About the Forum

Mission

The mission of The Ervin Laszlo Forum on Science & Spirituality is to produce new thinking and language capable of integrating the age old schism between science and spirituality.

History

The Forum grew out of Dr. Laszlo’s involvement in the Chopra Foundation’s Sages+Scientists Symposium in February, 2010. Dr. Laszlo had just started blogging here at ervinlaszlo.com, and was soon invited to publish his posts simultaneously at Huffington Post’s then new Religion page. Shortly afterward he had the idea to start a forum among his friends and colleagues, many of the top scientists and spiritual teachers in the world, who share his intense belief that the rift between science and religion simply must be healed if humanity is going to evolve. HuffPost thought it was a good idea too, and agreed to link to us here from their then forthcoming Religion & Science page, for which we’re very grateful. Most of our contributor posts at the Forum will be published simultaneously at HuffPost.

Design

The Forum header offers three images. On the left appear great scientists of the past and present; on the right, great spiritual leaders. The middle square offers our logo, an artistic rendering of the Arch of Titus, one of the entrances to the Roman Forum. The implication is that scientists and spiritual leaders meet in the Forum to create a new beginning, symbolized by the rising sun. Each time a Forum page is reloaded the header is redrawn to display a new scientist and a new spiritual leader.

Functionality

The S&S Forum offers two innovations over a standard group blog to provide forum-like functionality, the State Widget and the Response Links.

The State Widget is simply a separate posting area in the right sidebar where Dr. Laszlo can post a series of overview state posts that effectively aggregate a round of contributor posts and summarize the flow of thought. By reading these state posts the user can quickly become aware of the main topics of discussion and who is saying what. By reading a series of state posts one will be able to glean the overall flow of the dialog from the birth of the Forum to the present time.

Response Links are links positioned at the top and bottom of every contributor post identifying it as a Response To some other post, and identifying all the Responses the post has generated. This will allow readers to navigate an assortment of threads and know which contributors are speaking to each other and addressing each other’s points. These links will begin to appear once the dialog gets going.

Polls will also factor into the mix. We’re going to try to allow our readers to decide who is winning a particular argument to the best of our ability using available polling technology.

We hope this unique mix of technology and new thinking will help catalyze solutions to the myriad problems we’re facing as a species, even as it helps bridge this fundamental divide in the human mind. Thank you for visiting, reading, and participating.

Carl Carpenter
Admin/designer, ervinlaszlo.com

Enquiries for Dr. Laszlo may be addressed to info at ervinlaszlo dot com.