Complexity: Science in Service to the Soul
Instructor: Peter Whitkop
Thursdays • 8 classes – 9/23-11/18 (No class 11/11) • 1:00-3:00 PM
Class size 5-20 students
14 seats remaining
Location: Jewett 190
This course is about complex adaptive systems and how we interact with them. We will study not only their science, but their relationship with spirituality as well. In fact, the goal of this course is to show that science and spirituality are not mutually exclusive, but rather, mutually enhancing.
Once the nature of complex adaptive systems has been studied, we will read and discuss two short books that show how a knowledge of complex systems can be exploited for personal and spiritual growth. The books are The Kybalion by Three Initiates and John Michael Greer’s Mystery Teachings from the Living Earth: An Introduction to Spiritual Ecology.
The science will be kept at an introductory college level, and any math will be explained at the level of high school algebra and geometry. The course structure is informal, with plenty of time for questions and class dialogue.classroom
COURSE TOPICS:
(the course neatly divides into 5 sections, but it is designed to take a full 8 weeks)
INTRODUCTION
- The Inspiration behind this Course
- A brief Introduction to Hermetic Philosophy
- The Cosmos as a Great Chain of Being
SPIRIT, SPIRITUALITY AND THE SOUL’S JOURNEY
- What is Spirituality?
- Spirituality and Belonging
- Huston Smith’s Forgotten Truth
- The Soul’s Journey
SCIENCE AND SPIRITUALITY
- Being vs Becoming
- Science in Service to the Soul
- Why Complexity?
- The Science of Complex Systems: general properties, self-organization, self-organized criticality, emergent properties, self-similarity, attractors, chaos
HOW WE INTERACT WITH COMPLEX SYSTEMS
- Fitness landscapes
- The Relationships Between Mind, Matter and Nature
- Three Initiates, The Kybalion: A Study of the Hermetic Philosophy of Ancient Egypt and Greece
- John Michael Greer, Mystery Teachings From The Living Earth: An Introduction to Spiritual Ecology
- (if time permits) Aldo Leopold – Ethics and Complex Systems
MYSTERY, METAPHOR AND WONDER
- The Limits of Math and Science
- The Creativity of Limits
- Paradox, Metaphor and Nature
Peter Whitkop holds a PhD in physical chemistry from the University of Maine. He has worked in various capacities at Cornell University and DuPont’s Savannah River Laboratory. After returning to Maine, he was an adjunct faculty member in the chemistry department at UMaine, where he researched confined quantum systems and taught courses in analytical chemistry and quantum mechanics. Over the past several years, he has been engaged in a course of individual study that helped guide the development of this course.