About "Nexialism"
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"The expepeditionary
ship Space Beagle had been sent to find out what exists in the vast
stretches of the universe not yet penetrated by man. Its crew, eminent
scientists from every field of human knowledge, had been specially trained
and equipped to overcome any danger they might encounter. But their
greatest peril was aboard ship -- where advanced technical knowledge,
in the hands of ruthless men, could become an irresistible force for
destruction... Sole
representative of the new Science of Nexialism aboard the spaceship
Beagle, Elliott Grosvenor is responsible for developing new methods
of handling interglactic problems... And for Elliot Grosvenor, there
will be no greater test than to battle the monster of creation that
lives at his very side..."
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The term "nexialism" was coined in 1950 by
A.E. Van Vogt in his science fiction novel, "The Voyage of the Space
Beagle." In that book, Van Vogt created a protagonist, Dr. Elliott
Grosvenor, who was the first graduate of "the Nexial Foundation."
Trained in integrated science and thought, Grosvenor was able to see the connection
between many aspects of a problem that other specialists could not see because
of their narrow training. In this Star Trek like adventure, Grosvenor provides
indispensible skills to save the ship and the future of humanity. Perhaps
truer to life, the book also explores the interpersonal dimensions of scientific
rivalry, fear, and skepticism that results.
Van Vogt's vision of a new "science-of-all-sciences" undoubtedly
stemmed from his fascination with the work of Alfred Korzybski in "general
semantics," which has been carried on since 1938 by the Institute
of General Semantics.
Van Vogt referred to "The General Semantics Institute" in his popular
"Null-A" ("non-Aristotelian") science fiction books. There
was a strong relationship in Van Vogt's mind between general semantics and its
offspring, "nexialism." Nexialism is thinking and acting holistically
and practically; that is, using both general semantics and logical structures
to solve problems and gain understanding. According to Van Vogt: "Nexialism
is the science of joining in an orderly fashion the knowledge of one field of
learning with that of other fields. It provides techniques for speeding up the
processes of absorbing knowledge and of using effectively what has been learned."
In our interpretation at the Nexial Institute, this goes beyond traditional
20th Century science, to integrate science and other modes of understanding.
It is surprising that such a simple concept is so little practised today, nor
are there widely recognized methods for its development. The Nexial Institute
begins a collaborative investigation into integral views of nature, and practices
of integrated understanding. Perhaps it will someday realize Van Vogt's vision
of a Foundation for the education of a new breed of scientists -- the first
true "nexialists."
Relationship to Systems Science
The
work of the Nexial Institute is strongly rooted in systems science and philosophy,
which is generally recognized to have been conceived by Ludwig Von Bertalanffy
in the 1940's, and described in his book "General System Theory" (Von
Bertalanffy, 1968). In 1954 Von Bertalanffy founded the "Society for
General System Research," which is today called the International
Society for the Systems Sciences (ISSS). Systems science is the part of
science that explores whole, natural systems and their internal relationships,
including relationships with their own origin and context. The foundation of
the Nexial Institute rests on system science, and particularly the system definitions
proposed by Robert Rosen, who was one of the later architects
of systems science and once President of the ISSS. Rosen's life's work, which
ended in 1999, may well qualify him as the "Einstein" of biological
science, in that he clearly identified the boundary between simple and complex,
beyond which lie natural and living systems; and he provided a rigid mathematical
framework for comprehending complex and living systems. He carefully and methodically
exposed the exclusion of life from our modern scientific philosophy, which is
the mechanical view; and he mapped a path toward re-integration by developing
"relational biology" from the ideas of Alexander Rashevski
(Rosen, 1999). Rosen's theories provide a strong rational and mathematical
foundation for an integrated scientific view of life. The ISSS continues the
work of Von Bertalanffy and many others who created a branch of science capable
of considering anticipatory and participatory systems. The systems sciences
is thus the natural home for the integration we seek.
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Aristotle
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Aristotelian or non-Aristotelian?
General semantics identifies itself as being "non-Aristotelian"
in that it seeks to go beyond the theory of axioms and thus the roots
of Western scientific logic. However, Aristotle also spoke of four natural
causes: material, efficient, formal and final. Western science, which
claims to be "Aristotelian" has focused primarily on Aristotle's
material cause, has given little consideration to efficient and formal
cause, and has excluded his final cause altogether. There is increasing
consideration of efficient and formal cause in certain fields of science,
such as 2nd-order cybernetics and relational biology, but it is not widespread.
Robert Rosen introduced a rigorous theory in which final cause can be
considered without the epistemological difficulties of past vitalistic
notions; however Rosen's view is very poorly understood and not widely
used. Most of science has thus, until very recently, largely ignored systems
that are closed to their own causation (self-generating), design (self-defining)
and especially purpose (self-determining). Such non-mechanistic systems
may not be said to be Aristotelian in the traditional sense. Yet we might
also say that Aristotle's four causes transcend the limitations on which
modern "Aristotelian" science is based. Aristotle himself gave
strong deference to Platonic "first principles" and Socratic
metaphysics, part of which his view of causes was intended to capture.
This leads to a view of reality that is clearly larger than the logical
structures of mechanistic science which are thus only part of what Aristotle
believed. Aristotle described metaphysics as "... the most general
or abstract features of reality and the principles that have universal
validity. ... metaphysics studies whatever must be true of all existent
things just insofar as they exist, [and] it studies the general conditions
which any existing thing must satisfy (O'Connor and Robertson, 1999).
Hence we can only conclude that poor Aristotle has been saddled with
a false identity, and Aristotle's complete views must be considered "non-Aristotelian."
Nevertheless, such are the terms we have adopted over the years.
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Worldviews
We each have a philosophical worldview at the root of our thoughts, and all
aspects of human life are affected by it. A worldview is the lens through which
we view reality. Humanity is currently polarized by two general world views;
the archtypically eastern view of reality as a unified flow of creative happenings;
and the archtypically western view of reality as separate things in energetic
motion. The Nexial Institute seeks integration across this dichotomy to
achieve a fuller understanding of nature and our place in it.
Nexial's investigations into life deal with the deepest questions about the
origin of life and its intrinsic nature. Merely asking this question is a significant
step in science, because it implies that life itself is something and
thus something that can have causal effects of its own. Most modern treatments
of the definition of life presume that it is essentially non-existent, except
as a particular pattern of behaviors or organization of non-living parts. The
traditional definition therefore defines what life does instead of what
it is. "Objective" science in general attempts to construct
a view of reality from parts to wholes, and never from wholes to parts. We thus
have a worldview that life isn't something of itself. But that leaves the poets,
lovers, artists, musicians, spiritualists, humanists, and just common people
out of the picture, because outside of intellectual concepts, most of us are
more concerned with living than with an objective view of life. If the
definition of life is based on behavior alone, then what is it we experience
as living? What is it we feel as love? WILL therefore includes both the observation
of life and the experience of life in an attempt to understand it and to represent
it, or its effects, better in science. The effort is both scientific and experiential;
seeking a common metaphysical view for both. These investigations were a major
part of the development of the Nexial Institute. Many links to this work are
on the Nexial.org web site. While Nexial will hopefully pursue many related
approaches and relevant research topics, these initial studies have outlined
a direction of study that we hope will be developed further by others following
similar paths.
The Path of Understanding
While science explores what can be "known" from study of one's external
reality, "understanding" is harder to define, involving the part of
human experience that is both cognitive and experiential. Exploration of that
inner reality -- the essence of being -- also requires careful methods and painstaking
work, but of a very different kind. There are many organizations centered on
the goal of inner awareness and methods for discovering it, and there are organizations
that attempt to represent the field (for example, The
Institute of Noetic Science). The Nexial Institute is similarly involved
in understanding the principles of mind and noetics from experiential perspectives.
In a complete view of reality, exploration of both internal experiential
reality, and external observational reality must be connected. This is a
basic principle on which the Institute is founded.
The Nexial Institute does not promote any particular religious belief or practise.
The principles and teachings of modern contemplative and medatative practices,
however, are seen as methods for discovering deep philosophical and psychological
truths that may also be represented in the ancient spiritual writings going
back to the Vedas and Upanishads. There is an emerging contemporary psychology
that attempts to integrate western Christian views with the "perennial
philosophy" discussed, for example, by Alan Watts, Peter Russel, Kenneth
Wilber, Depak Chopra, and modern "gurus" such as Sai Baba, Krishnamurti,
Ram Das, and many others. Nexial recognizes these veiws and practices as representing
a foundational thought system with considerable relevance to questions of life,
consciousness, mind, and society. Many other related practices and teachings
are also of interest.
The Social Context
The Nexial Institute publishes and discusses leading edge work from new perspectives
in the systems and noetic sciences at annual meetings of the ISSS. It addresses
questions such as: What does all life have in common? What fundamental principles
are involved in the origin of life? Why is life different from non-life? Is
life a cause or an effect? Is evolution passive or active? Is the universe alive?
Do we determine our future? Is life meaningful? Although much has been said
on these questions, Nexial's goal is to develop integral views that organize
and establish rigorous foundations for our answers. Because society depends
heavily on the answers to these questions, Nexial attempts to be socially relevant
and culturally creative, relating systems philosophy and science to current
issues in futureism and conflict resolution. The questions asked at Nexial Institute
take us to the deepest roots of science and noetics.
The most useful answers are necessarily those that lead to a more comprehensive
understanding and thereby benefit individual, social, and systemic well-being.
The answers to modern day social, political, and humanistic problems will not
come wholly from one perspective, but from an understanding that is informed
by a combination of the primary ways of "knowing." These include scientific,
practical, philosophical, spiritual, introspective, and artistic methods. Broadly,
these combine observational and experiential knowledge. Nexial's philosophy
of integrated understanding is central to pursuing this goal, and thus a curriculum
for integrated thinking and understanding is being developed. As the name implies,
the curriculum inherits the vision of a "nexus" of views and methods,
or the practise of seeing a problem from a fully integrated perspective.
We would gain little through this effort if we could not apply it for the betterment
of our condition. Nexial science, philosophy, and practise converge in service
to mankind and the whole of nature. Service that helps to heal the person, the
society, our natural surroundings and our experience, is service to both humanity
and creation (however one perceives that) as an undivided whole. Through the
practise of integrated understanding, or "nexialism," unique
and wholistic solutions to problems can be found and applied.
References:
Kineman, 1991
Kineman, 1997
O'Connor, J.J. and E. F. Robertson. 1999. The MacTutor History of Mathematics
archive. School of Mathematics and Statistics University of St Andrews, Scotland.
http://www-history.mcs.st-andrews.ac.uk/history/Mathematicians/Aristotle.html
Rosen, R. 1999. Life Itself. New York: Columbia University Press. 285p.
Schneider and Boston, 1991
Von Bertalanffy, L. 1968. General System Theory. New York: George Braziller,
Inc. 295p.