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Newsletter Nr. 617
Amsterdam, July 20th, 2016


BIG HISTORY AND INTEGRAL THEORY - Bill Bryson Meets Ken Wilber - FRANK VISSER

I recently (July 2016) presented the paper "Big History and Integral Theory: Bill Bryson Meets Ken Wilber" at the third International Big History Conference at the University of Amsterdam. Earlier essays on these two fields of integrative knowledge can be found here: Integral Theory and the Big History Approach (May 2013) and Integral Theory and Cosmic Evolution (December 2014). Together they form my attempt at comparing and contrasting these two comprehensive—but hardly overlapping—approaches to human knowledge.

It was a marvelous experience to meet with several people in the field of Big History (David Christian, Fred Spier and others) in an informal setting. Big History is about knowledge, but also about the love for knowledge and for teaching this knowledge to students and in high school. This love was palpable in many of the discussions I had. A good example can be found in the Bill Gates-sponsored educational website "Big History Project". Due to time constraints, only half of this paper could be presented. This essay contains the full text.

Read more:
http://www.integralworld.net/visser96.html


WHAT IS SPIRIT? - Transcendent Loving Creator–Intelligible Natural Order, Nondual Meditative Emptiness - All of Them? - OLIVER GRIEBEL

Ken Wilber has tried to integrate this three - traditional, modern and postmodern - views of Spirit in 2008 with his "1-2-3 of God", where he conjugates God/Spirit in all the three persons of singular: God as I (nonduality), God as Thou (creator), and God as It (natural order). It's controversial whether or not Wilber nonetheless keeps on granting a primacy to nonduality. As a matter of fact, in “Integral Semanics”, he writes: "The ultimate Nondual is not different from any object." In this pantheism, I just can't find a real relationship, a more than illusionary duality or plurality between God/Spirit and beings, needed for a creator and natural order view of spirit.

Read more:
http://www.integralworld.net/griebel1.html

INTEGRAL TRUMP, OR, THE CENTER CANNOT HOLD - MARTY KELLER

We are progressing deeper into a most dangerous period of human history, a period whose beginnings we can trace to the years between the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989 and the dissolution of the Soviet Communist Party in 1991.  Elements of human social, cultural, and political economic development—dynamics of the Trimemetic War—are splintering and diverging in ways too numerous, subtle, and unprecedented to properly keep track of.

Read more:
http://www.integralworld.net/keller6.html