Given that we exist within evolving consciousness, how best can we foster self-organizing sanity on an individual basis that can flourish to become greater than any inferior agenda, scheme, or plan?
I posted this question to Arlington Institute’s Quartet group of: John Peterson, Penny Kelly, Gregg Braden, and Kingsley Dennis after watching a recent conversation they had about “Looking Ahead at 2024.” While I’ve not yet had the pleasure of hearing their thoughts on this matter, it was the best question that came to my mind that I’d most love to live the answer to, so it’s now become the subject of this post. Before diving into this topic, I’d love to share a quotation by Teilhard de Chardin:
“Let us keep the discoveries and indisputable measurements of physics. But let us not become bound and fettered to the perspective of final equilibrium that they seem to suggest. A more complete study of the movements of the world oblige us, little by little, to turn it upside down; in other words, to discover that if things hold and hold together, it is only by reason of complexity, from above.”
For a variety of reasons, it can seem these days that a great deal of independence and personal freedoms are being challenged when it comes to choices regarding: food, health, and information sources. When we hear world leaders calling for: war instead of peace; surveillance of individuals rather than transparency of government offices and actions; and enforcement of global health regulations rather than open scientific discussions–we can observe that there appears to be a rift between what most people would choose (peace, safety, and love) and what is being planned (war, destabilization, and fear).
Self-organizing in Chaos Theory
The word “complexity” comes from the Latin complexus, meaning entwined or embraced. Complex systems are those whose elements are difficult to separate, due to interactions between elements. Complexity science aims to better understand and predict behavior of natural systems such as: weather systems, volcanic activity, tectonic plate movements, activity in a city, economic trends, and most all aspects of living organisms.
According to Chaos Theory, self-organization occurs within systems that are far from a stable order. This sounds counter-intuitive at first, so it’s helpful to take a look at where this happens. Self-organization occurs in many physical, chemical, biological, robotic, and cognitive systems.
Examples of self-organization include: crystallization, thermal convection of fluids, chemical oscillation, animal swarming, neural circuits, and black markets.
Examples of self-organization can be found in physical and biological systems in: sand grains assembling into rippled dunes, chemical reactants forming swirling spirals, cells comprising structured tissues, fish joining together into schools, and birds joining together in flocks.
How might we recognize the dawning of self-organizing systems, at these times when human organizations appear to be experiencing great chaos? One excellent place to look is in the sensed presence of adjacent possible realities.
Stuart Kauffman and Cynthia Sue Larson at UC Berkeley, August 15, 2015
Sensing Adjacent Possibles
Stuart Kauffman recognizes the importance of future, uncertain possible states that he calls “adjacent possibles,” which he’d originally utilized in the context of biochemistry when defining the current set of organic molecules or “actual” systems as,
“all the kinds of organic molecules on, within, or in the vicinity of the Earth, say, out to twice the radius of the moon.”
Kauffman then differentiated that the “actual” set was separate from the “adjacent possible,” where “all of those molecular species that are not members of the actual, but are one reaction step away from the actual.” Kauffman expanded the context of where we might find adjacent possibles in the realm of evolving human social, cultural, and economic systems in his book, Humanity in a Creative Universe:
“New goods and production capacities are new Actuals that are enabling constraints that do not cause, but enable new, typically unprestatable Adjacent Possible economic opportunities into which the economy “flows,” creating again new unprestatable new Actuals that enable yet new Adjacent Possibles. Economic evolution is open-ended, creative, beyond entailing law, and radically emergent.”
Social transformations and evolution appear to exhibit both a sensitivity to initial conditions, as well as something that systems-thinkers refer to as “path-dependence”–which together can help us glimpse where we may start to recognize and appreciate formation of Adjacent Possibles. There is an ongoing, iterative process at work here, such that the “strange attractors” of chaos theory that emerge and stabilize even amidst deterministic chaos become new Actuals.
And humans are apparently made to perceive and process remarkably subtle information, as Sean O’Nuallain describes regarding his research with Walter Freeman, appreciating the brain’s fractal architecture. O’Nuallain proposes,
“that the brain functions far from thermodynamic equilibrium. We suggest that the brain moves in an extremely high-dimensional state space in a manner facilitated by the fact that it is permeated with self-similarity, both spatial and temporal. At the spatial level, self-similarity ensures that, in fractal fashion, each neuron changes in step with the cortex as a whole. In temporal fashion, self- similarity results in the power spectrum of much slower theta waves traversing the brain being identical to, if slower than, much faster gamma waves. Several times a second, the brain enters a limit cycle in which it becomes extremely sensitive to incoming stimuli. Therefore, even without mechanisms like stochastic resonance, we humans can detect stimuli as weak as a few photons, or a few parts per billion of scent. The brain is geared to process novelty as it is to process low entropy information.”
Sanity in Alignment
In our participatory cosmos, there can be advantage in asking questions you truly wish to live the answers to, which is how I formulated the question that led to this article:
Given that we exist within evolving consciousness, how best can we foster self-organizing sanity on an individual basis that can flourish to become greater than any inferior agenda, scheme, or plan?
The sanity some of us long for will be felt and seen when we sense Adjacent Possible realities featuring such noble attributes as: honesty; integrity; balance; respect; kindness; wisdom; and love. We will be able to feel these attributes, and we can already reward them with our time, attention, effort and energy. By nourishing these Adjacent Possibles, we are assisting in creating best possible Actual futures for ourselves and future generations to come.
For Best Outcomes, Ask Optimal Questions
I highly recommend adding “How good can it get?” to every activity, thought, meditation, and day in order to invite optimal positivity into the world. When we move forward with our attention and intention focused on my favorite question, “How good can it get?” we invite ourselves to trust and have faith in natural abundance of creation.
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REFERENCES:
Kauffman, Stuart A. Investigations. Oxford University Press, 2000.
Kauffman, Stuart A. Humanity in a creative universe. Oxford University Press, 2016.
Larson, Cynthia Sue. “Evidence of shared aspects of complexity science and quantum phenomena.” Cosmos and History: The Journal of Natural and Social Philosophy 12, no. 2 (2016): 160-171.
O’Nualláin, S., & Doris, T. (2012). Consciousness is Cheap, Even if Symbols are Expensive; Metabolism and the Brain’s Dark Energy. Biosemiotics, 5(2), 193-210.
Peterson, John; Kelly, Penny; Braden, Gregg; and Dennis, Kingsley. “Looking Ahead at 2024.” Quartet. January 20, 2024. https://arlingtoninstitute.org
Westley, Frances, and Katharine McGowan, eds. The evolution of social innovation: building resilience through transitions. Edward Elgar Publishing, 2017.
You can watch the companion video to this blog here:
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Cynthia Sue Larson is the best-selling author of six books, including Quantum Jumps. Cynthia has a degree in physics from UC Berkeley, an MBA degree, a Doctor of Divinity, and a second degree black belt in Kuk Sool Won. Cynthia is the founder of RealityShifters, and first President of the International Mandela Effect Conference. Cynthia hosts “Living the Quantum Dream” on the DreamVisions7 radio network, and has been featured in numerous shows including Gaia, the History Channel, Coast to Coast AM, One World with Deepak Chopra, and BBC. Cynthia reminds us to ask in every situation, “How good can it get?” Subscribe to her free monthly ezine at:
Cynthia Sue Larson is the best-selling author of six books, including Quantum Jumps. Cynthia has a degree in physics from UC Berkeley, an MBA degree, a Doctor of Divinity, and a second degree black belt in Kuk Sool Won. Cynthia is the founder of RealityShifters, and first President of the International Mandela Effect Conference. Cynthia hosts “Living the Quantum Dream” on the DreamVisions7 radio network, and has been featured in numerous shows including Gaia, the History Channel, Coast to Coast AM, One World with Deepak Chopra, and BBC. Cynthia reminds us to ask in every situation, “How good can it get?” Subscribe to her free monthly ezine at:
RealityShifters Blog 
Comments on: "How can we create a sane world amidst chaos?" (2)
A most pivotal subject for many of us, myself included after what I’ve recently contemplated. Thank you so much, Cynthia. How good can it get?
Love the clarity and exposition.