Dear SMN members and friends,

Our next meeting is scheduled 28th October. Lindsay Mell is to provide a talk on the role of Paradox in our lives.

At the meeting following the 28th October -- scheduled for Sunday November 18th -- Jo de Groot is to provide a talk on a comparison of religions, based on commentary in a book by an author who is an atheist.

More details soon.

Report on meeting 9th September held at David and Jean's:

We welcomed three guests, Helen Rawlinson, Derek Keogh and Simon Bull. Simon (later in the meeting) shared with the group some of his comprehensive views on using biological cells as a model for sustainability in societies. I believe Simon's ideas -- which were rich in such key concepts as fractal systems, scalability (all the way up from the cell to the cosmos), self-organising systems, quantum nonlocality and connectedness -- all found deep resonance with the group.

David and Jean's review of their conference experiences at the Institute of Noetic Sciences was highly interesting and stimulated a great deal of discussion around old paradigm (Newtonian, Reductionist) versus the new (was that postmodern or post-postmodern? :) -- which is basically that we are in a participatory, connected, creative and evolving universe. The material presented by Jean (on a talk given by Edgar Mitchell) was highly congruent with the view and beliefs of those at the meeting (inasmuch as there seemed no disagreement, instead lively discussion of the obviousness of the theoretical and experimental data supporting (what I call) nonlocal awareness (intuition, precognition etc), the creative, adaptive model of life, and self-organising system views (that Simon also commented on).

Alex offered his views that there is a growing sense that the rising potentials and energy of the new (participatory, creative, cooperative) paradigm is seeking voice and expression, but that the concerted clinging to the old paradigm (control and command, competitive) is, by contrast, fueling deep fears in the populace. He believes we are entering (dangerous?) times when, through fear, societies might elect 'mussolinis' who will offer to take command and control the bad people ... which it seems to me is already occuring, (as I mentioned in the meeting, Dee Hock, past CEO of Visa warned of this scenario a few  years ago -- basically, societies will either move beyond their fears, free up and adopt the new cooperative, participatory model, or dig in and seek to put a lid on the emerging consciousness of nonlocal, interconnected, participatory systems of culture. If we go down the latter path -- command and control of the 'bad people', with increasing security, war, deprivation of personal liberties, fear and fundamentalist religious behaviour -- it will end, in Hock's opinion (at least from what I remember of a radio interview with him that I heard a few years ago), in about 50? years in total collapse ...

Sandy shared her views on how her (Eastern) culture is quite different to our Western culture. In response to her experiences, I explained that I've encountered people who argue that all such labels are inappropriate as they unfairly stereotype people within those cultures (which I believe is incorrect ... but I digress). Sandy's view is that her Eastern culture (and she speaks from the experience of having lived in both for many years) favours the community (at the expense of individuality) while Western culture favours the rights of individuals (at the expense of community).

All in all, it was a very interesting, lively meeting.

Kind regards,
Steaphen Pirie
Sydney Coordinator
Scientific and Medical Group

Update: since the meeting, Simon has provided me a link to a website that expresses an alternative view on science: basically it's a brief commentary on how science has been unnecessarily throttled or impeded by reductionist-minded scientists who are intent on maintaining the old paradigm. Even though there is now (as mentioned above) such a large amount of supporting theoretical and experimental evidence of the validity of the participatory creative universe model, the old reductionist view still persists. [more at http://www.alternativescience.com/]

Dee Hock started the Chaordic Alliance, which is now called the Chaordic Commons.

This is a link to an interview with Hock, which begins:

"You don't have to understand chaos theory to appreciate the new species of corporate organization that Dee Hock has unleashed on the planet, an organizational paradigm that could very well represent the next step in the collective evolution of the human family..."  [read more]

Also according to Hock (from this FastCompany article), 

"We are at that very point in time when a 400-year-old age is dying and another is struggling to be born -- a shifting of culture, science, society, and institutions enormously greater than the world has ever experienced. Ahead, the possibility of the regeneration of individuality, liberty, community, and ethics such as the world has never known, and a harmony with nature, with one another, and with the divine intelligence such as the world has never dreamed.