Sudden Inspiration: Open Source Integral Book?

[shaman sun]

Hey everyone,

someone commented on here earlier that what this place needs, or integral in general is for wilber to come out with a controversial book that will get people into integral again. i don't think that's necessary. to me, there were the pioneers, and after exploring this new territory, these grounds are well tread. let's take the next step.

would you or anyone else you know be interested in developing an "open source integral book" ? It would be open source in the literal definition of that term--- written and contributed by everyone. we could write chapters, find general themes to discuss, explore multiple angles, propose different solutions. all in all, we would be what open source programs and operating systems are -- free, accessible, and always evolving.

and, given the daunting amount of work that would need to be done if ONE person were writing it, wouldn't it be much easier if we all did? i read a study once that said that for an operating system to fund and create a rival to linux within a few years would take millions of dollars---yet linux has no centralized agency (more like collaborative). efficiency and creativity, not to mention innovation, come when you have everyone participating in a project. time, space, and energy needed to create such a project is shared by all, and thus easier to be done by all.

so, what do you say? the open source integral book?

[BrightAbyss~]

I think its a great idea!!!

There are enough people on this network that know enough about enough such things to make this a fun an exciting project!!!

I remember there being a thread when we first started about something like this??

But I say lets do it - lets start it and see where it goes! Everyone is invited, and we can start right away.

Let me think on, perhaps, how to start...

Maybe we can start with chapter suggestions? Come up with a provisional outline for such a book..?

m-

[shaman sun]

I think the best way to do this is to just go ahead and make it. We can easily convert word or pages documents (or even open office docs) into something we can all share.

We can create a gmail account, upload the file, or create a google group and upload the file there. whenever someone updates it, they simply update the file that everyone accesses. that way it's continuously reflecting what everyone is doing.

once it's finished... we can distribute it freely, offering it under creative commons license with an option to donate (with whatever the reader deems appropriate). we can also sell it on www.cafepress.com if we'd like. any funds can go to charity, open source organizations, or even further developments (a bigger website?)

these things are all relatively easy to do and very accessible.

as far as STARTING the book.... well :)

chapter suggestions:

this would be a compilation of various ideas, a collective synergy of minds evolve integral theory more rapidly than any one person could. still, we face a few challenges: is it going to be coherent? should it be? how are we going to make the layout? should there be a general theme we can follow?

i imagine we can begin to embody the integral life practice, for sure. we can also suggest new terminology, or even speak of integral without the terminology--- see how it naturally arises in more common languages. for instance, discover integral through the language of philosophy, etc. If it is real, it can exist without its terminology. This is sort of what I'd like to explore.

integral is in all aspects of life.... so i suppose this collaborative book can cover many diverse areas: application, theory, practice, philosophy, spirituality.... each of us can cover one, many, both....

how is integral going to play out in the next century? how can we help it play out now? maybe an attempt to grip with the unanswered questions of integral as it stands, will be able to help us get an idea, and soon an outline.

[M Alan Kazlev]

I'm in, if you can handle my eccentric, highly metaphysical-yogic approach ;-)

A suggestion re distribution:

If it is just some free web-based download thing, no-one will take any notice. It will just be one more "new age" web-authored book, lost in the clamour.

Here is my suggestion: have it self-published and printed hard copy.

Sure it can also be available as free pdf and even, because it is open source, set up a wiki, if teh spam can be blocked (spam is a huge problem, that's what killed Integral Wiki. I think the only way around it would be to have contribution by members with admin status only)

Now, you might think if it is available online, who would buy it? Actually many people would; e.g. some people like hard copy books, libraries might want it, etc. If it self-published in this way, then distribute it through major on-line retailers Amazon com, Barnes & Noble, etc). Now that costs money which means everyone will have to chip in. those with more money would contribute more, those with less, less. But even small donations would help.

This is something i am familar with. I started an open source science fiction universe with a number of others as co-founders, I couldn't've done it on my own, called Orion's Arm. Originally a small Yahoo egroup and project hosted on my website, it has now grown into a vast universe, i no longer have much input, my own choice because i want to do other stuff. But the guys running it now (much more competently than i did) have organised an annual book of short stories, which will be distributed through all the wholesalers. This takes it out of the realm of geeks on the web into the realm of authentic published science fiction literature.

So, I am suggesting a similar thing can be done here.

Once printed, the book can be distributed through the Integral Community; it can get a plug at Andrew Cohen's magazine EnlightenNext and at the Integral Institute. And could be distributed at JFK University, CIIS, etc. If there is enough Aurobindonian input (and not just from me) it could even be available at the Sri Aurobindo Ashram and Auroville. Perhaps also Gebser groups, Teilhard groups, Process Theology etc. It all depends who puts in the input. e.g. if we can't find any Gebserians to contribute we can't market it to Gebser groups. So i would suggest it be not just people who have posted here, but that we contact others as well to contribute, including big names like Sean Esbjörn-Hargens (who could write the chapter on Academic applications of Integral Theory), if they are interested

Anyway, these are just ideas, i'll leave it with you guys

[shaman sun]

Have to finish up some work but, this proposal sounds wonderful. Do you have any suggestions for where we could have it published? Cafepress offers one way. You don't pay for anything, they just take a portion of the purchase and let you add $ for yourself.

For example: 1 book costs 8.95 to publish. You can make the book cost $10 and receive $1.95 for each book purchased.

There are more expensive ways, I'm sure--- I remember a few but I'll have to look them up. They would require us all to pitch in a bit, but they offer Amazon sales and such.

And as a side note, we could offer 1) PDF version, with or without donation. 2) Hard copy version, mailed to your house/business/school

At any rate, talk to you about this later!

[M Alan Kazlev]

I 'm not involved in the Orion's Arm book so I don't know how it was organised. I can write to the guy who set it all up, if you want. I don't want to bother him though unless we are decided to actually go ahead with this (whether it is just CafePress etc alone or larger numbers distributed as well). He was much more fastidious then we need to be, because the OA book will be fully copyright, whereas the Integral Book will have an Open Source license, presumably Creative Commons (it will be necessecary to find the CC option or compromise that suits all contributers)

I assume if the book is to be stocked at Amazon com etc then there will need to be a number already printed. So maybe a thousand copies (just pulling a number pout of the air) could be printed and distributed to these on-line wholesalers, amnd also some sent to libraries and institutes. As we know, this approach doesn't come cheap, so it depends what people are willing to put in. If theire is interest and sales, this could pay for a second print run.

Your suggestion of personal pdf copy & hard copy for hardcopy home/libraries/etc sounds good. And there is also "kindle", amazon's ebook reader. So lots of options!

[BrightAbyss~]

I think we start with an outline for discussion/debate about what the book might cover (see below). Ideas about publication come later imo...

So where to start?

cheers~

[M Alan Kazlev]

hi Mike

There is also the Wikipedia page on the Integral movement, mostly written by Goethean and myself.

Maybe you could write a list of suggested topics as well

cheers :-)

[BrightAbyss~]

I agree totally with you Alan.

First step: start making the document; tell whoever may be interested to pitch in, and let it grow.

I think publication talk can wait for a long while, but one prelim suggestion would be either Lulu - as a paperback, and Cafepress, as Shaman Sun suggests.

The key point is that it will be not-for-profit. All proceeds should go to a charity of some sort...

But a "hard copy" will be necessary i think.

So any suggestions on an outline? What would a book about post-Wilberian, post-Aurobindian, post-metaphysical "integral" approach need to cover???

[M Alan Kazlev]

hi Mike

well, with something like this i doubt there will be enough profits left over (after expenses of printing, sending out the requisite free copies, etc) to even go to charity. I think we'll be very lucky if we can even cover the cost of printing! But sure, i agree it is not for profit

re outline, well any sort of single-minded approach will alienate many, and be less than "integral". So it should be Wilberian and post-Wilberian, Aurobindonian and (if there is such a thing!) post-Aurobindonian, metaphysical, post-metaphysical, and transcendentally/gnostically metaphysical (my book Integral Metaphysics belongs to the latter category, transcendent metaphysics (tentative jargon) includes nonduality and beyond).

As for what it would cover, that would depend on the contributers. Because everyone has their own idea and definitions.

I would like to see

o historical coverage (overview of the major figures, the development of the idea, forerunners, etc)
o various themes, sympathetically presented
- Integral Yoga
- Integral psychology
- Process philosophy
- Integral theory
- etc etc
o criticism and critiques
o short book reviews of important/seminal texts
o lots and lots of diagrams (like the stuff on Slark's flikr archive)
o glossary
o and lots more stuff as well :-)

[shaman sun]

Awesome discussion so far! Alan, you've got a great list. I wrote a paper last year on the integral "movement" from a sociological perspective. The first section is the backbone historical coverage--maybe we could use that and expand on it?

I'm pretty good with integral theory, but if anyone knows the maps, quadrants, etc by heart---by all means feel free to write this. Also, it'd be great if each of us wrote (if we wanted to) a book review or something to that extent, that way we have a diverse input.

Diagrams are awesome. How do you make them?

I'm particularly interested in helping integral tie into other backgrounds and theories with similar, underlying themes, even new age and ancient cosmologies. I guess this goes more around the lines of perennial philosophy, but through a modern perspective. Also, I'd love to write a bit about how society is evolving, not just through known integral models, but also through the analyzing society itself and seeing if there are more efficient models. For instance, open source itself is a great sign that culturally we are shifting to new structures of thinking, organizing and creating. This arguably confirms one of Wilber's thesis: that the universe has a tendency to organize in increasingly complex ways, and those ways are not reducible: matter, life, mind, etc. Even spiral dynamics' "yellow" and "turquoise" coincide with the new "decentralized" and organic nature of the internet, which is constantly evolving in ways that helps organize knowledge. You could even call web 2.0 and beyond as levels or natural hierarchies of development. I guess I'd like to try to piece together pre-Wilberian, Wilberian and "post" as complimentary aspects of a greater picture.

Oh! And publishing our work could easily be done through:

http://creativecommons.org/license/

And still be able to sell it on Lulu or Amazon. If you haven't checked out Creative Commons, I recommend this video: http://creativecommons.org/asharedculture

alright, Alan's list is a pretty comprehensive one. Anyone have stuff to add?

[shaman sun]

Just a thought:

We could create a new group on OSi just to store all discussions, links and data we need. Maybe called, "OSi Projects"? And this particular effort will be a sub forum....

[shaman sun]

Alrighty, I just created the group... We could continue here until we get a better comprehensive idea or we could move it there?