Scientific Revolution or Evolution?--Conquest vs. Consortium as the Future of Science

Elisabet Sahtouris gave a talk this week on the above topic at the London branch of the Scientific and Medical network

She convened the Hokkaido Symposium in summer of 2008 to create a convergence between those scientists that believe in a Living Universe and those conventional scientists that believe in a Materialist Universe.

Elisabet already got coverage for her symposium last year for in Hokkaido in the Kosmos Journal attached which kicked off the conversation above.

Quote from the article:

In a time of need to shift as quickly as possible from unsustainable lifestyles to sustainability around the globe, we ‘Hokkaido 8’—now calling ourselves an Evolution of Science Group—recognize this issue, to have key potential for facilitating that shift, especially as it concerns the relationship between consciousness and matter

So this symposium brought a number of PhD scientists including a Nobel Laureate, who believe in a Living Universe and the primacy of consciousness. Together they analysed materialist science to examine which were the key basic assumptions upon which this form of science is based.

Equally they then analysed their own belief system in a Living Universe and came up with a set of basic assumptions for this belief system. They have now are seeking
E50k to put a survey 5000 scientists throughout the world using an international surveying company in order to screen their underlying beliefs about nature of the universe. Elisabet feels this is much more useful than asking them if they believe in God!!

(article again)

In collaboration with international survey company, GlobeScan in London, a global survey of scientists’ deep-seated unproven assumptions—the foundational worldview beliefs upon which any science necessarily rests—is in the planning stages. The results of that survey, never before undertaken, are expected to reveal that the foundations of science are not as monolithic as commonly believed, and that therefore a diversity of sciences, with formally agreed upon methodological commonalities as outlined above may be not only desirable but almost mandatory in a peacefully globalized world

In the talk she stated that a lot of ancient cultures had scientific systems with specialist aspects Vedic Inca Taoist etc and envisaged a consortia of sciences balancing a materialist science worldview, with these ancient sciences but equally demanding these ancient sciences come up the mark of Western scientific methodology.

What was revealing for me was having all the basic assumptions mapped in one place, as they feel very familiar to me and yet not been fully specified articualted so accurately before in my view;

What follows below is what I remembered, and can manage to record, transcribed from my notes made during the talk.

Materialist Assumptions

Everything is constructed of matter
Darwinian Natural Selection explains evolution
Science as Practiced is the only means to understanding and knowledge
Reality is meaningless
Space and Time is the only context for reality
Psy phenomena are not real
There is no Higher Power
There is no non local causality
Life is a derivative of non life
Intuition is untrustworthy and unscientific


Living Universe Assumptions

Mind or Consciousness is of primary importance
Intelligence plays a role in biological and cosmological evolution
There are many avenues to True Knowledge
Reality lies outside of space time
Psy phenomena can be studied scientifically
A higher power exists
Non local causality is real
Life is fundamental to the Universe


The underlying assumptions are not really scientific of either position there are really just cultural beliefs

Another summary of the talk http://www.scimednet.org/localgroupscontents.php?action=Report&Control=London+Group

Integral Politics & London Integral Salon

My second offically published article was recently put online;

London Integral Salon Notes from the Field January 18, 2009

A Dialogue and Discussion on Integral Politics

With John Bunzl and Victor Anderson, Facilitated by Michael Herrick

Now Published on the Integral Leaderhsip Review website

http://www.integralleadershipreview.com/archives/2009-03/2009-03-notes-pendle.php

Rupert Sheldrake Visionary Scientist

I went a talk given by Rupert Sheldrake presented by the Gaia Foundation at Burgh House in Hampstead on Wednesday night.

The event was held in a unique and intimate setting. A buffet meal and wine is served beforehand in a flat on the ground floor of the Gaia Foundation’s office and then the talk is held for one and half hours in Burgh Hall just across the road. This is then followed by more food and wine back at the flat afterwards. The talk was titled Morphic Resonance, Collective Memory and Habits of Nature.

I arrived early to network yet ended up in the garden and was invited by Rupert to sit on the available chair next to him. So I found out what he is currently doing and thought to publish some of this on this blog.

He is currently republishing his books ‘A New Science of Life’ and the ‘Presence of the Past’ and updating them in terms of his own experiments plus the latest developments in current science. Whilst these developments stop well short of proving his theories he feels they are headed in the right general direction. I noted to him that he was lot more active giving lectures and talks recently and he said he was doing this to emphasise the importance and significance of his work on Morphic Fields and Morphic Resonance as his books of late had focused a lot more on his experiments.

The talk he gave was both beguiling and riveting and as usual he put everything into a huge philosophical context, pointing out some of the erroneous assumptions upon which most of materialist science is based. The latter part of the talk was full of the scientific examples and anomalies that point to his theory of Morphic Resonance.

There are three further points that were of most interest to me;

1) Creativity
Toward the end of his talk Rupert added a postscript about creativity, explaining that his theory of Morphic Resonance really has little to say about creativity as it describes habits which have been repeated and that which is repeatable. Science is essentially a study of habit. He felt creativity occurred in nature when the existing habits are blocked and this almost forces creativity to occur but this could not really be studied or understood by science.

I questioned him further on this as I felt happenings such as the ‘big bang of plants’ must require a fuller explanation. His response was to say some of these things were beyond the mind and therefore we lacked the capacity to know or understand them, he was aware of these ‘punctuated bursts of evolution’ and his best explanation he said drew from the realms of philosophy and theology. In actual fact he saw these occurrences as interventions from the Holy Spirit.

2) Consciousness
My recollection of this component is quite indistinct as it was a small fragment right at the end of the talk. However Rupert was answering a question about the space of emptiness and that of potentiality, when he alluded to the fact that everything that is created that is matter, which is studied by the science is arising in some sense out of the past.

Consciousness in contrast was arising out of the future and was looking backward at the past. I may not be expressing this exactly he meant and was fleeting moment in time but I thought this nano moment revealed something significant and different about his view of consciousness.

3) A Wager

Rupert is shortly about to publicise in the Economist I think, a bet he has constructed with Lewis Wolpert one his most eminent scientific detractors with whom he has conducted several public debates. In a recent debate Wolpert stated he was fully confident that within 20 years science would have discovered the totality of information that governed the development of the human organism.

Rupert challenged Wolpert’s ‘faith’ in science (he is a rabid atheist!) to produce this result and subsequently Wolpert changed his prediction to 100 years. To cut a long story short since the debate and after a lot of bargaining down by Wolpert, they have wagered a case of the finest port (which will matured to it’s peak by May 1 2029 in twenty years) that science will have discovered everything that it needs to know about the development of the nematode worm the simplest animal life form within those twenty years. Rupert is obviously betting against the likelihood of this happening. I may not have the exact terminology right here but I hope you get the sense of the wager!

Overall an inspiring mindstretching and very valuable evening.

Interesting approach to meditation by Buddhist monk

At the end of February 2009 -I am really behind with my posts!!-

I attended a meditation session at the Hub in Islington with Vajradaka, a non-sectarian Buddhist meditation teacher.Vajradaka started meditating in Kyoto, Japan in the late sixties. After practicing in various Buddhist traditions, he joined Friends of the Western Buddhist Order and until recently lived for 21 years in a meditation retreat centre in the hills of Wales where he led retreats and mentored people in meditation.

Whilst the content of the session was not highly remarkable by the standards I am used to, the style of presentation was unusual and possibly something our teachers at Enlightennext could learn from.

Key features included;

Silence was a component but not the main activity of the session
Meditation was presented within a philosophical construct and partly as a contemplative exercise
Illustrates how work with total beginners can be achieved
Highly accessible almost secular presentation
Free of all Buddhist cultural trappings and obvious Buddhist dharma
Use of Leonardo Da Vinci as an example made it very easy to for people to relate to the content
This style would be easy to adapt to business and educational sessions
The philosophical impulses utilised can easily be related to the authentic self

The session

The session started with introductions and sharing experience of meditation

Then there was a short 10mins session of silence

Vajradaka encouraged people to stay in the space and opened up to some contemplation by asking to write down whatever came into our minds through free association in answer to the question 'what is true'.

He then spoke about becoming aware of habits, becoming aware of habits created choice, choice was extremely important as choice and evaluation plus awareness offers the possibility of a different choice.

Becoming aware of the relentless nature of habits allows for disengagement from them

He drew some comparisons with Leonardo da Vinci who despite his wonderful technical abilities and achievements it was his constant drive to understand creativity. It was Da Vinci's striving to understand and his drive to learn about the source of this is what has made him unsurpassed in his achievements. He emphasised it was Da Vinci's curiosity and continuous practicising of creativity that made him excel

Vajradaka then got people to reflect on something they wanted to change and had people share this in small groups of four people.

Everyone that came back into a big group and then Vajradaka started a discussion concerning the inherent paradox of meditation practice of being relaxed and alert at same time. He got people to give their own examples of this in their own experience. The first example was of a person who considered themselves shy yet could still be quite extroverted in varying situations. The instructor talked about bringing science and art together. Also the paradox of 'No I and No will vs I will and how will I?' which gets you onto the cushion in the first place.

Vajradaka has just started his business Creative Engagement and is delivering meditation sessions to the British Library. he has a blog sit https://owa.wie.org/owa/redir.aspx?C=d7e7a6f50667441d8f05c1f638f951fd&URL=http%3a%2f%2fcommunicatingmeditation.wordpress.com

The International

I went to see this film on Sunday at the Holloway Odeon; and I have to say it was more than disappointing. The key characters fulfill their stereotypical roles with Clive Owen appearing as if by rote angry, unkempt, brutalised, horrified and angry again, as with Naomi Watts who is sorely under utilised as the female lead, conforming religiously to genre type. This was not the actors' but the writers fault, the producers of Bourne and Bond at times, overcome incredulity, through audacity and stunning action, however the International fails to deliver on all of these fronts.

Despite the topicality of the subject matter, essentially the storyline failed to engage me enough to suspend disbelief in the lead characters. A summary of the plot is as follows;

Interpol agent Louis Salinger (Clive Owen) and Manhattan Assistant District Attorney Eleanor Whitman (Naomi Watts) are determined to bring to justice one of the world's most powerful banks, the International Bank of Business and Credit (IBBC). Uncovering illegal activities including money laundering, arms trading, and the destabilization of governments, Salinger and Whitman's investigation takes them from Berlin to Milan, where the IBBC assassinates an Italian prime ministerial candidate. (from wikipedia)

What attracted my to see this film was the stunning look of the trailers and the production values implicit in such ravishing appearances. The scenery and the backdrops are mainly breathtaking, particularly the scene featuring the Italian arms factory and shots of the precipitous cliff edge route away from the site. Additionally the building and location shoots are visually poetic, their imposing immenseness conjuring up resonances of feudal castles and palaces of a more mythological era.

Armin Muelher-Stahl is very credible and skilfully underplays his role as an ex Stasi Head of Security for IBBC and his character allows some (shock!) moral complexity to enter into the film. Furthermore Ulrich Thomsen a Jonas Skarssen , the president of IBBC plays the head of the evil empire as a normal businessman, coldly calculating the best way to further the banks financial goals without any hint of sadism or megalomania, whether these portrayals are down to superior acting or better drawn characters it is hard to tell.

These positive points aside it leaves me wishing for more nuanced ambivalent portraits of the ‘good guys’. Who in the International are so preposterously always doing the right thing, that the evil banks employees, partially steal the show and demonstrate to some degree the motivations that caused the current economic crisis.

Don Beck:Dancing the Integral Vision

A day workshop with Don Beck in on March 14th 2009

The whole event was phenomenally successful as over 100 people attended, which were far more than the forty we had initially envisaged.The participation was of a very high calibre and we were very happy to host so many delegates at the EnlightenNext London centre.

I thought though that I would write about two of the interludes during the workshop might were of greatest interest to me.

The most electric part of the day was after Don Beck played the video (below) titled `I am a Reborn American' Afterward he canvassed the audience to feedback their experience of the video whilst it was playing. Apparently the Norman Lear media people, in the wake of Obama are seeking to unite the country and leave the divisive Bush legacy behind. The videos producers have approached Don and asked him about how to improve the video and widen it's appeal.

This video was a masterly way to surface the implicit assumptions and values held within our cultures' memetic structures. The video provoked some strong reactions as well as bringing to light many of the darker shades of pluralistic (green) from Europeans and an occasional an American alike!

To my mind the most negative responses highlighted the inadequacies of a global worldview.When you watch the video below at the bottom of the blog you might be interested to monitor your own responses. I deliberately have not explained too much because the it provokes and evokes a wide range of responses.Post your responses on this blog!

The other aspect of the workshop that was most fascinating to me was Don's intention to reawaken the healthy aspects of British Identity; that impulse that travelled explored and civilized the world as well as the innovation and creativity for which our nation is noted. In fact he titled his presentation `From Rule Britannia to Cool Britannia to Integral Britannia.'

I think Don was trying to elicit a sense of responsibility for the world/spiral and encourage us Brits to take global problems on using the knowledge that Spiral Dynamics contains.You might be amused to know that most of us Brits drew a bit of blank here!

Partly the postmodern deconstruction, of the British colonial and imperial legacy has left a vacuum in our identity, which combined with British reserve uptightness and cynicism means a healthy British identity seems a long way off!! I questioned the panel at the end on this subject and only found one of the responses remotely inspiring.

I believe that Don was also encouraging this because our British tolerance of extremism and inertia around a positive sense of British identity would actually allow those radicals with greater convictions to fill the ideological/political vacuum and ensure that they thrive in the absence of a robust opposition.

Though very worthy, obviously a healthy nationalism would preserve numerous vital forms and structures here; it still feels retrogressive to reconstruct a nationalist identity given that global consciousness leaves that behind. But a healthier Brit identity could be helpful given the challenges we might face. Perhaps the Kosmic consciousness could help figure this conundrum out!!

As a volunteer at EnlightenNext London I am and have been a key organiser, promoter and networker supporting the work and the mission to transform consciousness and culture. As well as meeting numerous people and going to an eclectic range of London talks and events, I spend hours writing copy for various Enlightennext events, sending e-mails and posting web listings to publicise these various happenings.

This year key tasks outside of working hours, have included the following; I have written copy and promoted Ursula King's talk at the Islington centre on Pierre Teilhard de Chardin: An evolutionary mystic with a global spiritual vision, worked with the London Integral Circle to present the Don Beck workshop Don Beck Spiral Dynamics in Action: Dancing the Integral Vision this last weekend do see the report below. The tasks for Don included a huge copy writing fest a massive mail out, endless to and froings via e-mail with Don, countless discussions on how to best organise present and partner, for an event that turned out to be a massive success.

Other work in the pipeline has included more copy writing and consultation around a partnership with Alternatives St James in Piccadilly for the third in a fantastic series of dialogues between Rupert Sheldrake and Andrew Cohen Creativity, Habit and Freedom . In addition I have been prinicpally responsible for drafting the copy for another EnlightenNext partnership event with Olivier Mythodrama Associates titled 'Men and the Quest:A weekend evolutionary journey for Men, with Richard Olivier, Linus Roach and Chris Parish. More on this to follow.