This edition includes some of the most compelling articles that we have ever published. These articles are designed to inspire our imaginations, challenge our moral sensitivity and enlighten our scientific and intellectual consciousness.

Alexander Likhotal is a hard-nosed historian unafraid of drawing uncomfortable insights concerning the role of science and technology and the emergent forms of social organization. In this short essay titled “Science and Progress,” among the important points he makes is that in the 21st Century science is as much about us as it is for us. He makes the important point that values are not a superfluous source but represent basic intangible assets of civilization. This is an excellent piece and worth reading.

Rajendra Pachauri, former chairman of Intergovernmental Panel of Climate Change, has contributed a remarkably lucid paper on some of the selected but important problems of global political economy and dangerous impacts of climate change. The central idea that is stressed in the paper, titled “Addressing Sustainable Development Goals and Tackling Climate Change: Scientific Realities and Options,” is the problem of the lack of global transparency in financial institutions and in particular impacts on global tax fraud. He raises the issue of global core responsibility and in particular, the effects of the current system on income inequality and sustainable development. Suggestions are made to improve corporate law and to promote a deeper ethic on the part of the private sector to generate carbon neutral activity and to contribute positively to universal green energy production.

In his article titled “Complex Society and Values,” Jüri Engelbrecht has given us a short but powerfully insightful introduction to complexity theory. He has brought important insights from the hard sciences and has explored the added dimension of complexity in the context of the social process. The most important insight here is the importance of values to guide inquiry into the complexity of social organization. This is a powerful insight well within the traditions of WAAS. A former president of WAAS, Harold Lasswell and a Fellow, Myres Smith McDougal, explored precisely the question of using the analogy drawn from the hard sciences of contextual mapping, guided by the clarification and identification of values as fundamentally important to the future of humanity and the prospect of its survival. Engelbrecht should be congratulated on this excellent and insightful article.

F. J. Radermacher, in his article “… and things are changing after all,” has provided us with an important update concerning the consequences of 2008 economic meltdown. The most important of the consequences concerning the positive side is the enhancement of international fiscal transparency. The practical problem with a non-regulatory, free trade regime is that financial and corporate freedom way often is engaged in criminal activity. State regulation of multi state activity will in general be much weaker in the international environment. Recently free trade has been challenged and tax fraud now requires more transparency to ensure that the tax laws are respected. Radermacher draws attention to the need for corporate law reform and in this framework indicates new solutions to the problems of climate change. This is a very interesting and useful contribution to some of most challenging problems of the current global economy, and the environmental and other challenges.

Jakob von Uexkull has contributed a recent speech titled “History has knocked very loudly on our door. Will we answer?” delivered in Hamburg in March this year. Von Uexkull is the president and founder of the World Futures Council. The Council has been a powerful leader in drawing attention to some of the most important crises and threats to human survival. The message is unmistakable: there is no human future without a supreme collective global effort to save the planet and humanity. The Council has not been content to underscore the problem, it has deployed the powerful intellectual network within its orbit. One of the most powerful statements of this article is the following:

No religious dogma is as powerful and dangerous as the dogmas of economists who assume we will all become richer even in a burning planet.

Understanding the evolution of leadership and individuality is the key to understanding the process of social evolution. Winston Nagan & Megan Weeran, in “The Mind of the Leader,” perceptively captures the essence of the psychological profile of a leader. He discusses the importance of early childhood in shaping leadership skills and emphasizes on effective decision-making as a key trait of leaders. – Comment by Garry Jacobs, Editorial Board Member, Eruditio.

Winston Nagan & Megan Weeran, in “The Future of Higher Education,” identifies the role and importance of thinking in learning. The author derives a profound truth that shared enlightenment should be the purpose of education. Values is given prominence, and the role of individual and the culture of human rights is seen as central to the process of development. – Comment by Garry Jacobs, Editorial Board Member, Eruditio.

Carlos Alvarez Pereira loudly proclaims that he is not an academic economist in his paper “Towards a society of living”. This frees him from the restraints of a great deal of academic orthodoxy. It also permits him with a good deal of creative orientation to make some of the sharpest points of criticism about the failures of global economics, drawing attention inter alia to the “illusion of technology,” “the endless stream of speculative bubbles,” as well as “illusion of digital solutionism.” The conventional economics is essentially a matter of gridlock thinking generated by gridlock culture, informed by gridlock purposes and gridlock visions. Pereira explores pathways out of blind spots that now envelop us. This is a refreshing and sparkling piece of scholarship.

Ivo Šlaus’ “Concluding remarks” were delivered at the conference organized by Montenegro Academy of Art & Science. Šlaus has taken the major contributions of the conference and synthesized them in a brief and eminently readable compass. The paper touches on Higgs Boson, to dark energy, and to the emerging fields of synthetic biology, artificial intelligence and Nano-science. He draws attention to the emergence of smart robots to the quantum adiabatic computing and many other amazing and technological developments. He draws attention to the importance of science and technology for the development of a political economy based on human capital. A useful, erudite and fine summation of the conference agenda.

David Norris, in “Beyond Perspective,” urges humanity to go beyond the limited perspective of the mind. He explores the nature of mind and explains how the problems we face today have its roots in our limited perspective. A shift in consciousness is needed. We need to move from old paradigms to welcome the new world. Creative thinking is necessary to solve the problems and bring about a new paradigm. This is a very insightful article.

Charles Smith has taken on a conventional phenomenon of conversation and provided it with powerful and insightful insights in “Conversations that matter”. Conversation involves such conventional methods as engaging, talking, creating and exploring deep matters in real time. Conversations reveal vibrational and static impacts. Truth emerges from conversations as well as emotional expressions. One of the great insights of this article is the recognition of conversation as a Kairos point. A Kairos point is an aspect of the present period. A Kairos point indicates elimination and in relationships it provides coherence. Smith provides many illustrations. Indeed, he provides 11 steps to maximize the Kairos portal. These 11 steps are a practical guide to optimising the new experience of communication. This is an important article and the reader could benefit from its insights.

“Human Mutuality System” by Shlomo Yishai is thoughtful and a very challenging short essay. It focuses on the changing individual human perspectives. It generates speculation on the role of space exploration and its impact on the human perspective. He focuses on the overview effect of pictures on the Earth from space which provides the view of the compression of Earth from space. This changes human identity on a global basis. We are still working through the effect of these effects on human identity, however, the view from space seems to expand the identity system of man. Space triggered a revolution in Earth space communication. Systems reality now competes with virtual reality and need for variety in reality systems now shapes human identity on a global basis. We require a new form of identity which generates a human mutuality system. Initially global warming requires the shift in humanity’s fundamental perspective. Global warming and communications realities mandate a deep understanding of human consciousness. Indeed collective consensus requires a shift to collective individualism as well as the evolution of individual collectives. This is a very challenging article.

This book review provides a concise summary of Petra Kuenkel’s The Art of Leading Collective: Co-Creating a Sustainable Socially Just Future. This book carries the endorsement of a leading economic thinker in the World Academy and the Club of Rome, Ernst Ulrich von Weizsaecker. The book underscores the contemporary development agenda which implies a new energy that is to guide a global partnership for a new people centered and planet sensitive agenda founded on the solidarity of all of humanity. The central target of this new initiative is the transformation that shifts toward universal human rights, universalizing of economic opportunity, with a view to the sustainability of these initiatives. Implicit in all of these is the necessity of providing jobs, inclusive economic growth, universalizing peace, good governance, and human well-being. As Petra Kuenkel implies, this requires a paradigm shift which is already underway. The central challenge she poses is the challenge of maximizing the decision making capability of humanity as a whole. Our models of leadership focus on the individual leader and the extension of individual skills. What is needed for the paradigm shift is collective leadership, collective innovation and a collective embrace of the necessity of a new paradigm. The challenge of collective leadership implies that we can isolate and understand the idea of a planet-wide collective consciousness. This is a powerful and brave challenge. Kuenkel gives us a deep insight into the idea of a collective leadership compass. The review outlines this explicitly. What Michael Marien and Michael Sales underscore is the enormous growth of non-state social power and the vast aggregates whose full potentials for paradigm change lie at the heart of the evolution of a new global collective decision making capacity. This review is an extremely useful contribution.

Winston P. Nagan
Chairman of the Board, World Academy of Art & Science
Chair, Program Committee
Editor-in-Chief,Eruditio