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The Integral Vision
Themes | What is Integral? | What is Holistic? | Everything is Interconnected | Everything is Interdependent
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Everything is interconnected

The traditional Western scientific worldview has conditioned us to believe that the world and the cosmos are comprised of distinct, isolated, material objects – all separated from one another in space and set in dynamic motion according to rational, deterministic, mechanistic laws. This view of the universe reigned supreme for hundreds of years or more, bolstered by the observations of classical physics, biology, and other natural sciences. However, in the past century it began to crumble, driven by numerous remarkable discoveries at the frontiers of science. This led to a fundamental shift in perspective that began about 100 years ago with the advent of quantum theory and relativity theory in physics, and continued through the 20th century with major breakthroughs in biology, evolutionary biology, complexity theory, transpersonal psychology, and many other disciplines.

A new scientific paradigm is emerging that conceives of the universe as a vast network of energetic living systems, all interconnected in a complex web of relationships that manifest out of an underlying unified field. Atoms, once believed to be solid nuggets of matter, are revealed to be patterns of vibrating energy. Matter is composed almost entirely of empty space. A new holistic or integral worldview is emerging, in which the universe and all life in it comprise a single unitive whole.

These unprecedented discoveries are rapidly shifting our understanding of reality. Science is uncovering profound new levels of interconnection between matter and consciousness, which began with Heisenberg’s discovery that nothing exists in objective isolation from the rest of existence. For example, experiments in quantum physics show that every particle in the universe is somehow ‘aware’ of every other particle. A new principle of interconnection known as ‘non-locality’ has been confirmed in repeated experiments, showing that after two particles have interacted, their ‘spin’ properties are thereafter fundamentally interconnected. If we measure the spin state of one particle, the spin state of the other particle responds instantaneously, even if it’s located at the opposite end of the universe.

This immediate ‘non-local’ connection between the particles transcends all separation in space and time, and thus precludes any possibility of a ‘signal’ of some kind carrying information from one particle to the other. Thus the entire universe appears to be intimately interconnected, and these discoveries hint at possible physical explanations for the increasingly recognized links between consciousness and matter.

William Keepin, The InnerNet of the Heart, The Emerging worldview of Oneness, Song of the Earth, p. 3

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