(Note: this was originally written on June 22, 2009.)

Iran, a nation that has spent the last century struggling to make its way into the modern world, now finds itself beset on all sides by massive internal and external pressures.  An enormous amount of civil unrest has been ignited during the recent 2009 presidential election, a response to apparent voter fraud that has crippled one of the few stable modern structures found in present-day Iran.  A maelstrom of cultural, political, economic, religious, and historic forces conspire to turn one of history’s proudest and most colorful cultures into a volatile powder-keg in the 21st century—and if we have learned anything at all from these past 10 days, it is simply that a fuse has now been lit.  What happens next is almost anyone’s guess—will Iran find a way to evolve its own political systems?  Will it retain its currently theocratic status quo?  Or will the country begin to fall apart altogether? Read the rest of this entry

While surveying the current American political landscape, it can be easy to feel as though the country is divided into two radically opposing populations: the Left and the Right. When watching the speeches, interviews, and debates on either side of the fence, there is such an incredible difference between the tone, rhetoric, and messages coming from the two major political parties that many pundits have commented that it is as though we live in two utterly different Americas, with very little overlap between the two. But the truth is, we do not live in two Americas, but in a single America composed of at least four or five different sets of values, all crammed together into a two-party political system that is becoming increasingly incapable of representing these wildly different perspectives. Many are beginning to recognize this systemic inadequacy and are searching for a genuinely Integral “Third Way” politics—a new way to break free from the restrictions of such rigidly calcified party lines, transcending both sides of the partisan divide, including the very best of both parties, without resorting to the effete compromise of mere centrism that has been typical of the political “Third Way” to date. Read the rest of this entry

Report to battle stations, Integral minions! Quantum Physicists are stealing our holons and locking infinity in the basement!

Meet Two New Quantum Particles: Spinons and Holons

As many of you probably already know, “holon” is a term coined by Arthur Koestler (and popularized by Ken Wilber) which basically means something that is a self-contained whole while simultaneously being a dependent part of an even greater whole—e.g. a whole atom is part of a whole molecule, which is part of a whole cell, which is part of a whole organism, etc.

In a fit of ontological irony, physicists have recently co-opted the word “holon” to describe one of two elementary particles—the result of a single electron breaking down when forced through a very narrow, quantum-scale wire—essentially stripping the holism out of the holon and reducing it to mere reductionism.  Obviously the world’s foremost particle physicists have yet to read either The Ghost in the Machine or Sex, Ecology, Spirituality.  Well, poo poo on them.

Anyway, all of this serves as an excuse to post the following dialogue i had with Ken Wilber about the relationship between quantum physics and spirituality.  It should be noted that my own role in this discussion was minimal (even negligible) and i am somewhat of an embarrassing neophyte when it comes to quantum mechanics and “spooky action at a distance”.  I was essentially there to lob an easy pitch over the plate, so that Ken could knock it out of the park.  And that he did.  Though i am still left with many questions about the relationship of consciousness and quantum physics, Ken does a really great job of clearing up much of the confusion around spirituality and quantum physics, as seen in things like the Tao of Physics, What the Bleep? and countless other New Age interpretations of quantum mechanics.

Stream the full 25 minute discussion below, or right-click here to download.

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From the monochromatic charm of Atari’s iconic Pong, to the rotund gluttony of the pill-popping Pac Man, to the world’s most famous mustache festooned beneath Mario’s pepperoni-sniffing proboscis, all the way to the adrenaline-soaked frag-fests of today’s grizzled Halo warriors—video games have come a very long way in the past thirty years, redefining entertainment for an entire generation.

It is therefore surprising that, almost a full decade into the 21st century, video games as a whole continue to be fairly marginalized in American culture, often perceived as a frivolous distraction at best, a menace to society at worst. In many people’s eyes, video games are still geared primarily to hormonal, pimple-faced teenagers, mostly boys needing an outlet for the aggression and pent-up testosterone. However, the facts seem to tell an entirely different story—while the Clearasil demographic continues to be a major force in the gaming industry, recent surveys have offered some fascinating insights into just how deeply video games permeate our contemporary culture. As it turns out, 65% of American households play video games, on either computers or video game consoles such as the Xbox 360. The average gamer is somewhere between 30 and 35 years old, and has been playing for somewhere around thirteen years. 40% of gamers are female, and an astonishing 26% of gamers are over the age of 50. Finally, the growth of video game sales are rapidly beginning to outpace both music and movie industries, and are expected to more than double the revenues from both industries combined by the year 2012, with nine games currently being purchased every second of every day. Following these trends to their logical conclusions, it seems clear that the future of entertainment much more closely resembles Spore, Bioshock, and Grand Theft Auto than it does Jurassic Park, Wall-E, or The Lord of the Rings. Read the rest of this entry