Individual Abstracts

Big History Futures: Women’s Reproductive Health and Religion

Big History considers the interactions of many components in the universe, an interaction that has brought us to better social understandings of humanity and our common future. Two of these components are human biology and religion, which have been intertwined since at least Neolithic civilization. Women, as child-bearers, carry forward the human lineage, which makes it imperative to understand the complex issues of reproductive health. At the same time, religious practices also have been central to governing reproductive health. This presentation will discuss the relationship of reproductive issues in regards to Hinduism, one of the world’s oldest and most established religions, especially as to how beliefs and practices of ancient texts have been reinterpreted to solidify the existing patriarchal structure of Indian society. It also looks at how India’s Supreme Court has tried to address biases by setting new precedents. With the modernisation of society through of science, such interpretations have been changing, so it is important to understand how we got to our present situation, so we can move forward more successfully into the twenty-first century.

The Far Transfer of Learning Outcomes from a Big History Course

Mingdao High School was the first to adopt Big History as an elective in Taiwan. As a result, we have seen the challenges and opportunities for promoting Big History throughout the country. Taiwan’s educational system is an intellectual meritocracy that is exam-driven, so it’s difficult to engage students in any subject not in the General Scholastic Ability Test for university entrance. However, the average satisfaction rate for our Big History course has been 4.8 out of 5 since its inception, and students are willing to spend extra hours studying for the course, in spite of tight schedules in other subjects. Furthermore, through word-of-mouth, Big History has become one of the most popular elective courses among students. In this presentation, we analyse the latest student surveys and interviews to unveil how they transfer learning outcomes into their daily lives and cultivate their minds to deal with problems in real life. We also provide examples of students’ follow-up projects, which are impacted or inspired by the Big History narrative.

Science, Self-Knowledge and Global Responsibility

For changing the world, we need to build on both science and self-knowledge. To come to terms with our contemporary challenges, from the climate crisis to the Covid-19 pandemic, we need new developments in science, as well as to transform our understanding of science as a domain for the production of knowledge. We also need to develop new ways to achieve self-knowledge and mutual knowledge, so as to bring new visions and practices to our communities locally, nationally, and globally. This presentation engages with the discourse of Big History and argues how we need to have a new temporal realization that connects our everyday lives to big histories, in order to help us go beyond existing conceptions and organizations of self, society and the world, and to realize our inter-connected existence as children of Mother Earth.

The Anthropocene and Academia

Meteorologist Paul Crutzen and ecologist Eugene Stoermer proposed the term ‘anthropocene’ in 2000 (in a newsletter of the International Geosphere–Biosphere Programme) to highlight the dominant and growing human influence on Earth and in its atmosphere. Powered by human desire, science and technology has continued to accelerate. New approaches and applications, from quantum messaging and nanobiology to artificial intelligence, are spun out faster than we can try to search and understand them on the internet. Some applications, like the COVID-19 vaccine, are put to global good, but others, like autonomous drones, could easily become weapons of mass destruction. Unfortunately, hyper-specialization in academia is siloing our best minds, so our science and tech people don’t talk much about the nonlinear impact of their work. Our financial experts don’t think much about the disruptions they are funding, and our humanity and social science experts focus mainly on the problems of today but know little about the sweeping problems that are emerging. To give our future generations a chance to prosper, we urgently need a new paradigm that highlights multidisciplinary understanding, one that acknowledges the Anthropocene and emphasizes the responsibility of all disciplines to help solve the sweeping problems of today and tomorrow. We are at ‘the best of times and the worst of times.’ If we can do it right, we have a real potential to go for the moon and even into the galaxy. However, dismay and disasters could be just around the corner, if we can’t.

Insights into Cultures and Traditions of the Garos and the Crisis of Today’s World

The Garo community is indigenous to the highland forests of North East India, with many centred in the present state of Meghalaya. They are a matrilineal society in which one gives a mother’s family name to the children and family property goes down through the daughters’ line. The youngest daughter is given the right to inherit the property as well as the responsibility of looking after her parents in their old age. This practice is still prevalent in general among the Garos and, now that we have become aware of the rights of women in the 21^st century, it seems to be a very fair and just practice. However, Garo society is not matriarchal, which means that much of the power and influence is wielded by men. This is one aspect of our culture that needs to be properly addressed and, while the good practises can be preserved, some others need modification. One of the earlier, good practices was that of ma∙nok channa or ma∙nok cha∙a, in which, if one of a married couple came from another tribe or place, the wife’s family would adopt the man or woman; they would be taught the local customs and values and be taken as a member of the family. In this way, the person felt welcomed and at home in their new environment. We are losing some of these good values now. Another matter of great concern is the degradation of our environment due to deforestation and coal mining, as well as jhum cultivation (swidden agriculture), which was once an ancient and beautiful practice but is now no longer viable with the increase of population.

The 21st Century Singularity in a Big History Perspective: New Calculations

Futurist Ray Kurzweil postulated in his book, The Singularity Is Near (2005), that a pattern could be foreseen in an analysis of events, starting with the emergence of our galaxy and ending with the decoding of DNA. This pattern has been described by a simple mathematical function (not known to Kurzweil), with a singularity occurring around 2029. In addition, a similar time series was composed by Russian physicist Alexander Palov. Another time series is described by a mathematical function with a singularity in about 2027. These theories can be accurately described by simple mathematical functions, whereas the singularity point can be interpreted as the indication of an inflection point, after which the pace of global evolution will begin to slow systematically in the long term. We offer new calculations that provide a better interpretation of the mathematical functions that describe the evolution of complexity on our planet over the course of a few billions of years.

Imaginative Resistance: What Stories Can and Cannot Do

The protean nature of fiction has long been noted. One indication of its mutability is its resistance to being defined, or even, categorized. Though the imagination resists classification, and is therefore an instrument of freedom, a liberator from history, as it were, it is also true that throughout history, humans have found ways to resist the imagination. This talk looks at our dual-faced relation to stories.

Paradise Bejewelled: The Gems of Dante’s Divine Comedy

In honour of the 700th anniversary of the death of Dante Alighieri (1265–1321), his poem, Divina Commedia [The Divine Comedy], will be analysed from a gemmology standpoint, for his work is a veritable treasure trove of references to jewels. Most of these references are in the section of ‘Paradiso’, The Canticle of Light, in which Dante uses reflection, refraction and shadow to convey metaphors. The first faceted gems arrived in Venice from India and the Far East following the fall of Constantinople in 1204. Dante was living nearby in Ravenna at the time and had the opportunity to study these gems and learn of their cultural attributes – spiritual, metaphysical and medicinal. He combined the knowledge of a physicist with the words of a bard.

Making School with Big History: Moving with the Changing World and Taking Care Development

The world is constantly changing through everything that lives and moves. Humans also play a role in this process and questions arise about their influence: How do we relate to everything and how can we take co-responsibility for this relationship? To be able to do that requires an overview of time and space. Based on the Lines of Life, we introduce a framework to organize the knowledge of the origin, past, present and future of life. This paradigm shows us the time (age) of the child (± 10 years), culture (± 10,000 years), humanity (± 10 million years), and the universe (± 13.8 billion years). In addition to the division into timelines, we also see four layers in this thinking model that show total space. Each subsequent layer is created in the last centimetre of the line and has both its own and a joint past, present and future. We can consider the lines and layers on their own but also sequentially, in interaction and as a whole. This creates a framework with which we can observe, investigate, build, and learn the totality of space and time.

Crossing the Threshold of Cyborgization

Cyborgization is a widely discussed topic today. It is an intriguing process, which is still the subject of futuristic novels and at the same time is a reality. This paper discusses the development of cyborgization in the framework of the Big History, its background and future directions, as well as the problems and risks of this process.

Radical Ecological Democracy: Towards Justice and Sustainability

As multiple crises engulf humanity and the planet, we are groping for ways out. How can we tackle the climate and biodiversity crises, the abysmal chasm between rich and poor, the continued deprivation of a billion people from dignified life, and geopolitical conflicts that threaten to annihilate life on earth? Quiet work across the world is showing that these issues are not unsurmountable. ‘Ordinary’ people are finding pathways towards sustainability, equality, justice, through means and visions that have the potential to be truly transformatory. They are not content with band-aids like ‘green economy’ and ‘sustainable development’, but are challenging concentration of power manifested in patriarchy, capitalism, statism, racism, and other concentrations of power. From the re-assertion of indigenous worldviews like buen vivir to the emergence of more recent alternatives like ecofeminism and degrowth, from new interpretations of leftist / Marxist revolution to Gandhian concepts like swaraj, and much else, we are slowly finding answers. This presentation focuses on alternative practices and visions emerging from the South Asian context, and draw links with movements elsewhere

Thumri and Dadra: Classical Ornamentation Rooted in Folk Traditions

Art and music are inextricably linked to the context in which they are created. This is especially true of the semi-classical genre of Thumri and Dadra. A part of North Indian classical music, with roots in folk tradition, this beautiful art form depicts common life – joys, sorrows, celebrations and events. It is an expression of shringara (love, sensuality and poetic emotions). The Thumris and Dadras wrap together the ethos of common life, preserving the emotional aspect of humanity in a way that fact-based historical records often cannot accomplish. The amalgamation of folk and classical music in this genre testifies to the vibrancy and adaptability of this ancient yet progressive tradition of Hindustani classical music. Its symbiotic relationship has deeply enriched both the folk and classical music of India. This presentation comprises renditions of the seasonal songs of Chaiti, Kajri and Hori with explanations, and provides an insight into this art form, which has contributed significantly to the world of performing arts.

Science and the Shared Global Community: Sir Joseph Banks and the Botanical Exploration of the World

This paper presents a case study in the formation of humanity’s collective knowledge. Naturalist Joseph Banks created a consolidated body of botanical knowledge based on his scientific and worldwide explorations. His voyages led to the discovery of many new plants and documentation of their uses, which he collected in Newfoundland and Labrador (1766), around the world with Captain James Cook (1768–1771), and in Iceland (1772). He helped to internationalise science and shared his information generously. Banks became president of the Royal Society, and his work inspired the botanical gardens in Calcutta, modelled on Kew Gardens in London. He stood at the helm of a knowledge network that connected major parts of the globe and initiated transfers of knowledge about the flora and fauna. He entered into collaboration with Alexander von Humboldt, which was a founding event of Big History. This paper focuses on Banks’ role in the distribution commercial species, particularly in the context of India. In this way, Banks was a pioneer of scientific globalization and sharing of collective knowledge.

The Evolution of Language in Macrocosmic Terms

The evolution of language echoes that of biological entities at a number of levels, including the eventuality of change and the influence of external factors, from biome dynamics and society to weather and climate. This study proposes that the central tenets of Big History’s neo-Darwinistic approach to development of the universe show repeated elements, such as the inverse relationship between relative size and energy use. These tenets extend beyond the biological realm, as outlined in astrophysicist Eric Chaisson’s work in Cosmic Evolution. A linguistic example of this may be seen in the phonemic diversity of language as it spreads. This complexity may further be seen via understanding energy as an element of tonality, wherein greater entropy and energy use is apparent in languages with a smaller phonemic index. Further, fractal structures appear in the morpheme-like organization of languages at various levels. Taking these concepts into consideration, we see that a neo-Darwinian conceptualization of language is the result of grand processes that extends beyond the biological world to the wider universe.

Is Big History Based on One or Many Sciences?

Big History is a name for the evolution of the universe from the Big Bang to the present time and includes knowledge from many different disciplines. In accordance with the dominating viewpoint of modern science, an underlying assumption is then that this evolution includes events that seemingly are random, such as the eight thresholds that traditionally have been studies by different scientific disciplines. These distinct evolutionary processes are not presented as parts of a coherent time plan, despite the fact that the background to several of these crucial events apparently need to have been coordinated to have led to our current world. An alternative way is to look at the evolution of the universe as a result of cosmic quantum shifts, which can be seen taking place in accordance with the calendar system of the ancient Maya. This postulation, which goes by the title of Macrocosmic Quantum Theory, is supported by prodigious empirical evidence and is essentially a description of the evolution of consciousness. In this framework, nine self-similar cosmic quantum waves with separate frequencies bring different states of consciousness to life. This formulation is enough to describe all aspects of the evolution of life, ranging from before the Big Bang to the ongoing digital revolution. This theory, among others, explains the increasing complexification and speed-up of time during the course of evolution of the universe. It also dispenses with the idea of randomness as an integral part of evolution and, most importantly, it transforms Big History from being based on many different sciences to be just one unified conceptualization.

Local Big History

Our concept of an educational-performance project about Local Big History was born out of the encounter between a palaeontologist and teacher of science, a musician trained in philosophy, and a percussionist trained in anthropology. The three met in the first Italian Local Big History course, organized by Milan University. Big History’s strength lies in combining disciplinary knowledge that the academic world tends to separate into departmental studies. Local Big History roots the Big History paradigm in the local milieu. It starts from a ‘local object,’ which, in our project, was a Lariosaur, a prehistoric reptile whose fossil was discovered not far from Lake Como, Italy. It served as a starting point that goes from the ‘banality’ of everyday life to the dizzying boundaries of time and space. It involves palaeontology, stratigraphy, Earth history, science history, human history, art, myth, philosophy, epistemology, and more. We used art as a means to convey knowledge, represent problems, and encourage cognitive engagement. This educational-performance format has the potential to stimulate the emotions and arouse wonder. Live music is often the most important language humans can use, since it deeply taps into our feelings: the powerful and suggestive taiko drums of Japan with other percussive and electronic instruments. In addition, a viewer can partake in the direction of the story that is being told, becoming an active co-producer of knowledge. The aim of our project was to guide students between the visible and invisible connections of knowledge, stimulating positive emotions for their growth. It is a model that we feel will help change the way we see and feel the world around us.

The Five Wows: Developing a Lifelong Love of Learning

What’s the real point of education? Why do so many kids hate school? What are the best and worst things that can happen as young people grow up? Why do so many teenagers seem to be suffering mental health issues? These questions, and many more, go to the heart of a new educational and learning philosophy being developed by journalist, educationalist and best-selling world history author Christopher Lloyd. After his eldest daughter Matilda got chronically bored at school. Chris and his wife Virginia tried to find out what was going wrong in their daughter’s classroom. According to him, the ultimate purpose of education is not about passing exams. Or even learning to read and write. There is only one goal that really matters. It is simply about nurturing a lifelong love of learning. That way every moment of every day is its own adventure. Chris notes that if you finish your education and do not have a love of learning, you have been failed. ‘The good news is that you can easily tell if someone is in love with learning. That’s because it reveals itself through a simple three letter word – universally expressed in every culture throughout the world – WOW!’ In this talk he Chris will outline a personal philosophy of how to generate the feeling WOW for all pupils and students, using a simple five-step guide, based on a unique blend of personal experience and evolutionary biology.

Evolution, SETI, Big History, and Mathematics

In 2021, Springer Science published Claudio’s study, Evo-SETI: Life Evolution Statistics on Earth and Exoplanets. A mathematical description for evolution of life on Earth, from RNA to modern human societies, this theory also can be used to model evolution of life on exoplanets, thus intersecting with the Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence (SETI). The resulting Evo-SETI theory can be used to elaborate further hypotheses on the development of civilizations, the possibility of extra-terrestrial life, and when computers might take over the reins from us humans, generating a singularity. In this respect, it serves as an amplification on the Snooks-Panov Vertical.

Red Blood, White Flag:

Archetypes, Evolution and a Big History of Warfare and Peace

Conventional historiography has harboured some important debates over hawkish and dovish approaches to war and peace, but rarely escaped from paying a heavy tribute to the moral and political philosophy of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. Naturally, this is not a problem per se, but when war and peace studies are faced with the play of scales endorsed by Big History, most of these studies’ conclusions appear as short-sighted. Big History transdisciplinarity empowers historians to question how phenomena in different timeframes interact to produce the reality we live in. Resorting to primatology and human evolution studies, on one side, and to complex psychology on the other, this work investigates the deep ethological / unconscious foundations of intersocietal coalitional violence, as well of prosociality and its interactions with culture and institutions. War and peace, in a deeper level, are products of behavioural phenomena created by the interaction between cognitive algorithms fixed by natural selection in some branches of the Primate order, in a Big History Threshold 5 context, while human cultural and narrative structures emerged after Threshold 6.

The Taxonomy of Complexity: Deepening the Theory and Methodology of Big History

Big History weaves together the most up-to-date scientific and scholarly information into a narrative with a handful of key concepts. This presentation will discuss how to continue building Big History as a field of innovative scholarship and fresh investigations, as well as one that synthesizes the investigations of other fields. New data from novel scientific fieldwork will be revealed. The goal of this work is to transform the key concepts of Big History into a systematic and quantifiable set of scientific theories that will establish Big History as a unique and desirable area of study for people from the hard sciences and will assist scholars from the humanities to interpret the overarching trends of 13.8 billion years with greater clarity than ever before.

The History of Disenchantment:

Nietzsche, Jung and the Return of Apollo and Dionysus

When Nietzsche wrote in The Gay Science (1882) that ‘God is dead’, he was thinking about what sociologists Max Weber later called ‘the disenchantment of the world’, that is, the loss of meaning that came with the scientific overthrow of religious belief in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. But as we in big history know, that search for meaning is alive and well, even among those scientists and historians who consider themselves thorough-going materialists. And indeed it is celebrated by many other big historians whether they are pantheists or monotheists. The point is that big history appeals to a wide variety of people with varying and often incompatible religious positions. By looking at the history of disenchantment through philosophy and psychoanalysis, this panel shows that the tensions we are finding within big history can be reconciled if we can learn to celebrate difference and accept that these seemingly opposing worldviews are needed if we are to reach the existential and environmental goals that we share.

Seeing the Anthropocene

The idea of the Anthropocene has not gained as much traction as it should, in part because of the blinkers imposed on most scholars in most disciplines in most countries by hyper-specialization. One of the many virtues of Big History is that it widens the lens to include many disciplines, so that a concept like ‘the Anthropocene’ fits naturally within Big History narratives. With the Anthropocene occupying just a geological nanosecond but regarded as the eighth and latest threshold in the development of the Cosmos, how might the Anthropocene and Big History become jointly better known to spread awareness of the Earth’s natural origin and human-caused crises?

Big History Around Us

While reading a book on Big History gives many details concerning Big History, there are reminders all around us of items and events in Big History. We start with an ordinary photo in a house and then, like a detective, search out the Big History clues in the photo. These everyday items have very interesting histories that are explored in the context of Big History. The topics include Universe History – hydrogen, antimatter, cosmic microwaves, galaxies, stars, elements, planets; Life History – salt, iron, land, wood, oil / coal, flowers, grasses; Human History – fire, dogs, pottery / brick, beer; Civilization History – alphabet, metals, calendar, Hindu / Arabic numerals, watches, glasses, newspaper, clothes, electricity, radio, cars, smart phone.

Religion in Ordinary Language

At its best, theology tries to find the deepest, most challenging and fulfilling principles, values and highest commands laid on us by the soul of healthy and compassionate life. While it usually puts these in some sort of God-talk, theologians and preachers can and should be required to take their beliefs out of jargon and put them in ordinary language. If they can’t do that, no matter how captivating their feelings are, they literally don’t know what they’re talking about. With Big History bringing dozens of religions and other spiritual paths to the table, this demand is extended to all. While most religions have rituals and other emotionally expressive practices that aren’t simply translations of things easily be put into words, they also have their distinctive stories and teachings about who, at our best, we’re expected to become, and how we should live, so that when we look back we can be glad we lived that way. Those expressions can and should be translated into plain talk. With this paper, I’m opening the door on this discussion and invite others in.

Big History as a Philosophy of History

Big History as presented by David Christian will be compared with the histories of philosophy of G.W.F. Hegel and Karl Jaspers. Hegel and Leopold von Ranke conceived of world history as a history of the West. Jaspers presented a philosophy for a universal history and found within Eurasian history an Axial Period that was a foundation for human history that came afterwards. David Christian presents a truly universal history by starting with the origin of the universe. Each of these authors presents a dynamic driving history forward that is a key to a philosophical view of the nature of history and of human awareness of history. The potential and limits of world history as a field of study and philosophy will be explored.

Transformation in a Geologic Nanosecond

In 1948, astronomer Fred Hoyle of Big Bang fame anticipated that the first photos of the Earth from space would transform the course of history. Two decades later, NASA’s missions to the Moon raised public awareness of the Earth’s beauty and potential fragility. In 2002, atmospheric chemist Paul Cruzan, a Nobel Laureate for discovering ozone depletion, voiced concern about humanity’s escalating disruption of the Earth’s natural state and proposed the Geologic Timescale term Anthropocene to ‘guide society.’ Since 2004, the Great Acceleration, a graphical summary of two dozen adverse environmental and socioeconomic trends, conveys the extent of anthropogenic impacts. In geology’s search for the Anthropocene’s stratigraphic base at the same worldwide moment, the emerging choice is a distinct lake deposit recording fallout from mid-20^th century nuclear explosion tests. This would be an ironic coincidence with the UN’s first resolution in 1946 for the peaceful use of atomic energy.

How Little Big Histories Can Help Us Understand Complex Societal Problems

Little Big History has been used to understand many things, from Cheetos to items of more impact on our history, such as grasses, gold, and buildings. People also have written Little Big Histories about complex social problems, from climate change and resource shortage to geopolitical tension. Such studies reveal that this approach can help us more fully understand complex problems. This presentation will discuss two ways that this potential can be better developed: 1) Local Big History Projects, in which students from various European universities have jointly investigated how their own identities are shaped by ‘shared’ Big History processes, and 2) Research Projects that assess how the Little Big History Approach stimulates students to think in new ways about the United Nation’s Sustainable Development Goals.

How to Make History of Everything Relevant to Everyone?

‘How is Big History relevant to me?’ is the most frequently asked question I’ve received since I started teaching Big History in 2018. According to scholar-activist David Perkins, the purpose of education, instead of just building a vast reservoir of information, is to bridge the gap between knowledge and the lives that learners will lead. In this light, identifying specific learning themes for different groups, so as to make Big History relevant, is highly important. For high schoolers, this translates into creating a framework of cross-disciplinary knowledge that demonstrates the science of learning, so that they can deeply process knowledge via diverse media. For business leaders in my Executive MBA class, I help them picture an organization’s complexity and facilitate discussion about structural change. This presentation demonstrates how VR/AR technology, digital art and theatre are applied to enrich experiences in science under a Big History narrative. I will showcase a mobile app used in the EMBA program that simulates the emergence of a complex social system and drives a discussion of how to build corporate self-organization, one that is adaptable to uncertainty and capable of forming new complexity.

Rending the Veil

When one holds onto a narrow sectarian identity, as a final truth that needs to be protected, believing it to be real and solid, there will be cruelty and violence. When an elaborate ego-identity is constructed, we weave the veil of maya (illusion) over all we see. In this collective constructing, the delusion as truth is maintained and rewarded. In turning the fierce gaze inward rather than outward, one confronts the labyrinths of one’s mind. Our seemingly solid reality shifts moment to moment in its own impermanence, pointing to the construction and dismantling of the deep delusions in the way the mind sees, makes meaning, and engages with the world. In accessing the nirgun, the non-essence of emptiness or shoonya, the notion of ‘self’ and ‘other’ disappear. At the peak of emptiness, all ego-identities dissolve. The outer mirrors the inner and the inner mirrors the outer. The transformation has to occur first within the individual for there to be change outside in the socio-political world. We are primarily transcendent beings meant to transcend the limitations of self to drink from a single well, a kinship with seekers through the ages. This paper will be guided by Buddhist insights and the mystic poetry of Lal Ded and Kabir to find a way out of bigotry to love.

Pune Virtual Tour – Film

Our initial plan was for conference guests to experience Pune’s life, culture and history in person for the Global Big History Conference ‘21. With the conference having shifted online, we will bring the experience to the big screen! The Pune Virtual Tour is a film that looks at the city from the perspective of the conference theme – ‘Changing the World’ – by showing Pune’s growth, development, and progress. Mapping out the change from the first settlement to its current life, the film represents Pune’s traditions and culture. As an introduction to the conference, the film explores Pune as a center of change and speaks about SSLA’s contribution towards that progress.

Ecology Initiative: Pune Sustainability – Film

As part of the Big History conference, the Ecology Team of SSLA created the Ecology Initiative in 2019 in partnership with the Pune-based NGO, the Society of Christ Jesus. The plan is to create a green development project for the communities around the NGO’s area that can eventually be self-managed by the residents themselves. This includes development of a permaculture project of native plants at the NGO’s campus as well as a deep-cleaning project of the Mula and Mutha rivers of Pune. Documenting the efforts of the Ecology Team and the Sisters of the NGO, the Ecology Initiative’s film and brochure capture the essence of the project and some of the faces behind it. With visuals of the extensive hard work, we hear the Sisters and the students themselves speak about their personal motivations and goals for the initiative, while also narrating experiences of the past years of development in this project.

Strategies and Challenges in a Big History Approach to World History

This paper highlights the challenges of incorporating a Big History approach into existing university curriculums. In my case, I adjusted a World History sequence that articulated with a general education requirement on American History / Western Civilization. Some of the challenges included breaking up the human-centric focus of the existing courses, while still utilizing the traditional expertise of the faculty. It required engaging with university officials to allow a course with such a long scope of time as Big History to be made equivalent to its partner courses. Some strategies included asking committee members to give lectures on agriculture within their geographic expertise, so as to tie Big History to a ‘civilization’ theme without extra burdens.

India’s Aquifer Typology:

Understanding Socio-Hydrogeological Diversity through a Historical Lens

India has been as much a groundwater civilisation as it has been a river-valley civilisation. Use of wells driven by human or animal power goes back many centuries, as does access to natural springs. Traditional rahats, mhots, chadases, dheklas and tendlas as well as the Indian versions of distribution systems such as the qanats or karezes are all still in use in parts of Modern India. While traditional means and mechanisms of groundwater usage continue, many have disappeared or seem to persist only as relics of our long-standing civilisation. This transition is not just about modernisation of groundwater extraction but it represents a huge socio-ecological shift around perceptions and practices of groundwater sourcing and access. The transition from community practices to the ‘individualisation’ of the resource has brought about a plethora of problems over the last seventy years, a period during which groundwater usage has increased more than twenty times! India is the largest user of groundwater in the world today, a seemingly remarkable fact that hides nuances of social disparity, iniquitous competition, hidden conflict, and the tension between traditional and modern life. What is even more intriguing is how this story has unfolded across India’s variable geographies that host a range of societies on the surface along with one of the most diverse aquifer settings below. A transdisciplinary analysis of India’s groundwater could well pave the way for its effective management and governance.

Art Sparks: Igniting well being in a Big History Context

Like other Great Works of love in action, Art Sparks contributes to the flourishing of the Earth community and the evolution of the human species. This unique expressive arts programme ignites wholeness in a Big History context. Designed for ages 8–12, it provides a bridge between creativity and personal growth. Through a focus on self-worth, ingenuity, and the Cosmos, the interdisciplinary curriculum results in increased student engagement, esteem, and empowerment. Art Sparks inspires an awareness that an evolving dynamic happens all over the Cosmos and is happening in each of us. It has demonstrated significant benefits in private and public classrooms in the United States and Italy since 2012. Due to Art Sparks, a ten-year-old boy at San Miguel Academy, a visionary middle school in Newburgh, New York, transformed dramatically from an anxious, awkward loner to a warm, relaxed student – with significantly improved learning and social skills. His teacher now calls him ‘the poster child for Art Sparks’ therapeutic results.’

Applied Big History: The Nature and Role of Communities

The concept of community is reviewed in the context of biology and the social sciences, and the relationship between these two senses of ‘community’ are explored. The neuro-cognitive basis of both biological and non-biological communities is considered by use of Dunbar’s number and evolutionary psychologist Robin Dunbar’s social brain hypothesis. Human biological communities have grown in complexity until they have crossed a threshold beyond which cities and civilizations are non-biological. Institutional relationships have increasingly replaced biological relationships, often with an increasing formalization of social relationships. Formal social groups constitute the infrastructure of civilization – the largest, longest-lived and most complex are human, but civilization itself has not been formalized in the same way. Alternative social groups that are not civilizations but which mediate among civilizations are considered. Networks that mediate among civilizations on a planetary scale are communities that can be drivers of historical change. Institutions of knowledge also constitute communities that mediate among civilizations, and Big History can play a distinctive role in making them a driver of historical change.

Changing the World, While the World Changes

23 Millennia Ago

Gender

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23 Centuries Ago

Maine

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23 Years Ago

The World is

One Family

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23 Days Ago

Pandemic

Collective Learning

I use 23 increments of time as a reference because it allows me to speak to three issues that are current now and, I suspect, were current in the past. I develop these issues at critical junctures in a piece of history that I like best. I present our species as the guardians/librarians of information on which Nature is dependent as she drives natural selection to wherever evolution is taking us. My focus is on social behaviours within a dramatically changing environment that needs all of us to rise above that which inhibits our functioning as a team. Those issues are temperature, gender, and collective learning.

Indigenous Knowledge: Shaping the Science of the Common Folk

Whenever early Filipinos looked into the sky, they would see not just stars but also their own civilization. This was famously noted by Dante Lacsamana Ambrosio, an anthropologist and pioneer of ethnoastronomy. Since the cosmos was part of their environment, indigenous people conjoined their culture to it and in return formed a dynamic worldview. This is why they have terms like Balatik (a hunting trap for wild boar) for the constellation Orion or Bubu (a fish cage trap) for the Big Dipper. Early Filipinos had named these celestial bodies long before Westerners arrived 500 years ago. The colonizers thought native peoples had no civilization, so indigenous knowledge and local science were relegated to the category of ‘superstition.’ This presentation will underscore the significant role of indigenous knowledge. In 2013, for example, Filipinos were struck by the super-typhoon Haiyan, one of the most powerful and deadly cyclones ever recorded, an event intensified by climate change. Haiyan killed over 6000 people in the Philippines and laid waste to the homes of 11 million residents in Micronesia and the South China Sea. The effects could have been reduced in the Philippines if the government had used the indigenous word humbak instead of ‘storm surge,’ which was not familiar to villagers. Such indigenization in teaching Big History is vital to understanding our intricate environment. As we advance in trying to resolve our societal and global problems, we also need to step back … to rediscover and reclaim our basic knowledge and humanity.

Maria Montessori as an Example for Big History

Maria Montessori started her work in India during the Second World War with ‘cosmic education’, which she described in 1947 in To Educate Human Potential. She wrote: ‘Let's give the child a vision of the entire universe. The universe is an impressive reality and the answer to all questions. We want to walk this path of life collectively, because all things are part of the universe, all connected to each other in a comprehensive unity. This image helps the mind of the child to concentrate, to stop walking in an aimless search for knowledge.’ Montessori had thought cosmically since 1909, but did not give it specific words for thirty more years. On that basis, we consider Maria Montessori a developer of Big History.

A Little Big History of the Body:

Tracing its Separation from Nature

What is ‘body’? The idea that my ‘self’ stops at the boundaries of my skin leads to a notion of the individual being separate from the environment. This reduction of bodies to their biological bases has led, among other things, to a controlling of sexuality in law and the fetishization of queer identities. While Gender Studies allows a reclaiming of identity, Big History expands space and time by allowing for an origin story. This paper addresses the question – when did our bodies start to be seen, structured and studied as being separate from nature and the cosmos that produced them? The subject of ‘body’ today constitutes a state of map-lessness across disciplines, owing to the hierarchical position assumed by medicine and the life sciences. Although a new field of study, Big History is a vehicle of older ideas, such as the observation by 16^th century historian Jean Bodin that ‘those who study the maps of regions before they have learned accurately the relation of the whole universe and the separate parts of it to each other and to the whole are going wrong.’ Big History signifies a return to this unified understanding of reality and gives us an opportunity to adapt society to that reality.

Thoughts on Healing the Damage Created by our Cosmological Crisis

Humanity stands on the liminal ledge separating a way of thinking of the world that no longer allows us to address our most serious challenges – the Newtonian worldview – and an emerging worldview that is only now becoming clear. While elements of this new worldview is developing in fields ranging from neurobiology to complexity science, judging from human history, the only way for it to replace its Newtonian predecessor is for it to become the cosmology of the 21^st century, enhancing what biologist E.O. Wilson called the ‘evolutionary epic’ of the Universe’s story, starting with the Big Bang. This presentation examines David Christian’s challenge to complete this story, beginning with a definition of cosmology as the epistemology with which any society enculturates its people to meet its deepest challenges. It then examines the evolutionary epic in terms of its history and the unintended consequences that make it so difficult for us to address those problems today. Finally, this presentation will explore how reinvigorating the current narrative with the emerging worldview has the potential to enable humanity to step off its ledge and out into a new way of responding to challenges that often seem insoluble.

Big History and the Current Evolutionary Crisis: Towards a Unifying Theory and a New Worldview

Big History has the opportunity to develop a transdisciplinary and comprehensive evolutionary theory, one based on how characteristic types of consciousness emerge and empower creative and transformative change. This takes place at each threshold of increasing complexity, from the Big Bang to the present day. An integrated perspective that includes the evolution of consciousness illuminates this new origins story from within. It enhances our understanding of the intimate connection between the inner and outer aspects of the unfolding universe in the evolutionary process and broadens the scope of Big History. We discover how such an innovative approach is synchronistic with and complementary to the revolutionary changes currently taking place in many scientific fields, leading to the emergence of a holistic, integrative, and transformative worldview.

Big History and India's Vedic Tradition

In honour of our conference being in India this year, we explore how the wisdom of India’s original Vedic tradition offers Big History a spiritual context and a meaningful pattern for reflecting on the emerging discoveries and insights of modern science and philosophy, which are related to consciousness and the evolutionary process. Certain significant concepts and symbols from India’s revered Sanatana Dharma help us to bind together the natural, the experiential, and the spiritual dimensions of existence into a unified theory. During this time, now riven by conflicts and crises, we may find hopefulness in a new universal origins story and encouraged by the profound unity from which our world was once envisioned to have arisen.

Finding the "Hidden Big History"

This presentation will share concepts used for social-studies field trips by Aletheia Shonan Junior High School in Chigasaki (Japan), which serve as examples of ‘Hidden Big History.’ The idea of a ‘hidden’ Big History refers to how regular school studies already use Big History concepts, without them being called by that name. I examine our field trips by the three key characteristics of Big History – 1) dealing with long time periods, 2) engaging various academic disciplines, and 3) observing facts along with imagination and feelings. Enoshima is a small island of less than half a square kilometre and a population of 350 people that is located five kilometres from our school. It has a history of 20 million years. This experience shows that there are many Big Histories all around us and that Big History is already being conducted in education, but is often well hidden inside existing curriculums. By examining educational efforts from the perspective of Big History, we can reconfirm the overall picture of the efforts and improve the accuracy of education. In the future of school education, we will emphasize the importance of not only spreading the ideas of Big History, but also learning to find ‘hidden’ Big History.

India: How Might Past Glory and Current Challenges Shape the Future

What have been the principal elements in India’s foreign policy over the past seven decades, from a Big History perspective? If we believe that this is an ‘Asian Century’, what role is the world’s second most populous country, might play in global affairs? The establishment of colonial rule over India ended the final, faltering stages of the Mughal Empire and the centuries in which the country had been a global economic powerhouse, supplying products to distant markets, producing over 20% of the world’s GDP. How might India rise to those dreams in the decade of 2020? Any country’s foreign influence is rooted in domestic prowess, reflecting principally the genius of the country’s people, not so much its endowment of natural resources or material wealth, though that helps. In India we witness a paradox, a disconnect between an innate capacity for innovation and pursuit of excellence, and stunted achievement. Since Independence in 1947 a gap has persisted across the economy and society between the latent and the delivered. Looking to the country’s agriculture, education, health, industry, S&T, and other sectors of its polity, we encounter a comparative failure of governance, of great starts that falter and do not deliver on expectations. And yet, there is no lack of talent, entrepreneurship and across-the-board capabilities. I examine this in relation to India’s foreign policy and its role in world affairs.

Evolution of the Early Solar System in Terms of Big History and Universal Evolution

The history and evolution of our early Solar System has long been a matter of great interest to humanity. In the past few decades, astronomers have considerably advanced our knowledge about its structure, history, and evolution. But one can hardly speak about a proper narrative; we more often are working with hypotheses. This paper outlines the history of the Solar System in the first hundred million years of its existence, when most of the major transformations took place. Then it shows how we can derive evolutionary laws and rules from this history. There are few consistent and brief surveys about the history of the Solar System that include the latest achievements in astrophysics and cosmology, so this descriptive history is itself novel. In addition, the evolutionary rules we derive from this history of the Solar System allow us to observe common features that are characteristic for each stage of Big History. This gives us the ability to conceive of the integrity of Big History and appreciate its ability to detect general laws, patterns, and mechanisms.

Coming of Age: Big History and Development

Historian David Christian has explained how Big History can serve as an origin story, answering the question of how we got here. Big History also can serve other important purposes, which can be considered as a coming of age story. It provides stories and explains processes providing a context for an individual’s maturation. One is associated with sexual maturity during puberty: To whom / to what am I attracted and why? Then there is the realization of our mortality, death, and extinction. What does it mean that I not only have an origin, but that I will have an ending? What does it mean that species, including my own, become or will be extinct? A third type is the realization of the independent existence of others and a self-conscious ability to relate to them as distinctly different than me. What does it mean that I am not the centre of the universe, or at least that everyone and everything else is also a centre? Big History has shown how Earth, life and humanity has led to me, but it has also led to every single other person, species, planet, galaxy, and maybe an infinite number of universes. To answer this, perhaps Big History needs to expand its purpose from the study of an ‘integrated history of the Cosmos, Earth, Life, and Humanity’ to other possible universes, galaxies, planets, and all life forms. What does it mean that much of the cosmos is going on without reference to humanity, and that it will do so long after we are gone?

Giving Life to India's Most Vulnerable People

A tragic set of events inspired Lucy Kurien to set up Maher Ashram in 1997. Its mission is to help destitute women, children and men from all over India exercise their right to a higher quality of life, irrespective of gender, caste, or faith. Maher has established fifty homes across India, offering refuge to the most destitute, supporting education for children, including college and beyond, skill-training for men and women, and much more. They have brought thousands of abused and destitute women, children, and men the opportunity to become rehabilitated, free and happy. Maher achieved Consultative Status with United Nations in 2017. Holding to values of interfaith practice, gender equality and caste-free life is the best way for families and communities to stay united and thrive. In the climate crisis, there will be large numbers of traumatized individuals who have experienced catastrophic losses. Understanding how Maher has helped rebuild lives could provide a model for successfully rebuilding communities for India in those coming days.

The Drive towards Equilibrium

How do we link the thresholds we see in the evolution of the Cosmos, Earth, Life, and Humanity with a single narrative theme in Big History? Astrophysicist Eric Chaisson uses increasing energy density as a unifying method, while social philosopher Wang Dongyue uses his theory of weakening compensation and environmental scientists Tyler Volk uses combogenesis and alphakits. In this presentation, I suggest the drive towards thermodynamic equilibrium is a narrative theme to link the thresholds in Big History.

Decolonizing Science and History Education: Reflections on Teaching, Studying and Researching Big History in the Philippine Setting

Big History shatters the strict disciplinary boundaries of physical sciences, life sciences and social sciences in its telling of the grand narrative of our origins. It is a histoire totale of humankind and the cosmos, one that includes the present and projects itself into the future. In the Philippines, Big History was first taught at Holy Angel University in 2018, where it is seen as a bridge among all subjects, including general education and professional courses. However, Big History is not excused from the tendencies of academe to focus on Western thought. We will look at Big History through a decolonial approach and analyse how this discourse can better its content, teaching and research. Our presentation will provide a short background on Big History in the Philippines, along with the issues, approaches and perspectives provided by decolonial studies. We will then reflect on how decolonization can be applied in Big History in general.

How to Overcome the Global Crisis of Biodiversity

Biodiversity provides us human beings with the basic services that form the foundation of our lives. It is a fact that we little appreciate in our daily lives. We are now facing a tremendous crisis, in which about a million species are threatened with extinction within a few decades, because of our behaviour. In order to escape this crisis, it is necessary for us to rebuild connections between human beings and Nature. We must answer fundamental questions: What is biodiversity? And: How is biodiversity related to our existence as humanity? Perhaps the most important solution to this crisis lies in cultural diversity, which has been woven in wide range of relationships between humans and other living things. I share some of the challenges and focus on cultural diversity in the hope that we can still make a difference.

Breaking the Cycle: Alternative Models for Mapping Change in Human Complexity

This paper uses the tools of Big History to present an alternative model for measuring and classifying changes in human complexity. It engages with longue durée theories about the rise and fall of societies and suggests a more nuanced model for understanding changes in complexity. In order to map society’s success for preventing a decline in complexity, this paper proposes a model that uses six categories to define changes in complexity. This is an adaptation of future-studies scholar James Dator’s “Four Futures” model. The first two futures, growth and decline, align well with longue durée models, which forecast 200 to 300 year cycles of major rise and fall in complexity. There are cases where societies have acted to disrupt such cycles to preserve complexity for extended periods, and the next two categories, discipline and transformation, are employed to understand these exceptions. The last two classifications, collapse and extinction, cover situations where a society declines so significantly that it cannot recover for centuries, if at all. This model provides a means to analyse how and why a society was successful or not in responding to threats to its complexity. It also provides a mechanism for connecting the lessons of the past to our approach to future challenges. Although this modelling is applied to human systems, the paper will discuss potential applicability to all complex systems.

Art of Border-Crossing: Tagore's Engagement with Boundaries

Author and educator Rabindranath Tagore understood that culture can be a boundary to freedom and so he abhorred institutionalized borders. He opposed the concept of nationalism as Gandhi was vigorously supporting it. Tagore engaged in the cause of independence through his creativity and his ability to reinvent freedom beyond the boundaries laid down by conservative interests. He felt that when thousands of people were victimized by the occupying authorities in the struggle for India’s independence, it was necessary to create a new culture. Tagore’s enormous impact on world society has similarities to the efforts of Big History movement on a global level today. We are all crossing new borders into the frontiers of the future.

Predominance of Halting Actions:
A Peculiar Human Condition that Gives Access to Big History

What are the ontological and epistemic conditions of being Human that we could engage and speculate about big history? How could a part have cognitive access to the structure and dynamics of the whole? We engage with the above broad questions by conducting a grounded speculation about our roots in biological, cognitive and social layers of Being. In this narrative, we present an account of how halting habits, called memets, provide access to time (memory). The peculiarities of some of our habits, called memets, develop autonomy through syntactical disengagement, leading to a capacity to create and recreate traces (symbolizing), facilitating participation in a rule-based encoding and decoding (e.g., language). Through these cultural traces of memets we reconstruct a history of our own, called memetat. This halting-action space provides access by involution of an otherwise evolving world.

Living Spaces, Gender and Aesthetics in Big History: Politics of Place

Continuity and change are intrinsic to Big History, especially as they impact humanity’s ever-growing collective knowledge. Our species has moved from a life in trees to structures with roofs and hearths, then to dwellings that incorporate complex aesthetics. Living spaces embody the social organisation of classes, gender, and cultures. The exclusion of women from segments of society, for instance, is often seen in their physical restriction to homes. The living space is imbibed with symbolic language and art that supports this curtailment of action. Optimal child-rearing and food provision take place in the home. The contrast between the emotional-social life of family and the externally-built environment may be understood through the symbolic ornamentation of homes. Moreover, it shows how the inhabitants of these domestic spaces lose agency in terms of gender and organised living. As civilisations expand and merge, it becomes harder to isolate such pronouncements about living space and gender expression. This presentation questions the relationships between human and gendered spaces, focusing on how gender and living spaces have co-evolved to present a modern, nuanced judgement of design. In other words, given trends of more complex understandings, how will this affect our future living spaces and social realities?

Listening to the Past: Using Fossils as Storytellers

In a time of rapid global environmental change, understanding how our planet responds to the profound changes induced by human activity is vital. We can approach this issue directly through a science-based understanding of the cause and effect governing physical and chemical systems, and we can test these ideas by looking into the Earth’s past history of rapid environmental change – a series of ‘natural experiments’ chronicled in the record of the Earth’s previous experience. This chronicle is the layers of sedimentary rock and the fossils they contain that are preserved all over the Earth. Ancient episodes of rapid global change were not human-induced, but nonetheless have important information to tell us about how our planet will respond in the present crisis. But to learn from the Earth’s past requires accepting that our science-based understanding is correct and that its history is real. Fortunately, over the last two centuries, we have acquired a tremendous wealth of data about the Earth’s past and its critical relevance to current issues. Earth’s history is dramatic, exciting, and truly wonderful. It is also profoundly relevant to making informed policy decisions. But this information should not be restricted only to those in positions of influence. Rather, our mission should be to share the profound story of the Earth’s past with all its current citizens. And those best placed to receive this story are those who are in contact with the Earth itself – particularly those citizens living in rural communities in which contact with the natural world is immediate. In recent years, a group of friends and I have been involved in scientific outreach in India and Bangladesh based on the Indian subcontinent’s unique and magnificent heritage of fossils. This has involved place-based stories that explain fossils and environmental change through published media, local-language outreach programs in educational centres, schools and madrasahs, and dramatic performances. We are expanding our scope, and planning to produce graphic novels and animation. This science-based history is one in which all citizens can experience wonder and pride. It is an essential part of our fleeting heritage as Earth’s inhabitants.

Cosmic Round-Trip: Big History Recenters Humanity

The essence of Big History involves a ‘cosmic round-trip,’ one that has two sides, to-and-fro. First, Big History enables us to leave a merely human-centric perspective by going beyond the human realm and visiting the non-human world, including the whole universe. That expansion of eyesight brings us a whole new perspective that we can’t get from just human history. But, if we only decenter humanity, it could lead us to what big historian Hirofumi Katayama calls ‘cosmic nihilism’ – feeling tiny and powerless in the overwhelmingly vast universe. Yet, second, by recentering or relocating humanity in this wider context, Big History makes us aware that we are not tiny, even in the universe, temporally or spatially. Such cosmic round-trips have continued from the age of shamans to today’s big historians and indigenous peoples. We humans have been doing similar things, but in different ways. This awareness enables us to make new round-trips among different worldviews, through which we can learn wisdom for a better life and our survival.

Mythopoetic Education:
A Framework for Well Being

This presentation considers well-being, community play and work through the lens of ‘education,’ specifically a model of educational reform grounded in the context of Big History. In spite of specific environmental and social justice interventions, many educational institutions continue to perpetuate a sense of humanity’s separation from many key aspects of our existence. Our spiritual alienation, social injustices and unsustainability stem from this antiquated Cartesian ‘cosmology,’ which is a dysfunctional worldview. From this view, our empires of extraction and domination have contributed to the end of the Holocene epoch. However, across Earth, there are also schools, institutions and networks emerging and developing curriculum to evoke a ‘whole self,’ communal identity and responsible life practice. Engaging the fourfold wisdom conversation of science, religion, women and Indigenous peoples, this ‘mythopoetic’ model evokes a reverence of life and a sense of response-ability for playful acts of justice. Freed from empire, students engage in life creatively, addressing issues, and laying the foundations for a flourishing Earth community.

Ensemble of Change

Changing the world. Anyone can do this. It is powerful but can be simple. It begins with starting to help people, those who need our help, and what we do must be in our possibility zone. If one person does it for one other, it can begin to cover the entire world. Being a musician, in a family of musicians from Gujarat and living in Mumbai, we follow this same pathway. For three years, I have been using Facebook Messenger as a platform for my school of music, All India Keyboardists, Musicians & Singers (AIKMS). The mission of this academy, which currently has 15,000+ students, is to promote values of compassion, self-development. Poor and needy students learn music and use it as a second option for income. They are living examples of how this change can happen. Similarly every person can do this in their respective fields. We must all work together to change the world...

Jilo Jeevan Ji Bharke / Live Life at the Fullest

This song was composed in the spirit of giving hope to those in despair. It uses lyrics that were made with the help of a team of doctors and psychologists who work in suicide prevention. It has reached 100,000 people and is used by NGOs in India.

The Story of Life: A Big History Science Perspective

Science is a search for evidence, but the history of life on Earth is a search for meaning. What makes life on Earth so special? How do you explain its diversity? And what exactly is it? How life emerged or (the origin of life) remains a mystery, but we know that it possesses four qualities: (1) It can metabolize, (2) self-regulate, (3) reproduce, and (4) adapt. We also know that life is fragile in the face of gradual and sudden changes to the environment. Just ask the dinosaurs! The story of life is more than just a body of scientific facts and evidence. It is about the journey of who we are, how we got here, and where we are headed. All life on Earth, past and present, belongs to a dynamic unfolding universe that inspires wonder, awe, and creativity. The story of life also utilizes and integrates the ancient literary wisdom of the Earth in the form of the oral and written traditions found among the various indigenous peoples of the Earth. This enables the reader/learner to better understand ‘what does it mean to be human and to be able to place oneself within the context of the Universe, and more specifically within the context of being born and having evolved from the Earth.’

Towards Transdisciplinary Wisdom: Foraging Ecotonic Ideas and Rooting Deeper Values for Bold Action in the Next Epoch

Dramatic transformations in the intellectual foundations, ethical values, and ecosystem impacts of human societies are needed in our epoch of climate change, injustice, political unrest, and extinctions. Transdisciplinarity is an intellectual force to address such complex, interconnected challenges. Focusing on boundary areas of disciplines and levels of reality, transdisciplinarity looks at subjectivity and objectivity in a new light and with a moral commitment to the needs of society. It seeks to return science to a more natural philosophy and to a future of new interpretations. In my field of medicine, bioethics focuses on technological progress and limits its view to value concerns. Bioethics needs to be reconceptualized to link research, clinical, public health and environmental ethics in a new transdisciplinary form. In general, we need to ask questions about what it means to be a human in relationship to others living beings. I illustrate this process with two examples: 1) Our cognitive limitations of aging and dementia, and 2) Our relationships with trees and forests. We need an anthropology beyond humans. Both these examples, dementia and forests, could be sources of new healthier narratives about our relationships to each other and Nature. These stories can inspire intergenerational solidarity and intergenerative storytelling.

Play for Community Well-Being

‘Come dance with me’ is an invitation to be a co-creator in the cosmic dance. InterPlay, a practice that awakens the innate wisdom of the body, enkindles the call to be a bridge for global peace. It integrates mind, body, heart and spirit through improvised movement, story, song, and stillness. International exchange playshops with various groups, especially the marginalised and vulnerable, bond strangers beyond boundaries. Sharing programmes for students awakens compassion, human and cosmic. These offer a taste of universal well-being – intrapersonal, interpersonal, societal, global, and cosmic. InterPlay engages us in improvised, interactive, collaborative, compassionate play for well-being in a loving community. Through various experiences we learn the art of playful education in a playful universe. This calls for shifts from ‘I’ to ‘We’ / ‘Exclusive’ to ‘Inclusive’ / ‘Other’ to ‘Mother’. We are called as compassionate Earth citizens to nurture the rest of creation as mothers. A concluding action song makes us aware that we can reach out as the hands, heart and voice of the Spirit on Earth.

Saving a Fragile Legacy: Interface of Arts and Science and Big History

Big History is a fast-emerging study that provides a holistic approach for inquiry into the Earth and all its constituent parts, from the big bang to the present-day. Its method is multidisciplinary and combines evidences from humanities, science, commerce and other fields, so as to understand the development of Earth and facets of its evolution – physical, chemical, biological. Our cultural heritages are invaluable, but are fragile and their conservation is of great importance. Identifying a sustainable way of conservation of our art works is of utmost importance. The techniques that are used for conservation requires that the materials that are used do not have a negative consequences and impede future treatments. Such methods are considered more sustainable and environment friendly. This work involves use of molecular biology and biotechnology based methods for the preservation and conservation of heritage artefacts. These methods are called Green Technology as they are environment friendly. In a sustainable world, we must be able to connect with our past in order to advance into the future. This is a central teaching of Big History.

Community and Science in India: A Historical Perspective

Over the past centuries, science has shifted to be primarily that which is laboratory oriented. Colonialism, with its emphasis on ‘scientific enquiry’, often negated the role of science as practised in communities, to dismiss it as ‘traditional’. It is in this context that the paradigms of Big History become valuable, for it brings back to the centre the idea of multiplicity – of approach, of practice, of connections, and of transcending boundaries. I illustrate this through a case study focusing on a much ignored dimension of Indian history – the role of practical science and technology, and its place in community practices over time. Specifically, I focus on weaving, weavers, and dyeing, in what is called the ‘medieval’ period of Indian history, from approximately the 10^th to the 16^th centuries. The notion of community underpins all cloth making, and includes aspects as diverse as the correct wood for making the loom, the methods of making standing/pit/treadle looms, the sourcing of the dyes, and, of course, the markets for the finished cloth. Along with these are the two institutions of temple and state.

Countering Power and the Collective Interpretation of Reality from Below: A Sociology of History

History is replete with social groups attempting to influence shared understandings of reality. When socially acceptable reality becomes a taken-for-granted ‘truth’, it poses important questions about power and privilege. The 20^th and 21^st centuries have seen many movements try to counter dominant ideologies of race, class, caste, gender, science, history and practically everything that make collective life possible. We are at a historical moment when these counter-movements have spurred aggressive reactions from those enjoying dominant interpretations of reality. An important question is: Are the counter-movements capable of transformations or are they a flash-in-the-pan? This presentation shares sociological interpretations of transformative, though not necessarily inclusive, movements and lessons they teach us.

A Nature Walk and the Ecosystem of the Mumbai Forest

Nature is what many aspire to be amongst, as natural surroundings increase health and happiness, and decrease stress. Studies of children indicate improvements in socio-cultural skills and learning abilities when exposed to nature and natural activities. When it came to arranging an experience for the participants of our Big History conference, I naturally suggested forest exposure and a half-day workshop. This has had to be turned into a digital experience due to the covid pandemic. So, here I am taking you for a short nature walk – virtually – during the monsoons, in the city of Mumbai. We will see some keystone species of the Southern Moist Deciduous Forest, biodiversity and inter-actions, the various cycles of nature, the plants the indigenous community consume and relate to the larger cosmos. Inter-linkages of sustainable development goals, climate change and restoration will all come alive here in the Mumbai forest.

Gender, Livelihoods and Food: Contexts for Big History

Big History engages with ‘who does what and who has been doing what?’ in the context of ecological conservation and sustainable livelihoods. Hence, gendered contexts need to be foregrounded, as current development scenarios are leading to acquisition of rural and urban commons and the loss of resources for women. This presentation is based on circumstances in the state of Himachal Pradesh in India, as well as in the Pune District of Maharashtra. In Himachal, land acquisition and development, from hydro-power projects to limestone quarrying, have significantly impacted livelihoods. Women traditionally kept their households together through their knowledge of sustainable agriculture, but this family dynamic has undergone much change. In Pune, urbanisation is impacting the livelihoods of women and minority communities who have / had been practicing small and sustainable agriculture in the rural-urban peripheries. The paper will discuss alternate models in taking into account ecological issues and women’s livelihoods.

How a Big History Course Reduces Racism and Bigotry

A Big History course discusses the major stepping stones that brought us from the Big Bang to today’s human society and civilization, a modernity filled with business, government, and religion. Biological stepping stones brought us from single-cell life to fish, amphibians, reptiles, mammals, primates, and human beings. Our biological heritage includes both our anatomy and our behaviour. Each of us today is born with the same set of emotions that began as our biological ancestors became parenting mammals and social primates, and this means that every person that you pass has the same feelings, emotions, and impelling cares as do you. Two human beings who are strangers share 99.9 % of their genes and so are only 0.1 % genetically different. Two siblings differ by half of that = 0.1 %. We human beings are a bunch of genetic clones – with a wide range of personalities. We share identical limbs, livers and emotions, and differ only in cultural details. Culture consists of our recipes for how to do everything in life, and it involves tens of thousands of details that fit in the brain of each person – so we are each very smart. As we grow, we learn the local culture with fierce conviction, strive to do exactly as our group members, and we might ridicule anyone doing something differently – especially strangers. Public acts of hatred between strangers has been on the rise. Big History courses include sufficient descriptions of the identical nature and varying culture of human beings for students to understand themselves and each other. Therefore, just the teaching of Big History reduces bigotry and racism!

Depths of Bigotry to Heights of Science & Creativity through Neuroscience & Music

Bigotry exists all over the world, sometimes overtly but often hidden. Moving away from bigotry allows for the flourishing of science and creativity. It makes a human fully alive and allows them to enjoy a life in abundance. This can be done using science and the creativity found in the arts. For this presentation, I use neuroscience to see how mirror neurons can assist us in our tasks, along with the creativity of music. We will see music in its effect to bind people together as well as a metaphor. In this way we will move towards the heights of creativity.

Nature, Water and Medieval Society: History in the Present

Water is an essential need of any civilization, and humans have found many ways of meeting this requirement. Water sustenance was not limited to maintenance of groundwater but extended to irrigation, structural cooling, and defence of important places. India is made up of diverse climate zones, so the methods of preservation and conservation varied. The care of water started at its source and continued to the desired point, where it was distributed. Society understood the vital role of Nature and so people developed methods in consonance with Nature. Arid zones had different conservation strategies than watered lands and used different techniques. This discussion examines water use in medieval India and the role of Nature in the functioning of hydrological systems. We ask how modern society can take a lesson from the past, which brings the relevance of history to the present.

Conserving Urban Rivers

The need to restore our urban rivers is of ultimate importance. Challenges for conserving these waterways are complex and multi-directional. Urban populations are, sadly, almost totally ignorant about their rivers – on the surface, where they flow, let alone at subsurface levels, where much life exists. Our safety (in terms of floods), our security (in terms of available water) and our health (in terms of water quality) all depend on the rivers along which the human settlements originated and exist. This basic, core need for water and its natural system is typically not well understood or appreciated. Restoring these rivers with people’s participation is therefore a big challenge. I will share the work of our river-preservation NGO, Jeevitnadi, and its volunteers, who connect urban residents and citizens with this knowledge. Jeevitnadi’s success is living proof that change is possible, locally and globally.

Changing Landscape of Southeast Asia: A Big History of Survival

The geology of Southeast Asia was relatively stable in the Quaternary period, from 2.6 million years ago to the present. One of the noticeable changes took place in coastal areas. The highest sea level in Southeast Asia was 50 meters above the present, while the lowest was 100 meters below it. A sea level drop about 40,000 years ago caused extensive erosion, resulting in riverine terraces that can be observed in Peninsular Malaysia, Thailand and Cambodia today. This marked change was not due geological movement. About 20,000 years ago, the Earth’s polar regions were covered by ice during the last glacial maximum. As the Earth’s temperature started to slowly go up during the following interglacial, a global sea level rise took place. The highest in Southeast Asia occurred during the Holocene epoch about 4300 years ago, when it was 3–5 meters above the present height. During that time, much of the low-lying areas on the seaside plains were flooded by sea water, which changed the mineralogy of the affected sediments. The drop in sea level that followed resulted in the formation of a series of sandy beach ridges of decreasing height, forming the conspicuous landscape of the coastal plains of the countries facing the South China Sea. By using a big history perspective, we see how the fluctuating sea level not only changed the littoral landscape, but affected soil fertility, agriculture production, and human life.

Symbiosis of Movement and Architecture

This talk and performance illustrates the deep connection between the Indian classical dance-form of Bharatanatyam and the architecture of temples in South India. The goal is to understand the symbiotic relationship in their aesthetic expression. Both architecture (particularly sculpture) and dance involve movement, geometry, body, and space. Sculpture expresses static moment, whereas Bharatanatyam expresses graphic, dynamic movement of body and space. The Natyashastra, an ancient treatise on dance and drama, suggests that performing arts are similar to prayer, wherein one can attain moksha (salvation) through performance. The dancer and the dance engage in a spiritual invocation, which are mirrored in the architecture of temples denoting the worship of the cosmic dance god, Lord Shiva. Both the Bharatanatyam dance-form and the sculptures in temples show the basic anatomy of the human being, like Anga, Upanga and Bhasanga, mentioned in the 2500-year-old Abhinaya Darpana. Sculptural carvings in various temples have helped dancers reconstruct dance styles. In my performance, I will depict the ‘Tandava dance’ with various hand gestures and Karnas, which can be seen in the cave temples at Badami, Karnataka and in the Nataraja temple at Chidambaram in Tamil Nadu. In this way, traditional movement and architecture reflect a unity that has also been noted in Big History.

Big History in the Time of Navel-Gazing:

An Artist’s Attempt at Writing a Big History Novel

Over time, novels have evolved into a myopic enterprise, centred around singular human actions, limited by political borders, identity politics, and, even worse, a plot. The cause and effect within a plot is restricted to its characters, devoid of the appreciation and continuations within a larger universe. In an increasingly polarised and isolating world, the human imagination has been trapped in rooms of its own creation. If the reader views life from just one window, then I, as a novelist, want to tear down all the windows and walls, and bring down the roof. I want to pull the entire structure down till the reader is standing under an immense sky and looking at the infinity we call a horizon. For in that infinity, human history is only a tiny slice of the Earth’s history, and the evolution of life doesn't begin with our ancestors leaving Africa, but the birth of the first unicellular organism, or perhaps the Big Bang. For only when we have grounded ourselves in this way can we appreciate the vastness of our own lives. The narrative thread of my novel is a faultline. All the stories are grounded in geology, and connected by forces of Nature. In difficult and intense moments, the characters are forced to return to similar moments in the evolution of life. Latitudes of Longing is my attempt at a creation myth based on science. My paper presents the practical lessons learned and insights gained in the process of writing.

Constructing the Present from the
Past: Archaeology, History and
Identity in India

National identity uses the language of archaeology, history, and culture. The process is one of choice, which, by necessity, ignores many narrative details. The ‘Idea of India’ emphasizes a returning of the past to the people, but India’s identity has been contested since the early decades of the Freedom Struggle, a process that continues today. India and its people are connected and disconnected with each other and their geography through at least three broad strands of history. The first is the folklore history of the Puranas and Epics (Itihaas), a narrative first developed during British rule. The second is that of an immigrant and conquering tribe – the Aryan identity, which pushed the original inhabitants, the Dravida, to the southern part of the Subcontinent. This lead to a dual identity that grips political and cultural memories even now. The third, which is essentially archaeological, outlines a native evolution in the rise of cultures and communities from the Palaeolithic onwards. To this we can add genetic studies, which have yet to be fully assimilated by nationalists. Cultural scholars are often expected to explain: ‘Who are we?’ or ‘Where do we come from?’ as a people. But the past does not provide simple answers. I would rather change it to: ‘How did we become who we are?’ It is a form if inquiry that also resonates in Big History.

Big History and Global Challenges

Time is running out if we have to deal with the global challenges of social justice and climate change. Big History unravels the almost magical journey that human beings have made from the Big Bang until today. But is it all to end with the Sixth Extinction? This need not be the case if we act today! We also have to move from the aggressive individualistic values and consumerism of today’s market economy to values that are close to the First Nations of Indigenous Peoples all around the world – earth-centred values of consensus and cooperation that contribute to living lightly on the planet.

History Adventures: Digital Learning in a World of Characters

History Adventures, World of Characters is a next gen, fully interactive, digital learning series, nominated for Best Educational App at the 2020 Reimagine Education Awards. This multimodal learning experience combines mobile entertainment technology with the power of narrative design – bringing the pages of history to life. History Adventures foregrounds the power of story, narrativizing the experiences of people who lived in past centuries – in different epochs and locations around the globe. From Apple Books to Chromebooks, iOS, Android and Kindle Interactive – History Adventures is accessible on every device and platform found at home and in the classroom. Both released in 2020, ‘Empires & Interconnections (1450–1750)’ and ‘Revolutions & Industrialization (1750–1900)’ explore major themes in world history. While the forthcoming ‘Global Pandemics’ will uncover five major pandemics in world history – plague of Athens, black death, smallpox, Spanish flu, and HIV/AIDs – with the goal to provide context for students and the broader public about the challenges COVID-19 has presented to people around the world.

Applied Big History to Problem-Solving Competency Training

Big History is not only a scholastic endeavour but a powerful thinking tool that provides multiple viewpoints on decisions across different timeframes and scales. For lifelong learners, they look for inspirations and insights to improve their decision-making and enhance their quality of life. Big History can provide such a framework for understanding and solving the challenges of our time. It helps us learn how to zoom into details and zoom out to a big picture. This presentation explains how we adopt Big History scenarios in problem-solving competency training for lifelong learners. We will share an example from our class discussion of a hypothetical political reform movement in 19^th century China after the failure in the First Opium War (1839–1842). Participants role-play the Grand Minister of State, the Minister of War, and also the Chinese Emperor. As a result of this exercise, students are able to define the ‘right problem’ that China faced at the time, establish a goal for reform, and identify constraints to overcome and major obstacles to be removed. As a result, they tackle the historical problem from different perspectives and scales, and can then extrapolate the exercise into their own lives in the modern world.

Our Individual Evolutionary Pathways: Health Care, Tribal Life and Big History

In addition to the evolution of life on Earth and planetary or elemental evolution in the cosmos, we all undergo a personal evolution. Dr Sudarshan reflects on his life experiences of working with the tribal peoples of India. His goal to ‘reach the unreachable’ with healthcare began with the Soliga tribe in South India and then expanded to the indigenous communities of North East India. His experiences, spanning more than forty years, brought about a major transformation in his life. Now, a Big History perspective has enriched his worldview and helped to deepen his relationship with Nature and Society.

Folklore as Big History

Folklore in indigenous and tribal societies are storehouses of indigenous knowledge. Origin myths, stories about nature, flora, fauna, stories about ancestors and stories about moments in time and places all coalesce together to provide a people with their sense of place in this world, conferring identities and inculcating customs of relating to one’s community and world. Drawing on folktales from the rich canon of Naga folklore, this presentation will look at the ways folklore offers an alternative arc of Big History. The timelessness of folklore serves to inform our place in time – a time where past, present and future fold into each other. Folklore imagines the world as an interconnected community where harmony and balance are vital to survival. These ontologies direct us towards social action based on empathy and an awareness that all actions have consequences beyond the individual and even beyond the human. Colonisation and western academic discourse have relegated folklore to the realm of the creative, often going further to strip these narratives of their political stimulus, positing them as mere ‘primitive’ entertainment. This presentation proposes that folklore needs to be brought back to the sphere of the political and be reinstated as a frame of reference through which we can engage contemporary challenges.

Who is a ‘Good Protester?’

Supreme Courts Judgments on Anti-Citizenship Amendment Act Agitations and Farmers’ Protests

Dissent is an integral part of political life. Liberal democracies protect the right by enshrining the freedom of speech and expression in their constitutions. In practice, the protection of these rights is substantially conditioned by the existing political discourse and what judges think of individuals seeking legal recourse to protect their rights. In contemporary India, similar agitations have been dealt with differently by the courts – variations that have been affected by what the judges think of the protester. This paper enquires into the image of a ‘good protester,’ as seen in judgments relating to the agitations against the Citizenship Amendment Act (2019) and the Farm Bills (2020). The Supreme Court’s handling of cases was different. On the one hand, it refused to stay the CAA and has not even begun hearings relating to its constitutional validity. On the other, the court ‘stayed the implementation’ of the three laws farmers opposed on grounds questioned by legal experts. What is noteworthy is the image of the ‘protester’ in these judgments. This issue of image is important because it has significant impact on public debate and influences lower courts’ approach to similar cases.

Science, Imagination and Empowerment in an Entangled World

Climate change threatens human civilization as we know it, as well as the biosphere as a whole. Yet the climate crisis cannot be seen in isolation from historical and socioeconomic forces; it is in fact a symptom, rather than the disease. How did we come to this moment? How are we to find a way out of the climate crisis to a just, equitable world in which we heal our rift with the rest of Nature? Science as we know it has its roots in a specific sociocultural context, and its origins are closely entwined with the colonial imperative. But it is science that has woken modern civilization to the reality of climate change. Can science rescue us from climate change? Science by itself in its current form cannot do so, and our way through this crisis involves multiple agents and multiple transformations, including a transformation of science-as-we-know-it. We are going through a global paradigm-shifting period and imagination can free us from conventional ways of thinking about climate change. But this cannot happen without us learning from anticolonial and other movements around the world, including those of indigenous people and local communities that have a radically different relationships to their lands, and whose struggles for survival, dignity and self-determination have not only kept tons of carbon dioxide from entering the atmosphere, but also provide us with alternative paradigms for how to live on this Earth.

Indigenous Values and Sustainability: Possible Linkages to Big History

Christianity and Western scientific knowledge have dominated academic research and its disciplinary education. Indigenous knowledge and religious traditions, on the other hand, have largely been dismissed as invalid as a way-of-knowing by the Western world. Since tribal systems cannot always be quantified, they are often dismissed as ‘superstitious,’ ‘primitive,’ and ‘unreliable.’ However, recent work by Indigenous peoples around the world have resulted in a growing recovery of Indigenous knowledge for the benefit of both Indigenous and non-Indigenous scholars. This presentation looks at Indigenous values and practices as alternative ways that have been sustaining people for centuries, in close relationship with Nature. In the context of the present-day ecological crisis and global warming, we must seek sustainable development, especially by learning about Indigenous values and practices. This discussion brings out some of those important traditions from the tribal peoples of North East India. Of interest to this paradigm shift is how the inclusive ways of tribal knowledge occasionally intersect with big histories’ inclusiveness, especially in its Asian formulation.

The Beauty of Minka:

Living Witness of Self-Sustainable Society

The minka, ancient Japanese farmhouses, are an unique architecture of the Edo period (1600~1868). It was a time when Japan was an agricultural society, self-sustainable and peaceful. But in modern Japan, these country farmhouses began to be destroyed, because of a lack of understanding about their invaluable legacy, and so they began to disappear from the landscape. Preservation of these cultural treasures is very important, so we started to rescue them fifteen years ago, when we organized the Association for the Preservation of Traditional Japanese Farm Houses. Our way of preserving the minka is to invite university students to our renovated farmhouses and let them feel the beauty and comfort of the minka space. We believe seeing and experiencing is the best education. As a result, a new generation started to live in the county and use the old farmhouses – not as farms but as offices, restaurants, ryokans, and cafés. We learned from minka-preserving activities how much our ancestors worshiped Nature and lived harmoniously with Nature. Our efforts embody the Japanese adage: ‘To Know when it is Enough’.