Yesterday was the first Sunday of Advent signifying our preparation for the symbolic “re-birth” of the founder of our Catholic faith – Jesus Christ. My family was honoured to be given the privilege to light the first candle to signify Jesus’ light coming into this world. And it was yesterday that the significance of my faith took on a (W)Holy New Integrative Light, all coming on the heals of 1) my entire family being together in Church (rare as of late), 2) the most touching sermon by Father Emmanuel on the uncertainty of the timing of our death, and 3) a testimony by a visiting wise lady on the power and centrality of the Blessed Mother and the Rosary in strengthening our faith.
If you have been following my posts recently, you would have noticed that I have been going through an existential crisis in my attempt to make sense of all the none-sense that is happening around us locally, regionally and internationally. And over the past month, I have discovered so much along the way that this knowledge has provided the crucible for a more conscious, informed and transformative enlightenment.
A major issue of my faith has been the centrality of the CROSS as the defining symbol of salvation of our individual and collective souls. If Jesus’ works and teachings were about eternal life and helping to create heaven and earth, why was the cross – the means of his execution – our representation of his message in our churches, homes and around our necks? What if Jesus had been executed in an electric chair or was hung from a rope or decapitated, would the electric chair, rope or knife have been the artifacts that would have been the central image of our faith?
And another major issue that haunted me was the discovery of the Gnostic Gospels, inclusive of the “secret sayings” of Jesus in the Gospel of Thomas! Why were there only Four Gospels in our tradition, while so many interpretations of Jesus’ work and teachings flourished? Why were they hidden? Were the Patriarchal traditions of the Church and the suppression of the feminine values of the Great Mother Archetype contributory? Did the Fathers of the Church try to marry the thesis of a dominating paternalistic exoteric (outward) faith with the antithesis of a partnering matrifocal esoteric (inward) hope in order to steward a synthetic integral expression of regenerating and everlasting LOVE?
Could a unifying integral theory of understanding explain it all? And is the Rosary, being a collection of objects arranged in a closed circle, the quintessential symbol of unity, wholeness, totality and oneness, and is the Rosary the key to unlocking a transformative interpretation of the crux of the vexing CROSS issue mentioned earlier? This then begs the question! Is the Holy Grail of understanding and discernment of our faith, not the Chalice but the Rosary? Is the Rosary the figurative Rosetta Stone that now affords us the opportunity to decipher the mysteries of our faith?
And then the Integral Worlds Theory exploded like an atomic bomb and totally enlightened my mind’s eye!!! (For those of you who are wondering what is happening, I am back on the psychedelic steroids again as my knees and feet are flaring up again!)
And the orgasms of epiphanies that connects all dots have been coming fast and furious since yesterday. As a result, I have been moved to articulate these connections via illustrations in this blog article!
This is going to be a world-wind tour into the realms of self, unconscious, archetypes, shadows, emotions, computational logic of the brain wiring, quantum and the cosmos, and causality.
He has catalyzed in me the insatiable thirst for knowledge and wisdom that surpasses all understanding.
I dedicate this article to him as without his patience and guidance over the past year, I would not have been able to connect the dots in the first place!
So here goes!!!
Table of Contents
♦ Integral Worlds Approach Overview
“A revolutionary paradigm-shifting approach, Integral Worlds draws on the particularity of each and every person, organisation, community and/or society – aiming to enhance a sense of calling, belonging and rootedness (local identity) with a view to catalyse a meaningful, wholesome contribution to humanity (global integrity).
Integral Worlds is modeled on life itself and aspires to contribute to healing today’s fragmented, conflictual and, often, destructive individual, organisational, communal and societal ways of being. It holds a vital key to the necessary and immanent shift of global consciousness towards a more healthy and holistic, peaceful and participatory, conscious and co-creative approach to development, in tune with the whole of creation.
Integral Worlds initiates processes of healing and holistic realignment by activating all the complementary parts of any human system, such as nature and community; culture and consciousness; science, systems and technology; as well as enterprise, economics and politics. Starting and continuous focal point of any transformation process within an Integral Worlds perspective is the inner core of the individual or collective entity, its deepest value base, spiritual and moral source.
The underlying circular design of our central model acknowledges that since time immemorial the circular shape has been a symbol for the totality. It also symbolises the cycle of life that each living system undergoes. In Integral Worlds, the outer globe marks a worldly, holistic perspective. Embedded in the outer global circle is the local context. At the very centre of such a globally embedded context is, what we call, the inner core. It is here, at the core of an individual, organisation, community, or society, that the impulse for transformation or development is initiated – be it through a perceived imbalance of the overall system, that becomes your objective concern, be it through a particular, subjective evolutionary calling. This inner personal core and the outer, global circle are then connected through the ‘4Rs’ of Integral Worlds: Realities (worldviews), Realms (Knowledge Fields), Rounds (different levels, from self to world) and Rhythms (transformative rhythms, applied to all of them).”
“With every human system being in continuous evolution, so does Integral Worlds incorporate an inbuilt transformational rhythm, which makes the entire approach dynamic. It is a rhythm that we could equally trace back to natural and cultural systems and their respective evolution. We call this rhythm the GENE (an acronym for Grounding, Emerging, Navigating, Effecting), representing a fourfold spiralling force, activating the entire Integral Worlds model.
The GENE rhythm is embedded in the diverse reality views and knowledge realms of the Integral Worlds, bringing them all together in transformative interaction. While we see the GENE as a spiralling, iterative, ever-unfolding force, we nevertheless start most of our transformational processes in the South, thereby beginning with a conscious grounding in a given context and issue, before we then engage in its transformation.”
Releasing GENE-ius: The transformative Rhythm of the Integral Worlds Approach
♦ Going Deeper into the Ego, Conscious, Individual and Collective Unconscious – Transforming a Static 2D representation into a Transformative Dynamic 3D Integral Worldview
Physics of Life Reviews, Volume 13, June 2015, Pages 1–27
Stefan Koelsch, Arthur M. Jacobs,Winfried Menninghaus, Katja Liebal, Gisela Klann-Delius, Christian von Scheve, Gunter Gebauer
Highlights
• We suggest four affect systems that generate different classes of affects.
• Activity in the affect systems has effects on effector systems.
• Effector systems include motor, peripheral arousal, attention, and memory systems.
• Information from affect and effector systems is synthesized into an emotion percept.
• Emotion percepts may be reconfigured into language.
• Cognitive appraisal can influence activity of affect and effector systems.
Abstract
Despite an explosion of research in the affective sciences during the last few decades, interdisciplinary theories of human emotions are lacking. Here we present a neurobiological theory of emotions that includes emotions which are uniquely human (such as complex moral emotions), considers the role of language for emotions, advances the understanding of neural correlates of attachment-related emotions, and integrates emotion theories from different disciplines. We propose that four classes of emotions originate from four neuroanatomically distinct cerebral systems. These emotional core systems constitute a quartet of affect systems: the brainstem-, diencephalon-, hippocampus-, and orbitofrontal-centred affect systems. The affect systems were increasingly differentiated during the course of evolution, and each of these systems generates a specific class of affects (e.g., ascending activation, pain/pleasure, attachment-related affects, and moral affects). The affect systems interact with each other, and activity of the affect systems has effects on – and interacts with – biological systems denoted here as emotional effector systems. These effector systems include motor systems (which produce actions, action tendencies, and motoric expression of emotion), peripheral physiological arousal, as well as attentional and memory systems. Activity of affect systems and effector systems is synthesized into an emotion percept (pre-verbal subjective feeling), which can be transformed (or reconfigured) into a symbolic code such as language. Moreover, conscious cognitive appraisal (involving rational thought, logic, and usually language) can regulate, modulate, and partly initiate, activity of affect systems and effector systems. Our emotion theory integrates psychological, neurobiological, sociological, anthropological, and psycholinguistic perspectives on emotions in an interdisciplinary manner, aiming to advance the understanding of human emotions and their neural correlates.
♦ A Possible Evolution-Development Connection of Integral Worlds Theory to a Unified Wiring and Computational Logic of the Brain?
Humans and animals may encounter numerous events, objects, scenes, foods and countless social interactions in a lifetime. This means that the brain is constructed by evolution to deal with uncertainties and various possibilities. What is the architectural abstraction of intelligence that enables the brain to discover various possible patterns and knowledge about complex, evolving worlds? Here, I discuss the Theory of Connectivity–a “power-of-two” based, operational principle that can serve as a unified wiring and computational logic for organizing and constructing cell assemblies into the microcircuit-level building block, termed as functional connectivity motif (FCM). Defined by the power-of-two based equation, N = 2i−1, each FCM consists of the principal projection neuron cliques (N), ranging from those specific cliques receiving specific information inputs (i) to those general and sub-general cliques receiving various combinatorial convergent inputs. As the evolutionarily conserved logic, its validation requires experimental demonstrations of the following three major properties: (1) Anatomical prevalence—FCMs are prevalent across neural circuits, regardless of gross anatomical shapes; (2) Species conservancy—FCMs are conserved across different animal species; and (3) Cognitive universality—FCMs serve as a universal computational logic at the cell assembly level for processing a variety of cognitive experiences and flexible behaviors. More importantly, this Theory of Connectivity further predicts that the specific-to-general combinatorial connectivity pattern within FCMs should be preconfigured by evolution, and emerge innately from development as the brain’s computational primitives. This proposed design-principle can also explain the general purpose of the layered cortex and serves as its core computational algorithm.
Kun Xie, Grace E. Fox, Jun Liu, Cheng Lyu, Jason C. Lee, Hui Kuang, Stephanie Jacobs, Meng Li, Tianming Liu, Sen Song and Joe Z. Tsien
Abstract
There is considerable scientific interest in understanding how cell assemblies—the long-presumed computational motif—are organized so that the brain can generate intelligent cognition and flexible behavior. The Theory of Connectivity proposes that the origin of intelligence is rooted in a power-of-two-based permutation logic (N = 2i–1), producing specific-to-general cell-assembly architecture capable of generating specific perceptions and memories, as well as generalized knowledge and flexible actions. We show that this power-of-two-based permutation logic is widely used in cortical and subcortical circuits across animal species and is conserved for the processing of a variety of cognitive modalities including appetitive, emotional and social information. However, modulatory neurons, such as dopaminergic (DA) neurons, use a simpler logic despite their distinct subtypes. Interestingly, this specific-to-general permutation logic remained largely intact although NMDA receptors—the synaptic switch for learning and memory—were deleted throughout adulthood, suggesting that the logic is developmentally pre-configured. Moreover, this computational logic is implemented in the cortex via combining a random-connectivity strategy in superficial layers 2/3 with nonrandom organizations in deep layers 5/6. This randomness of layers 2/3 cliques—which preferentially encode specific and low-combinatorial features and project inter-cortically—is ideal for maximizing cross-modality novel pattern-extraction, pattern-discrimination and pattern-categorization using sparse code, consequently explaining why it requires hippocampal offline-consolidation. In contrast, the nonrandomness in layers 5/6—which consists of few specific cliques but a higher portion of more general cliques projecting mostly to subcortical systems—is ideal for feedback-control of motivation, emotion, consciousness and behaviors. These observations suggest that the brain’s basic computational algorithm is indeed organized by the power-of-two-based permutation logic. This simple mathematical logic can account for brain computation across the entire evolutionary spectrum, ranging from the simplest neural networks to the most complex.
♦ Deeper and much more wider still – to the quantum and the cosmos and back to the circle of life again
The Life-Ground of Value: A concept introduced by McMurtry (1998)which signifies the totality of conditions, natural and/or social, upon which any living thing or collection of living things depends for its existence.
The Life-Ground: the conditions of all life and substantive value.
Most simply expressed, all the conditions required to take your next breath. Axiologically understood, all the life support systems required for human life to reproduce or develop. The life-ground is to be distinguished from the concept of “the life-world” which refers to background beliefs.
The universal basis of all value, the maximal development of the capabilities of living things relative to their degree of organic and social complexity.
The totality of conditions presupposed by the life of individual living things; the basis of there being value and beings that can value.
While religions have featured the animating breath of life, they have attributed it to a transcendental creator so as to overlook its source in the creation itself–a kind of idolatry of man-made ideas.
Interesting connections! Thank you 🙂