This post was composed for a comment to a chapter in Spanda Journal by Alexander Laszlo.

Multiple definitions. Recent usage began with resonance in electronic circuits {A condition in which two oscillators have the same resonant frequency.} Syntony labels moves to resonance with environment or with part of the environment. What if the part or the whole of the environment is dysfunctional? Is syntony a good strategy, then? {(psychiatry) a responsive, lively state that is liable to manic-depressive psychosis.}. Greek origins: {1890-95; < Greek syntonía, equivalent to sýnton (os) – syntonia agreement, from syntonos being in harmony. }

Alexander, I see you have been using Syntony Quest from at least 1999. I frequently appropriate common terms for special meaning and invent new terms. I have not read Syntony Quest. I approve of your generalist call for “syntony re daologue/World Narrative – individual & collective being/becoming” – as it is in high resonance (syntony) with my own quest: “to catalyze a process that secures the multi-millennial survival/thrival of Humanity/Gaia“.

My concern, over decades, is that this vision is taken by many as a pacifying metaphor – live well and wait for miracles. What actually is the larger reality that we must resonate with? The reality we know best is the current destructive interaction between “nature” and “humankind”. “Nature” is striking back, if not with intent.

Many good persons imbibe in a bucolic vision of harmonious nature. They are familiar with resting in forest, beach, tundra, prairie, etc. observing a “peaceful NATURE”. Nature is in a state of continued disruption of balance. Nature contains the continued suffering and death of beings – at the jaws of other being or by “natural forces” (fires, floods, droughts, earthquakes). Life/Death in the Web-of-Life, as I learned as a youngster, it a theme of “nature”. We would not be here if it weren’t for extinctions. I am NOT excusing the current Anthropocene Extinction – indeed, I resist it will all my life.

Some may fantasize on a future where beings need not kill other beings for food – but that would be a great disruption with unknown consequences. For humans, laboratory grown meat would be a great boon. But “a cure against all suffering and death” for the whole of Gaia? What does it mean that we would significantly reduce the population of cows, pigs and chickens? Indigenous people had rituals when they killed for food, thanking “nature”. This didn’t eliminate the short period of possible suffering when they were pursued and killed. But, natural disasters also result in suffering and death. Schnell, in THE FATE OF THE EARTH asked: What is worse, the death of all humans or the fact that there will be no more humans?

Harmony is an antagonist to Evolution. What is a term, analogous with harmony, for “meta-balanced” evolution/emergence? I use the acronym, galdee, to label a holarchy of change: grow, adapt, learn, develop, evolve, and emerge. I believe it vital to distinguish between mechanistic neo-Darwinian evolution and “emergence”, whose meaning continues to emerge. In Nu Genesis,  I speculate that humankind is a risky adventure of Gaia, to better insure very long term survival/thrival.

Although I am all too familiar with Doomsday Scenarios, I have pursued a positive vision/mission for five decades. I have identified ONE aspect that is blocking our actualization. We, as yet, lack the sharing tools/techniques/attitudes to engage ideas/conceptual-schemes of this Magnitude/Scope/Complexity. You might characterize it as yet lacking “solutionatique” competencies. So long as we don’t see the need, and our contemporary limitations, we won’t apply our innovative competencies to create the requisite “solutionatique”.

WHY don’t we EMOTIONALLY recognize/accept this need, and the possibility of viable survival/thrival routes? One possible answer was given by Ajit Varki and Danny Brower in their book, Denial: Self-Deception, False Beliefs, and the Origins of the Human Mind, . Another is that our newer, uniquely human, conceptual/rational/slow mind has yet to adequately integrate with our older mammalian, intuitive/emotional/fast mind. Thinking, Fast and Slow, Daniel Kahneman.

We have the potential. How to move beyond only communicating about actualizing?

This query applies to myself and this blog.

nuet