The Coming Inversion
Economics, Armageddon, & Paradigmatic Change
This essay is part of a series comparing the twilights of (1) Rome's slave-based economic system and (2) the Middle Ages' feudal system to (3) today's capitalist economic system. In addition to the broad life cycles of these economic systems, we'll note similarities between infectious diseases and changes in communication technologies common to all three eras. Finally, we'll see how belief systems rise and fall in tandem with these broad economic systems. When these systems seize up and stop functioning, people begin questioning authority. And that, in turn, leads to collapses of bedrock conceptions of reality itself.
Introduction
During the twilight of Medieval society, Nicolaus Copernicus calculated that the Earth revolves around the sun. His calculations directly contradicted the intellectual authority of his day, the Roman Catholic Church. By discrediting that authority, Copernicus played a major role in ushering in the modern era. As we reach the end of that modern era in our own time, we should expect an authority-shattering paradigm shift similar to Copernicus’s momentous findings.
The Copernican Inversion
When the Polish polymath Nicolaus Copernicus died in 1543, he left behind a ticking time bomb…in the form of a book. His De revolutionibus orbium coelestium contained calculations demonstrating that the Earth orbits the Sun, and not vice versa.
Copernicus published from his deathbed because his work directly contradicted the Aristotelian model of the solar system—with Earth at the center—that was the official doctrine of the Roman Catholic Church. The Church didn’t take kindly to being contradicted in those days, when screams emanated from the dungeons of the Inquisition. But Copernicus escaped the Church's Inquisitors by holding onto his findings until just before he died.
Thanks to Copernicus, an amazed public experienced a wholesale inversion of reality. Until then, any fool could see the Sun “moving” across the sky. But Copernicus forever shattered the optical illusion where Earth appears to be the unmoving center of the universe.
The Printing Press
Over the centuries, the Copernican Inversion has come to epitomize the transition from the Middle Ages to modernity. The invention of the printing press turbocharged that transition.
After its dismal performance during the Black Death, serious doubts about the Church’s claimed connection with God were already swirling. But that tragedy played out before the invention of the printing press. Whereas for Copernicus, the presses stood ready to spread his work to every corner of Europe with mechanical efficiency, exposing the errors of a Church previously believed infallible.
The Internet
The printing press changed everything. Suddenly, ideas flowed so freely that the Church could no longer contain them. Today, another revolution in communication technology has robbed authority of control over the flow of information: the internet.
The old one-to-many broadcast model is being replaced by the many-to-many online model. Legacy news outlets have already surrendered most of their audience; only true believers still tune in to keep the faith. Meanwhile, the rest of us surf the web without any centralized information clearinghouse at all. And the results are shaping up to be every bit as paradigm-changing as the Copernican Inversion…
Science
In the immediate aftermath of the Reformation, banking houses arose to replace the Vatican's political authority. However, the church’s intellectual authority was replaced by science.
Science is our modern priesthood, in the sense that scientists define reality for the rest of us. Very few bother to read its peer-reviewed papers, and even fewer actually conduct their own experiments. We simply take scientists at their word, just as Medieval society uncritically accepted the dictates of the Catholic Church. Until they didn’t anymore...
Magic
Science began as a branch of magic. But over time, alchemists gradually became chemists, and astrologers morphed into astronomers. They traded their magic wands and robes for clipboards and white lab coats. Isaac Newton’s case vividly illustrates the overlap between science and magic. He co-invented calculus and formalized the gravitational equations we still use today, all while remaining a committed alchemist.
Science differs from magic by presupposing that we’re merely humble observers wandering around inside a transcendent universe, observing it with our senses. Yet the double-slit experiment and the placebo effect demonstrate conclusively—using science’s own methods—that the mind actually plays a role in determining reality. We’re not just limited to observing reality; we’re also creators of it.
This idea is fundamental to the notion of magic; a worldview that’s just as much of a heresy now as it was during the Middle Ages. The consequences of wrongthink are certainly less violent than they were back then, but professing a belief in magic is still considered so childish and primitive that no one who does so is taken seriously.
Magic vs. Authority
The authorities encourage people to think of themselves as limited minds observing a wondrous reality from within. The alternative, magical perspective threatens them; they don’t want us to achieve transcendence. Instead, they’d prefer we report to work each morning, where we make them money.
Like science, Christianity has magical origins. In his 2020 book The Immortality Key, Brian Muraresku noted that early depictions of Christianity involved magical rites not usually associated with that religion. Early 2nd-century Christians, for example, depicted themselves holding magic wands. In his book, Muraresku included a photo of the ceiling of the Catacomb of Priscilla in Rome that quite literally illustrates his point. But by the late Middle Ages, the Roman Catholic Church was burning people alive for believing in magic. Christianity became the same moribund authority that it once revolted against. That’s why magic remains a heresy, whether the intellectual authorities are Christians or scientists.
The Coming Inversion
Broad economic systems are like cars. They run great at first, but over time they become less efficient until they eventually need to be replaced. Examples include the slave system of Rome, the feudal system of Medieval Europe, and our own modern capitalist economic system.
A historical pattern emerges when these economic systems lapse into chaos. During such times, pandemics such as the Antonine Plague or the Black Death expose the authorities' faults. Fresh communications technologies, such as the bound book or the printing press, amplify those faults. Finally, when people stop allowing authority to define reality for them, new perspectives abound. During the Fall of Rome, monotheism reshaped the popular conception of reality at that time. During the late Middle Ages, Copernicus’ heliocentric model of the solar system did the same.
Today, capitalism is growing long in the tooth. Another pandemic, COVID-19, has come and gone, like the Antonine Plague and the Black Death. The internet revolutionized communication technology, as the bound book and the printing press once did. Missteps by public officials during the COVID era, amplified on the internet, have sown distrust in the authorities. But we’re still waiting for our paradigmatic shift.
The most enticing clues are the double-slit experiment and placebo effect, which demonstrate that our minds are simultaneously creating and experiencing this reality, just as we do when we dream.
Said another way, we feel like our head is located within the universe. But that’s an optical illusion, analogous to seeing the sun “move” across the sky. The next Copernicus is overdue to break this illusion and demonstrate that the observable universe is actually contained within our heads. Not vice-versa.
Conclusion
Nicolaus Copernicus touched off a paradigm shift by demonstrating that the Earth is in motion around the Sun. The priesthood of his day, the Roman Catholic Church, clung to the opposite view while their authority collapsed. As our established political authorities face their own decline, we should expect another great paradigm shift in our bedrock conception of reality. The double-slit experiment and placebo effect offer tantalizing clues that suggest the ancient magical worldview is due for another comeback.
Further Materials
