Email from Joan Walton 15/11/2016 10:49
Dear All
Chris, I know we are to speak shortly, so we can discuss this more fully then.
However just some brief comments in relation to this email exchange:
1) The problem with going for funding is that you then become constrained by the requirements of the funding organisation. I know that Templeton is more interested than most in the kinds of ideas we are talking about, but my fear is that this will become yet another intellectual exercise, the outcome of which will remain on a shelf largely unread; and that in putting in a submission to Templeton, or any other funder, our priorities will have to change to fit those of the funders.
2) I understand, when trying to gain funding, the value of engaging with high profile academics, because that is a way of establishing credibility. But this gets us into something of a vicious circle. High profile academics have generally bought into the research culture and requirements of the universities in which they work – which are heavily influenced by the kind of consciousness we are challenging; or alternatively are so engrossed in their own enquiries that they do not have the time or mental space to join ours. They would need to feel the relevance of our work to theirs if they are to make a contribution. (I am writing this very simplistically and very ‘top of the head’, but I hope you get the general gist of what I am saying.)
Just to flag up clearly where I am coming from:
I believe that there is a continuing, interactive relationship between my state of consciousness and the nature of reality that emerges. That is the case on a collective level as well – so the state of consciousness of each of us, individual and collective, influences the nature of reality that emerges on a wider level. It is a sad indictment on the state of our collective consciousness that has led to the emergence of Donald Trump (for example). But none of us can control that collective consciousness – we can only control our own. I think the nature of the relationship between an individual’s state of consciousness, and the state of collective consciousness, is an interesting one to explore – experientially and intellectually.
A value in collaborating on this kind of issue is that 1) we can share our personal experiences of what emerges as we pay attention to our state of consciousness in each present moment, what that feels like, the choices we feel we have, what influences how we then act, etc. 2) what happens when we pro-actively and with awareness share our individual learning, and through collaboration aim to influence the collective consciousness. The learning and knowledge creation comes from reflecting on our individual and shared experiences of that process, and agreeing what the findings are.
I don’t think there will be funding available for the kind of work that I am interested in doing.
Best wishes
Joan
Email from Joan Walton 10/11/2016 22:43
Hi David, I do not particularly want to suggest any Indian advisers at this point in time. Having reflected a considerable amount on the conference in Bengalaru, I think, at this stage anyway, there would be too much of a desire (from the organisers of the conference anyway) to argue for an ontology and epistemology grounded in, and informed by, the Vedantic tradition – and my view is that we want to be more open than that.
That view may change at some point – and perhaps when we are clearer about where we are going with the project, it may feel more appropriate to involve them. I am glad that Mukho has agreed to join though – he had a wider experience and more expanded perspective than many of the others.
Best wishes,
Joan
On 7 November 2016 at 11:50, Chris Thomson wrote:
Dear Joan
Email still has its uses!
I owe you an apology. I overreacted to your comments, and I was wrong. As David pointed out, you were only expressing very understandable concerns. So I am sorry.
It’s a public apology, because I want everyone to know the background. This topic has been my baby for a very long time, and experience over the years has made me oversensitive. When I say “my baby”, I am not claiming any ownership, or anything like that. What I mean is that, ever since reading Steiner’s “How to Know Higher Worlds” and “Occult Science” in 1962, I have one way or another been trying to clarify and publicise “spiritual science”, and put it into practice. It has been the main project of my life. I used to give lectures about it in the Sixties to the Quakers in Yorkshire and to the Christian Community (a branch of anthroposophy). And I ran courses in the “inner senses” in the late 90s on a friend’s houseboat in Chelsea.
As you may know, what Steiner meant by “spiritual science” was his belief that the invisible, the spiritual, can be studied just as scientifically as the visible, the material. I wholly agree with him. Importantly, I also agree with him when he says that this will work only when scientists themselves change. They will need to “awaken” and use parts of themselves (senses and consciousness) that are currently dormant.
When I first joined the SMN in 1987, it felt as if I had come home. That feeling changed. I tried to keep my project going by setting up two sub-groups in the early 90s…the Science and Esoteric Knowledge Group, and the Science and Spirituality Group. Despite my attempts to steer these groups towards experience and training, they ended up as “talking shops”. You can imagine!
Events conspired to keep me largely away from the Network until very recently, until this project.
I hope this helps.
Love
Chris
Email from Joan Walton 07/11/2016 10:54
Hi Chris
I tried to address the question as to why people, including scientists, found it difficult to take on board the implications of ‘new ways of knowing’ in general, and findings from quantum physics in particular, in a chapter of File: Joan Walton PhD Ch9. I attach it here, as it may of relevance to this particular part of the conversation.
Best wishes,
Joan
On 7 November 2016 at 10:23, Chris Thomson wrote:
Joan
Although I have been active on the new website, I am yet ready to make it a substitute for email!
I think one of the central questions we have to address in this project is: why is science not already extended? Yes, we could make a long list, but this would simply be to repeat what many people already know, and we want to avoid reinventing the wheel!
I suspect that the answer is that extended science has not been put to the test, at least not publicly enough. This suggests that one thing the project needs to do is create a clear, doable methodology, and then demonstrate that it can accommodate at least one of the topics on our list of things that science currently cannot accommodate.
The proof will be in pudding!
Best wishes
Chris
On 7 Nov 2016 11:04, Joan Walton wrote:
Thanks David. And my apologies to all again, especially Chris, if my response to his points were felt to be too negative. I think you were probably experiencing an expression of my own frustration as to why more people don’t ‘get’ the damage that is done by the current limited view of science, and don’t understand far less accept the urgent need to ‘extend science’.
Anyway, I am very supportive of this project, and will do what I can to help make it successful. There has to be a breakthrough sometime, and if this project can create or contribute to it, that would be great!
Sorry I missed the skype call, and hope to be able to join you next time. I have logged on to the “Commission for Extended Science”, and think the planned structure looks good.
Best wishes,
Joan
On 5 November 2016 at 13:16,David Lorimer wrote:
Thanks Joan
What you say reminds me of the work of Seyyed Hossein Nasr and his book on sacred science, which I can’t to lay my hands on, although I’m sure I have brought it out to France. Here he uses the phrase scientia sacra. Another historical point is that physics used to be known as natural philosophy and that the emphasis on natural has also led to naturalism and physicalism.
Love
David
On 4 Nov 2016, at 17:55, Joan Walton wrote:
I’m really sorry Chris. That was far from my intention. But I have been actively working on these issues, in a number of different contexts, for many, many years. It has taken me from the Network, to a university, and now to local political action, all in the name of, what is in effect, extending science. Tim and I thought we would get a more positive response to the paper that we printed in the SMN Review, but the little response there was, was along the lines I spoke about in my email, and none that we hoped for. So yes, we felt pretty squashed then. I think it is a common feeling for people working in this kind of arena, because of the difficulties of getting certain, non-mainstream ideas, accepted.
But as I have walked to the local shops since writing that email, I was wondering what way ahead there could be. One of the things that came to mind was, that when engaged in an educational process with anyone, an educator takes one step at a time. A key issue that occurs to me is that one of the issues people seem not to get past is the idea that science can mean anything other than what traditional scientists define it as being. As I have said previously, I like to return to the Latin roots of scire, to know, and scientia, knowledge. Which then leads into a discussion as to what we mean by ‘knowledge’. Circular debate – because in the main, it is the traditional methods of science, with their measurable, quantifiable, provable outcomes that are seen to be the ‘best’ forms of knowledge.
Perhaps our first step is to present a case for extending the meaning of the word science, to persuade readers that there is a different form of rigorous knowing than that which classical science assumes. Show how a man-made limited definition has resulted in a limited practice. If that is done properly and to good effect, then perhaps we could move on to the next step. If we can encourage people to expand their understanding and acceptance of the definition of science, we can perhaps then move on to looking at what that might mean in practice. But my experience is that that one step will be a major task (and a major achievement if done successfully!) in its own right.
Best wishes
Joan
On 4 November 2016 at 15:37, Chris Thomson wrote:
I have never felt so comprehensively squashed
On 4 Nov 2016 15:41, “Joan Walton” wrote:
Dear All
A lot of issues and concerns have been raised in the last two weeks or so. I’d like to try to address all of them in this email.
Information – clearly we need to archive emails and documents, and make them easily accessible. I believe that Richard will shortly create a website – www.ExtendedScience.org – on which everything will be archived. I also understand that discussion will be possible on the site.
Time – time poverty is one of the scourges of the modern world.
I know this will appear an obvious point – but actually we don’t have more or less time than at any time in the past. It is the one thing that everyone has an equal amount of, just that people choose to use this resource differently. (Some people, I am led to believe, spend their time doing very little and get bored – incomprehensible to me 🙂 )
People are so busy these days that it is a wonder anything gets done!
But that can often be because there are so many options that exist for people to engage in; so much competition for their attention, of which this project may well appear to be just another such one. I feel I don’t have enough time for everything I want to do – but that is because I feel I have a wide range of interests, personal, professional and social, all of which I enjoy, and all of which are, in my view, relevant to the kind of exploration that I am involved in. ‘My life is my laboratory’ to quote Piet Hut.
The fact is that we need a few more “activists” in this project, people with the time and energy to contribute more actively. Perhaps a carefully worded plea to the SMN as a whole?
I wanted to say, ‘oh no’ to this – because I consider that the whole point of what we are trying to do is to make what we do relevant to society as a whole. In which case, it needs to relate to the experience of many, not just to the intellectual satisfaction of a few. I joined the SMN because I met there a wide range of people who shared my interest in the mission of the Network; I stopped active participation, mainly because too many people wanted to stay with the intellectual and not engage with the experiential. However the legacy of my participation in the SMN was to work with a group of people who were also interested in the experiential, and became engaged in a 3 year co-operative inquiry (following John Heron’s methodology), who have continued to be an active group of allies who are interested in the integration of experiential as well as intellectual. In a recent article written by Tim Houlding and myself, and published in the Network Review, was a call for people interested in working collaboratively to create new research methods to include subjective dimensions of experience. However, virtually the only response we got from readers was along the lines of: “Interesting article; I think you will be interested in my particular theoretical ideas, please see attached paper”. So no attempt to respond directly to the content of the paper, and to then develop and build on the proposal being put forward. Consequently there has been no moving forward from that particular attempt to engage with people. I am wondering what we can do in this group to avoid that kind of response?
Resistance – Joan has written convincingly about this.
I am interested that this is how you interpreted what I wrote. I may not have communicated well – but resistance was not the main issue I felt I was writing about. The main point I wanted to make was the need to address the huge challenges we face in moving forward with a project such as this. To date, in my own work, I have not been able to find an answer to this – I seem to encounter further layers of complexity, rather than find a solution.
The two issues I think are greatest are:
1) the ideas we are talking about are still beyond most people’s ability to comprehend – i.e. the idea that ‘consciousness is primary’ really does not make sense to the vast majority of people I meet.
2) those who might be potentially interested (such as some people in my university) are far too pressured by other things in the audit culture that we live in (dominant world view in our institutions is polar opposite to the worldview represented by this group);
3) this audit culture represents the world view promoted at a national and global political level – materialism, research which is quantifiable and measurable etc. This is so deeply entrenched; and we need to deeply understand the implications of this in order to fully understand the nature of the challenges that face us. It really is not going to be overturned by a report, however well written. The issues are too complex, it will take a lot of time to read, take in and comprehend – and as we are identifying, few people have the spare time, and the emotional energy involved to engage fully with the issues.
Yes, there will be a lot of resistance, or apathy, to what we are trying to do
What I was trying to say, was not related to either resistance or apathy – but, as David picked up, lack of mental and emotional space in people’s lives.
All the more reason to make sure we produce a good report that really catches people’s attention.
If it is going to do this, and gain the attention of people who are not already SMN members, then it has to relate to people’s current experience, and help them make sense of what they think and feel (so it all has to be socially and politically contextualised), and has to offer them a meaningful and realistic way forward.
I am in no doubt that people want big change.
I commented on this in my last message. I think you need to address the difference between people wanting change, and people wanting to change. and where you stand on this when you say you believe that ‘people want big change’. My mantra following my early years in the Network became: “transform the world through transforming self”. Many if not most people really do not want what is involved in personal change – they don’t really understand what it means; and when they get some sense of what it means, they don’t want it because it is too hard to do. So that needs to be addressed!
When nothing better seems to be on offer, then they gravitate towards the likes of Trump I am sorry, it does not matter how little there is on offer, I could never gravitate to the likes of Trump. Nor could my friends and family. I do not know one person who supports Trump. So what is going on that has led to so many people doing so? I really do not think ‘nothing better on offer’ is a good enough explanation. The explanation, I would suggest – is a much more deepseated one – and one that makes our aims very difficult to realise. Thinking that offering people something different will be enough, is (in my view) too simplistic, and does not recognise or deal with the complexity of it all – sorry Chris, I know I may be sounding rather abrasive here. It is not my intention to do so, but if we do not communicate directly about these things with each other, we have no chance with people ‘out there’. . So one useful thing we can do is to show, very clearly, how much science influences their lives, not just with technology, but with values, materialism etc. In my view, this has already been done, by a number of writers, and done very well. I have done it myself – and had interesting responses from fellow academics, which I could share with you sometime. I think good explanations have been made well. But ultimately whatever people read, it requires them to change – which comes back to the challenges of ‘transforming the world through transforming self’ – so easy to say, but if we are to do anything that is of value, we need to make progress in learning how to address the challenges of enabling this to happen.
As Hardin pointed out in his long email, there is a lot of explaining to do, and this takes me to the next point
Our timetable – I think it’s too tight. We do not want a rushed job. By all means, let us set a few deadlines, such as asking Advisers to respond by a certain date, but let us also recognise that this is probably going to take longer than we first imagined. We need to be flexible about this. Structure – this is a big one! I may be stating the obvious, but our remit document was never intended to be a comprehensive statement. It is simply an opening gambit, designed to stimulate thinking and to show participants roughly where we would like to go. For example, there are a host of reasons why science needs to be extended, but we chose to mention just one – that it cannot accommodate some very important things. And yes, there are many serious consequences flowing from this failure to accommodate. Some of these have been discussed in our emails and documents. But Hardin is right. We do need to think about the structure of the report. Might I suggest that it looks something like this: Why does science need to be extended? E.g. its shortcomings, and their consequences, social, philosophical etc. Why does science have these shortcomings in the first place? E.g. its ontology, its epistemology, its power structures etc. How others have tried to extend science – people past and present – their influence Changes within science that seem to pave the way for a new ontology and epistemology…especially quantum physics/consciousness Why the pioneers (Swedenborg etc.) and the new science have not been sufficient to extend science – i.e. what’s still missing and yet to be done? Our proposals Role models – we are fortunate in having some very able shoulders to stand on. Our list already includes Swedenborg, Goethe, Steiner, Walter Russell. I would add Wilber, just on the strength of “The Marriage of Sense and Soul”. I also wonder whether Rodney Collin fits into this. I am not sure about John Heron, because I do not know about his work on science. That said, I fully agree with John’s advocacy of “using all forms of experience” in our explorations. For me, the person who has progressed most in the kind of endeavour we are talking about, is John Heron. He combines intellectual and methodological rigour. In fact, in terms of explaining and identifying a way forward, I think he has already done that. But I think that in saying this, I am providing evidence that writing about these things, and effecting change, are two different things. David suggested in an earlier email that we might ask John to be involved in this project. I have had to think about my reply – but here it is. In some ways, I would love to ask John, as I think he would be an ideal person. But I would hesitate to do so, because I think that he would look at what we had written so far, and think that really it would be like recreating the wheel for him – he has done so much work on these things, and I would think he feels that at his age, he does not have the patience to be involved. John can be very ascerbic – I have had direct experience of that!! – and I am not sure I would want to open myself up to the kind of reply he might (arguably justifiably) make. He has spent his life addressing the question of ‘what it means to be human’ intellectually and experientially, influencing many people in the process. I would definitely suggest that his work is central to how we move forward from here. ‘Cooperative Inquiry’, ‘Sacred Science’, and ‘Participatory Reality: A Farewell to Authoritarian Religion’ are three key texts I would suggest – especially the first two, when thinking about ways of knowing and research methodology. The third text is available online see http://www.human-inquiry.com/psfar.pdf
He identifies what he means by science and many other concepts in this. In fact, just looked, and Sacred Science also is online http://www.human-inquiry.com/sacsc.pdf
The question arises: how will we use the role models in our report? Do we say that some of them have created a complete methodology, or do we say that each of them has made useful contributions to the new, emerging science? I tend to favour the latter.
So to summarise what I am trying to say here. I am all for a ‘new emerging science’. But actually I think a number of people have written well about that at an intellectual level – critique of ‘traditional’ science, why we need a different kind of science / research / new ways of knowing…. However what has not been done is create a process that attracts more people to engage with the experiential process that has to be part of an extended science – and as an integral aspect of that, recognises the reality of people’s lives that presents considerable challenges to achieving this.
Our audience – Hardin suggests a general readership, and I agree with this. I think we are more likely to influence intelligent people outside science than scientists themselves. Given the fact that everyone is a journalist these days, it might not take long for the word to spread. I see this project creating a lot of interest, especially when people realise that science affects their lives in many more ways than they had imagined.
Chris, I really don’t think you understand how difficult this is to achieve! It’s a whole extended educational process for people to gain the level of understanding that you are suggesting! Its worldview and its dominance as a knowledge system influence nearly every aspect of our lives, including all our social institutions, such as academia, education, healthcare, politics, economics and so on. Change science, in the ways we envisage, and everything else will eventually change accordingly.
Funding – While others may be doing this while supported by salaries or other earnings, I am not. My impression is that other important projects do not start, or continue, without funding. I cannot see why this important project should be any different.
My understanding is that the SMN has had difficulty attracting funding. As it has, from the beginning, been ‘an important project’, and is now a very well established organisation, with many members who are probably very well off, and having a very interesting and relevant mission and set of aims, I would have thought that if it struggles, we will struggle to find funding. I have left a well-paid full time job in order to have more time to pursue these kinds of interests, deciding that the loss in income is worth it. I keep a fractional post at a university, because I do want to try to achieve change from within, and it gives me that academic credibility – but to remain as a full time employee would have meant that I would have continued to be pressurised by all the social and political factors I have been talking about, and which affects so many of the people that we would like to influence. Staying as a full-timer would have meant not getting the time and space to engage in groups like this – or indeed write emails such as this! So my view is that, much as I would like to earn good money doing this kind of work, it will need to be done largely by people who are prepared to commit their time, energy and active involvement without requiring a financial return. If we are to attract finance, I think we will need to do something far more than write a report…which for most of our prospective audience, will just appear to be yet another theoretical piece of writing which competes with so many others for their attention.
Sorry if I yet again seem to be pouring cold water on things. It is not my intention. But if there is one lesson I have truly learned, it is how hard this process is of extending what we understand by ‘science’, and for many more people in society to understand that we require many different ways of knowing, and gain the knowledge we require that will help us flourish as individuals, groups and as a society. However if we are to do that, we do need to be realistic and informed about the nature of the challenges, as well as suggest how those challenges might be addressed.
Best wishes
Joan
Issues and concerns Chris Thomson wrote 04/11/2016 07:30
Dear All
A lot of issues and concerns have been raised in the last two weeks or so. I’d like to try to address all of them in this email.
Information – clearly we need to archive emails and documents, and make them easily accessible. I believe that Richard will shortly create a website – www.ExtendedScience.org – on which everything will be archived. I also understand that discussion will be possible on the site.
Time – time poverty is one of the scourges of the modern world. People are so busy these days that it is a wonder anything gets done! The fact is that we need a few more “activists” in this project, people with the time and energy to contribute more actively. Perhaps a carefully worded plea to the SMN as a whole?
Resistance – Joan has written convincingly about this. Yes, there will be a lot of resistance, or apathy, to what we are trying to do. All the more reason to make sure we produce a good report that really catches people’s attention. I am in no doubt that people want big change. When nothing better seems to be on offer, then they gravitate towards the likes of Trump. So one useful thing we can do is to show, very clearly, how much science influences their lives, not just with technology, but with values, materialism etc. As Hardin pointed out in his long email, there is a lot of explaining to do, and this takes me to the next point
Our timetable – I think it’s too tight. We do not want a rushed job. By all means, let us set a few deadlines, such as asking Advisers to respond by a certain date, but let us also recognise that this is probably going to take longer than we first imagined. We need to be flexible about this.
Structure – this is a big one! I may be stating the obvious, but our remit document was never intended to be a comprehensive statement. It is simply an opening gambit, designed to stimulate thinking and to show participants roughly where we would like to go. For example, there are a host of reasons why science needs to be extended, but we chose to mention just one – that it cannot accommodate some very important things. And yes, there are many serious consequences flowing from this failure to accommodate. Some of these have been discussed in our emails and documents. But
Hardin is right. We do need to think about the structure of the report. Might I suggest that it looks something like this:
- Why does science need to be extended? E.g. its shortcomings, and their consequences, social, philosophical etc.
- Why does science have these shortcomings in the first place? E.g. its ontology, its epistemology, its power structures etc.
- How others have tried to extend science – people past and present – their influence
- Changes within science that seem to pave the way for a new ontology and epistemology…especially quantum physics/consciousness
- Why the pioneers (Swedenborg etc.) and the new science have not been sufficient to extend science – i.e. what’s still missing and yet to be done?
- Our proposals
Role models – we are fortunate in having some very able shoulders to stand on. Our list already includes Swedenborg, Goethe, Steiner, Walter Russell. I would add Wilber, just on the strength of “The Marriage of Sense and Soul”. I also wonder whether Rodney Collin fits into this. I am not sure about John Heron, because I do not know about his work on science. That said, I fully agree with John’s advocacy of “using all forms of experience” in our explorations. The question arises: how will we use the role models in our report? Do we say that some of them have created a complete methodology, or do we say that each of them has made useful contributions to the new, emerging science? I tend to favour the latter.
Our audience – Hardin suggests a general readership, and I agree with this. I think we are more likely to influence intelligent people outside science than scientists themselves. Given the fact that everyone is a journalist these days, it might not take long for the word to spread. I see this project creating a lot of interest, especially when people realise that science affects their lives in many more ways than they had imagined. Its worldview and its dominance as a knowledge system influence nearly every aspect of our lives, including all our social institutions, such as academia, education, healthcare, politics, economics and so on. Change science, in the ways we envisage, and everything else will eventually change accordingly. Funding – While others may be doing this while supported by salaries or other earnings, I am not. My impression is that other important projects do not start, or continue, without funding. I cannot see why this important project should be any different.
Best wishes
Chris
