From a Society of Knowledge to a Society of Consciousness a Call for Awareness Is on Its Way

Abstract

The convergence of today’s critical sanitary environmental and socio-economic crises is pressing humanity towards a shifting point from which a new paradigm could emerge, where accelerated scientific-technological innovations transforming social relations may enable a leap of conscience with the improvement appreciation of human life conditions and better caring for the planet as a whole, opening for a more fraternal cooperation and sustainability mind set. The crisis is systemic and has moral roots, so the solutions are asking for a change in human values and human consciousness that may already be found in initiatives like a new socio-economic models such as the Economy of Francisco, the Society 5.0 that are emerging and the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development. Moreover, there is already a humanity awareness movement that defines patterns for levels of global consciousness that together with other development systems models may help to follow up the process of the transition from the society of knowledge to the society of consciousness. This close global monitoring would give us chance for a better global and local management showing signs of improvement, and give calls for alerts. This paper presents advances in this direction and shows how the ICT revolution on its way may already give support to collectively on-line monitoring with already existing important synthetic indicators that represent basic sensors for the process, showing what may be the way for the future, and what kind of metamorphose we may be emerging.

“Doing our best is no longer good enough. We must now do the seemingly impossible” (Greta Thunberg).

“We cannot wait for the crisis to break out in full force before we start looking for answers” (Harari).

“…politics should have a mission to achieve a human ideal of freedom, equality and fraternity and open the way for the disaster humanity to reach a compromise with reality and manage to change it” (E. Morin).

1. Introduction

We are living now in critical times where the extent of the impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic on human life, global economy and organizations remains unclear. However, we know that it has already become a catalyst for change and we could explore this process more deeply [1]. The need for innovation and a leap in consciousness are very great, leading to challenges never faced before, particularly due to an accelerated globalization [2]. The question is of how we will be dealing with that. No doubt, advanced Information and Communication Technologies ICT [3] may help to join efforts to deal more efficiently with new challenges, but it is necessary to know their impacts on people and the world. It is clear that is affecting the daily lives of most of the population and the uncertainties about a nearby future are great; however, this crisis is also driving toward new ways of seeing, feeling, thinking, doing, believing and praying, so we may hope that it may lead to a new way of being: a humane centered metamorphose [4,5].

Social isolation in quarantines has led to an accelerated jump in the digital age with children and parents online. We are far and near at the same time. The domestic church (Pope Francis) in the midst of a pandemic makes it possible to supply the needs of the spirit in search of God, providing families to gather in the domestic environment for an encounter with God, that children continue to learn about the things of God, that people find solace in the midst of losses and gains because He, God, is everywhere regardless of the advancement of technique, although information and communication technology is beginning to be propagated in religious circles as a means of valuing and propagating faith and gospel.

In Japan, in the absence of physical fans, due to the social isolation imposed by the COVID-19 pandemic, fans are even used in games made up of robots that wave flags and simulate the crowd dance that four months ago was composed of human beings. People are quickly learning to connect by designing pages and lives on the internet following rules to please Google’s search algorithm more than any human being [6]; then, just as a synchronized global crisis appears, it is possible to find a systemic convergence of solutions. Joining two problems sometimes leads to a solution.

This paper may be considered a complementary updating of a book we wrote some time ago [7], but now already considering the context of accelerated transition times we are living where new global challenges are emerging, calling up our attention regarding the Earth System Governance (ESG) [8] complex dynamics and paradigm shifts, that are leading to emerging strategic alliances like the SDG 2030 Agenda to deal with Sustainable Development [9], the UN Conference of Parties to deal with Climate Change [10] and, more recently, the European Union Green Deal [11] focusing on recovery and resilience. For this purpose, we present first a general background and then a methodological approach to monitor progress towards a society of consciousness.

2. Five General Basic Backgrounds

The Roots of the Crisis. The accelerated advancement of technology is considered as the mentor and engine that is providing the transformations we are experiencing, starting with the reorganization of the capitalist institution, the health institution, the home, business, churches, education, leisure, living together at the same time of confinement and unlimited technological access, which simultaneously closes and opens. Closure because people are cloistered for fear of death, for often selfish care and obedience to the thought rules, it is not known how and is imposed on those who do not know exactly what happens; and openness because relationships in new digital models are put into practice quickly to meet the need for people to be together even though they are separated, in a paradigm of both fragmentation and holism in which the human family needs protection.

Social relations are being forced to transform the way they happen in order to survive storms not yet experienced in human history. What is really behind the 2020 pandemic? The need to advance technologically? A qualitative leap in life? The end of time? God in a new attempt to rescue humanity? Albert Einstein and Bertrand Russell sixty-five years ago expressed the need to remember humanity and to forget everything else (Figure 1).

The 9 July 1955 Russell-Einstein Manifesto message [12] was as pertinent at that time as it is today. The crisis of humanity has multiplied exponentially in intensity and complexity: disease, hunger, poverty, unemployment, inequality, political, financial and economic destabilization, imbalance of national leaders, drastic climate changes culminating in a total global imbalance and the globalization of inequality, according with Pope Francis in his homily of 8 July 2020.

In the world society there are so many inequalities and more and more people are discarded, deprived of fundamental human rights, that it reaches the height of some feeling more human than others. “The common good presupposes respect for the human person as such, with fundamental and inalienable human rights oriented towards their integral development.” The notion of the common good also encompasses future generations. One can no longer talk about sustainable development without intergenerational solidarity, which is a question of justice because the land we receive also belongs to those who are to come. As mentioned in the Laudato Si of Pope Francis [13]:

“The urgent challenge to protect our common home includes the concern to unite the entire human family in the search for sustainable and integral development, as we know that things can change. The Creator does not abandon us, never retreats in his project of love, nor does he regret having created us.”

However, the crisis has arrived, and there is the question of how to find overnight a social and economic model to deal with disruptions of all kinds, guided by the principle that it is necessary to protect humans and not jobs as indicated by the Pope: “One should focus on providing for people’s basic needs and protecting their social status and self-esteem” because employees are losing their relevance rather than being exploited, making human lives as if they were not human. The crisis has deep moral and spiritual roots and the solutions are not found only in technique, but in a change in the human being. As a matter of fact, more recently Pope Francis is talking about a Copernican Revolution for post-COVID economy being at the service of men and women, not vice versa [14].

The context of Human and Social Fragility. As mentioned by futurist Miguel Gutierrez, “The current pandemic is heralded as a global risk ignored by almost all countries. The crisis affected public health, the economy, social relations, transformed life all around the world. It is not yet possible to measure the impact in these areas, but we could ask ourselves, why are we so poorly prepared, why this lack of Resilience? and most importantly how could we prepare for the day after?” COVID-19 has shown that societies are much more fragile than previously thought and expose the governments’ inability to guarantee basic rights [15]. The global challenges of the IV Industrial Revolution—artificial intelligence, new systems of production of goods and services, digital changes—added to the 2020 pandemic, which has become more than just a public health issue and is leading to a very serious global social, economic and environmental crisis. The crisis is pressing local and multilateral institutions to overcome the situation and face the new scenario that is emerging [16].

As mentioned by Pope Francis in the now classical Encyclical Letter Laudato Si, excessive modern anthropocentrism, paradoxically, placed technical reason above reality, the human being started to explore nature without worrying about what might happen regarding its systemic relationships and the negative externalities on its way. These vision and proposals in some way update and complement the Centessiums Annus Encyclica of Pope John Paul II, which in itself was an update of the Rerum Novarum of Pope that was based on the Rerurm Novarum Encyclica of Pope Leo XIII, which was already dealing with the spirit of revolutionary change and reinforcing the principle of solidarity understanding that development need to be not only economical but fully human and recognizing particularly the rights of the human consciousness [17].

The limits imposed by reality represent the possibility of a more pleasant and fruitful human and social development, since exponential and unlimited technical and economic development is meaningless for a finite world. “A disordered anthropocentrism generates a disorderly lifestyle,” in which the priorities are in the individual interests not concerned with the other, nor with the environment or even less with the planet as whole. The human being replaces himself in the place of God, instead of placing himself in a position of humility as a collaborator of God in the work of creation, and technological growth has not been accompanied by human development in terms of responsibility, values and conscience.

Anthropocentrism leads to a crisis in values: the human being sacrifices others for himself, he lacks duties to the community, lies to himself, hides his shortcomings and weaknesses, rejects the evil he does to others and reduces him to nothing, the family’s mission disappears and past experiences are not valued.

However, on the other hand, humanity is entering a stage of greater awareness, in which sensitivity to the environment and the care of nature and planet grows and some organizations like OXFAM [18] are leading the way. The pandemic has become a trend accelerator. We do not know how it will transform life, but we know that technical changes have no turning back. When the pandemic is over, we will see it as a rupture event that opened a new era.

The Crisis and our Global Brain waiting for a New Global Hearth. To help give rise to a New Normality, and with knowledge that crisis brings risks and opportunities, we may need to rapidly develop new economic models, as may soon be proposed by the Economy of Francesco [19], to quickly overcome the challenge of activating economy and work under the new digital era and our global brain going fast on its way. The COVID-19 crises is leading to foster worldwide collaborative efforts, like the ones of the World Economic Forum (WEF) [20]; to perform a paradigm shift that may change the human condition, systemically accelerating eco-socio-development changes are much needed to improve performance for the well-being of all. However, these changes must use more holistic interconnected approaches that may bring some light into hidden reality and deeper problems of the world system: environmental problems, human, family, work, urban contexts, starting from each person’s relationship with themselves, and which generates a specific way of relating to others and with the environment (Laudato Si). The human family needs to become aware of the interconnection in the universe of God and to conceive a paradigm of sustainable solutions for the planetary crisis.

For this purpose, it is important to remember that futurist Eleanora Mazini decades ago mentioned that there are three types of transformations to be considered: scientific-technological transformations (increasingly accelerated), socio-cultural transformations (much slower and more diversified) and institutional ones (always almost not running). The lack of coherence among the three processes makes the machine or system almost stop or freeze.

The paths being chosen could end up determining the process of evolution from the Knowledge Society to the Society of Consciousness, and may or may not result in the integration of nature-society-man-technology. Considering a Complex Dynamics System approach [21], and the fact that there are levels of reality and levels of perception of reality, accelerated advances in knowledge technologies may enable the development a new way of being, thinking and feeling that makes each human become an active element of the community and that designs a new order of existence that integrates social organization through holomorphic networks, considering the importance from the behavior of each human being to the formation of a global planetary brain that is structurally and mentally healthier [22].

Moreover, the political, cultural, social, economic and ecological dynamics that impact the structure of the global brain in the face of the current crisis will need to be worked on and used with discretion, since the trend is that unlimited growth in the use of technology and an increase in the degree of complexity of relationships causes more and more social instability. The saturation generated by the trivialization of the level of information conveyed by the media, like fake news, leads to the alienation of the population in general that reflect on daily life and consumerism, pressuring humanity to be at the service of capitalism, and not the other way around, more based on the ethics of solidarity and diversity. The future of society in the new scenario depends on both technologies and the development of ethical, aesthetic and spiritual dimensions in human beings and socio-political institutions in general.

The Metamorphose and the emergence of a Global Heart. Social institutions will not be able to survive with the current conscience that walks along the traditional path imposed more than 500,000 years ago. The challenge for the crisis is not to find the best of all worlds, but a better world that follows the necessary technical, social, health, institutional, ecological, educational, leisure and religious changes. A great crisis is not just a crisis, but the result of so many crises in different times and spaces, and they are all cognitive crises [23], and part of a complex dynamics that may even lead to a metamorphose. Hence, a future to be thought about needs a deeper understanding of what may be happening at the present moment. “If we take into account the complexity of the ecological crisis and its multiple causes, we must recognize that the solutions cannot come from a single way of interpreting and reforming reality” (Laudato Si). The problem is not in finding paths, because they are there, and most likely the new path is a combination of different possibilities, and structural social-political transformations are necessary, as mentioned by Greta Thunberg [24]:

“The climate and ecological crisis cannot be solved within today’s political and economic systems.”

Moreover, as observed by Edgar Morin [25]:

“We do not know the political, economic, national and planetary consequence of the restrictions caused by the confinement. We do not know whether we should expect the worst, the best, or a mix of both: we are heading toward new uncertainties.”

So, the fact that we cannot know with certainty what the future we want should be like brings anxiety and fear, and this may have impacts on our destiny [26]. The reforms have limits, because one cannot rationalize existence, and so there is no way to guarantee happiness. However, we do have the capacity to transform humanity to stimulate the metamorphosis of the road, as suggested by Edgar Morin [5]. Trust and mutual help are key points in this search; faith and reason must go together, and faith must be reasoned. The reforms will be interdependent, and they will mobilize each other, this movement will allow the changes to be fostered among themselves. In the same way, Yehezkel Dror [27] from the University of Jerusalem considers that humanity faces great challenges such as those of climate change and the current pandemic that requires to properly regulate the accelerated advances in science and technology that are having great impacts on the future of ourselves and the whole biosphere. For these impacts, institutional changes and limitations on sovereignty will be necessary to be able to implement global consensual and collaborative decisions promoting a new type of leadership based on merit and public support, such as that of Angela Merkel in Germany and other important female leaders in countries like Denmark, Finland, Iceland, Norway and New Zealand, which have been shown to be more efficient in dealing with the pandemic [28]. Moreover, Dror in fact mentions:

“Considering the strength of nationalism and vested interests, it may well be that only catastrophes will teach humanity to metamorphose into a novel epoch without too high transition costs. But initial steps, such as United Nation reforms, are urgent in order to contain calamities and may soon become feasible.”

The exploitation of resources in an irresponsible way with the purpose of taking possession of power, concentrating everyday more in the hands of a few, generates an imbalance in the world and in people, being the result of a partitioned vision. The ecological paradigm studies the relationships between living beings and the environment where such relationships occur and generates models of development, production and consumption, considering that everything is interconnected as well as time and space, atoms and subatomic particles, physical, chemical and biological elements, and techniques, societies and the world; already indicated on the Kybalion [29], and nowadays by the Fractoly approach [30]. Living species are intertwined in a plot that we can never fully understand; today it is concerned with fragments, and it is ignored that everything is interconnected, and that we are all responsible for balance, well-being and for a fraternal society.

The global crisis is pressing local and multilateral institutions to be alert in order to be able to overcome today’s context facing the emerging new scenario [31]. Our care for the common home depends on skills to revitalize being and relationships and the use of high-performance computational and molecular technologies in therapeutic and everyday operations and interventions, which paradoxically for the first time in history are making the world incomparably better. In times of global awareness and home office work and study, the skills that have been most valued are adaptability, resilience and flexibility, followed by collaboration, communication, creativity and empathy, which are close to the ones suggested by Italo Calvino some time ago [32], among others. Social isolation is changing the way people relate to themselves, at home and socially in general.

The Humanity Awareness Movement. The way humanity has been dealing or interacting with nature and transforming the planet makes nature self-organize or defend itself; the current state of affairs is causing nature to transform itself to survive, such as the emergence of pandemics caused by viruses like COVID-19. Therefore, the essence of the crisis resulting from global warming is in the entropy of our planet’s natural system [33].

According to Lester Brown, founder of the Worldwatch Institute [34], our civilization in order to be saved must achieve four interdependent goals: stabilize the climate and population growth, eradicate poverty and restore nature’s natural supports such as water, soil and air. A healthy innovation system could employ a combination of public funding and patents. Global and sustainable development is underpinned by a combination of harmonized public and private funding on a global scale to ensure that the needs of the poor and global common goods are adequately addressed and financed by shared contributions from governments around the world [35].

The awakening of the global mind is disturbing established patterns of consciousness by opening space for emerging centers of influence outside the control of elites, and by generating potential for reform of established dysfunctional behaviors. Sustainable development requires removing the main sources of deprivation of liberty, poverty, tyranny, economic opportunities and systematic social destitution, neglect of public services and intolerance or interference by repressive states [36].

A closer look at how the European Union (EU) is facing the crisis, allows us to understand why the Latin America and the Caribbean (LAC) has not been successful, neither as a region nor as countries, in the face of the pandemic and its effects. There is a great contrast on how these two regions are facing this systemic and multidimensional crisis that characterizes COVID-19 and prepares the future. The EU and LAC are two regions with undeniable historical relations and a strategic association formalized some decades ago. The EU adopted decisions that countries cannot implement in isolation; actually, more than seventy years ago they decided to start an integration process that has been sustained until today (except for the BREXIT), and whose basis is a political project with economic sustainability based on cooperation and the transfer of sovereignty, because without integration and collaborative work there is no future. In this sense the EU represents a good example for Latin-American countries. More than ever, strategic collaborative alliances are needed to deal with the challenges of the moment. According to Borge Brende, president of the World Economic Forum, it is not surprising that the coronavirus is a case of a lack of global cooperation that is opening new paths for competition [37]. Moreover, very recently in the face of the current pandemic crises, the 27 EU countries unanimously approved a new support and recovery program in the “next generation” proposal that focuses on the future of Europe [38].

In 2015, the United Nations adopted the “2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development” with Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) in the hope that the SDGs will occupy a central place to deal with the new challenges. New technologies and services are being created one after the other through new combinations and/or integration into an existing technology system, with important changes taking place in the world. At the same time as the lifestyle changes, social complexity increases, and negative aspects of the new digital society become apparent, for example, in relation to SDG 8 the decrease in the workforce that will become much larger in the future [39]. However, other aspects may also end up having impacts in relation to this important goal.

In the call for the event “The Economy of Francesco” that was held in Assisi, Pope Francis [40] mentions that:

“... it is necessary to correct growth models that are unable to guarantee respect for the environment, acceptance of life, family care, social equity, workers’ dignity, the rights of future generations. Unfortunately, the call to become aware of the seriousness of the problems and, above all, to implement a new economic model, the result of a culture of communion, based on fraternity and equity, remains ignored. Francisco de Assis is an example par excellence of caring for the weak and an integral ecology...”

The Humanity Awareness Movement on the other hand is an initiative of the Barrett Academy for the Advancement of Human Values that helps make tomorrow’s awareness visible today, in an attempt to better address the question: what would a community or nation be like if it were operating from of a more human consciousness? Human consciousness is a new emerging worldview that empowers people to become aware of their world, a way of seeing and interpreting the world in which they live that goes beyond the premise of culture, because groups of people all over the world can share the same vision of the world despite being from completely different cultures.

Richard Barrett’s model, developed from Maslow’s idea of the hierarchy of needs, provides a map to understand and create more harmonious and productive relationships for overcoming the current crisis. It is true that when the human being puts emphasis on beliefs based on fear and lack of trust, when meeting his low-level needs, his subconscious mind seeks ways to satisfy these same needs, not allowing the development of high level needs to be explored [41].

According to this model, the human being needs to survive, belong to a group, take care of self-esteem, evolve, move from the awareness of ‘me’ to ‘us’, seek unity and service mentality, transform ourselves from the inside out in a new man, a new woman and change the way of seeing and taking care of themselves and the world. Actually, only when the human being learns to satisfy and monitor their needs will their mind be free to transform and develop other higher needs. The human being reaches the stage of well-being in changing the level of consciousness when one reaches freedom and autonomy to be what one really is—and achieve well-being at the higher levels of consciousness when they find meaning and purpose for their life, when they realize they can make a difference in the lives of others and when they can be of service to the family, community, nation or welfare of the Earth. The joy experienced with the development of needs leads human beings to desire more the well-being of all. Next, we will be particularly using The Barret Global Consciousness Indicator (GCI) for our statistical analyses.

3. Methods: Monitoring Progress toward a Society of Consciousness

The ICT Revolution already on its way, as mentioned before, may actually help to yearly monitor the transition from a Knowledge-Based Society to a Society of Consciousness. To see how this could be done, we selected four basic representative global synthetic indexes as well as an updated data bank consisting of 53 countries that have common data for the four indexes selected, that were then organized into three groups/regions: 12 Iberoamerican countries (AIBER), 21 advanced economies countries mostly from the EU (AVECO) and 19 Countries from other regions (OTHER).

The four selected global synthetic indexes were the following:

• SPI: Social Progress Index deals basically with 15 topics: Basic Human Needs, Foundations of Well-Being, Opportunity, Nutrition and Basic Medical Care, Water and Sanitation, Shelter, Personal Safety, Access to Basic Knowledge, Access to Information and Communications, Health and Wellness, Environmental Quality, Personal Rights, Personal Freedom and Choice, Tolerance and Inclusion and Access to Advanced Education [42].
• SDGI: Sustainable Development Goals Index deals with 17 Goals: No Poverty, Zero Hunger, Good Health and Well-Being, Quality of Education, Gender Equality, Clean Water and Sanitation, Affordable and Clean Energy, Decent Work and Economic Growth, Industry Innovation and Infrastructure, Reduced Inequalities. Sustainable Cities and Communities, Responsible Consumption and Production, Climate Action, Life below Water, Life on Land, Peace Justice and Strong Institutions, Partnership for the Goals [43].
• S5I: Society 5.0 Index deals basically with 10 indicators: four regarding skills for the future (Data Management, Business Global Ranking, Machine Learning and Software Engineering), four regarding society (Global Innovation Index, Control of Corruption, Vulnerability and Susceptibility) and two regarding development (SPI and HDI) [44].
• GCI: The Barret Global Consciousness Indicator deals with 17 indicators and 7 levels of awareness, each one focusing certain aspects: L1 (Level of Corruption, Physical and Mental Health infrastructure and Economic Performance), L2 (Personal Safety and Level of Militarization and Peace/Violence), L3 (Access to and Quality of Education, and Quality of Business infrastructure, support to entrepreneurs and labor market flexibility), L4 (Individual Freedom and Social Tolerance, Level of Democracy, Press Freedom and Gender Inequality), L5 (Strength of Personal Relationships, Social Network Support and Civic Participation and Foundations and Opportunities for Social Progress), L6 (Health and Quality of the Natural Environment and Quality of Preservation Efforts), L7 (Strength, Stability and Legitimacy of the State and Level of Happiness of the people) [45].

4. Analyses of Results

Actually, when seen through statistical lens, even given the complex local and global dynamics of the development processes, there is a close interrelation among most of the variables being considered that ends up in high correlations among the four indexes as could be seen in Figure 2, so that countries that are doing well on one of them most likely are also doing well on the rest. Moreover,

Table 1. ANOVA comparison of the three regions using the four indicators.

	SDGIn	SPIn	S5In	GCIn
AIBER(12)	51.3	56.69	43.16	44.49
AVECO(21)	78.76	90.56	80.67	83.22
OTHERS(19)	40.12	36.69	34.27	27.71
F	23.52	55.26	36.12	61.18

shows an ANOVA comparison among the three groups (AIBER, AVECO, OTHERS) using the four selected normalized global indexes (0–100), and Figure 3 is the corresponding Radar Graph. As could be seen, as was expected AVECO is always the best, then AIBER, and lastly OTHERS; both SPIn and GCIn show the greatest differences among the three regions (p = 0.000 in all cases), and AVECO is always the best followed by AIBER.

As one could imagine, the countries that show the greatest development in all the four indexes and in particular regarding global consciousness are: Switzerland, Denmark, Norway, Finland, Sweden and New Zealand that already reach the People Awareness Worldview, so they are very close to the an emergent highest one called Humanity Awareness Worldview that may enable people to make sense of their world—a way of seeing and interpreting the world they live in (Barrett, 2019). It is perhaps no wonder that four of these six countries have women leadership as mentioned before.

The statistical analysis presented in this paper deals with a set of countries that make up three representative groups of nation/regions that we are calling AIBER, AVECO and OTHER, and shows the relevance, for global monitoring, of using some basic synthetic indexes: GCI, SPI, SDGI and S5I, and in particular how the difference, shown in the ANOVA among the three regions, is much larger for SPIn and GCIn (F greater).

As shown before, the 21 countries that make up AVECO are nations with a more developed economy and performed better in the four indexes than the other two groups. The results of these analyses support the current initiatives such as Society 5.0, the Humanity Awareness Movement and of course the UNSDG 2030 Agenda. So, one may reach the conclusion that the present times needs global support for the development of global consciousness, the economy of communion, consensual and collaborative global decisions, ecological awareness, vision of the future, cooperative research in health, scientific-technological transformations and, following the European example, seeking strategic collaborative alliances to be able to walk together and make a different and better future for the planet and for each one of us.

5. Final Considerations and Conclusions: A Call for Awareness Is on Its Way

At present, the extent of the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on human life, the global economy and organizations remains to be seen. However, it is known that it has already become a catalyst for change—a shifting point. The need for innovation and leap in consciousness is very great, leading to challenges never faced before. The question is, how quickly can we act? Technologies can help to deal with new challenges, but it is necessary to know their impacts on people and the world, as suggested by Edgar Morin: “For example, politics should have a mission to achieve a human ideal of freedom, equality and fraternity, open the way for the humanity avoid disaster and come-to a compromise with reality and manage to change it.”

The challenges for changing the world are six [46]: (1) a fully interconnected global economy that integrates capital flows, production, consumer markets and governments; (2) interconnected networks that bring together thoughts and emotions and connect equipment, robots, ubiquitous sensors and databases that form a global mind; (3) world political, economic and military power being transferred to emerging centers of power; (4) rapid and unsustainable growth; (5) biotechnological innovations capable of leading to longevity and improving the productivity of the land and which has a strong influence on the evolution and maintenance of the biosphere; and (6) change in the relationship between human beings and nature to reestablish a healthy and balanced relationship between global civilization and the future prospects of the planet to overcome this pandora paradigm shift, and for which one may need to go through a global awakening—a metamorphose that may come through a conscious evolution [47] that may help to foster an appropriate ICT Revolution. In fact, and as mentioned by F. Capra and H. Henderson [48], just widening human awareness would reveal how the planet actually functions. For this purpose, a science of consciousness needs to emerge with joint support of science and traditions, such as in the case on the Akashic Field of Ervin Lazlo [49] and in particular the contributions of Teilhard de Chardin (1961) for our Evolutionary Processes of Consciousness, where he mentions that knowledge accumulates and is transmitted in increasing levels of depth and complexity. This leads to a further argumentation of consciousness and the emergence of layers of consciousness that envelops the Earth—the Noosphere—that will fuse and consume into a tipping Omega Point, representing all consciousness together as well as all that may be conscious of and that one may call The Society of Consciousness [50].

The effects of individualism and selfishness in the westernized and globalized world have been destroying solidarity. Globalization is both the possibility of the emergence of a new world and the possibility for humanity to self-destruct. One may hope that a global, more humanistic policy may emerge to restore solidarity, rehumanize cities, revitalize the rural world, add to the quantitative the qualitative, defend the best and not the maximum, and thus contribute to the reform of existence, for the well-being of all [51]. Ecological policy should contribute to the policy of civilization, which in turn contributes to ecological policy. One and the other constitute a reform path that is necessarily combined with other paths, such as education, consumption and life. Moreover, as already observed by Richard Barret on his book Love and Fear and the Destiny of Nations [26], what makes a difference is Love, and as wisdom of traditions indicates, this is valid not only for our countries but also and in particular for each one of us, since Love is not only what gives meaning to Life, but is what give LIFE to life [52]:

“But already my desire and my will were being turned like a wheel, all at one speed, by the Love which moves the sun and the other stars.”