Barbara Marx Hubbard's Page

Hi Barbara,

Happy New Year! I hear from Melanie that things went really well with
your session at The Global Summit - great to hear!

And then, yesterday, I randomly met your step daughter - Lisa - at a
memorial in Sydney! What a wonderful world :-)

Hope everything is going really well with you.

Donnie Maclurcan

I will be having lunch at Patricia and Norman's. I look forward to re-connecting and in-forming what is wanting to emerge!

Welcome Dear Barbara, we are honored with your presence here. Please shout if there is anything that I / we can help with. This is a wonderful community with extremely warm and friendly future builders all gathered for a common goal, a better place for you and me.

Hello Barbara!
I find considerable resonance with your ideas on 'emergence'. In the late 1940s and 1950s I spent many evenings debating with an aunt who was an authority on the Catholic Church and its dogma and doctrine, in an effort to convince her that unless and until religion embraced all of empirical science it was unreasonable to expect scientists to embrace religion. Personally, I found in physics, chemistry, astronomy and anthropology the clear vision (as opposed to the view through a glass, darkly) that was promised in the New Testament. We listened to each other for a year or three and called it a draw, but some time later I received a parcel containing a book. Inscribed on the fly-leaf was "Your book I think, James, written by someone else! - with love, Daphne" It was de Chardin's 'Phenomenon of Man'. It was not every scientist or theologian's cup of tea but it covered a lot of my points.

I found Francis Fukuyama's "End of History" in 1989 absurd, but I do see the process of globalisation as the preparation for the emergence of humanity as an entity capable of managing the next stage of the future of this planet and its living occupants. The competitive stage has exposed the severe limitations of our scientific and religious understanding to date and allowed cross-fertilisation in civilizations which has, as in genetics, proved advantageous. We have managed, amongst great advances in art and technology, to make every mistake in the book. But we should be proud of that rather than ashamed. Apologies are not called for, realization now is.

Those who find the Universe pointless or meaningless have difficulty in explaining how the humble sponge, the first animal that assembled itself through cellular cooperation, developed the genes for the nervous systems that would be needed millions of years later, systems that sponges never had to this day. Not that those cooperating cells knew what they were doing in the greater scheme of things or that in their death, after more millennia, they alone would form the flint that made the weapons that early human hunters used to get the meat that changed their development and light the fires to cook and forge. The selfishness of a gene is but a small if useful player in the universal scene, not the determinant or the foundation of life as Dawkins would have it. Nature will use our flaws as well as our attempts at perfection.

Theories of the 'heat death' of the universe are indeed meaningless as the timescale renders such theories irrelevant to the development of intelligent life and anything that could it could lead to, even if the physics was sound which it is not, limited as it is to very primitive geometry. Where I perhaps diverge in my perception of our state on this planet is in the idea of a divine plan. I see existence as a divine adventure, in which the resources of the (to us) infinite are at our disposal but in which we, here can quite possibly fail. I can not imagine the entire cosmos being dependent on planet earth making a go of it with humanity breezing through the 21st century any more than I can imagine a planet earth on which every human birth, albeit after more or less pain, is successful. I believe in Nature, God of you wish to use that word, but I do not expect Nature to believe in me beyond my goodwill and my fleeting usefulness if any. I salute the enterprise, it has been a privilege to witness it in action, but I am not impressed by our current concerns with extending human lifespan and avoiding individual death at all cost.

In other words I am a great optimist for the process, but not necessarily for any particular time, place, individual or civilization. We just have to give it our best shot.

Best wishes

James

Dear Barbara, I have read your book. I have been encouraged by your presence ever since.

Dear Barbara, I would like to welcome you to Worldshift. It is wonderful the way everyone extends their warmth and welcome here, and how it can be felt. I've realized this is quite a special place. I'm Very Happy you are here.

Dear Barbara,
Welcome to WorldShift 2012 ;)
Please also see the WS2012 info site at www.worldshift2012.org
We do intend to merge these sites soonest, to provide a platform of information and social networking with a purpose.
If there is anything you wish to ask, comment on or add to either site, just let us know.
Power to the Peaceful,
G*