This new section is dedicated to document 'historical phase transitions', and material that can help us think through this topic.

It's part of a set of related documentary sections:

• on Civilizational Analysis and Macrohistory [1]

• on identifying Patterns and change dynamics [2]

• on identifying cycles and cyclical patterns in human history [3]]

We also have more specific sections on transitions dedicated to

1. the Commons-Oriented Transitions [4] and '
2. P2P Transitions' Transition]

Quotes

What happens after a transition ?

"Overall, big history exhibits a trend of advances in power, through the production of organisations capable of acquiring and managing even higher amounts of energy flow.

Second, once the transition processes have settled down, a new historical ‘regime’ has effectively been instituted. A regime is the set of principles or rules which govern how a historical system operates. A period of transition, composed of the stages of novelty and adjustment in organisation and control, is thus followed by a preservation period, during which the energy flow established by the transition is maintained over time. During periods of regime preservation, energy use remains relatively stable through the repetition of work cycles. A regime tends to persist until a new transition is initiated by a new energy - extraction novelty, resulting in cycles of ‘punctuated disequilibrium’ between NESSTs and regimes."

- Robert Aunger [5]

The Noosphere as a Evolutionary Transition

"We are witnessing a new major transition going on right in front of us, and each of us is part of it. Without understanding the concept of the noosphere and how it relates to the major evolutionary transitions, the environmental crisis will remain inexplicable.

The major evolutionary transition that the reader is part of right now, through conceiving these thoughts of mine, depends on socialization of the minds. The minds, which so far were limited to single organisms, extend into a cognitive community of shared symbolic signs and meaning, independent of the environment.

The noosphere involves similar features as the previous transitions, where singular and isolated units managed to overcome their egocentric isolation without engulfing their fellow organisms. The 'we' invokes a capacity for common action so far unseen in the biosphere: A shared cognitive space independent of the adaptive demands of the ecological niche, and instead adapting to the noosphere, with all its new challenges, fears and possibilities (Gillings et al., 2016)."

- Marcus Lindholm [6]