Neville “Nick” Woolf, University of Arizona, Tucson, Arizona, USA

I am an astrophysicist and astrobiologist, and have been a professor of astronomy at the University of Arizona for the past 36 years.  LAPLACE has been a team of the NASA Astrobiology Institute for the past six years, and I have been its director for that time.

I have worked with the Mereon Team since 2007, and we have (so far) one jointly published paper in the journal “Foundations of Science” on the topic of this “Framework”.  In 2007, I organized a workshop in Tucson devoted to the Framework and the applications of our collaboration; I hosted a second dialogue here; and attended a second workshop relative to this work in Chicago.  I continue to explore the model, and am currently preparing a paper on the application of the Framework to the determination of whether certain observations would or would not be evidence of the presence of extraterrestrial life.

While we all share different experiences and competences, that fact that I am considered an authority on a rather broad range of science topics works to our mutual benefit.  Ms. Dennis has a long history of being extremely concerned about the difficulties within every kind of human interactions; where it led her was the realization that human interactions can be different, and better by following a pattern that presents itself in nature, a path of growth that is, general, and natural. Upon meeting her at a NASA workshop where I was discussing issues in the development of life, I found the Mereon work to be complementary to my own.

Let us cut to the chase.  All structures in the universe, physical and organizational, are vulnerable to break-up and decay, the so called, second law of thermodynamics.  It is in principle possible to overcome this vulnerability by acting with foresight based upon recording experience.  This is a concept of physics called Maxwell’s Demon.  Clerk Maxwell did not realize that it can be implemented in reality, but we now see that it is sufficiently implementable and for many activities as to be an appropriate goal for humanity.  This activity in turn depends on the harnessing of resources from the environment, and developing a group of people sharing  the cohesive goal of doing it.  In turn this depends on having a place to bring people together (such as a school or business), and starting them on the right track, which is to be creative, self-organized, and emotionally supportive of one another. These are the first three steps of the 8-step program designed around the Mereon principles. 

My own role to date has been to discover that these same 8-steps, or at least the first seven of them were the  processes used for the universe to develop all matter, our sun, Earth, life and intelligence.  Our goal in this work is helping humanity move forward by using these principles for the next stage of our development. The principles have already been tested in elementary schools in Europe and North America, and few companies are working to organize and make decisions along these same lines.  While it might seem that such a start would ignite a fire of activity, sadly, this has not yet been the case. 

When people are focused on defining their own lives and living a fulfilled life, they will find it less necessary to do what they think they have to do take over the world.  Think about it-- that is a requirement for a stable human society.  We have had enough conquerors and religious zealots wanting to take over the world, regardless of the strife it causes. It is time for positive change. The Mereon work has my full and ongoing support.