Renaissance emergence

The evolution of Western civilization in the last millennium can be described as a three-stage process. In this process, the dominant sociocultural paradigm gradually evolved from the Dark Ages (or the Middle Ages) through the Renaissance to the present modern age. 

The word Renaissance is a combination of the French verb renaitre (to revive) and of the noun naissance (birth). It means revival (Gelb 1998, 1999, 2004). Usually, the Renaissance is understood as the revival of the classical ideas of human power and of unlimited human potential, which were entirely rejected in the Dark Ages. The Renaissance can be described as a transition from the ascetics of the Middle Ages to the consumerism and enjoyment of life in the modern age. 

The emergence of the Renaissance can also be explained strictly from an inventive engineering perspective. The sociocultural paradigm that was the Renaissance can be considered as a system. As such, its evolution can be described by patterns of evolution (Clarke 2000, Zlotin and Zusman 2006), which provides an excellent explanation for the nature of expected change. Three types of relevant evolutionary patterns are provided here. 

The resources utilization pattern states that a system evolves in such a way as to improve the utilization of resources. There is no question, in terms of the utilization of resources (capital), that capitalism represented 

The increased system dynamics pattern states that a system always evolves to increase its dynamics. The Dark Ages can be characterized by a very low mobility of people even within their own countries. That situation had to change, and therefore the Renaissance emerged as an age of significantly increased mobility both within individual countries and in all of Europe. Also, it was a period of geographic exploration of the world outside of Europe. These discoveries obviously contributed to the rapidly increased pace of the sociocultural paradigm of evolution. 

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Historians of Renaissance philosophy, such as Kristeller, have demonstrated that Renaissance Hermeticism also contributed to the emergence... 

Then came the Renaissance, a period of the recovery of ancient learning and of an unstoppable flow of new observations and new ideas, often emerging from or inspired by the old. Lucretius was rediscovered, and so was Epicurus. Greek atomism became fashionable at the French court. But just as Aristotle in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries had had to be interpreted and modified so as to be reconciled with Christianity, so too did atomism in the seventeenth century. Gassendi undertook the Christianization of atomism. Atoms, he explained, were not eternal but created by God. Their movement in the void was not random but the result of their God-given initial motions, which made them agents of divine purpose. 

And yet by the late sixteenth century certain features had emerged to define alchemical laboratories as distinct spaces in the landscape of late Renaissance work and learning. Some of these features were architectural. Although it is easy to lose sight of them, certain practical considerations had to be taken into account in establishing an alchemical laboratory. Any workspace had to have a hearth or ventilation for multiple furnaces. The need to feed these fires made access to fuel a neces-... 

I. Feelings of rejuvenation.. ..On emerging from certain profound alterations of consciousness (e.g., psychedelic experiences,. ..hypnosis, religious conversion, transcendental and mystical states),. ..many persons claim to experience a new sense of hope, rejuvenation, renaissance, or... 

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