Some of the major factors in whole-system consciousness fall into the following tentative topic areas.
- Holistic awareness
- Shared knowledge and care
- Systemic leadership
- Evolvability
Each of these a bit more below. Each description offers a few factors that are characteristic of human systems as they become more conscious.
This and similar models can help us focus our attention, resources and efforts on activities that have special impact on the healthy evolution of humanity.
HOLISTIC AWARENESS
How do people deeply and consciously connect to the whole systems they are part of?
In a conscious social system, we know, identify with, and care about our community, bioregion, and world -- each system we are part of -- as a whole. We orient our awareness and behavior to the existence and needs of these precious living systems, through culture (especially stories), education, governance, and spiritual and group attunement practices.
We know about the health of our human and natural communities, thanks to engaging media, grassroots sharing of news, statistics, briefings, clear attention to environmental changes and many other common activities and facets of our culture. We know enough about system dynamics to recognize what is happening, what it means, and how we can engage with it.
We are aware of and value each other, and what people different from us are doing. The field of our collective awareness is vitally alive, as evidenced by the frequency with which similar ideas, innovations, and discoveries show up simultaneously in different places, as needed.
SHARED KNOWLEDGE AND CARE
How do human knowing and caring flow powerfully through the social system?
In a conscious social system, relevant knowledge or caring of one person, time or place is, to a remarkable degree, available to other people, times and places. We see healthy communication, media, and political systems through which information flows freely, intermingling in many ways and increasing in value as it moves.
Our whole systems have forms of memory which transcend our individual memories and lives. These include powerfully inclusive and accessible information storage, evaluation, distribution, and retrieval systems like libraries, databases, open source intelligence services, and the searchable Internet.
We readily find each other to work together and share what we care about, and systemic structures and processes facilitate this -- from electronic networking tools to self-organizing face-to-face gatherings around advertised interests.
SYSTEMIC LEADERSHIP
How are the power and guidance systems of society aligned to serve the needs of the whole?
In a conscious social system, certain parts of the system -- leaders and institutions -- are sometimes empowered by the whole to perceive and act on its behalf.
Our social arrangements make it extremely difficult for our leaders and power centers to colonize our systems' resources for their own personal or group benefit. Well-designed feedback mechanisms and future-orientation systems keep them responsive to the needs of our whole community, society, and world.
Our political, governmental, economic, information and education systems are designed for answerability and service to the common good -- while mindfully protecting and nurturing our precious individuality and diversity from which so many social benefits flow.
Our institutions and cultural practices support legitimate leadership arising from the collective intelligence and wisdom of adequately diverse groups of us in high quality conversations, which are watched by our whole community or society and often exercise direct decision-making power.**
EVOLVABILITY
How does a whole system evolve itself?
In a conscious social system, our system as a whole (sometimes through its leaders or proxies, as above) constantly reflects on its own operation, the results of our collective activity, and our future prospects.
Key parts of our systems are kept as free as possible from bias, fixed ideas, and inflexible attitudes. We honor wholeness in all its forms. Our system continually creatively engages the diversity -- and even conflict -- in and around it to generate inclusive, evolving forms of common sense and shared enterprise. Ways to do this are broadly known.
We have a certain eagerness to welcome, generate and consider novel perspectives and possibilities -- and to test them in useful ways.
We always set up the structures of our systems so they can and do change in a timely manner: They neither resist needed changes and miss promising opportunities nor do they change chaotically in response to every impulse. Overall, we maintain a healthy relationship between centralized and decentralized forms of collective perception, reflection, and action -- out of which the necessary level of appropriate change naturally emerges.