By now it is clear to most thinking people that every decision we make on major public problems simply makes matters worse. The outlook and assumptions which Ferkiss advocates are superior because they are holistic, ecological, multi-variable, non-deterministic, scientific, and contextual, based on our most recent discoveries about nature, human nature, and society. These new ideas show that the universe is a dynamic hierarchy of sub-systems within systems within more general systems, in which all characteristics arise from processes in organizational patterns within one all-inclusive process of cosmic evolution. In this ultimate process, the qualities which we call "life," "spirituality," "consciousness," or "reason" are natural consequences of emergent evolution, giving rise to indeterminism, freedom, free will, power, and human autonomy while following a non-random, non-statistical, and probably teleological course, which we cannot yet understand.

-- CARROLL QUIGLEY

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