An Introduction to Cosmic Ecology

Searching for a Meaningful Universe

There is an unstoppable and growing gap between the planetary limits and the conduct of human affairs. The relentless drive for economic growth, the plunder of material resources and the demand for tribal, even violent, territorial domination accelerates the pace towards catastrophe. Efforts to mitigate this trend are failing. We keep applying the thinking and practices that got us into this mess to try and get out of it.

Anthony Hodgson suggests our failure is caused by a massive blind spot which prevents us from looking where the solutions could be found. The diverse tribes of humanity are pathologically clinging to confused attitudes and worldviews about who we are and where we live. Our current worldviews, whether scientific, cultural or religious, divert us from searching outside the blind spot. Open inquiry is blocked by orthodoxy at every turn; meaning is attenuated.

In this book transdisciplinary systems thinking facilitates an integrated approach to worldview. Cosmic ecology, opens the space for search into a cosmically viable and flourishing life.

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Hypothesis

Humanity is failing to address the polycrisis effectively. The rate of planetary degradation far outweighs the rate of remediation.

Diagnosis

Although a diversity of worldviews in cultures and societies may generate a variety of knowledge perspectives on what is going on, they are also locking in assumptions which add up to a giant blind spot for humanity – the failure is evidence.

Implications

Finding a way out requires sufficient people to accept that their worldview is not accommodating the real factors which are driving the degradation. It also implies greatly extending what is considered legitimate to explore and what beliefs it is disastrous to continue to be identified with.

Possibilities

What has been understood so far about access to new kinds of knowledge arrived at through new modes of access to knowledge must be gathered and integrated beyond current views as to what constitutes valid knowledge production.

Requirements

This will require new practices of knowing that open up the deeper human capabilities which traditionally have been called wisdom. Cosmic ecology is one suggestion to create a field of enquiry conducive to this and with a chance of exiting the blind spot.

“In an age of transformation such as ours, when our understanding and experience of the world and of ourselves is marked by chaos and confusion, it is essential to review who we are, where we are and where we want to go. Anthony Hodgson’s short and brilliant book shows us that the time has come to go beyond local territorial confines and concerns, and to situate ourselves in a larger Cosmic Ecology. He invites us on a journey of exploration, to grow beyond our self-created limitations, but also become accountable for our participation in the larger Cosmic Ecology.”

Alfonso Montuori, Ph.D

Professor, California Institute of Integral Studies Center for Creative Futures;
Co-editor, World Futures – The Journal of New Paradigm Research

“Concise, authoritative, eminently reasonable, a practical spirituality free of cosmic horseshit, Dr. Hodgson’s short introduction to a cosmic ecology gives me direction, orientation and hope when feeling overwhelmed by the current scale of wicked problems. Profoundly considered, deeply researched, informed by a hands-on practice grown within the problematics of life, this short work encourages me to make sense of the mess – and then keep going.”

Robert Fripp

Musician.

“Anthony Hodgson’s synthesis of cosmologies in this little book has profound implications for us humans understanding our place in the universe and for making sense and meaning of our own actions. In his role as a true intellectual shaman, Hodgson envisions us humans maturing to a capacity for healing our relationship to our own world and ultimately the whole universe and continuing on an endless learning journey. That requires making new connections across the vast complexity of our world and making better sense of what we already know to put the knowledge to constructive uses, thereby integrating the three tasks of the shaman – healing, connecting and sensemaking.”

Sandra Waddock

Galligan Chair of Strategy, Boston College Carroll School of Management Author of Intellectual Shamans and Catalyzing Transformation

The Book Outline

Searching for a Meaningful Universe
About this Book
Preface
1. A Starting Point
- Approaches to Worldviews in the Anthropocene
- The Formation of Worldviews
- Testing Out Personal Relevance
2. Three Fundamental Cosmological Questions
3. Conflict and Its Possible Resolution
- Some Criteria for a Meaningful Cosmology
- Cosmology and Anomaly
- The Thresholds
4. The Five Worldview Archetypes
- The Hydrogen Universe
- The Informational Universe
- The Living Universe
- The Conscious Universe
- The Accountable Universe
5. Sphere of Awareness
- The Hydrogen Universe Archetype
- The Informational Universe Archetype
- The Living Universe Archetype
- The Conscious Universe Archetype
- The Accountable Universe Archetype
6. The Beginnings of a Cosmic Ecology
- The Switch of Perspective
- Participating in the Search
7. Sketch for an Accountable Universe
- A Universe of Multiple Levels
- The Challenge of Human Deficit
8. The Recovery of Cosmic Consciousness
Being Who You Cosmically Really Are
Summing Up
Glossary
Acknowledgements
Bibliography

Anthony Hodgson, Ph.D.

Is currently a trustee and research director of H3Uni – A University for the Third Horizon, a research fellow at the University of Dundee, director of Decision Integrity Limited and a founding member of the International Futures Forum. He has a PhD in systems science from the University of Hull, Centre for Systems Studies. He has over thirty years of experience as a consultant facilitator in strategy and foresight.