Here we subscribe to the Age of Faith, the Age of Reason, and what is provisionally called the Age of Intuition, as a working title. Waves are parallel, but not coterminous. Nor is a paradigm continuously present within a wave. The following table shows the general arrangement as it applies to the Western world. Whereas preindustrial human beings confronted nature as a mysterious living organism, the scientists of the Enlightenment reduced nature to a complex but inert mechanism that could be taken apart, rationally understood, and used like any other mechanical device.
Perfect efficiency is impossible.
A successful cycle forms a paradigm. There is a striking difference between the nature of the First and Second Waves, and that of the 3rd. The first two achieved paradigms that were effectively three layers deep. The First and Second Waves had periods of integrity. This is not necessarily a claim for their morality, or their outcomes.