In this paper, we conceptually explore the role of empathy as a connectedness organising mechanism. We expand ideas underlying positive organisational scholarship and examine leading-edge studies from neuroscience and quantum physics that give support to our claims. The perspective we propose has profound implications regarding how we organise and how we manage. First, we argue that empathy enhances connectedness through the unconscious sharing of neuro-pathways that dissolves the barriers between self and other. This sharing encourages the integration of affective and (...) cognitive consciousness which facilitates the ability to find common ground for solution building. Second, empathy enhances connectedness through altruistic action. In giving to others, feelings of joy and harmony are activated. This in turn allows personal freedom to be enriched and transcendence from the rational ego-self is reduced to develop a more expansive, integrated and enlightened state underlying connectedness. Finally, empathy enhances connectedness which results in sharing the quantum field of coherence where there is little separation between self and other. This means living beyond self-interest in a coherent world based upon interdependent wholeness rather than atomization and separation. Empathy allows us to find that state of coherent connectedness. (shrink)

In this paper, the theory and practice of therapeutic touch (TT) is scrutinized from a number of perspectives. Firstly, the alleged close relationship between TT and Martha Rogers’ Science of Unitary Human Beings is evaluated. Secondly, the employment of the language of modern physics in Rogers’ theory and TT is critically examined. The authors then review the research literature on TT's efficacy, completing their critique by discussing the ethical issues involved in the practice of TT. As each of the perspectives (...) considered reveals some concerns, the paper concludes that TT is a questionable intervention, underpinned by a very weak theoretical, clinical and research base. (shrink)

Globalization, accelerating change, increasing complexity, interdisciplinary technologies, sustainability and the need for enhanced ethical behaviour—all call for more reflection and overview. The management course for technology students outlined in this article aims at increasing student’s independent thinking and perspective in three ways: value-based management where sound human values are given higher priority than profit, parallels that link the natural sciences and the social sciences and knowledge from both East and West. Interdisciplinary parallels—which only takes a few minutes of each lesson—can (...) be applied to any discipline and may improve the learner’s ability to think independently and to see interconnectedness. (shrink)

Confucius is conventionally regarded as the founder of secular humanism and as a philosopher concerned about humans and culture. I would add to this that Confucius should also be read as an environmental philosopher. One reason is the pedagogical dimension in Confucianism, which points to Confucius as an environmental educator ? not the least of which since much of environmental education relies on common sense and an enlightened collective self-interest. Another reason is an aspect I call ?ecological intelligence?, which is (...) a key feature of ancient Confucianism and a signpost for the civil evolution that the mitigation of climate change demands from global civilization today. (shrink)

. Arguing that the revolution in postmodern physics is concerned essentially not with a change in paradigm but with a change in interpretive standpoint, this paper explores a parallel between the aetiology of disease in Buddhism and the interpretive standpoint introduced by twentieth‐century quantum physics. The paper suggests a need to revise central interpretive assumptions of the natural and human sciences, including the traditional projection of an atomistic self.

" It's only a matter of will... you just have to train, gentlemen." Thus the commentary of a fakir to the inquiring looks of baffled and curious medical doctors who visited him backstage after his spectacular performances. Such performances included an act where he hung himself with his unprotected chin on a swinging trapeze using a razor-sharp sword as a bar. Other acts consisted of various perforations of his body. His helpers, for example, beat two meat hooks through his shoulders (...) and heaved him up with the help of a block and tackle. The fakir said that he is able to make his body partly or absolutely pain-free and numb by extreme concentration and autosuggestion. The newly afflicted wounds, added daily, did not bleed. He said: "If they bleed it is a warning signal. Then the suggestion isn't strong enough." All the wounds were healed the following morning and one could only see tiny little white points. It seems obvious what this 'story' has to do with the topic of the book under review. We learn from a person with extraordinary abilities performing actions that are commonly known in connection with East Asian religious rituals, Indian sādhus, and yogic techniques. The latter build the content framework of Supernormal: Science, Yoga, and the Evidence for Extraordinary Psychic Abilities by Dean Radin. But why this little 'story' as kind of an introduction? It should serve to point toward some particular issues concerning the book and its topic. However, it is not a 'story' taken from Radin's work but found in an issue of the German weekly newsmagazine Der Spiegel from 1949,1 and it does not deal with an Indian sādhu but with German house-painter Anton Petersen who performed during the 1940s and 1950s under the stage name Carry Sunland. Although he developed interests in psychology, occultism, yoga, and spiritism in Berlin in the 1920s, he was certainly not in line with Indian sādhus and the yogic traditions, neither culturally nor with regard to his worldview or spiritually. The crucial point is: Could the extraordinary abilities of a German stage performer justifiably be compared with the siddhis, the spiritual, supernatural powers which can be acquired through certain spiritual practices? That remains an open question to me--as do some of the issues mentioned in Radin's book. (shrink)

I respond to comments offered by Peter Harrison and Thupten Jinpa on my book Buddhism and Science: A Guide for the Perplexed (2008). I report briefly on the reception of the book thus far and provide a summary of its contents before responding individually to the essays of Harrison and Jinpa.

This paper proposes a reinterpretation of the Chinese worldview on equilibrium/nonequilibrium and yin-yang in the context of science and draws the correlative aspects with irreversible thermodynamics and quantum reality, such as instability, nonlinearity, nonequilibrium, and temporality. The paper argues that Prigogine's expressions on dissipative structures and their role in thermodynamic systems far from equilibrium, complexity, and irreversibility resonate with the principles in Yijing. Instability, far-from-equilibrium, irreversibility, probability, bifurcation, and self-organisation are intrinsic properties of nature appearing at all levels. Information is (...) the basis of all changes. The agency of change is the human with a consciousness interpreting the information existing in the probability space between heaven and earth. The paper outlines a modelling approach with the self-organising human in the centre between heaven and earth, representing living systems as discrete dynamical systems presented with binary yin-yang choices. The concepts of yin-yang and information causality are central to Yijing’s understanding of change and are clarified in this paper. (shrink)

The aim of this paper is to tease out from the New Age religion and religious transpersonal psychology a more relational spirituality. Humanistic and transpersonal psychologies were important forces in the emergence of the social phenomenon of the New Age. New Age transpersonalism leans toward a restrictive non-relational spirituality because of its historical affirmation of individualism and transcendence. Relational spirituality, which is central to the emerging participatory paradigm, swims against strong and popular currents in New Age transpersonal thinking which tend (...) to see spirituality as an individual, personal, inner pursuit, often into Eastern/Oriental nondualism. Whatever the merits of impersonal Advaita Vedanta or Buddhism—and there are of course merits—these are categorically not relational spiritualities. (shrink)

This essay attempts to contextualize the importance of Wang Yangming’s 王陽明 philosophy in terms of world philosophy in the manner of Goethe’s innovative plan for “world literature” (Weltliteratur). China has the long history of philosophizing rather than non-philosophy contrary to the glaring and inexcusable misunderstanding of Hegel the Eurocentric universalist or monist. In today’s globalizing world of multicultural pluralism, ethnocentric universalism has become outdated and outmoded. Transversality, which is at once intercultural, interspecific, interdisciplinary, and intersensorial, is a far more befitting (...) response than universality. In this context, what is focused and emphasized in Wang’s world philosophy is mainly fourfold. First, there is the unity or circularity of knowledge and action, that is, knowledge is the beginning of action, and action is the consummation of knowledge. Second, sincerity is the moral soul of Sinism as it is the enabling act of making perform all other virtues, including ren 仁. Third, in Sinism, including Wang’s philosophy, there is no Cartesian dualism in that the mind and the body are inseparable soulmates. Fourth, if ethics is prima philosophia, then geophilosophy is ultima philosophia to sustain and perpetuate all life-forms on earth (geo). (shrink)

Well-known concepts in Organization Behavior are viewed in this paper through a Taoist lens, in particular through the perspective enshrined in the famous yin–yang symbol. Since Tao purports to be a fundamental Law of Nature, it should be possible to find Taoist principles operating within, or at least behind, concepts and theories presented in the field of Organization Behavior as having some degree of truth value. Concepts from personality theory, learning, motivation, leadership, and organization culture are found indeed to accord (...) with the Tao. The review reveals aspects of OB concepts not usually discussed, and suggests a fresh approach for theory evaluation and development. A general principle of yin–yang balance as an essential dynamic for performance and harmony in a wide variety of contexts is suggested. Implications for further research are indicated. (shrink)

Abstract. The science and religion discourse in the Western academy, though expansive, has not paid significant enough attention to South Asian views, particularly those from Hindu thought. This essay seeks to address this issue in three parts. First, I present the South Asian standpoint as it currently relates to the science and religion discourse. Second, I survey and evaluate some available literature on South Asian approaches to the science and religion discourse. Finally, I promote three possible steps forward: (1) the (...) literature must shift from high Hindu philosophical religion to the more prevalent bhakti traditions, (2) the Indian context must be understood in its own right without metaphysical assumptions attached to the concepts of science and religion, and (3) most importantly, concepts unique to the Indian worldview, such as dharma, maya, and cit, must receive better treatment in translation in order to facilitate a more accurate exchange of ideas across cultural boundaries. (shrink)

GREEN POLITICS: THE GLOBAL PROMISE, 2nd ed. by Charlene Spretnak and Fritjof Capra New York: E. P. Dutton, 1986; 224 pp., $12.95 SEEING GREEN: THE POLITICS OF ECOLOGY EXPLAINED by Jonathan Porritt Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1985; 249 pp., $24.95, $6.95 paper THE SPIRITUAL DIMENSION OF GREEN POLITICS by Charlene Spretnak Santa Fe, N.M.: Bear 95 pp., $4.95 paper.

This article will investigate the issue of accessing benxin 本心 (original mind), subsequent operation from Self and, in that process, union with the greater universe or benti 本体 (original substance)—a state expressed in the West as cosmic consciousness. It is proposed that this allows one to participate as a partner in the creative process of one’s own life and the surrounding world. The equally important question of how to gain contact with original mind will also be addressed, as well as (...) the consequences of doing so with regard to the human condition. The concept of original thought is introduced, being important here as it is held to be that thought which is generated in the pure condition of original mind, devoid of influence from finite physical existence. (shrink)

A debate over the possibilities for foundations of knowledge has been a key feature of theoretical discussions in the discipline of International Relations. A number of recent contributions suggest that this debate is still active. This article offers a contribution to this debate by suggesting that the study of complexity may provide a contingent foundation for the study of international relations. We examine the grounds on which such a claim might be made, and examine the implications for taking complexity as (...) a foundational claim. (shrink)

People's vision of world phenomena is still based on the traditional mechanistic concept, which implies that process outcomes can be fully predicted and controlled. The new scientific concept that our world is characterized by complex, self-organizing processes, is so far acknowledged by few insiders. Mass media, advertising companies and information programmes tend to emphasize the success of technology, which significantly contributes to support and spread that mechanistic concept. This situation heavily impacts the management of the environment both in terms of (...) its technical–scientific approach and in terms of its stewardship. Instead of being solved, environmental problems are frequently shifted through time and space, and eventually magnified. Moreover, among the technicians involved in environmental assessments, as well as decision-makers and the general public, the connections regarding technical–scientific issues, ethical values and policy decisions are often not adequately considered. It's time for a public debate on an alternative vision of real-world phenomena and on its actual implications. The hope is that a valid dialogue between existing polarized views on science, technology and the environment may lead to more positive collaboration between science and environmental stewardship, where every single citizen feels committed. (shrink)

The ArgumentTheorists of science and culture, seeking to explicate the implications of chaos theory, quantum mechanics, or special and general relativity, have drawn parallels to the constellation of intellectual and social phenomena collected in the concept of postmodernism. The notion thereby invoked of a postmodern physics is suggestive and worth exploring. But it remains ungrounded so long as the argument moves in the realm of parallels. Moreover, these discussions prove to be tacitly constrained by a preexisting genre of physicists' own (...) literary production, a genre whose argumentative structures have been taken over implicitly into the subsequent exchanges. Attending critically in this way to the intellectual interests of the discussants — asking who it is that wants to constitute a postmodern physics — should open up more productive ways of framing the debate. (shrink)

In his essay “Goddesses of the Twenty‐first Century,” R. Buckminster Fuller's use of woman and goddess as metaphor suggests a fruitful source of images illuminating synergetic principles. Using five images, clustered as odyvessel‐matrix, the article suggests an epistemology and a heuristic for connecting the personal‐physical and the universal‐metaphysical. These images are (1) the Egyptian goddess Nut, (2) the Greek earth goddesses, (3) Neolithic Maltese goddess temples, (4) the double spiral, and (5) the Apollo Mission's Earth photographs. These images are intended (...) as transformational synergetic/ecofeminist figures to replace images of deprivation, alienation, and destruction with images of abundance, intimacy, and co‐creation. (shrink)

Deep ecology's biocentric philosophy rejects the anthropocentrism of mainstream environmentalism. Biocentrism holds that all life has inherent value and, as such, is worthy of respect and protection. Deep ecology's action strategy emerges from disgust with the compromises made by mainstream environmentalism. Deep ecologists tend toward confrontational actions such as blockades, “tree sits,” and “ecotage” (“monkey wrenching” or covert direct action). Earth First! in the United States, and Rainforest Action Network at the international level, are two well-known deep ecology groups. Bound (...) together in a complex relationship, deep ecology is both dependent on and antagonistic toward the life sciences. As yet, there is no explicit, deep ecological statement for scientific reform. But there have been scientific developments cheering to deep ecologists, including the development and growth of the new field of conservation biology. This article begins to outline the reforms necessary to bring establishment science closer to radical ecological principles. (shrink)

(2014). Transition to Crisis-Free Development: A Myth or Reality? World Futures: Vol. 70, No. 2, pp. 93-119.

. The seemingly disparate systems of philosophical Taoism and modern biological science are compared. A surprising degree of similarity is found in their views on death, reversion , complementary interactions of dichotomous systems, and the place of humans in the universe. The thesis is advanced that these similarities arise quite naturally, since both systems base their knowledge upon objective observation of natural phenomena. Substantial differences between the two systems are recognized and examined regarding verbal argument, machinery, and experimentation. The Taoists' (...) relationship to Chinese alchemy and the biologists' to technology are claimed to mitigate their attitudes toward experimentation. (shrink)

It is suggested, following a proposal made recently by Smolin, that the most fundamental law of the universe takes this form: Among the set of all possible universes compatible with an irreducibly minimal set of structural constraints, the actually realized universe is the one which maximizes a mathematically well-defined number (the variety) that measures the structural variety of the universe (in the totality of its history). This gives expression to Leibniz's idea that the actual universe gives “the greatest variety possible, (...) but with the greatest possible order.” Two models are proposed in which the idea can be realized and its consequences tested; both are discrete in nature and satisfy highly nonlocal laws. In such a scheme a unique (finite) universe is called into being by the fundamental requirement of maximal variety (for given definition of the variety), which it is conjectured could have such a powerful ordering effect that space, time, the currently known laws of physics, and the observed structure of the universe could all appear as emergent consequences of the single underlying law. (shrink)