We have all experienced the benefits of dialogue when we openly and thoughtfully confront issues. We have also experienced the frustration of interminable discussion that does not lead to progress. Co-Laboratories of Democracy enable large, diverse groups to dialogue and generate positive results. Many group processes engender enthusiasm and good feeling as people share their concerns and hopes with each other. Co-Laboratories go beyond this initial euphoria to: Discover root causes; Adopt consensual action plans; Develop teams dedicated to implementing those plans; and Generate lasting bonds of respect, trust, and cooperation. Co-Laboratories achieve these results by respecting the autonomy of all participants, and utilizing an array of consensus tools - including discipline, technology and graphics - that allow the stakeholders to control the discussion. These are explained in depth in a book authored by Alexander N. Christakis with Kenneth C. Bausch: Co-Laboratories of Democracy: How People Harness Their Collective Wisdom to Create the Future (Information Age, 2006). Co-Laboratories are a refinement of Interactive Management, a decision and design methodology developed over the past 30 years to deal with very complex situations involving diverse stakeholders. It has been successfully employed all over the world in situations of uncertainty and conflict. On Cyprus, for example, it has been used to bridge the divide between the Turkish and Greek factions on the island. It is currently being employed on that island to help Palestinian authorities organize their government. Co-Laboratories in one day can draw together a diverse group of people on an issue, elicit authentic feelings and respectful listening, generate agreed upon language, and identify leverage points for effective action. Participants will be able to generate a consensual action plan. Co-Laboratories generate real respect, understanding, and cooperation among participants- and do it rapidly.

In The Emerging Consensus of Social Systems Theory Bausch summarizes the works of over 30 major systemic theorists. He then goes on to show the converging areas of consensus among these out-standing thinkers. Bausch categorizes the social aspects of current systemic thinking as falling into five broadly thematic areas: designing social systems, the structure of the social world, communication, cognition and epistemology. These five areas are foundational for a theoretic and practical systemic synthesis. They were topics of contention in a historic debate between Habermas and Luhmann in the early 1970's. They continue to be contentious topics within the study of social philosophy. Since the 1970's, systemic thinking has taken great strides in the areas of mathematics, physics, biology, psychology, and sociology. This book presents a spectrum of those theoretical advances. It synthesizes what various strains of contemporary systems science have to say about social processes and assesses the quality of the resulting integrated explanations. Bausch gives a detailed study of the works of many present-day systems theorists, both in general terms, and with regard to social processes. He then creates and validates integrated representations of their thoughts with respect to his own thematic classifications. He provides a background of systemic thinking from an historical context, as well as detailed studies of developments in sociological, cognitive and evolutionary theory. This book presents a coherent, dynamic model of a self-organizing world. It proposes a creative and ethical method of decision-making and design. It makes explicit the relations between structure and process in the realms of knowledge and being. The new methodology that evolves in this book allows us to deal with enormous complexity, and to relate ideas so as to draw out previously unsuspected conclusions and syntheses. Therein lies the elegance and utility of this model.

In The Emerging Consensus of Social Systems Theory Bausch summarizes the works of over 30 major systemic theorists. He then goes on to show the converging areas of consensus among these out-standing thinkers. Bausch categorizes the social aspects of current systemic thinking as falling into five broadly thematic areas: designing social systems, the structure of the social world, communication, cognition and epistemology. These five areas are foundational for a theoretic and practical systemic synthesis. They were topics of contention in a historic debate between Habermas and Luhmann in the early 1970's. They continue to be contentious topics within the study of social philosophy. Since the 1970's, systemic thinking has taken great strides in the areas of mathematics, physics, biology, psychology, and sociology. This book presents a spectrum of those theoretical advances. It synthesizes what various strains of contemporary systems science have to say about social processes and assesses the quality of the resulting integrated explanations. Bausch gives a detailed study of the works of many present-day systems theorists, both in general terms, and with regard to social processes. He then creates and validates integrated representations of their thoughts with respect to his own thematic classifications. He provides a background of systemic thinking from an historical context, as well as detailed studies of developments in sociological, cognitive and evolutionary theory. This book presents a coherent, dynamic model of a self-organizing world. It proposes a creative and ethical method of decision-making and design. It makes explicit the relations between structure and process in the realms of knowledge and being. The new methodology that evolves in this book allows us to deal with enormous complexity, and to relate ideas so as to draw out previously unsuspected conclusions and syntheses. Therein lies the elegance and utility of this model.

Volume 1 of Monograph Series, "A Social Systems Approach to Global Problems" A principal failing of research on large-scale, complex social/technological problems is the excessive reliance upon easily measured technical observations and the accompanying minimal regard for hard-to-measure humanist aspirations, intentions, and hopes (Flanagan and Bausch, 2011). By focusing on the easily harvested quantitative data of technological science, complex systems research too easily excludes people's life experiences, their need for practical relevance, their desires, and their traditions.. In doing this, they have alienated popular culture from the research and lay the grounds for ignoring its findings. A new science is emerging that takes account of people's life concerns in the context of critical human problems. This science accepts the observations of all stakeholders, helps observers as they combine these observations, and results in a composite, rich definition of the problem. This comprehensive definition melds many contexts in which stakeholders view the problem. By using this contextualized definition, scientists and populace working together can reach consensus on the nature of the problem and what they are to do about it. This new science was formulated by Gerard DeZeeuw as Third Phase science (1997). If we are to reach a common ground for collective action, we need to talk not only with each other but also to reason together. Such a process requires dialogue. And not just any dialogue, but a highly structured one. In this volume, Reynaldo Trevino Cisneros and Bethania Arango Hisijara present an analysis that joins the 15 global challenges found by the Millennium Project (Glenn, J., Gordon, T., and Florescu, E., 2010) with the 49 Continuous Critical Problems (CCPs) identified by Hasan Ozbekhan (1970). The method they used is expert-analysis using Interpretive Structural Modeling (ISM). It relies upon its two source documents to provide the required diversity of observations. It also reflects the considered judgment of only two people. It nevertheless illustrates the complexity that is inherent in a deep consideration of the challenge of global sustainability. In preparation, the authors immersed themselves in the world as viewed in the 15 challenges and the 49 critical problems. Then they used Interpretive Structural Modeling (Warfield, 1974, 1976; Christakis and Bausch, 2006) to rank the 15 challenges on the basis of the influence they have on each other. In doing this, they generated a map that indicates the most influential challenges. This map points out that these challenges possess leverage and therefore deserve priority in efforts to improve the global situation. Second, they clustered the individual CCPs with the corresponding Challenges. Third, they generated actions that work to solve the individual Challenges. Finally, they generated a second map that indicates how the actions can confront the Challenges. The central message from Bethania and Reynaldo is to invite civil society and governmental organizations to shape transdisciplinary groups and to follow their own journey of discovery, dialog and design, to achieve, by themselves, shared and clever strategies that might address at global, national, regional or local levels some of the challenges they had identified as needing attention, to pursue together a better quality of life for themselves and their communities.

Bronze medal winner Independent Publisher;s (IPPY) Award competition Body is wiser than Ego. Ego is cleverer than Body. When Ego catches Body's tune, a song happens. When Ego catches Body's intuition, magic happens. An idea is born. Our bodies are one with the universe and privy to its unspoken secrets. They are the unconscious source of our intuition. When we focus with our hearts on troubling questions, our unconscious comes through for us. Open questions posed to the unconscious act as the strange attractors of chaos theory. They enable the creative speech of discovery. In this book, you will explore how your ego rises from your body through language. You will appreciate how the creative thinking enabled by body-ego interplay builds your personality overtime. The personal and social realms you create have remarkable properties. When you understand those properties, you open new vistas for viewing empathy, visions, hallucinations, dreams, and the reality of language. You open new ways to understand objective reality, the reality of religious myths, and even the reality of death. The motif of most Western thought since the time of Zoroaster and Plato is that we are minds (and souls) trapped within physical bodies. St Augustine reinforced this tradition and Descartes formalized it. The upright man, as symbolized by the stick figure (all head and almost no body) became a standard Western conception. Nietzsche saw the evil of this conception and protested it loudly. Merleau-Ponty demonstrated that our bodies both know and are known. Freud and Lacan showed how the ego rises from the body through the magic of language. Our bodies are microcosms of the universe and bearers of its unspoken secrets. Holograms, chaos theory, and fractal geometry bear witness. For more about this book and its blog, go to www.bodywisdombook.com

Did you ever stop to consider how magical, mystical, and genuinely spiritual the practice of dialogue can be? Not debate, of course. Debate is a win-lose contest, and it draws circles around winners and losers which divide us and foster ill will. I am speaking about the type of conversations - reflective deliberations - that we share with others in a circle of trust. Body Wisdom in Dialogue is a guide book for understanding the feelings that enable and sustain heartfelt discussions. Collective conversation is an ancient art which has been sustained within tribal cultures. For this reason, the book opens with a preface from the Americans for Indian Opportunities providing a view into the sacred dialogues of indigenous democracy. The first chapter reflects on the experience of thinking as individuals - which is a prelude to the phenomenon of thinking in groups. The same conditions that are needed for us to sort out complex understandings alone are needed as we sort out complex understandings together. The second chapter provides a brief history of the concept of body wisdom. The reductionist tradition of Western metaphysics comes under fire, in an honest and respectful fashion. And history comes full circle as Western sciences evolve the recognized need to once again engage complexity through inclusive community. A third chapter launches a reflective look at how we feel our way through moments of thought. When we recognize that philosophical mathematicians no less than Albert Einstein embraced this experience, we can find it easier to make peace with feelings which might seem to work against logic. Our feelings enliven our logic - challenging it for the purpose of making it more coherent - and in this sense our emotional presence is the basis for our creativity, understandings, and self discovery - our deep beliefs, our mysticism and our faith. The fourth chapter speaks to the need and the mechanism for linking body wisdom (our emotional presence) with cognitive wisdom (our constructed understandings) through dialogue. A case is made that collective reflection links us at deep levels. Dialogue allows us to democratize deeply held feelings. Collective consciousness is introduced in the fifth chapter. Conscious thinking includes learning and also remembering what is learned. Some of what we have learned is carried within us as individuals, some of what we have learned is carried among us as stories, and some takes expression in the world around us. The process is sometimes rushed. Much that mankind has done in the world has left voices out of the discussion. Inclusive dialogues - which raise collective consciousness into collective action - must move at a pace that allows the group's collective body wisdom to connect with its collective cognitive wisdom. Specific examples are provided in this chapter. The sixth chapter reaches back to antiquity to connect with a myth from the classical Greek era - the contest constructed by Aphrodite (representing prevailing power and wisdom) for Psyche (representing an emerging presence) in determining a romantic outcome (representing, we propose, the future of man). Psyche's ordeal is a metaphor for the ordeal that we face when we are engaged in inclusive, complex dialogue. A final chapter provides a glimpse of ways that large groups can fuse body wisdom with cognitive wisdom. Dialogue can leave participants with an enduring feeling that they have participated in a sacred event - that they have summoned the sublime presence of a collective wisdom. The authors do try to walk this line lightly; however, Body Wisdom in Dialogue does not side step the need for an appropriate approach to dialogue for dealing with our most pressing civic situations. Body Wisdom in Dialogue: Rediscovering the Voice of the Goddess is the second AGORAS publication by Thomas Flanagan and Ken Bausch. It follows last year's book A Democratic Approach to Sustainable Futures.

We have all experienced the benefits of dialogue when we openly and thoughtfully confront issues. We have also experienced the frustration of interminable discussion that does not lead to progress. Co-Laboratories of Democracy enable large, diverse groups to dialogue and generate positive results. Many group processes engender enthusiasm and good feeling as people share their concerns and hopes with each other. Co-Laboratories go beyond this initial euphoria to: Discover root causes; Adopt consensual action plans; Develop teams dedicated to implementing those plans; and Generate lasting bonds of respect, trust, and cooperation. Co-Laboratories achieve these results by respecting the autonomy of all participants, and utilizing an array of consensus tools - including discipline, technology and graphics - that allow the stakeholders to control the discussion. These are explained in depth in a book authored by Alexander N. Christakis with Kenneth C. Bausch: Co-Laboratories of Democracy: How People Harness Their Collective Wisdom to Create the Future (Information Age, 2006).Co-Laboratories are a refinement of Interactive Management, a decision and design methodology developed over the past 30 years to deal with very complex situations involving diverse stakeholders. It has been successfully employed all over the world in situations of uncertainty and conflict. On Cyprus, for example, it has been used to bridge the divide between the Turkish and Greek factions on the island. It is currently being employed on that island to help Palestinian authorities organize their government. Co-Laboratories in one day can draw together a diverse group of people on an issue, elicit authentic feelings and respectful listening, generate agreed upon language, and identify leverage points for effective action. Participants will be able to generate a consensual action plan. Co-Laboratories generate real respect, understanding, and cooperation among participants- and do it rapidly.