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87-654: The Universal Pantheist Society seeks to bring together Pantheists of various traditions and understandings, believing that standing together can help create a stronger community and provide greater intellectual stimulation for its participants. The Society, founded in 1975, was the first organization to recognize Pantheism as a religion (organized under U.S. 501(c)(3) statutes). It is a membership organization that has been serving Pantheists worldwide since 1975. The UPS social networking site welcomes all varieties of pantheists, religious naturalists , eco-humanists and other like-minded advocates. Pantheism (Gr. pan=all, theos=God),

174-412: A naturalist worldview is used to respond to types of questions and aspirations that are parts of many religions. It has been described as "a perspective that finds religious meaning in the natural world." Religious naturalism can be considered intellectually, as a philosophy, and it can be embraced as a part of, or as the focus of, a personal religious orientation. Advocates have stated that it can be

261-423: A reductionist analysis. As a consequence the emerging properties are scale dependent : they are only observable if the system is large enough to exhibit the phenomenon. Chaotic, unpredictable behaviour can be seen as an emergent phenomenon, while at a microscopic scale the behaviour of the constituent parts can be fully deterministic . Bedau notes that weak emergence is not a universal metaphysical solvent, as

348-409: A claim about the etiology of a system 's properties. An emergent property of a system, in this context, is one that is not a property of any component of that system, but is still a feature of the system as a whole. Nicolai Hartmann (1882–1950), one of the first modern philosophers to write on emergence, termed this a categorial novum (new category). This concept of emergence dates from at least

435-489: A complex entity has properties or behaviors that its parts do not have on their own, and emerge only when they interact in a wider whole. Emergence plays a central role in theories of integrative levels and of complex systems . For instance, the phenomenon of life as studied in biology is an emergent property of chemistry and physics . In philosophy, theories that emphasize emergent properties have been called emergentism . Philosophers often understand emergence as

522-481: A credo of human continuation Donald Crosby's Living with Ambiguity published in 2008, has, as its first chapter, "Religion of Nature as a Form of Religious Naturalism". Loyal Rue's Nature Is Enough published in 2011, discusses "Religion Naturalized, Nature Sanctified" and "The Promise of Religious Naturalism". Religious Naturalism Today: The Rebirth of a Forgotten Alternative is a history by Dr. Jerome A. Stone (Dec. 2008 release) that presents this paradigm as

609-423: A critical question: if an emergent, M, emerges from basal condition P, why cannot P displace M as a cause of any putative effect of M? Why cannot P do all the work in explaining why any alleged effect of M occurred? If causation is understood as nomological (law-based) sufficiency, P, as M's emergence base, is nomologically sufficient for it, and M, as P∗'s cause, is nomologically sufficient for P∗. It follows that P

696-428: A deep homology with other sentient beings, it also emphasizes humans valuing such connection. In Black Lives and Sacred Humanity, Toward an African American Religious Naturalism (Fordham Press, 2016), White confronts both human–human forms of injustice and ecological forms of injustice that occur when we fail to recognize these basic truths. As P. Roger Gillette summarizes: Thus was religious naturalism born. It takes

783-584: A deeply personal level. The main principle of religious naturalism is that a naturalist worldview can serve as a foundation for religious orientation. Shared principles related to naturalism include views that: Shared principles related to having nature as a focus of religious orientation include the view that nature is of ultimate importance—as the forces and ordered processes that enable our lives, and all of life, and that cause all things to be are as they are. As such, nature can prompt religious responses, which can vary for each person and can include: Nature

870-647: A foundation for considering how things are, which things matter, and how we should live. It is also seen as having a potential to unite all humans with a shared understanding of our world, including conditions that are essential to all lives, as it is based on the best available scientific knowledge and is widely accepted among scientists and in many cultures worldwide. From the perspective of religious naturalism humans are seen as biological beings—composed of natural substances and products of evolution who act in ways that are enabled and limited by natural processes. With this, all of what we think, feel, desire, decide, and do

957-416: A high-level system on its components; qualities produced this way are irreducible to the system's constituent parts. The whole is other than the sum of its parts. It is argued then that no simulation of the system can exist, for such a simulation would itself constitute a reduction of the system to its constituent parts. Physics lacks well-established examples of strong emergence, unless it is interpreted as

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1044-419: A nuisance, is possibly an emergent property of the spreading of bottlenecks across a network in high traffic flows which can be considered as a phase transition . Some artificially intelligent (AI) computer applications simulate emergent behavior. One example is Boids , which mimics the swarming behavior of birds. In religion, emergence grounds expressions of religious naturalism and syntheism in which

1131-559: A once-forgotten option in religious thinking that is making a rapid revival. It seeks to explore and encourage religious ways of responding to the world on a completely naturalistic basis without a supreme being or ground of being. This book traces this history and analyzes some of the issues dividing religious naturalists. It covers the birth of religious naturalism, from George Santayana to Henry Nelson Wieman and briefly explores religious naturalism in literature and art. Contested issues are discussed including whether nature's power or goodness

1218-491: A property, law, or phenomenon which occurs at macroscopic scales (in space or time) but not at microscopic scales, despite the fact that a macroscopic system can be viewed as a very large ensemble of microscopic systems. An emergent behavior of a physical system is a qualitative property that can only occur in the limit that the number of microscopic constituents tends to infinity. According to Robert Laughlin , for many-particle systems, nothing can be calculated exactly from

1305-482: A rare site, in a vast cosmos, where life exists, and as the environment that is essential for our lives and well-being, this planet and its life-enabling qualities is seen as being of ultimate concern, which can prompt or warrant a felt need to respect, preserve, and protect the varied ecosystems that sustain us. Values are seen as having accompanied the emergence of life—where, unlike rocks and other inanimate objects that perform no purposeful actions, living things have

1392-677: A sense of the sacred is perceived in the workings of entirely naturalistic processes by which more complex forms arise or evolve from simpler forms. Examples are detailed in The Sacred Emergence of Nature by Ursula Goodenough & Terrence Deacon and Beyond Reductionism: Reinventing the Sacred by Stuart Kauffman , both from 2006, as well as Syntheism – Creating God in The Internet Age by Alexander Bard & Jan Söderqvist from 2014 and Emergentism: A Religion of Complexity for

1479-409: A significant option for people who are unable to embrace religious traditions in which supernatural presences or events play prominent roles, and that it provides "a deeply spiritual and inspiring religious vision" that is particularly relevant in a time of ecological crisis. Naturalism is the view that the natural world is all that exists, and that its constituents, principles, and relationships are

1566-1925: A supernatural entity ( transcendent ) are by definition not religious naturalists, however the matter of a naturalistic concept of God ( Immanence ) is currently debated. Strong atheists are not considered religious naturalists in this differentiation. Some individuals call themselves religious naturalists but refuse to be categorized. The unique theories of religious naturalists Loyal Rue, Donald A. Crosby , Jerome A. Stone, and Ursula Goodenough are discussed by Michael Hogue in his 2010 book The Promise of Religious Naturalism . God concepts Emergence Collective intelligence Collective action Self-organized criticality Herd mentality Phase transition Agent-based modelling Synchronization Ant colony optimization Particle swarm optimization Swarm behaviour Social network analysis Small-world networks Centrality Motifs Graph theory Scaling Robustness Systems biology Dynamic networks Evolutionary computation Genetic algorithms Genetic programming Artificial life Machine learning Evolutionary developmental biology Artificial intelligence Evolutionary robotics Reaction–diffusion systems Partial differential equations Dissipative structures Percolation Cellular automata Spatial ecology Self-replication Conversation theory Entropy Feedback Goal-oriented Homeostasis Information theory Operationalization Second-order cybernetics Self-reference System dynamics Systems science Systems thinking Sensemaking Variety Ordinary differential equations Phase space Attractors Population dynamics Chaos Multistability Bifurcation Rational choice theory Bounded rationality In philosophy , systems theory , science , and art , emergence occurs when

1653-466: A theory of social change termed SEED-SCALE to show how standard principles interact to bring forward socio-economic development fitted to cultural values, community economics, and natural environment (local solutions emerging from the larger socio-econo-biosphere). These principles can be implemented utilizing a sequence of standardized tasks that self-assemble in individually specific ways utilizing recursive evaluative criteria. Looking at emergence in

1740-431: A type of will that prompts them to act in ways that enable them (or their group) to survive and reproduce. With this, life can be seen as a core/primary value, and things that can contribute to life and well-being are also valued. And, from a religious naturalist perspective, ongoing reproduction and continuation of life (a "credo of continuation"), has been described as a long-term goal or aspiration. Morality, likewise,

1827-408: A view of a personal god who may cause specific actions or miracles , or of a soul that may live on after death, religious naturalists draw from what can be learned about the workings of the natural world as they try to understand why things happen as they do, and for perspectives that can help to determine what is right or good (and why) and what we might aspire to and do. When the term, religious,

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1914-444: Is also brought forth when thinking about alternatives to the current economic system based on growth facing social and ecological limits. Both degrowth and social ecological economics have argued in favor of a co-evolutionary perspective for theorizing about transformations that overcome the dependence of human wellbeing on economic growth . Economic trends and patterns which emerge are studied intensively by economists. Within

2001-667: Is called Nature ... Virtue consists in a will which is in agreement with Nature Views consistent with religious naturalism can be seen in ancient Daoist texts (e.g., Dao De Jing ) and some Hindu views (such as God as Nirguna Brahman , God without attributes). They may also be seen in Western images that do not focus on active, personal aspects of God, such as Thomas Aquinas ' view of God as Pure Act, Augustine's God as Being Itself, and Paul Tillich 's view of God as Ground of Being . As Wesley Wildman has described, views consistent with religious naturalism have long existed as part of

2088-399: Is called strong emergence, which it is argued cannot be simulated, analysed or reduced. David Chalmers writes that emergence often causes confusion in philosophy and science due to a failure to demarcate strong and weak emergence, which are "quite different concepts". Some common points between the two notions are that emergence concerns new properties produced as the system grows, which

2175-512: Is due to natural processes and, after death, each person ceases to be, with no potential for an eternal afterlife or reincarnation. Due to evolving from common ancient roots, many of the processes that enable our human lives (including aspects of body and mind) are shared by other types of living things. And, as we recognize what we share, we can feel a type of kinship or connection with all forms of life. Similarly, recognizing that all forms of life are: and in recognizing and appreciating Earth as

2262-450: Is in everything and far more magical than religion-based miracles. A future humankind religion should be ecumenical, ecological, and embrace the story provided by science as the "most reliable cosmology". Carol Wayne White is among a younger generation of scholars whose model of religious naturalism helps advance socially- and ethically- oriented models of practice. Using the best available insights from scientific studies, White conceives of

2349-414: Is logically possible, it is uncomfortably like magic. How does an irreducible but supervenient downward causal power arise, since by definition it cannot be due to the aggregation of the micro-level potentialities? Such causal powers would be quite unlike anything within our scientific ken. This not only indicates how they will discomfort reasonable forms of materialism. Their mysteriousness will only heighten

2436-414: Is nomologically sufficient for P∗ and hence qualifies as its cause...If M is somehow retained as a cause, we are faced with the highly implausible consequence that every case of downward causation involves overdetermination (since P remains a cause of P∗ as well). Moreover, this goes against the spirit of emergentism in any case: emergents are supposed to make distinctive and novel causal contributions. If M

2523-548: Is not "worshipped", in the sense of reverent devotion to a deity. Instead, the natural world is respected as a primary source of truth —as it expresses and illustrates the varied principles of nature that enable life and may contribute to well-being. With this, learning about nature, including human nature, (via both academic and artistic resources and direct personal experiences) is seen as valuable—as it can provide an informed base of understanding of how things are and why things happen as they do, expand awareness and appreciation of

2610-413: Is not necessarily the only one. The development of macroscopic laws from first principles may involve more than just systematic logic, and could require conjectures suggested by experiments, simulations or insight. Human beings are the basic elements of social systems, which perpetually interact and create, maintain, or untangle mutual social bonds. Social bonds in social systems are perpetually changing in

2697-603: Is ordered, what is random, and what is complex in its environment depends directly on its computational resources: the amount of raw measurement data, of memory, and of time available for estimation and inference. The discovery of structure in an environment depends more critically and subtly, though, on how those resources are organized. The descriptive power of the observer's chosen (or implicit) computational model class, for example, can be an overwhelming determinant in finding regularity in data. The low entropy of an ordered system can be viewed as an example of subjective emergence:

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2784-429: Is produced from an identified preferred goal or outcome. As explained in their paper An essay on ready-ing: Tending the prelude to change : "While linear managing or controlling of the direction of change may appear desirable, tending to how the system becomes ready allows for pathways of possibility previously unimagined." This brings a new lens to the field of emergence in social and systems change as it looks to tending

2871-520: Is regarded as a focus of religious commitment and concern, religious naturalists may "grant to nature the kind of reverence awe, love and devotion we in the West have formerly reserved for God." Core themes in religious naturalism have been present, in varied cultures, for centuries. But active discussion, with the use of this name, is relatively recent. Zeno (c. 334 – c. 262 BCE, a founder of Stoicism ) said: All things are parts of one single system, which

2958-427: Is seen as extending beyond the well-being of human groups to an "ecomorality" that also includes concern for the well-being of non-human species (in part, as this recognizes how non-human life can contribute to the well-being of humans, and also as it respects the value of all life). With recognition that moral choices can be complex (where as some choices benefit one group, they may cause harm to others), an aspiration

3045-492: Is seen as having emerged in social groups, as standards for behavior and promotion of virtues that contribute to the well-being of groups. Evolutionary roots of this can be seen in groups of primates and some other types of mammals and other creatures, where empathy, helping others, a sense of fairness, and other elements of morality have often been seen. It includes promotion of "virtues" (behaviors seen pro-social or "good"). With perspectives of religious naturalism, moral concern

3132-459: Is such flexibility that nourishes the ready-ing living systems require to respond to complex situations in new ways and change. In other words, this readying process preludes what will emerge. When exploring questions of social change, it is important to ask ourselves, what is submerging in the current social imaginary and perhaps, rather than focus all our resources and energy on driving direct order responses, to nourish flexibility with ourselves, and

3219-611: Is that, beyond aspiring to virtues and adhering to social rules, religious naturalists can work to develop mature judgement that prepares them to consider varied aspects of challenges, judge options, and make choices that consider impact from several perspectives. Advocates of religious naturalism believe that, as they offer perspectives that can help to show how things really are in the physical world, and which things ultimately matter, and as they can contribute to development of religious attitudes, including humility, gratitude, compassion, and caring, and enhance exposure to and appreciation of

3306-446: Is the cause of M∗, then M∗ is overdetermined because M∗ can also be thought of as being determined by P. One escape-route that a strong emergentist could take would be to deny downward causation . However, this would remove the proposed reason that emergent mental states must supervene on physical states, which in turn would call physicalism into question, and thus be unpalatable for some philosophers and physicists. Crutchfield regards

3393-417: Is the focus of attention and also on the appropriateness of using the term "God". The contributions of more than twenty living religious naturalists are presented. The last chapter ends the study by exploring what it is like on the inside to live as a religious naturalist. Chet Raymo writes that he had come to the same conclusion as Teilhard de Chardin : "Grace is everywhere", and that naturalistic emergence

3480-533: Is the title used to denote any paradigm that postulates 'God is all' Pantheism identifies the Universe (Nature) with God. Various forms of pantheism have religious foundations; others have been based upon naturalistic, scientific, or poetic points of view. The society is overseen by a board of directors and publishes a Journal, Pantheist Vision , which presents articles relating to the modern philosophy and practice of pantheism. Edited by Society co-founder Harold Wood,

3567-421: Is to say ones which are not shared with its components or prior states. Also, it is assumed that the properties are supervenient rather than metaphysically primitive. Weak emergence describes new properties arising in systems as a result of the interactions at a fundamental level. However, Bedau stipulates that the properties can be determined only by observing or simulating the system, and not by any process of

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3654-426: Is today one of the outstanding American philosophies of religion..." and discusses ideas developed by Henry Nelson Wieman in books that predate Dubs's article by 20 years. In 1991 Jerome A. Stone wrote The Minimalist Vision of Transcendence explicitly "to sketch a philosophy of religious naturalism". Use of the term was expanded in the 1990s by Loyal Rue , who was familiar with it from Brightman's book. Rue used

3741-419: Is unlike its components insofar as these are incommensurable, and it cannot be reduced to their sum or their difference. Usage of the notion "emergence" may generally be subdivided into two perspectives, that of "weak emergence" and "strong emergence". One paper discussing this division is Weak Emergence , by philosopher Mark Bedau . In terms of physical systems, weak emergence is a type of emergence in which

3828-467: Is used with respect to religious naturalism, it is understood in a general way—separate from the beliefs or practices of specific established religions, but including types of questions, aspirations, values, attitudes, feelings, and practices that are parts of many religious traditions. It can include... As Jerome Stone put it, "One way of getting at what we mean by religion is that it is our attempt to make sense of our lives and behave appropriately within

3915-479: The International Bateson Institute delve into this. Since 2012, they have been researching questions such as what makes a living system ready to change? Can unforeseen ready-ness for change be nourished? Here being ready is not thought of as being prepared, but rather as nourishing the flexibility we do not yet know will be needed. These inquiries challenge the common view that a theory of change

4002-590: The Universal Dielectric Response (UDR) , can be seen as emergent properties of such physical systems. Such arrangements can be used as simple physical prototypes for deriving mathematical formulae for the emergent responses of complex systems. Internet traffic can also exhibit some seemingly emergent properties. In the congestion control mechanism, TCP flows can become globally synchronized at bottlenecks, simultaneously increasing and then decreasing throughput in coordination. Congestion, widely regarded as

4089-457: The Journal, a quarterly publication, features member-submitted articles, personal interpretations of pantheism from both members and notable figures, book reviews and essays by the editor . There are also occasionally special publications a recommended Pantheist reading list and book store. [2] Religious naturalism Religious naturalism is a framework for religious orientation in which

4176-414: The behavior of all fundamental particles. The view that this is the goal of science rests in part on the rationale that such a theory would allow us to derive the behavior of all macroscopic concepts, at least in principle. The evidence we have presented suggests that this view may be overly optimistic. A 'theory of everything' is one of many components necessary for complete understanding of the universe, but

4263-445: The case of the global economic system, under capitalism , growth, accumulation and innovation can be considered emergent processes where not only does technological processes sustain growth, but growth becomes the source of further innovations in a recursive, self-expanding spiral. In this sense, the exponential trend of the growth curve reveals the presence of a long-term positive feedback among growth, accumulation, and innovation; and

4350-525: The combination of their parts. In 2009, Gu et al. presented a class of infinite physical systems that exhibits non-computable macroscopic properties. More precisely, if one could compute certain macroscopic properties of these systems from the microscopic description of these systems, then one would be able to solve computational problems known to be undecidable in computer science. These results concern infinite systems, finite systems being considered computable. However, macroscopic concepts which only apply in

4437-629: The conceptual stage, and to some extent differing ways of characterizing Nature. The current discussion often relates to the issue of whether belief in a God or God-language and associated concepts have any place in a framework that treats the physical universe as its essential frame of reference and the methods of science as providing the preeminent means for determining what Nature is. There are at least three varieties of religious naturalism, and three similar but somewhat different ways to categorize them. They are: The first category has as many sub-groups as there are distinct definitions for god. Believers in

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4524-472: The context of social and systems change, invites us to reframe our thinking on parts and wholes and their interrelation. Unlike machines, living systems at all levels of recursion - be it a sentient body, a tree, a family, an organisation, the education system, the economy, the health system, the political system etc - are continuously creating themselves. They are continually growing and changing along with their surrounding elements, and therefore are more than

4611-856: The cosmos began approximately 13.8 billion years ago as a massive expansion of energy, which has been described as "the Big Bang". Due to natural forces and processes, this expansion led over time to the emergence of light, nuclear particles, galaxies, stars, and planets. Life on Earth is thought to have emerged more than 3.5 billion years ago —beginning with molecules that combined in ways that enabled them to maintain themselves as stable entities and self-replicate, which evolved to single-cell organisms and then to varied multi-cell organisms that, over time, included millions of varied species, including mammals, primates, and humans, living in complex interdependent ecosystems. This story has been described as " The Epic of Evolution " and, for religious naturalists, it provides

4698-477: The emergence of new structures and institutions connected to the multi-scale process of growth. This is reflected in the work of Karl Polanyi , who traces the process by which labor and nature are converted into commodities in the passage from an economic system based on agriculture to one based on industry. This shift, along with the idea of the self-regulating market, set the stage not only for another economy but also for another society. The principle of emergence

4785-401: The emergent property is amenable to computer simulation or similar forms of after-the-fact analysis (for example, the formation of a traffic jam, the structure of a flock of starlings in flight or a school of fish, or the formation of galaxies). Crucial in these simulations is that the interacting members retain their independence. If not, a new entity is formed with new, emergent properties: this

4872-556: The fact that it extends the domain of nature farther outward into space and time. ...It never transcends nature". Ludwig Feuerbach wrote that religious naturalism was "the acknowledgment of the Divine in Nature" and also "an element of the Christian religion", but by no means that religion's definitive "characteristic" or "tendency". In 1864, Pope Pius IX condemned religious naturalism in

4959-456: The field of facilitation . In Emergent Strategy , adrienne maree brown defines emergent strategies as "ways for humans to practice complexity and grow the future through relatively simple interactions". In linguistics , the concept of emergence has been applied in the domain of stylometry to explain the interrelation between the syntactical structures of the text and the author style (Slautina, Marusenko, 2014). It has also been argued that

5046-483: The field of group facilitation and organization development, there have been a number of new group processes that are designed to maximize emergence and self-organization, by offering a minimal set of effective initial conditions. Examples of these processes include SEED-SCALE , appreciative inquiry , Future Search, the world cafe or knowledge cafe , Open Space Technology , and others (Holman, 2010 ). In international development, concepts of emergence have been used within

5133-461: The findings of modern science seriously, and thus is inherently naturalistic. But it also takes the human needs that led to the emergence of religious systems seriously, and thus is also religious. It is religious, or reconnective, in that it seeks and facilitates human reconnection with one's self, family, larger human community, local and global ecosystem, and unitary universe ... Religious reconnection implies love. And love implies concern, concern for

5220-501: The first half of the 20th century and some even before that" but that "religious naturalism as a movement didn't come into its own until about 1990 [and] took a major leap forward in 1998 when Ursula Goodenough published The Sacred Depths of Nature , which is considered one of the founding texts of this movement." Biologist Ursula Goodenough states: I profess my Faith. For me, the existence of all this complexity and awareness and intent and beauty, and my ability to apprehend it serves as

5307-697: The first seven articles of the Syllabus of Errors . Mordecai Kaplan (1881–1983), founder of the Jewish Reconstructionist movement, was an early advocate of religious naturalism. He believed that a naturalistic approach to religion and ethics was possible in a desacralizing world. He saw God as the sum of all-natural processes. Other verified usages of the term came in 1940 from George Perrigo Conger and from Edgar S. Brightman . Shortly thereafter, H. H. Dubs wrote an article entitled "Religious Naturalism: An Evaluation", which begins "Religious naturalism

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5394-505: The human as an emergent, interconnected life form amid spectacular biotic diversity, which has far-reaching ethical implications within the context of ecology, religion, and American life. Her religious naturalism contributes to an intellectual legacy that has attempted to overcome the deficient conceptions of our myriad nature couched in problematic binary constructions. In doing so, her religious naturalism not only presents human beings as biotic forms emerging from evolutionary processes sharing

5481-404: The hypothesis that consciousness is weakly emergent would not resolve the traditional philosophical questions about the physicality of consciousness. However, Bedau concludes that adopting this view would provide a precise notion that emergence is involved in consciousness, and second, the notion of weak emergence is metaphysically benign. Strong emergence describes the direct causal action of

5568-467: The impossibility in practice to explain the whole in terms of the parts. Practical impossibility may be a more useful distinction than one in principle, since it is easier to determine and quantify, and does not imply the use of mysterious forces, but simply reflects the limits of our capability. Some thinkers question the plausibility of strong emergence as contravening our usual understanding of physics. Mark A. Bedau observes: Although strong emergence

5655-508: The interdependence among all things, prompt an emotional or spiritual sense of connection with other people and forms of life in all of nature, and serve as a point of reference for considering and responding to moral and religious questions and life challenges. As in many religious orientations, religious naturalism includes a central story, with a description of how it is believed that our world and human beings came to be. In this (based on what can be understood through methods of science),

5742-452: The larger world, and the need for all living systems to evolve." While change is predictably constant, it is unpredictable in direction and often occurs at second and nth orders of systemic relationality. Understanding emergence and what creates the conditions for different forms of emergence to occur, either insidious or nourishing vitality, is essential in the search for deep transformations. The works of Nora Bateson and her colleagues at

5829-401: The limit of infinite systems, such as phase transitions and the renormalization group , are important for understanding and modeling real, finite physical systems. Gu et al. concluded that Although macroscopic concepts are essential for understanding our world, much of fundamental physics has been devoted to the search for a 'theory of everything', a set of equations that perfectly describe

5916-411: The many wonders of the natural world, perspectives from religious naturalism can contribute to personal wholeness, social cohesion, and awareness and activities that can contribute to preservation of global ecosystems. Beyond supporting a credo of continuation that values varied forms of life and ecosystems, aspirations based on religious naturalism include: As suggested by Donald Crosby, since nature

6003-424: The microscopic equations, and macroscopic systems are characterised by broken symmetry: the symmetry present in the microscopic equations is not present in the macroscopic system, due to phase transitions. As a result, these macroscopic systems are described in their own terminology, and have properties that do not depend on many microscopic details. Novelist Arthur Koestler used the metaphor of Janus (a symbol of

6090-414: The observer sees an ordered system by ignoring the underlying microstructure (i.e. movement of molecules or elementary particles) and concludes that the system has a low entropy. On the other hand, chaotic, unpredictable behaviour can also be seen as subjective emergent, while at a microscopic scale the movement of the constituent parts can be fully deterministic. In physics , emergence is used to describe

6177-475: The pre-emergent process. Warm Data Labs are the fruit of their praxis , they are spaces for transcontextual mutual learning in which aphanipoetic phenomena unfold. (Read about Aphanipoesis ). Having hosted hundreds of Warm Data processes with 1000s of participants, they have found that these spaces of shared poly-learning across contexts lead to a realm of potential change, a necessarily obscured zone of wild interaction of unseen, unsaid, unknown flexibility. It

6264-472: The properties of complexity and organization of any system as subjective qualities determined by the observer. Defining structure and detecting the emergence of complexity in nature are inherently subjective, though essential, scientific activities. Despite the difficulties, these problems can be analysed in terms of how model-building observers infer from measurements the computational capabilities embedded in non-linear processes. An observer's notion of what

6351-400: The same – their difference, when their directions are contrary. Further, every resultant is clearly traceable in its components, because these are homogeneous and commensurable . It is otherwise with emergents, when, instead of adding measurable motion to measurable motion, or things of one kind to other individuals of their kind, there is a co-operation of things of unlike kinds. The emergent

6438-570: The sense of the ongoing reconfiguration of their structure. An early argument (1904–05) for the emergence of social formations can be found in Max Weber 's most famous work, The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism . Recently, the emergence of a new social system is linked with the emergence of order from nonlinear relationships among multiple interacting units, where multiple interacting units are individual thoughts, consciousness, and actions. In

6525-464: The sole reality. All that occurs is seen as being due to natural processes, with nothing supernatural involved. As Sean Carroll put it: Naturalism comes down to three things: Essentially, naturalism is the idea that the world revealed to us by scientific investigation is the one true world. In religious naturalism, a naturalist view (as described above) defines the bounds of what can be believed as being possible or real. As this does not include

6612-612: The structure and regularity of language grammar , or at least language change , is an emergent phenomenon. While each speaker merely tries to reach their own communicative goals, they use language in a particular way. If enough speakers behave in that way, language is changed. In a wider sense, the norms of a language, i.e. the linguistic conventions of its speech society, can be seen as a system emerging from long-time participation in communicative problem-solving in various social circumstances. The bulk conductive response of binary (RC) electrical networks with random arrangements, known as

6699-459: The sum of their parts. As Peter Senge and co-authors put forward in the book Presence: Exploring profound change in People, Organizations and Society , "as long as our thinking is governed by habit - notably industrial, "machine age" concepts such as control, predictability, standardization, and "faster is better" - we will continue to recreate institutions as they have been, despite their disharmony with

6786-441: The systems we are a part of. Another approach that engages with the concept of emergence for social change is Theory U , where "deep emergence" is the result of self-transcending knowledge after a successful journey along the U through layers of awareness. This practice nourishes transformation at the inner-being level, which enables new ways of being, seeing and relating to emerge. The concept of emergence has also been employed in

6873-660: The term in conversations with several people before 1994, and subsequent conversations between Rue and Ursula Goodenough [both of whom were active in the Institute on Religion in an Age of Science (IRAS) led to Goodenough's use in her book The Sacred Depths of Nature and by Rue in Religion is Not About God and other writings. Since 1994 numerous authors have used the phrase or expressed similar thinking. Examples include Chet Raymo , Stuart Kauffman and Karl E. Peters . Mike Ignatowski states that "there were many religious naturalists in

6960-415: The time of Aristotle . Many scientists and philosophers have written on the concept, including John Stuart Mill ( Composition of Causes , 1843) and Julian Huxley (1887–1975). The philosopher G. H. Lewes coined the term "emergent" in 1875, distinguishing it from the merely "resultant": Every resultant is either a sum or a difference of the co-operant forces; their sum, when their directions are

7047-507: The total scheme of things." When discussing distinctions between religious naturalists and non-religious (nonspiritual) naturalists, Loyal Rue said: "I regard a religious or spiritual person to be one who takes ultimate concerns to heart." He noted that, while "plain old" naturalists share similar views about what may occur in the world, those who describe themselves as religious naturalists take nature more "to heart", in seeing it as vitally important, and as something that they may respond to on

7134-604: The traditional worry that emergence entails illegitimately getting something from nothing. Strong emergence can be criticized for leading to causal overdetermination . The canonical example concerns emergent mental states (M and M∗) that supervene on physical states (P and P∗) respectively. Let M and M∗ be emergent properties. Let M∗ supervene on base property P∗. What happens when M causes M∗? Jaegwon Kim says: In our schematic example above, we concluded that M causes M∗ by causing P∗. So M causes P∗. Now, M, as an emergent, must itself have an emergence base property, say P. Now we face

7221-400: The ultimate meaning and the ultimate value. The continuation of life reaches around, grabs its own tail, and forms a sacred circle that requires no further justification, no Creator, no super-ordinate meaning of meaning, no purpose other than that the continuation continues until the sun collapses or the final meteor collides. I confess a credo of continuation. And in so doing, I confess as well

7308-535: The underside of major religious traditions, often quietly and sometimes in mystical strands or intellectual sub-traditions, by practitioners who are not drawn to supernatural claims. The earliest uses of the term, religious naturalism, seem to have occurred in the 1800s. In 1846, the American Whig Review described "a seeming 'religious naturalism ' ", In 1869, American Unitarian Association literature adjudged:"Religious naturalism differs from this mainly in

7395-442: The unity underlying complements like open/shut, peace/war) to illustrate how the two perspectives (strong vs. weak or holistic vs. reductionistic ) should be treated as non-exclusive, and should work together to address the issues of emergence. Theoretical physicist Philip W. Anderson states it this way: The ability to reduce everything to simple fundamental laws does not imply the ability to start from those laws and reconstruct

7482-567: The universe. The constructionist hypothesis breaks down when confronted with the twin difficulties of scale and complexity. At each level of complexity entirely new properties appear. Psychology is not applied biology, nor is biology applied chemistry. We can now see that the whole becomes not merely more, but very different from the sum of its parts. Meanwhile, others have worked towards developing analytical evidence of strong emergence. Renormalization methods in theoretical physics enable physicists to study critical phenomena that are not tractable as

7569-538: The well-being of the beloved. Religious naturalism thus is marked by concern for the well-being of the whole of nature. This concern provides a basis and drive for ethical behavior toward the whole holy unitary universe. The literature related to religious naturalism includes many variations in conceptual framing. This reflects individual takes on various issues, to some extent various schools of thought, such as basic naturalism , religious humanism , pantheism , panentheism , and spiritual naturalism that have had time on

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