Envelopment
(Closing chapters of UIU   © 1992, 1995, 1997)

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      Summarizing Integrity - We Are The Universe

So. Here we are. Attempting to coherently re-organize our understanding of the universe. To recognize the consistent connectivity of all things. To appreciate that there are more similarities than differences in the world. Even our quest to know these things is an expression of all these dynamics at work.  We are the Universe trying to find out about itself, seeking to explore and comprehend itself.   As beautifully simple as that.   If we find behaviors in companion life forms on our planet, that model and match our own, that is more natural and less surprising than to find out we have nothing in common with them.

The overshadowing connection is that we all experience incredibly similar ...if not identical...processes.  This is the underlying unity of existence. It is the Relationships, the dynamic relationships of things that we can perceive ... and appreciate. Whether simple or complex. There may not be an ultimate limit to how much we can elucidate and understand. There is however, the ability to appreciate the wonderfulness of existence, which can stem from so many encounters with it. The satisfaction in figuring out the correct answer to a difficult math problem, or, the joy of creating a picture or sculpture that 'just seems right', or, understanding Who-What-Why-Where-How of Creation, or anything that brings that satisfying feeling when "connections" are made ... it is all the "ah-ha!!" "Eureka!!" .... the fulfilling sentiment: "Yes!".

Ultimately, I see ourselves and our mentality as part and parcel of creation. For me, the universe is not "out there" while there is a 'me' "in here" separate and distinct from everything.   I put no stock in body/mind duality.   That perception is an artificial (really: artifact-ual) result of other dynamic relationships that are connected to how the universe builds systems of higher and higher complexity from a few simple components. It is a reasonable way of understanding things, but not the best way. In comparison, because I try to strip my human-ego from these relationships, I tend to see myself (and all sentient companions in life) as more deeply integrated participants in creation. The stars aren't humanly "conscious". Atoms aren't.  But they do have a sentience, and consciousnesses all their own.   And they stem from a constructive source.

Imagine for a moment that you were a singular Totality -- undifferentiated, whole.  If you were this Vishnu-Judeo-Christian type of "Consciousness" existing in a fiercesomely immense void, you would "create" yourself in some other form so that you could find out what you were...and even had the capacity to be.  You would make yourself into simple little dynamics of space/time/energy of infinite and infinitely-fluid dimensions that could eventually form into organizations of awareness...so you could finally look at "your/self" and examine yourself and begin to understand yourself...all of yourself...what you had been and were and had become and might yet be. What you are/am. And so, I say again: "We ARE the Universe discovering itself. Our minds are the eyes and consciousness of Creation."

In situations when someone uses the word 'purpose' to differentiate or fix a boundary of different-ness between Life and Non-life, we recognize how a limited information-set would come to see it that way...putting mysterious valuation on "Anima". But we counter that vision as being too restrictive.        All Existence has "Purpose".    Is, indeed :   alive.

Eventually, distinctions between living and non-living became a matter of how sufficient any constructive organization is at carrying out self maintenance survival qualities. As "replication" is a workable technique for "preservation" (i.e. maintenance) then the only difference between life and non-life in the universe, is a matter of technique, not some essential disparity. Foremost we need to remember that any 'higher' organizational type of ƒfunctions could not occur unless they were extant - even in some limited degree - at simpler primal levels of construction. That is, to be aware of and recognize the "essences" of higher complexity ƒfunctions even in sub-atomic or galactic forms. In this vein, my personal vision of creation is one of profound holism...more naturally similar than disparate. "Life" exists because atoms exist ... atoms having the kinetic capacities that are present - to be built upon - to form the complex molecular organizations that we "are". It is all: information.

Atoms aren't humanly "conscious" (though they are 'responsive' with their environments). Yet we have no consciousness without atoms, without the flow of electrons or other forms of energy! {I want to make it clear that there is nothing in my writings which infer that consciousness can never exist without physical energy or matter. Or, that qualities of sentient essence cannot persist after de-construction. The ideas presented in this work focus on perceptions at hand - the natural. Anything beyond ... is open for exploration.}

Whatever events, relationships, or things that exist in the universe ... whatever ƒfunctions or behaviors exist in the most complex of systems ... have a similar and discernable existence and form at the simplest levels. EVERYTHING that does exist or can exist, had its potential for "being" at the very instant of creation of the Universe. Just so you can understand the importance of this statement ... use the current perception of physics: ... protons, atomic particles, etc did NOT "exist" within the first 10^-43 of a second in the "life" of the Big-Bang-Universe. BUT. The potential for these forms had to have been evident in the constructive dynamics that DID exist in that span of "time". Because it is ALL derived "from" those parameters! In fact, things could not have ended up existing UNLESS primal relationships-energies-forms were there to begin with! There, in the SHINN-NU EVENT, when all "motion" (time & space & energy) began.

Holism  -   the I~Thou

That the Universe displays "order" is an experience and an observation, not an assumption. In similar fashion, the axioms of Mathematics are derived from "observations" of "patterns of behaviors." Hypotheses, projections, and predictions are grounded first and foremost in "prior experiences"... where information is actively transferred, then absorbed, then reorganized, then conceived of (utilized) as being applicable to as yet unknown and yet unencountered situations. THEN, comes testing and trying and experimenting ... verifying the "patterns of behavior".    Experiments can only be constructively helpful for increasing our knowledge of behavior of phenomena in the Universe if they are designed - based on previous knowledge - to tap into areas as yet un-examined. "Physical Laws" are a convenient short-cut language ... based on shared experiences, making our perceptions of existence easier to communicate with each other, instead of having to perform the actual events over and over again in order to get the ideas from one person to another. And, we project those symbols as "having" the energetics that our minds assign them to represent. And ... because we posit PRIMALLY ... a total and eternal CONSISTENCY, it is eminently possible to discover new relationships (read: physical laws) on a chalkboard. A chalkboard, or computer, or whatever, is just an external tool that mimics our thoughts and perceptions ... our very thought processes ... that are a function of the panorama of electro-magnetic pulses coursing through our craniums ... that are a function of bio-chemical interactions ... that are a function of electron shell interactions ... that Bohr and Heisenberg and Planck and Schroedinger and Dirac et al deduced from experiments and otherwise distinct calculations ... after evaluating observations of actual physical events and actual interactive calculations that, at first, described just a limited set of models derived from observation ... and they found that the progressive extension of even the simplest relationships ... were capable of describing even more complex interactive behaviors and states of being ... and thus expanded the discerned continuity of behaviors into larger and even more consistent domains ... adding confirmation that the universe is exposing itself to be better and better ordered ... even as the range and types of activities we observe grows exponentially ... beyond our capacity to keep track of all of it ... all the time ... tending to appear to us to be chaotic ... and unfathomable.

Only, it's not that terrible a situation ... and we CAN get a handle on it. It is just Information and Energy - flitting, transcribing, translating, recoding, moving and processing through the intriguingly connected levels and phenomena of the Universe.

It doesn't matter where one starts. Holism is a fact, not just an attitude. It is possible to get everywhere from anywhere. And every time from anytime. Even into the darkest of dark "unknowns" ... past, present, and future ...there, here, and beyond. The "behavior" of a quark is fundamentally the same as an atom is the same as a guppy in the ocean is the same as a shopper in the market place is the same as tectonic plate interactions is the same as galactic life cycles.

Mystery can be as simple as what's on the other side of the door, or as vast as the infinity of dimensions. Revelation of either is enough to warm the soul,  and oh, how good it feels!!!

 

Binding the pieces of Existence

Everything in the world is inter-related and functionally, if not purposefully, interconnected. I am of the strong opinion that things are SO intimately interrelated that anything "new" or important that we find out about one subject or area, will help us elucidate a compatible aspect of even the most seemingly unconnected subject. For example, the striving to understand things, an effort that people get so involved with ... whether for things in their daily lives, or for things of a more ultimate nature - vis a vis the universe ...... why bother? We could live just as comfortably - with the same (and even lesser) levels of anxieties and problems to deal with in order to survive - if we resorted to an aboriginal way of life! I mean, as far as "getting through life alive", that is.  If prolongation of life is our "goal" then we need only attempt to find a way to have the longevity of land tortoises and mountain pine trees. We don't need civilization for that.

In light of what we understand, we should take the efforts for a Theory of Everything, at face value. We should be able to reference everything! ... not just some physico-mathematical laws.   I challenge theorists and experimentalists to do as I have done: attempt to be so inclusive as to be able to explain the "WHY" of why we make these enormous efforts in the first place!  To explain what it is, in the machinations of the heart of atomic and sub-atomic architecture and activity, that eventually leads to "us"...what we are...and the things we do. Including all the diversity of mental activities. Otherwise, all that work will only produce a "Theory of SOME Things". Human "mentality" - the ideas and concepts and beliefs of all sorts and shapes and sizes and functions and uses and purposes, that exist (past, present and future) in all the cultures and societies and individuals that ever were, are and will be throughout history ... have an undeniable "mutuality". What we experience, becomes what we think, then, what we do. And all thoughts and deeds become part of the panorama of experiences...that reinforce and affect the next thoughts...and the next actions...and so on...and so on...

Understanding the nature and qualities of our developed ideations, will inform us as to the nature of existence at large, because that is what the ideations were built upon. And those understandings will loop back to aid us in better understanding who/what we are...and so on...and so on... And even the source (let alone the functional usefulness) of the "feedback" system! To question Perceptions...and deduce the Logic systems that a from them...is to simultaneously deduce certain Truths about human nature, behaviors of biological organisms, the mechanics of celestial motion, the bounds and functions of a Heisenberg-Bohr-Schroedinger atom, derived "relativity", and the very nature of space-time-energy-matter!

I feel very comfortable talking about all these things as "variations on a magnificent theme".  God's personal version of  "variety is the spice of life" so to speak.

 

Furthering Global Coordination - Kenichi Ohmae & more

As this narrative draws to a close, it's important to take a moment to advance a discussion about long range global economic planning, in light of the impressive leadership of Kenichi Ohmae. His 1990 book "Borderless World" expresses to the general public the foundational philosophy of his successful efforts that are assisting major international companies towards building solid production and service companies, based on novel yet well reasoned approaches to economic survival and success. He recommends all current and future managers of business and political organizations to re-think their roles and organizational goals. Traditionally accepted "standard practices" might no longer be appropriate for corporate survival within a planetary economy. Attention focussed on local markets is no longer the proper singular guideline for investment behavior, and conditions on the other side of the planet will increasingly affect what happens "at home", whether there is time to adjustively respond or not.

The worst choice of action, according to Ohmae, is maintaining protectionist policies. Import/export duties and trade restraints might work in the short run, but are detrimental in the long haul, and just might throttle global economic integration. That kind of self indulgent behavior tends to do more damage than any short term benefits would indicate.

Ohmae evaluates traditional perspectives of commerce and finance in light of profounder and more expansive frames of references. His thrust is that "Adam Smith" mentality (the enunciation that historical human exchange began with barter of commodities of mutual interest, progressed to the invention of a common exchange medium called money, and finally led to the growth of wealth and power, based on accumulation of especially desired commodities - mediated by supply and demand equity - and, all of that, finding organization in the bounded units called "nation-states"...and the political interplay that resulted from those organizations) is too simplistic and totally inappropriate for the intricacies and expansive commercial network of planet Earth in the 20th and forthcoming centuries. Political nationalistic motivations which were once concerned with the consolidation of social power have been and are being usurped by active organizations and businesses which supply actual products and actual services to the population of the planet. In other words, nation-states once defined the boundaries of commerce, but cultural-political ideals and concepts about social interaction are no longer the guiding force of the world. The natural commercial interactions which defined those resulting organizations are now at force beyond their artificial boundaries. "Market forces" are coming to the fore again, redefining the entities which participate - their extents and spheres of ƒfunction. "Value" - of product substance and utility - is resuming its place as the preeminent precept which the diversity of human cultures and ideological belief systems can relate to. The "value" and relevance of commodities or services, over and above language differences, food preferences, or legal systems. How possession or at least "access to" specifically desired commodities and services can affect a person's, a group's, or a social- body's behavior. Regardless of the spiritual, communal, or social framework.

Intrinsic-value (principle utility cost exclusive of added transportation or promotion cost) of a commodity had once been the bed-rock of human commerce throughout most of history.  Such net "value" was at various times only a participating corollary factor in decision making processes, but more over and predominately, it was the actual possession or actual access to use of a given commodity, which was the final criteria that made an economic system, market, or nation-state "powerful".  Possession and control conferred "power".  In the first instance, of the object itself; in the second instance, of the representation of that control: money.  All that is changing now. All the legal systems and political systems and general social organizational systems are now having to defer to something new, that was simply a nascent factor within all their past behaviors.  Freedom, human rights, social justice, democratic principles, the communist experiment, and all the social-conceptual phenomena which were created to deal with those survival fundamentals, all have given way to the more functional reality of working to maintain human planetary commerce in order to sustain the born and future populations.  Where before we focussed on the components and mechanisms on which commerce and human sustenance rested, we must now shift priority to the ramifications of the "processes" themselves...the sustenance of the whole organic body-economic.

All those organizations and belief systems are "models" of Integrity behavior. They are all examples of diverse techniques which advance the dynamic stability and Integrities of local as well as global social organization (and thus "surety" and Integrity for each population member or sub group). The nuances of social interaction which created lending, usury, bourses, banks, military units, guilds, unions, grange confederations, Protestant work ethic, piracy/privateering, Shintoism, Confucianism, supply/demand, communalism, democracy, shared ownership, sieges, boycotts (applied equally as well for political control or to bring pressure to those in economic control of a situation), insurance/assurance relationships, etc., all of these human interactions and more, now have to adjustively interact again in regard to the larger scale of a planetary economy. They all were created out of economic social necessity, being different and novel solutions to the same problems that humanity faced every where and in every age.  Now, the organization of the larger economic organism forming on the planet is out growing the ability of any single one of those previous mechanisms to control.  More so because the older ingrained solutions, which worked well for each isolated community, are now struggling to readjust, because those systems which worked so well "at home" or in moderate isolation may have been built on subtly different premises which are inherently incompatible, because their process priorities are different, though the ultimate ends are similar.

Ohmae's thrust is two pronged. One deals with the overview of  integrating the diversity of economic mind sets: advancing the concept of "value-added", for planetary managers and consumers to focus on. The value of a commodity or service being evaluated in regard to quality, efficacy, usefulness, and meaningfulness...the relevance and importance such good or service plays in enhancing a person's or group's comfort and worth and self image, and, ability to continue and enhance the social system engaged in. In other words, the precognitive value assigned to a good or service, in anticipation of the worth it will have at some future time, and/or, the comparative value such good or service will imbue, vis a vis other ranked users (the haves or the have-nots). The other, promoting the enthusiasm, energy, and procedures of the most successful systems at work today. Ohmae feels that there is a cultural altruism inherent in oriental cultures that should be adhered to by the rest of the world, and that such a shift in the social attitudes of the rest of the producing population on the planet is key to planetary economic survival and growth.

The point that I am trying to bring out here is that Kenichi Ohmae perceive's the majority of western economics - and the United States in particular - as focussed more on the acquisition of monetary wealth (as an ultimate goal) rather than seeing the greater importance in being part of an on-going process of social benefit. Leveraged buy-outs, quick short term financial gains, seeing our own businesses as the "commodity" to be bought and sold (or even dismantled) in order to make "financial" gains, rather than enjoying moderate growth and financial success while maintaining ongoing businesses that nurture the working and dependent populations. He opposes the sentiments that sit very well with avaricious speculators and investors who myopically concentrate on "what's in it for me .... now!?" rather than his "will this benefit more people and for a longer period of time?".

I understand Ohmae's accurate perceptions, especially from the holistically integrated social/personal/ceptual views nurtured in the Orient. The western economic system is not all that degenerate though. At one time, all personal, territorial and self-seeking efforts of human social interaction became focussed and organized, resulting in the variety of social and economic organizations we find today. That was how nation-states and social-economic unions formed in the first place. In the west as well as the east. There was (and still is) a place for altruism and ideals in the western version of the free enterprise system. The fact that the "work ethic" of western culture is not perpetually self sustaining or unflaggingly holistically motivating, is less an indictment of the worthlessness of that belief system, as it is an acknowledgement that that mode of thought and behavior is more widely flexible, even open to an extreme of corruption. The holism of the social body was built on the collective base of amassed "local Integrities". The dynamic security of collective families transforms into the "local Integrity" of a village. The dynamic security of collective villages transforms into the "local Integrity" of a domain. The dynamic stability of collective domains transforms into the "local Integrity" of a state. The dynamic stability collective states transforms into the "local Integrity" of a nation. And the dynamic stability of collective nations transforms into the "local Integrity" of our planetary economy ... with all the created sub-management systems called "business" "corporations" and pacts organized for collective management: NATO, EEC, TRIAD, WHO, United Nations, etc. No sub-group or the ƒfunction it served is dissolved by the larger structures. Their local Integrities stay intact even as they are involved with the reticulated networks of information and energy of all the levels of structure. Their boundaries just become more maleable, their actions having further and broader reaching affects - interactively. The energy/information storage (memory) is vaster, and the Integrity demands of each dynamically bounded Soma, will impact the Integrities of all the others!   

 

No one system of human endeavor is immune to the ills of flagging energy and self absorption. If there is any single exemplar of "problems" definable for Somatic Integrity, it is the imbalance of some sub-system demanding that its Integrity take priority to the Integrity of the larger Whole. Something tantamount to one organ of our bodies demanding total control of the nutrient energies we consume. Tantamount to the destruction we see when Cancer devours a body from the inside. The cancer of unconscionable taxation. The cancer of corporate monopoly. The cancer of wholesale dismemberment of healthy industries merely to increase the personal wealth of a few individuals - beyond any possible Integrity demand that could affect their lives. Wealth of resources beyond the ability to rechannel it back to the economic metabolism and well being of the larger population, is unnecessary. Wealth that degenerates is not Integrity-valuable. Limiting wealth is not the easy answer either, because that diminishes and restricts "potential" ... the environment necessary to encourage accumulation of wealth. Balancing the Somatic Integrities of all these organizations is the critical issue. It is the "handling" of them that becomes the challenge. There is no preeminent ethical image that any culture or social group can lord over any other. A non-American and non-"money is superior to products/services" mentality is just as susceptible to waning enthusiasm and devolution to more selfish focus, as is the more obvious greed of somatic self-indulgence.

The important concept is that each social methodology is built on some local image of Integrity.  All are "value-systems", embodying an infusion of "value-added" worth to specific behaviors and activities. Ohmae suggests that as long as holistically integrated economic systems are preferred to the short term gains realized from merely the quick buy-and-sell of commodities, humanity might form a stronger global economy by shifting preferences away from the products or services per se, to the "perceived worth" things might have. A Gucci purse is considered more valuable than a no-name handbag, not because of any intrinsic differences in quality of construction or materials, but because of a variation of prestige that is "value added" through managed perceptions. Not only does a person acquire a usable product, they also acquire a status image that reinforces perceived rank within the social group. Multiple benefits that enhance Integrity...several Integrities (of an even larger conglomeration) simultaneously.

 

The Global Future  ~ Difficult Choices

As I pointed out near the outset of UIU, the cultural self image (induced and reinforced by innate linguistically molded perceptions) of oriental cultures is at subtle variance with the western world. Individuals who have strong self-Integrity imagery, who accede to forming the next larger levels of social-Integrity groupings, vs, Individuals whose Integrity-priority favors the social grouping first, and whose personal Integrity is secondary to the well being of the group. Neither is "wrong". Neither is "right". Neither is "bad". Neither is "good".  They -- and other variations of individual/group organization -- are eminently capable and reasonable systems of social organization.  Striking a balance, especially considering specific situational and holistic environmental conditions, is how we must begin to perceive ourselves.     If we end up choosing one style over the other, we run the risk of limiting our behavior options. If we start limiting our behavior options, we run the risk of not having the social (let alone "individual") capacity to deal with new situations and conditions as they arise.

But choose we must. The religious brocades that developed in the Orient around the manufacture of fine bladed weapons or rice wine tea; the western religious artifacts of consuming beef as a homage/sacrifice to God; the Indian religious devotion to cattle as admitting the connectedness of all life as valuable; devotion to Pele or Quetzacuotl in thanks for sustenance and survival; all these and more developed as our naive yet striving intellectual forebears sought to cope with Integrity. Now the cherished and revered cultural forms of all our peoples are being encroached upon by the sheer enormity of planetary needs. The substance and bedrock of our cultures are in jeopardy of becoming quaint artifacts of historical transition and social evolution. Not an easy situation. Not entirely acceptable, but assuredly unavoidable.

We are being asked to cull from this wondrous diversity what we think we will need to advance into the future ... and leave the rest behind. There just isn't enough time in each day to pray to every God, to perform every spiritual ceremony, to recite every cultural tradition, to reenact every past battle victory or honor the memories of all the ancestors who gave their lives to protect the worlds they knew, families they loved and ideals they believed in. The techniques of social management must deal with factors beyond the scope of single women and men. We must admit that lives might need be sacrificed to achieve what is best for the world. We must even so strive to save and nurture every person or life form born because we are not omniscient enough to know which individual or life harbors that one lone quality and ability that the rest of life on this planet will need to survive.

 

The Global Future  ~  Beyond "Long Range Planning"

In this one broad vision of planet earth we must be prepared for hard decisions. Decisions that we can make, because they are based of the holistic understanding that Integrity depends upon qualities of relationship, qualities of dynamic ƒfunction, qualities that enhance the ability to go on, to continue activity and ensure "future".   For economic planet Earth that means, again, keeping options open, keeping ƒfunctional choices as well as idealistic ones. To this end, I agree with most of Ohmae's ideas, but differ on one point, and would like to extend it per Integrity concepts. Ohmae's fine tuning of several adaptive stages of interlinked economic growth makes one tacit assumption that could possibly lead to serious global trouble: the unspoken premise that there are no limits or natural restrictions when it comes to economic interactions. His methods are wonderful for environments which are non-Malthusian and totally open-bounded, where a foundational optimism is that people will always find new business niches and then be able to capitalize on them. In favor of his point of view is the fact that the global economy is still at a growing stage where labor and resources have not yet been fully exploited nor growth limits reached. Convincingly, his conceptual and practical success has rested on the fact that his philosophy is exactly the most appropriate one for just the current global matrix of growth conditions (even though it may not necessarily be the right one for all possible dynamic economic circumstances).

Ohmae's imagery of businesses as thriving vital organisms which need to encounter, adapt to, and support each other, is marvelous. My counter point extension here is that his stratagem does not yet address mechanisms or even propose processes which might otherwise be more appropriate for saturated economic econiches (what he would call "slower growing, mature" states)... or even pre-plan for that day.     A saturated economic environment is the essential eventuality which global managers must prepare for. The enthusiasm of burgeoning growth will change significantly when a system or organization "matures", when a system achieves it's major goals and has to shift into a "sustain" mode rather than a generative one. To be able to recognize current energetic growth - which requires one type of policy plan, yet anticipate future conditions when activity is not as vigorous - when there is a lack of "new markets", yet the various economies must still be able to provide the support and nourishment needs of our indigenous populations and the expectations that had been developed along the way - is absolutely crucial, to avoid massive system failure.

As C.D.Darlington the biologist-historian noted also, the two dozen and more major civilizations of human history to date and uncounted nation-states and similar social groupings, passed through and continue to pass through life-stages very much the same way as an organic creature does. Birth - maturation - decline - death. Some of it hastened by competitive interactions (such as war) but sequential none the less. Even our most long enduring cultures have gone through internal political/economic cycles while their general cultural identity may have endured. This clearly reveals to us that several interaffective nested Integrities are involved here. One is the life cycles of cultures and socially connected commerce. The other being the life cycles of human beings. They are intimately connected yet individually different. Human beings produce new people every 15 to 30 years. Because of the natural overlap of ages, grouped age distinctions get blurred so that our holistic populations always have a generally equal mix of members who are "growing into their social roles", "actively participating in those roles", or "are sustained past their social peak". We hopefully value our fellows at each of these stages, but the economic organism does not necessarily weight those values the same. Integrity gradients for each of these components may conflict for immediate situations yet blend to a net result in the overall.

Our bodies work the same way, except we give undisputed priority to our whole Integral conscious being, not our individual cells. Even at the moment of our deaths there are vigorous cells dividing and creating the next generation of cells to help keep the body functioning. The fact that those new "lives" will pass away with the death of the larger "body" is of no special consequence. However, such is not the case when we see these "body-selves" as the participants in extended environments as compared with being the product of celled anatomy. When the priority of individual human life is balanced against the more expansive body-economic or body-politic our impulse is to favor the individual. We value the Integrity of each human life whether we consider ourselves as the "lives" that make up our personal body, or consider the living social organisms that we collectively create with each of us as "cellular" units. Eventually, when the global body-economic reaches its regional or planetary limit to growth and starts consuming itself instead of consuming external resources, then precious individual humans will most assuredly suffer. Regardless of their unfulfilled promise or potential. This problem is the trauma of our times.

Our challenge is to anticipate the future times when such limits are reached, and to establish programs now that will ensure the sustenance of future human generations regardless of the growth cycle of our economies. The Integrity Paradigm perspective strongly suggests that such an eventual phase-state of economic development must be considered prior to its arrival. And, while humanity enjoys the enthusiasm of global re-organization, it should prepare for when that process matures. We should have in place the necessary economic and political mechanisms that anticipate future requirements, even as we co-invent the mechanisms that are busy handling current needs.

As I think about what techniques succeeded in the past, and what techniques failed, I recall the glorious efforts that resulted in the creation of Shang-xu (Xanadu), the Tigris-Euphrates valley, the Nazca-Incan-Aztec civilizations of Peru and Central America, the Madagascar cultures of Africa, Roman aqueduct and road networks of commerce, and many other brilliant expressions of human culture.  High levels of artistic creativity and social organization which had been built on the foundation of thriving commerce. Not only were Integrally strong social self-identities necessary, ones that enabled a vision of "future" and "potential", but needed also were the meat and bones wherewithal to accomplish those goals: the resources of environment and of community cohesion. Food supplies, housing, energy, clothing, and the social organizations to implement the availability, transport, and exchange of those resources.

At some moment in their societal lifetimes established traditions or even good intensions or desires became insufficient impetus for carrying on "civilization". Dwindling resources (caused by whatever several situations produced that "lack" ... weather, war, disease, mismanagement) resulted in the dismemberment and eventual collapse of the social fabric. For most of those cultures collapse came because they over farmed and over exploited their energy and food resources. Today, drifting wind blown sand and forest overgrowth are the sad remaining testaments of short-sighted behaviors that filled immediate needs and ignored future ones. The chasm between continual "expectations" of new individuals and new generations, and what the social organization could actually provide, became the root dilemma those previous cultures faced, some failing some succeeding.    It is the very problem which we face too.      And we cannot ignore it.

 

The Global Future - Fundamental Economic Policies &Techniques

The civilizations that tended to survive the longest used careful controlled management of their productive food land. Soil, ocean, and energy husbandry in their territories became the stable platform from which strong surviving cultures a. When we look at the successful techniques that applied interactive dynamics and took into account balanced mangement of current needs vs fostering future ones, it's clear that we could and should adaptively apply those same techniques to industry and commerce in general. It just might be the key to humanity's global survival.

Several of those civilizations found that re-nourishment of the land was crucial to maintaining crop growth year after year. Besides bringing in water on a regular basis, the primary technique was to allow nature to recharge the soil by normal organic processes. People could take nourishment from the land but could only return the favor by allowing the land to "rest". Leaving land fallow every so often. Enough land was cultivated for food, and enough land was rotated to replenish itself.

In other words, however the boundary limits of each culture were defined (created by how many people were available to till the soil, or frontiers beyond which lands belonged to other tribes, or the length of the growing season, etc.), in some way "future potential" was consciously incorporated and maintained within those confines. Even nomadic cultures that did not focus of territorial squatting, saw themselves in some sort of "relationship" with the productive land. For them "potential" was where ever they could travel to next. In either case, "un-used" land was available to use over and over again by periodic visits interrupted by important absences. Successful farmers or even whole cultures locked into fixed territories applied the same general technique by periodically reserving for rest land in locations that were "internal" to their control perimeters. This is the fallow land technique. Successful non-territorial cultures merely passed over artificially temporary perimeters to some next valley or range land or hunting ground. Wherever human society was not at work taking from the land, the land was actively replenishing itself, until humans returned, to "take" again.

19th and 20th century approaches have replaced fallow-land methods with conscious and actively forced refertilization of the soil, replacing nutrients quicker than nature could, keeping the land as continually productive as possible. But even with that technique we only replace what we are "aware of".  Dynamic integration of open-bounded sub-system nutrients cannot always be successfully replaced by continual conscious intervention no matter how good our intentions may be. Once fertilizer compounds are stopped, only nature can re-charge the full spectrum of what had been drained. Sometimes what soil is left is too nutrient poor to support even that minimal process. The diversity of metabolic compounds and pathways which got established in support of the "whole" (before human intervention) may require several systemically nested supportive mechanisms. We may overlook what those systemic needs are or undervalue their presence because they don't suit what we are selectively aware of or are not the "end-product" nutrients which seem to help our food plants grow even though they are truly crucial to the intermediary processes or play simultaneously important roles in several metabolic loops. An example related to human metabolism is Dopamine, a chemical critical to proper brain function. Doctors tried unsuccessfully to introduce it directly into patients suffering a deficiency. Even though it was a compound our bodies need, human metabolism rejects its direct introduction. Doctors discovered that our bodies would only accept the pre-cursor form called L-Dopa. Our body's metabolic mix could only accept that pre-form which it then internally processed into the required chemical structure. An appreciation of such holistically self referencing open-bounded entropic/negentropic behaviors such as biochemical metabolisms and similar systems can aid us in dealing with the same dynamics in whatever fields we deal with. We can correctly apply the same understandings of multiply integrated dynamics to human social economics as well.

Humanity would be wise to treat its developing planetary economy using this approach. First, to see our individual and collective efforts as multifaceted, where every company, every social or political entity, and every situation in which products or services or information get exchanged, as incorporated so holistically, that the effects of each act and transaction are pertinent to more of the whole order than we may necessarily be consciously aware of at any given moment.

Next, and exactly to the point of this discussion, it would be wise to apply "fallow ground" techniques to the world economy. We are already recognizing that natural reserves will only sustain us for just so long. Recycling is the only answer to that problem, and even so, we will eventually have to exploit the rest of the solar system if we insist on maintaining high population levels on Earth. (Please don't misread my remarks. I have no specific recommendations about population size. It is apparent however that over population by any organism or group leads to its own eventual collapse. Survival principally depends on abundance of food resources. Eventually, eventually, we will run out of consistent reliable productive soil.) Once strategic resources of any kind are gone, any organism that relies on them will perish. Humanity might face extinction. Lack of food, lack of habitat, lack of energy, lack of organization....any of these deficiencies can exterminate a living system.

In order to maximize our food and adaptive "potential" on this planet means we have to consciously "reserve" it beforehand. This holds true especially within our spheres of  work and labor and industrial productivity. Basically, the technique would involve planning quiescent times and locales, accepting "as natural" the fact that productivity is as much a "cyclic" process as any other. For local "countries", "regions", "companies", "specific products", etc. this means requiring some of them to pre-plan "down-time". This, in contrast to current policies which require that high strong levels of productivity and service need to be maintained at all times. This, in contrast to current attitudes, that companies are "failures" or "poor investment risks" if they don't show positive bottom line profits year in and year out, unfailingly.

It may seem a strange metaphor, but was there ever a time you ever heard a parent say, "My child came home with very poor grades today.  I decided to stop feeding him.   I'd rather be the parent of that child over there."

If we are not so shallow and fickle with our children, why is that the attitude of choice in the economic arena?  Especially where the interactive stakes and potentials are that much higher? It's time to raise the standards of encounter and inter-reliance.   We need a significant shift in our philosophy of economics, where responsiveness to subtle dynamic changes in all venues - not just top-down policy determinations and actions - becomes the broad systemic standard, in a way where mob mentality and knee-jerk reactions are strongly buffered.  Faith, confidence and maturity should overshadow short-term information edge advantages.    

Realistically, the competition of free-markets will always see the use of priority leveraging techniques, but the code of long terms goals and behaviors based on those ethics need to be advanced and held as positive, real and viable ideals. 

Looking at specifics again, Indexing and similar "cost-of-living" increase-functions need to be adaptive and not force over production when demand is not present, as is the current case.  Although indexing practices are important and beneficial for keeping special segments of the population in line with other  stronger parts of an economy, a forced policy of this type can be destructive when and as conditions change.    Indexing stabilizes inflation/deflation pressures and that is desirable, but it can rigidify the existing relationships at the point such indexing is implemented. Indexing slows down Fuzzy or Harmonic economic fluctuations but it should not be allowed to freeze a status quo and prevent the general dynamics from working.

An alternative approach is to set a policy of allowed cyclic behavior where goals can be set, re-posed, and re-set again ... avoiding the self abuse of persistently forced high expectations. Great societal expectations can be achieved through periodic "re-appearance" rather than numbing continual "presence". It is nearly impossible to keep vast populations focussed on goals that are either too difficult or too easily attained ... beyond 1, 2 or 3 generations' evaluation. This is one of the psychological components. It is still a factor in survival dynamics since it is a constant processing and evaluation of conditions. Will an effort result in a significant change or improvement of Integrity or is the status quo merely being maintained? Can effort be reduced without jeopardizing the Integrity level? This is where perception and value judgements hold sway even in the face of physical realities.

If a "benefit" is struggled for it tends to be valued. If a "benefit" is expected as due-without-effort it is not. What one generation esteems and struggles to attain is not automatically appreciated by following generations. The key is for global managers to guide the development of an open yet integrated global economy that builds into the overall dynamics the necessary processes which allows and requires some level of commitment to different "goal" achievements from all successive generations of peoples, supplying changing and challenging open economic landscapes. The process must include some organic degree of planned obsolescence or other replacement programming. Supply being just short of demand, and demand never depleting the resources base. This would not preclude novel invention that might alter the "planned" dynamics. Situations like that are desirable because they challenge the status quo and adaptability qualities of our human species.

A requisite blending of personal, psychological, physiological and social economic needs is addressed this way. Individual cycles, perceptions, and behaviors can be satisfied at the same time that social cycles, perceptions and behaviors are. Latitudes of freedom and the ability to fulfill "potential" can be assured for all participants and defined systems. Potential can be secured by controlled "short supplies or skill needs" that must be satisfied for specific goals to be achieved. Physical resources, or services or skills must be on-hand and available in order to successfully cope with the potential panorama of needs situations.

Economic systems need to be treated as holistic ecological environments. All ecological systems rely on Zadeh (fuzzy) Logic and harmonic response behaviors in the short-term, and on cyclic behaviors in the over-all. The most successful systems are adaptive to ranges of conditions, and regenerative of sequential states, forms and relationships.

Large economies and regional economic nodes ƒfunction in the same way. Especially since the supportive superstructure (the individual and sometime collective groupings of human participants) are never "permanent". We each are born into an on-going process of collective behavior. From "society's" point of view, skills and the ability to participate are never guaranteed on an individual basis. There is only the "assurance" that enough persons in a given generation will be produced and present to fulfill needed societal ƒfunctions. Plus, that sufficient on-going reproduction occurs so that any arising "needs" will be smoothly, "immediately", and adequately satisfied (not seasonally only, or strictly "generationally" with gaps in the presence of mature adults).

For high information-retentive species, the boon that comes with these interplacements is that we are truly unique individuals with different retained experiences and knowledge and reactions ... basically and overlappingly similar for some critically necessary information, but extensively different, personal and fresh, for the rest. Individuals can bring a special flavor to the endeavors they are involved with; bring new options and interlinkages, on a one by one basis, that may not have been available before. Not because of individual ignorance, but merely due to a more limited "experience" pool.

 

The Global Future ~ Ensuring "Potential"

In general, the dynamic stability (Integrity) of systems is reliant on continuity and options/potential. If economic interactions and planning focus strictly on local assumptions that "new-options" will always arise even as the interlinkages start filling in all available eco-niches, then what appears as invigorating never ending growth, will eventually lead to econo-disaster. Maybe not this year. Maybe not within the decade. Maybe not within the next several generations. But for sure within the millennia. Unless....

Unless we dramatically adjust policies and expectations. Temper outrageous consumerism and "total" free market consumerism that would otherwise drift us mindlessly into a functional dead end, with a more cognitive approach that anticipates the broad range of interdependent situations. We are reaching the Malthusian limit which became apparent so long ago. And, true to how organic information feedback systems work, we have reached a juncture that requires a behavioral reaction on our part: 1) to continue actions that are no longer appropriate (even though they once were), or, 2) begin using "new" actions which we have the capacity for, as we encounter new conditions.

Just as embryonic fetuses stop processing food from an umbilical cord or egg sac source, and start using different resources or channels of those resources to survive, so too, humanity must begin using gained knowledge, perceptions, nascently prepared skills, and the ability to predicate and anticipate future events, to analogously adapt to the changes in our econo-ƒfunctional environment.

If external boundaries become limited as we continue to exploit and fill currently available regions, then two additional options arise. Two options we need to adopt simultaneously in order to survive. First, extend the boundary of our "human system". We are in fact already in the process of doing that by exploring our solar system and preparing to extend human existence off our home planet Earth. But that is out towards an inhospitable biologic-environment that will only provide materials for economic commerce and not be immediately reliable for our organic life needs. We will eventually create local and controlled areas to support our life processes, but that will take time. For now and for the majority of our population, we need to concentrate on the other critically important option.

Just as previous human global resettlements did not move whole populations continentally en mass, immediately and completely from one area to the next (such as the European incursion into the New World; as those areas were explored, colonized and resettled), the majority of populations stayed behind to continue developing where they were. As we reach for the solar system, the mass of humanity will remain on Earth.

Second, "remaining" requires that we do not consume ourselves to death by using up resources, or living space, or economic interaction-space at hand. Imagine a fetus having to stay inside its shell or womb and still survive. We must simultaneously focus on other behavioral acts possible to assure survival for those who remain. At our social level of dynamics this is a must.

One realistic way is to change the way we do "business": to match the way we farm crops and livestock. Understanding that business productivity and human enthusiasm for growth should be treated as cyclic and should not be made to unceasingly produce or expand beyond the scope of activities required by the larger integrated system it inhabits.

The astute question becomes: Who or what are larger interlinked economies meant to support ... people, or the mechanisms of the economies in and of themselves? One past answer to this question led to "efficiency" paradigms and the replacement of humans with more accurate, less costly and more-productive-until-they-break machines and electronic circuitry. This shunted people from being "producers" towards being "servicers" and "facilitators" ... of each other and of the equipment infrastructure of the societal economies.

This in turn created a shift in the energy <money> flows of economies. Just as a significant part of a given product's "cost" is in transporting it from place of origin to place of use (over and above any intrinsically base commodity value for the product alone), so too, whole economies have shifted their monies to support human participation as "transporters" and "enablers" in order to move information - as well as whole goods - from one place to another. Similarly, every cell of our individual bodies requires equal nourishment and sustenance whether it is stationary inside a specific organ like the heart, liver or brain - or - is a free floating carrier of molecular energy, such as the red and white blood cells. Within a normal range of energy parameters, a blood cell needs the same nutrients as a stomach lining cell, in order to provide its particular ƒfunction - which holistically goes to sustain the whole body.

Basic organic life forms have struck a dynamic entropic balance of energies in that regard. The human social-economic body is finally being forced to confront those same energy needs and interrelationships and work together to strike a similar balance to ensure our holistic survival.

Again, the crucial aspect that needs to be maintained is "potential". The potential to participate and act in concert with other members of society. The potential of assured nutrition. The potential to enhance Integrity: personally, familially, culturally, specially (as in "species-ally"). For the planetary social order the maintained-potential includes a vitality factor pertinent to integrated economic systems.

Potential is the premier stochastic quality. It is the option to use any of myriad possible activities or condition states in order to maintain existence and extend survival. Opportunity ... creating the avenues for success. Mechanical apparatuses rely on the singular recycling of repeatable procedures; repetition of ƒfunctions; designed by external concepts that focus on specific performances. Organic systems must be repeatable also, but organic systems are "designed" from the inside, through opportunities and choices and adaptation to encountered situations. Survival and continuation of organic systems rely on the flexibility to interact and endure. Re-nurturing the environment that provides nourishment. Developing interactive processes that keep energy flowing through all the complex interacting connections. Maintaining flexibility and adaptiveness. The signal hallmarks of life. Not just using the ability to eat and consume. Life passes on the flame of energy through every part of its being. Whether chemical compound, or cell, or body-economic ... life is a sharing /function: receiving energy and passing it along. If the chain is hindered - by limiting resource and energy sources - then life becomes stunted and crippled.

"Resource" in fact is a profound word both in meaning and in linguistic presence in all the ways and references we use it. The word resource grammatically presents us with a graphical presentation of the internal concept it is conveying to us. A resource truly is a re-source. Its value is that it is reliable, to be used again and again. Its value is its location in the schema with what it nourishes; as humans cultivate and harvest food (acting as the resource that recharges the productivity of the land), the land in turn is our re-source (producing the nourishment we need to survive).

Economics operates the same way. Every aspect has its strengths and weaknesses depending on energy flow and environmental conditions and how well it receives strength in order to pass that strength along. We use the same criteria of "vitality" when we evaluate economic organizations. Does a financial or production loop have the capacity to encounter a variety of financial and goods situations yet still remain viable and healthy? Is it being re-stocked sufficiently with human and material and conceptual goods to stay a good re-source for its clients and customers? Is there enough energy flow to maintain its internal organization? Can it adapt? Does it need to, or can it transform into a healthier or more appropriate dynamic? These are the types of questions we ask about the more tightly focussed organizations that we understand and we need to be asking about our world holistically and constituently.

 

Re-Defining Ourselves Thematically

Thematically, if there is anything which research and science and just plain sentient perceptions and common sense have shown us it is the fact that the universe is in fact totally "organic". Not just plants and animals, but also nations, economic systems and the very earth itself. It may be called "feed-back" loops, tectonic plate motion where continents collide, monetary exchange rates or a thousand and one other technical terms. It all translates down to the same thing: the world is "alive". Responding and adjusting, surviving and enhancing. Unfortunately, we've tended to treat it as if it were dead and inert ... sometimes even extending that attitude to other people. That old mind set can not be allowed anymore. As we expand our horizons, we come to see ourselves in the extended context of "universe" rather than in restricted locales and relationships. Everyone, everything, is "alive".

If there is to be a melding or re-emergence of spiritual beliefs ... science and/or economics being poor mind sets to base any religion on ... future generations will have to continue acknowledging the true wondrous and remarkable fact of existence. Our presence ... the presence of all things, of any "thing" in fact ... is worthy of awed reflection. The traditions, ceremonies and belief stories we use should always reference that perception. The preciousness of extancy will help guide our actions whether some choose to understand things in terms of singular lifetimes, or even historical millennia, or transitions of energy, experience, and consciousness. Born and re-born, or here and now. A happenstancial flicker of mind, or sentience that endures forever.

In this era of activism and growing awareness the question becomes: can we - as a world population - become motivated to building a better existence, and can we sustain that motivation? In part, the answer lies in knowledge and awareness and upon the premise of active participation. In the most basic terms : Just how important now is our posterity in years to come?

Each of us are concerned with the quality of our lives. It is only a natural extension to be concerned about our children's lives, and the generations that will come even after them. To insure that we secure the measures and standards we believe in, means coordinating our energies now into workable systems to accomplish those goals.

The continued existence of any organic entity depends upon a constant flow of energy and information. Historically for humanity, that energy has been individual genius, wealth, religions, and military power, etc. Today, "currency" has been added to the milieu, and seems to operate in the life blood of economic survival much the same way that biological metabolism uses electrons. How much there is and where it is located, dictate what a society is like and whether it lives or dies. But there is another energy resource that we cap tap, which is the real foundation of all the others. That is "ourselves"...talking better, listening better, and understanding better. Communicating better with each other and ourselves. Capitalizing on our individuality and focusing our ideas and understandings into a common market place of human intelligence ... to share, to change, to grow.

The strength of an individual, of a nation ... and more importantly, of our world ... does not rest in undiluted economic control, the creation of classless societies, philosophic or religious ideals, or any other limited subject. Our strength lies in our sense of Continuity, that goes beyond next week, next year, the next election, the next child, or even the next comet streaking through the heavens.   Our strength lies in the naturally acted out expressions of awareness and pride in ourselves - our Integrity - being part and parcel of the long experience of existence ... which created us and which we perpetuate.

It means new ideas, new appreciations, new definitions, and new syntheses of information. In the manner that birds fly, humans can never and will never fly. But to the extent that materials could be shaped to transport us through gaseous mediums, humans can and do "fly", all the time. So. We have a redefinition and understanding of flying: controlled motion through a gaseous medium. Which replaces: fauna which are shaped to move through the air of their own accord, most by using wings. We can fly as surely in fact as we do in spirit.

It is only a natural extension to re-evaluate and link together mutual cooperation, competition, coping behavior, international trade, creativity, passions, territorial imperative, Eros-Thanatos, religion, philosophy, linguistics, arts, sciences and much more, beyond simply acknowledging that they are all aspects of human experience.

The essence of Life in the Universe - the essence of all energetic behaviors, regardless of the level of function or activity - can be summed up in the simple sentient admonition: 

T R A N S M I T    or     F O R F E I T.

At the simplistic level of atomic structures (even at the cosmic scale in massive  conglomerations ), this is merely a recognition that "information" is either  conveyed or it isn't.

For complex organisms, it carries the Integrity related impact of "Opportunity ..enacted or  lost"..or even "Causal Immortality vs obliteration from Eternity".

                            ...(..and that's a rather substantial "forfeiture", don't you agree!?)

 

From here, we should be able to apply our insights toward constructive ends. Treating ourselves not as complexes of mechanical components, but as living structural and functional characteristics of the basic dynamics that comprise the activity and experience we call "life". Advancing into the future in one accord with this spiritual energetic phenomenon:

Universe.

 

Enthusing the Future

It is only when humanity clearly accepts itself as a fundamentally co-living organism - interacting, depending on and giving support to all other living organisms - that we can understand, adapt to, and reinforce not only what is best, but also what is necessary, to survive.   Our eyes and minds must be keyed to holistic survival in the Universe  -  if we are to survive at all.

It is important to begin now. We must take advantage of the fact that we are the first species which can so significantly ponder and actively determine its own future. We can set down and outline future history.

We need to use our new technologies and discoveries (which are really "organic" extensions of ourselves) in order to choose peace over war, food over famine, adventure over misery, and assert the best ideals that each of us can imagine. Technologies and increasing degrees of communication are forcing us to ask ourselves : "Do we have the courage and foresight to live up to the ideals we so easily espouse, but seem reluctant to put into practice?"

Humankind's whole existence is centered on finding a meaning for life. That search being the naturally arising extension of our intellectually translated understandable need for "stability"...needing a condition of high Integrity and smooth interaction with our environment. Life fulfills the essence of complexity by seeking out and exploring all the "potential" possible in the largest environment possible. Even death - that false barrier that separates different spheres of activity - falls by the wayside and becomes re-embraced as part of the continuum of everything that is.

In the 21st century world (over 50th century by some calendars - even longer if we count our "beginning" from the earliest settlements of tool makers), environments are changing and expanding. The speed and range of our communications systems are showing us that. By showing us just what our earth resources are and what is happening to them, our interaction with the world has the potential of becoming more realistic than jargonistic, more responsive than destructive ... unless we become frozen into inaction, overwhelmed by the enormity of it all ... locked into old mind sets and parochialisms.   We are citizens of a planet.   We must, each of us, stand up and be counted in that regard. Our allegiance is to the whole of Creation - not just a piece of it. And no effort is beyond our commitment to achieve.

In social terms, we are still dependent upon the land for food and the earth in general for energy and shelter, the majority of persons in technical societies being significant steps removed from that land and from self reliant independence. But our highly technological environment, though itself contrived by us, is no more artificial or less real than the basic biological systems of plants and animals.

The universe is an information processing structure...accomplishing this through various energy forms - gravity, light, heat, magnetism, electricity, the strong and weak forces, and...Entropy. And the channels of that information are Time and Space.   Alfred North Whitehead indicated a notion of this when he evaluated an encounter with a flat vertical wall. He said that if we see a surface we don't really know if it is a thin wall or whether it has infinite depth. In that type of encounter we are restricted from accessing any and all the information that exists just behind or even far beyond thelimiting surface. He meant to show that inference is assumption, not knowledge. In terms of the ideas presented in this book though we can interpret it to also mean: "if information channels do not exist (from an event to an observer) then information (nee, energy) will not be transferred, and for all practical purposes, does not exist. Information channeling is only accomplished via available Space-Time domains." But, Whitehead Limits are only temporary. Inference does exist and can be a valuable tool. We can muse and project all sorts of possibilities. We can anticipate the knowledge to come. We can meet the future prepared. Shannon showed us that it is really the only thing we are capable of dealing with. We can ready ourselves for eventualities and even create real futures by what we do now. Even what seems to be the immediate, the here-and-now, is really just acting out and dealing with what we were preparing for just an instant before.

Spacetime is the universe - understood in a more profound way than we have ever recognized before. And human participation within this ultimate communication system is limited only by what we appreciate or don't of the wondrous forms those communication sub-systems can take. Our security, our stability, our true Integrity depends upon utilizing as many of those forms as possible in order to come into smooth coordination with what exists around us. Metaphysically we could call it "growing toward a Oneness with the universe", now founded in the concrete reality of physical existence and perception.

Opening and maintaining information channels and feedback are crucial for survival. Hopefully, a major benefit of all these exploratory endeavors is the reminder that we can't be unthinking uncaring "absentee landlords" in our own, our only, house. The stars do beckon us, and planet Earth may or may not be like a seed/egg, that we draw our nourishment from while in this transition state of growth, to eventually be left behind without looking back. There is wonderment and a Universe of possibilities to join with out there. Continued Integrity for our species and future generations requires going there. For right now though, even as efforts continue to create those pathways to the Universe, for the majority of humankind there is no other place to go, or any way of getting there....where ever "there" may turn out to be...or however long it takes to find ways of getting "there".

Right now, we must also dynamically stabilize our current existence on Homeplanet Earth in order to secure any future existence. We must work hard to create a future full of positive options. As Barbara Marx Hubbard the Futurist activist referred to it in 1974 regarding societal-politics, humanity needs a "Choiceful Future". But enacting Human Integrity out towards that true future means going beyond politics and economics. We must expand that degree of participation further... from strictly political considerations to many more areas and efforts.... to science, personal relationships, artistic expression and creativity.... the mutual enhancement of existence for all creatures. For us, for companion life forms, for posterity. On our planetary home. In our home star system. Elsewise, we are lost. An experiment of the Cosmos. It will continue well enough with or without us. It will find other different and hospitable environments and conditions to let Life develop.

And so, I make a statement that I hope will speak for us all:

I affirm ... that I am a product and a member of the total wonderment of creation.  Here and now.  I will act and ƒfunction and desire accordingly.  I will find ways "to continue my existence".    MY existence. Where it is understood that "I"... am my environment, my world, my family, my society, my culture, my species, my genus, my animal and plant companions, my air earth seas and heavens.  Integral Integrity maintaining beings.  Everything "is" ... and I "am".  Every "I am" ..... "we are".  Posterity of the past and progenitor of the future.

 

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