January 4 – 22, 2010
One, two and three week options
Elisabet Sahtouris, Arthur Zajonc, Mary Midgley, Bernadette Brady, Ravi Ravindra
This course is open for bookings.
Already booked on the course? Click here for course resources
Masters credits available subject to University approval.
One of the most significant discoveries of modern science is the discovery of its own limitations. This has led many of the greatest scientists to reflect on how spiritual search and the search for meaning can relate to scientific research. This course tackles these fundamental questions from a variety of perspectives – evolution, complexity and biology, quantum physics and philosophy of science. What can we learn from our evolutionary history that will help us address the planetary crisis we currently face?
This course is intended for: all those who want to gain a trans-disciplinary introduction to the nature of the mind: scientists, philosophers, students, educators and other interested individuals. Specialist scientific knowledge is not required to take this course, but a willingness to engage with challenging concepts is.
Never before has there been such a great need or such a great opportunity for a complete overhaul of how we humans live on Planet Earth! No other time in human history has brought together the tremendous confluence of crises we presently face: the terrifyingly rapid onset of a Hot Age, a massive energy crisis, a crashing financial world, overpopulation, ecosystem destruction, unprecedented natural disasters, terrorist and nuclear threats, severe water shortages, rapidly increasing elder populations and epidemics modern medicine cannot control. We feel justifiably overwhelmed, fearful and helpless, yet solutions to all these crises can be found in the nearly five billion years of Nature’s experience in evolving amazingly successful complex living systems despite or perhaps even because of countless crises that drove evolutionary creativity. In this course, we will explore this past planetary history to gain confidence in our own roles as consciously co-creative agents evolving our own future to its next level of Earth-harmonious and spiritually aware complexity. The course will include workshop exercises and visits to Transition Town Totnes projects.
(Monday/Tuesday)
By examining occasions of insight in science, we will add to the well-known inductive and deductive methods what we might call the contemplative dimension of scientific discovery. Whether working in conventional science, Goethean science, or even aspiring to scientific insights into spiritual matters, the pattern is the same. We will work with specific cases of insight in modern physics and Goethean phenemenology, but also with meditative exercises.
(Wednesday – Friday)
We cannot think realistically about ourselves as human beings without understanding how we fit into the world around us. Since the Enlightenment, much of Western thought has stressed the dignified separateness of our species from everything around it (‘humanism’). Thinkers have tended to treat the rest of the natural world as a mere lifeless heap of resources, material for human purposes. At first this thinking rested on the contrast between (valueless) Matter and valuable Spirit. But even when this religious approach, which supplied the idea of a distinct spiritual reality, declined, the separation of human minds and interests from the natural world was still largely taken for granted – even though the sciences that study that world were still highly honoured.
Against this background, the status of the enquiring Mind itself became puzzling, and for a long time devout materialists avoided all mention of subjectivity. Recently, however, scientific people have rediscovered this topic as the ‘Problem of Consciousness’ and handed it to the neuroscientists, who, however, seem unlikely to resolve it.
The central trouble here is Fragmentation – first the splitting of ourselves from the rest of nature, then the splitting of nature itself into a set of discrete subjects handled by different disciplines. The concept of Gaia offers some necessary techniques for reunifying both these important assets.
(Wednesday – Friday)
From Plato to the Big Bang: A Kaleidoscope of Cosmologies
Our ideas on how the world began underpin our life style and our expectations of what is possible and what is not possible in this world. Indeed ultimately our belief in a particular cosmology creates our own personal sense of responsibility to our world.
Are we in or are we out? – Living within a system rather than standing outside it
The predominate world view is to see humanity standing outside the living system, assuming a transcendent position which allows a level of disregard for nature or seeing it as something to be used rather than something of which we are apart. However, from the writings of Heraclitus (535 – 475 B.C.E.) through to the philosophy of Alfred Whitehead (1861-1947) and Bruno Latour (1947 – ) there are alternative philosophies that explore the implications of living in an exclusively immanent world.
This final week will bring the focus on the actual process of engaging in science as well as in spiritual search rather than the usual emphasis on one or the other of the latest scientific theories or findings and then trying to relate it to the spiritual search.
There are two fundamental requirements of human beings: knowledge and meaning. Scientific research is concerned with acquiring knowledge, whereas spiritual search, although hardly against knowledge, is much more concerned with finding a meaningful relationship with all the levels of reality.
The greatest discovery of modern science is the discovery of its own limitations, and an increasing appreciation of the fact that what we know depends not only on what is out there but also on who we are and how we see. Our knowledge cannot be separated completely from the nature of our being and the quality of our attention. Corresponding to many levels of being within ourselves, from the totally determined to the truly free, there are many levels of knowledge.
The approach taken in this part of the course is not “philosophical” or “historical” or “scientific”; it is above all “spiritual”—with all the attendant vagueness and need for clarification—in which spirit is given priority. An attitude of spiritual humility is not wholly alien to all scientists; for some of the greatest among them, science itself has been a spiritual path. Echoing the insight of all the great spiritual sages of the world, Einstein wrote, “The true value of a human being is determined primarily by the measure and the sense in which he has attained liberation from the self.”
Dr. Elisabet Sahtouris is an internationally known evolution biologist, futurist, author and professor, teaching sustainable business and globalisation as a natural evolutionary process and organizing international symposia on the foundations of science. With a post-doc at the American Museum of Natural History, she taught at MIT and the University of Massachusetts, contributed to the NOVA-Horizon TV series, is a fellow of the World Business Academy and a member of the World Wisdom Council. Her venues include The World Bank, Boeing, Siemens, Hewlett-Packard, Tokyo Dome Stadium, Australian National Govt, Sao Paulo’s leading business schools, State of the World Forums (NY & San Francisco) and the World Parliament of Religion. Her books include EarthDance: Living Systems in Evolution and her websites are www.sahtouris.com and www.ratical.org/lifeweb
Mary Midgley is a professional philosopher whose special interests are in the relations of humans to the rest of nature (particularly in the status of animals) in the sources of morality, and in the relation between science and religion (particularly in cases where science becomes a religion). Recently she has concentrated on the concept of Gaia, which brings all these concerns together. She was formerly Senior Lecturer in Philosophy at the University of Newcastle on Tyne, UK, and has written many books, of which the most recent are Science and Poetry, The Myths We Live By and a memoir, The Owl of Minerva, all published by Routledge. She still lives in Newcastle and has three sons.
Arthur Zajonc is professor of physics at Amherst College, where he has taught since 1978. His research has included studies in electron-atom physics, quantum optics, the experimental foundations of quantum physics, and the relationship between science, the humanities and the contemplative traditions. He has written extensively on Goethe’s science work, and is author of Catching the Light, co-author of The Quantum Challenge (Jones & Bartlettt), and co-editor of Goethe’s Way of Science (SUNY Press). In 1997 he served as scientific coordinator for the Mind and Life dialogue published as The New Physics and Cosmology: Dialogues with the Dalai Lama (Oxford UP). He again organised the 2002 dialogue with the Dalai Lama, “The Nature of Matter, the Nature of Life,” and acted as moderator at MIT for the “Investigating the Mind” Mind and Life dialogue in 2003. The proceedings of the Mind and Life-MIT meeting were published under the title The Dalai Lama at MIT (Harvard UP) which he co-edited. Most recently he is author of the books, Meditation as Contemplative Inquiry: When Knowing Becomes Love (Lindisfarne Press) on contemplative pedagogy.
Bernadette Brady has worked as a professional astrologer since 1980 and, in this field, is also an internationally-recognized software designer, author, and lecturer. She has been honoured with major astrological awards in the UK, as well as the USA and Australia. She holds a Masters degree in Cultural Astronomy and Astrology BSU, UK. Her MA dissertation focused on the mapping of chaos theory and complexity science to astrology and developed into the book Astrology: A place in chaos (Wessex astrologer, 2006). In 2008 she became a tutor at Lampeter University, Wales in the MA in Cultural Astronomy and Astrology and is currently reading for her doctorate at Bath Spa University in determinism (fate) in western astrology.
Ravi Ravindra received his early education in India before moving to Canada. He has been a Member of the Institute of Advanced Study in Princeton, and a Fellow of the Indian Institute of Advanced Study in Shimla. At present Dr. Ravindra is Professor Emeritus at Dalhousie University, Halifax, Canada, where he was Professor and Chair of Comparative Religion and Adjunct Professor of Physics. In addition to a profound study of the great traditions, Ravi Ravindra has had a longstanding and serious engagement with spiritual search. He has been nourished by his close association with Krishnamurti, with Zen and with the Gurdjieff Work. Books by Ravi Ravindra include:
Heart Without Measure: Gurdjieff Work With Madame de Salzmann
Krishnamurti: Two Birds on One Tree
The Gospel of John in the Light of Indian Mysticism
Science and the Sacred: Eternal Wisdom in a Changing World
Centered Self without Being Self-Centered: Remembering Krishnamurti
Pilgrim Without Boundaries
The Spiritual Roots of Yoga: Royal Path to Freedom
The Wisdom of Patañjali’s Yoga Sutras
For businesses: One week £1,200, Two weeks £1,800, Three weeks £2,200
For individuals, NGOs, Educational & Public Sector Organisations: One week £700, Two weeks £1,300, Three weeks £1,800
All course fees include accommodation, food, field trips and all teaching sessions.
Click here to access our on-line booking system
click here to find out how to book by fax or mail
Discounts
10% for residents of South West England
20% with five or more people coming from the same organisation on the same course
(only one discount applicable per booking)
For further information about Schumacher College please see About the College
To provisionally reserve a place for 5 days, email us your contact details and the name of the course admin@schumachercollege.org.uk
We will hold the place for five working days for reservations – three weeks before a course or earlier. After five days we will automatically offer your place to someone else if we have not received your application.
