition coming soon, hopefully a little easier to read 
than the first. 

John Landon
Website for
World History and the Eonic Effect
http://eonix.8m.com
Blogzone
http://www.xanga.com/nemonemini