History of Complexity -- Complexity of History

On average, it is intuitive that this total complexity keeps on growing, like the total human population density. In fact, we will take for granted that its overall behavior is an exponential growth. However, it is also clear that the highway of human history has speed bumps. For example, it jumps up when there is a miraculous bifurcation such as the Greek Miracle, the Renaissance, etc. And it may also jump down when there is a disaster, such as the burning of the Alexandrian Library.

In fact, the graph of total complexity as a function of historical (and prehistorical) time is a most interesting object, and the late Terence McKenna devoted most of his life to its study. In his analysis, it is a fractal: smaller or larger catastrophies all the time.

Recall that there are three kinds of bifurcation in dynamical systems theory, and two of them cause quantum leaps (up or down) in the behavior of the system. Thus, this graph of total complexity versus historical time reveals -- in its jumps -- the bifurcations of world cultural history which are so important in our spiral curriculum.