By Luciano Martins Costa

Indian physicist Amit Goswami, professor emeritus of quantum physics in the Physics Department of the University of Oregon, USA, known by his book The Self-Aware Universe, was the focus of the debate in the roundtable “Social Cohesion and Sustainability”, held at the Ethos Institute 2008 International Conference. His thesis on the universe unreality without the presence of consciousness has inspired movies such as the Matrix series, and has shaken the environment of managers and developers of business and public policy strategies. The roundtable in which he participated together with Carlos Lopes, UN Assistant Secretary General, and Allen White, co-founder of the Global Reporting Initiative (GRI), was a memorable moment for the Conference attendees.
The assertion put forward by the event’s moderator, Paulo Itacarambi, Ethos’ executive vice-president, according to which there can be no cohesive society – one where people feel included – when there is degradation of values such as honesty, trust, solidarity and love for life, was initially broken by Carlos Lopes into four aspects that, in his opinion, form the social fabric: development of human networks, the exercise of power, and ethical and moral paradigms.
According to Lopes, the networks have always been present in the evolution of mankind, initially as a sort of protection for the group’s survival, then developing into a sense of belonging driven by moral coercion. “Nowadays,” said Carlos Lopes, “we are living above all the individualistic identity, without moral coercion or exclusion, and this is possible because now we can choose the networks we want to belong to.”
As for exercising power, he stressed that the coercive power has evolved to hierarchical power, which follows varied criteria, and he noted that “we are currently submitted to asymmetrical forms of power coexisting with old hierarchical structures.”
In this context, says Lopes, there is a permanent stress between the exercise of citizenship, with rights and duties within the society, and the role of consumer, characterized by the right to choose based on well-being and as an expression of power. As far as the ethical issue is concerned, the UN Assistant Secretary General believes the shift occurs because both ethics and moral are in continuous evolution, according to the society’s ability to remain cohesive. “Competitive behaviors challenge the ethics,” added Lopes, arguing that today’s celebrity worship is more valued than wisdom.
Amit Goswami moved the debate into the depths of philosophy based on theoretical physics when he argued that the individual’s consciousness is the primary aspect of social cohesion. “Our society is in great danger today, because the individuals have become objects,” he said. “People pursue sense in the material world and there is no place for sense in matter,” added Goswami. “In matter there is only reality and consciousness is what provides it with sense,” he said. Goswami explained that it is not possible to understand quantum physics without consciousness because objects are possibilities in the physics theory. Therefore, the transformation of individuals into objects means they remain as possibilities. “We belong to a society when we pursue the same sense,” he added, saying that the breakdown of social cohesion cannot be resolved if the individuals do not engage in the search for senses that are common to all.
Goswami also contested the Darwinist approach to evolution, noting that Charles Darwin’s theory does not explain how the human consciousness evolves from simple criteria for the representation of reality to more complex forms, or “how we create increasingly complex forms to better represent the subtle, the sense of reality.” Nowadays the evolution of mankind occurs in mini-processes of mind evolution, he added. In his opinion, there is no remedy for problems such as global warming because the damage is done to the material reality. “Rational mind cannot solve this problem. We need a new phase in evolution, and there are signs that it is going on,” he said, and argued that ethics must be presented as a new science.
Allen White, co-founder of GRI, tried to move the debate to the market environment. “We need to redefine social cohesion from micro to global,” he said. Among these new senses, he highlighted the need for the market to value social capital and acknowledge values. “Social cohesion means building integrated societies, characterized by solidarity and love,” he added.
Warning that, without this new meaning, social cohesion can be broken down for any reason, White noted that “lately we have witnessed the destruction of social cohesion in South Africa and, at the same time, demonstration of social cohesion in China during the earthquake tragedy.” This supported his opinion that protecting the environment can create social cohesion beyond religions, moral and cultural values, but the problem is that the market affects social cohesion because it does not see subtleties: “Markets are resources exchange structures dictated by supply and demand.”
“The problem is that the market is fundamentally unable to value what is non-monetary, and integrity, love and respect are non-monetary,” he said. “The more you consume love, the more you produce love, as well as respect produces respect,” in a reasoning that is opposed to the market’s,  noted White, concluding his words with an optimistic perspective: “Many companies are taking steps to redefine their business worldwide and this can help redefine capital so as to reach quality of life and equity.”
In the discussion that followed, the three participants converged into the concept that the market, as it is, does not contribute to social cohesion. Summing up the opinions, Paulo Itacarambi noted there is a contradiction inside the sustainability movement: “We are encouraging companies to become socially responsible to be loved by their customers. Doesn’t it strengthen a materialistic vision? When we seek to integrate the social, environmental and economic impacts, aren’t we just considering the material value?”
Carlos Lopes argued that the entrepreneurial spirit of mankind finds in the enterprise one of the most developed forms of expression, and it is necessary to change the nature of organizations to enhance the way we make choices: “We take decisions in a fragmented and individualistic way.” Amit Goswami closed the debate noting that most of the economy is hidden under invisible values. “We can include the subtle in economic values, represent in business the social capital everyone has, because today a major part of the human population is excluded from the process of construing meaning.”
As for the question whether the social responsibility movement is offering a solution for capitalism, Allen White noted that people buy products to obtain something else – what Amit Goswami called “invisible meaning” – such as warmth, communication, mobility, comfort, which are their eventual products. When it comes to speculation in capital markets and the lack of equity in distributing the results of the economic activity, White closes the discussion: “People must simply say no to certain practices.”