Manuel Manga www.evolutionleader.com This work created by Manuel Manga is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License

1. Ontological Designing our Future.
march 25, 2013 San Francisco, California.
Manuel Manga
www.evolutionleader.com
This work created by Manuel Manga is licensed under a Creative
Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License.

2. Invitation & Objectives
• To understand
• The evolutionary crisis facing humanity as
an opportunity to design future paths for a
just, flourishing , sustainable world.
• To design or redesign your own life path
• To learn from others about ontological designing.
• To apply ontological designing principles to
domains of life.

3. Ontological Designing is a philosophy
and a discipline that can be applied to
different domains of concern of life.
• Some domains:
• Self
• Tools, artifacts
“We are designers and we
•Technology
are being designed”
• Processes Tony Fry
• Structures
• Systems
• Culture

4. The Evolutionary Crisis:
• A complex & systemic world crisis threatens
• The future of the human race
• The future of life
• The world crisis shows up in
• The ecological crisis, our dying planet & biosphere
• Poverty, hunger, & war
• The gap between rich & poor nations
• Unlimited growth of institutions & nations,
• The search for natural resources to fuel more growth
• A crisis of meaning and ethics:
Consumerism vs. Being and Development

5. Opportunity for conscious human evolution
This crisis also presents us with an opportunity for
• A conscious human evolution
• We can be the designers of
• A new way of being human
• A new civilization that is
• Loving
• Ethical
• Flourishing for all life.
• Just
• Sustainable

6. The Dynamics of Ecological Crisis
Steps to an Ecology of Mind Gregory Bateson 1970

7. Nature doesn’t care…
… if our thinking is faulty …
… if a few characters die off here & there …
… as long as there are enough to
perpetuate the species.

8. On Human Evolution
“The most meaningful activity in which a human
being can be engaged is one that is directly related to
human evolution. This is true because human beings
now play an active and critical role not only in the
process of their own evolution but in the survival and
evolution of all living things.
Awareness of this places upon human beings a
responsibility for their participation in and contribution
to the process of evolution. If humankind would accept
and acknowledge this responsibility and become
creatively engaged in the process of metabiological
evolution consciously, as well as unconsciously, a new
reality would emerge, and a new age would be born.”
Anatomy of Reality Jonas Salk 1985

9. Three stages of ontological designing :
Stage 3: The • We can design a better sustainable
future consciously or we can be
future of humanity unconsciously designed by a non
and Biosphere. sustainable future.
• We designed agriculture, cities,
Stage 2: The last religions, civilizations, the industrial
10,000 years age, the social conquest of the earth.
• We started designing with rocks and
Stage 1:Early
the process started to shape our
human evolution learning-brain-evolution

10. Ontological Designing Principles:
We are biological, emotional, linguistic, historical-cultural
beings.
Language shapes thought, emotions, relationships. Language
is systemic.
We can design human reality with language.
Human beings are designed for learning.
We are not separate from nature, others, systems, universe.
It is impossible for us not to be historical subjects.
We are self-made , independent, alone and fragile.
The fate of humankind turns on a fundamental Darwinian
principle adapt or die.

11. Ontological Design of your Life Path:
• Like philosophy, coming to grips with the big picture &
our need for larger sense of our lives
• Embraces love, emotions, trust, science, rationality,
reverence, wisdom
• Embraces the terrifying aspects of life, tragedy & death
• Is the process of transforming the self
• Is expansion of self, connecting with people, nature, &
universe
• Is ultimately social & global, a sense of ourselves
identified with others & the world
• Recombining with science & nature, rather than play
them off against each other
Robert Solomon. Philosopher

12. Evolutionary Systemic Humanism :
Scientific, ontological, ethical, & cultural
A loving culture, based in science,
ontology & ethics
Beyond patriarchal to a partnership Culture
culture
Ethics
A love ethic, a reflective
& responsible person,
ontologically & scientifically
grounded
Ontology
Body-brain, emotions, language,
relationships
Science
Evolution, Ecology,
Biology, Neuroscience

13. Manuel’s model for ontological designing:
Evolutionary Systemic Humanism
Humanistic: Loving care for people,
kindness, ethical wisdom, solidarity. larger sense
of self, feeling connected to human family &
nature. Live a good life & build good societies.
.
Developing
an evolutionary
self–identification;
an observer with
complexity of
consciousness
Evolutionary: Understanding cosmic, Systemic: Natural & social systems
biological & human evolution from scientific- connected, in relationships, each system
empirical perspective, feeling connected to impacts other systems, feeling
universe, earth & biosphere. Caring for future interconnected & inter-dependent.
sustainability of humans & all life. Creating just &sustainable institutions &
Having a story of cosmic evolution & life. systems.

14. Ontological Designing for a sustainable future:
systems, social practices, conversations, tools,
culture.
Systems, Tools,
cultures, technologies
Conversations
Social
and
Practices
relationships

15. A bibliography of thinkers who have influenced my
ontological designing thinking:
• Jonas Salk. Survival of the Wisest & Anatomy of Reality.
• Julian Huxley. Evolutionary Humanism
• Gregory Bateson. Mind and Nature. A Necessary Unity
• Erich Fromm. The Art of Being, The Sane Society, Man for Himself, An inquiry into
the psychology of ethics
• Fernando Flores & Terry Winograd. Understanding Computers & Cognition. A New
Foundation for design.
• Humberto Maturana Romesin and Gerda Verden-Zoller. Edited by Pille Bunnell. The
Origin of Humanness in the Biology of Love.
• Bell Hooks. All about love-new visions
• Fritjof Capra. The Hidden Connections
• Donella H. Meadows. Thinking in Systems.
•Anne –Marie Willis. Ontological Designing—Laying the ground.
• Tony Fry. Becoming Human by Design.
•John Ehrenfeld. Sustainability by Design.
• Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi. The Evolving Self
• The Dalai Lama. Beyond Religion, Ethics for a Whole World
• Rick Hanson. Buddha’s Brain. The practical neuroscience of happiness, love &
wisdom
• Edward O. Wilson. The Social Conquest of the Earth