Neglected integrative insights

Enacting Transformative Integral Thinking through Playful Elegance (Part #14)

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As an account necessarily inspired primarily by insights from only one of the four threads of the Symposium -- that on Reflections on Integrative Frameworks -- this constraint reinforces the argument concerning the challenge of any integrative comprehension of globality. That argument was made by noting the predominance of contributors to that theme from other hemispheres, notably Australia. Those in other threads could of course "read" the contributions regarding that perspective -- had they the time or inclination -- just as one may view extensive media coverage of Australia.

By contrast, the aesthetic and symbolic insight into the globality of the Earth is acknowledged to have become strikingly evident by views from the Moon. Furthermore it is the Moon which enabled comprehension of the globality of the Earth. With respect to the emergence of integrative understanding -- across boundaries -- the tale of Marcus du Sautoy merits consideration (Finding Moonshine: a mathematician's journey through symmetry, 2008). What are the subtle and unforeseen correspondences, appropriately characterized as "moonshine", which would enable integrative insight?

As pointers in that direction, mention might be made of the necessary complementarity of insights to be elicited from the other threads:

Integrative frameworks crossing multiple boundaries:

• Critical realism and the philosophy of meta-reality (Roy Bhaskar): This challenges the value of statements about our knowledge of the world whilst celebrating the development of integrative pluralism. It asserts the need for understanding to incorporate absence, negativity and process (in contrast with a purely positive account of reality). Seven levels are distinguished culminating in the incorporation of non-duality and the priority of identity over difference and unity over antagonism and split (themes evoked by the author in a keynote presentation). Self-realization then occurs when the embodied personality is at one with the ground state.
  
  The fundamental challenge posed is that of engaging with the variety of apparently legitimate (flat earth) views which contest that understanding, especially when it is itself so readily framed and experienced, by others, as just another view. This is the essence of the challenge of engaging with otherness -- implicit in the organization and processes of the Symposium itself.
  
  
• Insights into knowledge cybernetics: This emerging field was the focus of Francis Heylighen (Self-organization of complex, intelligent systems) and Søren Brier (Cybersemiotics). The implied challenge is however its application to the organization of the knowledge processes of the Symposium itself. As noted above such insights were first applied by Stafford Beer and Gordon Pask to the processes of a meeting of the Society for General Systems Research (London, 1979) through an iterative method described as metaconferencing (Metaconferencing, 1980; Metaconferencing possibilities, 1981). More specifically, how can current insights benefit from the huge advances in software for processing information, as noted above with respect to the Symposium itself? How might the need and processing of "feedback" be rendered explicit and appropriately organized? How might the Symposium then be enabled to "self-organize"? Of great interest is the possibility of facilitating the emergence of organizations reflecting "third order" cybernetics, as previously argued (Consciously Self-reflexive Global Initiatives: Renaissance zones, complex adaptive systems, and third order organizations, 2007).
  
  The other papers for this thread were:
  • On the (Im)possibilities of Critically Self-reflected Transformative-transformational Knowledge/Practices (Aydan Gülerce)
  • An Overview of Integral Research: a mixed-methods framework for methodological pluralism (Sean Esbjörn-Hargens)
  • An Opportunity for Integrative Frameworks? Revision of worldviews through the lens of the economic turmoil (Gaudenz Assenza)
  The first raises the dramatically evident issue of dialogue between worldviews (Guidelines for Critical Dialogue between Worldviews, 2006). The points to the increasing pressure for more integrative perspectives (Designing Global Self-governance for the Future, 2010; Enabling Collective Intelligence in Response to Emergencies, 2010).

Matter and mind, culture and consciousness:

• Nonreductive Physicalism: integrating science, theology, and philosophy of mind (Nancey Murphy)
• Generalised Entanglement (as) an Integrative Model: non-local correlations support regularity beyond causal interaction (Harald Walach)
• Toward a New Relation of Mankind to Science and Spirituality (Thomas and Brigitte Görnitz)
• The Arc From Bodily Experience to Cultural Concepts (Michael Kimmel)
• Human Action: troublemaker and troubleshooter in psychological theorizing - and beyond? (Lutz Eckensberger)
• Cognitive Enhancement and the Nature of Selfhood: neurofeedback and deep-brain stimulation (Tatjana Meira-Kochetkova)

As noted above, these contributions highlight the possibility of a transformation of cognitive engagement with supposedly objective reality (Existential Embodiment of Externalities, 2009; Cognitive Implications of Lifestyle Diseases of Rich and Poor: transforming personal entanglement with the natural environment, 2010; Towards Conscientific Research and Development, 2002).

Global societal transformations:

• Meta-Theory for Transforming Organisation and Leadership Research and Practice (Wendelin Küpers)
• Transdisciplinary Consumption (Sue McGregor)
• Universities-4-Humanity: locally transforming society - globally renewing humanity (Ronnie Lessem and Alexander Schieffer)
• From Modernity to Transmodernity (Enrique Dussel)
• Towards a Transmodern Transformation of our Global Society: European challenges and opportunities (Marc Luyckx Ghisi)
• Visions of Transmodernity (Irena Ateljevic)

These challenges may be reframed as Governing Civilization through Civilizing Governance: global challenge for a turbulent future (2008). A unique collective exercise to that end was that of the Institute of Cultural Affairs in its initial period of activity (Collective Strategy-making: designing a strategic array). Especially challenging in a global context is the cognitive nature of globality in relation to the mothering space offered by a university, as variously argued with respect to a University of Earth.

More neglected in this account than those cited above, are the papers contributed by contributors who were not present -- an apt metaphor for the unheard voices at any integrative event, behind which are the myriad voices whose contributions are not even considered, as notably indicated by the current oil crisis (Framing the Global Future by Ignoring Alternatives, 2009; Enabling Collective Intelligence in Response to Emergencies: illustrated by the case of deep oil spill containment, 2010).

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