June 16 – 27, 2008

A choice of weeks is available – see details of the timetable below. Can be taken as a one or two week course.

Arthur Zajonc, Rupert Sheldrake

Participants will explore the implications of new scientific insights for our understanding of the mind, spiritual experience and creativity.

Course Overview

The practice of modern science has for centuries been divorced from values other than that of “objectivity” and this has done much to alienate us from our direct, intuitive experience of Nature. This approach is now being challenged by advances in contemporary physics and biology and this course will explore a new view of science which integrates it with spirituality and values.

Modern physics demonstrates the important role played by the observer in all aspects of inquiry, which suggests that an objective value-free way of knowing is fundamentally unattainable. Using the history of human conceptions of light, and the work of Goethe and Rudolf Steiner, Arthur Zajonc will discuss the evolution of consciousness and the philosophy of science. Rupert Sheldrake will present a holistic understanding of science in which the cosmos is no longer seen as a machine, but is more like a developing organism with an inherent memory, and the old idea of determinism has given way to a recognition of indeterminism, chaos and complexity.

This course is suitable for scientists from all disciplines, philosophers, science teachers, academics and individuals who wish to engage with the fundamental questions of what and how we can know about the world we inhabit.

Teachers

Arthur Zajonc is Professor of Physics at Amherst College, where he has taught since 1978. In 1997 he served as scientific coordinator of The New Physics and Cosmology, a dialogue with H.H. the Dalai Lama. He is author of Catching the Light, co-author of Quantum Challenge, and co-editor of Goethe’s Way of Science.

Rupert Sheldrake is a biologist and author of many books, including The Rebirth of Nature and, with Matthew Fox, Nature Grace: Dialogues on Science and Spirituality.

Timetable/Course content

Week 1: June 16-20, 2008

Monday Arrival by 1pm. Introduction to each other and College; Gaia theory and Schumacher philosophy.

Tuesday-Friday Contemplative Science
Arthur Zajonc: This first week of the course will focus on ways in which spirituality and science meet:

• The entwined history of light and mind, in which is reflected the increasing mechanisation of both our image of the world as well as our very means of thinking. At the dawn of the 20th century, many great transformations in both science, art and spiritual philosophy broke in on the West, including quantum physics, relativity and a new opening to spiritual investigation such as that offered by Rudolf Steiner.
• Elementary examples from both quantum mechanics and relativity will be used to argue for the essential place of phenomena. This can lead to the conclusion that we should shift from a materialistic ontology to an ontology of experience.
• Goethe’s phenomenology of nature will provide a concrete instance of one power model for the development of a new participatory engagement leading to self-transformation and insight.
• These developments also lay the foundations for a contemplative science exemplified by Rudolf Steiner’s spiritual science. The final sessions will introduce participants to Steiner’s path of self-development through exercises and conversation.

Week 2: June 23-27, 2008

Monday
Holistic Science
Brian Goodwin/Stephan Harding: Resident staff on the MSc in Holistic Science will introduce participants to the fundamentals of complexity and Gaian thinking.

Tuesday-Thursday
Moving away from Mechanistic Science
Rupert Sheldrake: The old idea that nature is nothing but inanimate mechanism is being superseded by the advances of science itself. The cosmos is no longer seen as an eternal machine slowly running out of steam, but is more like a developing organism, with the Big Bang resembling myths of the hatching of the cosmic egg. Rigid determinism has given way to indeterminism in quantum theory, and through chaos theory of the recognition of unpredictability in natural processes at all levels. Evolution has revealed creative processes not only in the realm of life, but in the development on the entire cosmos. The idea that the cosmos was totally knowable has given way to a recognition that the majority of nature, up to 90%, consists of dark matter and dark energy whose nature is completely unknown. It is as if science has recognised the cosmic unconscious. Mechanistic theories of the mind have proved hopelessly inadequate in consciousness studies, which is now one of the most exciting areas of scientific exploration. Research on unexplained animal and human phenomena suggests that minds extend far beyond brains. And the old idea that nature is governed by eternal laws turns out to have no justification. Nature may well be driven by habits which evolve along with the universe itself. All these changes alter the frontiers of science and open up new possibilities for dialogues between science and spirituality, some of which will be explored during this week.

Friday
What have we learned and where does it take us? Facilitated discussion.

Departure after lunch.

Can be taken as a one or two week course.

Course Fees

For businesses: One week £1,100 Two weeks £1,700
For individuals, NGOs & Educators: One week £900 Two weeks £1,400
These include accommodation, food, field trips and all teaching sessions.

How to make an application – click here

For further information about Schumacher College please see About the College

New feature – reserve your place now

To provisionally reserve a place for 5 days, email us your contact details and the name of the course admin@schumachercollege.org.uk

We will hold the place for five working days for reservations – three weeks before a course or earlier. After five days we will automatically offer your place to someone else if we have not received your application.