Coordinators: Jonas Mago (McGill University), Justus Wachs (McGill University)
The Idea: Motivations & Scope
How do humans learn to navigate an ever-changing world? What enables individuals and societies to flourish amid uncertainty, crisis, and transformation? Complexity, non-linearity, and emergence are fundamental characteristics of the irreducible mystery of existence. This pillar explores how humans flourish amidst such complexity. It uses theories of cognition and learning to explore how contemplative practices, including meditative disciplines, therapeutic frameworks, and embodied rituals such as fasting and asceticism, shape human capacities to make sense of the world, create meaning, and spur interior transformation.
These practices do not merely explain or solve problems but emerge between individuals, within shared traditions, through resonant practice, and in dynamic relational fields – they are fundamentally relational, resonant, and lived. Across history, individuals and societies have developed these methods not just to understand complexity but to inhabit it, to cope with uncertainty, and to align with emergent patterns of life itself. We explore this dynamic interplay between interiority and collectivity through the lenses of cognitive science and education, examining how learning, perception, and adaptation shape our ability to navigate complexity. By developing insights and tools that help us navigate the complex and unknowable nature of existence in ways that are practical, transformative, and integrative, this pillar navigates disruption and transformation – developing ways to engage meaningfully with ecological collapse, institutional instability, and existential uncertainty by cultivating adaptive, resilient, and regenerative practices.
Rather than viewing the mystery of existence as merely a problem to be solved, this pillar investigates how living meaning emerges through interaction, adaptation, and shared practice. It is an exploration of how we navigate the unknown, how we cultivate coherence in dynamic systems, and how ancient and contemporary traditions alike offer insights into the art of living well within complexity. In doing so, this pillar aspires to contribute to the creation of more resilient, compassionate societies and individuals capable of embracing the intricate realities of the 21st century.
Guiding Questions
- How can humans navigate and make meaning in an increasingly complex world without falling into reductionist paradigms, and what cognitive and learning approaches support this process?
- What practices, traditions, or frameworks enable individuals and collectives to hold and integrate the inherent contradictions of contemporary existence?
- What distinguishes these relational, resonant, embodied, and lived practices from isolated, abstract problem-solving?
- How can meaning-making serve as a force for collective healing and transformative societal change in a globalized, interconnected world?
- How can we understand myth and religious traditions as adaptive, evolving systems that encode complex ways of knowing, learning, and transforming?
Goals & Actions
- Integrate Complexity and Contemplative Practice. Build interdisciplinary frameworks that connect complexity science, autopoiesis, and lived contemplative traditions
- Explore Meaning-Making as a Dynamic System. Investigate how different cultures and historical moments have generated self-sustaining, evolving modes of making sense of the world
- Interdisciplinary and Cross-practice Collaboration. Create spaces and fora for interdisciplinary collaboration, inviting scholars, practitioners, and cultural leaders to share and refine diverse meaning-making traditions and practices
- Shape Sense-Making and Learning Systems. Develop ways to integrate complexity and contemplation into educational, therapeutic, and cultural approaches not as a problem to be solved but as an ecology to be inhabited