The Society for Social and Conceptual Issues in Astrobiology (SSoCIA) and the European Astrobiology Institute (EAI) will hold a joint meeting September 23 – 25, 2024 in Kiruna, Sweden. 

SSoCIA is an international and highly interdisciplinary group of scholars and other experts dedicated to investigation of the many social, cultural, and conceptual issues surrounding humanity’s future in space. 

EAI is a consortium of European research and higher education institutions and organisations as well as other stakeholders aiming to carry out research, training, outreach and dissemination activities in astrobiology in a comprehensive and coordinated manner and thereby securing a leading role for the European Research Area in the field.

Experts from every discipline interested in exploring the many complex social and ethical questions raised by space exploration and the search for life on other planets are invited to attend the first joint meeting of the two major groups devoted to this end. We welcome submissions addressing any of the many “broader questions” in astrobiology and space exploration such as:

• Commercial activity in space
• Human colonization of other worlds
• The true nature of “life”
• The moral status of ETL/ETI
• Balancing diverse cultural perspectives
• Space Mining
• Ownership of space “resources”
• First Contact protocols
• “Pollution” in the context of space
• Religious implications of contact
• Fictional portrayals of space
• Emerging issues in space law

This year, we are very fortunate to have an excellent keynote speaker in Dr. Tony Milligan:

The Journal of Consciousness Studies plans to publish a special issue to mark the fortieth anniversary of David Bohm’s Wholeness and the Implicate Order.

Bohm’s position remains problematic. While his contributions to quantum physics were highly regarded, his proposal of an implicate order was not.

But developments in science and philosophy since the publication of Bohm’s book make his work seem more prescient than marginal. Moreover, his search for wholeness through dialogue between scientific and spiritual traditions has meant that his influence has been felt far more widely than that of most scientists.

Papers are invited on any aspect of the work and life of this remarkable man. If you wish to contribute one, please email a brief abstract to the address below.

The deadline for full submissions will be early 2025.

Dr. John Pickering, Guest Editor.
Psychology Department, Warwick University, UK.
Email: j.a.pickering@warwick.ac.uk

About the Series

Dear Friend,

I am 98, and for that age, my faculties (sight and hearing and even thinking) are quite good. The one about which I do complain is memory. Probably I’m typical for my age. People are very understanding. While I still can, I am reviewing my “legacy.” It is mixed up with the legacies of many others in the process movement. I conclude that my most important contribution is institutional. That is because the institutions to whose existence I have contributed are all acting responsibly in relation to what is happening. I think and hope that none of them give priority to my opinions. They are already out-dated.

The first is the Center for Process Studies. David Griffin gave it extraordinary leadership. Andrew Schwartz succeeded him, during a period when the future of the Center and the Claremont School of Theology, of which it was a part, was uncertain. Despite difficulties, he has helped move process thought from the margin of the American discussion to a role in the mainstream. Although Andrew and the School worked well together, it was clear that a friendly separation would be good for both. That has taken place. And an independent Center is once again acting as the “center.”

From the beginning, many of those most interested in process thought were church folk. For them, we organized Process and Faith. It has worked well for some evangelicals who are unable to swallow all of traditional Christian doctrine, but who understand that there is much in Christianity of great importance for them and for the world. Tripp Fuller has provided a home for such people for many years and Tom Oord has recently offered an alternative. I had nothing to do with establishing either of these organizations, but since I have contributed to the process theology that both find works well for them, I include them in the family. The process theology they embody is Christian, but the Christianity involved appreciates and learns from other spiritual traditions. “Process” seeks to serve these other traditions as well. Process and Faith has served other spiritual traditions as well as Christianity, and an important role of process thought is to provide an inclusive vision that makes positive sense of diverse traditions.

There are a number of very small-scale experiments inspired by process thought. Bonnie Tarwater has established an ecological farm and church near Salem. Sunday afternoon we worship in the barn with the ducks and the goats. She is developing small groups for self-examination and group action.

The Center for Process Studies operates chiefly in the academic world. Another process organization worked with institutions, including educational ones, but also ecological ones and governmental ones. Eugene Shirley organized Pando Populus. When CPS moved north as part of the Claremont School of Theology, Pando was designed to keep an activist process organization alive in Los Angeles County. The County has excellent goals, and Pando is recognized as a major contributor to moving toward them.

American process thought caught the attention of leading Chinese. Zhihe Wang came to Claremont and earned a PhD here. His wife, Mei Wong has joined him. They have organized the Institute for the Postmodern Development of China. Thanks to them, process thought has played a large role in China.

When it was clear that CPS would leave Claremont together with the School of Theology, we organized our local activities under the rubric of the Cobb Institute. It has given major attention to supporting the remarkable efforts of new Hispanic leadership in Pomona to revitalize that city under the new circumstances. But the activities of the Cobb Institute are often based on working together electronically; so, it also evolved quickly into a national and even international organization. The public programs organized especially by Ron Hines every Tuesday morning are an attractive way for outsiders to join our community. Jay McDaniel has been the superb leader of the Institute. He is now taking more responsibility for CPS and is being succeeded in the Cobb Institute by Mary Elizabeth Moore. 

For process thinkers feelings are the stuff of which the world is made. Still, action should be guided by thought. Ideas should have an effect, especially with respect to the global problems that became crucial in the twentieth century. In 2015 the Center for Process Studies organized a major conference subtitled “toward an ecological civilization.” We have used that term to name what we see as the most promising direction of activity and policy. Philip Clayton has organized the Institute for Ecological Civilization.

Despite the multiplicity of process organizations, I helped to add one more, a couple of years ago. We call it the Living Earth Movement. Some of us became extremely troubled by the way in which the American goal to control the planet was (in a sense rightly) recognizing China as its greatest obstacle. Some leading Americans seemed open to a nuclear war in response to that threat. Communications were breaking down, and they were being replaced by mutual demonization. The most advanced “chip,” of great importance for breaking new ground in technology, is made chiefly in Taiwan, and the U.S. wants to prevent China from having access. Although it formally recognizes Taiwan as part of China, it armed Taiwan to enable it to fight China, and blocked Chinese access to the chips. The world came close to war. We organized the Living Earth Movement (LEM) to encourage open discussion among nations, especially U.S./China. We believe that there is little hope unless the two greatest economies and most powerful countries cooperate and lead. Charles Betterton is making it possible for the LEM to “move.”

Among American nongovernmental organizations and movements, none are in better position to work with Chinese than the process ones. We process folk are well-regarded in China and have the trust of the Chinese government. But none of the organizations I have mentioned, other than the IPDC, were in position to discuss how we could fulfill the responsibilities inherent in the situation. 

A major obstacle to good communication seemed to be the success of American propaganda in portraying China as evil. The Living Earth Movement has written around fifteen short papers, mostly on topics on which China is vilified. They provide a more balanced account, and we are just now getting ready to go public with them. We now want to organize many interactions between Chinese and Americans. Fortunately, Pres. Xi has called for strengthening connections at many levels. Reports on the November Xi/Biden meetings in November in the Bay area suggest that the American government will be less opposed to reducing American hatred of China. The time may have come for us to help implement a possibility that may make a significant contribution to world peace.

We have asked Philip Clayton to take the lead in this project. He is already highly respected in China as well as in the United States. Greatly increasing conversation between Chinese and Americans would be a first step toward China and the United States taking joint responsibility for global leadership in the drastic changes needed for the survival of civilization. We stand ready to do what we can to help.

Finally, I rejoice not only that all of these organizations are engaged in important activities with excellent leadership and genuine sensitivity to the context in which they are acting, but also that they support each other when that is needed. There really is a process community, and I am only one contributor among many. Nevertheless, I claim it as my legacy and am glad that my passing will have little effect.

Meanwhile I wish each and all of you a Christmas and new year of hope and joy.

John Cobb

• The journal is published biannually, coinciding with the Vernal Equinox in March and the Autumnal Equinox in September. 
• Submissions are accepted on a rolling basis. Deadline for the Vernal Edition is January 31st.
• We accept submissions in various formats, including video, audio, visual art, written work, and music playlists.
• Submissions/questions may be sent via email to the Editor-in-Chief, Ronit LeMon, at ronitlemon@dreamshadow.com. 

Last month, the Center for Process Studies and the Center for Christogenesis collaborated to put on a conference exploring the intersections of the work of process philosopher Alfred North Whitehead and noospheric thinker Pierre Teilhard de Chardin. The conference, featuring fifteen premiere scholars with expertise in Whitehead, Teilhard or both, sought to uncover points of contact and contrast between these two relational, evolutionary thinkers. 

Hotsted at Villanova University, the conference “Alfred North Whitehead & Pierre Teilhard de Chardin: Convergences, Divergences, and Integrations” kicked off on Thursday, September 21st with evening presentations from Ilia Delio and Donald Wayne Viney. These initial plenary sessions introduced the thought of Teilhard and Whitehead presented initial points of contact between the two, providing context for the following two days of presentations which dealt with more specific topics.

Among the niches explored were: panpsychism/panexperientialism in Teilhard and Whitehead; how both thinkers could contribute to visions of developmental politics; Teilhard’s ideas of cosmic evolution and the Omega Point versus Whitehead’s processual cosmos with God as Divine Lure; neoclassical theistic ideas of theodicy and the passibility of God in Teilhard and Whitehead; and both thinkers’ speculations about extraterrestrial life and how the existence of such beings would change how we approach philosophy and theology. 

Over the course of the three days of academic presentations and conversations, a particular phrase from Teilhard’s corpus came to recur as a refrain: “Union differentiates.” This evocative statement turns many classical metaphysical presumptions on their head. In the act of unification, rather than things becoming undifferentiated, Teilhard insists the exact opposite: that things become more themselves, more what they’re meant to be. The cosmic force of love which is constantly at work to pull things together is in fact a creative force of individuation and complexification, not one of mere consolidation.

This notion, combined with Teilhard’s ideas of an Omega Point, provide a strong sense of a cosmic telos. While the Teilhard experts at the conference were quick to qualify that Teilhard’s Omega Point is merely not some far-off, distant cosmic attractor where all shall be reconciled and fulfilled, but rather something here and now, interwoven in the very becoming of the universe, there is nonetheless a sense in which Teilhard’s cosmos is one with a global and determinate telos.

This is perhaps his greatest contrast with Whitehead’s philosophy. Interestingly, many with a cursory familiarity with Whitehead’s “philosophy of organism” often suggest that he is explicitly not a teleological thinker—an understanding which is complicated by qualifications from more seasoned Whitehead scholars. 

What is certainly the case, however, is that the teleology of the Whiteheadian cosmos is relational, atomic, and evolutionary. Relational, as the aims of any entities are constituted and constrained by the other entities with which they are connected; atomic, as larger scale teleology develops out of the negotiation of indivisible “subjective aims” amongst various actual entities; and evolutionary because it is only through this actual negotiation that consistent lines of becoming may develop in the cosmos—even the electromagnetic “cosmic epoch” we currently find ourselves in is not metaphysically necessary for Whitehead, but is an emergent harmony that developed out of the negotiation of the various aims of the actualities that composed the hot particle soup of the early universe. 

So, one finds different flavors of teleology in Whitehead and Teilhard—and perhaps a skillful intermingling of these flavors may allow for a tasty and nourishing noospheric perspective to develop—such is my intuition and hope following this excellent conference. 

In Teilhard’s vision of the Omega Point, there is something inspirational and coherent in the becoming of the cosmos itself—this whole thing is really going somewhere. In our contemporary age colored by nihilism and disconnection from the natural order, such a teleological perspective may serve a therapeutic purpose in addition to opening up new avenues for intellectual and scientific speculation. To be is to contribute to noospheric evolution and the more deeply one lurches towards unity with God, other beings, and cosmos, the more deeply one becomes oneself—and vice versa. Rather than being situated in a cold, arbitrary, and unfeeling cosmos, here the consciousness embedded in human life is not only continuous with the natural order, but in some sense an important cutting edge of this order, expressive of the deeper urge towards union that is behind the cosmic forces themselves. 

Such a perspective, however, is not without its shadow and pitfalls. With the global teleology of Teilhard’s cosmos comes dangers of anthropocentrism and determinism. Barring clear evidence for other higher, conscious lifeforms analogous to human beings, the cosmic task of constituting and contributing to the noosphere seems to rest entirely on our shoulders. As my Teilhardian colleagues would insist, there are certainly resources in Teilhard’s own thought to guard against this danger and complicate this reading, but this concern nonetheless remains so long as one presents a cosmic teleology where human beings are contributing something essential and higher-order. 

With determinism as well, there is plenty in Teilhard’s writings which cut against such a reading of the Omega Point, but even the mere language of a point seems to suggest that there is some singular, determinate end where the whole universe shall culminate. Figuring out how to hold this idea in a way that integrates rather than nullifies intentional human agency will likely be essential to preserve the edifying aspects of Teilhard’s thought while avoiding this pitfall. Here, Whitehead’s ideas may be helpful

In Whiteheadian process philosophy, human beings are likewise exemplifications of the natural order rather than being an anomalous presence in the cosmos. However, the Whiteheadian reasoning for this perspective has more to do with emergence rather than culmination. Grounded in a panexperientialist ontology, Whitehead sees all of actuality being composed of experience. It is due to the inner experience of each actual entity, where relations with other entities are felt and integrated, that anything happens at all. To be is to become and becoming is predicated on experience. So, there is nothing cosmically necessary about human beings (or other possible lifeforms with a similar sort of higher consciousness), but our advanced reflective capacities have roots in the simpler forms of feeling in even the actuality of a single quark. 

So, the Whiteheadian perspective de-centers the human as some teleological necessity and cuts against the idea that there is some kind of necessary, predetermined end towards which human beings are pointing while simultaneously providing a sense of deep integration with and embeddedness in the natural order. As a result, teleology is fundamentally open. Like all other entities, human beings find themselves in a situation where we need to decide what we ought to become—where we should be aiming with our existence. As a result, there is great responsibility, as we cannot merely tune into some pre-existing “right path” but instead must be constantly and dynamically attuned to what is, and what could be. The good news, however (and here there’s good possibilities for meaning-making), is that the openness of teleology means we can always reorient and through this we may uncover previously unmanifest possibilities for becoming. 

The potential downside of Whitehead’s diffuse, open-ended account of teleology is a creeping sense of arbitrariness to the cosmos—something which cuts against basic intuitions that we as human beings in general and as well as particular individuals have a particular role to play in the cosmic drama. Here some of Teilhard’s ideas may help counterbalance this tendency in Whitehead, though of course one may also find resources to this end in process philosophy itself—especially in Whitehead’s account of God as the “Divine Lure” who presents possibilities for harmony and intensity to beings in each moment of their becoming. 

Figuring out a right balance, oscillation, or synthesis between the beauty and coherence of a Teilhardian style cosmic teleology, and the humility and adaptability of Whitehead’s open teleology likely holds great promise for moving towards a more integrated understanding of the human-cosmos relation and the modes of contribution we have at our disposal. Hopefully this conference—and the anthology which will follow in its wake (the first of its kind exploring Teilhard and Whitehead side by side—stay tuned!)—may offer some small contribution to that end.

The American Philosophical Association Pacific Executive Committee has invited the SSPP to participate, as an affiliated group, in the program of its next annual meeting, March 20-23, 2024 in Portland, OR at the Hilton Portland.

This call is for papers addressing any topic in process thought. No more than 8 presenters will be accepted for these two, two-hour sessions.

Everyone on the program must register for the conference. No projectors will be available for presentations. Handouts may be useful. Please plan on a presentation of approximately 20 minutes, plus 10 minutes for discussion.  For submission of a 250-word abstract and a minimum 1000-word draft of your 2000-word paper, the deadline is October 1, 2023. If accepted for this conference, please plan on sending the completed 2000-word paper to me by January 1, 2024. Submissions will be sent to referees, so please eliminate self-identifying references.  Please accompany your paper with a separate page containing author’s name(s), paper title (where appropriate) in Title Case, affiliation (and state/province or country of affiliation), email, and postal address.  Accepted submissions will be announced by October 14, 2023. Please send submissions to Olav Bryant Smith (osmith@csuchico.edu).