Political participation and mobilisation in Central and Eastern Europe (CEE) are shaped by historical legacies, socio-economic transformations, and the region’s distinctive political trajectories. Citizens engage through voting, protests, grassroots campaigns, civil society initiatives, and digital activism. However, in the post-communist context, participation is influenced by both authoritarian legacies and the opportunities and constraints created by European integration, economic transition, and the rise of populism. Recent scholarship, including work by Donatella della Porta, Jan Kubik, Mark Beissinger, Kralj (2022, 2023), Milan and (...) Dolenec (2023), and Mikuš (2018), shows how political participation and mobilisation influence democratic consolidation, policy reform, and social cohesion. However, political participation and mobilisation in CEE also present challenges. While these processes can strengthen democratic accountability and citizen empowerment, they may reinforce social divisions, amplify polarisation, or be co-opted by populist or authoritarian actors. Protest movements, grassroots campaigns, and civil society initiatives can drive institutional reforms, yet may also provoke political instability or distrust in institutions. Post-communist legacies, combined with economic inequality, migration, and geopolitical tensions, underscore the fragile and contested nature of political engagement in the region. This Collection aims to facilitate interdisciplinary dialogue on political participation and mobilisation in CEE by examining historical trajectories, contemporary practices, and emerging trends. We particularly welcome case studies that explore empirical examples, including the Euromaidan protests in Ukraine and their role in decentralisation reforms, the evolution of student and youth movements in Serbia between 2006 and 2024, the rise of green-left political mobilisation in Croatia and Serbia, exemplified by Možemo and Zeleno-levi front, civil society activism and the transnational mobilisation of the Belarusian opposition since 2020, participatory budgeting initiatives in Romania and other post-socialist democracies, as well as environmental, feminist, and minority rights campaigns across cities and towns throughout Central and Eastern Europe. (shrink)

The rise of modern science has brought with it increasing acceptance among intellectual elites of a worldview that conflicts sharply both with everyday human experience and with beliefs widely shared among the world’s great cultural traditions. Most contemporary scientists and philosophers believe that reality is at bottom purely physical, and that human beings are nothing more than extremely complicated biological machines. On such views our everyday experiences of conscious decision-making, free will, and the self are illusory by-products of the grinding (...) of our neural machinery. It follows that mind and personality are necessarily extinguished at death, and that there exists no deeper transpersonal or spiritual reality of any sort. Beyond Physicalism is the product of an unusual fellowship of scientists and humanities scholars who dispute these views. In their previous publication, Irreducible Mind, they argued that physicalism cannot accommodate various well-evidenced empirical phenomena including paranormal or psi phenomena, postmortem survival, and mystical experiences. In this new theory-oriented companion volume they go further by attempting to understand how the world must be constituted in order that these “rogue” phenomena can occur. Drawing upon empirical science, metaphysical philosophy, and the mystical traditions, the authors work toward an improved “big picture” of the general character of reality, one which strongly overlaps territory traditionally occupied by the world’s institutional religions, and which attempts to reconcile science and spirituality by finding a middle path between the polarized fundamentalisms, religious and scientific, that have dominated recent public discourse. Contributions by: Harald Atmanspacher, Loriliai Biernacki, Bernard Carr, Wolfgang Fach, Michael Grosso, Michael Murphy, David E. Presti, Gregory Shaw, Henry P. Stapp, Eric M. Weiss, and Ian Whicher. (shrink)

The risks AI presents to society are broadly understood to be manageable through ‘general calculus’, i.e., general frameworks designed to enable those involved in the development of AI to apprehend and manage risk, such as AI impact assessments, ethical frameworks, emerging international standards, and regulations. This paper elaborates how risk is apprehended and managed by a regulator, developer and cyber-security expert. It reveals that risk and risk management is dependent on mundane situated practices not encapsulated in general calculus. Situated practice (...) surfaces ‘iterable epistopics’, revealing how those involved in the development of AI know and subsequently respond to risk and uncover major challenges in their work. The ongoing discovery and elaboration of epistopics of risk in AI (a) furnishes a potential program of interdisciplinary inquiry, (b) provides AI developers with a means of apprehending risk, and (c) informs the ongoing evolution of general calculus. (shrink)

Charles Sanders Peirce has been characterized as the greatest American philosophic genius. He is the creator of pragmatism and one of the founders of modern logic. James, Royce, Schroder, and Dewey have acknowledged their great indebtedness to him. A laboratory scientist, he made notable contributions to geodesy, astronomy, psychology, induction, probability, and scientific method. He introduced into modern philosophy the doctrine of scholastic realism, developed the concepts of chance, continuity, and objective law, and showed the philosophical significance of the (...) theory of signs and mathematical logic. The present series is the first published edition of his systematic works. (shrink)

This paper explores the perceptions and experiences of four doctoral researchers to examine how research ethics committee (REC) processes have shaped and influenced specific health-based ethnographic studies. This paper considers how a universal tightening of ethical REC scrutiny at university level, as well as those governing the health and social care sector in the United Kingdom, impacts upon social research involving the inclusion of participants from certain groups. Increased restrictions in ethics scrutiny is justified as protecting vulnerable people from intrusive (...) research and is embedded in legislation, specifically the UK Mental Capacity Act 2005. The general international trend towards greater ethical scrutiny is heralded as an uncontested social good, yet this unquestioned assumption is tested in relation to qualitative social research methodologies that seek to explore the experiences of?vulnerable? individuals. It is consequently argued that ethics review restrictions are in danger of disenfranchising sectors of the community, excluding them from engaging in social research activities that would serve to highlight their experiential and lived conditions. The enhanced bureaucratic control of the doctoral process in conjunction with the REC is also discussed as inhibiting proposed studies. (shrink)

The work of Amartya Sen proved breakthrough in our understanding of disasters by shifting the emphasis from the hazard to societal causes of vulnerability. This chapter begins with an outline of Sen’s work on famines and its relation to the Disaster Risk Reduction literature. It then goes on to outline the capability approach the development of which Sen played a central role. The approach is contrasted with the view of income as development, utilitarianism and Rawls. Thereafter, taking the case of (...) climate change, the chapter criticises Sen for his inattention to sustainability issues. It is argued that instead of seeing development as increasing people’s freedoms to live the lives they value, as Sen does, we should think of sustainable development as increasing legitimate freedoms. Legitimate freedoms are demarcated by drawing on Thomas Scanlon’s version of contractualism and the notion of reasonable rejection. As climate change is with us, it is argued that we are already living in an unsustainable world. (shrink)

This paper reports on-going work in the eSCAPE Project (Esprit Long Term Research Project 25377) directed to the research and development of electronic landscapes for public use. Our concern here is to elucidate a sociologically informed approach towards the design of electronic landscapes or virtual worlds. We suggest — and demonstrate through ethnographic studies of virtual technologies at a multimedia art museum and information technology trade show — that members sense of space is produced through social practices tied to the (...) accomplishment of activities occurring within the locations their actions are situated. Space, in other words, is socially constructed and shaped through members’ practices for accomplishing situated activities. We explicate, by practical examples, an approach to discovering social practices in and through which a sense of space is constructed and outline how such understandings may be used to formulate requirements for the design of electronic landscapes. In explicating our ethnographically informed approach, we outline how future technologies may bedeveloped through the situated evaluation of experimental prototypes in public use. (shrink)

Although the capability approach has had a tremendous impact on the development debate, it has had little to say about sustainable development. As several Human Development Reports have maintained, the last twenty years' gains in human development are not sustainable. The failure to include an integrate sustainability into the Human Development Index would thus give the wrong policy message. Drawing on the works of Amartya Sen and Thomas Scanlon, this article argues that sustainable development can be seen as a process (...) of increasing legitimate freedoms, the freedoms that others cannot reasonably reject. Thus, Sen's vision of development as freedom is amended to suggest limits to freedoms. Forms of development which are not sustainable can be reasonably rejected due, at least, to the harm and blighting entailed. Based on this, it is argued that at country level of comparison the Human Development Index should be combined with the Ecological Footprint to reflect sustainability, and that the Human Development Reports should give way to Sustainable Development Reports. (shrink)

Binding of antigen or lectin to the surface of a T lymphocyte initiates a complex sequence of events which result in both T cell proliferation and the acquisition of immunologic functions. This complex sequence of events is most likely programmed and precisely timed by a series of contingent gene activations in which one member of this series activates the next. The two most obvious examples of these stages are the set of genes activated when antigen interacts with the antigen receptor (...) and the set of genes activated when IL‐2 interacts with its receptor. However, it is likely that several other parallel pathways of gene activation are necessary to bring about T‐cell division. An example would be the antigen‐induced activation of the c‐myc gene, which in turn is likely to be involved in regulating an additional group of genes not directly controlled by either IL‐2 or antigen. A fundamental understanding of T‐lymphocyte activation necessitates identification of the factors involved in initiating each of these contingent levels of gene activation. (shrink)

This edited collection opens up new intellectual territories and articulates the ways in which academics are theorising and practicing new forms of research in ‘wild’ contexts. Many researchers are choosing to leave the familiarity of their laboratory-based settings in order to pursue in-situ studies ‘in the wild’ that can help them to better understand the implications of their work in real-world settings. This has naturally led to ethical, philosophical and practical reappraisals with regard to the taken for granted lab-based modus (...) operandi of scientific, cultural and design-based ways of working. This evolving movement has led to a series of critical debates opening up around the nature of research in the wild, but up until now these debates have not been drawn together in a coherent way that could be useful in an academic context. The book brings together applied, methodological and theoretical perspectives relating to this subject area, and provides a platform and a source of reference material for researchers, students and academics to base their work on. Cutting across multiple disciplines relating to philosophy, sociology, ethnography, design, human–computer interaction, science, history and critical theory, this timely collection appeals to a broad range of academics in varying fields of research. (shrink)

Charles Darwin's On the Origin of Species is unquestionably one of the chief landmarks in biology. The Origin (as it is widely known) was literally only an abstract of the manuscript Darwin had originally intended to complete and publish as the formal presentation of his views on evolution. Compared with the Origin, his original long manuscript work on Natural Selection, which is presented here and made available for the first time in printed form, has more abundant examples and illustrations (...) of Darwin's argument, plus an extensive citation of sources. (shrink)

RésuméL’idée de « la diversité profonde » de Charles Taylor a joué un rôle majeur dans les débats sur le multiculturalisme au Canada et dans le monde. À l’origine, cette idée était censée rendre compte de la manière dont les différents groupes au sein du Canada — les Canadiens anglophones, les Québécois francophones et les autochtones — conçoivent leur appartenance au pays de différentes manières. Taylor, cependant, conçoit ces différences strictement en termes d’irréductibilité, c’est-à-dire qu’il ne voit pas qu’elles (...) signifient également que le pays ne peut pas être considéré comme formant un tout unifié. Après avoir exposé les raisons philosophiques et théologiques de ce constat, j’en explore les implications politiques. (shrink)

Charles Taylor’s idea of “deep diversity” has played a major role in the debates around multiculturalism in Canada and around the world. Originally, the idea was meant to account for how the different national communities within Canada – those of the English-speaking Canadians, the French-speaking Quebeckers, and the Aboriginals – conceive of their belonging to the country in different ways. But Taylor conceives of these differences strictly in terms of irreducibility; that is, he fails to see that they also (...) exist in such a way that the country cannot be said to form a unified whole. After giving an account of the philosophical as well as religious reasons behind his position, the chapter goes on to describe some of its political implications. (shrink)

前 言 Preface 一、本书的缘起与性质 I. Origin and Nature of This Work 本书是《老-杨创世纪宇宙观》（Lao-Yang Genesis Cosmology）系列学术著作的核心典籍诠释本。《道德经》八十一章，是老子在约两千五百年前凝练宇宙生成智慧的不朽文本。本书以老-杨创世纪宇宙观为诠释框架，对每一章进行系统性的中英双语诠释，尝试在古典 道家哲学与现代科学之间建立深层的概念桥梁。 This volume is the core classical commentary text of the Lao-Yang Genesis Cosmology (《老-杨创世纪宇宙观》) academic series. The eighty-one chapters of the Dao De Jing constitute Laozi's immortal condensation of cosmic generative wisdom, composed approximately 2,500 years ago. Using the Lao-Yang Genesis Cosmology as interpretive framework, this book provides systematic bilingual Chinese-English commentary for each chapter, constructing deep conceptual bridges between classical Daoist philosophy and modern science. 老-杨创世纪宇宙观的核心命题是：道生一（太阳系）、一生二（地球）、二生三（日-月-地协同系统）、三生万物（生命、生态系统、人类文明）。这一宇宙生成序列，不仅是对《道德经》第四十二章「道生一，一生二，二 生三，三生万物」的字面诠释，更是将现代天文学、地球科学、生态学与热力学融入其中的系统性宇宙哲学重建。 (...) The core proposition of the Lao-Yang Genesis Cosmology is: Dao generates One (Solar System), One generates Two (Earth), Two generates Three (Sun-Moon-Earth triadic cooperative system), Three generates all things (life, ecosystems, human civilization). This cosmic generative sequence is not only a literal interpretation of Chapter 42's 'Dao generates One, One generates Two, Two generates Three, Three generates all things,' but a systematic philosophical reconstruction integrating modern astronomy, Earth science, ecology, and thermodynamics. 二、诠释的核心框架 II. Core Interpretive Framework 本书的诠释贯穿三个相互关联的核心分析工具：其一，欲望放大因子（DAF，Desire Amplification Factor）——描述社会系统中欲望被技术、制度与文化机制系统性放大的动力学；其二，宇宙约束函数（CCF，Cosmic Constraint Function）——描述地球生成系统承载能力的动态边界，任何持续超越此边界的文明都将面临系统性的强制修正；其三，三层次贪婪正反馈模型（3L-GFM，Three-Level Greedy Positive-Feedback Model）——描述个体、社会与文明三个层次的贪婪欲望正反馈螺旋及其与CCF的系统性冲突。 The commentary throughout this book is guided by three interrelated core analytical instruments: first, the Desire Amplification Factor (DAF) — describing the dynamics by which desire in social systems is systematically amplified through technological, institutional, and cultural mechanisms; second, the Cosmic Constraint Function (CCF) — describing the dynamic boundary of Earth's generative system's carrying capacity, where any civilization persistently exceeding this boundary will face systemic forced correction; third, the Three-Level Greedy Positive-Feedback Model (3L-GFM) — describing the positive-feedback spiral of greedy desire at individual, social, and civilizational levels and its systemic conflict with the CCF. 在科学理论层面，本书的诠释广泛援引普里高津（Ilya Prigogine）的耗散结构理论、复杂系统科学、系统动力学、生态系统科学、热力学定律与现代宇宙学，将《道德经》的哲学洞见置于当代科学语境之中，揭示老子在两千五百年前以直觉感知到的宇宙生成规律，与现代 科学在各个层面上的深刻汇聚。 At the level of scientific theory, the commentary extensively draws upon Ilya Prigogine's dissipative structure theory, complexity science, systems dynamics, ecosystem science, thermodynamic laws, and modern cosmology, situating the philosophical insights of the Dao De Jing within the contemporary scientific context and revealing the profound convergence between the cosmic generative laws Laozi intuited 2,500 years ago and modern science across multiple domains. 三、自然文明的核心命题 III. The Core Proposition of Natural Civilization 贯穿本书诠释的最核心文明论命题是：人类文明正在经历第四次觉醒的历史性时刻——走出人类中心主义（anthropocentrism），回归宇宙生成主义（cosmic generativism）。前三次觉醒分别是：走出地心说的宇宙观觉醒（哥白尼革命）、走出物种固定论的生命观觉醒（达尔文革命）、走出线性历史观的时间觉醒（地质学与宇宙学革命）。第四次觉醒要求文明从「控制 自然」转向「协调自然」，从「无限扩张」转向「长期平衡」，从「文明凌驾地球」转向「文明重新融入宇宙生成秩序」。 The most central civilizational proposition threading through this volume's commentary is: human civilization is at a historic moment of fourth great awakening — moving beyond anthropocentrism and returning to cosmic generativism. The three preceding awakenings were: the cosmological awakening beyond geocentrism (Copernican revolution); the biological awakening beyond species fixism (Darwinian revolution); the temporal awakening beyond linear history (geological and cosmological revolution). The fourth awakening requires civilization to shift from 'controlling nature' toward 'coordinating with nature'; from 'limitless expansion' toward 'long-term equilibrium'; from 'civilization transcending Earth' toward 'civilization reintegrating into the cosmic generative order.' 自然文明（Natural Civilization）的最高原则，在《道德经》第八十一章中得到了最简洁的表达：「天之道，利而不害；圣人之道，为而不争。」宇宙生成秩序通过养育而非掠夺来运作；最高的文明智慧通过生成协调而非零和竞争来 实现文明目标。这两句话，是老子2500年宇宙哲学沉思的最终结语，也是本书诠释的精神归宗。 The highest principle of Natural Civilization (自然文明) receives its most concise expression in Chapter 81 of the Dao De Jing: 'The way of Heaven benefits without harming; the way of the sage acts without contending.' The cosmic generative order operates through nurturing rather than predation; the highest civilizational wisdom achieves civilizational goals through generative coordination rather than zero-sum competition. These two sentences are the final words of Laozi's 2,500-year cosmic philosophical contemplation, and the spiritual homecoming of this volume's commentary. 四、体例说明 IV. Notes on Format 本书每章的结构分为四个部分：【章号与章名】（中英对照）；【原文】（王弼版《道德经》汉字原文）；【英译】（基于哲学精确性的现代英语翻译）；【老-杨诠释】（老-杨创世纪宇宙观框架下的中英双语系统诠释）。诠 释部分以金色边框装饰，每章包含两个主要诠释节，每节以中英双语标题开头，随后为对应的中英文正文。 Each chapter in this book is structured in four parts: chapter number and title (Chinese-English bilingual); original text (Chinese text of the Wang Bi recension of the Dao De Jing); English translation (modern English translation based on philosophical precision); Lao-Yang Interpretation (systematic bilingual Chinese-English commentary within the Lao-Yang Genesis Cosmology framework). The commentary section is decorated with a gold border; each chapter contains two primary commentary subsections, each beginning with a bilingual heading followed by corresponding Chinese and English body text. 杨兴平 荆楚冲小杨子湖畔 2026年 / Charles X. Yang. (shrink)

This translation of Laozi's Dao De Jing (Wang Bi recension, c. 226 CE) emerges from six decades of intellectual formation — from doctoral studies in nuclear safety, Bayesian inference, and artificial intelligence at UCLA, through the pioneering of China's smartphone industry, to the philosophical synthesis of the Lao-Yang Genesis Cosmology at Jingchuchong, Hubei Province, China. Three convictions shape every translation decision. First: the Dao De Jing is not a mystical text but a systems-scientific document — describing the generative, self-organizing, negative-feedback (...) structure of reality at every scale from cosmic genesis to political governance. Second: its core concepts have concrete ecological referents, many traceable to the Han River civilization of ancient Chu — the land of this translator's birth, near Guodian Tomb No. 1, where the earliest Dao De Jing manuscript was recovered in 1993. Third: the text's deepest insights converge with the most advanced frameworks of modern science — thermodynamics, Bayesian inference, complex systems theory, cybernetics — because both describe the same reality. Each chapter presents the complete Chinese original (Wang Bi recension), followed by the complete English translation, followed by an interpretation connecting the chapter to the Lao-Yang Genesis Cosmology. This sequence — Chinese original → English translation → Lao-Yang interpretation — allows the reader to encounter Laozi's words first, then their translation, then their cosmological significance within the framework developed across Charles X. Yang's PhilArchive corpus. The Chinese text follows Wang Bi (王弼, 226–249 CE) — the most philosophically systematic of the classical recensions. The translation prioritizes structural clarity: every English word is chosen to make the systems-dynamic logic of the original visible to a scientifically literate reader. Key terms: 法 = follows (not models/imitates); 道 = the Milky Way Galaxy; 天 = the Solar System; 地 = the Earth; 人 = Humanity / all living beings; 自然 = Nature / the Cosmic Divine. To translate the Dao De Jing at Jingchuchong — the heartland of the ancient Chu state, on the shores of Xiaoyang Lake — is to complete a 2,500-year conversation. — Charles X. Yang / 杨兴平. (shrink)

Physicist, mathematician, and logician Charles S. Peirce (1839-1914) was America's first internationally recognized philosopher, the man who created the concept of "pragmatism," later popularized by William James. Charles S. Peirce: The Essential Writings is a comprehensive collection of the philosopher's writings, including: "Questions Concerning Certain Faculties Claimed for Man" (1868), which outlines his theory of knowledge; a review of the works of George Berkeley; papers from between 1877 and 1905 developing the ground of pragmatism and Peirce's theory of (...) scientific inquiry; his basic concept of metaphysics (1891-93); and the important 1902 articles in Baldwin's dictionary on his later pragmatism (or pragmaticism), uniformity, and synechism. Included are Peirce's well-known essays: "The Fixation of Belief" and "How to Make Our Ideas Clear." Book jacket. (shrink)

This is the first comprehensive evaluation of Charles Taylor's work and a major contribution to leading questions in philosophy and the human sciences as they face an increasingly pluralistic age. Charles Taylor is one of the most influential contemporary moral and political philosophers: in an era of specialisation he is one of the few thinkers who has developed a comprehensive philosophy which speaks to the conditions of the modern world in a way that is compelling to specialists in (...) various disciplines. This collection of specially commissioned essays brings together twelve distinguished scholars from a variety of fields to discuss critically Taylor's work. The topics range from the history of philosophy, to truth, modernity and postmodernity, theism, interpretation, the human sciences, liberalism, pluralism and difference. Taylor responds to all the contributions and re-articulates his own views. (shrink)

老子《道德经》 · Laozi Dao De Jing 老-杨创世纪宇宙观诠释 · 深化版（第61-70章） : Chapters 61-70 杨兴平 (Charles X. Yang).

老子《道德经》 · Laozi Dao De Jing 老-杨创世纪宇宙观诠释 · 深化版（第71-81章） : Chapters 71-81 杨兴平 (Charles X. Yang).

老子《道德经》 · Laozi Dao De Jing 老-杨创世纪宇宙观诠释 · 深化版（第21-30章） : Chapters 21-30 杨兴平 (Charles X. Yang).

老子《道德经》 · Laozi Dao De Jing 老-杨创世纪宇宙观诠释 · 深化版（第41-50章） : Chapters 41-50 杨兴平 (Charles X. Yang).

老子《道德经》 · Laozi Dao De Jing 老-杨创世纪宇宙观诠释 · 深化版（第41-50章） : Chapters 41-50 杨兴平 (Charles X. Yang).

Complementing the publication of Darwin's notebooks and correspondence, this work provides access to the last remaining unpublished source of Darwin manuscript materials. It is a catalog to and a complete transcription of the marks and annotations he made in the margins of his books. The margin comments throw light on Darwin's immediate reactions to his reading matter; further comments on slips of paper stuck inside the covers of the books reveal more considered evaluation. These comments are also fully transcribed. Annotation (...) copyrighted by Book News, Inc., Portland, OR. (shrink)

老子《道德经》 · Laozi Dao De Jing 老-杨创世纪宇宙观诠释 · 深化版（第31-40章） : Chapters 31-40 杨兴平 (Charles X. Yang).

Preface: Rebuilding the Spiritual Foundations of Human Civilization at the Scale of Cosmic Rationality -/- I did not anticipate that what began as a near-compulsive intellectual urge — the need to properly explain Laozi — would eventually grow into many scholarly works spanning the vast intellectual terrain of cosmology, thermodynamics, complexity science, civilization theory, AI ethics, and epistemology. Yet in retrospect, everything seems to have been inevitable: once you truly touch the scientific core of Laozi's thought, you cannot stop, because (...) that core functions like a self-organizing seed, spontaneously generating new branches in every new intellectual soil into which it is planted. -/- This book is a systematic review of those works, and a self-presentation of a complete philosophical system. Its central proposition can be stated in a single sentence: the sustainability of civilization depends upon the degree to which it aligns with the generative order of the cosmos. -/- I. The Starting Point: An Unavoidable Fundamental Perplexity -/- More than twenty years ago, when I began to read Laozi seriously, I encountered a peculiar intellectual predicament. On one hand, I had a clear sense that the Dao De Jing contained something far exceeding an ordinary philosophical text — it seemed less like the product of a particular historical moment and more like a direct record of some objective cosmic reality. On the other hand, I found that none of the existing interpretive traditions — whether Daoism's mystification, Confucianism's domestication, or modern scholarship's philological textualism — could genuinely account for the source of this sense. -/- The turning point came when I placed Laozi's "the Dao gives birth to One; One gives birth to Two; Two gives birth to Three; Three gives birth to the ten thousand things" in direct comparison with modern astronomy, thermodynamics, and complex systems science. When "the Dao gives birth to One" corresponded to the Milky Way generating the Solar System; "One gives birth to Two" to the Earth condensing from the primordial solar nebula; "Two gives birth to Three" to the Earth capturing the Moon; and "Three gives birth to the ten thousand things" to the Sun-Earth-Moon trinitarian system nurturing life and civilization — a stunning recognition arose within me: Laozi was not a mystic and not a moral teacher, but the earliest scientific philosopher in human history to perceive, through philosophical intuition, the generative order of the cosmos. This recognition opened the door to more than two decades of intellectual exploration. The Lao-Yang Genesis Cosmology was gradually constructed on the foundation of this foundational insight. -/- II. Methodological Consciousness: Scientific Philosophy -/- The methodology employed in this research series I call "scientific philosophy" (科学哲思, kexue zhesi) — it is neither pure humanistic hermeneutics nor reductionist natural science, but the deep fusion of both. It uses modern cosmology, thermodynamics, and complexity science to test and enrich philosophical propositions, while simultaneously using the holistic philosophical vision to integrate and elevate the fragmented discoveries of science. Why is such a methodology necessary? Because the objects that Laozi discusses — the generation of the cosmos, the laws of nature, the stability of systems — are in their essence the research objects of natural science; yet the manner in which Laozi approaches these objects — holistically, non-linearly, through spontaneous emergence — is precisely the core agenda of contemporary complexity science. Pure philological commentary can never reach this level; pure natural science lacks the philosophical framework needed to integrate these insights. Scientific philosophy is the only genuine bridge between the two. The practice of this methodology has produced a series of cross-disciplinary research results: from the astronomical argument for "the Dao is the Milky Way"; to the cybernetic interpretation of wu wei as the principle of minimum intervention and negative feedback first; from the complexity-science explanation of Chinese civilization's long-term continuity; to the civilizational safety framework for the transformation from Artificial Intelligence (AI) to Artificial Wisdom (AW); from the epistemological critique of the historical arc of Western rationalism; to the political-philosophical exposure of the "Confucian-Daoist complementarity" narrative as academic reductionism. Each work is a concrete unfolding of the scientific philosophy method within a particular problem domain. -/- III. Core Insights: Three Intellectual Threads -/- Looking back across the works on Philarchive, three intellectual threads that run through the entire body of research can be clearly identified. They are intertwined with each other and together constitute the core structure of this intellectual system. -/- The first thread: cosmogony. Laozi's "the Dao generates the ten thousand things" is not a metaphysical metaphor but a philosophical expression of the true physical generative order of the cosmos. The Dao (the Milky Way) → the Solar System → the Earth → the Moon → life → civilization: this hierarchically generative chain is the cosmological foundation of the entire theoretical system. Each level creates local low-entropy order under thermodynamic constraints through dissipative structure mechanisms; each level constitutes an inviolable constraint upon the next — "Man follows Earth; Earth follows Heaven; Heaven follows the Dao; the Dao follows Nature" is a fundamental principle of civilizational design, not a moral exhortation. -/- The second thread: civilizational entropy diagnosis. The core crisis of contemporary civilization is not a moral crisis but a systemic entropy-increase crisis. Artificial Civilization takes positive feedback mechanisms (growth driving growth, power reinforcing power, desire amplifying desire) as its core driving force: its short-term efficiency is extremely high, but its long-term rate of entropy increase is equally high, and thermodynamic collapse is inevitable. Natural Civilization takes negative feedback mechanisms (self-restraint, systemic repair, dynamic equilibrium) as its core regulator, and is capable of sustainable persistence within the framework permitted by cosmic thermodynamics. From this perspective, Confucian thought, modern technocracy, global elite dialogue mechanisms, and the mainstream development logic of artificial intelligence all expose their systemic nature as accelerators of high-entropy civilization. -/- The third thread: the pathway of cognitive transformation. Understanding Laozi requires completing three cognitive transformations: from utilitarian judgment to systemic wisdom; from binary oppositional thinking to dynamic interpenetration; and from anthropocentrism to cosmic positioning. These three transformations are not purely intellectual philosophical exercises but a fundamental reorientation at the civilizational level — they are the cognitive prerequisites that must be completed in order to switch from the Artificial Order operating system to the Natural Civilization operating system. -/- IV. The Difficulties and Limitations of This Work -/- It must be honestly acknowledged that the construction of this intellectual system has been full of difficulties and contains unavoidable limitations. The greatest difficulty is the limitation of language. Laozi says: "The Dao that can be spoken is not the eternal Dao" — any effort to fix the Dao as some determinate concept will miss the Dao's essential nature. The scientific philosophy method attempts to approach Laozi's cosmology in the language of science, but every such approach simultaneously entails a certain degree of simplification. I know well that the true Dao — the dynamic holism of the cosmos's spontaneous generative order — cannot be completely captured by any textual system. What this book can achieve is only a continuous approach to this inexhaustible cosmic reality from multiple angles, using multiple instruments. -/- Another limitation is the scope of the research. Although my works (Works by Charles X. Yang on Philarchive) represent a considerable volume, the problem domain encompassed by the Lao-Yang Genesis Cosmology far exceeds what any individual research program can cover. Cosmology, neuroscience, ecology, political economy, artificial intelligence... each domain can be the subject of deep specialist research from the perspective of the Lao-Yang cosmology. This book's survey establishes an open theoretical framework more than a closed final answer. V. Acknowledgment and Aspiration This intellectual journey has been solitary, and it has been fulfilling. Solitary, because the path it walks can find almost no coordinates in the existing academic classification system. Fulfilling, because every genuine intellectual breakthrough brings a joy that comes from contact with the deep order of the cosmos — an inner satisfaction that no external recognition can replace. -/- I am grateful to all readers who have read these works seriously, whether you agree or disagree with the arguments within them. The value of thought lies not in being accepted, but in being taken seriously — being questioned, criticized, refuted, and even transcended. Laozi says: "When the superior student hears of the Dao, he diligently practices it" — but I equally treasure "when the inferior student hears of the Dao, he laughs out loud," for that laughter is precisely evidence that something genuinely profound has been touched. -/- Finally, let Laozi's words serve as the close of this preface, and as the spiritual annotation of this entire intellectual system: "In learning, every day something is added. In following the Dao, every day something is let go. Let go and let go again, until non-action is reached. Through non-action, nothing is left undone." The rigor of science is the cognitive instrument of "every day something is added"; the pursuit of cosmic wisdom is the spiritual direction of "every day something is let go." This book is the product of the deep fusion of these two directions — rebuilding the spiritual foundations of human civilization with reason at the cosmic scale. -/- Charles X. Yang -/- At California Silicon Valley’s Home, 2025 . (shrink)

前言：《道德经》的科学诠释 -/- 在银河沉默旋转之前， 没有名字。 -/- 在恒星尚未点燃之前， 没有文明。 -/- 在地球尚未冷却之前， 没有人类。 -/- 宇宙先于我们存在。 时间先于我们流动。 生成先于我们思想。 -/- 而老子， 在两千多年前的风尘中， 已经遥遥望见： -/- 万物并非孤立存在， 而是在一条看不见的生成长河之中。 -/- 他称之为： -/- 道。 -/- 道，不只是语言。 不是宗教。 不是伦理。 不是帝王术。 -/- 道，是银河旋转的秩序； 是恒星诞生的黑暗； 是引力沉默的牵引； 是时间内部永不停息的生成。 -/- 于是： -/- 道生一。 银河系生太阳系。 -/- 一生二。 太阳系生地球。 -/- 二生三。 地球生月亮。 -/- 三生万物。 -/- 日、月、地， 共同生成海洋、季风、昼夜、潮汐， 生成森林与河流， 生成恐龙与人类， 生成文明短暂的火焰。 -/- 人类从来不是宇宙中心。 -/- 人类只是： 银河尘埃的一次暂时聚合； 恒星能量的一次短暂回响； 宇宙生成链条中的微小波动。 -/- 因此： -/- 人法地。 人类必须服从地球。 -/- 地法天。 地球必须服从太阳系。 -/- 天法道。 太阳系必须服从银河。 -/- 道法自然。 银河本身，也仍在更宏大的宇宙黑暗中运行。 -/- 而今天的人类文明， 却越来越远离这一切。 -/- 钢铁升起。 算法蔓延。 (...) 欲望无限扩张。 -/- 城市遮蔽星空。 资本吞噬河流。 技术加速时间。 -/- 人类开始误以为： -/- 自己可以脱离宇宙； 可以征服自然； 可以无限增长； 可以永远扩张。 -/- 于是： -/- 海洋开始升温； 冰川开始崩塌； 森林开始沉默； 物种开始消失。 -/- 文明第一次发现： -/- 自己并不是世界的主人。 -/- 而只是： 宇宙生成系统中的一部分。 -/- 直到此刻， 《道德经》的真正意义， 才重新显现。 -/- “无为”， 不是放弃行动， 而是不破坏宇宙自身的生成。 -/- “柔弱胜刚强”， 不是软弱， 而是生命系统最深层的稳定法则。 -/- “上善若水”， 不是修辞， 而是宇宙适应性的最高智慧。 -/- “反者道之动”， 不是循环口号， 而是星系、生态、文明共同遵循的涨落规律。 -/- 老子从未离开宇宙。 -/- 只是人类曾经远离了宇宙。 -/- 而《老-杨创世纪宇宙观》， 正试图重新连接： -/- 银河与文明， 恒星与生命， 宇宙与人类。 -/- 让《道德经》重新回到： 星空之下。 -/- 在那里， 风仍吹过群山； 月仍牵引海潮； 银河仍缓慢旋转； 而人类文明， 终于开始重新学习： -/- 如何不是作为世界的统治者， 而是作为宇宙生成的一部分而存在。 -/- Preface to the Scientific Interpretation of the Dao De Jing -/- A Prose-Poetic Prelude -/- Before the Milky Way turned in silence, there was no name. -/- Before the stars were ignited, there was no civilization. -/- Before the Earth had cooled, there was no humanity. -/- The universe existed before us. Time flowed before us. Generation preceded thought itself. -/- And Laozi, amid the dust of two thousand years ago, had already glimpsed from afar: -/- that all things do not exist in isolation, but within an invisible river of becoming. -/- He called it: -/- Dao. -/- Dao is not merely language. Not religion. Not morality. Not political strategy. -/- Dao is the order of the rotating galaxy; the darkness from which stars are born; the silent pull of gravity; the endless generation hidden within time itself. -/- Thus: -/- Dao generates One. The Milky Way Galaxy generates the Solar System. -/- One generates Two. The Solar System generates the Earth. -/- Two generates Three. The Earth generates the Moon. -/- Three generate all living things. Sun, Moon, and Earth together generate: oceans, monsoons, day and night, tides, forests and rivers, dinosaurs and humanity, and the brief flame of civilization. -/- Humanity has never been the center of the universe. -/- Human beings are only: a temporary gathering of galactic dust; a fleeting echo of stellar energy; a minor fluctuation within the chain of cosmic generation. -/- Therefore: -/- Humanity follows Earth. Humanity must align with the Earth. -/- Earth follows Heaven. The Earth must align with the Solar System. -/- Heaven follows Dao. The Solar System must align with the Milky Way. -/- Dao follows Nature. And the Milky Way itself still moves within a greater cosmic vastness. -/- Yet modern civilization has drifted farther and farther from this reality. -/- Steel rises. Algorithms spread. Desire expands without limit. -/- Cities obscure the stars. Capital consumes rivers. Technology accelerates time. -/- Humanity has begun to believe: -/- that it can separate itself from the cosmos; that it can conquer nature; that it can grow infinitely; that expansion can continue forever. -/- And so: -/- the oceans begin to warm; glaciers begin to collapse; forests begin to fall silent; species begin to disappear. -/- For the first time, civilization realizes: -/- it is not the master of the world, -/- but only a part of the cosmic generative system. -/- Only now does the true meaning of the Dao De Jing reappear. -/- “Wu Wei” does not mean abandoning action, but refraining from destroying the universe’s own power of generation. -/- “The soft overcomes the hard” is not weakness, but the deepest stabilizing principle of living systems. -/- “The highest goodness is like water” is not poetic ornament, but the supreme wisdom of adaptive existence. -/- “Reversal is the movement of Dao” is not merely a cyclical slogan, but the law followed alike by galaxies, ecosystems, and civilizations. -/- Laozi never departed from the universe. -/- Humanity was the one that wandered away. -/- And the Lao-Yang Genesis Cosmology seeks to reconnect: -/- galaxy and civilization, stars and life, cosmos and humanity. -/- It seeks to return the Dao De Jing to the star-filled sky. -/- There, -/- the wind still moves across mountains; the moon still guides the tides; the galaxy still turns slowly in silence; -/- and human civilization finally begins to learn again: -/- how to exist not as the ruler of the world, but as a living part of cosmic generation itself. (shrink)

pt. 1. 1869-1893.--pt. 2. 1894-1900.--pt. 3. 1901-1908.

On September 29, 1961, Yang Xinping was born in Zhongxiang City, Hubei Province, China — the very site of Yingdu, the ancient capital of the Chu state. This was no geographical accident but a civilizational inheritance. Zhongxiang sits on the western bank of the Han River beneath the Jing Mountains — the most glorious heartland of Chu culture 2,500 years ago, when the state of Chu stood as one of the great civilizations of the ancient world. Even more remarkable: Guodian (...) Village, near his birthplace, is the site of Guodian Tomb No. 1. In 1993, archaeologists excavated the earliest known manuscript of the Dao De Jing from this tomb — bamboo strips dating to approximately 300 BCE — along with another crucial cosmological text, Taiyi Sheng Shui (The Primordial One Generates Water). This land revealed its buried secrets to the world more than thirty years after Yang Xinping's birth. Yet in a profound sense, those secrets had already been flowing in his blood. To stand where Yang Xinping was born is to stand at one of the great confluences of human civilizational history: the place where the earliest roots of Daoist philosophy were literally buried in the earth, waiting for the right moment to re-emerge — through archaeology, and through the mind of a man who would spend a lifetime carrying this ancient wisdom into conversation with modern science. -/- The Han River, China's longest inland tributary, winds through the Chu heartland, nurturing a distinctive civilizational model. In his later philosophical research, Yang Xinping systematically demonstrates the core characteristics of this civilization: low entropy, self-organization, and adaptive harmony. The water network, valley, and wetland composite ecosystem of the Jingchu region formed a highly dynamic yet self-balancing natural order — the very empirical foundation of Laozi's philosophy of Dao Chong. Three generations of Chu kings — King Wen, King Cheng, and King Zhuang — along with the great hydraulic engineer Sun Shu'ao, practiced a governance model of wu wei (non-forcing action) on this land. They governed without coercion, without centralization, without disturbing the natural order — instead harmonizing with rivers, respecting terrain, and guiding conditions rather than commanding them. This governance model is both the historical source of Laozi's philosophy and a crucial archetype of Yang Xinping's Natural Civilization theory. In Yang Xinping's philosophical framework, his birthplace is not a geographical accident but a civilizational inevitability. He argues in his research that the concept of 'chong' — a key term in the Dao De Jing — originates from the ecological environment of valleys and forests on the western bank of the Han River near Yingdu, characterized by flood regulation, buffering, and circulation forming a low-entropy stable system. This was precisely the air he breathed as a child, the land he walked, the mountains and rivers he witnessed. (shrink)

Charles Darwin (1809–1882) Charles Darwin is primarily known as the architect of the theory of evolution by natural selection. With the publication of On the Origin of Species in 1859, he advanced a view of the development of life on earth that profoundly shaped nearly all biological and much philosophical thought which followed. A number….

序言：湖畔智者 Foreword: The Lakeside Sage 在中国湖北省的荆楚冲，汉江蜿蜒流过千年古土，一位思想者在小杨子湖畔静静凝思。这片土地，正是两千五百年前楚国郢都的所在——老子最早的《道德经》手稿在此埋藏，太一生水的宇宙观在此诞生。而今，杨兴平——从核 工程师到智能手机先驱，从硅谷科学家到自然文明哲学家——在同一片土地上，书写着属于二十一世纪的新篇章。 In Jingchuchong, Hubei Province, China, the Han River winds through ancient soil where a thinker sits in quiet contemplation beside Xiaoyang Lake. This very land was once the heart of the ancient Chu state — where the earliest manuscripts of Laozi's Dao De Jing were buried, and where the primordial cosmology of Taiyi Sheng Shui was born. Today, Yang Xinping — engineer, smartphone pioneer, Silicon Valley scientist, and philosopher of Natural Civilization — writes a (...) new chapter on this same sacred ground. 这不是一本普通的传记。这是一个人类精神进化的史诗——从控制自然的核能工程，到顺应自然的宇宙哲学；从操作系统的二进制代码，到宇宙生成的道法自然；从洛杉矶的大学实验室，到荆楚冲的湖畔书桌。这段旅程，历经七 十年，横跨东西两个文明，融通科学与哲学，是人类第四次文明觉醒的个人见证。 This is not an ordinary biography. It is an epic of human spiritual evolution — from nuclear engineering that seeks to control nature, to a cosmology that harmonizes with it; from the binary code of operating systems, to the generative principle of Dao following nature; from university laboratories in Los Angeles, to a lakeside desk in Jingchuchong. This journey, spanning seven decades, crossing two civilizations, fusing science and philosophy, stands as a personal testament to humanity's Fourth Civilizational Awakening. 老-杨创世纪宇宙观：古今之桥 The Lao-Yang Genesis Cosmology: A Bridge Between Ancient Wisdom and Modern Science 郭店一号墓出土的竹简，距今两千五百年，记录了老子最早的宇宙论：「太一生水，水反輔太一，是以成天。」这是人类文明史上最深刻的宇宙观之一。而今，杨兴平以现代物理学、系统科学与贝叶斯推理，重新说释这一古老智 慧，创立了「老-杨创世纪宇宙观」——让古代楚地的哲学智慧与二十一世纪的科学语言，在同一个人的思想中，完成了跨越千年的对话。 The bamboo strips unearthed from Guodian Tomb No. 1, dating back 2,500 years, record Laozi's earliest cosmology: 'The Primordial One generates Water; Water returns to assist the Primordial One — thus Heaven is formed.' This is among the most profound cosmological insights in human civilizational history. Today, Yang Xinping reinterprets this ancient wisdom through modern physics, systems science, and Bayesian reasoning, establishing the Lao-Yang Genesis Cosmology — completing a dialogue across millennia within a single mind. (shrink)

On 27th December 1831, HMS Beagle set out from Plymouth under the command of Captain Robert Fitzroy on a voyage that lasted nearly 5 years. The purpose of the trip was to complete a survey of the southern coasts of South America, and afterwards to circumnavigate the globe. The ship's geologist and naturalist was Charles Darwin. Darwin kept a diary throughout the voyage in which he recorded his daily activities, not only on board the ship but also during the (...) several long journeys that he made on horseback in Patagonia and Chile. His entries tell the story of one of the most important scientific journeys ever made with matchless immediacy and vivid descriptiveness. (shrink)

This transcription of notes made by Charles Darwin during the voyage of H. M. S. Beagle records his observations of the animals and plants that he encountered, and provides a valuable insight into the intellectual development of one of our most influential scientists. Darwin drew on many of these notes for his well known Journal of Researches (1839), but the majority of them have remained unpublished. This volume provides numerous examples of his unimpeachable accuracy in describing the wide range (...) of animals seen in the course of his travels, and of his closely analytical approach towards every one of his observations. Only at the very end of the voyage were his first doubts about the immutability of species expressed consciously, but here are to be found the initial seeds of his theory of evolution, and of the fields of behavioural and ecological study of which he was one of the founding fathers. (shrink)