Sally Goerner

This chapter focuses on the Tower of Babel and also on the enthusiasm surrounding the advent of chaos and related theories. In psychology, equilibrium also found a linguistic home. In fact, we have a significant heritage of the term in our own social science disciplines, which complicates the picture for us in the modern study of chaos in the social sciences. Equilibrium-based conceptions played a key role in the psychologies of Herbart, Lotke, Freud, Lewin, and Parsons. We all have different intellectual and theoretical heritages from where we entered into chaos theory. We could keep going on and on with each new term being used in nonlinear systems sciences as to how different people mean different things by it. In fact, there is a partial list of the terms that require our immediate semantic attention: complexity, complex, adaptive system, attractor, strange attractor, information, energy, entropy, noise, organization, self-organization, linear, nonlinear.

Global civilization is undergoing great change. This process of rethinking and rebirth, driven by the bankruptcy of modern culture, will eventually recast every endeavor from business, education, and politics to health, spirituality, and science. Yet, although the reforms needed to make this transition are already being developed all over the world and in every field imaginable, its magnitude is invisible because the solutions that could save us are disjoint. Integral science creates a rigorous, yet commonsense framework capable of uniting Integral Civilization. The key to this synthesis lies in its more harmonious alignment of head, heart, and hands

Our civilization is changing and so is our science. Human beings in endeavors from education to economics need a framework for understanding which integrates the maelstrom of insights into a useable form. That, in essence, is what the study of Dynamic Evolution provides. Dynamic Evolution (also called Cosmic or General Evolution) is a synthesis of insights, ancient and cutting edge, which radically revamps our understanding of how organizations arise and how change takes place as a result of intertwined forces in a co?evolving whole. What has become clear in recent years is that the two key elements in this evolutionary march are energy flow and interdependent dynamics. New understandings of how these two key features work have mushroomed in the last 30 years. Popularized under such names as chaos, complexity, self?organization theory, Gaia and the new biology, these new insights provide an increasingly clear new understanding of the world and an increasingly coherent path through the confusion of our times. This article provides a brief overview of how rules of energy?driven organization can change our picture of what we must do to build a resilient, sustainable civilization

We stand at the start of a new millennium with a growing awareness of what is wrong with our civilization but little agreement as to what to do. From environmental crises to democratic systems dominated by moneyed interests, the list of dangers is long and growing. Each issue has a band of defenders who struggle to right that particular wrong but, because these bands are disjointed, the broad movement they serve remains incoherent and weak. The broad movement is usually described as toward "sustainable civilization," but its precise designation is "integral society." The challenge for the emerging "new science" is to provide a framework for understanding that unifies and gives direction to the disparate efforts that comprise the integral movement. This framework must address three needs. First, it must provide a sound understanding of why, despite our sophistication, things seem to be going badly in so many spheres. Secondly, it must present a believable vision of where our civilization should be headed. Finally, it must provide a sense that there are concrete steps we can take to achieve the deep dreams that most of us actually share. What we need, in short, is not more disparate insights, but rather a collective intellectual unity that integrates existing insights into a logically coherent and emotionally compelling whole. Such integration, however, cannot be constructed artificially, by committee or consensus. Rather, true integration can only come from a unified scientific understanding of why various ideas connect. Today, a scientific story capable of such unifying understanding is found in the expanded theory of evolution that is emerging from the union of a broad range of scientific efforts. This theory also serves as a unifying thread for an integrated new science. This article outlines the "dynamic" view of evolution and how it unites integral efforts.