Mindfulness, Evolutionary Perception, Evolutionary Actions: Toward An Educational Movement At All Levels

Abstract: Our overall focus is on presenting the concepts of mindfulness, evolutionary perception and evolutionary actions—coupled with the initial development of an interdisciplinary science of human behavior—as providing the basis for an evolutionary movement at all levels with ever greater power to solve personal and world problems. For this to occur, it is essential to reach not only an academic audience, but also a general audience, and to focus on formal education no less than informal education. We will begin to touch all of these bases by (1) presenting these ideas to the general public, (2) making them available on YouTube, (3) including references to our recently published and available articles, and (4) presenting our ideas to a wide sociological audience. We three writers of this article have been joined by seven others from the sociological community who share our vision along with our actions. We are fully aware of the magnitude of our task, yet the enormous problems of our times call for nothing less than extraordinary aims, despite the difficulties involved. Much of this paper is devoted to presenting the key ideas in our book with its focus on the incredible potential powers of the individual and its interdisciplinary approach to making progress on personal and world problems: Creating Life Before Death: Before Disaster Strikes the Ship of State, 2nd ed., 2024, by Phillips and Savage, with contributions from Andy Plotkin, Neil S. Weiss, Max O. Spitzer, Sergio M. Sanseverino and Ray Porter. We have concluded this paper with a new proverb contrasting with an ancient Japanese proverb (Vision without action is a daydream; action without vision is a nightmare), namely: MINDFULNESS, EVOLUTIONARY PERCEPTION AND EVOLUTIONARY ACTIONS CAN SOLVE PERSONAL AND WORLD PROBLEMS.