Hi folks. Thanks to everyone already for the insights. I'll offer two separate, brief email replies. I just want to say thanks to Frank for his optimism in placing the discussion in the grander, existential context. I find your interpretation truly inspiring, as well as Steve Q.'s Sartre discussion (and article). I mentioned at the time of the conference that listening to Steve's talk inspired me to want to follow up more with Sartre, whom I hadn't studied in years. I love the suggestion too of using such an interpretation and approach as underlying our general TOK mission. And I shall share your reply with my wife as well, who loves to remind me that our journeys are far more syncrhonistic than I sometimes acknowledge when I'm standing on my scientific, cosmological evolutionary soapbox! Oh, and Mark, that's a great story too about your experience and the reference to the "real Sufis" (which my wife will appreciate even more, having been raised in Iran and then lived in Turkey before coming to Canada!). All best regards, -joe Dr. Joseph H. Michalski Associate Academic Dean King’s University College at Western University 266 Epworth Avenue London, Ontario, Canada N6A 2M3 Tel: (519) 433-3491, ext. 4439 Fax: (519) 433-0353 Email: [log in to unmask] ______________________ eiđ + 1 = 0 ________________________________ From: tree of knowledge system discussion <[log in to unmask]> on behalf of Frank Ambrosio <[log in to unmask]> Sent: Monday, July 16, 2018 10:12:07 AM To: [log in to unmask] Subject: Re: Interesting Parallel Discovery Dear Joe, Thanks for this. I read it as a sign of the deep basis in the cosmos of realistic hope for each and every human life. For change to be change, some aspect of reality must become different, some aspect of reality must remain the same. Everything that can be known, the definite patterns of continuity, is finite and subject to change, and therefore so is all knowledge and all synthesis.. The relationship of the One (continuity) to the Many (differentiation) is one of the names given in the human cultural traditions to the mystery of the universe, the whole of which all are parts, so that it cannot be known, but in which we all participate. By our questioning, our limited knowledge and understanding, and most of all by the small wisdom by which we try to identify ourselves with that mystery. The possibility of such a small wisdom by which we can to some degree participate in mystery seems to me to be an authentic definition of realistic, though inexorably finite, hope. This seems to me to echo Steve Quackenbush's discussion of Jean-Paul Sartre at our gathering. Like Steve I believe that we could faithfully attribute to Sartre a sentiment something like, "if we believe in the dignity of human freedom, then our main responsibility is to hope. I also think this is another way of looking at the sort of mission that we are mulling over and trying to formulate: it should be a message of realistic hope and be helpful in pointing out where and how each of us might go about looking for signs of that hope. All good wishes,, Frank Francis J. Ambrosio, PhD Associate Professor of Philosophy Georgetown University 202-687-7441 On Mon, Jul 16, 2018 at 2:59 PM Joseph Michalski <[log in to unmask]<mailto:[log in to unmask]>> wrote: Dear Colleagues: I understand everyone has busy intellectual agendas, but I thought I'd share an interesting parallel discovery from the past weekend (beyond the recent discovery of neutrinos from a distant galaxy!). My wife and I were flying back from England, reading next to each other on the plane. I was reading Roberto Unger and Lee Smolin's The Singular Universe and the Reality of Time as part of my efforts to understand the cosmos and our broader TOK mission. My wife, who's a Sufi Muslim, was reading Sadegh Angha's (41st Sufi Master) The Hidden Angles of Life in her efforts to understand the cosmos from a religious worldview. Here's what we were reading at the same time from our respective books: Joe, the scientist, read on p. 8: “If, however, everything is time-bound (a key argument of the book), that principle must apply as well to the laws, symmetries, and constants of nature. There are then no timeless regularities capable of underwriting our causal judgments. Change changes. It is not just the phenomena that change; so do the regularities: the laws, symmetries, and supposed constants of nature.” Farnaz, the spiritualist, read on p. xi: “(T)he laws of physics are fundamentally and essentially variable (for example, there is much evidence and documentation that most of the constant principles of nature and those influenced by gravity are in fact not constant). Existence itself is in motion.” (emphasis in the original) Just some food for future thought. If I arrive at any great insights from all of this, I'll be happy to share. At the same time, perhaps others on the list have had their own "a-ha" moments in terms of understanding the evolving nature of the universe, the constancy of change, and the implications that nature's laws might best be viewed from a cosmological, historical perspective. Yours kindly, -Joe Dr. Joseph H. Michalski Associate Academic Dean King’s University College at Western University 266 Epworth Avenue London, Ontario, Canada N6A 2M3 Tel: (519) 433-3491, ext. 4439 Fax: (519) 433-0353 Email: [log in to unmask]<mailto:[log in to unmask]> ______________________ eiđ + 1 = 0 ############################ To unsubscribe from the TOK-SOCIETY-L list: write to: mailto:[log in to unmask]<mailto:mailto:[log in to unmask]> or click the following link: http://listserv.jmu.edu/cgi-bin/wa?SUBED1=TOK-SOCIETY-L&A=1 ############################ To unsubscribe from the TOK-SOCIETY-L list: write to: mailto:[log in to unmask]<mailto:mailto:[log in to unmask]> or click the following link: http://listserv.jmu.edu/cgi-bin/wa?SUBED1=TOK-SOCIETY-L&A=1 ############################ To unsubscribe from the TOK-SOCIETY-L list: write to: mailto:[log in to unmask] or click the following link: http://listserv.jmu.edu/cgi-bin/wa?SUBED1=TOK-SOCIETY-L&A=1