Collective Sentience

by George Pór -

An exploration into the next stage of human consciousness:

This contribution to the “Mindfulness and Compassion” conference is focused on where the moral compass of integral mindfulness points.

Being integrally mindful is about taking mindfulness off the meditation cushion and infusing all dimensions of our life with it; not only the life of you and me but also of collective entities, such as organizations, networks, nations.

If wisdom is “a discerning mental factor that clearly comprehends the causes, conditions, effects and implications of experiential process, content, behavior…” as Ron Purser suggests (Purser, 2014) then cultivating it at collective scales is a vital condition to our species’ evolution to the next level of consciousness.

That is a requisite for passing our evolutionary test to a planetary society guided by collective wisdom.

Only then we will be capable to meet our intertwining global crises caused by the pathological aspect of the previous stages of consciousness and their corresponding social structures.

Collective sentience builds on the Buddhist concept of sentience (characterized by matter, sensation, perception, mental formations and consciousness) and turns it into an attribute of groups and collective entities at any scale.

Humanity will become sentient when it develops collective sensing and meaning-making organs, collective intelligence and consciousness, which make it capable to care for the well-being and evolution of the species itself, its habitat, both the whole each part of it.

All for the Whole, the Whole for all.

blogofcollectiveintelligence.com

The New WE Culture

by George Pór -

What is the “new“ in a new we-culture?

This is my reply to the request from Evolve magazine to address the question of “What is the ‘new’ in a new we-culture?” in 200 words, which will be published in their next issue.

It is Springtime and seeds are breaking through solid soil; sprouts stretching towards the Sun. With the same elemental force (and fragility), individual and collective human consciousness is stretching towards ever-new heights. 

Shared Passion

In the tip of the current wave are self-organizing associations of autonomous agents, connected by a shared passion to evolve consciousness and culture as themselves.

When the spiral of the We line of development is turning from the ego-centric to the world-centric stage as is the case for many “We-space” groups, then dots are connecting, systemic interdependences are becoming visible and lives more meaningful. 

Evolution is shifting from happening to us to happening through us.

In this new culture we exercise our response-ability to the community that is not an antithesis of our individual autonomy but a garden in which it can truly blossom. 

Collective Sentience

Thanks to the Internet, the new we-culture can develop collective sensing and meaning making organs.

Realizing that possibility is our next step in the long march towards the awakening of humankind’s collective sentience: the capacity of the We (at any scale) to care for the well-being and evolution of the whole and all of its parts, as well as its habitat, the larger encompassing whole.

blogofcollectiveintelligence.com