Natural philosophers in ancient Greece, India, and China all assumed the existence of an aether. The Indians called it Akasha (primary substance), the Chinese spoke of Chi (a medium pervading the universe). They had different conceptions of the aether but all pointed at a similar invisible phenomenon. The…

In the 1990s, when the digital revolution gather steam, MIT’s Nicolas Negroponte published his book “Being Digital.” In response, media scholar Carol Wilder published her essay “Being Analog.” Scientist Freeman Dyson followed with his essay “Is Life Analog or Digital?” The analog-digital debate began during the legendary Macy Conference on…

Unravel the myths and legends of China’s rich history and it becomes apparent that the idea of the Middle Kingdom originated in its architecture, “civil engineering,” and its yin-yang-inspired cosmology. …

· The word consciousness doesn’t travel very well. In China, it has a moral, Confucian connotation; in India, it has a “spiritual” dimension. · Artificial Intelligence can simulate consciousness, it cannot be conscious — nor can it have a mystical experience. · If the universe is conscious, we have to…

Indian spiritual teacher and social activist P.R. Sarkar (1921–1990) and American futurist Lawrence Taub (1936–2018) had one rare thing in common. They both shed new light on the ancient notion of Varna, the foundation of Hinduism’s social structure. Sarkar based his socio-economic program (PROUT) on Varna cycles, and Taub, in…

Will humanity develop a global, “integral” consciousness? If so, how would it develop? How would the Chinese with their unique world view see a global consciousness? Interest in consciousness went mainstream during the “consciousness-raising” experiments of the hippies in the 1960s. They were followed by the New Age and Integral…

A hundred years after the quantum physics revolution, physicists continue to look for ways to integrate Albert Einstein’s theory of gravity with quantum theory. Einstein’s theory resists integration with the standard atomic model and the development of a unified model. …

The following is the first chapter from my recently published book Leibniz, Einstein, and China. The Chinese, often described as inscrutable, do not excel in explaining their culture to the world. Their culture has been shaped by a worldview that can be traced back to the Book of Changes, the…