John Cobb & Friends Gathering: George Strawn
2024-06-11 10:00 - 12:00 (America/Los_Angeles) | Online Via Zoom
Topic: AI Today Means Machine Learning

Presenters: George Strawn

George Strawn is a life-long professional computer scientist who also has a keen life-long interest in History, Philosophy, Religion, Physics, and Biology. As a former trustee of the Claremont School of Theology, he counts it a privilege to know John Cobb, and to have participated in the 2015 Claremont conference, “Seizing an Alternative.” He says, “After 80 years of development, Machine Learning may have reached an ‘inflection point,’ called Generative AI—that is, rather than just finding cute cat pictures on the Web, it can generate cute cat pictures from scratch. It can also generate articles, computer programs, and other artifacts that we thought only humans could create.” In Tuesday’s talk George Strawn will relate the history of this important development, describe how complicated it is on the inside, and how simple and powerful it is on the outside.

George Strawn has been a life-long professional computer scientist. For 30 years he was on the faculty of Iowa State University’s Department of Computer Science, where he was sometime department chair and director of the computer lab. For another 30 years he served at the National Science Foundation, assisted the Office of Science and Technology Policy in the White House, and worked with the National Academy of Science. See this article about his Distinguished Service Award from ISU.

Prior to joining the Academies, Strawn was the director of the National Coordination Office (NCO) for the Networking and Information Technology Research and Development (NITRD) Program and co-chair of the NITRD interagency committee. Strawn held these positions while on leave from the National Science Foundation (NSF) to the Office of Science and Technology Policy in the Whitehouse.

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Process Thought & Ecological Civilization 2024
2024-06-12 16:00 - 17:30, 2024-06-19 16:00 - 17:30, 2024-06-26 16:00 - 17:30, 2024-07-03 16:00 - 17:30 | Online Event
Exploring Crises and Possibilities for Ecological Justice and Wellbeing

This course explores visions of ecological civilization, drawing upon process-relational understandings of the cosmos; the history of ecological struggles and movements; and central ideas and practices that have emerged in philosophical, scientific, economic, artistic, religious, and activist communities of reflection. The purpose is to gather and build upon practical wisdom that has power to transform the downward spiral of ecological destruction and to foster movements for protecting, healing, and regenerating our broken planet. The course is an invitation for participants to travel into the midst of crises and seek possibilities for ecological justice and wellbeing.

Over the course of six sessions, we will identify and analyze dominant assumptions about the human and more-than-human natural world, critiquing and reshaping them from the standpoint of process-relational and other traditions of thought. We will explore these assumptions through case studies, readings and videos, presentations by experts, student projects, and probing conversations.

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Learning Circle: Process & Coffee
2024-06-13 08:00 - 09:00, 2024-06-20 08:00 - 09:00, 2024-06-27 08:00 - 09:00, 2024-07-04 08:00 - 09:00, 2024-07-11 08:00 - 09:00, 2024-07-18 08:00 - 09:00, 2024-07-25 08:00 - 09:00
Process & Coffee is about spiritual integration and exploration. We meet weekly to dive into books by mystics and sages. The discussion that follows helps to deepen our own spiritual lives.

Click here to learn more or join.

Course: 12 Universal Spiritual Principles to Freedom and Intimacy
2024-06-13 17:00 - 18:00, 2024-06-20 17:00 - 18:00, 2024-06-27 17:00 - 18:00 | Online Event
Dealing With Difficulties in a Healthy and Holistic Way

Over the course of life, most people experience serious challenges, like death of a loved one, conflict within marriage, the loss of a job, an addiction, serious problems with a child, loss of life purpose, etc. When such challenges require help beyond one’s own resources, the 12 spiritual principles covered in this course open the path to outside help which solves the challenge. This is the way to deal with the difficulties one faces in a healthy and holistic way.

In this six-session course, Karl Y. will guide participants in a brief study of the twelve spiritual principles for solving any human personal problem and how the solution increases intimacy with oneself, others, and the power of help outside oneself. The twelve universal spiritual principles are generalized from the 12 steps of Alcoholics Anonymous. We will link these principles to the writing of Alfred North Whitehead in order to understand them in transreligious spiritual ways that are compatible with process-relational thought.

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Seeing Nature Through a Process Lens
2024-06-17 08:30 - 10:00, 2024-06-24 08:30 - 10:00, 2024-07-01 08:30 - 10:00 | Online Event
A Learning Circle Exploring Nature Authors Guided by Process Thought

In this four-session learning circle we will read and discuss the writings of various nature authors, such as Loren Eiseley, Mary Oliver, John Muir, and others. The group will use some of the Cobb Institute’s “What is Process Thought? 20 Key Ideas” slideshow as a means to learn more about nature and process thought.

The learning circle will meet four times for an hour and a half each session. We will begin session one with a discussion of five of the 20 Key Ideas. In each of the other three sessions there will be a brief review of the biography of the authors and an overview of their works.

Knowledge of the authors we will study or process thought is not necessary. A desire to learn more about both is both helpful and desired.

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Learning Circle: Processing Difference & Repetition
2024-06-17 14:30 - 16:00, 2024-07-15 14:30 - 16:00 | Online Event
A Collective Processing of Gilles Deleuze’s Masterpiece

Processing Difference & Repetition is a learning circle dedicated to exploring Gilles Deleuze’s seminal work, Difference and Repetition. Its goal is to collectively process the rich themes within the book, occasionally identify resonances with the larger process tradition, and foster insightful discussions along the way.

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John Cobb & Friends Gathering: Lynn De Jonghe
2024-06-18 10:00 - 12:00 | Online Via Zoom
Topic: Truth Under Attack: Talking Past Each Other in a Polarized Society

Presenters: Lynn De Jonghe

Lynn De Jonghe frequently participates in our Tuesday conversations. On June 18 she’ll ask how we should respond to those who profoundly disagree with us without dissembling and without further inflaming the spirit of growing hatred in our struggling democracy. Discussions in liberal and academic communities may assume that most intelligent people possess a shared understanding of truth and goodness. However, Amy Chua has argued that this thinking fails to address the increasingly tribal spirit of society polarizing the politics of this country. In fact J.D. Vance has declared, “The professors are the enemy.”

De Jonghe argues that many fierce policy disagreements and clashing truth claims have their roots in different understandings of the meanings of goodness and truth. After examining the historical roots of these disagreements, she shows how these differences can be manipulated and even weaponized by individuals for their own political ambitions. She then turns to address those whose righteous anger may be genuine. She concludes that grappling with such different perspectives may require strategies that go beyond philosophical argument to more direct forms of informal communication.

Lynn De Jonghe’s career in progressive education has spanned more than forty years. She served as the founding Head of East Bay Sierra School, which later merged with another school to form Prospect Sierra School, to become one of the preeminent schools in the San Francisco Bay Area. Prior to her work in independent schools, Lynn spent fifteen years in public education administering federal funds to innovative programs, advocating for project learning as an alternative to textbooks, and pushing for integration in Massachusetts schools. She received her BA degree in History from Harvard University and an MS in Library Science from Simmons College before completing her PhD in Education at Cornell University. Her doctoral work on children’s problem solving led her to push for challenging educational programs that encourage all students to pursue learning in depth and to use problem solving skills, collaborative learning, and exploration of values in an integrated curriculum. She has served as a trustee of numerous non-profit educational organizations. Her book, Starting with Whitehead: Raising Children to Thrive in Treacherous Times was published by Rowman Littlefield August 2022.

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John Cobb & Friends Gathering: Brian McLaren
2024-06-25 10:00 - 12:00 | Online Via Zoom
Topic: Life after Doom: Wisdom and Courage for a World Falling Apart!

Presenters: Brian McLaren

This popular religion writer will discuss his most recently published book, Life after Doom: Wisdom & Courage for a World Falling Apart. Sheri Kling, director of the Process & Faith program, will assist our conversation.

Brian McLaren’s website describes this prolific author/lecturer in this way:

Brian D. McLaren is an author, speaker, activist, and public theologian. A former college English teacher and pastor, he is a passionate advocate for “a new kind of Christianity” – just, generous, and working with people of all faiths for the common good. He is an Auburn Senior Fellow, a contributor to We Stand With Love, and a leader in the Convergence Network, through which he is developing an innovative training/mentoring program for pastors and church planters.

He has been appreciated by those who do theology in process and open and relational ways. Tripp Fuller describes his interview with McLaren about Life After Doom. “In it, we wrestle with redefining faith, civilization, and ecological consciousness. We delve into theological reflections, reinterpreting religious practices to align with Jesus’s teachings, advocating for a paradigm shift in societal structures, and emphasizing the urgent need for sustainable living. Moreover, we discuss creating inclusive spaces for spiritual growth and action.” For a discussion of McLaren’s work from a process point of view, see Jay McDaniel’s “Seven Lessons We Can Learn from Brian McLaren” in Open Horizons.

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John Cobb & Friends Gathering: The Legacy of James M. Lawson Jr.
2024-07-09 10:00 - 12:00 | Online Via Zoom
Topic: The Legacy of James M. Lawson Jr.

Presenters: TBA

A memorial service on July 6 at Holman United Methodist Church in Los Angeles honored the legacy of Dr. James M. Lawson, Jr., who was their pastor for 25 years. He served the American civil rights movement by training young people in the methods of non-violent resistance. There were tributes from Los Angeles mayor Karen Bass, President Joe Biden, educators, and leaders of labor organizations. Pulitzer prize winning presidential historian Jon Meacham said, “James Lawson is a latter day founding father, an architect of America as worthy of our respect and our reverence as Washington or Jefferson, Adams or Hamilton, Douglass or King.” We will listen to selected portions of that service and reflect on his legacy. You may find a collection of Lawson videos on the Holman website, including Lawson’s tribute to the late John Lewis. You’ll find an archived recording of James Lawson’s January 11, 2022 conversation with Cobb and Friends, marking the publication of his book, Revolutionary Nonviolence: Organizing for Freedom.

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Process Thought & Science 2024
2024-07-10 12:00 - 14:00, 2024-07-17 12:00 - 14:00, 2024-07-24 12:00 - 14:00 | Online Event
Applying Process Thought Across the Natural Sciences

This course introduces students to Alfred North Whitehead’s process philosophy by exploring its relevance to contemporary natural science and cosmology. The facilitator will introduce Whitehead’s way of thinking about the philosophical presuppositions of science. The course also includes sessions with guest lecturers offering examples of Whiteheadian and other process-oriented approaches to physics, biology, neuroscience, and consciousness studies.

In light of his protest against the modern bifurcation of nature into separate physical and psychical domains, the course examines the ways Whitehead’s process-relational ontology allows us to understand the knowledge produced by natural science as compatible with human experience, including the presuppositions of ethical social relations and cultural self-understanding. Whitehead’s “organic realism” makes it possible to re-enchant the world without contradicting the latest scientific findings. In fact, his Philosophy of Organism provides us with one of the most promising means of integrating the increasingly fragmented natural and social sciences into a comprehensive and potentially civilization renewing vision.

Students can expect to gain a basic understanding of Whitehead’s cosmology and the major categories of his metaphysical scheme. Students will be introduced to Whitehead’s novel interpretations of relativity, quantum, evolutionary, and complexity theories, and will become familiar with the usually unspoken metaphysical assumptions underlying contemporary physicalist cosmology. Students will also come to appreciate the importance of overcoming the artificial modern divide between natural science and the humanities.

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John Cobb & Friends Gathering: Nancy J. Ramsay
2024-07-16 10:00 - 12:00 | Online Via Zoom
Topic: A Conversation about Moral Injury

Presenters: Nancy J. Ramsay

Nancy J. Ramsay, Director of the Soul Repair Center, Brite Divinity School, will discuss “Moral Injury,” a new term for an ancient idea. We find it described in ancient Greek mythology and in the Hebrew Bible or Christian Old Testament such as when after battle the Hebrew men would have a ritual of cleansing from the moral harm of killing and witnessing killing before they returned to their families. During the Crusades, when soldiers returned home, they spent a year in practices of penance including meeting regularly with a priest before they could once again take communion. This was not punishment, but a recognition of the moral harm of taking the life of others and the need for ongoing reflection and hopefully coming to terms with the burden of one’s conscience—the awareness that each of us as reflective persons know the reality of failing to be who we intend to be or failing to act in ways that reflect our deepest conscience. These illustrations of such ancient practices remind us of the morally injurious power of suffering and the need to acknowledge it. Moral Injury seeks to name this deep suffering that calls for our response. It is an experience of witnessing, failing to prevent, or learning about unnecessary violence as a betrayal of our obligations to one another.

Moral injury arises in two forms:

Agential moral injury describes harm we cause. It is our own failure to act in ways that align with our deepest values.

Receptive moral injury is the harm that arises from the actions of others that cause our pain such as sexual and domestic violence and gun violence.

Pastoral Theologian, Larry Kent Graham: described moral injury as “soul wounds” (Moral injury: Restoring Wounded Souls, Abingdon, 2017).

Dr. Ramsay says, “In our conversation, I will draw on Graham; Holocaust survivor and philosopher Emmanual Levinas; medical sociologist, Arthur Frank; marriage and family therapist, Pauline Bos, and scriptures such as Gen. 32:24-32 (Jacob wrestling at the Jabbok).

In my experience, moral injury—both agential and receptive—is familiar to any reflective person, and I hope we will have a rich conversation about ways it informs our lives and relationships and convictions as citizens and persons of faith.” (See her attached biodata.)

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John Cobb & Friends Gathering: Ernie Tamminga
2024-07-23 10:00 - 12:00 | Online Via Zoom
Topic: Teilhard, Technology and Technolatry: The Internet is Not the Noosphere

Presenters: Ernie Tamminga

Ernie Tamminga describes himself as a “planet empath.” He is a member of the board of the American Teilhard Association and has been reflecting on Teilhard’s vision for over 50 years. He earned his PhD at the University of California, Santa Barbara where, under the mentorship of Raimon Panikkar, his dissertation was an analysis and critique of Teilhard’s notion of a “privileged axis” of evolution. Ernie is a trained Spiritual Director, and a former member of the board and teaching faculty of Stillpoint: The Center for Christian Spirituality. In the 1960s and 1970s he was a board member of “The Phenomenon of Man Project,” a nonprofit that introduced thousands of people to Teilhard’s vision through illustrated lectures and retreats. For the past two years, Ernie has been convening a Learning Circle for the Cobb Institute, entitled “An Awakening Planet?” For the American Teilhard Association, he is currently offering an extended study of Teilhard’s magnum opus, “The Human Phenomenon.” Ernie and his wife Alison have, between them, 12 grandchildren and one great-grandson, a fact that intensifies his sense of urgency about what we are doing to our beloved planet.

ABOUT THE PRESENTATION: In The Human Phenomenon, Teilhard de Chardin (1881-1955) traces the evolution of reflective consciousness in the universe and on Planet Earth. He identifies major “thresholds” through which this process has unfolded so far, including the emergence of life, of consciousness, and of reflective consciousness. “Noosphere” is the word Teilhard uses to describe the “sphere of reflective consciousness” around the Earth. He posits a “Point Omega,” still ahead, where the Noosphere will become conscious of itself. In recent years, some voices in the “Teilhard community” have equated the Internet—and, more recently, AI—with the Noosphere, some even maintaining that through technology, the Noosphere is already aware of itself. In this regard, Ernie is a “Teilhardian contrarian,” insisting that the Internet/AI are not the Next Step in the evolution of human consciousness, but rather (and only) powerful tools for the kind of consciousness we (humans) already have and already are. Crucially, the fixation on technology has the effect of “defining-out” other-than-human forms of life on Earth. Echoing his late teacher Raimon Panikkar, Ernie says he is “holding out for a mutation,” for an emergent form of planetary consciousness that includes not only humans and machines but all life on this planet.

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Process Thought 101
2024-07-29 08:30 - 09:30 | Online Event
Probing Process-Relational Worldviews For Newcomers

Want to learn more about process thought? Join our learning circle, as we read and discuss together various essays on important themes to process thought. Topics include the interconnectedness and relational nature of the universe, the idea that nature is alive and has value for itself, and process and beauty.

This learning circle will continue our study of process thought for those of us beginning our journey on the path of continuous change. We will meet three times to discuss the book What is Process Thought? Seven Answers to Seven Questions, by Jay McDaniel, and then wrap up the learning circle with a Q&A with the author.

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John Cobb & Friends Gathering: Charles Betterton & Friends
2024-07-30 10:00 - 12:00 | Online Via Zoom
Topic: Living Earth Movement: A Progress Report

Presenters: Charles Betterton & Friends

The Living Earth Movement is the latest organization founded in the vision of John Cobb. Charles Betterton is bringing his networking gift of radical collaboration to the work of this earthist movement, founded in the hope of cooperation of the United States and China, aiming toward mutual contributions to an emerging ecological civilization. See the website at https://livingearthmovement.eco and watch for further details of the guests who will assist us in this progress report.

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