INTEGRAL WORLD MAILING LIST http://www.integralworld.net Newsletter Nr. 679 Amsterdam, September 25st, 2017 WHY KEN WILBER DOESN'T GET THE COSMIC ENERGY ECONOMY - FRANK VISSER On many occasions, Wilber has questioned the validity of the scientific truism that the universe is using up its energies, mostly by burning up its stars, through which the generated heat gets dispersed into the icy-cold expanse of space. This unavoidable increase of entropy (disorder) has been codified in what is known as the Second Law of Thermodynamics. In his words: "the universe is not running down, it is running up". It isn't always clear if Wilber wants to argue for an upward-going process next to the cosmic entropic process, which under some circumstances can generate life (and mind) in a universe that is heading for heat death, or that he presents this upward going process as the fundamental force in nature, a fifth force of complexity, next to the four more familiar forces. And sometimes, in his more careless moments, it seems that he generalizes the undeniable increase of complexity in biological evolution to the cosmos at large, as if Eros-in-the-Kosmos reflects THE cosmic law Integral Theory has disclosed to us. Read more: http://www.integralworld.net/visser108.html STATES OF CONSCIOUSNESS AND THE STRUCTURE OF THE KOSMOS - JOE CORBETT What are mental states, not just descriptively but ontologically? Where do they come from, and what are we experiencing when we have mystical, visionary, or other spiritual experiences? Where do dreams come from, not mechanistically but ontologically speaking? These are some of the questions I seek to answer here. But first, a brief review of the fundamental structure of the universe as confirmed by the most advanced theoretical physics of today will be necessary, as this structure may serve as the template for all the mental states we experience. Empty space, including the vast emptiness that makes up atomic structures, is filled with an immense sea of boiling energy called the quantum vacuum, a foamy froth of virtual particles that pop in and out of existence so briefly we cannot normally detect them. This flickering, shimmering sea of energy is also postulated to be the dark energy that is causing the accelerated expansion of the universe. Read more: http://www.integralworld.net/corbett48.html