Second Renaissance Research Subgroup: What is the Second Renaissance

Research and Sense-Making
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At a recent Research call, there was a call from proposals for research proposal for dedicated subgroups.

The proposal below is in response to this call. In summary, it proposes: UPDATE: 2026-05-15 this was unanimously approved and is happening.

The goal of this subgroup would be to address questions raised in the April 10 research call, namely:

“What are the paths to a second renaissance and an awakening society?

And, flowing from that:

  1. What is a second renaissance and the new paradigm(s) that will emerge?
  2. How do we get there? What are the paths to that?
  3. Why do we want to go there? (what’s not working today)”

Sessions

Original proposal

Please review the draft on the link in this post and comment on the thread below!

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On the Promise of Sub-Circles
What is Second Renaissance Subgroup: Session 4
What is Second Renaissance Subgroup: Session 3
What is Second Renaissance Subgroup: Session 1 Notes
What is the Second Renaissance Subgroup: Session 2
On the Promise of Sub-Circles
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I asked Gemini to suggest potential discussion questions for the subgroup. Gemini extracted these ideas from the 5 white papers linked above. (If you are wondering if it is worth time to dive into the white papers, this should give a general idea of what is found there. )

Based on the White Papers provided by Second Renaissance, here are 10 discussion prompts summarizing the core themes of their research:

  • The Root of the Crisis: How do the “views and values of modernity” act as the foundational cause for our current global crises, rather than just technical or political failures?

  • Defining a Second Renaissance: In what ways would a “cultural paradigm shift” differ from previous historical movements, and why is it considered necessary now?

  • The Dynamics of Change: What specific conditions or drivers are most effective at triggering deep cultural transformation at scale?

  • Polycrisis vs. Metacrisis: Why is it critical to distinguish between the interconnected symptoms of the “polycrisis” and the underlying “metacrisis” that generates them?

  • The Role of Collective Consciousness: How can a shift in collective consciousness provide solutions that technical or policy-based interventions cannot?

  • Developmental Spaces: What would a dedicated “cultural incubator” look like in practice, and how can communities engage in sustained inner development?

  • Inner Development Domains: Which domain of inner growth—spiritual, cognitive, psychological, or ethical—do you believe is most vital for driving cultural change?

  • The Authority of Technology: To what extent has modern humanity replaced traditional values with a “god-like authority” invested in technology?

  • Choosing Our Future Wisely: How can society develop the inner capacity and wiser worldview needed to responsibly manage the powerful technologies we unleash?

  • Moving Toward a Regenerative Future: What practical steps can individuals or organizations take today to transition from the current paradigm toward a wiser, regenerative culture?

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We have work to do
We have work to do
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This is great, and I would just suggest distinguishing in this doc (and other similar docs going forward) between method/structure and outcomes/goals

As per the recent discussion with @dvdjsph let’s try and be really clear about outcomes/goals which in this seem to me to be points (3) and (6) in your list - and I’d suggest amending point (3) to be clearer that the goal is actually to agree on which subcircles we would like to progress at the end of this group, and how they contribute to the problem space.

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To summarize how we got here so far -

  • @rufus and other coauthors wrote a series of whitepapers. Papers - Second Renaissance

  • you made the subcircle proposal.

  • Because I’m an institution-building PM type, I got the idea to ground subcircle action in 2R founding documents (like the white papers) to create layers of collective sense making that would pay off in 2R organizational structure enhancements.

  • The bullets above are just Gemini summarizing the white papers, because like any PM nowadays, of course I’m trying to 10x productivity by leveraging AI.

    OK, so against that background, I completely agree with you and @dvdjsph that we need processes. We also need products/outcomes/deliverables to flow from those processes. Given my genealogical summary of the process to date (the summary in this current post), note that your preferred process ideas (points 3 and 6) are already embedded in the 2R white papers hanging already on the 2R website. Perfect. So let’s say that 10+ years of prior 2R/Life Itself process have now hatched out into a subcircle research model, a model itself grounded in prior group history and values (i. e. deliberately developmental) and a model that points to the next future layer of content to go alongside the white papers.

    My goal here is to do absolutely nothing beyond finding 2R treasure that was already buried long ago!

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This is a repost from WhatsApp:

I am just now putting the finishing touches on an open source academic textbook (word count about 400,000, 20 chapters, 500-1000 draft pages), with me as lead author, about a dozen coauthors, and at least a half dozen fact and format checkers, (All grant funded - on a grant I pitched in the first place). So when it comes to “specific outputs”, anything up to that scale would not be an excessive lift.

In this current case, I really think “what the world needs” is to get off of the YouTube+discussion model where the metacrisis is concerned and get onto “yes, we can analyze/thematize this” and “yes, there are feasible action plans available to address it”. And no, we don’t have to be stiff and academic about the whole business. It’s entirely possible to write in a popularizing mode about these topics, and indeed, I believe we should.

What I learned about the textbook is even though I pulled a ton of weight as lead author, without the dozen coauthors and the substantial production team on the project, the project would not have happened. Collective intelligence. It’s a real thing.

To me, the topic @~Eric has structured for us, absolutely needs to aim at book length treatment, at least at some point. The talent already contributing to this thread suggests many potential coauthors who could contribute a chapter, either personally or jointly. So my vote goes to a research subcircle that would effectively be prewriting for what will eventually appear to the world as collected essays in print (digital and/or physical).

Some relevant links from the WhatsApp discussion:

Refactoring the paper above with Logical Thinking Process:

Refactoring the paper again, this time incorporating the views of Jean Gebser on linear vs nonlinear thinking:

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Because some people like WhatsApp more than the Forum, one idea that occurred to me is to fork off a new WhatsApp channel for any given subcircle. The current Research Channel has some knowledge management limitations. But unless we can all get consensus around the Forum (of Slack, Discord, Telegram, Hylo, etc.), the conversational energy remains in WhatsApp. So forking subcircle channels might be a low cost/low energy way to address the issue.

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Here is a Substack article by Jonathan Rowson that strikes me as running parallel to the 2R white papers.

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I don’t see the Rowson article linked anywhere. Can you share it again? Thanks!

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Sorry, must have lost it in cross-posting!

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Back again for another week! Here is the Luma invitation for tomorrow’s session on May 8!

One of our participants, @Rasmus was moved to write what in effect is a seminar paper in response the white papers. That’s a great outcome! I hope others will be likewise moved to comment at length on the ideas found in the white papers.

My idea for tomorrow is to focus discussion on one area Rasmus addresses, which also figures prominently in the white papers’ cultural evolutionary perspective. Namely, is the inner-outer distinction useful, and if so, how might we bridge from inner work to outward facing action programs?

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I am excited about our upcoming call.

In thinking about this meeting I got the idea, that it might be helpful to pretty early on introduce an example, such as that I wrote in my last reply in reply to Martin.

I think this example ties things together and it includes doing something in reality. In particular, I have two questions that I would like to ask:

Questions:

  1. Do you agree that the 8 person Zoom group could be considered as having its own “culture”?

  2. Do you agree, that there is no fundamental difference between this Zoom group, and a larger group, such as a whole country, in terms of how “culture” works?

Knowing where each of us stands on these questions I think could work as a bridge between us as well as a bridge to the more “philosophical background”.

Below is the example I wrote in the other thread:

Example of culture

Let us say that we have been having a Zoom group meeting going on. We have been meeting every week for 6 month. We are 8 people and we always show up.

In our Zoom meetings we have a designated moderator, we have an agreed on format, we have a rule that if you wish to speak you should raise your hand, we have norms about not talking too long at a time, we have a rule that if you use the word “coffee” three times in a sentence, you must pay for coffee for everyone, and a person is a designated judge if this happens.

Outside that we of course are a part of a larger culture, I would also say that there is also a culture specific for our Zoom group. If we see what we do in this Zoom meeting as culture, we could also say “let’s do it differently” and as such, we could change the culture by perhaps talking about it and then behaving differently going forward.

I will just say that between 8 people meeting in Zoom, and a larger group, let’s say a whole country, there is no qualitative difference in how culture works. Of course, a whole country is more complex, and there are many aspects that are not addressed in the 8 person group. However, all the principles remain the same. If for example, the small group should wish to move to Microsoft Teams instead of Zoom, create a new platform themselves, or meet in real life, this involves technology. If there is a certain agreed upon rule about behavior and there is a consequence if you break this rule, well this is like a law, and if you have a person moderating this Zoom meeting, well that is an institution.

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Let’s roll with it!

I’m thinking of starting off with a meditation on “dissonance”. Find unresolved tension … don’t try to resolve it … just experience it …

Then I want to do a quick topic set about inner/outer - is it real? Does it matter?

Then you can bring up your culture example idea.

How does that sound?

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Hmm..

I like the meditation at the start.

However, for me the matter of the AQAL is just so central, core, it underpins everything we would like to do together.

I have dedicated some 6+ pages in trying to critique the AQAL model and so far the response I have gotten is that they do not get the critique. So therefore, if we just start out by talking about the AQAL model, I am not sure it would help.

For me, this example brings together what I believe in around reality. I think this is a simple and easy way to see actual differences in our views in language everyone can agree on. (Of course, this is assuming that someone would say “no” to one of the questions, if everyone says “yes”, then there would be no disagreement in regards to the example).

So to be honest, I would prefer talking about this example, before talking about the AQAL model.

Do what you find best!

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I think it will all work. The inner/outer thing is just a quick thematic hook. Culture straddles the inner and the outer, so it makes a great case study.

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Proposed Second Rennaissance Research Subgroup: What is the Second Renaissance?

And do you think this approach is…

(a) Metamodern.
(b) Postmodern.

?

The postmodern response to the Hubble tension would be magnificent:

Physicists: “The expansion rate measured from the early universe disagrees with the expansion rate measured locally.”

Modernists: “One of the measurements is wrong, or the model is incomplete. We should investigate.”

Postmodernists: “Why are you privileging one expansion rate over another? Perhaps the universe is plurally expanding.” “Resolution” itself is just a late-Enlightenment power narrative imposed upon cosmological discourse. The real oppression was expecting the data to agree in the first place.

Maybe the CMB has its truth.
Maybe Cepheid variables have their truth.
Maybe ΛCDM is simply experiencing epistemic diversity.

The tension is not a problem to be solved but a liminal space to be inhabited!

A truly metamodern cosmology would courageously oscillate between 67 and 73 km/s/Mpc without ever collapsing into certainty. Schrödinger’s Hubble Constant: the universe is expanding at all rates simultaneously, and demanding consistency is literally colonial.

This does not require any real “inner work”. It is an elaborate excuse for not doing that work.

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Suppose a hiker gets up in the middle of the night walks outside, sees a rope near his tent in the faint light, mistakes it for a snake, and jumps to high heaven.

This reaction/response is something we can see objectively, third-person, with a camera. There is a distinct, subjective experience, what it is like to see a snake, that we can’t observe. Would you agree?

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The subcircle for 2R research foundations meets again tomorrow (Friday June 5) for another round, Invitation below. The topic this week (agreed by the group last week) will be 2R research goals and success criteria.