4. IDEA FOR A UNIVERSAL HISTORY
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4. IDEA FOR A UNIVERSAL HISTORY |
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| 4.1.2 Causality, Freedom And Self-consciousness | ||||
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We began with a critique of theories of history using Popper’s idea of historicism. But we have found empirically that there is such a thing as macro-history, and our data shows us how to reconcile the contradiction of freedom and causality. The resolution of the paradox of historicism is empirically given by the eonic data, and lies before us in something like the electronic ‘on-off’ switch, to match our intermittent or ‘eonic’ data. That’s crude thinking, but sufficient for large-scale periodization analysis. We have a mixed situation, free agent, and (causal) mechanism. Choice and mechanism operate in tandem. We see our mysterious drumbeat switches on over a brief time scale of centuries relative to millennia in non-contingent evolutionary event-regions. Instead of an on-off switch we see something like ‘switched on’ periods with relative degrees of freedom in the appearance of less conditioned periods able to innovate rapidly. How to proceed with such a strange set of facts? But there is a simple explanation here: change can occur in the agent’s self-consciousness, in the middle ground between determinism and freedom. Look at the eonic effect. Higher degrees of freedom show both deterministic and free influence overlaid. We call that ‘creative action’, in most cases. Note that creativity creates a sense of freedom, but isn’t controlled by its agent. Thus, confusing the question is the fact that ‘free agency’ and ‘freedom’ are not the same necessarily. ‘Choice’ is an observational given, however we explain it. We need not decide about free will to recount the history of ‘choices’, branches of potential outcomes becoming realized. We have the clue to proceed. Further, as we will see as this logic unfolds, the ‘causal agency’ is trying to ‘cause freedom’. The eonic effect is itself like an ‘evolution of freedom’. This crosses the tripwire into a classic ‘contradiction’ as our subject transforms into something else, that something being somewhere in the vicinity of the philosophy of history. We will see that the eonic effect straddles the twin domains of the deterministic and the emergence of man as a ‘free agent’ with potential freedom. The problem of historicism disappears if we renounce causal laws and predictions of the future, and look only toward patterns of creative action, in the past, taking care to define the transition from this past to the open present. We don’t need a proof of man’s free will, or some scheme of historical laws, and will complete our eonic model without deciding these issues. But we do need a model that shows some kind of ‘determination’ in our pattern, and yet switches off in the present, for the evolution of freedom must have a free future. Such seemingly bizarre properties are in fact everyday occurrences, and will form the basis of a model. That’s very strange, and only an example will help, make it transparent. The eonic effect is such an example. The issue of self-consciousness can be grounded in nothing more complex than the power of attention, contrasted with states of consciousness that are more mechanized. We don’t need to commit on any psychological theory to consider it this way, although collating creativity and self-consciousness is an oversimplification. No theory of evolution has ever properly accounted for the emergence of the power of attention (which clearly antedates man’s emergence). But we must assume, as an example of our issue of relative beginnings, the man we find, a creature with a complex power of attention, which he can control to some extent. The point is that there is nothing mystical in the issue of self-consciousness. Notes: Mechanized consciousness We tend to distinguish consciousness and mechanism, but the issue is not so simple. Inattentive states of mechanized consciousness can be almost as mechanical as machinery, a hard fact of life. Almost any state of consciousness can become habitual, hence mechanized. That is, we cease to bring attention to these states of consciousness. The distinction of self-consciousness and consciousness is one of the most ancient, yet also one that often falls into disuse because of this very mechanization of human consciousness. It is the object of immense sutras and discourses, yet there is no mystery here, and we see the difference in the power of attention to change a state of consciousness, to alertness. Note that this is the crux, in so far as ‘changes of attention’ are themselves sometimes ‘caused’ by exterior events, but can also become the object of pure intention, up to a point. Man’s ability to control his attention is marginal at best, but real. In some formulations, the power of attention is an act of ‘will’ that induces self-consciousness. We can leave the issue open, but as we examine the eonic effect we see that the clue lies in changes of consciousness, at the point of creative advance. We must also grant that such changes of consciousness can occur outside the periods of the eonic effect, since the property is a potential already given. That’s the whole point, to pass beyond the ‘freedom induction’ to freedom beyond induction. We need a model, not of consciousness, but of relative changes of consciousness. These distinctions provide that, albeit in rather primitive fashion (creativity could arguably be seen as ‘self-consciousness’, but the reality is undoubtedly more complex, all we need is a two-state psychology for our model). Thus, we have enough for a minimal evolutionary psychology on which the macro factor appears to operate. We have this state of self-consciousness in our repertory, and it occurs fifty times a day, yet we become confused when we think about it. We can adopt the distinction to stay out of trouble with ‘free will’ issues, retreating in practice to a more generalized ‘free action’. Self-consciousness can easily mimic ‘will’ and leaves us suspicious that that is all it is. Instead of ‘free will’, we can ‘nudge the elephant’ with episodes of transient self-consciousness. A close look shows that this happens all the time. Addicted to a drug, someone might notice his lack of freedom, i.e. become ‘selfconscious’ with respect to his own mechanization. And the ‘will’ to change that, successful or not, would tend to ‘nudge the elephant’, i.e. start with an episode of ‘self-consciousness’, free will or not. This is one clue to what we see in history. Look at our example of the so-called ‘Axial’ age. Men produced a great advance, and this was their free series of choices. Yet we also see that this shows some form of greater historical determination. So men were evidently not ‘free’ to produce this alone. And yet they were free, up to a point. Witness the differences of realized effects of this creative period. They were all different, yet they share a mysterious core. That core is simply creativity. Or more generally what we will call ‘self-consciousness’. It is like a business and investment. The investor does nothing, yet his investment causes everything to be done. But it is the agent of that business whose ‘free action’ executes a new series of innovations. The point is clear, although such metaphors are liable to work only up to a point. |
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