JUMP to What's New.

 


THE PRIMER PROJECT

A Special Integration Group

of the International Society for the Systems Sciences (ISSS)

originally Society for General Systems Research (SGSR)

 

PRESENTS

 

 

ONE - WHOLE

An activity of the Primer Group

 

THE FIRST INTERNATIONAL ELECTRONIC SEMINAR
ON WHOLENESS


2000

 


 

 

PREFACE


PIERRE TEILHARD de CHARDIN


The egocentric ideal of a future reserved for those
who have managed to attain egotistically the extremity
of 'everyone for himself' is false and against nature...
The outcome of the world, the gates of the future,
the entry into the super-human --
these are not thrown open
to a few of the priveged or to one chosen people
to the exclusion of all others.
They will only open to an advance of all together,
in a direction in which all together can join and find completion
in a spiritual renovation of the earth...
No evolutionary future awaits man except in association with all other men.

 

ALBERT EINSTEIN

"A human being is part of the Whole...He experiences himself, his thoughts
and feelings, as something separated from the rest...a kind of optical
delusion of his consciousness. This delusion is a kind of prison for us,
restricting us to our personal desires and to affection for a few persons
nearest us. Our task must be to free ourselves from this prison by widening
our circle of compassion to embrace all living creatures and the whole of
nature in its beauty. Nobody is able to achieve this completely, but the
striving for such achievement is, in itself, a part of the liberation and a
foundation for inner security".

 

 

ERWIN SCHROEDINGER

Hence this life of yours which you are living is not merely a piece of the entire existence, but is, in a certain sense, the WHOLE; only this whole is not so constituted that it can be surveyed in one single glance. This, as we know, is what the Brahmins express in the sacred, mystic formula which is yet so simple and so clear: "Tat Tvam asi". this is you...And not merely "someday"; now, today, every day she is bringing you forth, not once, but thousands upon thousands of times, just as every day she engulfs you a thousand times over. For eternally and always there is only now, one and the same now; the present is the only thing that has no end.

 

PIERRE TEILHARD de CHARDIN

In the most general form and from the point of view of physics, love is the internally affectively apprehended aspect of the affinity which links and draws together the elements of the world, centre to centre...Love is power of producing intercentric relationship. It is present, therefore (at least in a rudimentary state), in all natural centres liiving and preliving, which make up the world; and it represents, too, the most profound, most direct, and most creative form of inter-action that is possible to conceive between those centres...Love, in fact, is the expression and agent of Universal Synthesis.

 

MARTIN LUTHER KING

In a real sense all life is inter-related. All men are caught in an inescapable network of mutuality, tied in a single garment of destiny. Whatever effects one directly. affects all indirectly... I can never be what I ought to be until you are what you ought to be, and you can never be what you ought to be until I am what I ought to be. This is the inter-related structure of reality.

 

MURRAY GELL-MANN

Today the network of relationships linking the human race to itself and to the rest of the biosphere is so complex that all aspects affect all others to an extraordinary degree. Someone should be studying the whole system, however crudely that has to be done, because no gluing together of partial studies of a complex nonlinear system can give a good idea of the behavoir of the whole."

 

JONAS SALK

Matter at each
level of complexity appears to consist of two interdependent,
nonidentical elements in dynamic interaction and in integral
relation to each other. It appears that an interacting, dynamic,
asymmetrical binary relationship is the fundamental module of
order in the cosmos. I have the impression that the interactions in these dynmamic asymmetrical binary systems underlie all phenomena in nature...The most fundamental phenomena in the universe is relationship. It then becomes possible to recognize the underlying unity in all the diversity of the phenomena of life.

 


 

THEME

 

The theme of this seminar is a statement -

"What Wholeness means to me"
and the obvious subsequent question "How can this best be imparted to others?"


 

PROGRAM

Opening Comments by Anna Lemkow adapted from "The Wholeness Principle"

...this principle-process is profoundly sound...

1996 ISSS Keynote Address by Willis Harman

...to become conscious of their true scope...

EARTHDANCE; The Dance of Life by Elisabet Sahtouris

Replacing the Machine Metaphor

New Concepts of Matter, Life & Mind by Ervin Laszlo

The means by which interconnection occurs

Holism and Evolution; Jan C. Smuts Excerpts

"...in one degree or another they are wholes which are more than the sum of their parts."

Current Topic: by Heiner Benking

"-- is systems science re-inventing the wheel???"

Longing for Unified Knowledge by Ivan Havel

Let's put them all in one room....

A Starting Place Submitted by by Gary Boyd

Seen from the oceanic view of the womb...

Stereo Icon by Tom Mandel

Consciousness is a selective-non-selective complementary

The Whorfian Principle of Relativity by Ludwig von Bertalanffy

" We are thus introduced to a new principle of relativity which holds that all observers are not led by the same physical evidence to the same picture of the universe

The Allegory of the Cave by Plato

And now, I said, let me show in a figure how far our nature is enlightened or unenlightened:, Behold!

No Boundary Excerptation of Ken WIlber

We "make" boundaries

The Divided Line (The Republic , Book VI) by Plato

And do you not know also that although they make use of the visible forms and reason about them, they are thinking not of these, but of the ideas which they resemble;

A Review of General Semantics by S.I. Hayakawa

It is a habit among the linguistically uninformed to objectify language as
something 'out there' which can be looked at independently of speakers or
hearers.

Is Virtual Reality Really Virtual? Excerpted from ISSS Procceedings: by Eric Schwarz

Systemics is based on ACTION, nevertheless knowledge is an integral part...

How Big is our Umbrella? Adapted from Ken Wilber

The twelve perceptual boundaries

The Whole, The Parts, and the Holes by Andreas Goppold

And what we know that ain't so...

Wholeness and Enlightenment Submitted by Terry Murphy

Stop what you are thinking, experience what you are doing...

Translation and Transformation by Ken Wilber

When there is no distinction, there is no difference

Systemic Principles of Education Compiled by Tom Mandel

"Place them in the situations you want them to become;

The Seventh Letter by Plato

The four ways of knowing

The General System by Tom Mandel

A Family of relationships among the members as a whole

Multiple Perspectives by Hal Linstone

The Technical, the Organizational, the Personal Perspectives as a basis for Systemic Inquiry

General Systematics by John Bennett

Monad, Dyad, Triad, Tetrad only as the system

Emergence From Chaos by Richard Knowles

One, Two, Three, Four modes of perception

A Minimal Fourfold System by Anthony Judge

a quaternary outlook which would no longer involve "the summary and brutal coercion of one variant over another,

The Four Winds by Sage Dream In Memorium

Yes, what you say is true, and only the merest glimpse of what the medicine
wheel truly is.

A Taste of Systemicsby Bela Banathy

The Four Domains: Philosophy, Theory, Methodology, Application as an integral whole

A Skeleton from the Closet by Bela Banathy

The genesis of Systems Science

An Evolution of Systems Inquiry Submitted by Bela Banathy

A science in service of mankind

Organized Developments of Systems InquirySubmitted by Bela Banathy

Specialists evolving over time, in their cacoons, "That's not my field."

Systems and Cybernetics, definition of systems, Cambridge University Press,

The many different ways systems operate the same way.

Cybernetics and Wholeness Submitted by Gary Boyd

But, cybernetics is about parts...

The Living Systems Theory of Jame Grier Miller by Elaine Parent

"A whole greater than the sum of its parts."

Earth as a System by James Miller and Jessie Miller

Gaia the system

Living Systems Theory Applications by James Miller

And the 20 Subsystems

Who Knows What a General Systems Theory is? by Charles Francois

Everyone knows what the General System Principle is...

Management and the Systems Approach Submitted by Markus Schwaninger

The organization, with a common vision, working together

History and Systems:, Ancient Systems Theory by Tom Mandel

The Greeks,collectively, knew systemics too

Liaisons et Systemes by Henry Cohen

Relationships in and between systems.

Invisible Architecture by Bonnie DeVarco

The NanoWorld of Buckminster Fuller

1996 ISSS Presidential Address Ervin Laszlo

Groundwork for a Biospheric Systems Ethics

The Tao of Systems by Yi Lin

The Tao begot Unity, Unity begot duality, duality begot Trinity; Trinity begot the myriad things...

A Whole Systems Approach: Submitted by Zhichang Zhu

From the Perspectives of the Wuli of matter, the Shili of relations and the Renli of involvement

Synergy: an Introduction: by Eric Sommer

Two, or more, working together

Synergy and the Systems Sciences: by Peter Corning.

Two, or more, Synergy is ubiguitous

The Synergy Principle: by Yongming Tang

A universal concept of mutual interaction

Theories of Everything: Excerpts of J.D. Barrow

No Theory of Everything, but the PRINCIPLE of Everything, Eh?

Perspectives on The General System: Part Two by Tom Mandel

This and That in a Loving Relationship is Something Else

A Panorama of Understanding: Part 1 Submitted by Heiner Benking

One way to look at everything

A Panorama of Understanding: Part 2 Submitted by Heiner Benking

Encompassing diversity and unity in one framework

The TAO of Science, A Commentary on Ralph Siu by Heiner Benking

"Thinkers may be divided into two classes: the lumpers and the splitters...".

Unifying Theory of the Organism and Behavoir: Chapter 3 by Ralph Siu

The "Chi" of the "physical" universe

Complementarity by John Hitchcock

Our knowledge that it is light, a unity, or electron, another unity, to which the opposites apply, emphasize a "both/ and"

Synchronicity, an Excerptation of: by F David Peat

Unconnected happenings happening together

J.B.Rhine Lecture QVI as a basis for non-local experience: by Ervin Laszlo

Looking at the inside of space, fullness looks like nothing to us.

Toward a General Theory of Consciousness: Submitted by James Newman

Looking for a core dynamic rather than a linear cause

Consciousness and self in the brain: A Global Workspace Perspective by Bernard Baars

The Spotlight metaphor, the Theater metaphor, in a contrastive analysis or Global Workspace Perspective

A Place for Consciousness by Gregg Rosenberg

Probing the deep structure of the natural world

General Semantics: Submitted by Milton Dawes.

The Lanagage misleads us to think that this is that.

Down To Earth Epistemology: Submitted by Milton Dawes

Examining our language

A State of the Word Message: Submitted by John McConnell

Working together

Thinking The World Back Together Again by Noel Fredericks McKinnis

Together.

The Language of Integration: Submitted by Joe Engleberg

The story tests the depth of our knowledge

Michelle's First Day at School: Submtted by Tom Mandel

Now, class, clap both your hands together, together...

Stephanie's Second Day at School by Matthew Shapiro

When they are organized they are ..."Simple" a few kids shout.

The Way Geese Fly: by Tony Rizzo

Dynamically, flying free, yet together

What I learned in the Rainforest World Futures Society Keynote Address

Only together can we make the world whole.

System vs Programs: by Bill Shireman

Programs improve, Systems change

Understanding the Nature of Systemic Change by Francis Strictland

Comparing and pooling concepts of change from across the disciplines...

Aphorisms A Collection

A collective Story of Fritjof Capra too.

A Bibliography ..ANNOUNCING Charles Francois' ISSS Systemic DIctionary

Now known as the Encyclopedia of Cybernetics and Systems

 

FOR KIDS ONLY

The cunning and the clever know our future and our kids are the same thing

so why not us too


Other Seminar Projects

The Wholeness Seminar, a taste of

A simplexfication of all of this, if you will...

The Wholeness Seminar, a story

All of this re-arranged to tell the story






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Discussion: Discussion is now open. To dialogue, send email to ISSSTOPICS-L@newciv.org

Summary comments: Held open until all papers are in.

Closing Comments - Tom Mandel and Heiner Benking

Go to what's New.

Notice: This publication conforms to copyright and fair-use Statutes. May not be reproduced for profit or commercial gain.

(To participate, send abstract, e-mail to ThomMandel@aol.com


This Electronic seminar, created and maintained by Thomas Mandel, assisted greatly by Co-editor Heiner Benking, was inspired in part by
the Association for the Scientific Study of Consciousness, (ASSC) first electronic seminar
held during July of 1996.

See http://www.phil.vt.edu/assc/newman/

SEE ALSO

The Association for the Scientific Study of Consciousness
Electronic Seminar

CONSCIOUSNESS AND SELF IN THE BRAIN: A GLOBAL WORKSPACE PERSPECTIVE


http://www.phil.vt.edu/assc/esem.html

October 12 - November 10, 1997


Photo Credit - Earth Photo by NASA;


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