The Mind of God, Many and One

Evolution did not stop with life per se. At the very least it built brains from which sprang minds from which sprang consciousness, the greatest of the world’s many mysteries. This chapter takes up the question of brains, minds and consciousness. The not-so-surprising implication here, is that these greatest of creation’s wonders are also part of the story. No longer in long, slow, cycles of blind self-organization, somehow the Great Ordering Oneness found a way to build a system which consciously shapes the world and itself as if by plan. More self-aware and more potentially powerful than anything that has ever existed, thinking beings are a world-transforming force in their own right. There is, of course, a reason I haven’t mentioned much about mind. Mind is even more incomprehensible to clockwork thinkers than life. Early clockwork thinkers thought that we were merely separated, mind from body. Later ones described mind as an epi-phenomenon, an illusion of a few lifeless chemicals. After all, when you break brains down, there is no mind to be found. Traditional evolutionary theory has essentially ignored mind, preferring genes instead. All of this is likely to end in the relatively foreseeable future. Currents of change can already be seen. Once a taboo topic, consciousness is becoming an increasingly common subject in the popular press. Books such as The Celestine Prophecy, for instance, paint a picture of humanity reaching a new level of consciousness. People trapped in the cloying maze of modern reality, suddenly discover an invisible web of awareness growing within themselves and others. Individually and collectively, human beings are struggling precariously toward a new, more integral perception. The potential is high. So is the need. The birth of a new level of consciousness seems to be part and parcel of the project to save the world. Now, I am not going to tell a romantic tale of New Age seers in the Andes. I think it is important to stay more grounded than this, lest the realists in the audience run for the hills. Yet, I also believe there is a valid intuition behind such works. Books like The Celestine Prophecy are part of the same instinctive reaction to clockwork omissions seen elsewhere. Clockwork bleakness strikes again. Millions of highly educated people the world over now read such books and harbor secret hopes that they are true. Understanding the science behind this intuition, gives human hope a better foundation. Thus, brain researchers too are hoping that new understandings of consciousness will help bring about a global civilization which is less apt to destroy itself and the world. Their hope seems particularly reasonable since mind and consciousness are so central to the human condition. Indeed, I would make a stronger statement — one cannot understand our condition or our times without understanding the phenomenon of mind, including ways of looking at the world and patterns of collective knowing. Today, powerful new views are building which will have a profound affect on our sense of ourselves. They quite literally redefine what the human project is about. Not a lumbering automaton or a ruthless beast, here human beings (one and many) become the ultimate learning system, the finest and foremost spark of a learning world. That is the story that will unfold here, it will simply be much more integrated into the larger story of evolution than most people imagine. The theory of mind presented here is new in its fine points largely because I include the energy connection and other rarely-popularized points. Yet, the core image is again remarkably old. Mind is a natural, interwoven outcome of a much larger flow. What is interesting is its implications for our times

Options for Managing a Systemic Bank Crisis

The on-going financial crisis results not from a cyclical or managerial failure, but from a structural one: more than 96 other major banking crises occurred over the past 20 years, and these crashes have happened under very different regulatory systems and at different stages of economic development. So far, conventional solutions are being applied—nationalization of the problem assets (as in the original Paulson bailout) or nationalization of the banks (as in Europe). These solutions only deal with the symptoms and not the systemic cause of today’s banking crisis. Similarly, the financial re-regulation that will be on everybody’s political agenda will, at best, reduce the frequency of such crises, but not avoid their re-occurrence. Better solutions are urgently needed because the last breakdown of this magnitude, the Great Depression of the 1930s, ended up in a wave of fascism and World War II. In this paper, we describe a recent conceptual breakthrough—based on the functioning of balanced ecosystems— that shows that all complex systems, including our monetary and financial ones, become structurally unstable whenever efficiency is overemphasized at the expense of diversity, interconnectivity and the crucial resilience they provide. The surprising insight from a systemic perspective is that sustainable vitality involves diversifying the types of currencies and institutions and introducing new ones that are designed specifically to increase the availability of money in its prime function as a medium of exchange, rather than for savings or speculation. Additionally, these currencies are expressly designed to link unused resources with unmet needs within a community, region or country. These currencies are know as complementary because they do not replace the conventional national money, but rather, operate in parallel with it. We propose that a systemic understanding and technical solution are now available that would ensure that such crashes become a phenomenon of the past. The most effective way for governments to support such a strategy of a more diverse and sustainable monetary ecology would be to accept a well-designed, robust complementary currency in partial payment of taxes during a period when banks are not in a position to fully finance the real economy. The choice of a complementary currency reflects both a technical issue (robustness and resilience against fraud) and a political one (what type of programs are desirable to support). A good candidate for consideration would be a professionally run business-to-business (B2B) complementary currency based on the model of the WIR system. This currency has been successfully operational for 75 years in Switzerland, involving a quarter of all the businesses in that country. Formal econometric analysis has proven that the WIR acts as a significant counter-cyclical stabilizing factor that explains the proverbial long-standing stability of the Swiss economy

Options for Managing a Systemic Bank Crisis

The on-going financial crisis results not from a cyclical or managerial failure, but from a structural one: more than 96 other major banking crises occurred over the past 20 years, and these crashes have happened under very different regulatory systems and at different stages of economic development. So far, conventional solutions are being applied—nationalization of the problem assets (as in the original Paulson bailout) or nationalization of the banks (as in Europe). These solutions only deal with the symptoms and not the systemic cause of today’s banking crisis. Similarly, the financial re-regulation that will be on everybody’s political agenda will, at best, reduce the frequency of such crises, but not avoid their re-occurrence. Better solutions are urgently needed because the last breakdown of this magnitude, the Great Depression of the 1930s, ended up in a wave of fascism and World War II. In this paper, we describe a recent conceptual breakthrough—based on the functioning of balanced ecosystems— that shows that all complex systems, including our monetary and financial ones, become structurally unstable whenever efficiency is overemphasized at the expense of diversity, interconnectivity and the crucial resilience they provide. The surprising insight from a systemic perspective is that sustainable vitality involves diversifying the types of currencies and institutions and introducing new ones that are designed specifically to increase the availability of money in its prime function as a medium of exchange, rather than for savings or speculation. Additionally, these currencies are expressly designed to link unused resources with unmet needs within a community, region or country. These currencies are know as complementary because they do not replace the conventional national money, but rather, operate in parallel with it. We propose that a systemic understanding and technical solution are now available that would ensure that such crashes become a phenomenon of the past. The most effective way for governments to support such a strategy of a more diverse and sustainable monetary ecology would be to accept a well-designed, robust complementary currency in partial payment of taxes during a period when banks are not in a position to fully finance the real economy. The choice of a complementary currency reflects both a technical issue (robustness and resilience against fraud) and a political one (what type of programs are desirable to support). A good candidate for consideration would be a professionally run business-to-business (B2B) complementary currency based on the model of the WIR system. This currency has been successfully operational for 75 years in Switzerland, involving a quarter of all the businesses in that country. Formal econometric analysis has proven that the WIR acts as a significant counter-cyclical stabilizing factor that explains the proverbial long-standing stability of the Swiss economy

УСТОЙЧИВОСТЬ МИРОВОЙ ФИНАНСОВОЙ СИСТЕМЫ И ДИВЕРСИФИКАЦИЯ ВАЛЮТ

Fundamental laws govern all complex flow systems, including natural ecosystems, economic and financial systems. Natural ecosystems are practical examples of sustainability: enduring, vital, adaptive. The sustainability of any complex flow system can be measured with a single metric as emergent property of its structural diversity and interconnectivity; it requires a balance in emphasis between efficiency and resilience. The urgent message for economics from nature is that the monoculture of national currencies, justified on the basis of market efficiency, generates structural instability in our global financial system. Economic sustainability therefore requires differentiation in types of currencies, specifically through complementary currencies.Все сложные подвижные системы, в том числе природные экосистемы или экономические и финансовые системы, управляются фундаментальными законами. Природные экосистемы – это практические примеры длительной устойчивости (sustainability): они выдерживают проверку временем, приспосабливаются к изменениям, выживают. Длительную устойчивость любой сложной подвижной системы можно измерить количественно как функцию ее структурной диверсификации и внутренней взаимосвязанности; ей требуется соблюдение равновесия между эффективностью и гибкостью. Природа посылает экономике срочное сообщение о том, что монокультура национальных валют, оправданная с точки зрения рыночной эффективности, порождает структурную неустойчивость нашей глобальной финансовой системы, и поэтому обеспечение длительной экономической устойчивости требует диверсификации валют, в частности, через введение дополнительных ее типов

Options for Managing a Systemic Bank Crisis

The on-going financial crisis results not from a cyclical or managerial failure, but from a structural one: more than 96 other major banking crises occurred over the past 20 years, and these crashes have happened under very different regulatory systems and at different stages of economic development. So far, conventional solutions are being applied—nationalization of the problem assets (as in the original Paulson bailout) or nationalization of the banks (as in Europe). These solutions only deal with the symptoms and not the systemic cause of today’s banking crisis. Similarly, the financial re-regulation that will be on everybody’s political agenda will, at best, reduce the frequency of such crises, but not avoid their re-occurrence. Better solutions are urgently needed because the last breakdown of this magnitude, the Great Depression of the 1930s, ended up in a wave of fascism and World War II. In this paper, we describe a recent conceptual breakthrough—based on the functioning of balanced ecosystems— that shows that all complex systems, including our monetary and financial ones, become structurally unstable whenever efficiency is overemphasized at the expense of diversity, interconnectivity and the crucial resilience they provide. The surprising insight from a systemic perspective is that sustainable vitality involves diversifying the types of currencies and institutions and introducing new ones that are designed specifically to increase the availability of money in its prime function as a medium of exchange, rather than for savings or speculation. Additionally, these currencies are expressly designed to link unused resources with unmet needs within a community, region or country. These currencies are know as complementary because they do not replace the conventional national money, but rather, operate in parallel with it. We propose that a systemic understanding and technical solution are now available that would ensure that such crashes become a phenomenon of the past. The most effective way for governments to support such a strategy of a more diverse and sustainable monetary ecology would be to accept a well-designed, robust complementary currency in partial payment of taxes during a period when banks are not in a position to fully finance the real economy. The choice of a complementary currency reflects both a technical issue (robustness and resilience against fraud) and a political one (what type of programs are desirable to support). A good candidate for consideration would be a professionally run business-to-business (B2B) complementary currency based on the model of the WIR system. This currency has been successfully operational for 75 years in Switzerland, involving a quarter of all the businesses in that country. Formal econometric analysis has proven that the WIR acts as a significant counter-cyclical stabilizing factor that explains the proverbial long-standing stability of the Swiss economy

Quantifying economic sustainability: Implications for free-enterprise theory, policy and practice

In a previous paper (Ulanowicz, Goerner, Lietaer, and Gomez, 2009), we combined thermodynamic, network, and information theoretic measures with research on real-life ecosystems to create a generalized, quantitative measure of sustainability for any complex, matter/energy flow system. The current paper explores how this metric and its related concepts can be used to provide a new narrative for long-term economic health and sustainability. Based on a system's ability to maintain a crucial balance between two equally essential, but complementary factors, resilience and efficiency, this generic explanation of the network structure needed to maintain long-term robustness provides the missing theoretical explanation for what constitutes healthy development and the mathematical means to differentiate it quantitatively from mere growth. Matching long-standing observations of sustainable vitality in natural ecosystems and living organisms, the result is a much clearer, more accurate understanding of the conditions needed for free-enterprise networks to produce the kind of sustainable vitality everyone desires, one which enhances and reliably maintains the health and well-being of all levels of global civilization as well as the planet.Economic sustainability Economic development Resilience Triple Bottom Line Network analysis Thermodynamics

WORLD FINANCIAL STABILITY AND DIVERSIFICATION OF CURRENCIES

Fundamental laws govern all complex flow systems, including natural ecosystems, economic and financial systems. Natural ecosystems are practical examples of sustainability: enduring, vital, adaptive. The sustainability of any complex flow system can be measured with a single metric as emergent property of its structural diversity and interconnectivity; it requires a balance in emphasis between efficiency and resilience. The urgent message for economics from nature is that the monoculture of national currencies, justified on the basis of market efficiency, generates structural instability in our global financial system. Economic sustainability therefore requires differentiation in types of currencies, specifically through complementary currencies