QUANTUM LINGUISTICS AND DIDACTICS OF

FOREIGN LANGUAGE INTENSIVE TEACHING

by

Larissa I. Natarelli

MARY DERESHIWSKY, Ph.D., Faculty Mentor and Committee Chair

ADELL NEWMAN-LEE, Ph.D., Committee Member

BRUCE FRANCIS, Ph.D., Committee Member

Barbara Butts Williams, Ph.D., Dean, School of Education

A Dissertation Presented in Partial Fulfillment

Of the Requirements for the Degree

Doctor of Philosophy

Capella University

November 2010

© Larissa Natarelli, 2010

Abstract

This dissertation focuses on quantum linguistics, a sub-field of philosophy of language,

preoccupied with studying of the processes on a virtual drive of the human mind: patterns

and dynamics of thoughts, verbal and non-verbal codification, cultural conditioning, and

foreign language acquisition. While adopting an educational perspective fitting the

humanistic legacy of great democrats-educators, this study embraces a relativist,

quantum-mechanical framework in consideration of perceptive experiences, group

dynamics, and foreign language express instruction with cross-cultural alertness. To help

improve the national capabilities in foreign languages, this doctoral research investigates

the nature, mechanisms, and factors affecting academic acceleration, intensification, and

optimization.

iii

Dedication

In loving memory of my mother, Angelina, my angel.

iv

Acknowledgments

I am endlessly indebted to my inspiring professor Galena Kitaygorodskaya,

Academician of the International Academy of Higher Learning, Professor Emeritus,

Department Chair, and Director of the Center for Foreign Language Intensive Teaching

Methods at Moscow State University (Moscow, Russian Federation), originator of the

Method of Activation of Potentialities of Learning Group.

My deepest gratitude to Victoria Suharevska, Ph.D., my former professor and

Dean at Kiev State Linguistic University (Kiev, Ukraine), and Peter Serdyukov, D.P.S.,

Ph.D., National University (La Jolla, CA, USA), thanks to whom I had an opportunity to

develop my credentials.

I am also thankful to a cohort of professors and staff at Capella University

(Minneapolis, MN, USA) for generosity in knowledge sharing, particularly, to Mary

Dereshiwsky, Ph.D., and Kimberly Smeja, MA, my mentor and academic adviser

(respectively), for many years of support.

There is no better way to express appreciation to my Dissertation Committee for

encouraging my exploration of the fascinating unknown.

To my challengers who failed: I have survived!

v

Table of Contents

Acknowledgments iv

List of Tables vii

List of Figures viii

CHAPTER 1. INTRODUCTION 1

Introduction to the Problem

Background of the Study

Statement of the Problem

Purpose of the Study

Rationale

Research Questions

Significance of the Study

Definition of Terms

Assumptions

Limitations

Theoretical/Conceptual Framework

Organization of the Remainder of the Study

CHAPTER 2. LITERATURE REVIEW 28

Introduction

Survival Thrust: Quasars, Black Holes, and Universal Dynamics

Cognition, Communication, and Culture Transformations

The Learning Revolution

vi

CHAPTER 3. RESEARCH METHOD 187

Researcher’s Philosophy of Knowledge Clam for Inquiry Choice

Theoretical Framework: Research Questions and Objectives

Study Type, Assumptions, and Rationale

Population and Sample

Data Collection, Analysis, and Validation

Summary

CHAPTER 4. DATA COLLECTION AND ANALYSIS 199

Introduction 197

Demographic Description

Data Analysis

Summary 221-223

CHAPTER 5. RESULTS, CONCLUSIONS, AND RECOMMENDATIONS 223

Introduction

Part 1: Quantum Linguistics: Pandora’s Box Wide Open

Part 2: From Complexity to Quantum Order

Part 3: Quantum Didactics: Inspired by the Nature

Conclusion

Recommendations

REFERENCES 282

APPENDIX: QUESTIONNAIRE 288

vii

List of Tables

Table 1. Mentalese—the matrix of culture and a language of concepts 123

Table 2. The general results from the Part 2 of the Questionnaire 203

Table 3. The taxonomy of informational signals 253

viii

List of Figures

Figure 1. The theoretical framework for this research 25

Figure 2. Factors affecting human behavior 99

Figure 3. The components of human communication 115

Figure 4. Communicative synapse, a “molecule” of signal activity 117

Figure 5. Culture archetypes 139

Figure 6. Uncertainty (avoidance) shifting the group dynamics 141

Figure 7. The sponsorship factor (general results) 204

Figure 8. The knowledge vs. experience factor (general results) 206

Figure 9. The personal merit disclaimer interfering with the knowledge vs. experience

factor 206

Figure 10. The acceptance factor (general results) 208

Figure 11. The personal merit disclaimer interfering with the acceptance factor 209

Figure 12. The connectivity factor (general results) 210

Figure 13. The personal merit disclaimer interfering with the connectivity factor 211

Figure 14. The proficiency factor (general results) 212

Figure 15. The personal merit disclaimer interfering with the proficiency factor 213

Figure 16. The pattern of emotional dynamics 244

Figure 17. Acceleration and intensification 247

Figure 18. Quantum code and re-codification of informational signals 258

1

CHAPTER 1. INTRODUCTION

Introduction to the Problem

Accelerated globalization of the planetary processes is a contemporary observable

fact that mirrors self-determination propensity of the real world. Globalization

dramatically increased the importance of multilingual-multicultural expertise. On

February 1, 2005, the speakers of the National Language Conference sponsored by the

U.S. Department of Defense admitted the following:

Our economic competitiveness demands that action be taken – action to retain our

leadership in the global marketplace, to secure entrée into local markets, and to

succeed against increasingly sophisticated competitors whose workforces possess

potent combinations of professional skills, knowledge of other cultures, and

multiple language proficiencies. (U.S. Department of Defense, 2005, p. 2)

While recalling a sputnik effect of the temporary technological superiority of the

(former) Soviet Union, the Conference officially recognized an urgent need in national

leadership in foreign language education. The speakers identified as a time-sensitive

imperative the necessity “to improve the gathering [and] analysis of information, advance

international [diplomacy], and support military operations” (U.S. Department of Defense,

2005, p. ii). The statement issued by the U.S. Department of Defense right after the

Conference underscores different problems related to foreign language education in terms

of global vision, business opportunities, and intercultural dynamics heavily depending on

people’s cross-cultural competence and multilingual skills.

2

Honorable Rush Holt of the United States House of Representatives

acknowledged that “immediately [after] September 11, 2001, Americans… [realized] that

they were caught flat-footed, unprepared to confront [Al Qaeda] terrorists” (U.S.

Department of Defense, 2005, p. 2). He stressed the importance of “a national

commitment to languages [on] a scale of the National Defense Education Act

[commitment] to science, including improved curriculum, teaching technology [and]

methods, teacher development, and [a] systemic cultural commitment” (U.S. Department

of Defense, 2005, p. 2). This commitment must start with identification of “the critical

nodes in [our] culture that can be influenced [most] effectively,” Dr. David S.C. Chu,

Under Secretary of Defense for Personnel and Readiness, stated in the white paper. “We

[must] find where and how we can [best] concentrate our effort in [order] to produce

[significant] change” (U.S. Department of Defense, 2005, p. 2).

The current era of information technology goes together with globalization of

business. Doing business globally involves navigating the world and negotiating with

persons of different lifestyles and cultural backgrounds. Intercultural awareness and

foreign language communication skills enable a person to function more effectively

within a diverse culture. In the words of Robert Rosen,

All business is global, yet all markets are local. This globalized multicultural

world needs leaders with a keen understanding of national cultures. By learning

from other countries, these leaders develop the best thinking and best practices

from around the world enabling them to leverage culture as a tool for competitive

advantage. (U.S. Department of Defense, 2005, p. 8)

3

Convoluted hardship caused by accelerated globalization demand many urgent

studies in numerous areas of academics including not only foreign language education

but also group psychology and academic management that would support the

implementation of innovations urging the shifting of instruction paradigms. Global events

and intercultural dynamics call for a radical revision of foreign language training and

teacher preparation to substantiate an urgent advancement of the national capabilities in

foreign languages through the improved academic practice and culture. Express

acquisition of foreign language communication skills with cross-cultural alertness

became a vital necessity for politics, international diplomacy, global business operations,

academic exchange, and common people’s understanding as well.

Background of the Study

The development of human civilization is indispensable without exosomatic

evolution. The continuously increasing speed of noospheric (exosomatic) occurrences—

particularly, the rise of technology coupled with instantaneous communications—

catalyzed the growth and swiftness of a global information flaw that calls for accelerated

transfer and assimilation of a modern knowledge base. Although pressured by the

necessity to catch up with the recent achievements of science and technology, busy adults

can hardly manage time for learning that, in turn, made learning acceleration simply

indispensable. “Almost everyone [recognizes] the demands that the [speed] of change is

placing [on] the way we all must learn,” the directors of the Society of Accelerated

Learning and Teaching (SALT) stated in 1992. “As we face the challenges [of] the

twenty-first century, it is [clear] to us that new methods [are] needed that will help

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instructors teach lesson material [more] quickly and with higher [amounts] of retention

than [current] methods produce” (Labiosa-Cassone & Cassone, as cited in Schiffler,

1992, p. xiii). Thus, to adhere to the velocity of noospheric occurrences, the pace of

teaching-learning must be managed more effectively.

The dramatically grown importance to communicate in other languages with

significant multicultural expertise prompted re-orientation of foreign language education

from an aspectual model toward a cross-cultural communication paradigm. Successful

cross-cultural interaction requires not only good foreign language skills but also intuitive

interpretation of paralinguistic signals that helps instantaneously de-contextualize

collective quanta of a tacit situational background. Nonetheless, traditional foreign

language training fails to recognize intuition as a cognitive factor and, thus, ignores the

multiple facets of signal activity including proxemic-kinesthetic components of

interpersonal-intercultural communication, spontaneously sent/encoded and perceived/de-

coded by the communicative actors. Dave Meier, an expert in accelerated learning

didactics, stated in this regard:

The bias against the body as a vehicle of learning is profound and widespread in

Western culture….Learning is still thought of as something done by the

disembodied intellect alone and there is little concern about keeping people’s

whole bodies involved in the learning process, whether in the classroom or on the

Web. (Meier, 2000, p. 22)

For this reason, culture intersections remain rowdy and, thus, vulnerable, because

they are not covered by a proper training, which would include non-verbal cross-cultural

awareness among others components of Mentalese of a target culture.

5

For the students to be successful in studying, teachers must have appropriate

training and competency to meet the learners’ needs. That is, teachers must have not only

considerable knowledge of a target subject but also possess a reliable methodological and

didactic expertise. Regrettably, the majority of methods included in syllabi of foreign

language teacher training – although proven ineffective, time-consuming, and unfairly

costly – steadily remain in the core curriculum of many teacher preparation programs.

The lack of practicality of such teacher training is usually substituted by elusive

recommendations patronizing the teacher instead of providing a clear didactic design and

algorithms for the creative practitioner. Moreover, many teacher preparation programs

draw on a learner-centered (instead of learner-sensitive) definition. This misleading

methodological target brings a lot of confusion in curriculum design and didactic

applications. It also promotes excessively individualized instruction models and does not

encourage creating the communities of learners that was repeatedly stressed by the U.S.

Department of Education in a variety of documents.

It is hard to deny the belief that “equally as important as [the] speed of learning is

the type of learner who is produced [after] the learning takes place” (Labiosa-Cassone &

Cassone, as cited in Schiffler, 1992, p. xiii). Sometimes, the personality of the teacher

affects the learner and, consequently, the projected moral outcomes to a greater extent

than social environment, curriculum contents, or technological features do altogether.

Skeptically pondering upon the claims of academic-industrial companies popularizing

their media products for individualized learning of a foreign language, Professor Ludger

Schiffler from Berlin, Germany, warns against excessive individualization based on false

pretenses with regard to mighty computer technology, “none of this [can] replace the

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instructor and the influence [of] the instructor upon the student” (Schiffler, 1992, p. 3). It

means foreign language instruction must maintain harmonizing equilibrium between

technological advances and human influence—a target to be achieved yet.

As it was articulated in the Title VI of the Amendments to Higher Education Act

of 1965 issued by the U.S. Department of Education, for the last few decades, the demand

for qualified instructors has dramatically grown and continues to increase nationwide

because of a steady decline in the enrollment in teacher training programs (U.S.

Department of Education, 1965). In addition, significant numbers of teachers leave the

profession for another—more financially rewarding—employment and, in the meantime,

natural attrition due to the aging of teacher population aggravates the situation.

Critical teacher shortage provoked even more controversies and hardship in

bilingual education, particularly affecting regions with traditionally high level of ethnic

diversity such as Florida, California, Texas, Arizona, and others. The number of English

language learners is dramatically increasing throughout the country and worldwide. Over

42% percent of public school teachers in the Unites States (or just over 1 million

teachers) reported having limited English proficient (LEP) students. Progressively more,

LEP students are entering school districts that have never had those students before. In

nine States (Alabama, Alaska, Idaho, Nebraska, Nevada, North Carolina, Oregon,

Tennessee, and Virginia) LEP population grew by more than 50% between school years

1992/93 and 1995/97. In 1998, 37% of students enrolled in public schools in Florida

made a part of a minority group that is due to the proportional growth of Hispanic origin

children. More than 2% of teachers who instruct LEP students actually have an academic

degree in ESL or bilingual education. Furthermore, only 30% of teachers with LEP

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students in their classes have received any training in teaching LEP students. The U.S.

Department of Education informs in the Title VII of the Bilingual Education Professional

Program that bilingual educator training does not meet an escalating demand in

TESL/TESOL services. In 1990/91, seven percent of schools reported vacancies in ESL

or bilingual education teachers. However, in 1993/94, 25% of schools reported vacancies

in their positions, more than a three hundred percent increase. The California Department

of Education estimated California alone needs an additional twenty one thousand

teachers. The Denver public school district has stated that there is an historic level of fifty

percent of unqualified bilingual teachers in their district. More importantly, the lower the

percentage of LEP students in the class the less is the likelihood that these teachers have

received any training in teaching LEP students (U.S. Department of Education, 1998).

Learners with limited English proficiency shape the most disadvantaged population,

because their restricted access to quality education puts in jeopardy their employability in

the future that provokes multiple negative socio-economic side effects as a gap between

“haves” and “have-nots” widens. This is dramatic scenery of changing local

demographics and global geopolitics entailing the critical need in research in foreign

language methodology, teacher training, and adjacent academic disciplines.

Statement of the Problem

Quantum linguistics is an interdisciplinary field of study, which currently is in a

state of infancy. Few attempts to develop this sub-field of the philosophy of language

ended up in the obscurity of mystification or drifted toward computational linguistics.

Besides, although lexis is broadly in use, the fundamental nature of academic

8

acceleration, intensification, and optimization has escaped an in-depth understanding by

the mainstream academe. For that reason, “demystification” of quantum linguistics would

provide a key to understanding the operational mechanisms of a many-body living system

of a higher order (e.g., a learning group, a culture, a family, etc.). Given that a human

being is a living system, who shares the same material and exosomatic worlds with other

living and non-living systems, this research will glimpse into different sciences to

uncover the universal principles. It will help better understand the work of human

cognition and collective consciousness, the power of signal activity (language and

communication) stirring group dynamics (a learning group and intercultural interaction),

and—as a main target—foreign language express acquisition with cross-cultural

alertness.

Despite the fact that suggestopedic express instruction offers many advantages for

the community of learners, the complexity of requirements for the professor holds back a

broader implementation of humanistic-affective education. Besides, an energetic, artistic

teaching style, common to all suggestopedic methods, requires a selfless professional

commitment and a great deal of involvement while orchestrating each lesson that, alas,

jeopardizes the popularity of suggestopedic methodology. In combination with a lack of

incentives for an extra effort invested in performance, even the most dedicated

suggestogogues show not enough enthusiasm for a challenging daily routine. In the

meantime, technological advances, usually pooled together with the worshiping at the

altar of high technologies, computer-assisted language learning (CALL) is still waiting

for its place yet to be found within an algorithmic didactic design of suggestopedic

express acquisition of a foreign language. This research targets a modular design of

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foreign language express instruction with computer technology integrated in dynamic

collaborative classroom.

There are factors within academe (at large) that harmfully affect both

organizational effectiveness and acquisition of foreign language competencies by the

students. The authors of Declining by Degrees: Higher Education at Risk Richard Hersh

and John Merrow exposed a number of problems within academe that do not come only

from for-profit competitors. They indicated the following:

The erosion of liberal education also is proceeding apace within the established

academy, despite the best efforts of many well-intended faculty members and

academic leaders who continue to believe that liberal education is the defining

difference between excellence and mediocrity. (Hersh & Merrow, 2005, p. 67)

It is critically important to address—at least some—concerns relevant to the

national capabilities in foreign languages, because correction of what has gone astray

depends on a clear understanding of the nature of a problem. However, making

diagnostics would not cure the problem; visualizing an optimal target to which people

would have to redirect their constructive efforts is a no less important task, because the

goal and practice must always fit an affirmative purpose.

Purpose of the Study

As it was previously stated, the speakers at the National Language Conference of

2005 called for a national commitment to languages on a scale of the commitment to the

national defense (U.S. Department of Defense, 2005). This commitment must comprise

curriculum, methods, teacher education, and understanding of cultures as well as

10

identification of the “critical nodes” in the home culture that can be overridden to

improve the situation with the national capabilities in foreign languages.

The purpose of this doctoral research was to look for factors involved in foreign

language education, including those restraining the national foreign language capabilities.

While providing a theoretical groundwork for an emergent field of quantum linguistics

and adjacent accelerative didactics, this constructivist research merging multiple

perspectives of knowledge claim looked for ways of enhancement of the methodological,

curricular, and organizational-cultural aspects. An interdisciplinary exploration of various

theories and concepts helped grasp the nature, mechanisms, and principles of academic

acceleration, intensification, and optimization.

As any doctoral dissertation should provide evidence of the highest level of

professional expertise, this scholarly work aimed at demonstrating a theoretical mastery,

a research mastery, and a theory-to-practice mastery to meet prerequisites for a scholar-

practitioner. To demonstrate a balanced viewpoint, this interdisciplinary study imparted

both historical precedents and current issues within a variety of sciences and historic

events. The outcomes of this research actually transcended the boundaries of a narrow

specialization, because its main target—the improvement of foreign language express

instruction with cross-cultural awareness—simply could not fit a mere one-subject field.

Rationale

Quantum mechanics resides at the heart of many sciences and is ever-present in

daily life as well. The quantum field theory (a combination of quantum mechanics with

Einstein’s special theory of relativity ) and the theory of everything (TOE) are essential

11

for understanding not only particle physics but also biology, physiology, sociology, and

many other human sciences studying humans as a segment of the natural world. Although

it is difficult to explain consciousness in physical, computational, or other scientific

terms, because human self (i.e., judgment, common sense, insight, aesthetic sensibility,

compassion, morality, etc.) is more than neural networks and cannot be mathematically

justified. Mentality, however, can be treated scientifically. The contributor to Roger

Penrose’s The Large, the Small, and the Human Mind Abner Shimony maintains, “The

ideas [of] quantum mechanics are [relevant] to the mind-body problem” and “the

quantum [mechanical] problem of the actualization of potentialities is a [genuine]

physical problem” (Shimony, as cited in Penrose, 1997, p. 144). It suggests that

exosomatic outcomes of the matter1 (i.e., consciousness, cognition, language,

communication, culture, etc.) fit a quantum-mechanical perspective and can create a

quantum field (or fields).

As an indispensable feature of the universal activity, communicative activity is

controlled by the universal laws. Since education is primarily a type of communication

activity that involves multilateral interaction while transmitting and perceiving

instructional data, it is subject to the universal principles and dynamics and, thus, must be

treated as an integral part of general universal activity run by the universal laws.

Therefore, foreign language instruction as a type of educational communication

genuinely fits into a structure of universal activity and is contingent on the universal

principles. For that reason, teacher training in foreign language methods must account

for the natural laws and intrinsic patterns of the universal processes. In addition,

1 In this relation: the human brain.

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acceleration, intensification, optimization, humanization, cross-cultural communication,

multimedia technology, and learner-sensitive curriculum are the key words a curriculum

designer must keep in mind while developing a foreign language textbook or a

methodological course for the foreign language professor.

However, the lack of understanding of the nature, genuine mechanisms, and

principles of acceleration, intensification, and optimization in a methodological context

misguides foreign language didactics that entails multiple interpretations in practice.

Since didactics correlates to methodology as tactics correlates to a strategy, the creation

of a methodological theory, which would account for those definitions, would provide the

more adequate didactic options.

The following were the key concerns of this doctoral research:

(a) Virtual “reality” in the human mind involves cerebral activity tied with

learning, imaging, associating, reasoning, etc., conditioned by the internal and external

environmental pressure that is due to a quantum legacy of the natural processes

(b) Foreign language teacher education must be responsive to the needs of an era

of accelerated globalization while meeting the needs of the adult learners

(c) Traditional foreign language training fails to address cross-cultural alertness

that should impart identification with the Mentalese of a target culture

(d) Critical foreign language teacher shortage and a lack of suggestopedia-friendly

didactic materials hold back the implementation of express methods and, thus, the

improvement of national capabilities in foreign languages

(e) Since a learning group and an academic system are many-body living systems,

they are subject to similar group dynamics and, thus, to an analogous scientific treatment.

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Research Questions

The proposed constructivist research, merging multiple perspectives of

knowledge claim, is designed to answer the following questions:

R1: What are the mechanisms and principles of the universal dynamics awareness

of which could help understand the nature of academic acceleration, intensification, and

optimization in order to improve foreign language instruction with cross-cultural

alertness?

R2: What factors are detrimental for the functionality of academic system (at

large) and, thus, for the development of national capabilities in foreign languages?

R3: How can computer technology facilitate suggestopedic didactics?

Significance of the Study

The successful completion of this doctoral study contributes to the following:

1. An emergent scientific field of quantum linguistics

2. A better understanding of the nature, mechanisms, and problems of academic

acceleration, intensification, and optimization

3. Encouragement for interdisciplinary studies

4. Integrative (non-aspectual) communicative approach in foreign language

instruction

5. Taking advantages of a balanced combination of technological and human

factors

6. Computer-assisted language learning (CALL) integrated in dynamic

collaborative classroom

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7. Providing a venue for comparative studies of the effectiveness of

suggestopedic didactics with or without computer-assisted language learning

8. Methodological enhancement of foreign language teacher education will boost

public motivation for studying foreign languages (i.e., dyslexic students)

9. Improvement of ESL programs for immigrants

10. Development of suggestopedic models of teaching less-spoken languages

11. Encouraging suggestopedia-friendly software production

12. Accelerating the user access to online information in foreign languages

13. Intercultural understanding and collaboration due to foreign language training

with cross-cultural alertness

14. Leverage for business operations through diverse combinations of foreign

language training, embedded in an area of professional interests and organization

management

15. Facilitation of the professorial work will endorse suggestopedic paradigms

16. Educating communities of learners, because all suggestopedic methods

involve dynamic collaborative group interaction

17. General humanization and democratization of education

18. Restoration of humanitarian balance in the world

19. Shaping the nation with a higher level of multilingual/multicultural expertise

and expanded links with the global community

20. Enhancing the national capability in foreign languages and appreciation for

multiculturalism

15

Definition of Terms

The following terms are utilized in the context of this study. As such, the terms

will be operationally defined:

Ability. (a) The quality or state of being able, (b) A competence in doing; natural or

acquired aptitude, (c) the conscious use of knowledge.

Academician (Acad.). In East-European academic systems, where the PhD degree is not

final, it is an academic degree equivalent to a post-post-PhD.

Acceleration. (a) A process of speeding, (b) the rate of change of velocity over time,

(c) enabling (the student) to complete a course in less than usual time without

downgrading the learning outcomes.

Acculturation. (a) Cultural modification of an individual, group, or people by adapting to

or borrowing traits from another culture, (b) a merging of cultures as a result of

prolonged contact, (c) the process by which a human being acquires the culture of

a particular society from infancy (Merriam-Webster’s collegiate dictionary, 10th

ed., 2001, p. 8).

Algorithm. A defined sequence of action steps to achieve the goal.

Anomie. The maximum state of social entropy.

Autopoesis (Greek). An ability of self-reproduction, self-restoration of dynamic system.

Axiom. A self-evident assumption common to many branches of science. In traditional

logic, an axiom is a proposition that is not proved or demonstrated but considered

to be either self-evident, or subject to necessary decision. Therefore, its truth is

taken for granted and serves as a starting point for deducing and inferring other

(theory dependent) truths.

Black hole. A region of space-time from which nothing – not even light – can escape,

because gravity is extremely strong.

Boson. A force particle.

Code. (a) A set of rules, e.g., a code of conduct, (b) a specific language, e.g., Morse

code, (c) a mediator, a token of the meaning with some “strings attached” to a

situational context, (d) a symbol, or an icon when a code relates a set of signs to a

meaning by convention. Indeed, any many-to-one code defines an equivalence

relation or a classification of elements in its domain.

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Codification. Transformation of codes, conversion establishing correspondences between

the elements of different domains (e.g., verbal codes into non-verbal ones and

verse versa) or between the elements of similar domains (e.g., the characters of

two languages). When it accounts for the transformation of one kind of signals

into another kind of signals, it can be rather seen to describe an input-output

device (a codifier); when applied to linguistic expressions, it constitutes a

translation, that is, decoding, or code-switching.

Culture. (a) The social, artistic, and scientific heritage of a community or a society,

(b) the intergenerational communication of information, other than genetic

information, in the form of material artifacts (e.g., works of art, buildings, tools,

weapons), (c) distinctive forms of behavior (e.g., organizational forms,

institutions, rituals, folklore), and (d) systems of distinctions (knowledge coded in

symbols, ideas, beliefs, classifications). Culture incorporates individual and

collective responses to environmental conditioning, and its content is continually

subject to evolutionary development, i.e., selection, random mutation, and

recombination.

Cybernetics. (a) A science of communication and control in animal and machine

(Wiener), (b) a science of government (Ampere), (c) an experimental

epistemology concerned with communication within an observer and between the

observer and his environment (McCulloch), (d) a science of effective

organizational management (Beer), (e) a science that focuses on form and pattern,

whereas other sciences deal with matter and energy (Bateson), (f) a way of

looking at things and a language for expressing what one sees (Mead).

Dark matter. The invisible stuff, which astronomers presumed and have proven to exist

because of the mere fact that the individual galaxies do not fly apart but form the

gravitationally bound conglomerations of galaxies. There is about 10 times more

dark matter than normal matter in the universe.

Didactic technique. A simple frame, a follow-me teacher’s action step.

Didactics. The science of tactical pedagogical maneuvering that refers to a precise

instructional technique or an algorithm.

Dynamics. An attribute emphasizing motion, change, and process as opposed to “static.”

Entropy. (a) Tendency of energy system to run down, (b) a measure of the degree of

randomness or disorder in a system, which determines a system’s capacity to

evolve irreversibly in time.

Epistemology. The study of the nature and grounds of knowledge esp. with reference to

its limits and validity (Merriam-Webster’s collegiate dictionary, 10th ed., 2001, p.

390).

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Exosomatic. Out-of-the-body, non-somatic, non-physical.

Exosomatic evolution. The development of collective global knowledge/experience.

Event. A point in the space-time, specified by its occurrence, duration, and location.

Event horizon. The boundary of a black hole.

Fermion. A matter particle.

Gaming. A role-playing simulation in which actors (players or students) act out roles as

decision-makers. In gaming, the players usually have different and conflicting

objectives (for example, in instructional, business, or war gaming) and may act as

individuals or may be combined into coalitions or opposing teams.

Gnosis (Greek). Cognitive-philosophic body of knowledge or a method of inquiry.

Gravitational lens. A massive celestial object (as a galaxy) that bends and focuses the

light of another more distant object (as a quasar) by gravity and that is usually

detected by the multiple images it forms of the second object.

Graviton. A hypothetical particle with zero charge and rest mass that is held to be the

quantum of the gravitational field.

Gravity/Gravitation. (a) The natural force of attraction, exerted by a celestial body, such

as Earth, upon objects at or near its surface, tending to draw them toward the

center of the body; (b) the natural force of attraction between any two massive

bodies, which is directly proportional to the product of their masses and inversely

proportional to the square of the distance between them; (c) gravitation, or

attraction of bodies.

Homeostasis. A relative equilibrium among energy systems.

Incentive. The anticipated reward or aversive event available in the environment. A

motive is linked to an incentive, since getting an incentive is the goal of a

person’s motive. (For example, hunger is a motive for eating; a bachelor’s degree

is a motive for attending classes; etc.)

Intense. (a) Existing in an extreme degree, (b) marked by great zeal, determination, or

power.

Intensive. (a) Highly concentrated and tending to strengthen, (b) expressive of extreme

degree of energy or feeling, (c) relating to a method designed to boost

productivity in minimum time while making the most of creativity and group

coherence.

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Intensification. An act or process of making intensive.

Language. A systematic way of arranging symbols to express meanings.

Mentalese. (a) The matrix of culture and a language of concepts, responsive to the

environmental pressure and change; (b) a result of human environmental

adaptation to which the reliability of the survival mechanism is fundamental;

(c) an outcome of signal-sensorial activity operating as mental representations

(verbal and non-verbal signs) on a virtual drive of the human mind.

Meta-linguistics. A branch of linguistics that deals with the relation between language

and other cultural factors in a society.

Metaphysics. A division of philosophy that is concerned with the fundamental nature of

reality and being and that includes ontology, cosmology, and often epistemology.

Method. (a) An educational strategy or a set of principles and relevant didactic

techniques, responsive to a purposeful instructional goal; (b) a specific teaching

technology, which applies to one subject or an area of training; (c) an instructional

tactic, a mode of procedure.

Method of Activation of Individual and Group’s Potentialities (known as Intensive

Teaching). A method originated in 1970s by Professor Emeritus of the Moscow

State University Galina Kitaygorodskaya, Acad., D.P.S., Ph.D. (Moscow, Russia).

It is the most remarkable and dynamic of all currently available suggestopedic

applications. Its conceptual modus operandi integrates a distinctive didactic

design, principles, and algorithms.

Methodological principle. A scientific system-construing code.

Methodology. (a) A comprehensive science of methods; (b) a technology of pedagogical

art that implies a variety of ways of information delivery and assimilation; (c) an

all-inclusive instructional strategy, which is not limited to a particular subject or

area of its application.

Motive. A person’s internal disposition to be concerned with something to attain positive

incentives or to avoid negative corollaries.

Nanotechnology. A branch of physics, which is concerned with corpuscular systems.

Noosphere. The all-inclusive product of the global scientific thought accumulated

throughout.

Ontogenesis. The developmental history of a person.

19

Optimization. An act, process, or method of making something (as a design, system, or

decision) as fully perfect, functional, or effective as possible.

Para-consciousness. The unconscious; the sphere of inadvertent mental activity; the

peripheral psychological dynamics.

Perception. (1) The observer’s awareness or appreciation of objects, processes, or

situations in his environment mediated through his sensory organs, (2) observer’s

descriptions, hypotheses, or constructs of the world of which he becomes thereby

a part.

Polylogue. A bilingual, massively consolidated dialogical text unit that embodies models

of communicative interaction of a group.

Postulate. At the foundation of various sciences lay certain additional hypotheses, which

are accepted without proof. Such a hypothesis is termed a postulate. While the

axioms are common to many sciences, the postulates of each particular science

are different. Their validity has to be established by means of real-world

experience.

Quadriga (from Lat. quadri-, “four”). A chariot drawn by four horses abreast.

Quantum. (a) Quantity, amount, (b) in the quantum theory, any of the very small

increments or parcels into which many forms of energy are subdivided, (c) an

indivisible unit (particle or cell) composed of the smallest amount of energy

capable of existing independently and in which waves may be emitted or

absorbed, (d) any of the small subdivisions of a quantized physical magnitude (as

magnetic moment). Several experiments confirmed the predictions of quantum

theory that had not been experimentally verified previously. Scientists were long

familiar with the phenomenon of particle annihilation, in which a collision

between a particle and its antiparticle converts both into a burst of

electromagnetic radiation, (e) an energy-information chunk made of mixed

signals, perceived (“scanned”) by human receptors, then transferred to the brain,

condensed, and stored on a mind’s virtual drive in the human psyche as a complex

mental representation (e.g., an image, a symbol, a warning, etc.).

Quantum code. A modifier, transformer, condenser of complex information chunks.

Quantum leap (or jump). (a) A sudden change, increase, or advance, (b) an abrupt

transition (as of an electron, an atom, or a molecule) from one discrete energy

state to another. The ‘new physics’ – quantum physics – indicates that all particles

composing the physical universe must move in this fashion or cease to exist.

Quantum linguistics. (a) A study of the nature and dynamics of verbal and non-verbal

thought patterns, based on a relativist, quantum-mechanical approach in

consideration of consciousness, cognition, language, and communication, (b)

20

exploration of a multi-dimensional inner (mental) activity, which results from

environmental adaptation (perceiving and processing of external signals) and

involves the operations with information (analyzing, synthesizing, sorting,

associating, and storing on or retrieving from a “virtual drive” of the human

mind).

Quantum mechanics (also: wave mechanics). The theory of matter (synthesized from

Plank’s quantum principle and Heisenberg’s uncertainty principle) that is based

on the concept of the possession of wave properties by elementary particles, that

offers a mathematical interpretation of the structure and interactions of matter on

the basis of these properties, and that incorporates within it the quantum theory

and the uncertainty principle.

Quantum system. An optimal orderliness whereas harmonizing coherence keeps together

all modules of a system that allows for quantum leaps/adjustments for the most

effective system performance.

Quasar. The brightest stars, which are bright at many wavelengths, from radio waves

through gamma rays.

Reciprocity. A distance between the elements of a system. It comprises a degree of

freedom important for the system’s successful development and, thus, determines

its functionality

Role-playing. A type of educational simulation in which students act out as decision-

makers or as actors of situational dramatization. In role-playing, the performers

usually have different and conflicting objectives and may act as individuals or

opposing teams.

Simulation. (a) The operation of a dynamic model in order to obtain a sequence of

outcomes that could occur in a real world system. A synthetic history of the

process; simulations of social processes – including education – can be achieved

either by human player games or by computer programs, or by a combination of

the two, (b) modeling of the essential features of a situation and then predicting

the results of proposed actions from a series of imaginary experiments, i.e.,

performed on the representation of the situation, the model, rather than on the

situation itself.

Skill. (a) A developed aptitude or ability; an acquired mastery of use of knowledge,

(b) a specific technique or an action step.

Suggestopedia. A science of educational art originally generated by Georgi Lozanov,

M.D., a Bulgarian psychotherapist-turned-educator. Nowadays, it is being broadly

applied to corporate training and foreign language instruction. It lays emphasis on

activation of intuitive-cognitive processes as foundation for learning, humanistic-

21

psychotherapeutic pedagogical influence as educational philosophy, and

utilization of the arts and meandering didactics as instrumental instructional

technique. Suggestopedia is now renamed (by its author) into Desuggestopedia to

reflect the importance placed on de-suggesting limitations on learning.

Synergy. In accordance with the first law of thermodynamics, the energy in the whole

cannot exceed the sum of energies invested in each of its parts. Nevertheless,

based on a conviction that the whole is more than the sum of its parts, “synergy”

refers to some quantity of energy with respect to which the whole differs from the

mere energy aggregate. This hypothesis serves as groundwork for acclaiming the

benefits of collaborative as opposed to individual efforts. In practice, synergy is

mostly a negative quantity because all complex organisms consume energy

merely for maintaining its own structure.

Uncertainty principle. The Heisenberg’s principle affiliated to dynamics of corpuscular

structures and based on the assertion that no one can be exactly sure of both the

position and the velocity of a particle: the more accurately the first one is known,

the less identifiable the other can be.

Vector. A quantity that has magnitude and direction and that is commonly represented by

a directed line segment whose length represents the magnitude and whose

orientation in space represents the direction.

Velocity. (a) The rate of motion, in which direction as well as speed is considered, (b) a

vector’s quantity whose magnitude is a body’s speed and whose direction is the

body’s direction of motion, (c) the rate of speed of action or occurrence; (d)

swiftness, rapidity or speed of motion, (e) the rate at which money changes hands

in an economy.

Vibration. Oscillation, a wave pattern featuring frequency of waves.

Assumptions

There is a similarity pattern in the way of how the universal cosmological macro-

world, the corpuscular world, and the living systems function. The use of logic and

conceptual analysis featuring any qualitative research enable an extensive investigation of

different cause-effect issues resting within and outside complex micro- and macro-

systems, i.e., a learning group and an academic system. Building social analogies on

22

extrapolations from theoretical physics and quantum mechanics onto education areas will

promote awareness of the nature and mechanism of academic acceleration and cross-

cultural dynamics. The following assumptions were present in this study:

1. Communicative interaction is, indeed, an exchange of information chunks,

perceivable by the individual’s sensorial system: intentionally (consciously) and

intuitively (non-consciously). That information exchange creates integrated conscious

and para-conscious experiences involving manipulations with information, while the

individual simultaneously interacts—at many levels—with the others and the

environment. If the quantum leap as well as the quantum computer makes part of the

physical reality, it becomes possible to consider communication as an extremely complex

verbal/nonverbal and conscious/non-conscious signal activity that operates as a

continuing exchange of information chunks between fluctuating energy fields. Given that

educational communication relates to general communication as a sub-system does to its

matrix system, educational communication emulates the qualities of general

communication. Thus, educational communication (i.e., foreign language teaching-

learning) can be also treated as versatile, multidimensional signal activity, namely, a

continuing exchange of information chunks between actors (or fluctuating energy fields).

2. Math speaks in equations while operating the left (“logical”) brain; art speaks

in images while using the right (“creative”) brain. That does not make art a less valuable

asset of human ingenuity. In both case scenarios, intuition may be a conduit for solving a

numerical puzzle or designing an architectural chef-d’oeuvre. Simultaneous activation of

the both cerebral hemispheres of the learner is a key psycho-physiological condition for

harmonization of the learning process.

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3. Modern social sciences consider human organization (e.g., family, learning

group, official entity, culture, etc.) as a many-body living system, or an energy system as

well as a fluctuating energy field. A misbalanced energy system becomes a source of a

greater complex disorder in the globally interconnected world. Activation of human and

system potentialities will help restore the system balance. Democratization of academic

environment—whatever it alludes to a learning group, an institution, or a global

system—can release individual and system potentialities through endorsement of social

fairness, professionalism, knowledge sharing, and other collaborative advantages.

Limitations

This researcher is an originator of the curriculum under study, presenting a

limitation in objectivity. In grounded theory research, the researcher acts as an interpreter

of data. To mitigate this limitation, outside opinions of educators will be sought and

incorporated in data analysis. The conclusions from this research study are likely to be

generalizeable, because this study will proceed online as an anonymous survey modeling

real-life situations familiar to many educators and foreign language instructors.

Theoretical/Conceptual Framework

Life transpires in countless forms and at different levels of universal activity to

which a survival mechanism is inherent. Universal activity is a complex, multifaceted,

non-linear, versatile process of physical, biological, social, and noospheric dynamics,

which resides in the heart of existence in space-time. Because the person is a part and a

24

product of the bio-noosphere, human communication including educational

communication, i.e., teaching-learning, is also subject to the interplay of the universal

principles and dynamics. Therefore, human consciousness may also experience quantum

leaps when special environmental and socio- psychological conditions become available.

Although speculations about academic acceleration, intensification, and

optimization make a common stance in scholastic periodicals, so far, no credible concept

of those has been offered. Fused with interdisciplinary explorations, the research

investigates the nature and mechanisms of foreign language express instruction while

accounting for humanization and optimization of academic system. In addition, it

explores cause-effect relationships between the quality of academic culture and global

knowledge management.

This doctoral research addresses the following issues:

(a) Virtual “reality” in the human mind involves cerebral activity (learning,

imaging, associating, reasoning, etc.). It is conditioned by the internal and external

environmental pressure and is due to a quantum legacy of the natural process

(b) Inadequacy of foreign language teacher training to the needs of a current era

of accelerated globalization is a cause of the teacher’s poor methodological expertise,

unreasonably extended foreign language instruction, and a lack of students’ interest for

studying a foreign language, particularly, among busy professionals

(c) Traditional foreign language training fails to address cross-cultural alertness

that should impart identification with the Mentalese of a target culture

(d) Critical foreign language teacher shortage, particularly, a scarcity of trained

suggestogogues, and a lack of didactic materials suitable for application of suggestopedic

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accelerated and intensive approaches hold back the implementation of express methods

(e) Some patterns of academic organizational culture (at large) obstruct its own

effective functionality and discourage knowledge sharing that negatively affects the

development of national capabilities in foreign languages. The following chart outlines

the theoretical framework for this constructivist research tackling a grounded theory

approach, which begins with a research situation and aims at understanding what is going

on within that situation in order to find a solution to the problems (see Figure 1).

Figure 1: The theoretical framework for this research

Dissertation Topic: “Quantum Linguistics and

Didactics of Foreign Language

Intensive Teaching”

Literature Map 1: Universal processes and

principles, quantum map to consciousness, behaviors of

micro- & macro-systems

Literature Map 2: Accelerated globalization, organization management,

exosomatic evolution,

behaviors of living systems

Literature Map 3: Neurophysiology, cognitive

psychology, psycholinguistics,

foreign language methodology

Groundwork 1: Theoretical physics (relativity theory, quantum mechanics),

energy field concepts

Groundwork 2: Bio-noosphere doctrine, living system theories, Gaia concept,

culturology

Groundwork 3: Education and cognition theories, information theory, suggestopedic

applications, CALL

Main concerns: Academic acceleration,

intensification, and optimization

phenomena; barriers to innovations

Main target: A nature-anchored quantum system of foreign language

instruction with cross-cultural alertness

Research Perspectives: QUAL, phenomenological,

interdisciplinary, system-targeted,

constructivist

Research Questions and Hypotheses

(See the section above “Research

Questions”)

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Since the truth about human organization can be seen in a social context, the

given doctoral study will be inbuilt in a past-present causal-comparative perspective. A

cohesive investigation of behavior of complex living systems in a variety of historical

and socio-cultural situations will help identify the principle and structural-functional

mechanisms of human organization, exosomatic evolution (or global noospheric

development), and cognitive processes, i.e., express acquisition of a foreign language. It

will also help identify various aspects of culture and cross-cultural communication as

well as setbacks on the way to implementation of humanistic-affective (suggestopedic)

methods of foreign language teaching in hope that a greater public understanding of the

magnitude and significance of multilingual-multicultural expertise will entail general

democratization of academe (at large) followed by advancement of foreign language

education with multiple positive strings attached.

Organization of the Remainder of the Study

The remaining chapters of the given Proposal will be organized as follows:

Chapter 2 – Literature Review – offers a comprehensive investigation of prior

scientific achievements within a variety of scientific fields. It provides an analytical

background for this research in order to synthesize an innovative method of foreign

language intensive instruction. Based on a system approach, the dissertation examines a

variety of common problems resting within academe (at large) that hold back the

implementation of academic innovations. Chapter 3 – Research Methods – describes the

oncoming research activities to maximize reliability of the research outcomes. Chapter 4

– Data Collection and Analysis – supplies analytical data resulting from the researcher’s

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investigation of factors affecting the development of national capabilities in foreign

languages. Chapter 5 – Results, Conclusions, and Recommendations – describes the

principles, design, and algorithms of a quantum system of culturally sensitive foreign

language instruction (the QLD method). It bridges the theoretical outcomes in quantum

linguistics with didactics of foreign language express instruction. The appendices include

the questionnaire and didactic items authored by the researcher.

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CHAPTER 2. LITERATURE REVIEW

Thus, the task is not so much to see what no one yet has seen, but to think what

nobody yet has thought about that what everybody sees.

― Schopenhauer

People come and go, but creative sources of great historical events and important

ideas and deeds remain encrypted in the global mind, sculpting the virtual structure of

world’s exosomatic evolution. Today scientists describe the universe in terms of the

relativity theory and quantum mechanics, which were the greatest intellectual

achievement of the twentieth century. While the first describes the work of the force of

gravity within the large-scale structures of the universe, the second deals with phenomena

of extremely small scales. A symbiosis of both concepts resulted in the quantum gravity

theory, which actually serves as a methodological foundation for the most significant

theoretical attainments of the contemporary world and helps grasp the quintessence of

natural laws, events, and human existence.

Another most significant accomplishment of human intelligence in the twentieth

century was the biosphere-noosphere doctrine2, which described the humankind as a

complex layer incorporated in a larger mega-system constructing the global biosphere

and its all-inclusive gnoseological product: the noosphere. It also urged humanity to

reconsider the meaning of life on the planet Earth and to reorganize human activity in

harmony with a common survival sense. A dangerously explosive age of accelerated

globalization when high-speed communications reign without borders advocates for this

wise advice.

2 Authored by Vladimir I. Vernadsky, Acad. (1863-1945).

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The contemporary philosophy of science identifies common rules and

particularities of interaction between the elements of the whole/system and among

systems. A comprehensive interdisciplinary research in cybernetics, quantum physics,

neuroscience, emotional psychophysiology, and organization management is now gaining

momentum. It helps understand how the universe operates at both sub-atomic and macro

levels. Multiple affiliated theories of complex systems are mostly preoccupied with

investigation of self-organization phenomena and causative-consequential bonds between

life occurrences and events. They also investigate the interdependence of global and local

processes as well as group dynamics and interrelations among the human body, emotions,

attitudes, and performance—in both industrial and non-industrial life.

Application of the findings and concepts of the quantum gravity and the

biosphere-noosphere doctrine to other scientific fields, which focus on both living and

non-living systems and range from nanotechnology investigating the corpuscular world to

astrophysics preoccupied with the macro-systems of a cosmic significance, dramatically

changes the picture of the world and creates new scientific horizons. Important linkages

appear among those theories, concepts, metaphors, and a socio-cultural (i.e., educational)

domain; because if humankind is a living segment concentrically integrated in the global

and the universal mega-systems with which it shares the physical world, the same

universal laws are exercised within the human civilization. Therefore, the quality of the

noosphere—including all sciences, arts, and human spirituality—triggers environmental

transformations and, consequently, the developmental velocity of global civilization.

Globalization has been a catchword for years, but never has it been so apparent

that it revolves around such issues as national security, international commerce,

30

intercultural communication, and academic exchange. The Internet, international

corporations, and the constant movement of people have blurred the lines between

countries while creating interdependence in everything from economics to entertainment

and involving many other national and international concerns as well. Modern business

management, policymakers, educators, and ordinary people have come to agreement that

multilingual-multicultural awareness is a must for maintaining vitality of the global

infrastructure and of complex organizational systems for strengthening home security,

articulating national policies abroad, or implementing marketing strategies. Beyond a

doubt, the safety and wealth of local communities and of the entire global society is

dependent on productivity of economic, political, and cultural partnership, which, in turn,

pivots on the quality of interpersonal and intercultural communication, i.e., the

effectiveness of coordination of human goals and efforts in creation and distribution of

global physical and intellectual resources.

To make globalization benefit the entire global society requires sensitivity to

multicultural problems. That does not necessarily mean understanding every other

culture. Seeing one new perspective can often go a long way toward opening a whole

world of new perspectives. If someone has experience with any culture different from his

or her own, it makes this individual more sensitive to all other cultures. The sensitivity is

important to employees of international corporations and of domestic multinational

enterprises as well as to anyone who wants to be a responsible citizen adept at making

informed decisions about how to deal with the world. That knowledge is power, because

if someone is ignorant about ethnic specificity, he or she may be easily lured into a trap

of false anticipations.

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Particularly in the last few decades, it became clear that the velocity of

communication (including education communication) determines the effectiveness of

information exchange and assimilation and, thus, has become a key-factor controlling all

noospheric occurrences and, thus, the velocity of global events. Speedy growth of all-

inclusive global knowledge, on the one hand, and a greater than ever acceleration of

technical progress, on the other hand, have made learning acceleration indispensable.

Provided that further prolongation of study period for assimilation of constantly

increasing informational flow cannot resolve numerous educational problems, the

academe is ought to search for ways of intensification of teaching process, primarily,

based on its internal reserves. Huge deficiency in highly qualified teaching personnel,

competent in methodology of foreign language intensive teaching entrenched in cross-

cultural communication contents, unfortunately, magnifies the problem. Thus,

methodological reform of foreign language instruction, responsive to assorted societal

needs, is an urgent imperative and a condition of progressive development of the entire

global community.

Summarizing the stated above, it is important to emphasize that this research is

mainly preoccupied with investigation of academic acceleration, intensification, and

optimization that calls for clarification of the nature and mechanisms of the process itself.

Since there is a gap in understanding of those phenomena by the community of educators,

the researcher will resort to scientific domains, which offer well-developed theories on

the subject of acceleration, energy field, and living system concepts, placed in the heart

of this study. Drawing on the latest achievements of the global scientific thought and

through a new logic of presentation of knowledge, the given doctoral research will

32

explore different aspects of academic system and educational communication. Through a

merger of the latest findings of various sciences, this doctoral research will conceptualize

an optimal system of foreign language instruction. Quantum theories and living system

concepts as well as recognized cognitive-epistemological insights will serve as a pivotal

line of investigation for these studies. The outcomes of this research will transcend the

boundaries of a narrow specialization, because it simply cannot fit a mere one-subject

field. The relative newness of the emerging field of quantum linguistics explains the

extreme scarcity of existing literary resources and the shortage of citations for some

passages. That is why those paragraphs should be treated as the author’s hypothetical

arguments.

Another reason to endorse this doctoral research is that the current era of

accelerated globalization mandates incorporation of cross-cultural awareness and a

humanistic trend into accelerated foreign language training in technology-friendly

academic environment. Suggestopedic methodology of foreign language intensive

instruction is an all-in-one match to various societal and education tasks, because it

brings together many sciences: cognitive, educational, and social psychology,

psychotherapy, psycholinguistics, methodology, pedagogy, didactics, culturology, and

others. Despite of the sound psychological, methodological, and didactic foundations

produced by the previous scholarly practice, no philosophical underpinning has been

created to finalize the wholeness of suggestopedic system. As a component of

humanization of education, dissemination of suggestopedic methodology of foreign

language express teaching will boost the creative forces within academe in order to

replenish a shattered humanistic balance in the modern technocratic world. Interpersonal

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communication skills and cross-cultural sensitivity acquired by the learners together with

foreign language abilities will promote a better understanding among people and nations.

Survival Thrust: Quasars, Black Holes, and Universal Dynamics

The Laws of Thermodynamics That Rule the World

In the middle of the 18th century, Mikhaïl V. Lomonossoff (1711-1765), Russian

physicist, chemist, astronomer, and poet, made an ultimate discovery, which was later

called the 1st law of thermodynamics, or the energy conservation law. The 1

st law of

thermodynamics states that, first, energy occurs not out of nothing but transcends from

one form into another; and, second, a quantity of the matter is equal to the quantity of

energy used by a moving object. That proves an indissoluble correlation of matter,

energy, and motion. Each one of them is fundamental for existence and is a condition for

availability of each one of the others. Without motion or energy, a system (e.g., a living

organism or a non-living object) cannot continue its existence: To survive, the structure

of any system requires maintenance.

The energy conservation law makes energy the most important concept in

physics. It was applied to other scientific domains including sociology, because a human

being is primarily a socio-biological organism and is indeed a subsystem with reference

to another—larger—social structure, which also needs, at least periodically, to refill its

“engine” from a nurturing energy source.

The 2nd

law of thermodynamics, or the entropy law, states that, in all processes,

some amount of energy irreversibly loses its ability to do work and irreversibly degrades

in quality. Every process converts energy into both work and waste. Besides, in any

34

process, entropy never decreases. Entropy, therefore, irreversibly increases in the

universe. The irreversibility pattern makes the entropy law probably the most important

law in understanding the terrestrial processes including all living organisms and social

forms including academic business.

According to the entropy law, social entropy implies the natural decay of human

organization that involves the disappearance of distinctions within a social system and,

thus, leads to deterioration of social dynamics and societal stagnation downgrading

survival chances. In a closed—usually, referred to as “corrupted”—system entropy

always increases, meaning that the elements in a closed system tend to seek their most

prone distribution. Much of the energy consumed by a social system/organization is spent

for maintenance of its structure and operations counteracting social entropy (e.g., through

transparency, edification, legal actions, etc.). The 2nd

law of thermodynamics was sought

in economics, ecology, biology, psychology, and sociology but never with reference to

the academic reality.

The 3rd

law of thermodynamics, or the law of asymptotic deceleration, asserts that

all processes slow down as they operate closer to a thermodynamic equilibrium that

makes it difficult to reach the equilibrium in practice and guarantees the continuity of

ongoing changes. Applied to a societal domain, this law suggests that powerful and fast

changes occur within a system only at levels far removed from a thermodynamic

equilibrium. The currently observable signs of accelerated globalization as well as global

warming and cultural clashes indicate an unstable and insecure state of the modern

civilization.

35

Technological advances and achievements of the scientific thought gave evidence

of co-centric integration of the universal structures that are subject to the power of laws

of thermodynamics – from the sub-atomic particles and human cultures to the most

remote galaxies. The entire universe is a manifestation of energy materialized in result of

biochemical and electromagnetic processes that occur on the global surface and beyond.

The arrangement of the universal mega-system comprises myriads of self-centered

subsystems, organized in interrelated and interdependent fluctuating (wave-like) energy

fields. They manage to survive in perpetual struggle for life while consuming the energy

of others – less competitive systems and subsystems – as a stipulation for restoration of

their own energy balance.

As long as the humankind constructs a segment of the tremendously complex,

multidimensional universal cosmo-noo-bio-ecosystem, the universal laws, having power

over all processes and living and non-living systems including global socio-biological

organisms, will always affect the development of events. Like a never-ending nuclear

reaction inside the pipeline of space-time, human race undergoes transformations while

carrying out the main mission message: Survive!

Universal Dynamics in Gulliver’s Worlds

In order to arrive at the idea of an objective world an additional constructive

concept still is necessary: the event is located not only in time, but also in space.

― Albert Einstein

At the beginning of the 19th century, Pierre Simon de Laplace (1749-1827), a

French aristocrat, scientist, and philosopher, the darling “Marquis” of Paris, argued that

the universe was completely deterministic. Providing a few interesting facts about the

personality and discoveries of Marquis de Laplace’s, Stephen Hawking stated in his

36

world-famous A Brief History of Time:

Laplace suggested that there should be a set of scientific laws that would allow us

to predict everything that would happen in the universe, if only we knew the

complete state of the universe at one time…. Determinism seems fairly obvious in

this case, but Laplace went further to assume that there were similar laws

governing everything else, including human behavior. (Hawking, 1990, p. 53)

In 1900, German scientist Max Planck (1858-1947) suggested that light, X-rays,

and other waves could not be emitted at an arbitrary rate, but only in certain packets that

he called quanta. Moreover, each quantum had a certain amount of energy that was

greater the higher the frequency of the waves, so at a high enough frequency the emission

of a single quantum would require more energy than was available. The quantum

hypothesis explained the observed rate of emission of radiation very well, but its

implications for determinism were not realized until 1926, when another German

scientist, Werner Heisenberg, formulated his uncertainty principle that profoundly

affected the way in which the world has been seen. The uncertainty principle shook

Laplace’s model of the universe that would be completely deterministic. “In this [theory]

particles [no] longer had separate, well-defined positions [and] velocities that could not

[be] observed. Instead, they had [a] quantum state, which [was] a combination [of]

position and velocity” (Hawking, 1990, p. 55). The newly formulated principle

introduced an element of unpredictability (or randomness, chance) ruling the universal

order. The idea was strongly objected by Albert Einstein3 (1879-1955) who summed his

feelings in his famous statement “God does not play dice.” Nevertheless, the uncertainty

3 In 1921, Albert Einstein was awarded the Nobel Prize for his contribution to quantum mechanics.

37

principle was proven as one of the fundamental features of the universe. “It governs the

behavior [of] transistors and integrated circuits, which [are] the essential components of

[electronic] devices such as televisions and computers, and is [also] the basis of modern

chemistry [and] biology” (Hawking, 1990, p. 56).

In 1917, the renowned German physicist Albert Einstein and others applied

Einstein’s general relativity theory4 to the structure and evolution of the universe as a

whole. In simplest terms, the relativity theory is an approach to measurement and study

of space and time. Considering the relativity of issues of all life occurrences, the theory

infers that findings are based upon the relation of the frame of reference to the object

measured.

The first part, the general theory of relativity, predominantly focuses on gravity,

which is no longer considered as a force as Newton postulated but as a curved field in the

space-time continuum, created by the presence of mass. The second part, the special

theory of relativity, is primarily concerned with electromagnetic phenomena. In his

general theory of relativity, Einstein asserts:

A ray of light will experience a curvature of its path when passing through a

gravitational field, this curvature being similar to that experienced by the path of a

body, which is projected through a gravitational field. As a result of this theory,

we should expect that a ray of light, which is passing close [to] a heavenly body,

would be deviated towards the latter. (Einstein, 1961, p. 145)

Einstein was the first to have visualized the universe as a geometrical

phenomenon, as a banding of time and space. A curious reader can find an additional

4 Formulated by Albert Einstein in 1915.

38

corroboration of the space-time concept in Einstein’s seminal theoretical creation, where

he stated the following:

I wished to show that space-time is not necessarily something to which one can

ascribe a separate existence, independently of the actual objects of physical

reality. Physical objects are not in space, but these objects are spatially extended.

In this way, the concept ‘empty space’ loses its meaning. (Einstein, 1961, p. vii)

However, even Einstein was so sure that the universe had to be static that he

modified his theory to make this possible, introducing a cosmological constant (i.e.,

antigravity force) into his equations. Although Einstein’s new postulation seemed

trustworthy to many, one scientist had doubts in it. His name was Alexander Friedmann.

Only one man was willing to take General Relativity at face value, and while

Einstein and other physicists were looking to avoid General Relativity’s

prediction of a non-static universe, the Russian mathematician and astrophysicist

Alexander Friedmann instead set about explaining it. (Hawking, 1990, p. 40)

In 1922, Friedmann formulated the leading cosmological theory, called the big

bang theory. Two American physicists Arno Penzias and Robert Wilson confirmed in

1965 the remarkable accuracy of the big bang theory. Friedmann commenced with

Einstein’s equations of the general relativity theory and found a solution to those

equations in which the universe began in a state of extremely high density and

temperature (the big bang) and then expanded in time, thinning out and cooling as it did

so. One of the most stunning successes of the big bang theory is the prediction that the

universe is approximately thirteen and a half billion years old, a result obtained from the

rate at which distant galaxies are flying away from each other. In agreement with the big

39

bang theory, the universe may continue to expand forever, if its inward gravity is not

sufficiently strong to counterbalance the outward motion of galaxies, or it may reach a

maximum point of expansion and then start collapsing, growing denser and denser,

gradually disrupting galaxies, stars, planets, people, and eventually even individual

particles. As it follows from Friedmann’s model, the universe is not infinite in space, but

neither does space have any boundary. In this regard, Stephen Hawking stated:

Gravity is so strong that space is bent round onto itself, making it rather like the

surface of the earth; one never comes up against an impassable barrier or falls

over the edge, but eventually comes back to where one started….The fourth

dimension, time, is also finite in extent, but it is like a line with two ends or

boundaries, a beginning and an end. When one combines general relativity with

the uncertainty principle of quantum mechanics, it is possible for both space and

time to be finite without any edge or boundaries.…This can produce some

remarkable consequences, such as black holes not being black and the universe …

being completely self-contained and without a boundary. (Hawking, 1990, pp. 44,

156-157)

At this point, the researcher would respectfully argue with the dialectic materialist

doctrine, which postulates that both space and time are infinite, objective, and

independent from each other. The relativistic approach, central for this study, advocates

for the duality principle as a key to understanding the inner logic of universal dynamics.

Celestial Mysteries Unveiled

More than 200 years ago, precisely in 1783, John Michell (1724-1793) wrote a

scientific paper in which he maintained:

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A star that was sufficiently massive and compact would have such a strong

gravitational field that light could not escape: any light emitted from the surface

of the star would be dragged back to the star’s gravitational attraction before it

could get very far. Michell suggested that there might be a large number of stars

like this. Although we would not be able to see them because the light from them

would not reach us, we would still feel their gravitational attraction. Such objects

are what we now call black holes, because that is [what] they are: black voids in

space. (Hawking, 1990, p. 82)

Despite the fact that the existence of black holes was first hypothesized more than

two centuries ago, until now, they remain the most mysterious phenomenon of the

universe. Contemporary astronomic observations reveal amazing relationships between

the cosmic bodies. A brief look at the starry sky provides evidence that galaxies are

distributed in a non-uniform way. Studies of this non-uniformity help understand not only

structural evolution of the universe but also the dynamics of non-linear systems. By using

sophisticated techniques, astronomers have discovered mysterious and, until now, elusive

cosmic essence that far outweighs the visible matter lighting up the night sky. It is an

invisible stuff, which can be revealed only by its powerful gravity bending the light from

distant galaxies. Scientists initially presumed the existence of a shadowy structure due to

the mere fact that individual galaxies do not fly apart but form gravitationally bound

conglomerations of galaxies, which astronomers continue to find throughout the universe.

Decades ago, it was noticed that pinwheel-shaped galaxies like our own spin so

fast that they would fly apart unless they contained extra mass, which provides the extra

gravity needed to hold the whirling stars in their orbits. Astronomers believe that the

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stars, galaxies, and glowing gas seen in telescopes are like scattered lights outlining dark

matter that makes up most of the mass in the universe and consists predominantly of

particles unlike even the most exotic ones that physicists have created in their

accelerators. Dark matter particles form an invisible fog that fills our galaxy and filters

constantly through the Earth itself; it is a vast cosmic web with galaxies and clusters of

galaxies at its intersections.

Modern astrophysical equipment allows measuring the amount of dark matter in

the cluster. Astrophysicists established that there is about 10 times more dark matter than

“normal” matter in the universe. The unseen matter, dense around galaxies but also filling

the space between them, seems needed to keep the clusters from flying away from each

other. The additional mass also explains why the clusters have gravitational fields so

powerful that they can bend light from the more distant objects. The latest calculations

suggest this invisible matter forms dark clouds around most galaxies, outweighing the

visible stars and gas by as much as 100 to 1.

Besides, in the last three years, scientists came to accept a second dark ingredient:

some kind of dark energy that acts as a cosmic leavening, causing the universe – dark

matter and all – to expand at an ever-increasing rate. Although uneasy celestial endeavor

gives hope in solving the dark matter mystery, the enigma of dark energy persists.

The highly active, brightest galaxies are called quasars. These distant objects are

widely supposed by astronomers to be galaxies, anchored by super-massive black holes

that each contains the mass of millions or even billions of stars. As a black hole

consumes huge quantities of gas, its substance becomes overheated while it spirals

inward and approaches the speed of light. The process generates tremendous amounts of

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X-rays, light and other radiation that makes a quasar stand out in a crowd, since they can

appear thousands of times brighter than galaxies that do not contain active black holes.

A black hole is a region of space whose attractive gravitational force is so intense

that no matter, light, or communication of any kind can escape. It is believed that black

holes arise from the collapse of stars. The idea of the possibility that stars could collapse

to form black holes was theoretically launched approximately in 1928-29 by

Subramanian Chandrasekhar (1910-1995), a native of India and Oxford’s graduate

student, who calculated that a cold star of more than about one and a half times the mass

of the sun would not be able to support itself against its own gravity. (Russian scientist

Lev Landau5 concurrently made a similar discovery.) As long as stars emit heat and light

into space, they are able to support themselves against their own inward gravity with the

outward pressure generated by heat from nuclear reactions in their deep interiors. Every

star, however, must eventually exhaust its nuclear fuel. When it does so, its unbalanced

self-gravitational attraction causes it to collapse. The star collapses to form a black hole.

However, the problem of understanding what would happen to such a star was

first solved in 1939 by Robert Oppenheimer (1904-1967), a young American scientist, in

result of his manipulations with the equations of Einstein’s general relativity theory.

Oppenheimer’s research led him to the following conclusion: as long as stars are emitting

heat and light into space, they are able to support themselves against their own inward

gravity with the outward pressure generated by heat from nuclear reactions in their deep

interiors. Every star, however, must eventually exhaust its nuclear fuel. When it does so,

5 At that time, Lev Landau (1908-1968) was a young scientist; later: a leading mathematician,

astrophysicist, and Academician of the Russian Academy of Sciences.

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its unbalanced self-gravitational attraction causes it to collapse. The star collapses to form

a black hole. The first black hole was discovered in the physical world in 1970.

Ironically, Einstein himself did not believe in the existence of black holes, even though

they were predicted by his theory.

The previously mentioned Michell’s assumption of inescapable attraction of an

undetected black hole seams to deserve a scientific concern, since recent observations

provided evidence of an abnormal change of the Earth’s shape. The planet has become

more stretched out along its north-south axis that may be a warning of fatal gravity of an

undetected black hole, which pulls our planet into its deadly event horizon. This

assertion, unfortunately, does not foretell long life to our civilization. On the contrary,

another astrophysical surveillance of our Galaxy has recently detected a ray of light that

is apparently trying to escape from the zone of attraction of a black hole. It means an

escape is possible if an effort is given a try.

Although Sir Isaac Newton formulated the gravity law, he had no idea how

gravity actually worked. Three generations later, Michael Faraday (1791-1867), a gifted

self-taught British pharmacist, and James Clark Maxwell (1831-1879), a distinguished

Scottish scientist, discovered and explained the connection between electricity and

magnetism in a unified theory of electromagnetism. This unification took science one

step closer to cracking the code of the universe.

In the beginning of 20th century, Albert Einstein, at that time an unknown

German-born 26-year-old clerk at a Swiss patent bureau, challenged Newton’s concept of

gravity while pondering about the behavior of light that helped him solve the mystery of

gravity. According to Einstein, velocity of light acts for a cosmic speed limit, namely, the

44

speed that nothing can exceed. This idea squared him with the father of gravity Sir Isaac

Newton. Einstein came to think of three-dimensional space and a single dimension of

time as bound together in a single fabric of space and time: four-dimensional space-time

that is warped and stretched by heavy objects like stars and planets. And this curving of

space-time creates gravity. In the same way the hydraulic effect, gravitational disturbance

would cause a wave traveling across the space-time fabric that would set off a huge

cosmic catastrophe. Einstein calculated that these ripples of gravity travel at exactly the

speed of light. He called this new picture of gravity the general relativity. Thus, Newton

unified the heavens and the earth in the theory of gravity; Maxwell had unified electricity

and magnetism; Einstein gave the world a new picture of what the force of gravity

actually is and he embarked on a new quest for a single theory that would encompass all

the laws of the universe by merging the theory of gravity and electromagnetism.

Meanwhile, led by Danish physicist Niels Bohr (1885-1962), a group of

researchers uncovered an entirely new realm of reality. They found out that the atom,

long-thought to be the smallest constituent of nature, consisted of even smaller particles:

the nucleus of proton and neutrons orbited by electrons. The new theory called quantum

mechanics was able to describe the microscopic realm with a great success. Bohr and his

colleagues proclaimed that, at the sub-atomic level, uncertainty rules. That means, at the

scale of particles, the world is a game of chance. (For example, there is a chance that

particles can pass right through walls and barriers, which seem to be impenetrable to an

observer.) According to quantum mechanics, the best one can do is to predict the chance

(or probability) of one outcome or another. At this point, the theories authored by

Einstein and Maxwell seemed to be useless, because they could not explain the strange

45

way the tiny bits of matter interact with each other inside the atom. The bizarre idea,

however, opened the door to a new, shocking interpretation of reality and changed the

picture of the universe, which, as maintained by Einstein, was orderly and predictable.

Actually, Einstein was not completely satisfied with his scientific achievements.

He was thinking about an ultimate, single theory, so powerful that it would describe the

entire mechanism of the universe. Unfortunately, he died in 1955 on the verge of creation

of the most important theory in the history of science—the theory of everything (TOE).

Bio-Electromagnetic Vibration

I want to know God’s thoughts… The rest are details.

― Albert Einstein

Until recently, the sub-atomic particles were believed the smallest “building

blocks” of matter to create an atomic pattern, which, in turn, constructed a specific

molecular structure. A solid break-through in quantum physics, nanotechnology, and

many other sciences brought about an ultimate request for a unifying theory that would

be able to give explanation to accumulated results of the human eternal search for truth

and logic. Almost 50 years later, Einstein’s goal of unification, the Holy Grail of modern

physics, was achieved: the theory of everything (TOE) merging all universal laws in an

all-encompassing concept was generated and applied to a variety of scientific domains.

After two decades of brainstorming research and self-inflicted sacrifices,

scientists succeeded in uniting all four acting forces—gravity, electromagnetism, strong

nuclear force, and weak nuclear force—in an all-encompassing concept, a radical set of

ideas, called the string theory (ST), which brought to an end the reign of classical

physics. The string theory showed a way of describing every force and all matter in such

46

a manner, which suggested that the universe might be much stranger that anyone could

imagine.

The basic concept of ST is surprisingly simple: every event in the universe – from

the splitting of an atom to the birth of a star – is nothing more than four forces (gravity,

electromagnetism, strong nuclear force, and weak nuclear force) interacting with matter,

which is made of indefinitely tiny bits of energy—vibrant strands, called strings.

Vibrating in myriads of different ways strings create the magnificent symphony at the

heart of entire reality. “Thus, in [the] crucible of intense heat, chemicals [emerge] and

form the substance [of] matter, making up the animate and inanimate stuff of [which] we

are made and which we recognize [as] reality” (Dunn, 1966, p. 54).

Following Brian Greene, Ph.D., one of the major contributors to the string theory,

each basic element of the known atomic chart consists of energy at different rates of

vibration because of the mere change in components such as protons and electrons.

Absolutely everything in the universe—all particles that make up matter and forces—is

an assemblage of tiny, vibrating fundamental strings. The universe is permeated by these

invisible forces that radiate information about every occurrence/event and “breathe” life

into the micro- and macro-worlds: the cells of all living systems (e.g., viruses, plants,

animals, humans, etc.) and non-living systems (minerals, planets, galaxies, etc.). The only

difference between one string and another -- whether it is a heavy particle, which is part

of an atom, or a massless particle, which carries light -- is its resonant pattern, that is,

how it vibrates: frequency. Due to the endless variability of frequency patterns, none of

these strings is identical to another. Thus, any object is identifiable by a resonant pattern

associated with characteristics of fundamental strings. For example, the body of a violin

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has resonant frequencies, which work to amplify the sounds created by vibrating strings.

There is resonance in objects that are not musical, too. Any simple physical object has

resonant frequencies, and so does the Earth or another celestial body, and so do all living

systems merging into fluctuating energy fields. The work of hidden, self-organizing

mechanisms inside the living systems has found an explanation in the field theory.

According to the field theory, the arrangement of the universal mega-system

comprises countless self-centered systems and sub-systems each of which features an in-

built resonant pattern determining their distinctive functional character. Subatomic

particles and waves create the smallest energy systems that shape the atomic designs,

which, in turn, make possible the molecular structures. They transcend into the life reality

while operating at different levels of the universal mega-structure. “Thus, in [the]

crucible of intense heat, chemicals [emerge] and form the substance of matter, making up

the animate [and] inanimate stuff of which we are made and [which] we recognize as

reality” (Dunn, 1966, p. 54).

Once created, the energy systems come to interlock with one another. Like all

other systems, they are dynamically engaged in an eternal survival contest involving

selectivity, self-regulation, maintenance of chemical and energy equilibrium, etc.,

upholding self-organizing chaos. They become interdependent with other competitive

elements, unevenly spread out over their neighborhood and through the “pipeline” of

space-time. Some of them manage to survive in perpetual struggle for continuity while

consuming the energy of others, less competitive systems, as a condition for restoration

of their own energy balance and for accumulation of (potential) energy for the future

needs.

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As a tiny segment of the cosmo-eco-bio-system, humankind is contingent upon

the identical logic of the universal order. There are arguments much in favor of

extrapolation of the energy field concept onto human organization and behavior, as

Margaret Wheatley maintains,

Many scientists now work with the concept of fields—invisible forces that

structure space or behavior. I have come to understanding organizational vision as

a field—a force of unseen connections that influences employees’ behavior—

rather than as an evocative message about some desired future state. (Wheatley,

1999, p. 13)

Since humankind is an integral part of the physical world, the natural laws ruling

the small- and the big-scale matter and processes can be extrapolated to the rest of the

world including human activities, cognition, organizational dynamics, etc. This is the

primary key point located at heart of this doctoral study.

Another key point to consider can be found in Albert Einstein’s Relativity.

Explaining the nature and mechanism of acceleration, he wrote the following:

According to Newton’s law of motion, we have

(Force) = (inertial mass) × (acceleration),

where the “inertial mass” is a characteristic constant of the accelerated body. If

now gravitation is the cause of acceleration, we then have

(Force) = (gravitational mass) × (intensity of gravitational field),

where the “gravitational mass” is likewise a characteristic constant for the body.

From these two relations follows:

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(Einstein, 1961, p. 73)

No one except Einstein realized that gravity was the cause of acceleration and

acceleration was equal to the intensity of the gravitational field. This inference is critical

for the given doctoral research, because it show a way to academic acceleration.

It is no less important to notice that acceleration agrees with the intensity of the

gravitational field, because it is the second pivotal standpoint concerning academic

acceleration targeted by this study. Moreover, Einstein’s most cited formula E = m × c2

(energy = mass × acceleration squared) justifies the relationship between acceleration,

energy, and mass/force as follows: c =m

E.

The formulae above will help explain (later in this paper) how coherence or

entanglement among the acting elements of complex living systems (including those

involved in academic activities) affect human wealth, group dynamics and, thus, learning

outcomes. Once again, theoretical physics provides a framework for another branch of

knowledge to help conceptualize the principles of foreign language methodology and

didactics underlying cognitive dynamics.

The Milky Way of Human and System Potentialities

Cognosce te ipsum6.

― Latin proverb

An educational concept, based on utilization of human potentialities, still

represents an unorthodox specimen if not a kind of wishful thinking, because the nature,

6 “Cognize your Self”

(intensity of the gravitational field). (inertial mass)

(gravitational mass) (acceleration)

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scope, and dynamics of psychological potentials are not yet fully understood. However,

the concrete findings from research on human potentialities have implications not only

for psychology and education, but also for arts and sciences, business and industry,

international affairs and diplomacy.

An awakening to the significance of the human potential is not restricted to one

country. Since the early 1960s, many psychological and pedagogical explorations have

been conducted and resulted in significant discoveries in Bulgaria, the Soviet Union, the

United States, and other countries all around the world. An interdisciplinary, imaginative,

holistic approach to investigation of the individual’s capacities has been undertaken

worldwide in order to design methods of inquiry, to classify, and to develop means and

ways of activation of global bio-socio-psychological reserves of the human civilization.

In view of current scientific advances, an increasing number of psychologists and

educators realize that to discover the secret of human health and optimum functioning,

they must turn to the study of a healthy person and of how to unfold the latent human

power. For the reason that man is the instrument of his own evolution, awareness of

individual capacities assists the individual and the entire global society in withstanding

challenges and in taking advantage of opportunities and, thus, in creating a broadly

artistic pattern of the meaningful personal life. Besides, knowledge of human

potentialities is an indispensable and powerful educational feature, which helps

dramatically enhance both teaching and learning processes.

The subject of the human latent power is a diffuse and ambiguous one. In general,

the development of potentialities means that a person can have optimal, comfortable

freedom for self-actualization, including opportunities to choose his or her functional

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arena, to participate in decision-making as well as to carry out his or her plans of action,

to derive maximum intellectual and spiritual satisfaction and to benefit economically

from those experiences. The following definition of sociologist Peter Hall seems

comprehensive:

Human potential is generally defined as being some total within the individual,

some things, which the individual is capable of achieving if the conditions are not

constraining. Thus, person’s internal capabilities should equal his recognized

abilities which should equal his ‘outputs’ or productivity. Everything that a person

possesses should be expressed and used to achieve desirable goals. (Hall, 1966, p.

156)

However, the other researchers, who had approached the intrinsic field of

psychological reserves, offered a variety of interpretations of the nature of human

potentialities. They also showed different ways of unfolding the societal latent power.

An original panorama of human and system potentials applies to five main

concepts: (1) The evolutionary standpoint, which puts emphasis on biological

adaptability and activation of reserves as a condition of physical survival of the species,

(2) the cross-cultural-historical perspective stresses modifications in which biological

variation, selection, and adaptation occur, (3) the complex system metaphor describes

social factors affecting human potentialities in relation to the functionality of social—

mainly, business—organization, (4) the energy system concept, which takes a glimpse

into the logic of inner “self” in terms of energy characteristics as the derivative

definitions of mental health and societal high-level wellness, and (5) the motivation and

development theoretical model refers in bio-social terms to ways in which potentials are

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fulfilled or discouraged by assorted restraints imparted in various patterns of socio-

cultural and physical environment.

The evolutionary concept. The evolutionary viewpoint emphasizes the principle of

natural selection, which states: those species survive, which are the fittest to stay alive in

a particular ecological niche. The environment itself selects the species that arise

accidentally because of genetic mutations. There are corners in the world where

comfortable temperatures, acid-base balances, foods, absence of predators, opportunities

for multiplication, etc. create favorable conditions for survival of those species. Of

course, guiding and controlling macro-evolutionary factors may also be present in the

environment, but what is essential is the environment sets relative or absolute limits.

Whether life drifted here from somewhere else or arose solely because of

terrestrial conditions, it must at least meet such conditions; and it is this ecological

note with which we must necessary begin. No theory of human potentialities is of

much use unless it recognizes the physics and chemistry of a rather narrow and

coercive system of regulating conditions within which all effective creativity must

work, and, at the same time, unless it recognizes the reality of the plant and

animal worlds upon which we depend, with which we sometimes compete and in

reference to which we constantly remake the terrestrial world in which we

ourselves exist. (Murphy & Murphy, 1966, p. 7)

The biological evolutionary principle justifies the code of continuity of the

“adaptive radiation” in all forms (including human mutations) and determines the

assortment of activities that the human being may perform in a given milieu. This factor

regulates, i.e., encourages or holds back, activation of potentialities. It also controls the

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rate of development of the human brain and the capacity of the endocrine system to adapt

to the enormous pressure of an unstable environment and, thus, it affects the development

and behavior of a species.

The continuously changing, innovating character of global bio-chemical processes

generates forms sufficiently unstable to permit variations from among which a few are

chosen to continue their existence. In evolution, genetic mutations may sometimes

strengthen or weaken a certain quality of a species and, thus, reinforce selective

advantage or disadvantage in a struggle for survival. The following example is an

illustration of generosity and greed of Mother Nature, which may give a priceless in-born

favor to some individuals while denying it to the others.

During the Middle Ages, the Bubonic plague created a huge swathe of deaths

across the world—town after town— bringing havoc on the aristocrats as well as on the

common people. The fatal disease swept away about 60% to 75% of the entire European

population. Surprisingly, some families survived despite the deadly infection. This fact

caught the attention of Dr. Stephen O’Brien, American professor-geneticist at Ohio

University, and a descendent of one of those survivors. A meticulous investigation led

Dr. O’Brien to a conclusion that an additional tiny component, the Delta-32 gene,

somehow incorporated in the genetic code of all survivors, built up their amazing

resistance to not only the plague but also to the HIV. In addition, the chance to survive

was twice as much (coming up to one hundred percent) if the individual acquired this

hereditary mutation from both of his or her parents. The fortunate carriers of the Delta-32

gene, survivors of the plague pandemics, transferred to many generations of their

offspring the health potency beyond belief (Arledge, Cort, & Arledge, 2001). Thus, to be

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able to develop in a pursuit of self-adjustment to continuing change, the whole (i.e., the

system whatever it is) must be sufficiently unstable to permit variations of its elements.

The cross-cultural-historical concept. According to the concept, man’s readiness

to comply with the change is ingenious in terms of his adaptability to different ethno-geo-

political settings that condition the individual and the societal life. Obviously, the human

potential power does not consist solely of physical vigor but is a state of interconnected

body, mind, and spirit that determines a dynamic type of self-integration.

Throughout the ages, people of diverse cultures became aware of the importance

of maintaining balance among the body-mind-soul, social life, and environment. Many

world religions and magic beliefs consider life as permanent struggle between good and

evil. They employ various methods to rise to a high state of spiritual awareness and to

attempt to communicate with supernatural forces through prayer, drugs, sacrifice, fasting,

and other kinds of “mortification of the flesh.” Occasionally, specific “magical”

procedures are applied to predict or influence a cause of events, to beg for a cure, or to

ask for a blessing. Believers from different cultures surmise that, through a ritual

ceremony, supernatural powers transcend into the reality, social bounds strengthen, and

harmony restores.

Sometimes, a new religion develops when society is confronted with a crisis;

sometimes, a crisis results in a major modification of the preexisting religion. Such was

the case with many indigenous populations in South America whose traditional belief

systems were profoundly influenced by the Spanish conquest. The aborigines responded

by taking what they could observe from the Spanish missionaries: new symbols, rituals,

and customs, but their fundamental attitude toward life was unchanged. The effect of

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plasticity of the adaptation mechanism, a survival device of the living system7, cannot

therefore completely override the “memory” of a system (i.e., the conservative share

ingrained in the nature of any bio-socio-cultural system), although it brings in a more or

less harmonizing response to the burdens of environmental ambiance: the system simply

does not change overnight. “There is [a] general conservatism [of] human nature,”

psychologists Gardner Murphy and Lois Barclay Murphy assert (Murphy & Murphy,

1966, p. 8). It is to agree with the statement “the historical and [the] contemporary cross-

cultural data show relatively [limited] variations in human [nature] compared with what

can be expected as [scientific] technical changes in the [physical] environment” (Murphy

& Murphy, 1966, p.10). That is why the cross-cultural-historical approach takes into

consideration modifications of articles of faith resulting from cross-cultural interaction

and creating anew-cultural fabric of the nation. This premise serves as a point of

departure for research in the social sciences; e.g., cultural anthropology and psychology,

to name but a few.

Another thing that seems important is the comprehension of the psychological

structure of human competitiveness. Amazingly, some cultures (Eskimos, for example)

exhibit the aggressive impulse “only in [a] rudimentary manner” and “show very little

competitiveness [for] material gain or for prestige or power, while [others] are

continuously [and] frantically concerned with these goals” (Murphy & Murphy, 1966, p.

9). The socio-cultural and physical environments obviously produce an effect on

“independent self-assertion against [the] competitive demands of others” (Murphy &

7 Based on the principle of universality of the natural laws, any segment of the biosphere (e.g., socio-

biological entity) can be considered as a living sub-system or a system organization.

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Murphy, 1966, p. 11). Thus, environment can either activate the individual’s potentials or

generate “the conditions under [which] it tenses and strains the creative and imaginative

spirit of [the] competitor and takes joy out of the group task” (Murphy & Murphy, 1966,

p. 11). Human societies worshiping the personal power and prestige soon find themselves

entrapped in a dictatorial regime, usually tied in with a personality cult in terms of

narcissistic selfishness of those at power and spiritual—and sometimes, physical as

well—enslavement of the majority of a society (or an industrial entity, or a family, etc.).

But in “afraid” societies, the human body-mind-spirit cannot blossom, because the

freedom to gain control over one’s own life and to make decisions to fulfill personal

aspirations is as critical for the development of human potentialities as food and sleep for

the body.

There are factors defining the relationship among environment, opportunity, and

human capability. A ratio of these factors determines the design and quality of human

life. It is important to note that the continuing development of potentialities applies

primarily to healthy people who live in an environment that gives them an adequate

chance for self-actualization. Those individuals whose environment robs them of

adequate opportunities to grow are much more limited in what they can do and be. Social

stratification8 and lifelong economic deprivation of ones alongside unjustifiable wealth of

others as well as a lack of effective social care for the impaired persons, ethnic or racial

discrimination and other hidden or open forms of social locus of control establish

insurmountable obstacles on the way of disclosure of human potentialities. In

collaboration with Dr. M. Marschak, Charlotte Buhler stated, “Through unfortunate

8 Inequality in birth, i.e., existence of casts, classes, and other innate social divides

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[environmental] influences, an individual’s personality may be [warped] to such a degree

that the [development] of potentialities [is] minimized, sometimes [from] the start”

(Buhler, 1966, p. 25). Family, cultural, and business settings of a person are very valuable

in fostering, neglecting, or even suppressing his or her initiatives and capacities. The cost

of social biases is fantastic in addition to the psychological damage they do to

individuals. Sometimes, a change of social and physical environmental settings may

launch new opportunities for more productive efforts at self-fulfillment and progressive

self-realization while adjusting to new circumstances.

Whatever the case scenario is, physical and social drives operate as a motivational

foundation for people’s way of thinking, feeling, and acting – in accordance with what a

cultural context offers or suggests to a person. The inherent chemical-biological as well

as cultural-political and educational factors of the data available in short- or long-term

situational settings either may reduce or increase the intensity of behavioral reactions that

describes a unique blend of socio-psycho-physiological characteristics: the person.

The complex system concept. The bilateral conditioning process (on the one hand,

perceptive-socio-biological adaptation and, on the other hand, the natural “stabilizing”

resistance to the change) clones the abundance of forms of living systems. Their survival

activity suggests a work of “self-organizing chaos” resulting in a relatively stable socio-

biological order—organizational culture—with its unique entirety of reproduction,

growth, group membership, and competitiveness. Survival activity also tightens

interdependence of all strata of the super-intricate global ecosystem.

Organizational culture makes a subject for deliberations and passionate debates in

the social, economic, and political sciences, which analyze the different aspects and types

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of human organization as a living system, more or less successfully coping with the

global change. Western management and corporate training organizations have a proven

record in investigation of factors that promote the organizational effectiveness (leverage),

and they have invested substantial efforts in implementation of innovations brought by

new metaphors and sociological paradigms.

Gareth Morgan, a Distinguished Research Professor at York University in

Toronto, whose Images of Organization remains among best-sellers for several years

makes an interesting and comprehensive interdisciplinary approach to visualization of

human organization. Deliberating (imaginizing) various areas of group dynamics, he

skillfully builds metaphorical images to help grasp the holographic nature of collective

mind. He underscores that understanding the structural-functional “DNA” of

organizational culture and unconscious psychic traps can unfold organizational

potentialities to help “an enterprise [break] free of traditional [structures] and controls”

(Morgan, 1996, p. 353).

There are different types of social relationships featuring various social structures

and patterns of interaction among individuals and social groups that differentially affect

the development of human potentialities. In his Social Factors Limiting the Development

of Human Potentialities, the author Peter Hall wrote, “Society is [a] network of

interacting [individuals] who, by virtue of their [continuing] interaction, sustain, reaffirm,

change, [and] modify society. There is no society apart from [the] individuals who make

it up and [no] individuals without society” (Hall, 1966, p. 156).

While operating between the inner and the external socio-geo-political

“membranes,” a living system (a person, a group, a society, etc.) continuously strives to

59

recover energy lost for maintenance of its vital infrastructure. That is possible only via

communication aiming at coordination of actions among the elements of a system. The

effectiveness of the living system depends, therefore, on the functionality of its

communication mechanism, which operates as a sort of echoing device scanning the

extent to which system potentialities can be actualized. Underscoring the important tie

between the individual and the society as well as the role of socialization within a

community, sociologist Peter Hall maintains:

Through socialization, the individual learns to adjust his behavior to the

expectations of others; and when he does this, social control becomes self-control.

As the individual engages in this process and imaginatively makes use of

symbols, mind comes to represent society, because the symbols are socially

derived. Mind, self, and society are part of the same process and should lead

without any conflict or difficulty to an ultimate level of progress….Society is a

network of interacting social individuals who, by virtue of their continuing

interaction, sustain, reaffirm, change, and modify society….There are, however,

different patterns of interaction, different types of social relationships, different

models of social structures, which differentially influence the development of

human potentialities. (Hall, 1966, pp. 155-156)

With the development of humanistic psychology, many visionaries of the future

of human civilization were concerned with a lack of social integration and excessive

individualism in societal life. Emile Durkheim and George Herbert Mead were not at

odds. They warned their contemporaries that excessive individualism was a cause of

failing social controls. “A state of anomie [or] normlessness prevailed, and [this] failed to

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control the [behavior] of individuals. This anomie had come about [as] an outgrowth of

the [developing] economic division of [labor] and the belief in personality [and] self-

interest” (Hall, 1966, p. 155). They tried to show reaffirming social models in which

human potentialities may thrive. They assumed that a warm, comfortable, homogeneous,

and harmonious environment was the best way to protect the individual and to develop

his/her potential capacity. That is why a friendly, concerned community was presumably

conducive to high-level wellness and, thus, vitally important for transmittal of cultural

values and for affirmative self-actualization of the person.

However, a dream of many humanists and socialist-utopists of arriving at idyllic

scenery by creating a protective “cocoon” for the individual seems as mythical as

controversial. The excessive appreciation for the communal idyll and value-sharing

gradually withholds personal autonomy in decision-making and, sometimes, leads to

reinforcement of the State’s control over people’s life that ends by having established a

Unitarian social order, deficient of human rights and personal liberties. A social

organization, which emphasizes the “commonality” of goals and needs alongside the

neglect for diversity, unavoidably freezes the development of creative individuality,

which becomes “secondary” to the society and submissive to social and, sometimes,

physical constraints. In order to develop, a system needs dynamics and variation to self-

improve, “because [complete] agreement is boring; [complete] comfort is regressive;

complete peace is stagnating [and] complete stability is [ultimately] destructive” (Hall,

1966, p. 157). Then again, habit and routine are the consequences of stability and custom.

It entails another threat of blockage of human potentialities: bureaucratization of society

that affects the way people think, speak, and act. Bureaucratic proceeding of information

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encourages fascination with analyzing, deducing, classifying, and stereotyping that does

not involve broad consideration of relativity of issues and, thus, is limited to

manipulations with isolated facts and narrow data.

Life is a process; the latter stands for “motion.” Stagnation is deadly. An absolute

balance, a perfect agreement between the social polarities would result in a fatal

stagnation. To progress, the person must act, accept challenges, participate in a conflict,

and seek to grow with the rest of his/her associates. Therefore, the relative instability and

imperfectness of a system is a prerequisite for dynamism, continuing flux of the process.

But unbalanced diversity of elements brings about uncertainty and conflict that may

indeed be destructive and regressive, because people need something stable, fundamental,

“landmarks and frames [of] reference to hold onto, to depend upon, to structure

situations, [to] define reality and to give meaning to [their] existence” (Hall, 1966, p.

157). Excessively variegated human substance may bring about a hydraulic syndrome9:

anarchy, social disorders, or even a war that certainly downgrade human potentialities,

except those for self-defense. Thus, pathological reference to either extremity (uniformity

or disproportionate variation) equally leads to the atrophy of human potentialities. Torn

between local and global socio-political controversies, human organization (e.g., any

living system per se) carelessly gets engaged in continuing self-destruction: waging a war

for a change, fighting against the change… and losing the battle in both case scenarios

because of tremendous stresses, human losses, and sufferings. Nevertheless (and maybe

unfortunately for the humans), the life proceeds in this unique dynamic way: the unity

and struggle of opposites.

9 Different pressure in water layers create instability: waves.

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In general, the development of latent capabilities means that a person can have

optimal, comfortable freedom for self-actualization, including opportunities to choose his

or her functional arena, to participate in decision-making as well as to carry out his or her

plans of action, to derive maximum intellectual and spiritual satisfaction and to benefit

economically from those experiences. To progress, an individual – like an organization –

must be challenged, participate in conflict, and seek to grow with the rest of his

associates. Therefore, the relative instability, imperfectness of a system is a prerequisite

for dynamism, continuing flux of the process. An absolute balance, a perfect agreement

between polarities would result in fatal stagnation. Thus, to be able to develop in pursuit

of self-adjustment to continuing change, the whole (the system) must be sufficiently

unstable to permit variations of its elements (the individuals).

There are different types of social relationships featuring various social structures

and patterns of interaction among individuals and social groups that differentially affect

the development of human potentialities. In his Social Factors Limiting the Development

of Human Potentialities, the author Peter Hall wrote, “Society is a network [of]

interacting individuals who, by virtue of their [continuing] interaction, sustain, reaffirm,

change, [and] modify society. There is no society apart from [the] individuals who make

it up and [no] individuals without society” (Hall, 1966, p. 156).

It is encrypted into the life genome that both rejection and acceptance of the

change are equally important for survival and normal functioning of a complex system. A

conservative, self-referring propensity of the system ensures its stability. In the

meantime, the appearance of modifiers10

, i.e., new situational components, triggers the

10 The proportion and intensity of polarization between “pro-change” agents and “against-change” agents.

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system’s search for ways of adjustment to a new situation created by these modifiers and

activates flexible apparatus of latent reserves. It may dramatically change the system’s

behavior. For that reason, a system must be open and flexible—not rigid—to empower the

modifiers bringing the change.

In application to the societal ambit, the degree of predominance of available

modifiers either advocating for the change or precluding from it mirrors the degree of

equilibrium between the system’s wisdom and its natural decay. Wisely balancing

between recognition of controversial interests of social polarities, the system regains

stabilizing control that enhances its vitality. Actually, this postulation has contributed to

elaboration of a non-linear system metaphor, which is particularly popular in the modern

science of business management and which, in turn, has evolved in some way from

scientific discoveries and bold hypotheses, which refer to self-organizing systems, chaos

theory, and quantum physics.

The energy system concept. In the beginning of 20th

century, revolutionary

breakthroughs, such as the biosphere-noosphere science11

, the relativity theory12

, the

quantum mechanics13

, and others, generated by the greatest minds in the history of

science, radically transformed the picture of the world and human perception of the

meaning of reality. The new intellectual achievements tremendously contributed to

elaboration of new sciences, theories, and concepts that were preoccupied with analyzing

the reality in the function of a gigantic organism made of interconnected and

interdependent energy sub-systems. “When [one] combines the General Relativity with

11 By Academician Vladimir Vernadsky, Russian-Ukrainian professor and bio-geo-physicist. 12 By Albert Einstein, German-American physicist. 13 By Albert Einstein and other German physicists Max Plank and Werner Heisenberg

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[the] uncertainty principle of quantum mechanics, it is [possible] for both space and time

[to be] finite without any edge or boundaries…[and] the universe … being completely

self-contained [and] without a boundary” (Hawking, 1990, pp. 44, 156-157). This daring

hypothesis may give the reader an idea about similarity in the development of all

dynamic systems, controlled by and balancing between dual attraction: centrifugal

(outward-bound) and centripetal (inward-bound) gravitational forces that create warped

dynamics.

The energy concept concerns to a conglomeration of issues dealing with a variety

of sciences that accumulate the results of human eternal search for truth and logic. It is

based on the assertion that potential energy of the living system is “held [within] the

design of matter [until] it is let loose by some factor [that] acts as a trigger to release it”

(Dunn, as cited in Otto, 1966, p. 53). According to the concept, the person must be

understood as a whole, or as a system, which exemplifies an indissoluble integration of

body-mind-spirit interacting with the outside world. The cells of the human body are

open systems, made up of enormous numbers of energy containers: molecules. Halbert

Dunn, Ph.D., describes the relationship between energy and information as follows:

From the moment of conception, the growth of the cells of an embryo has need of

vast quantities of energy and information. The energy required for growth is taken

from food and from oxygen of the air….Information needed by the growing body

is of two types: that which comes from the outside world through sensory organs;

and that which is stored, assembled, integrated, used and modified and continually

reintegrated into the ‘perceptive form world’ by which we run our lives. (Dunn,

1966, p. 55-56)

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Continuously interacting energy systems fluctuate; sometimes, relatively stable

and, in other times, explosively violent. Homeostasis of energy systems depends upon

equilibrium within and among them. Since such systems are very dynamic, their balance

should append to the axis of equilibrium between the interlocked energy fields. “This

must [be] a dynamic type [of] equilibrium,” Dr. Halbert Dunn avows (Dunn, 1966, p. 54).

This assertion applies to any form of the matter where life occurs.

Infrequent literary works related to investigation of energy systems put emphasis

on examination of balancing and directional factors, which regulate the system dynamics.

However, the author of this dissertation feels that it would be more appropriate to argue

about velocity of dynamics occurring between the inner and outer “membranes” of an

energy system. It involves the interplay of following controlling factors: the ratio

between acting (gravitational and inertial) forces and velocity of the process. In order to

obtain and maintain desirable stability between widely divergent energy fields, velocity

forces14

determine speed and direction of motion (development) as well as intensity

(frequency and amplitude) of the energy flow. Synchronized, well-coordinated

progression through space-time stabilizes the system and makes it easier to retain a

balanced position. In a certain sense, it is akin to a spinning ice-skater and a surfboard

rider fused in one multi-dimensional image.

Balancing and velocity factors are essential in all energy systems. “Surfing the

ocean waves” would be an appropriate metaphor for describing sophisticated balancing-

vectoring-speeding motion of an experienced wave-rider managing to stay on the surfing

board by shifting his weight in tandem with the spinning power of wave. Harmonizing

14 In application to human society: a ratio and a core content of leadership-followership relations.

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coordination of all aspects of the development (i.e., progressive motion) is imperative for

well-being of the body. The balance-velocity factor is responsible for all chemical,

physiological, and psychological processes that consequently add in to the social events.

Chemical balance is essential for the proper functioning of the cells of the living

organism. Cellular wellness results from chemical equilibrium between the fluids inside

and outside of the cell, the proper distribution and consistency of body fluid, the presence

of hormones in accurate amounts and the maintenance of bioelectrical potentials within

the body. In this regard, Dr. Dunn wrote:

We do not know much about the part that bio-electrical forces play in controlling

the cellular commonwealth as a cooperating mechanism, but this probably is a

major factor in bringing about self-integration or a state of mental health. Such

forces may well be behind the increased effectiveness of the body when it is under

the impetus of strong purpose. (Dunn, 1966, p. 58)

The neuromuscular system orchestrates the functioning of the body as a whole by

providing the principal channels for inner communication and mobility of the parts of the

body. This system also redistributes the resources of the body to meet daily stresses and

strains and, thus, plays a part in the problem-solving activities of body and mind. When

balance is gone astray, tension, stresses, and strains occur. Tension is produced by

divergent energy flow upon or within energy fields. Stress is the wear and tear on energy

systems due to tension. Strain is the distortion in energy systems what is also due to

tension. These energy terms are applicable to both the individual and social system. In

this connection, Dr. Dunn developed a sound argument concerning communication

between the inner and the outer worlds in which the individual lives. He stated:

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The inner world is the cellular commonwealth; the outer, the physical and social

environment. Balance between the two requires communication between them.

The more open the channels of communication, the greater are the prospects for

physical and mental health. Frequently, clogged channels of communication or

hate, prejudice and fixed ideas make it almost impossible for the mind to solve

problems correctly. Furthermore, as the years go by, the intake ports both for

energy and for information begin to close down. The struggle to maintain

adequate interchange between the inner and the outer worlds is never-ending.

(Dunn, 1966, p. 59)

From accrual of individuals, emerges multicultural brotherhood of man

populating the entire global village. “Cultural values become [increasingly] important, as

[the] individual strives to contribute something of himself [to] others and to leave a trace

on earth before [he] passes away” (Dunn, 1966, p.61). As long as the person lives, his

creative expression develops into a major driving force from within the innermost being

of the mature self. That is why a friendly community is vitally important for self-

actualization of a person within cultural values that are conducive to high-level wellness.

Unfortunately, for both the individual and the society, many factors in the modern

industrialized world, particularly in metropolitan culture, are badly out of balance.

Population density creates higher tension with consequent higher incidence of physical

and mental illness and social breakdown: the urban living needs more open space and

ecological equilibrium. The shrinking job market followed by steady unemployment

among the “blue-collar” workers boosts the underworld; the insatiable hunger for money

and power among the VIPs adds to corporate crimes. In order to avoid anarchy and

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lawlessness, to restore social balance and relative harmony, and to activate human

potentialities, the interests of different social groups must be honored, as well as personal

freedom must meet the terms of responsibilities that freedom entails.

These examples of chemical, physiological, and psychological misbalances would

become less common if there were velocity in living, i.e., well-structured management of

space-time what means purposeful synchronization in balance, speed, and direction of

local and global development. Besides, a purpose as a directional component grows to be

more important with each stage of the individual’s life cycle. To avoid inner conflicts and

moral bankruptcy, a materialistic urge must be checked against humanistic values. When

a desire to possess things becomes a dominant drive in life, it must be brought back into

balance by idealistic concepts and altruistic efforts.

Along these lines, some generalizing analogies come to mind. (1) To keep a

revolving object on its orbit, the centrifugal force resulting from object’s rotation must

balance the centripetal force; to maintain equilibrium, gravity must match anti-gravity15

.

(2) Just as with mechanics or astrophysics, the operating mechanism of a societal

archetype requires maintenance of the equilibrium between inward- and outward-

vectoring efforts – to guarantee the societal stability and welfare. “It is obvious [that]

what is necessary for the development [of] human potentialities is [an] appropriate

balance between stability-change, homogeneity-heterogeneity, [definiteness-ambiguity],

comfort-challenge, closedness-openness,” confirms Dr. Hall (Hall, 1966, p. 157). More

often than not, a “golden middle” solution to a problem collects the credit.

15 Albert Einstein was the first one to introduce—although not without a doubt—a cosmological constant in

his equations, lately confirmed by discoveries in astrophysics.

69

Dr. Deepak Chopra, a renowned Indian mathematician, astrophysicist, and

medical doctor, suggests that the human body periodically undergoes a rejuvenation

process: human skin renovates every month, liver every six weeks; and even the human

brain, with all those precious cells storing acquired knowledge, changes its content of

carbon, nitrogen, and oxygen about every twelve months. Nevertheless, in spite of this

change, the individual remains rather constant, due to the organizing-stabilizing function

of the information contained in his or her DNA. “All [of] us,” Dr. Chopra explains, “are

much more like a river [that] anything frozen in time [and] space” (Wheatley, 1999, p.

103).

The process of reintegration goes on most efficiently when the energy systems of

the body (or an organization, or a culture, etc.) are in a state of homeostasis, i.e., a

relative balance. Misbalance and tension between systems/energy fields are usually

combined – in terms of socio-psycho-physiological manifestations – with frustration,

depression, fear, and somatic infirmity. The quiet release of excessive tension requires

restoration of the balance between the work and struggle for life, on the one hand, and the

more relaxing activities (recreation, entertainment, etc.), on the other hand.

Concentration of energy in focused activity does not offer much opportunity for

self-adjustment. Likewise, the self-integration process is hampered by

maintenance of fixed beliefs mitigating against readjustment and by the existence

of frustration, fear, and hate, which set up concentrated knots of tension. (Dunn,

1966, p. 56)

Unlike the individual’s body, which biologically more or less resembles the other

life forms, the mind-spirit of the man seems to be uniquely human. Considering the

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relations between information and energy, the “mind” can be defined as an intellectual

capacity to use the information available to the brain while solving problems of living.

The “spirit” serves as a definition of vitality and is the zone of interaction between the

energies at the command of the body and those used in the functioning of the mind.

“Self-adjustment requires [the] maintenance of dynamic [equilibrium] between the

energies [of] mind and body or a [continual] reintegration of self” (Dunn, 1966, p. 56).

To be able to act or even think, a person must have the energy to do the work.

Without energy, no action could occur. Energy comes primarily from food and is stored

in our bodies as potential energy. When this stored energy is released for behavior or

work, it is known as kinetic energy. A stimulus that motivates individuals into action is

really one that transforms potential energy into kinetic energy. It is as if this stored

energy is waiting to be discharged and it only takes a right event to activate the resources.

The energy to jerk our hand away is released by the hot pan, while the energy for

making a sales quota is released by a monetary incentive. The energy available to

enroll in the university and take courses for four years is released by the incentive

of a university degree. Thus, an individual is motivated by stimuli or incentives

that release the energy necessary to power behavior. (Deckers, 2001, pp. 3-4)

Since subatomic, atomic, and molecular energy is bound into matter in vast

quantities, its energy can be released if a proper trigger is found16

. Either external or

internal stimuli can release energy. In this relation, Dr. Halbert Dunn made a perfectly

satisfactory definition of human reserves by asserting the following:

16 This idea is very important for the given research.

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Human potential is the capacity or potentialities latent within the individual and

society that can be released as creative energy when properly triggered or

activated. The creative energy so released implements the imagination, which is

the structured synthesis of new ideas from elements experienced separately.

(Dunn, 1966, p. 53)

The energy concept has been taken as a vehicle for this research’s inquiry in

quantum linguistics. It unifies the quantum and electromagnetic principles in

investigating the acceleration phenomenon in terms of foreign language intensive

teaching. Hitherto, there is no concept or precise definition of correlation of energy,

information, language, and educational communication that makes the author’s task even

more challenging and fascinating.

The motivation and development concept. The motivation concept shifts attention

from the enticement of external rewards to the intrinsic motivators that spring from the

work itself. Margaret Wheatley states in her Leadership and the New Science as follows:

We are beginning to look at the strong emotions that are part of being human,

rather than segmenting ourselves (love is for home, discipline is for work) or

believing that we can confine workers into narrow roles, as though they were cogs

in the machinery of production. (Wheatley, 1999, p. 12)

Several decades ago, Abraham Maslow, one of instigators of humanistic-affective

philosophy and psychology known for his valuable contribution to the development of

motivation theory, found the following:

The appearance of the drive or desire, the actions that it arouses, and the

satisfaction that comes from attaining the goal object, all taken together, give us

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only an artificial, isolated, single instance taken out of the total complex of the

motivational unit. This appearance practically always depends on the state of

satisfaction or dissatisfaction of all other motivations that the total organism may

have, that is on the fact that such and such other prepotent desires have attained

states of relative satisfaction.… Here the drive, the desire, the goal object, the

activity seem all to be the same thing. (Maslow, 1987, pp. 7-8)

Whereas the given research does not aim at providing an analysis of the hierarchy

of human motives, the author of this academic paper considers important to partially

cover some factors of motivational drives related to the mental-spiritual processes.

Perhaps the most important of all varying manifestations of cognitive-motivational drives

is curiosity; that is, an interest in pursuing the unfamiliar, a desire to clarify the meaning

of things, and the excitement of discovery. “Scientific [information] of the last few

[decades] would strongly suggest that at least many, [and] perhaps all, human beings

[may] begin to re-center their lives more and [more] in terms of curiosity satisfactions

and [cognitive] satisfactions generally,” Gardner Murthy and Lois Barclay Murphy

acknowledged (Murphy & Murphy, 1966, p. 9).

Another important feature of cognitive-motivational complex is imagination,

which presumes a certain degree of liberty in extrapolating from present knowledge

without taking reality at face value. Sometimes, by hybridizing different elements of the

reality, an individual may generate new, unknown, supernatural images in his or her

mind’s eye or those with no practical need. However, there is another sort of

imagination—scientific imagination, which, if combined with curiosity, may be defined

as a predisposition to creativity, i.e., active reconstruction of the life. Perhaps, no

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discovery has been made without creative extrapolation from the reality. “The [problem]

arises with [our] lack of imagination regarding what the new world [of] scientific and

artistic [imagination] may be” (Murphy & Murphy, 1966, p. 18). Amazingly, Albert

Einstein “arrived at some of his insights [by] imaging himself riding a beam of light [and]

looking back at a clock, or dropping a coin while standing in a plummeting elevator”

(Pinker, 1995, p. 71) that led to the birth of Relativity theory, which revolutionized the

methods of scientific inquiry and foundations of many sciences. It is hard to expect that

imagination per se would satisfy human needs to adapt to various environmental and

social conditions. Imagination is nothing but a latent, hidden ability of the individual to

clone elements of the reality. It becomes useless or even dangerous if it is not associated

with curiosity, purposefulness, and positive human values.

An outcome of imagination, implemented into theoretical or practical deed, is

appreciated as a creative work. In certain sense, imagination and creativity are related to

each other like Siamese twins who never can break away. Sometimes, creativity is a sign

of extraordinary talent; sometimes, it is regarded as a subject, which may be taught and

learned. “Many individuals and business training programs [claim] that they know what

‘creative thinking’ consists [of] and that they can teach it,” expresses his skepticism

Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi. “Robert Galvin says [that] creativity consists of anticipation

[and] commitment. Anticipation involves having a vision [of] something that will

[become] important in the future before anybody [else] has it; commitment is the belief

that keeps [one] working to realize the vision despite doubt [and] discouragement”

(Csikszentmihalyi, 1996, p. 77). And this is what links creativity to self-determination for

the reason that, in many cases, creative persons have shown resistance to the stereotyping

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of thought and have manifested noncompliance with social circumstances that cultivate

conformity of patient “time-wasters” – in terms of respect to the existing cannons (Fr.)

and satisfaction with the “idyllic” present situation.

Don Martindale, a sociologist, made a remarkable observation about steadiness in

the number of geniuses in any given society, indicating that man’s latent creativity is

quite constant. He established the following:

The men of sixty thousand years ago were as intelligent as men are today…

Man’s potential creativity must be assumed a constant… Periods of the dramatic

up-thrust of creativity contrast with others characterized by powerful forces

toward conformity and stereotyping of cultural achievement. Since one cannot

attribute these differential rates of creative achievement to any changes in human

biology nor to racial differences (alterations in creativity appear in all the races,

and the general evidence suggests there is no fundamental difference in the

creative potential of any), there remains only the possibility that the condition of

society releases or encourages creativity as the case may be. (Martindale, 1966,

pp. 40-41)

The creative process has traditionally been described as taking five steps: (1) A

period of preparation, becoming immersed in a set of problematic issues that are

interesting and arouse curiosity, (2) a period of incubation in which ideas churn around

below the threshold of consciousness and “unusual [connections] are likely [to be] made”

(Csikszentmihalyi, 1996, p. 79), (3) a moment of insight (called Eureka-reaction17

), when

the pieces of a puzzle fall together, (4) evaluation, when the person must decide whether

17 “I’ve found!” (Greek), cried out Archimedes when he suddenly figured out that the weight of the body

equalizes with the weight of water forced out by the body.

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the insight is valuable and worth pursuing; in other words, it is the period of self-

criticism, and (5) elaboration taking up the most time and efforts and what Thomas

Edison (1847-1931) referred to as “one percent inspiration and ninety nine percent

perspiration” or what may also be understood as “translating [the] emotions… intuited

into [strings] of words” (Csikszentmihalyi, 1996, p.80). Whatever the case may be, the

creative process is more recursive than linear.

Things are rarely simple, but human society continuously supplies the demand for

inventors, whose inexhaustible creativity transforms the local and global environments.

Even though the society conditions the human potentialities by putting limits on its

members to a restricted range, it supplies them with a formula for natural survival and

enjoyment in human company. “Societies [protect] individuals and tend to [conserve] the

general stock of [its] properties,” asserts Dr. Martindale (Martindale, 1966, p. 40). In this

connection, the author would like to take a glimpse into the theory of multiple

intelligences, which has been originated by Harvard’s professor Dr. Howard Gardner

through the Project Zero on human potentialities.

Resulting from a two-decade-long government-sponsored project in cognitive

psychology, Dr. Gardner corroborated Abraham Maslow’s contention of activation of

human potentialities. He suggested that “individuals [are] capable of cognitive

functioning in [at least] seven relatively autonomous areas. The different profiles,

trajectories, and rates [of] development that emerge across intelligences enable a person

to grasp, more [or] less readily, the symbol system in which the domains [of] his or her

culture are transmitted” (Gardner, 1983, p. 237). Thus, Dr. Gardner asserts, individuals

can possess intuition and “intelligences” – i.e., musical, linguistic, logical-mathematical,

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proxemic (“spatial”), kinesthetic (“bodily-kinesthetic”), interpersonal, and intra-personal

awareness, which are built into human self at birth.

In spite of valuable ideas and suggestions, the theory of multiple intelligences

lacks an important experiential groundwork and, thus, should be treated as a hypothesis –

until its claims are verified by practice. On the word of Dr. Gardner himself, “while

[multiple] intelligences theory is [consistent] with much empirical evidence, it has [not]

been subjected to strong experimental tests [within] psychology” (Gardner, 1983, p. 33).

“Instead, it surveys [a] wide variety of independent [research] traditions: neurology,

[special] populations, development, [psychometrics], anthropology, evolution, [and] so

on. The theory is a product of [the] synthesis [of] this survey” (Gardner, 1983, p.38).

In addition, some passages from Gardner’s literary works display a mixture of

sophisticated controversies and esoteric arrogance rather than celebration of a realistic

perspective. The reader of this dissertation is invited to consider the following statement:

In traditional societies, intelligence is linked to skill in interpersonal relations,

whereas in many industrial societies intelligence centers more on advanced

abilities in the three Rs. Yet, despite these differences, the two definitions are

derived in a similar way. Both definitions are intertwined with issues of cultural

survival—in traditional societies, maintaining the necessary social cohesion, and

in industrial societies, providing the means to shape technology and advance

industry. (Gardner, 1983, pp. 235-236)

Then again, as a part of the universal survival thrust, the living system (a person, a

family, a human society, etc.) consciously and subconsciously follows the natural laws of

socio-biological self-preservation. A self-referring propensity and nepotism thus are

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common trends in both types of society – “traditional” or “industrial.” They both

capitalize on their ability to create favorable conditions for some cohorts and individuals

related to each other in one or another way, while aggressively discriminating and

neglecting the others. More often than not, favoritism prevails unless strong voice

advocates for fairness. There is and there may be no wise and harmoniously structured

system in the world, because the imperfectness resides in the nature of any system, i.e.,

humans, as a prerequisite for continuing life dynamics. Furthermore, personal

observations of the author of this dissertation suggested by different life contexts supply

the facts that are simply at odds with Dr. Gardner’s framework and conclusions. Not at

odds with the 2nd

law of thermodynamics, since materialized energy is always being

partially utilized for getting a job done18

, the natural decay is accumulating in the

universe, i.e., including any form of human entropy.

The societal matrix embeds language and cultural artifact of the nation and

embodies specificity and complexity of ethnic socio-geo-political and economic

experiences. Both culture and language are indissoluble attributes of human society. They

are taught and learned in classroom and beyond: the one transfers information while

others assimilate it. As developed under conditions of a social matrix, these phenomena

construct the foundations of accomplishments unique to the human species: tool making

and language. The former reduces the physical world to controllable relations, which

emancipate the person from the dependence on natural resources by coercing the natural

laws to a human command. Language makes possible interpersonal exchange of

experiences by triggering a perceptive-reflective image-making knack into linguistic and

18 The entropy principle applies.

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extra-linguistic communicative devices. Language annihilates space-time limitation on

experience: by the use of language, individuals may enter into experiences of one

another, even though centuries separate them from one another. Language serves to

deduce, to analyze information by isolating precise relations in the material environment

that operates as verbal chains. The ability to induce, to intuitively synthesize information

by fusing the elements of a momentary experience into images or decisions may not need

a verbal support at all and may occur as spontaneous mental representations. This

statement creates a controversy with previously mentioned John Dewey’s “fork” model

of the thinking process.

Human intelligence, distinctive from the intelligence of non-humans, is a result of

evolutionary adjustment to environment that allowed the organism to control formation

of associations as well as mental—verbal and non-verbal—representations, goal setting,

humor, arts, sciences, etc. The appearance of thinking beings marked the beginning of a

new era of reason, thus, indicating another meta-system transition, which occurred in

reference to the formula associating = thinking (Turchin, 1977). The structure of the

process of thinking is still not completely clear and theories claiming to explain this

phenomenon should be considered speculative.

Linguistically structured experience of different social groups imparts an

extraordinary new power over others. Enormous quantities of human energy are

“condensed” in language ciphers. Language has power over an individual’s mind,

feelings, actions, and life style. “Through language, [restructured] experience, and [its]

tool-transformed [material] environment,” Dr. Martindale stresses, “society [seizes]

control of the individual and enchains [him] to one plane in the unmeasured compass [of]

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human potentiality” (Martindale, 1966, p. 40). Thus, communication, namely,

informational exchange in any way and form may be defined as that trigger, which

unleashes human—benevolent or malicious—latent energy, modifies the velocity of

events by monitoring and modifying peoples’ intentions, wills, and attitudes, and affects

the material and non-material worlds.

The entire universe is a manifestation of organized interrelated and interdependent

energy fields ranging from the sub-atomic particles to the farthest galaxies. Since the

human body is no exception, its commonwealth of cells and functionality are contingent

on communication between the inner world and surroundings. The road of human history

is paved by people’s striving to attain and maintain a better-balanced position within

continuously transforming local and global locales by activating—more or less

successfully—their potentialities. In general, exteriorization of potentialities, that is,

conversion of the qualities from their latent (inactive) into external (active) status, is the

perceptive-reflective adaptation of the living system, pressured by environmental change.

Energy balance can be maintained only in a dynamic equilibrium.

There is still a lot of work to be done to investigate ways of activation of human

and system potentialities embedded in a variety of vibrant social structures. There is even

more research awaiting on the subject of how the use of language and cultural prejudices

affect social behaviors as well as their impact on academic programs, education systems,

business operations, scientific development, public policies, and international relations.

The insufficiency of a current knowledge base does not remove the ground for optimism

but shows that the situation is not so simple. A joint international research would

accelerate and complement the undertaking by opening opportunities for collaborative

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ventures and investigative insights. Seeking out information, which is already available in

diverse scholarly fields but has not been adequately related to the development of human

potentialities, would promote interdisciplinary connections. It would also enhance mutual

understanding and knowledge sharing within the international scientific community, thus,

endorsing utilization of the global intellectual resources more effectively.

Summarizing all stated above, the researcher would like to underscore the

importance of activation of human reserves, those of the individual and of the living

system. Cracking the code of potentialities would help gain a better control over life and

nature, because the design of the living matter enfolds substantial survival resources,

even though it is subject to various forms of entropy, i.e., its social forms. There is a vast

source of untapped potentials in a person, a family, a workplace, a local neighborhood, or

a global community. The longevity of an entire global civilization is dependent on

balance, velocity, and intensity of relations among cultures as the living systems made of

countless polarized and interlocked fluctuating energy fields. Homeostasis is attainable

via human communication coordinating the affirmative efforts. Activation of human

potentialities through compassionate interpersonal and intercultural responses in a fear-

free, relatively comfortable physical ambiance creates the necessary conditions for

unfolding individual and global system reserves.

Biosphere as a Planetary Phenomenon

For ages, life dynamics were subject of passionate discussions, ethnic clashes,

religious wars, and political coups d’état. Abundant scientific, philosophical, or

theological theories find countless explanations of the world’s creation, structure, and

societal change by utilizing various metaphorical pictures that mirror a particular state of

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human consciousness relevant to a degree of scientific, economic, and political

development of a specific socio-economic formation.

Today, globalization of all the processes that happen on the planet Earth is an

acknowledged fact. It mirrors self-determination propensity of the real world including

all its ingredients: geosphere, atmosphere, biosphere, etc. The latter, the realm of life,

comprises all living formations including humankind. All-inclusive informational product

of the biosphere—the noosphere—is identified as a global consciousness related specific

form of energy, a materialized instrument of change.

As far as we know, George Perkins Marsh (1801-1882), a US diplomat, scholar,

and conservationist, was one of the first thinkers to suggest the negative impact of

anthropogenic changes on environmental issues. His literary work, Man and Nature first

published in 1864, called attention to environmental problems and the importance of the

restoration of a disturbed harmony. More than a century ago, he acknowledged:

No atom can be disturbed in place, or undergo any change of temperature, of

electric state, or other material condition, without affecting, by attraction or

repulsion or other communication, the surrounding atoms. These, again, the same

law, transmit the influence to other atoms and the impulse thus given extends

through the whole material universe. (Marsh, 1999, p. 22)

In 1875, Viennese geologist Eduard Suess (1831-1914) coined the term biosphere

for the place on Earth’s surface where life dwells (Suess, 1999, p. 23). Many scientists

have since used the idea in various contexts.

It was Vladimir I. Vernadsky (1863-1945), one of the most significant founders of

bio-geo-chemistry, who fully developed the Biosphere doctrine. Although he got

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recognition as an important precursor for the development of such contemporary issues as

the global change and environmental interdependence (the Gaia concept), the West is

still poorly acquainted with his work. His lectures at the Sorbonne in Paris in 1922-23

were well known to Pierre Teilhard de Chardin and Edouard le Roy, his students. The

lectures were published in France in 1924 under the title La Géochimie. In this work as

well as in the others, Vernadsky emphasized the universal applicability of cosmological

laws: “We are studying [a] very small space—but inseparably linked to an immensity of

[the] cosmos—in establishing laws [and] regularities in the history of the chemical

elements of [our] planet. Profound analogies—and even [more] than analogies—exist

within” (Vernadsky, 1999a, p. 26). He also alerted contemporaries to an actual state of

the terrestrial ecosystem and emphasized accelerated intensification of global change,

empowered by human cohesive consciousness. Ha stressed, “…the [geochemical] action

of humanity [has]…become intensive and excessively multiplied. We [observe] a

surprising rapidity [of] growth of this action. This is [the] action of the conscious [and]

the [collective] spirit of humanity on [the] geochemical processes” (Vernadsky, 1999a, p.

27).

In 1926, Vernadsky’s greatest scholarly work, The Biosphere, was published in

Russia and then (in 1929) in France. He was the first one to have realized a cosmic

significance of the Earth as a biogeochemical system evolving in a self-contained sphere.

According to the biosphere studies, the Earth is a region of transformation of cosmic

energy, a dynamic energy-matter organization, and a system akin to a thermodynamic

engine. Three empirical generalizations emerged out of Vernadsky’s Biosphere concept:

(a) Life occurs on a spherical planet, (b) life nearly all geological features on Earth’s

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surface are bio-influenced, and (c) human activity on Earth becomes increasingly

detrimental and, thus, endangering the entire biosphere (Vernadsky, 1998). In addition,

Vernadsky’s biosphere theory helped grasp a currently observable accelerated integration

propensity of the global dynamic ecosystem in which biological, geological, and

exosomatic spheres overlap without sharp boundaries.

Vernadsky’s discovery of the biosphere as of the domain of life on Earth was,

nevertheless, a scientific novelty unwelcome by the mainstream science in a censored

Stalinist Russia. Praising the quality of Vernadsky’s scientific achievements, Stephen S.

Rowland from the University of Nevada (Las Vegas, USA) once stated that Vernadsky

symbolizes the Slavic native ability and personal integrity. In the years to come, as the

Russian and Ukrainian people look for sources of cultural pride, Vernadsky’s stature is

certain to grow. Derived from the biogeochemical domain, his Biosphere-Noosphere

doctrine has important crossing points with Einstein’s picture of the world. It also has

recognition from the UNESCO and other leading international organizations, which have

actually taken it as guidelines for creative reconstruction of our planetary habitat.

The Noosphere Effect

If man does not use his brain and his work for self-destruction, an immense future

is open before him in the geological history of the biosphere. There arises the

problem of reconstruction of the biosphere in the interests of freely thinking

humanity as a single totality.

Vladimir I. Vernadsky

The current era made obvious another fundamental reality – information – as a

power commanding the change. Facilitated communication assists information exchange

between people. As a consequence, improved connections smooth the progress of

intellectual, spiritual, and commercial interchange between cultures that, in turn, leads to

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jeopardizing their very existence and the emergence of a cosmopolitan culture. Therefore,

such notions as information and communication, on the one hand, and acceleration and

intensification, on the other hand, refer to globalization and noosphere. The latter is often

regarded as the “global mind,” which emergence and development is related to

exosomatic evolution.

In interpretation of Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, the noosphere is nothing else than

a psychic center of the universal drift, transcending space-time and, thus, essentially

extra-planetary. In 1925, he wrote the following:

The recognition and isolation of a new era of evolution, the era of noogenesis,

obliges us to distinguish correlatively a support proportionate to the operation –

that is to say, yet another membrane in the majestic assembly of telluric layers.

…It is really a new layer, the ‘thinking layer’, which, since its germination at the

end of the Tertiary era, has spread over and above the world of plants and

animals. In other words, outside and above the biosphere there is the noosphere.

(Chardin, 1999a, pp. 71, 72)

Unlike many modern scientists that misappropriate scientific ideas, de Chardin,

himself, recognized the fact of collaborative nature of conceptualization of the noosphere

theory for which, in the 1920s, “together [with] Professor Edouard Le Roy [and]

Professor Vernadsky,” he suggested the name noosphere (Chardin, 1999b, p. 74).

Although de Chardin’s works are short of measurements and calculations, his reasoning

is strong enough to alert a concerned citizen of the world that the noosphere stage of

evolution is “the [end] of all life on our globe, the [death] of the planet, the ultimate

[phase] of the [phenomenon] of man” (Chardin, 1999a, p. 72.).

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Although both de Chardin and Vernadsky were prophets of globalization, the

former was a cosmic mystic while the latter defined himself as a cosmic realist. They both

suggested those “energetic” interpretations of biological and technological systems,

where “energy” (force, power, work) was a key word determining exosomatic evolution

(a term later used by Alfred J. Lotka), but their scientific perspectives were based on

different estimations radically deviating from each other: the anthropocentric (de

Chardin’s) view of life versus the biocentric (Vernadsky’s) standpoint. Besides, de

Chardin was very pessimistic about the global future; Vernadsky offered an affirmative

evaluation of global perspectives based on scrupulous scientific calculations. He

emphasized the critical importance of integrative global management that must be “in

tune [with] the elemental geological processes, with [the] laws of nature, and with the

[noosphere]. Therefore, we may face [the] future with confidence. It is [in] our hands”

(Vernadsky, 1999b, p. 100). Without a doubt, the current human civilization is witnessing

a destructive noospheric effect produced on the global geo-political infrastructures

including harmful ecological transformations, economic instability, and wars.

Broken Symmetry and Resolution of Uncertainty

Run by the universal cosmic laws, the global system undergoes endless energy

transformations, analogous to wave-based fields pulsating in the “cyclotron” of the life

realm. From time to time, since the Roman Empire, human civilizations – as same as

stars and galaxies – rise, expand, and collapse, given that evolution of the global human

organism follows the identical developmental model of pulsating cyclic progression as

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other processes: the birth, maturation, and death19

. Every solution to a problem gives rise

to new problems, and the process goes on…

The modern conceptualization of world dynamics endorses the principle of

progressive-co-centric (spiral-like) inclusiveness and interdependence of all elements of

the whole. This principle is applicable to all life occurrences and events. The living

matter is organized and infra-structured into myriads of interdependent and self-referring

sub-systems that are relatively autonomous of interaction and, at the same time,

integrated into other—greater—mega-systems of a higher order that construct the world.

Biology, sociology and other living matter-centered sciences reveal the same

principle empowering the system: the essential DNA pattern conforming to the inner

logic of life generates multiple arrangements of matching pairs, arranged in parallels of

interweaved strings of genetic chromosomes featuring condensed information codes.

(Just one unpaired chromosome would be enough to produce an anomalous corollary.) In

fact, information coded in genes must be understood as a condensed database. Personal

data, transmitted from one generation of a living species to another, embody a rainbow of

individual characteristics (the part) with a specific socio-biological archetype (the whole)

carrying out the maim mission message: Survive!

Materialized from the double helix of intertwined pairs of genes, life repeats itself

in countless variations of forms that grow in “clusters” of interconnected-interdependent

species, classes, groups, families, cultures, etc. All micro- and macro-systems in the

world are involved in continuous interaction resulting from a myriad of acts that serve

one essential purpose: continuation of existence as a form of life. They manage to survive

19 The death of a system should not be understood literally as an end of existence but as a structural-

functional transformation into another organizational arrangement.

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in a specific environmental ambiance or become extinct when living energy runs out due

to overwhelmingly harsh life conditions. That explains why every living organism at any

level of socio-biological echelon is driven by the spirit of conquest, deeply enrooted in

the lifelong obsession with food, money, oil, or spiritual supremacy—everything that

proliferates individual power (or its illusion)—while rampaging the neighborhood and the

entire planet. On the one hand, wealthy “stabilizers” resist the change. They may

occasionally wage a war “for the better” but certainly show more appreciation for an

existing status quo that benefits them most. On the other hand, those who for some

reason are less fortunate embrace the change to improve their survival chances.

There is another, a very small category of passionaries20

, or heroes, whose ideas,

beliefs, and ambitions boost up their activity. They are equally important for global

evolution as the above-listed others. By different means, they may ignite a particular

social group and, in fact, catalyze events (i.e., specific occurrences chronologically and

geographically located in the space-time) in order to re-arrange an existing and, thus, the

universal social order. For a certain period, their ideas may work well, but continuing

struggle for existence in a context of never-ending accumulation of new biospheric and

noospheric occurrences leads forcibly the global and local commonalities towards

another disruptive change.

Natural dynamics require availability of opposites, or interdependent pairs

(modeling a DNA chain composed of twin-genes) in any morphological segment of a

living system. An eternal search for stability, heralding an existing status quo as “the best

one” (that is, “final”), is usually accompanied by a failure of organizational leadership to

20 Vladimir Vernadsky’s term.

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provide timely maintenance for the depleting organizational structure. As a rule, system’s

establishment, comfortably settled down in a current situation, becomes less consistent

with life dynamics and short of desire to renovate. The system becomes more “lazy” than

“smart.” The gradually growing structural-functional rigidity drives the entire structure

toward a crisis, usually followed by radical transformations.

A system, which puts more pressure on its particular structural elements, is

doomed to collapse if consensus between polarities becomes unachievable. However, the

“winners” of the life battlefield cannot keep going alone for a long time: the lop-sided

composition lacking a gradual self-adjustment makes a flighty “over-flip” and undergoes

a sweeping change. In this connection, an example of the relationship between

carnivorous and vegetarian dinosaurs would be of help: the predators died off, once their

food supplies (“vegetarians”) were exhausted. Hence, cooperation of species is highly

recommended, since they all are involved in millions of integrated biochemical and

electromagnetic processes that occur on the global surface.

Regrettably, the world history of time is very short of illustrations of

organizational wisdom, but full of examples of bloody fight and devastation. A

revolutionary achievement of social goals gradually leads, sometimes, to the loss of those

goals. Tyrannies brought to life in such a way are usually worse than the old regimes.

This case scenario leads to devaluation of the common sense, for which the idea was

conceived and human sacrifices were made. As a rule, it inevitably generates unexpected

results and forces humankind to search for another— usually, self-destructive—change.

This way, social organism is being constantly forced toward a state of crisis,

collapse, and establishment of a new order. Any idea that is routinely pushed to its

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extremity and implemented into action benefiting a particular social element or an entity

(a person, or a political class, or a culture, etc.) creates societal disparity. In dogmatic

societies, it becomes a subject of ideological manipulations of ruling authority, which

puts more pressure on other elements of the whole. Intolerance for diversity conveyed

with supremacist arrogance and xenophobia in predominantly individualistic societies

propels cultural inward gravitation that fuels extreme chauvinism and fascism and

“seals” the nation. This case scenario leads to devaluation of the initial sense for which

the social idea (e.g., freedom, democracy, equality, justice for all, etc.) was thought up

and human sacrifices were made. It urges organization into a state of crisis and collapse.

As a rule, it gradually generates unexpected results and forces humankind to search for

another change.

An apparent disparity between socio-economic formations results from different

velocities of evolution of the scientific thought and human communication – accelerated

in some societies and decelerated in others. This way, technological gains lead to gradual

escalation of some global organizational segments and may produce organizations, or

cultures-predators, which tend to control other social structures and global resources in

eternal search for energy – in any form: natural, biological, or psychological. Power-

thirsty leadership always controls the nation’s mind by manipulating with catchwords,

meaningful for many candid people: “a fight for God,” or “for the magnificent future,” or

“for the common wealth,” or “for freedom” – to name a few. Supremacist arrogance,

nurtured by intolerance for diversity, xenophobia, ethnocentrism, exaggerated

imperialistic-totalitarian appetite, and egotistic corporate governance steer the global bio-

ecosystem to a final self-destructive point. “Get your neighbor before your neighbor gets

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you!” sounds familiar for many generations of the humans, victimized by their leaders

and pushed to extremities in frenzy to kill.

Meanwhile, in a “smart” system, a common survival sense endorses the flexibility

of collective consciousness. To survive, the cultural-organizational entity – as well as any

person – must incorporate a reliable functional mechanism to ensure system’s compliance

with the everlasting change. Scanning for internal (inward-bound) and external (outward-

bound) settings enhances vitality of a system and its competitiveness among other

systems. There is no paradox between the terms: “competitiveness” does not necessarily

denote “hostility” or “warfare” but psycho-socio-physiological health of a sub-structural

unit per se – at any given structure of the global ecosystem. Therefore, leverage of the

whole system depends on the wealth (“competitiveness”) of its elements. Coping with a

continuing environmental change comprises timely maintenance of the system by wisely

balancing between stability and modernization: stagnation is as fatal for the

system/organization as uncertainty brought in by excessive adventurism.

An extrapolative interpretation of cosmological universalities with regard to the

societal realm may be explained as follows: when inward organizational gravitation is not

sufficiently strong, it provokes an organizational dispersal; but the system collapses,

unable to withstand its internal pressure, if its inward gravitation overrides the outward-

vectoring efforts. The balance of inward- and outward-pooling forces is critical for the

system. For example, cultural divergence enrooted in cosmopolitan-open mind tends

toward connectivity with the outside world, while cultural convergence fostering

ethnocentric mindsets makes a stronger nationalistic trend and “seals” the nation. As

usual, the “golden middle” between global connectivity and cultural uniqueness earns an

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ultimate credit. Alas, an expectation of absolute harmony among all system’s elements

appears as absurd as naïve. In order to avoid Damocles’ sword of social clashes and, as

the final point, global devastation, smart maneuvering between the polarities is advised.

Cognition, Communication, and Culture Transformations

Curiosity, Necessity, Ability

Curiosity killed the cat.

A popular saying

Perceptive-adaptive instinct. Probably, an apple fallen from an apple tree

occasionally hit somebody on the head. Nevertheless, the only one of those hapless

persons, Sir Isaac Newton (1642-1727), a renowned British mathematician, physicist,

astronomer, and philosopher, was able to deduce the General Gravitation Law from this

unpleasant event, which happened to him in1687. Of course, this great discovery, like

numbers of others, came not out of nothing. Knowledge results from creative

interpretations of life’s realities and events by the curious human mind. The exceptional

value of a genius consists in his or her extraordinary capability to intuitively perceive

processes, to find their interpretation, and then to deduce a universal law.

Sometimes, at the cost of one’s life, the latent logic of universal existence and the

laws of nature are revealed by awakening of human consciousness. The latter cannot be

possible without the living matter being involved in learning, i.e., cognition processes.

Considered from psycho-physiological and philosophical perspectives, knowledge results

from a sensory-perceptive ability of the living matter that enables its empirical-adaptive

mechanism while scanning the environment and adjusting to it, because life evolves to fit

its environments. Thus, routine interaction with the locale is a vital factor for survival and

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normal development of any living organism.

Human sensory abilities and memory create a foundation of the individual’s

capacity to learn from his or her experience while dealing with diverse environmental

scenarios. “The evidence gathered suggests [that] perception is a complex process

involving complex [oriented] activity, a probabilistic structure, an analysis and synthesis

of perceived features, [and] a decision making process,” asserted Russian Academician

Alexander Luria (Luria, 1976, p. 20). Many other scientists confirmed the importance of

having neurotransmitters in a good standing for achieving learning goals, since sensory

activity is tied with mnemonic processes. As Patricia Wolfe maintains, “the role [of]

sensory memory is to take [the] information coming into the brain [through] the sensory

receptors [and] hold it for a fraction of a second until a [decision] is made about what to

do with it” (Wolfe, 2001, p. 79). When the inborn sensory system of a child is severely

damaged (for instance, due to a birth defect), the reception of feedback signals from the

environment becomes difficult or impossible. “In other words, [the] neural networks

‘check out’ sensory stimuli as [soon] as they enter the brain to see if they form [a]

familiar pattern.…You cannot reconstruct [or] reactivate a neural circuit or [network] if it

was never [activated] in the first place,” Patricia Wolfe emphasizes (Wolfe, 2001, pp.83,

86).

The impossibility of normal interaction with the outside world results in a serious

aggravation of life conditions for the individual. Steven Pinker, professor and director of

the Center for Cognitive Neuroscience at Massachusetts Institute of Technology, also

avows that “there is [always] a suspicion that the [sensory] deprivation and emotional

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[scars] sustained [during] the horrific confinement [somehow] interfered with their21

ability [to] learn” (Pinker, 1995, p. 292). Since reverberation-based environmental self-

adaptation of the organism grows unreliable and fails to collect information for the

further cerebral analysis, it finally collapses entailing a breakdown of the learning ability.

In agreement with Dr. Pinker, the neurologist Ronald Kotulak states, “What

happens when [the] brain is prevented from [making] connections between brain cells [in

response to] experiences from the outside world can be devastating” (Kotulak, 1997, p.

22). Sadly, serious sensory problems lead to learning disorders because of a “fading”

communicative ability. Learning disorders are usually followed by mental retardation,

unless special paraphernalia substitutes person’s sensors, at least, partially. Dr. Kotulak

provides the following solid argument about the connectivity of the human brain with the

environment, “Connections that [are] not reinforced by stimuli from [the] outside world

[are] pruned away, dead branches that [no] longer flower” (Kotulak, 1997, p. 36). If there

is no necessity, there is no ability.

Cognitive instinct. Presumed as a proponent for curiosity, cognitive instinct is

genetically transferred in the course of life through generations of living species. In fact,

it is a wonderful instrument of the living matter for stimulation of learning in a context of

never-ending environmental adjustment. New information is usually matched against a

previously acquired data. The renowned psychologist Abraham Maslow has maintained:

If we remember that the cognitive capacities (perceptual, intellectual, learning)

are a set of adjustive tools, which have among other functions that of satisfaction

of our basic needs, then it is clear that any danger to them, any deprivation or

21 The physically impaired persons.

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blocking of their free use, must also be indirectly threatening to the basic needs

themselves. Such a statement is a partial solution of the general problems of

curiosity, the search for knowledge, truth, and wisdom, and the ever-persistent

urge to solve the cosmic mysteries. (Maslow, 1987, p. 23)

As it has been previously mentioned, knowledge acquisition (i.e., cognition,

learning) is indeed the work of the survival mechanism, activated by the survival instinct

under environmental pressure. Self-protection calls for uncertainty avoidance. To

survive, the living system must gain control over the situation: get acquainted with and

adapt to the locale. That involves scanning surroundings, collecting and “filtering” data,

and retaining useful information. Filtering/interpreting perceivable environmental signals

involves thinking: analyzing/decoding and synthesizing/coding. Retaining useful

information entails memorizing the details for the future needs to benefit most in case an

opportunity should arise again. Thus, the necessity to survive triggers a chain of survival

actions: exploration, interpretation, adaptation.

This idea was expressed by John Dewey in his seminal work How We Think.

Dewey’s literary heritage was and continues to be a resourceful guideline for many

psychologists and educators. On the subject of thinking, he wrote:

Thinking begins in what fairly enough may be called a forked-road situation, a

situation which is ambiguous, which presents a dilemma, which proposes

alternatives. As long as our activity glides smoothly along from one thing to

another, or as long as we permit our imagination to entertain fancies at pleasure,

there is no call for reflection. Difficulty or obstruction in the way of reaching a

belief brings us, however, to a pause. In the suspense of uncertainty, we

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metaphorically climb a tree; we try to find some standpoint from which we may

survey additional facts and, getting a more commanding view of the situation,

may decide how the facts stand related to one another. Demand for the solution of

a perplexity is the steadying and guiding factor in the entire process of reflection.

(Dewey, 1997, p. 11)

In the word of Abraham Maslow, “acquiring knowledge and systematizing [the]

universe have been [considered] as, in part, techniques for the achievement [of] basic

safety in the world, or for the intelligent person, [expressions] of self-actualization”

(Maslow, 1987, p. 23). The learning, i.e., cognitive ability stirs up spontaneously when

learner’s interest in a subject is initiated. It comes about when the learner is motivated by

a complex of internal (personal) and/or external (situational) factors. To ignite learner’s

interest for studying, the training should occur within a real life milieu or in a well-

simulated ambiance. Learning becomes more difficult if it has an abstract or barely

motivated character. It grows fruitless when derogatory environment, tedious

instructional materials, and mind-numbing teaching considerably deplete learner’s

receptiveness.

Learning tremendously enhances one’s survival value, because it is indeed an

excellent adaptation tool that helps coping with continuously changing environmental

settings. Learning can be prolonged or cut short by means of educational communication

that involves utilization of language and ability to symbolically store (to memorize)

information. What complicates the matter, however, is different ways of learning:

usually, persons who have grown up in different cultures learn to learn differently.

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Language instinct. Recent illuminations of human linguistic abilities

revolutionized the understanding of the role of language in human affairs and the view of

culture and humanity as well. Having a language contributes to what it means to be

human. People are curious about language, because it is allied with their culture.

However, there is another reason: language is the most accessible part of the mind.

People want to know about language because they hope this knowledge will lead to an

insight about human nature. People want to learn foreign languages because they need to

increase their wealth by expanding their personal and business communications across

the borders of their countries – worldwide.

Cognitive linguistics describes language as a psychological ability, a mental

organ, the work of a neural system, a computational module, or a natural instinct. Steven

Pinker has speculated in his famous literary work “The Language Instinct” that in

nature’s talent show humans are a species of primate, with ability for communicating

information about the environment by modulating sounds with exhalation, vibration of

vocal chords, and articulation. “Though language is [a] magnificent ability unique to

Homo sapiens [among] living species, it does not call for sequestering [the] study of

humans [from] the domain of biology” (Pinker, 1995, p. 19). According to the author, the

language aptitude is a part of the humans’ birthright that means language is the product of

a well-engineered biological instinct:

Most educated people already have opinions about language. They know that it is

man’s most important cultural invention, the quintessential example of his

capacity to use symbols, and a biologically unprecedented event irrevocably

separating him from other animals. They know that language pervades thought,

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with different languages causing their speakers to construe reality in different

ways. …Every one of these common opinions is wrong! Language is not a

cultural artifact… Language is a complex, specialized skill, which develops in the

child spontaneously, without conscious effort or formal instruction, is deployed

without awareness of its underlying logic, is qualitatively the same in every

individual, and is distinct from more general abilities to process information or

behave intelligently. (Pinker, 1995, pp.17-18)

Conversely, advocates of a cross-cultural concept argue that the structures of

mind that develop over time are taken to be accidental; there is no “human nature” apart

from what develops as a specific historical product. “A language is [an] arbitrary,

symbolic system [that] names ideas, feelings, experiences, events, and other phenomena

and that is governed by the multi-layered rules developed [by] members of a particular

speech community” (Ting-Toomey, 1999, p. 85).

Supporters of a cultural-historical psychological approach to the study of mind,

culture, and language (L. S. Vygotsky, A. R. Luria, M. Cole, and others) place great

importance on the social context of language learning. They emphasize culture and

language as socio-historical formations. They also assumed that social environment is the

dominant factor for language acquisition. “Human cognitive [activity] becomes a part of

[the] more extensive system of general human [experience] as it has become [established]

in the [process] of social history, coded [in] language”, has asserted Alexander Luria

(Luria, 1976, p. 162).

Lev Vygotsky made an important distinction between “lower” (natural mental

functions such as rudimentary perception, memory, attention, and will) and “higher”

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(cultural) functions, which are expressly human and appear gradually in a course of

radical transformation of the lower functions. Vygotsky argued that the constructive

principle of the higher functions works beyond the individual psychological and

interpersonal relations. He also differentiated between meaning of a word (featuring a

generalized concept) and sense of a word (a connotation, which depends on context of

speech). In his interpretation, meaning is only one of the zones of sense, although the

most stable and precise zone; a word acquires its sense from the context in which it

appears. Examining the functional and structural relations between thought and speech,

Vygotsky stated, “In their [ontogenetic] development, thought and speech have different

roots. In the [speech] development of the child, we can with certainty [establish] a pre-

intellectual stage, and [in] his thought development, a [pre-linguistic] stage. Up to a

[certain] point in time, the two follow different lines, independently [of] each other. At a

certain [point] these lines meet, whereupon thought becomes [verbal] and speech

rational” (Vygotsky, 2000, p. 83). Overall, cognitive-communicative behavior results

from interplay of the following developmental factors: heredity, environment, and

education —all mediated by the individual’s innate psychological mechanisms including

language-learning mechanisms (see Figure 2).

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Figure 2: Factors affecting human behavior

Touching upon ethnographically influenced perceptive-cognitive modifications,

Michael Cole stated, “Cultural [differences] in cognition reside more in [the] situations to

which particular cognitive processes [are] applied than in the existence of a [process] in

one cultural group and its absence [in] another” (Cole, 1998, p. 80). Additional studies in

anthropological psychology and cognitive linguistics will provide further evidence of

culturally sited perceptive reactions and will demystify enigmatic intricacy of cross-

cultural dialogue.

Physiological

heredity

Verbal &

non-verbal

behaviors

General

and cultural

education

Socio-

geo-political

environment

Innate

psychological

mechanisms,

i.e., learning

mechanisms

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Particularities of Cognitive Neurodynamics

The whole of science is nothing more than a refinement of everyday thinking.

Albert Einstein

The development of personality, behavior patterns, and cognitive structures in

higher organisms, language, and culture are often approached in very different ways. The

words consciousness and cognition refer to thought and thinking process, as the meaning

of cognitive style corresponds to thought patterns. Consciousness also refers to self and to

cognizing of other selves. It is utilized to justify the necessity of concentration in learning

and to impart the symbolic nature of language communication. However, it is necessary

to give additional details on particularities of data processing because of its great

importance for teaching and learning.

Drawing on his breakthrough research in comparative neuroscience, Terrence

Deacon at Boston University, offers a wealth of insights into the significance of symbolic

thinking and its liaison with self-identification, thoughts and emotions, and co-

evolutionary exchange between language and brains. He avers:

Consciousness of self in this way implicitly includes consciousness of other

selves, and other consciousnesses can only be represented through the virtual

reference created by symbols. The self that is the source of one’s experience of

intentionality, the self that is judged by itself as well as by others for its moral

choices, the self that worries about it impending departure from the world, this

self is symbolic self. It is a final irony that it is the virtual, not actual, reference

that symbols provide, which gives rise to this experience of self. This most

undeniably real experience is a virtual reality. (Deacon, 1998, p. 452)

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Often, consciousness is considered as an outcome of the human intellect or the

mental power of the brain, which deliberately perceives and decodes the reality,

monitored by human receptors. However, unlike the dolphin’s brain, the human brain is

unable to voluntarily activate either one of two hemispheres or their certain areas. Both

brains are simultaneously engaged in complex, multilateral analytical-synthetic

processing of signals incoming from the environment, although the intensity of activation

of different cerebral segments may substantially fluctuate. Thus, excessive

encouragement for the analytical thinking promotes inadequate activation of cerebral

structures and idiosyncratic analytical ability of the brain.

An important aspect of cognition is processing of information: analysis, related to

abstract-deductive reasoning, and synthesis, associated with associative-inductive

(intuitive) approach. Since analytical mental operations deal with developing a step-by-

step “logical chain” in which a conclusion about particulars follows necessarily from

general or universal premises, it entails the oral or inner discourse, and, thus, utilization

of a spoken language is expected. Synthesis operates vivid images and sudden associative

links between various phenomena while producing a quick “leap” from particulars to a

generalized result. Individuals, whose excellent intuition assists them in creating a whole

picture from pieces of a situational “puzzle,” are able to spontaneously grasp all

ingredients and to predict, with amazing accuracy, a possible result; they simply do not

need a lengthy deducing. The exceptional value of a genius consists in his or her

extraordinary capability to intuitively perceive the inner logic of processes and then to

deduce a universal law.

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However, since it is not possible to maintain an active status of certain segments

of the brain while others would remain deactivated, it is impossible to give the brain

“commands” to manage specifically analytical or synthetic mental operations. John

Dewey has given a sufficient evidence of indissoluble correlation of analytic-synthetic

cerebral processes:

Educational methods that provide themselves on being exclusively analytic or

exclusively synthetic are therefore (so far as they carry out their boasts)

incompatible with normal operations of judgment.…Analysis leads to synthesis,

while synthesis perfects analysis.…Hence the folly of trying to set analysis and

synthesis over against each other. (Dewey, 1997, pp. 114-115)

Many creative individuals insisted that in their most inspiring moments they

thought not in words but in mental images. Physical scientists are even more adamant

that their thinking is non-verbal: Michael Faraday, the originator of the modern

conception of electromagnetic fields; the mathematician James Maxwell, considered as a

prime example of an abstract theoretician; the engineer Nicola Tesla; the chemist

Friedrich Kekulé; Ernest Lawrence who conceptualized the cyclotron – all claimed to

have visualized their inventions before making formal computations. “The [most] famous

self-described [visual] thinker is Albert Einstein, who [arrived] at some of his insights by

imaging [himself] riding a beam of light and looking [back] at a clock, or dropping a coin

while [standing] in a plummeting elevator” (Pinker, 1995, p. 71). Along these lines, the

following postulation appears biased and, thus, arguable:

Some cultures have come to value abstractive thinking, whereas others encourage

associative patterns. Much of this has to do with the educational system. A system

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that teaches by rote tends to produce associative thinkers. An educational system,

which teaches problem solving, develops abstractive thinking. The scientific

method is very much a product of abstractive thinking. (Morrison, Conaway, &

Borden, 1994, p. xii)

In connection with chauvinistic attempts of linguistic determinism to explain

particularities of reflection-based mental reactions by perception-based cultural-

anthropological differences, it is important to draw attention to a concept of linguistic

relativity, which came out of the Boas school as part of a campaign to show that non-

literate cultures may be as complex and sophisticated as “civilized” ones. Nevertheless,

the supposedly mind-broadening anecdotes owe their appeal to patronizing willingness to

treat other cultures’ psychologies as weird and exotic compared to “our own.” Thus, a

pseudoscientific assertion of “higher quality of reasoning” that establishes superiority of

formal-logical mental operations over associative imagery has no clever underpinning:

An image, or a symbol, or a sign may enfold—by virtue of a point of reference—

substantially more and higher quality information “condensed” in internal (mental) or

external (perceptible) quantum codes than extensive verbalizing. “Symbols [are] equal

[to] language,” Edward A. Mabry and Richard E. Barnes argue (Mabry & Barnes, 1980,

p. 9). To mention, some ancient nations were utilizing various sensual-imaginary ways of

communication in an era of total illiteracy. They were coding their messages with knotted

ropes, or arrays of items, or particular assortments of flowers, etc., instead of writing

letters. Besides, carved on stone pictographic characters, depicting daily life and assorted

battle scenes, bred the world’s grand mother-language, a precursor of many different

linguistic systems scattered all around the world.

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As maintained by Dr. Steven Pinker, human thinking may be identified with

Mentalese, a hypothetical language of thought, which operates with mental images and

ideas, including the meaning of words and sentences. The psycholinguistic premise of a

Mentalese derives from the conceptualization of language as an inborn instinct, which

was first formulated in 1871 by Charles Darwin in The Descent of Man. According to the

behaviorist concept, social behavior can be explained based on few laws of stimulus-

response learning that could be studied with animals’ reactions.

On the contrary, one of Darwin’s followers, William James, Harvard’s eminent

professor and a founding father of American psychologo-pedagogical school, argued that

humans have all the instincts that animals do, and many more besides; the human flexible

intelligence comes from interplay of many competing instincts. The nature of human

thought is just what makes it so hard for the person to see that it is an instinct. By having

escaped the mental sensors, the thoughts come out of the mouth so effortlessly that they

often embarrass the individual. When – by virtue of various means of information

exchange – the person grasps a concept, an idea, or the quintessence of a communicative

situation, the stream of words becomes transparent. The individual fastens the thought to

the sense22

so spontaneously that he or she does not focus on selectivity of words and on

how to interlink particular meanings: he or she forgets that, for example, the movie is in a

foreign language.

However, observations on immigrants struggling with a second language or a

stroke patient with the first one, or building any spoken language-based computer

program, or “decoding” a baby’s lingua franca, and ordinary speech begins looking

22 An informational nucleus.

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different: effortlessness and lucidity become illusion. As it was observed, successful

acquisition of a first-spoken language must take place during a critical window of

opportunity in childhood; otherwise, an individual with no access to language immersion

since his or her childhood or deprived of natural human contacts for a long interval will

inevitably fail to regain the normal verbal communication. Nevertheless, the success of

second language acquisition largely depends on many other factors from which selection

of a teaching/learning method makes a difference most of all.

A popular tenet professed in educational institutions “to proceed from the

concrete to the abstract” suggests false notions of concrete and abstract. “At times [the]

injunction [is] positively misunderstood,” Dewey argued, “being taken to [mean] that

education [should] advance from things to thought—as if [any] dealing with things in

which thinking is not involved could [possibly] be educative” (Dewey, 1997, p. 135). It

would be quite difficult to ignore the logic of this statement, since nothing could be more

anomalous than instruction in things without thought; in sense perceptions without

judgments based upon them. “And if the abstract to which [we are] to proceed denotes

thought [apart] from things, the goal recommended is formal and empty, [for] effective

thought always refers, more [or] less directly, to things” (Dewey, 1997, pp. 135-136).

There is indeed a general line of distinction, which, “deciding [upon] the whole what

things fall [within] the limits of familiar acquaintance and [what] without, marks off the

concrete [and] the abstract in a more [permanent] way. These limits are fixed mainly [by]

the demands [of] practical life” (Dewey, 1997, p. 137). According to Dewey, “when

thinking [is] used as a means to some end, good, or value [beyond] itself, it is concrete;

when it is employed simply [as] a means to more thinking, it [is] abstract” (Dewey, 1997,

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p. 138). Since the concrete denotes thinking applied to activities in order to resolve a

practical problem, “proceeding from the concrete” means beginning with practical

manipulations. The classification of this type of mental operations, given by John Dewey

and fostered by suggestopedic education, allows differentiation between concrete and

abstract thinking as well as between empirical and scientific thinking.

Empirical thinking depends on a past pragmatic routine, habits, and traditions.

Individuals learn from repeated observations that things have happened in a particular

fashion, that certain results follow certain circumstances. Although empirical thinking is

quite adequate and furnishes basic materials for systematic knowledge, there is a great

probability that it may lead to false conclusions and beliefs. Moreover, it makes coping

with innovation more difficult, leads to mental inertia, presumptions, conservatism,

dogmatism, and its possible accessories such as intolerance for diversity and “witch

hunting.” The following reference to John Dewey’s genuine heritage makes clear that

empirical thinking shows the way for cognitive and societal stagnation, because it gives

rise to doctrines, which, inculcated and handed down, become dogmas; subsequent

inquiry and reflection, thus, become actually stifled.

Certain men or classes of men come to be the accepted guardians and transmitters

—instructors—of established doctrines. To question the beliefs is to question their

authority; to accept the beliefs is evidence of loyalty to the powers that be, a proof

of good citizenship. Passivity, docility, acquiescence come to be primal

intellectual virtues. Facts and events presenting novelty and variety are slighted,

or are sheared down till they fit into the Procrustean bed of habitual belief.

Inquiry and doubt are silenced by citation of ancient laws or a multitude of

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miscellaneous and unsifted cases. This attitude of mind generates dislike of

change, and the resulting aversion to novelty is fatal to progress. (Dewey, 1997, p.

149)

Quite the opposite of the empirical thinking, the scientific thinking analyzes the

present situation. “Scientific method replaces facts by [discovery] of a single

comprehensive fact, effecting this [replacement] by breaking up the coarse or [gross]

facts of observation into a [number] of minuter processes not directly accessible [to]

perception” (Dewey, 1997, p. 150). Scientific method of proceeding is by varying

circumstances one by one so far as possible with purpose to find out what special

conditions are present when the effect occurs and absent when it does not occur.

These special conditions are then substituted for the gross fact, or regarded as its

principle—the key to understanding it.…Observations, formed by variation of

conditions on the basis of some idea or theory, constitute experiment.

Experimental thinking, or scientific reasoning, is thus a conjoint process of

analysis and synthesis….In short, the term experience may be interpreted either

with reference to the empirical or the experimental attitude of mind. (Dewey,

1997, pp. 151, 152, 156)

In his Relativity, Albert Einstein also underscores the multifaceted nature of

thinking as follows, “From a systematic theoretical [point] of view, we may imagine the

[process] of evolution of an empirical [science] to be a continuous process [of] induction”

(Einstein, 1961, p. 141). It is to agree with the powerful logic of Dewey’s theoretical

revelations. It seems that his prospect of experimental education has served as a basis for

further psycho-pedagogical elaborations and, in particular, has nurtured humanistic-

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suggestopedic theories. It is obvious that psychologists and methodologists who invested

their joint creative efforts in development of suggestopedic methods were well

acquainted with the scientific heritage of John Dewey.

In the past, psychologists preferred to study the development of sign use as an

example of the “pure intellect” and not as a product of individual’s ontogenesis. Thus, the

children’s adaptive behavior and sign-using activity were treated as parallel phenomena,

in view of transparency of the “egocentric” speech. This concept of mental-internal

discourse failed to recognize the interweaving of two functions of the speech—

organization of the individual’s mental activities and communication of his or her

intentions, although it admitted the practical importance of the latter.

Even when speech and the use of tools were closely linked in one operation, they

were still studied as separate processes belonging to two completely different

classes of phenomena. At best, their simultaneous occurrence was considered a

consequence of accidental, external factors.…Although practical intelligence and

sign use can operate independently of each other in young children, the dialectical

unity of these systems in the human adult is the very essence of complex human

behavior. Our analysis accords symbolic activity a specific organizing function

that penetrates the process of tool use and produces fundamentally new forms of

behavior. (Vygotsky, 1978, p. 24)

This assertion was validated by various psycholinguistic researches. The

following reasoning sounds no less convincing, since Lev Vygotsky was and is until now

a trusted authority in the academic world. “The most significant moment in [the] course

of intellectual development, which [gives] birth to the purely human forms of practical

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[and] abstract intelligence, occurs when speech [and] practical activity, two previously

completely independent lines [of] development, converge” (Vygotsky, 1978, p. 24).

Perceiving-decoding of impulses incoming from the outside world is linked to

attention. While exploring surroundings, the individual takes into consideration some

objects. Concurrently, other objects and some qualities of the object, spotlighted by

human sensors, remain outside of one’s awareness. However, peripheral perception is not

brought to the end by one’s focusing on a particular object or its specific qualities: other

objects and other characteristics of the object perceived attract individual’s attention as

well. The fact is that individuals perceive and remember the life truth consciously as well

as inadvertently. It points toward the scope of attention and self-control. They take in

voluntarily and involuntarily (but at different levels of awareness) all external and

internal informational signals from the environment they are dealing with. Results of the

scientific work of Vygotsky, Luria, and other experts in the domain of psycholinguistics

agree on the following, “The independent [elements] in a visual field are

[simultaneously] perceived” (Vygotsky, 1978, p. 33). “There is [no] such thing as not

[paying] attention; [the] brain is always paying [attention] to something. The brain [is]

constantly scanning [the] environment for stimuli,” Wolfe wrote (Wolfe, 2001, p. 81).

Perceptive abilities significantly affect memory. The possibility of combining

elements of the past and of the present visual fields in one field of attention leads to a

basic reconstruction of another vital function—memorizing. According to Alexander R.

Luria, “the gift of persistent, [concrete] memory appears to make [for] highly concrete

thinking, a kind [of] thinking in images that is very reminiscent of [young] children…”

(Luria, 1987, p. xxiii). Based on his/her personal experience, the individual links the

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elements perceived in the past with present happenings. In this connection, the following

statement by Vygotsky seems ambiguous (at the end of the following quote),

Created with the help of speech, the time for action extends both forward and

backward. Future activity that can be included in an ongoing activity is

represented by signs. As in the case of memory and attention, the inclusion of

signs in temporal perception does not lead to a simple lengthening of the

operation in time; rather, it creates the conditions for the development of a single

system that includes effective elements of the past, present, and future.

(Vygotsky, 2000, p. 37)

In this relation, one may argue with the renowned author on the subject of

inclusion of elements of the present and, particularly, of the future in the mnemonic

chain. By virtue of the term, “memory” can be associated only with the past perceptions

and mental representations in the “eye of the mind” and, thus, cannot be extended

forward, into the future.

Networking for Survival

Struggle for survival urges individuals to coordinate their efforts in a variety of

life situations in different environmental settings. The need to communicate encourages

gradual formation of communicative systems and numerous social-cultural affiliations.

Each environmental situation, which necessitates socializing, creates motivation for an

oncoming negotiation of practical tasks and means in order to let people arrive at a

solution of situational problem and achieve their individual or shared goals. Motivation

endorses both experiential and communicative activity and dictates the contents of

communication as well as the selection of means and communication style, which are

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considerably affected by the social status of communicants. Thus, the needs for esteem,

encouragement, and personal growth are as important as economic security, because they

motivate personal self-actualization and successful achievement of collective goals as

well. As many other needs, they are expressed in direct or indirect contacts.

Shared values and goals affect group members in their attempts to work with each

other. Input, throughput, and output variables are inseparably interwoven within the

content and configuration of group interaction. It also shapes the pattern of cultural

coherence, since social groups need to collaborate while building their present and their

future. Cooperation depends on trust, and trust most easily springs out from shared

values, goals, and traditions. Shared values and goals grow to be the cause and, at the

same time, the effect of group members’ attempts to work with each other. Input,

throughput, and output variables are inseparably interwoven within the content and

patterns of group interaction. It is difficult to disagree with the assertion that

“communication [is] both a means of developing social relationships and part [of] those

relationships [that] develop” (Mabry & Barnes, 1980, p. 8).

Small groups (no less than two persons) are complex social units that create larger

social systems. (Once again, the “Russian doll” principle enters into play.) During their

face-to-face or mediated interaction, small group members negotiate for their actions

while continuously scanning the physical and social environment. Reward or punishment

for group members is often provided as a stimulus and a measure of success.

Groups influence and are influenced by their environmental context. The latter

becomes a unifying link between analytical categories of micro- and macro-sociological

events, since the environment determines constraints and resources for the group. The

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environmental context acts as the unifying link between analytic categories of macro-

sociological and micro-sociological events. “The context [may] be thought as a situation

[and] time bounded arena for [human] activity. It is a [unit] of culture” (Cole, 1998, p.

142). Together, environmental influences and characteristics of the group contribute to

the definitions of purpose, significance, interpersonal relations, responsibilities, and

rewards the teammates settle for.

The results of group production invest into that social-environmental framework,

which, in turn, determines the scope of group’s welfare. An organizational macro-system

needs the groups it creates and demands the result of their collective efforts. The group’s

existence also depends on the organization’s request for its products and services. In this

fashion, small groups (i.e., social-biological micro-systems) are involved in

interdependent relationships with each other and the local and global environment by

investing their bio-noospheric energy in the global bio-noo-ontogenetic transformer.

There are solid ties between socio-economic (ethnic or organizational) culture,

communication, and environment: alteration of one element of this “cluster” causes

transformations within the others.

Diverse cultural patterns and language of a social group are rooted in a complex

matrix—a socio-economic template, which embodies the specificity and complexity of

ethnic socio-geo-political and economic experiences. Both culture and language are

permanent attributes of a human society: they are acquired (taught and learned) while

someone transfers information and another one assimilates it – in classroom and beyond.

Responsive to the environmental pressure, these phenomena construct the foundations of

accomplishments unique to the human species: tool making and language.

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Tool manufacturing reduces the physical world to controllable relations. It allows

scientific management of the nature and emancipates the person from dependence on

natural resources by compelling natural laws to human bidding. Language makes possible

interpersonal exchange of experiences by turning the image-making knack of the

individual into linguistic and extra-linguistic communicative devices. Language

annihilates space-time limitation on experience: by the use of language, individuals may

enter into the experience of one another, even though a thousand years separate them

from one another.

Language, allied with the person’s analytical capability, serves to deduce

information by isolating precise relations in the material environment. The ability to

synthesize information by fusing the elements of a momentary experience into images

and decisions—the inductive-intuitive way of information processing—mostly does not

need language support and operates with mental representations spontaneously. Although

fundamental to cybernetics, John Dewey’s “fork” model of the human thinking process

is, however, at odds with the results of modern studies of human versatile psychological

activity.

Assorted authors of socio-psychological literature offer significant differentiation

between group and team. Actually, the difference between these notions comprises the

degree of cohesiveness of allies obtained through shared experiences. It means that the

extent to which members of the group realize their interdependence and are willing to

exercise their power and rights. Anyway, both the group and the team are more than the

sum of their parts: they are “a network of people [who] have intentionally invested part of

their [personal] decision making power in the [authority] of a larger social unit [in]

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pursuit of mutually desired [but] separately unobtainable goals” (Mabry & Barnes, 1980,

p. 259). These ties give rise to continuing informal integration that strengthens

organizational commonality. “Communication is [both] a means of developing social

relationships [and] part of those relationships [that] develop” (Mabry & Barnes, 1980, p.

8). This way, by binding the elements of a living system into a functional social entity,

communication creates groups, nations, and cultures.

For the reason that group communication is such a vital part of the societal

structure and of the daily life, exploration of its aspects is important for a better

understanding of how communication administers global transformations with regard to

acceleration of global processes. It also will help grasp small group dynamics in foreign

language suggestopedic intensive training, because even a small learning group mirrors

the entire societal archetype.

There is far greater difficulty associated with the definition of communication that

is due to so many facets of the concept. Human communication is “a social [process] that

involves [the] simultaneous exchange of [symbols] or behaviors (translatable into

symbols) between two [or] more people” (Mabry & Barnes, 1980, p. 256). That means

communicative activity genuinely adheres to general human activity and develops within

its structure. According to the Activity Theory generated by Russian Acad. Aleksey A.

Leontief’s, communicative activity incorporates communicative actions that, in turn, are

sub-structured with communicative acts, smaller units which functional mechanism is

directly responsive to and dependent on the level of development of communicative

skills, i.e., automated operation steps readily available for use either without external

stimuli or human will.

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A communicative action features seven components: stimulus, sender, first filter,

message, medium, second filter, and destination. Usually, communicative action ends

with a feedback to the sender. Clarification and negotiation represent attempts at

providing feedback about the interpretation of meanings; feedback is the response a

receiver-decoder emits that is contingent upon the meaning assigned to the encoder’s

message. Hence, feedback is a valuable component of any communicative chain and an

integral part of interpretation of meaning (see Figure 3).

Stimulus Sender Filter Message Medium Filter Destination

Feedback

Figure 3: The components of human communication

Communicative action, meaningful and symbolically translatable verbal or non-

verbal behavioral “molecule,” denotes more than a simple aggregation of elements. That

is due to particular characteristics the informational nucleus, which potential energy is

being released in the course of communication. A meaningless (“nucleusless”)

conversation thread leads to a fading interaction: since feedback is not expected,

communication turns into a trivial overt monologue per se.

During a communicative act, each conversant operates as both an encoder and a

decoder of a message. The latter is conveyed through transmitters and perceived by the

sensors in verbal (spoken or written) or non-verbal (kinetic and proxemic) signal codes,

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i.e., behavioral symbols. The signal may be encoded or decoded consciously (voluntarily)

and/or unconsciously (involuntarily) whilst the communicants realize or not their

influence on each other. In other words, every communicative act has a composition of

influencing factors, brought by linguistic (verbal) and paralinguistic (non-verbal) signals-

symbols that remain identified and/or unidentified by the human consciousness but, in

any case, perceived involuntarily by the unconscious. Facial expressions, gestures, voice

modulations, personal physical characteristics, etc., create an important communicative

pattern, and may reflectively reveal the information that communicants would prefer

having kept as confidential. According to Luria,

Psychologists, aware of the mechanisms behind the “ideomotor” act, believe that

most of what is involved in that mysterious act known as ‘thought reading’ can be

explained as a reading of the expressions imagination has aroused on the face of

the person being observed. (Luria, 1987, p. 138)

It means that human communication, including educational interaction, is a

complex, multifaceted-multilayered process, which involves simultaneous conscious and

sub-conscious analytical-synthetic mental and physical activity while information

transpire in countless forms and shapes (see Figure 4).

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Figure 4: Communicative synapse, a “molecule” of signal activity23

Adequateness of communicative interaction is not only influenced by individuals’

behavior, abilities, and skills, but it also depends on a current degree of alertness of their

sensory systems, which is considerably affected by the human feelings, e.g., the attitude

23 LS – linguistic signals/codes; NLS – non-linguistic signals/codes.

Transmitting

information

(encoding)

Perceiving

information

(decoding)

Transmitting

feedback

(encoding)

Consciously Sub-consciously

Consciously

Sub-consciously Consciously

LS NLS LS NLS

LS

LS

NLS LS

NLS

LS

NLS

NLS

1st actor

2nd

actor

Sub-consciously

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toward subject and object of communication. That is why the availability of multiple

factors of direct and indirect encouragement for the learners is essential for successful

schooling.

Linguistically structured experiences and environment of different social groups

impart an extraordinary new power over others. Enormous quantities of human energy

are “condensed” in language ciphers. Language has power over an individual’s mind,

feelings, actions, and lifestyle. “Through language, [restructured] experience, and [its]

tool-transformed [material] environment,” Dr. Martindale stresses, “society [seizes]

control [of] the individual and enchains [him] to one plane in the unmeasured [compass]

of [human] potentiality” (Martindale, 1966, p. 40). By monitoring and managing

individuals’ desires, intentions, and attitudes, the inherent perceptive-adaptive aptitude of

the living matter—i.e., the inborn communicative ability—unleashes human latent energy

and modifies velocity of events, thus, affecting the material world. That also corroborates

the following claim of the author of this research: Signal activity (including human

communication) is indeed an interchangeable fusion of matter, energy, motion, and

information, concomitantly condensed in quantum chunks and scattered all over the

discontinuous continuity of space-time.

Mentalese—the Matrix of Culture and a Language of Concepts

The truth, like beauty, always lies in the eye of the beholder.

― The popular saying.

Long ago, people noticed that many behavior patterns, beliefs, and abilities were

accepted in some societies but ridiculed in the others. Human behavior is a manifestation

of complex psycho-physiological, socio-economic, cultural, and political processes,

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identifiable by birth heritage, education, and environmental adaptation. Although many

wonderful books have been written, particularly, in the last few years, none of their

authors could remain bias-free, culturally “neutral” while comparing cultural patterns and

making conclusions, because all observations and definitions are always “filtered”

through the lenses of socio-psychological and cultural background of an observer.

“Culture [is] like gravity: you [do not] experience it until you jump [six] feet into the air,”

Fons Trompenaars and Charles Hampden-Turner stated in one of their seminal books on

culture (Trompenaars & Hampden-Turner, 1998, p. 5).

The word culture stems from the Latin colere, translatable as to cultivate, to build

on, to foster. In the early stages of the philosophical debate about what is culture, the

term often refers to the opposite of nature, whereas “culture” was referring to “something

constructed willingly by men”, while “nature” was “given in itself.” The individual,

however, can never be considered as a completely independent “cultural architect,”

whose creative spirit is resourcefully unconstrained by the environmental pressure:

Survival urge forcefully dictates purposeful inventiveness, which is always determined by

the environmental context and previous human experience.

Since the 18th

century, the word “culture” emerged as a synonym of classiness,

fine quality, and sophistication—more in the sense of “something praiseworthy” with

regards to the high society, edification, and the values of the arts, somewhat reduced to

Michelangelo, Goethe, and Beethoven. The term was used to describe an elitist approach

in definition of high-culture concepts, particularly in continental Europe. This definition

of high-texture culture is still vivid.

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Equally, in the middle of 19th

century, the concept of mass culture and popular

culture surfaced to denote both means and values, which arise among distinctive social

groups and classes that create numerous secular paradigms. Realities of the daily life and

survival struggle through which low-texture cultures “handle” their existence bring about

groundwork for their values and traditions.

According to Edward T. Hall’s anthropological concept, built on a thorough

comparative analysis of different ethnic groups, culture is qualified as a system, which is:

A. Rooted in a biological activity widely shared with other advanced living

forms. It was essential that there be no breaks with the past.

B. Capable of analysis in its own terms without reference to the other systems

and so organized that it contained isolated components that could be built up

into more complex units, and paradoxically —

C. So constituted that it reflected all the rest of culture and was reflected in the

rest of culture. (Hall, 1990, p. 38)

Another view of culture puts an emphasis on organizational culture as a set of

values, beliefs, and behaviors attributed to the group. According to Drs. Trompenaars and

Hampden-Turner, “Culture is [the] way in which a group of people solves problems [and]

reconciles dilemmas….Culture is [the] context in which [things] happen” (Trompenaars

& Hampden-Turner, 1998, pp. 6, 8). A group can thereby apply to any socially

constructed form: it is not merely a nation, but also any supranational unit (a family, a

team, or a gang, etc.) and international entity (an intercontinental corporation or the entire

global society), distinguishable in any segment of social archetype. The organizational

concept deals with relationship between the individual and the group as well as with

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acquisition of organizational ethics and behaviors that involves teaching and learning of

a shared, conventional socio-psychological pattern, established and maintained within a

given social body. It also alludes to “collective programming of the mind,” or “creating a

group mindset, which systematizes the way people do things to coordinate their efforts.”

This group mindset—as well as behavior—is regulated by sanctions, rewards, and

punishments for those who make part of the group what suggests anticipation of

compliance with the legalized or tacit code d’honneur imposed by leadership. “In

practice, though, [beneath] the surface, the silent forces [of] culture operate a destructive

process, biting at the [roots] of centrally developed methods which do [not] ‘fit’ locally,”

assert Drs. Trompenaars and Hampden-Turner (Trompenaars & Hampden-Turner, 1998,

p. 5).

Although multiple scientific realizations in the culture field embody the most

valuable achievements in the development of scientific thought, the author of this

research argues that an investigation of cause-effect correlation integrated with analysis

of cultural phenomena is critical for understanding cross-cultural dynamics and teaching

of foreign languages with cross-cultural alertness. Besides, culture is capable of

mutations, which may not necessarily be a result of cultural convergence but a malicious

metamorphosis inside the same culture that also must be addressed in academic

preparation.

The relativity theory states that every event (i.e., cultural occurrences) has a

specific spot and duration in space-time; that is, every life fact is positioned within a

concrete historic-geopolitical period resulting from a complex and versatile combination

of countless situational variables. In accordance with the Field Theory, culture is a wave-

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like fluctuating field of live energy, spread out or compact, aligned horizontally and

vertically, healthy or ailing, smooth or warped in the fabric of space-time.

The reader of this dissertation may wonder about the relationship between culture

and foreign language instruction. Although some instructors still consider teaching a

foreign language with cultural immersion is an optional extra, many modern educators,

politicians, and businesspersons have realized that a foreign language expertise is not

sufficient enough to successfully operate within another culture and that acquisition of a

foreign language must align with cross-cultural alertness. Teaching a foreign language

with cross-cultural awareness means accessing and assessing the Mentalese24

of a target

culture. Located and chronologically extended in a particular segment of space-time, the

culture Mentalese is a response to the environmental pressure and a result of natural

adaptation to which the functional reliability of a survival mechanism is crucial.

Mentalese operates by mental representations on a “virtual drive” of the human

mind and is an outcome of signal-sensorial activity. A mental representation is indeed a

composite personal reaction to multiple environmental signals perceived by human

sensors and processed—analyzed, categorized, and associated—by the brain while being

filtered through human individuality. Mental—verbal and graphic—images intrinsically

intertwine with memories: they are checked by the intellect against individual and/or

collective memory “prints” including previously assimilated cultural-behavioral values,

“coded” in association with a particular situational context, and “stored” in memory or

externally (in oral and written descriptions). When individual experiences are shared with

(taught) and assimilated (learned) by other persons, it contributes to creation of a

24 The matrix of culture and a language of concepts.

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particular Mentalese and to exosomatic-noospheric evolution as well.

A comparative assessment of cultures must be anchored in the following fourteen

factors the interplay of which results in a particular cultural composition. The following

table embodies sixteen facets of a culture Mentalese (see Table 1).

Table 1. Mentalese, the Matrix of Culture and a Language of Concepts

________________________________________________________________________

Aspect Definition and example ____________________________________________________________________________________________________________

Physical appearance Morphological parameters: race, ethnicity, age, gender, etc.

Language A symbolic system, a codified tradition, a product of exosomatic

evolution, a vehicle of information, a teaching-learning tool

By actuality: modern (currently in use) or archaic (e.g.,

Latin, ancient Egyptian cryptography, etc.)

By derivation: historically generated (natural/ethnic

languages) and purposefully/artificially synthesized (e.g.,

Esperanto, Braille, computer languages, jargon, etc.)

By the way of acquisition: acquired (naturally) or learned

(on purpose)

By encryption: encrypted (having a writing subsystem) or

non-encrypted (without a writing subsystem)

By target: a liberating or colonizing force responsible for

linguistic pollution and cross-cultural mutations (e.g.,

global expansion of English, Spanish, and French)

Communication A process and a mechanism

A catalyst controlling (accelerating or decelerating) the

velocity of exosomatic evolution and database

An integral feature of the human inherent survival

apparatus

An integral part of general human activity

Signal activity transpiring via verbal/linguistic and non-

verbal/para-linguistic means including conscious (mentally

controlled) and non-conscious (spontaneous) reactions

(e.g., mimics, body language, voice modulations, etc.)

Inner psychological activity: mental and sensorial activity

between the inner (“self”) and external environments

________________________________________________________________________

(table continues)

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Table 1 (continued)

_______________________________________________________________________

Aspect Definition and example __________________________________________________________________________________________________________

A method of encoding/decoding of environmental signals

including conscious (intentional) and para-conscious

(unintentional, spontaneous) psycho-somatic reactions

Linguistically (verbally) and non-linguistically (non-

verbally) codified tradition

A teaching-learning engine

Public media

Education A teaching-learning process, which primarily depends not on

specificity of ethnic perceptiveness but on the availability of

effective methods of transmission and assimilation of information;

a result of knowledge acquisition mirroring a factual status of

academic system

Socialization Belongingness to a social group, e.g., nation, community, family,

etc., and its culturally influenced behaviors

Stratification Preconceived judgments, biases, and socially constructed—with

regard to upward mobility—barriers (“strata”) that create a “glass

ceiling” syndrome for some social classes, groups, races, or ethnos

Self-awareness An identical twin of self-confidence and a love for freedom that

evolve from self-identification of an individual or a nation

Politics Spelling out the character of relations between classes and

countries and determines state-run orderliness with its infra-

structured machine of oppression

Legal system Legislative willpower of domineering classes that regulates public

behavior

Financial system The “blood system” of culture, which creates multiple ways that

allow—through production and exchange of goods and services, or

monetary manipulations of corporate dealership—to store energy

for the present and future needs

Sciences, arts, and All-inclusive layer of the noosphere that transforms the contents

technology and structure of environments and human relations; the speed of

such transformations depends on the multiple patterns within

education, communication, and other facets of culture Mentalese

________________________________________________________________________

(table continues)

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Table 1 (continued)

_______________________________________________________________________

Aspect Definition and example __________________________________________________________________________________________________________

Emotionality Dynamism of psychological reactions, vivacity of feelings, and

external expressiveness

Spirituality Religion, arts, folklore, traditions, and appreciation for edification

Sexuality Psycho-physiologically motivated behaviors ascending from the

pre-historic saga on human (basic and some secondary) reflexes,

which sanction sexual orientation and mannerism

Temporality Conceptualization of the historic timeline (past-present-future) and

the timing (age-, season-, or business-related concepts)

Territoriality Has a multifaceted meaning that ranges from psychological

tolerability (at home, at work, etc.) and socially acceptable distance

(for example, between two interacting individuals) to shielding the

Motherland or the family from the intruders

________________________________________________________________________

Mentalese—or in other words, cultural (national or organizational) mentality—is

an outcome of a codification system, which, like a glass prism, conditions human

perceptions and beliefs in accordance with assimilated in the past publicly accepted

(“suggestive”) behavioral standards, stereotyped thinking, and biases. Since a foreign

language expertise must comprise not only correct verbal behaviors but also cross-

cultural alertness, Mentalese-targeted didactics should feature not only sporadic culture-

related references but be placed at heart of foreign language training.

Culture Is Communication

There is an opinion that human intelligence, as distinct from the intelligence of

non-humans, had resulted from a system transition that made available psycho-

physiological operations of a higher order, different from simple perceptions. A living

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system, as well as living cells, has intrinsic mechanisms, which control information

circulation inside “membranes” and crossways. However, there is no unanimity among

anthropologists and psycholinguists in determination of behavioral reactions including

thinking styles in the series of natural and cultural phenomena.

In his fundamental investigation on conditioned reflexes, Acad. Ivan Pavlov

(1849-1936), world-renowned Russian physiologist, found that the animal is not free to

control associations: an animal grasps only those, which the environment imposes on it.

To control associations, the brain must relate two or several mental representations

whereas arbitrary associations are not available in the environment. Thus, the human

cerebral apparatus gains control over associative imagination and forms relationships

with cognition, language, goal-setting, decision-making, humor, arts, sciences, etc.

The appearance of the thinking beings, which marks the beginning of a new

evolutionary stage—an era of reasoning, which occurs in accordance with the formula:

associating = thinking. And this is an area where anthropologies, psychologists, and

sociologists, until now, cross their swords while debating cultural differences. To throw

light upon this dilemma, it is necessary to allude to a fastening link between associating,

thinking, and learning that somehow has escaped educators’ attention.

In 1977, Russian-born renowned biochemist Ilya Prigogine became a Nobel

laureate for his findings in biotechnology. He discovered that elegant protein bundles did

not remain “silent” but communicated through their membranes with each other and with

their environments. Assisted by chemical messengers, the chemical elements featuring

the corpuscular structures were able to interact (as they always do) through their

membranes. Healthy corpuscular membranes facilitated communication between the cells

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that kept the entire system in a good, working condition. It means that microcosm also

operates by means of information exchange: communication. The creative imagination of

the reader can now craft an amazing picture of humans acting like rushing cells inside

their social “membranes:” orbiting, colliding, merging, and breaking free…

Chemical reactions in the human body show a remarkable diversity with,

however, one thing in common: energy. To survive, every living or non-living system

must be capable of acquiring, converting, and re-arranging the energy that empowers the

composites of a tapestry of life. Energy comes primarily from food that is stored in

human bodies as potential energy. As the reaction proceeds, the molecules release energy

for behavior or work. This kind of energy is known as kinetic energy. A stimulus that

triggers off a reaction is really one that transforms potential energy into kinetic energy. It

is as if this stored energy is waiting to be released and that it only takes the right event to

do so. Either environmental pressure or internal stimuli (such as scarcity of energy supply

leading to system’s malfunctioning) can prompt the release of energy through metabolic

reactions. Metabolism is a delicate balancing of chemical elements—inside and outside

the cells. Scientists have also uncovered the ATP and ADP enzymes, which are actually

responsible for re-arranging the chemical elements organized in molecules and, thus, they

are the “energy currency” of life. By re-arranging the molecular structure, the metabolic

agents “unlock” energy keeping the cells and the entire system alive. Metabolism is,

indeed, an enzymatic reaction of the system defying the death. Since both human being

and culture are rudimentary constructs of the nature, they are subject to the same

universal laws as the other constructs of the natural world. Effective communication

inside and outside the social membranes (that is, “corpuscular metabolism” among

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individuals and cultures) would facilitate re-distribution of synergy25

to create healthy

and wealthy communities that would strengthen the entire global community. It classifies

communication as a genuine controller, catalyst, and vehicle of the events that take place

in the human world.

Any life is a delicate artifact of the nature. Human society is no exception. The

individual, as well as culture, is motivated (i.e., stimulated, forced, or “invited” to react),

firstly, by external, environmental stimuli inbuilt in situational context and, secondly, by

internal, psycho-physiological motives promising incentives. These stimuli release the

energy necessary to command and regulate velocity of human behavior. They can also

operate as foundation for manipulations with human consciousness, because, at any time,

both individual and collective consciousness are subject to straight or—more often—

“veiled” influences from other persons. Infiltrated in human consciousness, a “modified”

communicative module suggested (or imposed) by leadership, like a billiard ball, is

capable of changing environment, velocity of events, and, thus, the world’s history.

Conversely, unmanaged, chaotic velocities of the vibrating human “particles” destabilize

a living system/organization, bringing it to the verge of collapse.

Group consciousness, the group mindset, from which the individuals operate

within organization and which colors their decisions and interactions, generates a specific

communicative orderliness: a language as a system of coded signals. Each verbal and

non-verbal signal enfolds a certain amount (quantum) of energy with information emitted

in “pockets” that empowers people’s reactions. The reaction occurs, however, only when

the human censors perceive the information signal from the environment, and the

25 Abraham Maslow’s term.

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incoming information seems valuable to the addressee. Via communicative activity,

quanta generate a vibrant and erratic wave-based energy field, or cultural “ether” akin to

electromagnetic field. Cultural ether shapes an internal structural-functional pattern of the

core contents and the way the cultural field interacts with the rest of the locale.

Technological advances combined with the intensive brainwashing make it easy

to entice a large population into an ideological trap of a power-thirsty group. The latter

always strives to trigger social uncertainty in order to achieve desirable goals. The history

has proven it can happen at any time and in any society. Adolph Hitler (1889-1945) was

swept into power in a democratic way, by general election. In the beginning, the national-

socialist (Nazi) doctrine was strong but non-aggressive. However, shortly after having

got on top of the state apparatus, the Nazis intensified political propaganda and cultural

apartheid. The majority of populace in Germany of 1930s was swept away by the

swastika spirit. Brainwashed spectators were going hysterical each time when the Führer

was making his public appearance: the idea of national supremacy was promising the

wealth to a large body of voters. The state machine of Nazi leadership was skillfully

manipulating with the national consciousness, which, like yeast, grew domineering,

arrogant, and aggressive. The “natural” superiority of the Arians over all other ethnicities

started as local “cleansing” and oppression of minorities; and then, it reached its

apotheosis when World War II was unleashed. Nevertheless, the Third Reich— in the

same way as the Roman Empire, or the Genghis-Khan Horde, or the invasion of the

Europe by Napoleon Bonaparte—has found its disgraceful logical end. Besides, like any

process, the wave of culture is conceived inside the matrix, then it develops (typically and

unfortunately, into a monster), and undergoes later the next transformation of energy:

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Culture is a continuing process of transformations of energy from one state into another.

And the group leadership, an organizing and re-distributing force at the steering wheel of

the society, is—more often than not—responsible for “ship wreckage” and, thus, the first

one to be blamed for, because it controls the velocity of communication.

Very often, the Presidents of the countries, as well as ordinary citizens, forget

about a simple rule that businesspersons skillfully apply at any time they enter into

contact: negotiation as the simplest and smartest way to finding the middle ground.

Negotiation comprises communication. “Communication is [of] course essentially the

exchange of information, be it words, ideas, [or] emotions. Information, in turn, is [the]

carrier of meaning,” Trompenaars and Hampden-Turner underline. “Communication is

possible [only] between people who, to some extent, share a system [of] meanings, so

here we return to [our] basic definition of culture” (Trompenaars and Hampden-Turner,

1998, p. 75).

Communication is primarily supported by verbal acts that compose a dialogue.

Western societies predominantly prefer verbal communication, to mention that word-

processing and graphics were developed to facilitate verbal communication. Some

cultures were ingenious in developing a variety of codification systems that allow

conveying, assimilating, intercepting, codifying, and decoding information.

Oral conversation is a bilateral (dialogical) process, which involves at least two

participants and goes on as undulations. Thus, listening to the partner is no less important

than speaking: a pause in conversation—silent conversation—can convey as much

information as it does a well-developed verbal expression. The pattern of silent

communication, accepted in many cultures, frightens the Westerner, because in the West,

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a moment of silence is usually interpreted as a communicative failure or the inability to

connect. Adversely, one’s exaggerated talkativeness, when another person is not given

time to finish his or her sentence or “inappropriate” modulations of voice may be “read”

by a non-Westerner as a sign of disrespect and rudeness. For that reason, feedback must

be always anticipated. Communication fails when feedback is not expected nor welcome.

Communicative effectiveness also depends on the status of the filters through

which communicative process goes on: on the one hand, the personal-cultural filters of

communicants and, on the other hand, the transitional filters— mass media, an

interpreter, an analyst, etc.—delivering the message to its destination. Additionally to

verbal interaction, non-verbal communication (gesture, mimics, body positioning, eye

contact, etc.), which is more difficult to put under conscious control, reveals sometimes

more than the person would like to say.

Edward T. Hall identifies “out-of-awareness” aspect of communication: “We

must never assume that [we] are fully aware of what we [communicate] to someone else.

There exists in [the] world today tremendous distortion in meaning [as] men try to

communicate [with] one another” (Hall, 1990, p. 29). Indeed, the meaning of the message

sent is filtered two-three times before it reaches its destination: First, it is “encoded”

through personal and cultural “lenses” of the sender. Then, like a ray of light passing

through water, it is altered by additional filters (such as mass media or another mediator-

interpreter). Finally, it is always “decoded” through personal and cultural filters of the

observer. Like a billiard ball crashing into the others, the word26

is able to re-direct

creative (or destructive) energy to control the velocity of events. A passionate and

26 In this context: the informational nucleus, successfully arrived at its destination.

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eloquent leader or a motivational speaker is capable to activate (or to “block”) the human

mental receptors; and Mentalese will outburst with extreme excitement or will rest,

somnambulated by sweetness of the words.

Culture Is Politics

A socio-geopolitical view of culture allows classification of culture as a category,

which has both political and social consequences. The difficulty nation-states have with

globalization comes not just from the force of what is happening in the international

arena but also from ideological developments within nation-states.

The concept of ethnocentrism, introduced early in this century, refers to a

tendency that most people see their own culture as the “center of the world.” Often this

phenomenon has been seen as a result of “naïve” thinking, following from the assumption

of the world in itself being like it appears to the individual: a set of “self-evident” rules,

roles, categories, and relationships, seen as “natural.” The concept of ethnocentrism is

often displayed in a form of nationalism that always rallies with chauvinism, xenophobia,

and racism. National sovereignty is said to be a “dying concept” and, consequently, a

boost must be given to redirecting national priorities in favor of the “genuinely natives.”

The next “protective-purifying” step comprises issuing a definition of

“genuineness” by specific parameters, which are defined by the ruling elite. When the

national consolidation idea reaches its extremity, it turns into fascist hysteria or it leads to

a political coup d’état, followed by dogmatic pressure and physical extermination of

those who “do not fit” certain standards or ideological parameters, those who are distinct.

Torn between local and global socio-political controversies, the living system carelessly

engages in the never-ending war for survival: fighting for change, fighting against the

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change, and losing the battle in both case scenarios because of tremendous stresses,

human losses, and sufferings.

As it has been mentioned before, culture can be understood—in organizational

context—as collective intelligence that refers to a vibrant mental association, or a

collectively held set of moral attributes of a group. Comparing culture to a complex

dynamic organism, Edward T. Hall asserts:

It is easy to forget that the bodies of complex organisms are in reality societies of

cells, most of which have highly specialized functions, and that the first

associations along this line were between cells that banded together in

colonies.…As it happens, all living things arrange their lives in some sort of

recognizable pattern of association. In some cases, a rigidly ordered hierarchy is

replaced by another form of association. Associational patterns persist over long

period of time, and if they change at all, it is because of very strong pressure from

the environment. (Hall, 1990, pp. 39, 40)

The individual and the culture in which he lives is a complex set of relationships.

On the one side, culture shapes the individual; on the other side, the individual has

bearing on culture. By contributing to the culture around him or her, the individual also

gets involved in a cultural change. In any given historic period, velocity of change varies

dramatically in different cultures depending on environmental and socio-economic

conditions as well as on the availability and cumulative potency of catalyzing factors. The

egotistic survival thrust of all ecological variations (i.e., humans) entails communication

patterns and moral issues affecting the environment, scientific thought, and people’s lives

alongside disproportionate evolution of the nations and aggravation of global dynamics.

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The asymmetries resulting from the rapid globalization of markets in the absence

of any commensurable globalization of political and civic institutions are mostly ignored

by elected officials, even those of the center-left. Ripped from the box of a nation-state,

which traditionally acted as its regulator and civilizer, capitalism turns mean and

anarchic. The market sector is privileged; the political sector is largely eclipsed (when not

subordinated to the purposes of the market); the private is elevated above the public,

which is subjected to ruthless privatization at every turn. Liberty itself is redefined as the

absence of governmental authority and, hence, is an exclusively market phenomenon,

while coercion and dependency are associated with government even when (especially

when) government is democratic.

Any form of social organization has to deal with a balance of power. Delegating a

central authority and responsibilities to one person is important—in order to avoid chaos

and anarchy, but keeping a reasonable balance of power within the system is no less

important. Yet, the problem remains, because it is unlikely to make certain how much

personal power should be entrusted to the leader of a group, because success of an entire

culture depends tremendously on psychological factors.

In a truly democratic society, the barriers between social strata are not much

evident and a two-way communication infrastructure is continuously protected from the

possible reactionary attacks. This includes free and autonomous information (guaranteed

by the independent existence of collectively owned media), social and political diversity

(guaranteed by genuine pluralism in society), and full participation by citizens in

deciding public policies and securing public goods (guaranteed by a robust public

domain). It uninterruptedly preserves a given culture from social entropy, while pooled

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together social energy is used for constructive, humanistic purposes.

On the contrary, dictatorship controls and, sometimes, completely ceases free

surge of spiritual energy by obstructing exchange of opinions. Hopelessness of multiple

attempts to effectively and justly distribute the social goods increases inner tension and

deepens cultural divides between social strata. By creating more favorable life conditions

for a particular stratum, the authority consequently puts a stronger pressure on the others.

Social stratification27

; gender, ethnic, and racial discrimination; lifelong economic

deprivation of ones alongside unjustifiable wealth of others; lack of effective social care

for impaired persons, etc. erect the most insurmountable obstacles on the way of the

development of societal potential, because these factors define the relationship among

environment, opportunities, and individual wherewithal, combination of which

preordains the design and the quality of human life. The cost of social biases is fantastic

in addition to a psychological damage they do to the person, culture, and the entire global

society.

In general, functionality of the individual and of the culture/system implies to

freedom to speak, to relocate, to choose, to participate in decision-making, to derive

maximum intellectual and spiritual satisfaction, and to benefit economically from all

those experiences. To progress, the individual – like organization – must be challenged,

participate in conflict, and seek to grow with the rest of the world. Therefore, to be able

to develop in pursuit of self-adjustment to continuing environmental and social change,

the whole (i.e., the system) must be sufficiently unstable to permit diversity, variation of

elements (i.e., the individuals).

27 Inequality in birth, i.e., existence of casts, classes, and other innate social divides.

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On the other hand, disproportionate diversity of elements, ambiguity, and

conflicts may indeed be destructive and regressive, because people need something

fundamental, a kind of frames of reference to hold onto. Excessively variegated human

substance may bring about a hydraulic syndrome28

: anarchy, social disorders, or even a

war that almost certainly downgrade human aptitude, except those for self-defense. Thus,

pathological reference to either extremity equally leads to atrophying of both human

nature and cultural epitome. To assure the effectiveness of involvement in shared

activities, organizational politics should impart yielding distribution of power, personal

responsibilities, and wise collaboration but not reckless competition. Openness of the

mind, respect, and mutual trust facilitate understanding among individuals and cultures.

Effective communication promotes intellectual, spiritual, and commercial interchange;

idle (“no-feedback”) or harmful communication complicates human interaction, puzzles

coordination of actions, and can be devastating.

Unfortunately, due to a growing uncontrolled rush for revenue, corporate mergers

present a challenge to not just an economic competition in the domain of goods, labor,

and finances, but to democracy itself and its defining virtues. The push toward

privatization is bipartisan, unmatched, unregulated, and unmanageable. It increasingly

becomes clear that this coercing drive is not de-centralization29

but de-democratization.

There is a hidden power shift in authorities: from those that used to be hierarchical but

also public and transparent toward those that remain hierarchical and yet private, opaque,

undemocratic, and out of control. Since globalization is associated with new

28 Different pressure in water layers creates instability: waves. 29 Decentralization of power is understood as a transfer of power to provinces, municipalities, and

neighborhoods.

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telecommunications, the private control over information becomes an inescapable

satellite of the super-wealthy.

In what sociologists call low-trust societies, everyone who is not a relative or

friend is necessarily considered a contender. Immoral “familism” promotes cooperation

within families, but undermines cooperation between families. Nepotism involves blindly

favoring family members or friends who are utterly unqualified for the jobs they are

given, while denying an opportunity to highly qualified specialists without “connections.”

It thereby perpetuates the very cultures of extreme wealth and poverty by increasing

economic gaps between the layers of the “social pie.” Nevertheless, despite the

overwhelming evidence that nepotism is associated with distrust, backwardness, violent

rules of personal, familial, or organizational “honor” among Mafiosi in neo-feudal

societies, the contempt for law and fair play may be found in industrialized, technocratic

“democracies” as well.

Many dangerous socially constructed side-effects in both industrialized and neo-

feudal societies (racism, fascism, xenophobia, ethnocentrism, favoritism, to name but a

few) are enrooted in a nepotistic, self-preservative propensity that is due to the overriding

power of greed and homogeneity, or the S-force pooling inward, that does not predict

longevity to those matrix systems. “Cultures that [embody] closed visions [and] self-

sealing [values] tend to die,” asserts Canadian professor Gareth Morgan (Morgan, 1997,

p. 102). Conversely, open societies where people have learned to suspend their distrust of

outsiders and to cooperate with strangers are the ones in which civil society and liberal

political institutions flourish. The universal laws also suggest that if inward gravitation of

a system – whatever it is: a star, a human group, a country, etc. – overrides outward

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vectoring efforts, it leads the entire system to a state of crisis and collapse, because it

cannot withstand its own inner pressure combined with system’s rigidity. When an

outward vectoring stream of system’s energy prevails over its inward pulling efforts, it

results in a failure and dispersion of the system.

A comprehensive analysis of cultural horizontal and vertical constructs (with

regard to both national and corporate culture) can be found in the seminal literary work

by Trompenaars and Hampden-Turners Riding the Waves of Culture. According to these

renowned experts, three features of organizational structure are crucially important in

determining organizational culture: (1) The general relationship between employees and

their organization, (2) the vertical (hierarchical) system of authority defining superiors

and subordinates, (3) the general views of employees on the future, purpose, and goals of

organization, and their statuses within organizational infrastructure. There is more.

In looking at organizations, we need to think in two dimensions, generating four

quadrants. The dimensions we use to distinguish different corporate cultures are

equality—hierarchy and orientation to the person—orientation to task. This

enables us to define four types of corporate culture, which vary considerably in

how they think and learn, how they change, and how they motivate, reward, and

resolve conflicts. (Trompenaars & Hampden-Turners, 1998, p. 162)

Concerning the vertical and horizontal alignments of culture offered by

Trompenaars & Hampden-Turners, the following narrative is a metaphoric sketch of four

archetypes of culture complemented by the graph below (see Figure 5).

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Person-oriented Task-oriented

HORIZONTAL ALIGNMENT

Figure 5: Culture archetypes

Family. It is a person-oriented culture “with close face-to-face relationships, [but]

also [hierarchical] in the sense that the ‘father’ of the family has experience [and]

authority greatly exceeding those [of] his ‘children’, especially where these [are] young.

The result [is] a power-oriented [corporate] culture in which the leader is regarded [as] a

caring father [who] knows better than his subordinates [what] should be done and what is

good for them” (Trompenaars & Hampden-Turners, 1998, pp. 162-163).

Eiffel tower. It pictures a task-targeted, role-oriented culture with a rationale of

means, “steep, symmetrical, [narrow] at the top [and] broad at the base, stable, rigid, and

robust. Like [the] formal bureaucracy [for] which it stands, it is very much [a] symbol of

the machine age. Its structure, too, is more important [than] its function” (Trompenaars &

Hampden-Turners, 1998, pp. 170-171).

Incubator. It stands for a self-fulfillment-oriented culture targeting self-

“Incubator” “Guided missile”

“Family” “Eiffel tower”

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expression, i.e., inherently existential, egotistic, idiosyncratic, and libertarian. “However,

the logic of business [and] cultural incubators is [quite] similar. In both cases, the purpose

is [to] free individuals from routine to [more] creative activities and to minimize time

[spent] on self-maintenance. The incubator is both personal [and] egalitarian. Indeed, it

has [almost] no structure at all [and] what and what structure it does provide is [merely]

for personal convenience: heat, [word] processing, coffee, and so on” (Trompenaars &

Hampden-Turners, 1998, p. 180). Although widely divergent, “people everywhere are

[as] one in having to face up [to] the same challenges of existence” (Trompenaars &

Hampden-Turners, 1998, p. 186).

Guided missile. It represents a task-oriented, impersonal, egalitarian culture,

which has a rationale of ends. Trompenaars and Hampden-Turners stated with regard to

this culture archetype, “Everything must be [done] to persevere in your strategic intent

[and] reach your target” (Trompenaars & Hampden-Turners, 1998, p. 177).

Since humans are humans anywhere, almost all human problems and their

solutions are alike. Understanding the survival value of coexistence comes with

appreciation for diversities and sympathy for those who have been unfortunate from the

start or suddenly broken. Celebration of the human spirit calls for reason, if not for

compassion. Everyone should be equal in his or her rights and opportunities; yet, any

contest will produce a hierarchy of relative standings. The respect for age and experience

can nurture or discourage the young and inexperienced; the respect for a particular race or

gender can equally promote or discourage professionalism. It is necessary to ascribe a

senior status to high achievers, but it is equally important to endorse strategies, projects,

and new initiatives of those who have not yet achieved anything—to set off their success.

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Hierarchy and equality tightly interweave in every culture. “…In the final

analysis, culture is the [manner] in which these dilemmas are reconciled, since every

nation [seeks] a different and winding path to its [own] ideals of integrity. It is our

position that businesses will succeed to [the] extent that this reconciliation occurs, so we

have everything [to] learn from discovering [how] others have traveled to their own

position” (Trompenaars & Hampden-Turners, 1998, p. 187)

Multidimensional human dynamics prompt acculturation, which may proceed in a

peaceful way or as wrestling among socio-bio-energy fields. Non-violent cultural inter-

exchange goes on seamlessly as successful negotiation in collaborative trading between

interacting forces. Conversely, offensive behavior caused by human egotism and

dysfunctional communication is to blame for fierce competition, word fight, physical

assault, or warfare. In any life scenario, uncertainty avoidance camouflaging the survival

thrust handles interpersonal and intercultural group dynamics (see Figure 6).

(a) Competition (1

st phase) (b) Competition (2

nd phase) (c) Disintegration

(d) Net “zero” (e) Cooperation (f) Collaboration

Figure 6: Uncertainty (avoidance) shifting the group dynamics

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Along these lines, the inquisitive mind of the reader, striving to grasp the

causality of occurrences and events, can notice one common issue: Uncertainty,

insecurity resides in the heart of all human activities. Uncertainty in the present and in

the future triggers the necessity to adapt to a social-geopolitical and environmental

context, encourages exploration, and stimulates development and change. Uncertainty

prompts people’s actions in an eternal search for security. “Security” refers to “energy

balance,” which in the “veins” of a culture (likewise in the human body) must be

continuously maintained at a safety level. However, replenishment of power may go on

in a variety of ways. Like a bloodthirsty giant vampire, the culture-predator rummages

for a prey—silent, submissive, manageable, compliant. The necessity to comply with the

mainstream culture (or the majority of population) prompts cultural assimilation,

homogeneity, and death of less-aggressive cultures and irrevocably leads to scarcity of

choice, homogeneity, and stagnation because of insufficient dynamism30

within a system.

Non-compliance with the established paradigms means multiplicity of choice, realized

opportunities, and progress, because diversity encourages further life dynamics.

Accretion in Terms of Cosmology, Entomology, and Sociology

Ants are social workers that are renowned for their co-operative behavior.

Nevertheless, in a report in the science journal Nature, Liselotte Sundström and her

colleagues at the University of Helsinki have uncovered nepotism while studying

colonies of Formica fusca ants. Worker ants in the species favor their own relatives when

caring for eggs and larvae that imply they capitalize on their ability to discriminate.

Instead of putting the best interests of the colony ahead of their own, scientists have

30 This is a characteristic trait of the socialist order that led to a collapse of the Soviet Union and its allies.

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discovered, an ant species ruthlessly favors its own relations in colonies descended from

multiple queen ants. This nepotistic behavior indicates that ant workers are able not only

to detect kin relationships, but also to pursue selfish genetic interests if the costs to their

colony are not prohibitive, have indicated Finnish researchers. Until now, there has been

little evidence of nepotism in insects, apart from in the honeybee.

There is a high probability that nepotism is a natural phenomenon for all forms of

life. When any form of life violates natural laws of existential self-preservation, the

punishment is extinction. It leads to a premise that egocentric propensity of the system is

applicable to both the human and the animal worlds. On one hand, self-replication poses

a threat to the developmental health and wealth of the system, but on the other hand, it

preserves the corporate “DNA” code included as a component in the system’s collective

memory that enhances its survival chance. In addition, nepotistic (inward) propensity acts

as glue for a system by bringing together its parts.

But the support for nepotism as for a “good,” affirmative tendency seems at best

nonsensical, particularly at a time when there is a widening gap between rich and poor

and a corresponding tendency to consolidate dynastic wealth (by abolishing the

inheritance tax, for instance). In this case, cultural relativism would appeal not only to

understand but also to admire institutions like the Asian Indian caste system. Nor, despite

the best efforts over hundreds of years, have people succeeded in stamping it out.

To switch metaphors for being au fait with nepotism as a socio-biological factor,

a glance at the starry sky will be of help. The magnificent celestial symphony parades

eternal charm and serenity. But since yet the Big Bang, star “wars” and “teaming” keep

going and going, inside and out of the dazzling tail of the Milky Way.

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The space “lanterns,” quasars, are the brightest sources, which are bright at many

wavelengths, from radio waves through gamma rays. The quasars’ brilliance is believed

driven by super-massive black holes at the center of distant young galaxies. As matter

falls into the black holes’ gravitational grasp, it collides with other in-falling matter,

radiating energy. That region of collision, known as the accretion disk, is relatively tiny

and hard to spot in visible and ultraviolet wavelengths.

According to Merriam-Webster dictionary, accretion states for “accumulated

matter,” “the process of growth or enlargement by a gradual buildup as by adhesion of

external parts or particles.” In cosmological terms, accretion refers to accumulation of

dust and gas onto larger bodies such as stars, planets, and moons.

For the human society, accretion has a special meaning, which applies to the

relation between the leader and the society/group. The accretive power of leadership

magnetizes the social “matter” accumulating around the organizational “nucleus.”

However, the leaders-quasars are capable of emitting energy back to people; the leaders-

black holes pulling all available energy resources toward them bring devastation and pain

into both the natural world and humans. The “catch” will work any way, but its effect, to

a great extent, will depend on velocity of leadership.

From Human to Human: A Psycho-Physiological Framework for Coherence

Since ages, people of diverse cultures became aware of the importance to

maintain the balance among the body-mind-spirit, social life, and environment. Many

world religions and magic beliefs consider life as permanent struggle between forces of

good and evil. They employ various methods to rise to a high state of spiritual awareness

and to attempt communication with the supernatural forces through prayer, drugs,

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sacrifice, fasting, and other kinds of “mortification of the flash.” Sometimes, magical

procedures are applied to determine a cause of events, such as illness, and to ask for a

cure or another blessing. Believers from different cultures deem that, through ritual,

supernatural powers instigate, social bounds strengthen, and harmony restores.

It is impossible to say when extra-sensorial activity and amazing communication

techniques were acknowledged first. The most remarkable scientific literary works were

written by Baron Karl Ludwig von Reichenbach (1788-1869)31

who was fascinated with

various manifestations of life energy. He was often ridiculed by those, particularly in the

medical field, ignorant of his documented validations. Anyone interested in the force

known variously as chi, ki, prana, od, orgone, and other names, should gain knowledge

of the result his lifelong research relating bio-magnetism to electricity, heat, and light.

After numerous experiments, von Reichenbach came to the following conclusion:

If I am not mistaken in judging about the facts proved by experiments, this

phenomenon is to be placed between magnetism, electricity, and heat; but it ought

not to be identified with either of them; and, thus, embarrassed, I have chosen to

designate it by the word ‘Od’, the etymology of which I shall expound in another

place. (Reichenbach, 1854, p. 33)

He also suggested that the entire universe was permeated with an organic, living

substance, luminous and abounding in supplies of Od. He named this all-penetrating

substance odic force32

. Describing human radiation, he reported the strongest emission of

heat coming from the mouth, hands, and forehead; it diminished with hunger and

31 An Austrian scientist, famous in his time for such work as his invention of kerosene but whose name,

alas, has been forgotten by the following generations. 32 The odic force concept comes across with the string theory.

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increased after a meal. He also stated that this peculiar force was presents in the rays of

the sun and moon and could be emitted at great distances by all solids or liquids

substances and bodies, being charged or discharged (in contact or proximity). He

believed that it was an underlying principle behind the physical forces of electricity and

magnetism, e.g., light and heat33

. The inquisitive Baron claimed that the odic force

constructs the very fabric of the universe and—to varying degrees—is present in all

things. He left the following remark:

If you look over this vast fact with its immense extent of meaning through all the

universe, then will down upon you a new light on that subject, a small fragment of

which has been both improperly and incorrectly called, down to our days, animal

magnetism.” (Reichenbach, 1854, p. 57)

Speaking of polarization of the human body and of how the individuals

biologically “magnetize” one another, this extraordinary scientist, too advanced for his

time, stated:

Man is polarized from his right to the left exactly as many crystal between the

poles of its great axis, as the magnet between its northward and southward pole,

as the sunlight between blue and yellow.…When two persons are placed

sideways, near one another, they are mutually loading one another with their Od;

he on the right side receives a load of negative Od from him on the left; the latter

a load of positive Od from the former. (Reichenbach, 1854, p. 56, 62)

Hundreds years ago, ancient people became aware of biological vampirism,

although horrifying stories about vampires attributed it to exceptional cruelty,

33 The odic force idea comes across with the string theory in physics.

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bloodsucking, and cannibalism. The era of cosmic explorations and instantaneous

communications shares a hunt for energy sources. Nowadays, psycho-physiological

studies of the vampire-donor liaison hint at extra-sensorial activity such as the exchange

or excessive consumption of bio-energy by means of a virtual link, which results from

communicative experiences34

. Using communication as a powerful weapon for

manipulating the human minds, the individual can modify not only personal relationships

but also the course of events in space-time35

. In any case, it is an abusive-compulsive,

unbalanced, incoherent relationship between an energy “vampire” sucking the life (and

material things as well) out of a victimized “donor.” The energy vampires, however,

jeopardize their own vital resources and may end up worse off if they are too aggressive

and their victims go broke, “overdrawn.” That means the resources extracted from the

“host” must balance the “leftovers.” To succeed in evolutionary terms, parasites must

optimize their virulence.

Modern scholarship blends physics and philosophy, the practical and the spiritual,

venerable Eastern wisdom and cutting-edge Western science with dynamic results. In his

The Seven Spiritual Laws of Success, Dr. Deepak Chopra36

identifies a spiritual approach

to success and affluence that are “often considered [to] be at the expense [of] others”

(Chopra, 1994, p. 2). “Success is [a] journey, [not] a destination,” argues Dr. Chopra. He

also defines success as “good health, [energy] and enthusiasm for life, [fulfilling]

relationships, [creative] freedom, emotional and [psychological] stability, a sense of well-

being, and [peace] of mind” (Chopra, 1994, pp. 2-3). Referring to universality of the laws

34 In fact, communicative interaction may even be telepathic of character. 35 That equally comprises all occurrences including feelings, attitudes, and behaviors. 36 A renowned leader in the field of mind-body medicine and the bestselling author of numerous books

including Ageless Body, Timeless Mind, Quantum Healing, and others.

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of nature and to subjectivity of cognitive experiences in uncovering these laws, he

maintains, “The physical [universe] is nothing [other] than the Self curving back [within]

Itself to experience Itself [as] spirit, mind, and [physical] matter…. Consciousness [in]

motion expresses [itself] as the objects of the universe in the eternal [dance] of life”

(Chopra, 1994, p. 4). According to the Vedic philosophy, there are seven spiritual laws

(or those of consciousness in motion).

The law of pure potentiality, or the law of unity. “The [law] is based on the fact

[that] we are, in our essential state, [pure] consciousness. Pure consciousness [is] pure

potentiality,” Chopra asserts (Chopra, 1994, p. 9). Knowledge of the self empowers the

individual and “[magnetizes] people, situations, [and] circumstances” (Chopra, 1994,

p.13). Not an object-referral but a self-referral power lets people enjoy communication

with one another, even silently. In addition, “DNA is a perfect [example] of pure

potentiality; in fact, it is [the] material expression [of] pure potentiality. The [same] DNA

existing in every [cell] expresses itself in different ways in [order] to fulfill the unique

[requirements] of that particular cell” (Chopra, 1994, p. 106). In the usual course of

events, the individual can reach self-actualization through connection to a group (a

society, a culture, etc.).

The law of giving. “The universe operates [through] dynamic exchange… giving

and receiving [are] different aspects of the flow of energy [in] the universe” (Chopra,

1994, p. 25). It suggests balancing interaction of all elements and forces: “Because your

body and your [mind] and the universe are in constant [and] dynamic exchange, stopping

the circulation [of] energy is like stopping the flow of blood” (Chopra, 1994, p. 28) or of

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money37

that leads to coagulation, stagnation, and suffocation of the system (or the

individual, organization, etc.). “Circulation [keeps] energy balance alive [and] vital”

(Chopra, 1994, p. 29). Through communication, “the dynamic exchange of impulses [of]

intelligence between microcosm [and] macrocosm, between the [human] body [and] the

cosmic mind,” Dr. Chopra affirms, “the individuals [activate] and choreograph [the]

dance of life. The gifts of caring, attention, [affection], appreciation, [and] love are some

of the [most] precious gifts you can give, and they [don’t] cost you anything” (Chopra,

1994, p. 32). Emphasizing the importance of harmony for human health and wealth, he

states as follows:

A cell is alive and healthy when it is in [a] state of balance and equilibrium. This

state of equilibrium is one of fulfillment and harmony, but it is maintained by a

constant give and take. Each cell gives to and supports every other cell, and in

turn is nourished by every other cell. The cell is always in a state of dynamic flow

and the flow is never interrupted. In fact, the flow is the very essence of the life of

the cell. And only by maintaining this flow of giving is the cell able to receive and

thus continue its vibrant existence. (Chopra, 1994, p. 106)

The same postulation applies to the relationships among the individuals, societies,

and nations. Everybody and everything is interconnected in the world and is subject to

the balancing of natural forces.

The law of cause and effect (or “karma”). In accordance with Hinduism, karma

concerns causality of events. It relates action-cause to consequence-effect of that action.

It involves simultaneous conscious and unconscious decision-making, triggered by other

37 “Money” stands for “currency,” which comes from the Latin word currere and reflects the flowing

nature of life energy in exchange for material comfort.

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persons and circumstances, and may result in predictable behavioral responses to

environmental conditioning. “Every action generates [a] force of energy that returns to

[us] in like kind… what we sow is what [we] reap,” Dr. Chopra underscores (Chopra,

1994, p. 37). The individual can contribute to expansion of a good example (and to

prevention of a bad experience) to show a way of how to make life more enjoyable for

many other fellow human beings. Thus, transmutation of karma into deeds proceeds

through signal activity—communication.

The law of least effort. “Nature’s intelligence functions with effortless [ease] …

with carefreeness, harmony, [and] love. And when we harness [the] forces of harmony,

joy, and love, we [create] success and good fortune with effortless ease” (Chopra, 1994,

p. 51) that means gratification is the most powerful motivational factor for intensification

of a process, or in other words, “there is a will, there is a way.” The nature is held

together by the energy of love; seeking power and control over other people is a waste of

energy. Chopra avers, “When you seek money [or] power for the sake of the ego, you

spend [energy] chasing the illusion [of] happiness instead of enjoying happiness [in] the

moment” (Chopra, 1994, p. 55). The age-old Vedic philosophy of India recognizes the

principle of economy of effort that means, accomplish more with less effort. The physical

body is “a device [for] controlling energy: it [can] generate, store, [and] expend energy.”

The wisdom of Mather Nature operates in an efficient way and in all-inclusive harmony

of elements: “effortlessly, [frictionlessly], spontaneously. It [is] non-linear; it is intuitive,

holistic, [and] nourishing” (Chopra, 1994, p. 54).

In addition, it has a freedom-seeking pattern inside. To be creative, energy must

be freed up and re-channeled. “When [your] internal reference point is your spirit, [when]

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you are immune to criticism and unfearful of [any] challenge, you can harness the power

of love, [and] use energy creatively for [the] experience of affluence and evolut ion”

(Chopra, 1994, p. 56). The more the individual is committed a goal, the stronger is his or

her motivational drive; so, the faster this goal will be achieved. This law suggests a

quantum lip when the individual performs a task “with quite efficiency [in] state of

[restful] alertness” (Chopra, 1994, p. 107).

The law of intention and desire. “Inherent in every intention [and] desire is the

mechanics for [its] fulfillment… intention and desire in the [field] of pure potentiality

have infinite [organizing] power” (Chopra, 1994, p. 65). Symbioses of energy and

information transpires everywhere in the universe and is, indeed, the continuing

movement of energy and information. “In fact, at the level [of] the quantum field, there

[is] nothing other than energy and information. The quantum [field] is just another label

for the field of pure consciousness [or] pure potentiality. And [this] quantum field is

influenced [by] intention and desire” (Chopra, 1994, p. 67).

Raising awareness of interconnectedness of all elements of the world, Dr. Chopra

states the following:

We have a nervous system that is capable of becoming aware of the energy and

informational content of that localized field that gives [rise] to our physical body.

We experience this field subjectively as our own thoughts, feelings, emotions,

desires, memories, instincts, drives, and beliefs. This same field is experienced

objectively as the physical body—and through the physical body, we experience

this filed as the world… Your body is not separate from the body of the universe,

because at quantum mechanical levels there are no well-defined edges. You are

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like a wiggle, a wave, a fluctuation, a convolution, a whirlpool, a localized

disturbance in the larger quantum field. The larger quantum filed—the universe—

is your extended body. (Chopra, 1994, p. 69)

Because of the infinite flexibility of human consciousness (through the nervous

system), the individual is capable of influencing the energy level of his/her own physical

body and of extending transformations into environments. In any case, the alterations are

due to two inherent phenomena of consciousness: attention and intention. The former

energizes, and the latter transforms. “This is [because] intention in the fertile [ground] of

attention [has] infinite organizing power” (Chopra, 1994, p. 70) over space-time events

and, thus, serves as a groundwork for purposefulness. Although the profoundness of this

wisdom lies beyond a doubt, Chopra’s advice “you [should] never struggle against [the]

present” (Chopra, 1994, p. 73) and quietly accept and contemplate the hardship of

reality—instead of confronting social injustice, human miseries, and crimes against

humanity—seems quite arguable. It obviously works against the values of philosophy of

praxis, which calls for a positive change in order to endorse social justice and to restore a

humanitarian balance benefiting the majority of people.

The law of detachment. It identifies the wisdom of uncertainty that underlines the

freedom from the known, i.e., the conditioning experienced in the past. Uncertainty,

insecurity in the present paves a pathway for explorations, creativity, and innovations.

“The Law of Detachment [accelerates] the whole process [of] evolution,” Chopra asserts

(Chopra, 1994, p. 84). In other words, although conditioned by the environmental

pressure in the past and in the present, genuine aspiration—which is always attached to

the future—fuels the spirit of exploration by resisting cognitive stagnation, moral

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entropy, and corrosion in human behavior.

The law of purpose in life (or “dharma”). This law vindicates the purposefulness

of every life as a proviso of commitment to the others. By listening to and

complementing one another in integral dialogue, the elements of the whole integrated in

another —of a higher order—structure assist their common survival. According to the

age-old Vedic philosophy, this is an ultimate underlying principle for overall existence,

talents, and deeds, rooted in profound spirituality of searching for the true Self while

actualizing human potentialities in service to humanity. It suggests people must focus on

“what they are [here] to give” (Chopra, 1994, p. 97). More to the point, emerging self-

awareness must be considered not as a fact or a thing but as a process, coherent with good

grounds beneficial to many fellow human beings.

According to the latest scientific and academic perspectives that integrate studies

in quantum physics, cognitive and clinical psychology, physiology, culturology, and

other domains of knowledge, all systems and sub-systems of the universe are involved in

a complex, multidimensional, never-ending signal activity. As long as they live, they

transmit and intercept quanta of energy and information “condensed” in codes. Thus,

signal activity (i.e., information exchange, or communication) has the physical nature.

In physiological systems, signals and messages are encrypted in a language of

patterns of the nervous system and transmitted by the nerve cells, the neurons, which

“fire” quanta of energy and information. “Several recent studies [have] revealed that

biologically [relevant] information is encoded in the time [interval] between hormonal

pulses” (McCraty, 2003, p. 1). Dr. Rollin McCraty, Research Director of the HeartMath

Institute in Boulder Creek, CA, asserts that in addition to encoding information in the

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intervals between hormonal and nerve impulses, “it is likely that information is [also]

encoded [in] the interbeat intervals of the pressure [and] electromagnetic waves produced

by [the] heart” (McCraty, 2003, p. 1). Low frequency oscillations generated by the heart

and body in the form of neural, hormonal, and electrical patterns are believed to act as the

carriers for emotional information. Moreover, according to McCraty, the higher

frequency oscillations detected by electrocardiogram reflect the conscious perception and

labeling of feelings and emotions that corroborates a link between the material body and

information.

Informational quanta, carried by electromagnetic waves, are intercepted by the

brain—internally or by others within a communication range. Modern technological

achievements make it possible to “see” the brain in action, to watch it engaging in

cognition and emotions that are such an essential part of our mental life. New scientific

techniques help us understand how 1011

neurons—through prolific synaptic connections

covering a distance totaling over 100,000 kilometers—cooperate to perceive, represent,

and react to the environmental signals. According to Professor Peter Hagoort, director of

the F.C. Donders Centre, the brain operates as an orchestra without a conductor. To be

able to produce the right cognitive melody, different neural ‘players’ must synchronize

flawlessly. They have to coordinate their activities, each providing the right contribution

at exactly the right time. It remains a puzzle for scientists to figure out how, without a

central coordinating agency, the brain is able to achieve such coherence.

The powerful blood pressure waves, generated by the heart, cause a relatively

large current of electrical voltage in the corpuscular proteins. As Dr. McCraty asserts, the

heart acts as a global internal synchronizer, particularly, for the alpha rhythm of neural

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activity of the body. The changes in electromagnetic, sonic, and blood pressure waves

produced by cardiac rhythmic activity in response to internal and external informational

signals are detected by every cell of the body—including those of the brain. Cerebral

cortical reactions to sensory stimulations provide evidence for energetic heart-brain

communication.

Communication does not go on in a one-dimensional range but occurs as a

versatile, multidimensional, multifaceted interaction among the fluctuating energy fields

of complex systems and sub-systems. Through information exchange, they self-organize

by associating in intricate, ever-changing patterns that construct physical reality. As it is

known from application of Ninja and teleportation techniques, biological activity can be

sensed by a remote viewer, fifty percent successful in locating the target. Until now, this

aspect of human communication appears incredibly fascinating and, thus, it keeps

contributing to worldwide legends. Thus, communication among the elements of a

system or those of a mega-system cannot be merely understood as conscious

(linguistic/verbal38

and non-linguistic/non-verbal39

) signal activity. It is necessary to take

into consideration all—detectable and undetectable by the human senses—features of

information exchange including extra-sensorial communication that involve complex

(direct or mediated, conscious and subconscious) agents acting in the multidimensional

reality of space-time.

Not long ago, Princeton University’s researchers have discovered that the

excessive presence of cortisone, a stress-related hormone, in the human body damages

38 Expressed with language means—in oral and cryptographic forms. 39 Expressed non-verbally by the use of kinetic (gesticulation, mimics, poses, frequency of breathing),

proxemic (spatial), and vocal (voice modulation, timbre, rhythm) characteristics.

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the immune system. The prestigious National Institute of Mental Health reports that

people who live in a high state of anxiety are 4.5 times more likely to die from a heart

attack or a stroke. Stress-related researches have also confirmed that up to 80% of all

doctor visits are due to stress-induced illnesses. “Toxic” emotions (e.g., anger, anxiety,

remorse, and fear) bring trouble into both the human life and health and, more often than

not, are the reason for poor work performance. Under stress, the immune system of the

body identifies, sometimes, an “innocent” substance as a foreign invader and mounts an

assault against it resulting in asthma, allergic reactions, premature aging, etc. It happens

when middle-aged women are climbing the corporate ladder, or students are taking final

exams, or in stratification-related situations, or those deadline-related, and so on. In a

case scenario when stressful circumstances persist for longtime or are frequently repeated

the body develops an addiction to stress-related hormones and becomes as an

“overstuffed closet.” Soon or later, the day will come when “buried” emotions begin

pouring out by developing a series of health-related problems. In his seminal literary

work Deadly Emotions, Don Colbert, M.D., gives the following explanations for the

body-mind interconnectedness:

The mind and body are connected. How you feel emotionally can determine

how you feel physically.

Certain emotions release hormones into the physical body that, in turn, can

trigger the development of a host of diseases.

Researchers directly and scientifically linked emotions to hypertension,

cardiovascular disease, and diseases related to the immune system. Studies

have also highly correlated emotions with infections, allergies, and

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autoimmune diseases.

Specifically, research has linked emotions such as depression to an increased

risk of developing cancer and heart disease. Emotions such as anxiety and fear

have shown a direct tie to heart palpitation, mitral valve prolapse, irritable

bowel syndrome, and tension headaches, as well as other diseases. (Colbert,

2003, pp. xi-xii)

As it has been mentioned above, the brain and the heart operate “in concert.”

However, to better understand the roots of consequential rational-emotional-attitudinal

behavior, it is important to take into account some additional characteristics of the brain-

heart maneuvering and its role in how the individual perceives environmental impulses

and launches feedbacks to the sender.

The brain is protective and territorial, Don Colbert agrees with Paul Pearsall. The

brain displays “the type A behavior—which is [being] critical, judgmental, [harsh],

cynical, blaming, controlling, [and] unforgiving—is the behavior dramatically [linked] to

disease. The type B “heart” behavior, [in contrast], is gentle, relaxed, [and] searching for

long-lasting [relationships] and intimacy” (Colbert, 2003, pp. 88-89).

Some scientists compare the brain’s function to “masculine” culture (or verse

versa), while the heart’s role likens to “feminine” sensitivity. For example, Colbert states,

Psychologist Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi contends that the brain is biased toward

pessimism, because our ancestors were forced to remain ready to defend

themselves against hostile predators. When the brain remains in the driver’s seat,

the heart – the soul, the seat of emotions – can be abused, wounded, exploited,

and ends up filled with hurt and pain. (Colbert, 2003, p. 89)

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As it has resulted from a variety of experiments, the strongest biological oscillator

in the body is the heart, which “has the ability to pull [every] other bodily system into

[its] own rhythm, [whatever] that may be. When the heart is [at peace] or filled with love,

[it] communicates harmony [to] the entire body” (Colbert, 2003, p. 148). Adversely, toxic

emotions trigger self-defensive reactions: a violent increase of hormones (e.g., the heart

stimulant—adrenaline) in the bloodstream disrupts normal rhythmic activity and causes

detriment to the entire body as well as to human relationships that contributes to another

circle of aggression. Benevolent signal activity that articulates good will, sense of humor,

and laughter can interrupt this vicious go-around.

By making a home for virtual reality, human mind, an ephemeral product of the

brain, undergoes transitory experiences—at many levels of awareness and in a variety of

ways. When the brain is alarmed against a danger, the mind is quick in making a—wise

or not—decision or it simply flees unwanted thoughts; in other times, it soars far away

onto “wings” of imagination. There are many legends and movies about cyborgs, that is,

“brains-in-machines” merging mind and matter. Researchers, engaged in an innovative

area known as cyborg development40

, have successfully created organisms of a sort that

are the product of brain tissue, connected to artificial environments generated in a

computer. By using rat brain cells with tiny electrodes attached to a circuit, researchers

have generated a virtual rat and displayed it on a computer monitor. When the brain cells

send a signal, the virtual rat moves and encounters a virtual environment (objects and so

forth). A digital feedback system passes back the information to the brain cells of the

living rat. In this manner, the cells learn to move in their virtual environment.

40 This area of research agitates hot ethical debates surrounding human cloning.

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As Nick Atkinson mentioned in his online article, Rebecca Kilner at the

University of Cambridge in the United Kingdom provides a remarkable finding of her

biological research (together with other colleagues) concerning birds’ behavior. She

stated, “Our results contribute to [a] growing literature [which] suggests that individuals

can [enjoy] personal benefits from living [in] groups, even if they are [unrelated] to the

[other] group members” (Kilner, as cited in Atkinson, 2004). As the English

ornithologists observed, those chicks who tolerate the presence of others while sharing

the nest actually grow faster. An amazing analogy suggests itself on the subject of human

relationships: Coherence yields a greater reward than competition and mistreatment,

because all parties involved can capitalize on mutual understanding and collaboration.

Thinking through Diversity

The appearance of the thinking beings marks the beginning of a new evolutionary

stage: an age of reasoning that refers to associating and thinking. This is an area where

anthropologies, psychologists, and sociologists cross their swords when debating cultural

differences. To throw light upon this dilemma, it is necessary to allude to a fastening link

between associating, thinking, and learning that somehow has escaped to attract

educators’ attention.

Contemporary academic systems abound in diversity. Some cultures still practice

learning “by rote,” while others draw on lecturing and demonstration without, however,

student’s substantial involvement in learning activity. Some others refer to “logic” by

generously generating esoteric recommendations on how to learn while striving to

envision the “philosophical stone,” which would make the learning rational and effective.

In any case scenario, the failure to involve the learner’s emotional sphere in educational

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process suggests the learner to be considered as a “half-brained”, genderless, ethnicity-

less, non-emotional biological automaton that is good enough only for information

processing. An overwhelming emphasis on formal-logistic mental operations does not

result in harmonizing solutions for many academic problems. The negligence for a vast

untapped potential of human sub-consciousness including intuition makes learning more

stressful and less effective. Boring studies require continuing focusing and become a

waste of time, money, and talent (Lozanov, 1978). It is needless to say that stigmatic

aversion to education is predictable and is due to the existent academic conditions and

beliefs.

However, the learning becomes effective as well as pleasant if it is going on in a

safe and cheery atmosphere of psychological inclusion and acceptance of differences.

The learning must be fun and dynamic as well as a nurturing resource for mental

development and spiritual growth. It must promote a harmonizing development of the

individual’s personality by all cognitive parameters. Thus, making the most of

intercultural training means activation of student’s psycho-physiological abilities and

formation of communicative skills. Dr. Robert Hayles, Vice President of Human

Resources and Diversity for the Pillsbury Technology Center of the Grand Metropolitan

Food Sector, emphasizes the following:

Intercultural training makes use of cognitive activities (lectures, discussion,

reading, media presentations), affective involvement (experiential exercises,

emotional encounters, values/attitude clarification), and behavioral development

(learning languages, norms, gestures, and the like). To be effective, training must

address the variations in learning styles that exist among the participants and

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reach beyond increasing the level of knowledge (head) to engaging feelings

(heart) and building behavioral skills (hand). (Hayles, as cited in Fowler &

Mumford, 1995, p. 215)

Another important aspect, which must be equally addressed and incorporated in

the core curriculum and didactics, is the changing role of women that takes place

worldwide. Indeed, none of societal domains will prosper without the full participation of

both men and women. Many sociologists believe there are male cultures and female

cultures because of some typical traits, reproduced in a structural-functional pattern (or a

socio-political archetype) of a nation or a corporate organization. “Most [people] agree

that culture [directly] impacts on gender roles and role [expectations] and that the way in

which men [and] women communicate is [an] intercultural issue,” Dr. Hayles asserts

(Hayles, as cited in Fowler & Mumford, 1995, p. 216). Thus, both male and female issues

and communicative models must be entrenched in foreign language teaching.

Usually, one’s own culture—that is, the reference culture—is being perceived and

conceptualized “through transparent glasses” that refers to the emic approach, namely,

the understanding of other cultures from the inside out. It tends to be “unconscious and

typically conveys the feeling [that] it is natural and normal, while that of [other] cultures

[is] strange, exotic, or unnatural,” Dr. Edward C. Stewart states in the same literary

source (Stewart, as cited in Fowler and Mumford, 1995, p. 49). The silent assumptions of

reference culture are central to one’s conceptual judgments and frequently come “in the

form of recipes” to the others. Emic alertness is closely related to ethnocentrism that puts

the “I” in the center of universe and works as the only point of stereotyped reference.

“Specific [views] and perceptions [are] distorted into stereotypes, [which] defend the

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integrity [and] serve the needs [of] reference culture” (Stewart, as cited in Fowler and

Mumford, 1995, p. 49). In contrast to a reference culture, the view of the other cultures is

more conscious. “We tend to see [members] of the [other] cultures behaving according

[to] patterns and principles which impose [regularity] and conformity,” the same author

utters (Stewart, as cited in Fowler and Mumford, 1995, p. 49). This kind of awareness—

from the outside in—applies to the etic approach, seeing that the other cultures are being

viewed “through colored glasses” that modify the objective reality in reference to the

previous—“domestic”—experience. “The [dynamic] relation between the [reference] and

[the] other culture is the key issue [in] cross-cultural training” (Stewart, as cited in

Fowler and Mumford, 1995, p.49).

Even a little intercultural training helps prevent many communicative mistakes

and misunderstanding between the individuals and the nations. The history of

international diplomacy is full of infamous details in the behavior of politicians that led to

poor political relationships between countries. Very often, the real meaning of a

statement can be lost in translation that creates notorious discrepancies, conflicts, and

embarrassing situations in interpersonal and international relations. “Few [businesses]

can function [successfully] without using [products] from, trading with, or marketing [to]

customers in [different] countries” (Hayles, as cited in Fowler and Mumford, 1995, p.

216). Public media, e.g., magazines and business sections in newspapers, increasingly

provide evidence of business trends gone global. Further globalization of business and

commerce, people’s migration around the world, and expansion of international contacts

alongside instantaneous communications will increase the need for multilingual-

multicultural expertise and training.

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The Learning Revolution

Dim Stairways in the Ivory Tower

Until now, there is a popular opinion that learners studying a foreign language

must struggle with vocabulary acquisition and grammar rules or for committing a simple

textbook dialogue to memory, as they would do with a difficult intellectual puzzle. The

utilization of abstract-logistic teaching strategies and tactics, which are based on the

assumptions that words can have some effect on memory, categorization, thinking, and

language abilities, discourages students and persuades against their capacities.

Because conventional methods, oriented at aspectual linguistics and formal-

analytical mental activity, are unable to effectively provide fast assimilation of

instructional materials and learner functional communication skills in a short time

framework, the science of teaching art has to face an imperative societal demand for

urgent re-engineering of teaching technology. “There is [much] evidence that school-

based studies [as] they traditionally have been [conducted] in the education of teachers

[in] the United States interfere with [the] ability of prospective teachers to [learn] all that

their [teacher] educators hope they will learn” (Zeichner & Miller, 1997, p. 15). Thus, the

learner’s interests, habits, emotions, ethnic background, social status, gender, etc. remain

totally or partially ignored. “Education [is] suffering from [narration] sickness,” Paulo

Freire (1921-1997) emphasized. “The [outstanding] characteristic of this [narrative]

education, then, is [the] sonority of words, not [their] transforming power” (Freire, 2002,

p. 71). The methodological inconsistency and inadequacy of commonly utilized teaching

methods (if any applied at all) to the global need in cross-cultural communication, the

unnecessary prolonged training in a foreign language, and a lack of clear didactic

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algorithms for the instructor have provoked a discord between the current societal

demands, on the one hand, and the conservative academic capacity, on the other hand.

When curriculum does not account for the real life needs and the content delivery

features a formal-logistic instructional approach, language teaching—mediated or not by

expensive multimedia—turns into an archaic didactic “limb.” In this connection, Dave

Meier, the founder of the Center for Accelerated Learning in Lake Geneva, WI, stresses:

What has disabled us (and continues to do so) are learning beliefs and practices

inherited from the past and now integrated into our culture. These disabling

beliefs and practices, representing centuries old trends in the West, came to final

institutionalized form in the 19th century with the establishment of the compulsory

education system in the United States. Now they’re embedded in both public

education and corporate training like entrenched diseases that are hard to shake.

(Meier, 2000, p. 11)

On the subject of foreign language teacher preparation and employment, it is

necessary to touch upon an astounding remark concerning tutoring and hiring practice. If

someone wants to build a house, he or she employs an architect to design a house,

because creative drawing is the architect’s area of expertise; after that, a builder will

actually carry out the plan because he is adept at practice. Amazingly, the general hiring

practice—with few exceptions—in foreign language education shows a different picture:

any foreign language native speaker is believed to be good enough to teach it. On the

word of Colin Rose, it happens because “historically, most teaching [has] been

undertaken by those who [were] the best at the subject: [the] person who was ‘best at

French’ became the [French] teacher. But that person [was] not necessary the most

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skilled [at] principles of teaching” (Rose, 1987, p. 1). Thus, foreign-language-as-native

speakers, even those with no pedagogical background, are more likely to receive a right

of way and an employers’ higher rating than superior non-native speaker professionals.

An apparent evidence of this commonplace tendency may be found in numerous

advertisements where the description of a foreign language instructional position is

followed by “Native speakers only; teacher qualifications are not required.” (See

www.monster.com or any website advertising academic vacancies.) However, the

situation dramatically changes when students must acquire foreign language functional

skills within a limited timeframe. It becomes obvious that the teacher’s native fluency

does not ensure students’ success if the instructor is not skilled at application of

accelerated or intensive methods.

The gaps in foreign language teacher preparation make learning experiences most

humble that, in turn, negatively affects domestic economics, international relations, and

politics. To fill those methodological inconsistencies within national ivory tower, an

active international exchange of ideas and experiences must resume, because “teachers

need [the] experiences of [other] teachers in order to [advance] the field as a hole”

(Labiosa-Cassone & Cassone, 1992, p. xiii).

There is an integrative methodological strategy, suggestopedia, which would

satisfy all requirements for foreign language express instruction with cross-cultural

awareness. It offers many advantages of the “human touch” in accelerated and intensive

learning formats of foreign language training. While suggestopedic applications always

put emphasis on learner-sensitive curriculum and didactics, the professor becomes a focal

element of the instructional process and carries out a humanistic behavioral model.

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However, suggestopedic teaching—the intensive modality in particular—requires

not only magnetic (“quasar-like”) leadership but also a plenty of creative efforts and

physical energy in classroom and beyond. Donald Schuster and Charles Gritton reported

in 1986 that “intensive [studying] methods were effective, but they must [be] supported

in addition by [intensive] material preparation by [the] teacher” (Schuster & Gritton,

1986, p. 48). Then, arise tangible problems of work compensation for extra efforts

invested in performance, curricular inadequacy, methodological confusion, burdens with

technology, and disputes over intellectual property that result in an inability of academic

system to support innovations. The unreasonable behavior of academic system (at large)

does not evoke an atmosphere of trust and a desire to share one’s professional expertise.

To effectively deal with different kinds of problems while being at service to

global and local communities, an academic organization must be optimal (“smart”), that

is, very competent in planning, performing, self-monitoring, analyzing, communicating,

and self-maintenance. So far, there is a great deal of resistance to the change. While an

advanced professorial corps argues for modernization of education and academic

relations as well, conservative establishment, happy with the existing status quo,

procrastinates modernization. The book of facts University, Inc.: The Corporate

Corruption of American Higher Education by American journalist Jennifer Washburn

meticulously reports the ongoing corporate take-over of universities and encroachments

on independent thought. She warns that “academic [entrepreneurship] needs to be

[radically] reconceived.…However, [equally] crucial is the willingness of [our] nation’s

academic leaders, administrators, [and] faculty to stand up and defend [traditional]

academic values” (Washburn, 2005, pp. 239, 240).

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The lack of coherence in academia requires simultaneous top-to-down

(“waterfall” style) reforms in many departments, because express teaching demands

switching not only instruction paradigms. To overpower the conformist mentality and

scientific stagnation, a thoroughly prepared nationwide education reform should

transform foreign language curriculum, instruction methods, and work relations as well.

Humanistic Means Holistic

Do no harm.

Hippocrates

Miracles come in a variety of ways. There are the unexplainable miraculous

healings that leave even the health care professional in awe and the smaller miracles that

children love to share. Although after having been under scrutiny for almost a half of

century, the phenomenal superpower of healing through positive emotional responses still

breeds more questions than answers.

Because the emotional sphere is an indispensable part of the human psyche,

communication between the individual and the (social and physical) environment always

includes an emotional component in personal-attitudinal behavior. As any type of general

human communication, educational communication imparts an emotional spectrum

attached to contacts, relations, and attitudes surrounding academic life. Thus, the quality

of learning as well as the quality of a person is maintained by the quality of educational

communication—in classroom and beyond, because—intentionally and unintentionally—

the human brain filters any incoming data including the one concerning interpersonal

interaction. That means education must benefit the learner by all cognitive, socio-cultural,

psychological, and physiological parameters, that is, education must bracket together

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with humanistic grounds.

Humanistic aspirations and values in education were the banner of many

reformers and pioneers throughout the history of educational philosophy and practice. In

1950s, Russian Academician Aleksey Leontief developed the Activity Theory in which

the hierarchy of needs was incorporated. This fact influenced many other psychologists

and educators including Abraham Maslow, a Russian-born American psychologist. In

this hierarchy of needs, physiological needs must be satisfied before the person can

engage into another—of a higher order—activity, including learning.

As it follows from the motivation theory by Abraham Maslow, a fervent

promulgator of humanistic-affective education, the social needs include those for safety,

belongingness, love, self-actualization, and self-esteem. Maslow avers that “…the

[human] body is not a collection [of] separate organs” due to the fact that “organization

of [the] cadaver is not the same as that [in] the living body” (Maslow, 1987, p. 213).

Thus, healing needs not only be relegated to the physical body; it must include healing

the individual’s relations with other human beings and living creatures with which the

person shares this planetary habitat and cosmos.

Moreover, Maslow maintains that human relations are essentially therapeutic (or

harmful as well) and argued that a good society is a psychologically healthy—

synergetic—society in which at least basic social needs are satisfied, one way or another.

He claimed: “Satisfaction of the [self-esteem] need leads to feelings [of] self-confidence,

worth, strength, capability [and] adequacy, of being useful and necessary [in] the world.

But thwarting of [these] needs produces feelings [of] inferiority, of weakness, [and] of

helplessness” (Maslow, 1987, p. 21). According to Maslow, wherever there is imbalance

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in human communities or in relations with the natural world, there will be imbalance and

disintegration within the self. The way toward healing lies through inner and outer peace.

As a powerful alternative to formal-logistic instruction and educational

standardization ignoring the learner’s personality, interests, and needs, humanistic-

affective education gives emphasis to the “human touch.” This usually means shifting the

focus from “knowledge depositing” to “knowledge generating,” from competition to

collaboration, from concentration on external things to “journey inward” using such tools

as contemplation, critical thinking, collaborative brainstorming, and debating. All these

wonderful didactic techniques are harmoniously integrated in a structural-functional

design of accelerated or intensive methods of humanistic-suggestopedic training. Applied

to foreign language teaching as well as to industrial training, humanistic-suggestopedic

education not only endorses the liberation of human spirit but also grants an immediate

access to world communications and cultural resources through foreign language

suggestopedic accelerated and intensive training.

In the best traditions of humanistic education philosophy, suggestopedic

methodology of foreign language intensive teaching and learning offers an all-in-one set

of intercultural-interpersonal behavioral models, socially accepted by culturally diverse

populations. It is an affective-humanistic education approach, in which there is a respect

for students’ feelings and interests. It emphasizes activation of intuitive-cognitive

processes as foundation for learning, humanistic-psychotherapeutic pedagogical influence

as educational philosophy, and utilization of the arts and meandering didactics as

instrumental instructional technique. The creators of an authentic suggestopedic

educational platform Georgi Lozanov (accelerated learning method) and Galena

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Kitaygorodskaya (intensive teaching method) believe that second language learning can

go on much faster, when all psychological barriers to studying are eliminated, that is,

“de-suggested.” Particularly inspiring professorial leadership, trustful interpersonal

relations within the learning group, a vibrant emotional tonus of the audience with

frequent burst of laughter, everybody’s involvement in cognitive interaction, well-

motivated didactic steps for any brainstorming activity—all dynamic routine endorses

emancipation of learners’ socio-psychological potentials. In general, the effectiveness of

suggestopedic system is attributable to the learner-centered pedagogical influence that

encourages harmonizing education. Students’ studying is certainly encouraged by a

glimpse into challenging cognitive adventures, positive results of learning, optimistic

academic atmosphere, and freedom for self-expression.

Physical sensation plays many roles in learning. Some persons do not learn well if

they are cold or stiff from inactivity for a quite long period. It happens, because the mind

tends to flee the reality when the body is inactive. The ambiance and physical activity

associated with the learning process can encourage or discourage the learner’s mental

activity. If the classroom is uncomfortably hot (or chilly) or the student slouches over in a

chair, his/her lungs squeezed and head dropped into the hands, the unfavorable physical

sensation as well as the body position disrupts learning. Thus, the ergonomics of learning

environment must be congruent with the academic goals, allowing for upright sitting in a

comfortable but alerted body position. All these factors are always given a serious

consideration in foreign language suggestopedic training that requires various in-advance

preparations in classroom.

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One of the didactic features of any suggestopedic method of foreign language

accelerated or intensive training is the relaxation séance (or “concert”), which may be

easily recognized by common characteristics known from auto-induced relaxation in

yoga exercises. With the discovery of the importance of heart rate variability, present-day

biofeedback clichés refer to psycho-physiological coherence rather than focusing on

increased temperature in the fingers, decreased activity of sweat glands, or reduction of

heart rate, etc. As same as proven yoga techniques, suggestopedic relaxation produces a

positive psycho-physiological effect on the student’s health by counteracting stress from

three different perspectives—physical, emotional, and social. Analogous studies suggest

that a regular training addressing coherence for 30 minutes a day, 5 days a week, leads to

a considerable improvement in blood pressure, hormone balance, a double increase in the

so-called “youth” hormone41

, a considerable (1∕4-th) decrease in the percentage of cortisol,

the quintessential stress hormone responsible for skin aging, excessive blood pressure,

loss of memory, poor concentration, etc.

Dr. Lee Berk from Loma Linda University’s Medical Center and other researchers

has reported that optimism, sense of humor, and laughter strengthen the immune system

in a variety of ways by: (a) Increasing immunoglobulin A, which protects against

respiratory tract infections, (b) Increasing gamma interferon—the frontline defense of the

immune system against viruses, (c) Increasing B cells that produce antibodies against

harmful bacteria, (d) Increasing complement 2, a combination of proteins that acts as a

catalyst in antibody reactions. As far as foreign language suggestopedic training is

concerns, there is no need to reiterate that maintaining a cheery environment is a decisive

41 DHEA—dehydroepiandrosteron.

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factor for dynamic exchange of ideas, fitness, and overall academic success.

In general, interconnected resources of the body, mind, and spirit must be an

integral part of every learning experience, if the learning is to be effective and yet

enjoyable. Challenging, multidimensional learning dissolves the boundaries between

subject and object, self and non-self, teacher and learner in order to create a container for

knowledge by means of a positive psychosomatic effect for the body, mind, and soul.

Suggestopedic Fiber

One’s life has value so long as one attributes value to the life of others, by means

of love, friendship, indignation, and compassion.

― Simone de Beauvoir

Nature is made of moving energy, just as humans are. Those participate in

creating patterns that are beneficial or destructive, whether the individuals are aware or

not of this energy. Awareness of these patterns can have a profound effect on the

individual’s worldview, environment, and even on his or her own biology. Thus, from

atoms to stars, from cells to ecosystems, involved in continuing dynamics of attraction

and repulsion, energy operates throughout the history of the universe since it evolved in

its incredible complexity.

When parts come together, in mutually enhancing ways, a greater whole is often

created. There are examples of attraction and synergy in the cosmos, in early life forms,

and in human relationships. Identifying love and attraction as a creative force of the

universe implicates recognition and application of the human healing power in individual

lives, communities, and global civilization. That means being humanistic.

Humanistic movement in psychology, pedagogy, and philosophy is a worldwide

contemporary social manifestation in response to denigration of the human spirit that has

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so often been implied in the image of the person drawn by behavioral and social sciences.

Throughout the history, many individuals and groups have affirmed the inherent value

and dignity of human beings. They have spoken against ideologies, beliefs, and practices,

which held people to be merely the means for accomplishing economic and political

ends. They have reminded their contemporaries that the purpose of institutions is to serve

and advance the freedom and power of their members. Humanistic philosophy honors the

times and places, such as Ancient Greece and European Renaissance era, when such

affirmations were expressed. Contemporary humanistic ideal stresses the importance of

global management and modification of old institutions by inventing new ones, able to

run effectively the entire planet.

In general, humanistic paradigm can be thought of as the following: from

determinism to self-determination, from causality to purpose, from manipulation to self-

responsibility, from analysis to synthesis, from control to suggestion, from competition to

cooperation, from aloofness to empathy, from degradation of human life to celebration of

human potentials. To be humanistic means, among other things, to see oneself and each

other as whole, multidimensional, and unique, not a simple bundle of instincts to be

probed and dissected, but as a unity of heart, mind, and spirit to be seen, heard, felt, and

honored. Humanistic emphasis on human freedom, recognition of people’s

interdependence and responsibilities for the future of the world matches Vernadsky’s

insightful prophecy.

Now successful leadership in both industrial training and academe focuses on

human values, directed toward satisfying people’s need for meaning, and creates

organizational purpose. As it follows from the Motivation Theory by Abraham Maslow,

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one of the “visionaries” and promulgators of humanistic psycho-philosophical

foundations, the social needs include those for safety, belongingness, love, self-

actualization, and self-esteem. Maslow argued that human relations are essentially

therapeutic and conversely, that a good society is a psychologically healthy society in

which those social needs are satisfied, one way or another, if it is to survive and be

vigorous. Maslow claimed: “Satisfaction [of] the self-esteem need leads [to] feelings of

self-confidence, worth, strength, capability [and] adequacy, of being useful and necessary

[in] the world. But thwarting of [these] needs produces feelings of inferiority, [of]

weakness, [and] of helplessness” (Maslow, 1987, p. 21).

Humanistic psychology suggests the existence and importance of psychological

needs, such as the need to achieve, to be independent, to feel good about oneself, and to

self-actualize. To be humanistic means among other things to see oneself and each other

as whole, multidimensional, and unique, not a simple bundle of instincts to be probed and

dissected, but as unity of heart, mind, and spirit to be seen, heard, felt, and honored. In

general, the humanistic shift can be thought of as the following: from determinism to

self-determination, from causality to purpose, from manipulation to self-responsibility,

from analysis to synthesis, from control to suggestion, from competition to cooperation,

from aloofness to empathy, from degradation of human life to celebration of human

potentials. Applied to foreign language teaching as well as to industrial training,

humanistic psychology not only endorses the liberation of human spirit but also grants an

almost immediate access to world communications and cultural resources through foreign

language suggestopedic accelerated and intensive training.

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Humanistic values in education have been a banner of many reformers and

educational pioneers—before the creation of Dr. Georgi Lozanov’s suggestology and

suggestopedia. Emerging through the 1960s and 1970s, a crosscurrent of ideas about

people-oriented management and learner-centered teaching has continued to flourish.

Many educational theorists considered the learning as relevant to all of the human needs

and occurring during the entire span of life, and not as confined to the classroom.

Learning involves not merely the acquisition of data and facts, but the reintegration of the

individual, continually producing changes in societal relationship to the environment.

There is now available the beginnings of another philosophy of science. It is a

positive, value-based conception of knowledge and of cognizing, including the

holistic as well as the atomistic, the unique as well as the repetitive, the human

and personal as well as the mechanical, the changing as well as the stable, the

transcendent as well as the positivistic. (Maslow, 1987, p. 171)

Modern successful leadership in both industrial and academic education focuses

on organizational purpose, human values, and the needs of personal growth and esteem,

which are as important as economic security. Those needs are directly related to

activation of the motivational complex for self-actualization and successful goal

achievement. Like many other needs, they are expressed via communicative means in

personal—direct or indirect—contacts. Basic themes in humanistic education include:

Student-sensitive learning

Responsibility for one’s own learning and identity development

Support and acknowledgement of the need for love and a sense of self-worth

The teacher as a structuring agent of an open classroom

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The use of peer groups in the learning process (for example, team learning with

student-led discussion) as well as the enhancement of individual efforts through

group interaction.

In this regard, suggestopedia makes no exception: It is an affective-humanistic

approach, in which there is respect for students’ feelings and interests. The originator of

the method, Georgi Lozanov, M.D., believes that second language acquisition can

proceed much faster than it ordinarily transpires when psychological barriers to learning

have occurred. Traditionally, the learning of a foreign language has been broadly

considered as hard work of memorizing “by rote” words and tedious grammar rules,

doing conversation drills and boring readings. Specifically, those adults who are

pressured by circumstances to learn a foreign language in a short time frame are anxious

about a would-be failure and looking ridiculous in front of others. An inducement for all

these fears underlines in incredibly underutilized human psychological—e.g., mental—

potentials that are reduced to mere four to ten percent of capacity of the learner’s brain.

Suggestopedia has evolved from various mnemonic-suggestologic researches, on

the one hand, and the actor’s professional preparation system by famous Russian drama

professor Dr. Konstantin Stanislavski (1863-1938), on the other hand. Applied to foreign

language instruction primarily by Dr. Georgi Lozanov, it helps students eliminate the

feeling of a learning failure. The suggestopedic students are certainly motivated by a

glimpse into their true capacities and positive learning outcomes as well as an optimistic

social tone in classroom and freedom of self-expression.

The other unparalleled expert specialized in humanistic-affective education

Galina Kitaygorodskaya, Acad., substantiates:

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The effectiveness of suggestopedic system is due to that learner-sensitive

pedagogical influence encourages simultaneous development of intellectual,

emotional, and motivational complex of the learner’s personality. Acutely

inspiring professorial leadership, trustfulness in interpersonal relations of the

learning group as well as between the professor and members of the group,

vibrant emotional tonus of the audience and high degree of everybody’s

involvement in interaction, well-motivated action steps for the learner who

ponders on the problem—all these dynamics further emancipation of

psychological potentials. (Kitaygorodskaya, 1986, p. 7)

Didactic games combined with educational dramatizations make available the

instructor’s indirect leadership that models decent social paradigms and learners’

behavior and facilitates their application in context of both interpersonal and academic

relations. This suggestive-affective guidance makes adult learners feel as valued peers

and equal members of the team throughout the training: if there is no authoritarian leader,

there is no “common enemy.” It may be attributed to the fact that “the [intensive]

learning system [harmonically] fuses instructional [and] educational functions. Indeed,

any methodological [system] should satisfy [this] stipulation, but until now, the only

intensive method [consistently] imparts it,” Kitaygorodskaya stresses (Kitaygorodskaya,

1986, p. 5).

Suggestopedic Clusters

Although suggestopedic accelerated and intensive instructional methods share the

same educational paradigm and offer many similar techniques, they are distinct as

siblings in one family: although looking similar for many, they feature different didactic

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design and algorithms that dramatically affects the learning effectiveness. Someone may

have more appreciation for the highest degree of involvement, the strongest group

coherence, and the most impressive learning outcomes that are typical for the

suggestopedic intensive instruction model; someone else may prefer a less stressful

psychological atmosphere in a friendly serenity of accelerated learning classroom.

Whatever the choice is, the suggestopedic student will always outperform the one who

studies at a traditional academic site.

The accelerated learning method. Suggestopedic accelerated learning authored by

Georgi Lozanov, M.D., Ph.D., Bulgarian psychotherapist-turned-educator, offers a

relaxed, psychologically comfortable, effortless learning format. Accelerated Learning

features a “passive” vocabulary of about 800 foreign words and provides acquisition of

all functional language skills in less than 90 hours of study time. Its fundamental

principles include:

Globalization that is a two-sided principle.

o On the one hand, it advocates for two-brain learning. Both hemispheres of

the learner’s brain, his/her entire personality, and sensorial system are

subject to equal stimulation for inductive and deductive learning,

sensational and analytical thinking by means of both self-actualization and

teaming. Students can learn by action from what is present in the

environment, even if their attention is diverted from a subject. Peripheral

learning may be as same or more effective as learning that results from

voluntary concentration of attention. Thinking is a multi-unilateral, yet,

integrative process. That is why when the teaching is orchestrated in a way

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with respect for synchronization of both the conscious and subconscious

modes of cerebral activity, the learning is noticeably enhanced.

o On the other hand, this principle suggests that learning information must

be presented (“decoded”) by the teacher and assimilated by the learners in

a “global” manner by means of impressive association links that facilitate

assimilation of massively consolidated information units, polylogues.

Duality (or indirectness) is closely related to the globalization principle.

According to G. Lozanov, any training task must incorporate two plans. One plan

consists of the teacher’s intermediate goals and tasks; for instance, improvement

of a particular skill (a goal) and ways of how to achieve this goal (a task). The

other plan comprises students’ goals and tasks; for example, solving a cross-

culturally or interpersonally situated communication dilemma, or a language

conundrum, a crossword, a brainteaser, etc. According to this principle,

instructional information is presented in a “roundabout way,” in detour of a

teacher’s didactic goal in order to increase students’ motivation for cognitive

action steps. The learning becomes more creative when students are considerably

involved in a well-simulated situation; i.e., when they are more preoccupied with

transitional communicative goals than when they focus on manipulating with

certain language paradigms. Concentration of learner’s attention on resolving a

challenging instructional puzzle, which involves both conscious and peripheral

attention and memory, helps create multiple associative links that ensure

effortless memorizing.

Infantilization involves gaming and role-playing. It refers to educational

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“dramatizations,” lifelike simulations, and a variety of language games as primary

didactic activities. The routine utilization of performing arts and games helps to

smoothly engage the students in various learning activities. From the very

beginning of the intensive course, each learner gets a new identity. The mask,

accompanied by a socially prestigious legend, makes available the learner’s self-

actualization through a “prism” of his or her new alter ego: while solving

communicative problems, the learner behaves in accordance with his/her emploi

(Fr.), and the entire lesson leaves an impression of a tension-free, joyful, truly

creative dramatization. This pedagogical maneuver allows for a gentle, non-

authoritarian influence on the learner and avoidance of psychological micro-

traumas when communicative errors occur: an error is never made by the “real”

learner but by his or her second ego (or a “mask”).

Cheery ambiance implies an informal, non-authoritarian behavioral mode within

the learning group, primarily launched by the teacher, creates a democratic

atmosphere in classroom and promotes a courteous communication style and

sympathetic interpersonal relationships. Integration of cognitive and affective

learning by establishing an emotionally healthy, inspiring, challenging, and

tension-free environment boosts creativity, motivates the learning, and promotes

the development of a culture where success is expected.

The authentic (Lozanov’s) accelerated learning paradigm features the following

didactic design:

Introduction

o Presentation of a polylogue session (“Theater of One Actor”)

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o Active session (“Active Séance”)

o Pseudo-passive session (“Concert Séance”)

Elaboration-1

Elaboration-2

The entire instructional process goes on in a cheery, fairly emotional atmosphere.

Bilingualism is not in use; total immersion into a target language is given a right of way.

Although the accelerated learning system does not offer a didactic micro-algorithm,

which would account for the articulatory-repetitive factor and would dramatically

increase the learning outcomes, Lozanov’s method is presently the most popular model of

foreign language express instruction broadly used in the UK, USA, and around the world.

The intensive teaching method. The method of activation of potentialities of the

learning group, mostly known as “intensive teaching,” was originated by Professor

Emeritus and a Chairperson at Moscow State University Galena Kitaygorodskaya, Acad.

(Moscow, Russia). The method was primarily thought of as an express training model for

adult professionals prior to their traveling abroad, but it has found a broader application

in a variety of academic settings, particularly, in the (former) Soviet Union.

Although conceived from the same suggestopedic paradigm with which it shares

the most progressive humanistic-democratic traditions, intensive methodology introduces

a new, considerably improved, model of foreign language express training. Akin to

accelerated learning, intensive teaching gives emphasis to individual learning through

collaborative activities while making most of an algorithmic didactic design at all stages

of a lesson-microcycle. This educational strategy is based on in the following system-

construing principles complementing the previously described methodological “cluster”

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of (Lozanov’s) accelerated learning42

:

Personalization means the learning of a foreign language must be personal in

nature, whereas educational communication serves as a mediator. The affirmative

interpersonal interaction between the teacher and the learners and among the

members of a learning group produces a positive attitude toward learning.

Collaboration implies the individual progress through the joint performance, e.g.,

collective brainstorming while solving puzzles of learning tasks, sharing learning

information, creating projects, etc.

Concentration suggests the intensity of learning, whereas the maximum of

information is assimilated in the minimal time. It also implies to progressive-co-

centric organization of learning information modeling a specific (DNA-like)

didactic pattern featuring massively consolidated information units.

Poly-functionality involves simultaneous improvement of all foreign language

skills, i.e., speaking, writing, reading, and listening. Unlike in commonly in-use

aspectual instruction supposedly preoccupied with teaching conversation only

after the learner’s language skills (usually, grammatical competence) have

become considerably stable, suggestopedic intensive teaching provides the

integrative skill formation. For the student, each learning task (always

communicatively motivated) is a mono-functional one, because he/she is always

preoccupied with a communicative challenge or a language puzzle; for the

teacher, each didactic task is always a poly-functional combination of mini-tasks

that helps develop all language skills in tandem.

42 Assuming that intensive teaching incorporates all four above-mentioned principles of accelerated

learning, their description is now waived.

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An average foreign language intensive course covers all daily routine topics

within ten didactic micro-cycles each of which comprises twelve 45-minute lessons

scheduled as no less than four sessions a week (120 academic hours in total). The average

course for beginners models communicative skills for daily life in a target culture.

While progressing throughout the foreign language intensive course, the adult

learners spontaneously and simultaneously acquire conversational ease as well as

listening, reading, and writing skills. It normally embraces an active vocabulary of about

1200-1400 words and a passive vocabulary of approximately 4000 words. “In [our]

opinion, any foreign language intensive course [should] comprise no less than 2500

words and grant [the] acquisition of [all] language skills,” Kitaygorodskaya insists

(Kitaygorodskaya, 1986, p. 58).

Although the active vocabulary is considerably smaller than the passive

vocabulary, its significance for everyday use is critical. Its functionality covers all types

of linguistic abilities (conversing, writing, listening, and reading), while the coverage of

the passive vocabulary is limited to functional enhancement of passive skills (listening

and reading) only. An active lexicon comprises the most consistent share of the entire

foreign language vocabulary to ensure adequate communication regarding multiple

routine topics.

Kitaygorodskaya also stresses the importance of oral preponderance43

in the

beginning of the course. She explains, “Oral preponderance is understood [as] an initial

study period, which overwhelmingly emphasizes formation [of] learners’ conversational

43 This didactic requirement follows the general model of first language acquisition (by the child) and

emphasizes primarily strengthening of learners’ listening and conversational skills – before they may

commence their reading and writing assignments.

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skills – without reading and writing. Utilization of [the] textbook for reading and

completion [of] writing assignments is [allocated] only after the learners have mastered

lexical [and] grammatical material [in] discourse” (Kitaygorodskaya, 1986, p. 125). That

means the learners are allowed to use their course book after two weeks from the

beginning of an intensive course.

However, some educators are skeptical about the “delay” (due to the oral

preponderance period), arguing that adult learners, particularly those professionals with

strong analytical skills, become increasingly anxious about why they are not given the

course textbook. There is a reason to take into account that the postponed utilization of

the course textbook impedes the following “recovery” period: for busy adults, it is harder

to find extra time to catch up with missed homework than it would be if all assignments

were completed in a timely manner. Based on the professional experience of the author of

this research, the oral preponderance period should not exceed three to four class sessions

(less than 1 week) in order to obtain a desirable consensus between this particular

methodological prerequisite and the real life routine. This didactic alteration facilitates

students’ psychological adjustment to new and quite unusual learning conditions.

Total muscular relaxation supplemented by lowered intellectual alertness

facilitates peripheral perceptiveness of the learner’s brains that remarkably contributes to

effortless acquisition of instructional materials, because using multiple sensorial channels

helps streamline information into the “locale” long-term memory without memorizing

“by rote” that is usually attributed to the “taxon” memory system. According to Donald

Shuster and Charles Gritton, “the locale system [is] used when additional [modalities] are

[used], such as imagery, imagined [sounds] or fanciful exaggerations” (Shuster &

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Gritton, 1986, p.79). That is why a carefully pre-arranged set of classical music is an

indispensable and very effective element of suggestopedic didactic pattern. While the

teacher performs reading following the accords of a heavenly composition, the learners

quietly listen to the music and to the text. The concert séance typically continues no

longer than 10 minutes, but it produces a wonderful cognitive-psychotherapeutic effect

on the audience.

The degree of intensity of socio-psychological gravitation between the members

of a learning group is an important factor that radically affects instructional effectiveness

and, consequently, the rhythm of instructional acceleration. This aspect of building

valuable interpersonal relations makes suggestopedic intensive instruction extraordinarily

attractive and fabulously beneficial. Enjoyable learning activities construct affirmative

behavioral patterns, which entail harmonization of interpersonal relations. Rooted in real-

life simulations, intensive-collaborative learning not only gives a boost to group

coherence and appreciation for learning but also models a civilized, well-mannered

behavior outside the classroom, because “a genuine learning community [is] always

better for learning than a collection [of] isolated individuals” (Meier, 2000, p.9). As a

rule, suggestopedic classmates stay in touch for long time after having completed their

foreign language intensive course.

In the course of intensive training, the suggestogogue generates a powerful socio-

bio-magnetic aura while engaging the students’ in creative explorations. Artistic talent,

expressive temperament, radiant personality, and humor are valuable composites of the

suggestogogue-instructor and are of great assistance for orchestrating the lesson and

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determining a degree of group’s cohesiveness and aspiring behavior44

.

All these wonderful didactic techniques are harmoniously integrated in an original

structural-functional design of suggestopedic training for adult learners. Through positive

emotional responses, the creative and challenging educational atmosphere activates

psycho-physiological potentialities of each learner through collaborative explorations of

the learning group. Besides, the learners largely benefit from their cultural-linguistic

enrichment, because knowledge of foreign languages and cultures grants access to

information in a foreign language and helps spontaneously navigate the world.

As an effective alternative to formal-logistic instruction and disproportionate

standardization, which ignore the learner’s personality, interests, and needs, humanistic-

affective education gives emphasis to “human touch.” This usually means shifting the

focus from knowledge-depositing to knowledge-generating, from competition to

collaboration, from concentration on external things to “journey inward” using

contemplation, critical thinking, artistic dramatization, collaborative brainstorming, and

debating as didactic tools. Deeply humanistic in nature, suggestopedic instruction

produces an ultimate psychotherapeutic effect that, in turn, stimulates learners’ cognitive

abilities and physical wealth as well. That is why suggestopedic education must be

granted the worldwide recognition and an ultimate support.

44 Regrettably, it makes intensive teaching strategy quite selective in terms of quality of pedagogical corps.

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CHAPTER 3. RESEARCH METHOD

Researcher’s Philosophy of Knowledge Clam for Inquiry Choice

All scientific investigations involve inquiry, data collection, and problem solving.

The given study is qualitative in nature and associated with the post-positivist view of

reality “grounded in [the] assumption that features of the social [environment] are

constructed as interpretations [by] individuals and these interpretations tend to be

transitory [and] situational” (Gall, Gall, & Borg, 2003, p. 23). This description fits a

quantum-mechanical/relativist concept of perceptive experiences.

This dissertation suits an emergent category associated with grounded theory,

which (a) focuses on discovery and theory development, (b) shapes research processes

and products from data, (c) checks developing ideas with further specific observations,

(d) studies the process itself, and (e) assumes that making theoretical sense of social life

is itself a process (Charmaz, 1983). As a variety of action research, grounded theory is

concerned with reflection, change, and personal involvement. It embodies constructivist

positions of knowledge claim targeting theory generation (Gall, Gall, & Borg, 2003). It

also tends to understand issues under consideration and to look for solutions.

Constructivist and action researches in education are mainly linked to the literary

heritage of John Dewey (Dewey, 1997), Abraham Maslow (Maslow, 1987), Paulo Freire

(Freire, 2002), and Moacir Gadotti (Gadotti, 1996). It emphasizes democratization and

liberation of human spirit, leading to self-reliance. This doctoral research adopts multiple

exploratory perspectives relevant to humanistic legacy of the aforementioned democrats-

educators whose works continue to influence the forward-thinkers all around the world.

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Theoretical Framework: Research Questions and Objectives

R1. The continuing growth of noospheric occurrences (all-inclusive global

knowledge and experience) and emergence of instantaneous communications alongside

accelerated globalization of the planetary processes including international expansions of

corporations and increasing migration all around the world, cultural collisions and related

national security issues have dramatically increased the importance of the ability to

communicate in other languages with cross-cultural awareness. The contemporary

teaching methods some of which heavily rely on the use of information technology, are,

however, at odds with the laws of nature and fail to provide fast and effective information

assimilation by the learners. Besides, the misconception of the nature of academic

acceleration and intensification has led to a publicly accepted simplistic interpretation of

foreign language express acquisition.

The misuse of terms and a failure to differentiate between traditional and

suggestopedic (accelerated or intensive) didactics frustrate academic business operations

and tarnish the methodological reputation of foreign language accelerated and intensive

teaching. Based on the achievements of the modern philosophy of science, whereas a

relativist approach and a quantum-mechanical framework will be instrumental, this

doctoral research has launched an interdisciplinary investigation of academic

acceleration, intensification, and optimization phenomena. It has helped discover the

inner logic of natural dynamics and apply the findings in designing a universal principles-

anchored system of foreign language express instruction. This interdisciplinary

phenomenological study with multiple constructivist perspectives answers the following

question: What are the mechanisms and principles of the universal dynamics awareness

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of which could help better understand the nature of academic acceleration,

intensification, and optimization in order to improve foreign language instruction?

R2. Despite the fact that express acquisition of foreign languages is given the

same national and international importance as national defense, there are factors

negatively affecting the implementation of methodological innovations and, thus,

acquisition of foreign language competencies. On the one hand, the teachers’ poor

methodological expertise is consequential to inadequate curriculum and methods

currently in use in systematic foreign language teacher preparation that entails

unreasonably protracted study terms for the learners. The inept academic practice with

regard to interpersonal and cross-cultural didactics results in students’ faulting

enthusiasm for studying a foreign language, poor communication skills, and a lack of

cross-cultural alertness.

On the other hand, suggestopedic foreign language express instruction with its

capacity to transform a learning organization into a quantum system calls for shifting not

only education paradigms but also the nature of work relations, demanding further

democratization of academic culture. Since social truth can be seen as societal context-

bound, this research targets uncovering human and system potentialities through an

interdisciplinary investigation of causality and relationships among variables that affect

the quality of academic culture (at large) and impede the implementation of innovations.

To conceptualize an ultimate target—a quantum (optimal, “smart”) system of foreign

language express instruction—and, thus, to show ways of elimination of potential barriers

to innovative initiatives, this study answers the question: Which factors are detrimental

for the functionality of academic system (at large) and, thus, for the development of

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national capabilities in foreign languages?

R3. Although suggestopedic methodology has been proven effective, the

complexity of requirements for the professor-suggestogogue stands on its way into a

broader practice, because energy-consuming dynamic didactics (particularly, in intensive

mode) requires a great deal of professional commitment and selfless involvement in

orchestrating a suggestopedic lesson. In combination with a lack of incentives for extra

efforts invested, even the most devoted of already hard-to-find suggestogogues show

little enthusiasm for a challenging daily routine. Thus, ivory tower suffers the loss of the

best academic practices, rooted in forward-thinking humanistic traditions that aim at

making the world a better place to live. Besides, computer technology is still waiting for

endorsement and integration with suggestopedic methodology of foreign language

express instruction. In order to help struggling colleagues and, thus, to enhance the

applicability of suggestopedic system, this doctoral study consolidates a wide-ranging

methodological expertise while answering the following question: How can computer

technology facilitate suggestopedic didactics?

Study Type, Assumptions, and Rationale

Study Type: Grounded Theory

Grounded theory is a type of research, which puts emphasis on the process of

theorizing from data and in which constant comparison of collected data against the

theory is the heart of the process. In other words, it is a process of theorizing from

grounded data (Dey, 1999). Grounded theory is responsive to the situation in which it

takes place, because it embraces the change. It seems that a grounded theory method suits

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well the previously mentioned researcher’s objectives. One of the advantages of theory-

based research is that “it [usually] yields important findings” (Gall, Gall, & Borg, 2003,

p.41). Otherwise, the study contributes nothing to the education field.

A theory can also provide a rational basis for explanation or interpretation of the

results obtained. Reflections on future possibilities involve inductive reasoning based on

literature, audio-visual data, and observations of past and current trends. Yet, the need to

identify the harmful socio-cultural patterns within academic culture (at large) requires a

flexible method of scientific inquiry that helps integrate various techniques, partially

shifting priorities toward mixed methods rather fitting a reflective scholar-practitioner’s

theoretical position.

Assumptions

This study derives from the following assumptions:

(1) A gap in public awareness about academic acceleration, intensification, and

optimization, on the one hand, and a failure to provide adequate education profiling the

needs of accelerated globalization, on the other hand, are responsible for the

underperformance of foreign language teachers’ and a lack of the learners’ interest for

studying a foreign language.

(2) Increasing bureaucratization, commercialization, moral corruption, and

functional rigidity of many academic systems are to blame for ineffective

communication, substandard self-monitoring, and inadequate self-maintenance that make

them unable to deal with the challenges of accelerated globalization. Dysfunctional social

relations slow down dissemination of cutting-edge methodological innovations and, thus,

the development of national foreign language capabilities. There is a great deal of

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untapped potentialities within the organizational design of an academic system (at large)

the release of which would prompt organizational leverage and transformation of a

common system into a quantum system.

(3) Although foreign language accelerated and intensive teaching methods within

the suggestopedic modality provide effective learning outcomes, none of the authors has

offered a satisfactory explanation why suggestopedic methods succeed when the others

fail and why they may cause frustration when they are expected to do well. Despite the

fact that psychological and didactic foundations of suggestopedic instruction cover many

important theoretical and pragmatic issues, it seems that its philosophical aspect still

waits to be addressed in order to facilitate understanding of humanistic-suggestopedic

paradigm of foreign language express instruction with cross-cultural alertness.

Rationale

There is a similarity pattern in the way of how the universal cosmological macro-

world, corpuscular world, and living systems function. The use of logic and conceptual

analysis associated with qualitative phenomenological-emancipatory research will enable

a comprehensive investigation of various cause-effect issues resting within and outside

complex micro- and macro-systems, i.e., academic system. Building analogous parallels

through extrapolations from theoretical physics and quantum mechanics into education

areas will promote awareness of the nature and mechanism of academic acceleration and

optimization.

Although human psyche is more than neural networks and cannot be

mathematically justified, human mentality, however, can be treated scientifically. The

modern theory of science successfully attempted to approach human consciousness by

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resorting to quantum mechanics. Abner Shimony, Professor Emeritus of Philosophy and

Physics at Boston University and a contributor to Roger Penrose’s The Large, the Small,

and the Human Mind, argues that “the ideas [of] quantum mechanics are [relevant] to the

mind-body problem” and that “the [quantum] mechanical problem of the [actualization]

of potentialities is a [genuine] physical problem” (Penrose, 1989, p. 144).

Communicative interaction among individuals is, indeed, an exchange of

information chunks perceivable by the individual’s sensorial system: intentionally

(consciously) and intuitively (non-consciously). That information exchange creates

integrated conscious and para-conscious experiences involving manipulations with

information, while the individual simultaneously interacts—at many levels—with the

others and the environment. If the quantum leap as well as the quantum computer makes

part of the physical reality, it becomes possible to consider communication as extremely

complex, multifaceted, multidimensional, integrated verbal/nonverbal and

conscious/para-conscious signal activity that proceeds in a non-linear way: as quantum-

leaping scanning-corroborating between participating actors.

As a sub-feature of universal activity, signal activity is, indeed, communication

activity, which, like the former, conforms to the universal principles and dynamics. Since

education is primarily a type of communication activity that involves multilateral

interaction between the participants for transmitting and perceiving instructional data, it

is also subject to universal dynamics and, thus, must be addressed and handled as an

integral part of universal activity. Therefore, the foreign language instruction process,

which is an integral component of the educational communication process, is also subject

to the interplay of the universal dynamics and principles. For that reason, foreign

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language methodology and teacher training must account for the natural laws and intrinsic

patterns of the universal processes including those known as communication, cognition,

exosomatic (noospheric) evolution, accelerated globalization, interpersonal and

intercultural dynamics, etc. Besides, to make it optimal, the current technologically

advanced era mandates integration of accelerated foreign language instruction with

information technology to make the most of the training.

The functional role and importance of the right (“artistic”) hemisphere in the

learning process is still waiting for appreciation from the mainstream academe.

Conventional foreign language instruction does not leave room for intuitive cognition.

Simultaneous activation of the both brains of the learner is a key psycho-physiological

condition for harmonization of cerebral activity. Suggestopedic learning, which involves

the both brains in well-balanced analytical-synthetic, conscious-intuitive mental

operations, is proven much more effective than mind-numbing drills. The use of

computer technology facilitates the professor’s performance, engenders complex signal

activity, and stimulates students’ poly-sensorial perception, making learning experiences

even more enjoyable. Through a merger of the latest findings of different sciences, this

doctoral research will design an optimal system of foreign language instruction bringing

together technology and humans in all-in-one harmonizing didactic effort.

Contemporary sciences, i.e., social sciences, consider a complex living system as

an energy entity. A misbalanced energy system—i.e., a cultural or academic body—

becomes a source of a greater dynamic disorder as polarization among elements goes on.

Regaining the balance through democratization of academic environment (at large) would

endorse social fairness, professionalism, knowledge sharing, and activation of human and

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system potentialities.

Since the social reality can be examined not only in a concrete societal context but

also within a broader (or a smaller) living system, the given constructivist research will

expose, in terms of global and local perspectives, various problems within academe and

barriers to the implementation of innovations. Hoping that a greater public understanding

of the significance of multilingual-multicultural expertise will lead to appreciation for

multiculturalism and studying of foreign languages, the research will focus on a variety

of academic issues with regard to foreign language education and beyond.

Population and Sample

The population of this study has included faculty members related to the

constructs known as foreign language teaching, accelerated/intensive training, foreign

language teacher educators, and others. The researcher identified the faculty members as

assigned to a particular program, such as Master of Art in Teaching (MAT), Foreign

Language Teacher Education, ESL/EFL/TESOL certification programs, and departments

of Foreign/World Language Education. To obtain findings regarding common gaps in

foreign language teacher training, the proposed research sampled the syllabi from

randomly selected institutions of foreign language education and teacher certification

programs from around the world.

Data Collection, Analysis, and Validation

This research has heavily yielded data from literature as well as audio-visual and

online resources, because any grounded theory-targeted research treats literature as data,

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with the same status as other data. Thus, data mining from a variety of scientific

disciplines has been critical for this study.

In addition, a non-intrusive anonymous questionnaire was prepared to collect data

from the above-mentioned population (see Appendix). The questionnaire was delivered

online to academic organizations specialized in theoretical and applied linguistics as well

as in foreign language training. To protect the privacy of the participants, the

anonymously collected data were stored in the researcher’s second computer with no

Internet connection. The questionnaire incorporated both independent and dependent

variables. As a theory-based research aims at developing a theory, which would explain

“observed events in terms [of] constructs and laws that specify [how] the constructs are

related to each other. When [a] construct is thought of as a characteristic that [can] vary

in quantity or quality, it is called variable” (Gall, Gall, & Borg, 2003, p. 40). The

dependent variables of a questionnaire may include respondents’ academic degree,

cultural background, country, professional affiliation, current job title, and sets of answer

options. Besides, the variable data may be obtained through open-ended questions.

The following is a detailed explanation of the Questionnaire designed by the

researcher. Part 1 of the Questionnaire included general data: academic degree,

professional affiliation, and current job title. Part 2 consisted of two sections each of

which included a description of task that models a real-life situation while offering

limited answer options. The description of the next, slightly modified (one component

only) task provides the same answer options. Thus, the answer options that are, indeed,

the dependent variables of each section undergo transformation into independent

variables with regard to the entire Part 2 of the Questionnaire. This “forcing” design

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created an eliminating frame of choice to help understand the way the variables act upon

each other if the socially constructed reality alters. It helped grasp the causal connections

among social phenomena and validate the findings. Part 3 of the Questionnaire offered

few open-ended questions to gather information about the availability of knowledge on

the subject under study.

Summary

The design of the living matter enfolds substantial survival resources, even though

they are subject to various forms of entropy – including social entropy. Activation of this

latent energy would boost the vigor of a system, making it optimal. There is a vast source

of untapped potentialities in individuals, family, workplace, society, and global

community. There are idle potentials within the functional structures of the world’s

academe. This research refers to a foreign language education system in order to unveil

weaknesses in ivory tower, because a change for the better is possible if people act

responsibly to identify and alter ills.

To gain a better control over global dynamics, a system (an organization, a nation,

or an individual as well) must improve its capability in foreign languages. That comprises

aligning the velocity of foreign language training with the velocity of accelerated

globalization and exosomatic evolution (i.e., noospheric occurrences). Conceptualization

of academic acceleration and optimization helps increase awareness of the importance of

disclosure and activation of both the human and system’s latent power. This research

builds conceptual philosophical, socio-psycho-physiological, and didactic foundations for

foreign language express instruction to make it available to educational innovators. By

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cracking the “daVinci code” of life, this study has created a nature-anchored optimal

design of a system of foreign language express instruction: a quantum-learning model.

The longevity of the entire global system depends upon balance, velocity, and

intensity of relations among cultures that imply polarized and interlocked energy fields.

No secret that benevolent communication in a fear-free, relatively comfortable physical

locale creates conditions for affirmative human and intercultural relations. Thus, effective

interpersonal-intercultural communication would promote collaboration among common

people and cultures in local and global scales. Collaboration with a positive, humanistic

perspective would enhance global knowledge sharing and resource management, making

the world a better place to live and enhancing survival chances of the global community.

That is why foreign language training must be tied with acquiring cross-cultural alertness.

This research shows didactic techniques, which impart cross-cultural awareness into

teacher-led dynamic foreign language classroom.

Until now, there is an extreme scarcity of instructional resources and academic

programs on methodology and didactics of foreign language express instruction. Besides,

the complexity of professional requirements for the professor-suggestogogue holds back

the implementation of humanistic-affective instruction paradigms. A computer-assisted

suggestopedic application would significantly facilitate the professorial work. This

research discloses didactic stages and techniques, which can help optimize foreign

language training while transforming an ordinary learning group into a quantum system.

In addition, this academic work generates an innovative suggestopedic design adhering to

a humanistic-holistic paradigm. It demonstrates multiple advantages of poly-functional

integration of multimedia technology into dynamic collaborative classroom.

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CHAPTER 4. DATA COLLECTION AND ANALYSIS

The National Language Conference of February 1, 2005, put emphasis on the vital

importance of knowledge of foreign languages with cross-cultural alertness. The speakers

called attention to the gaps in the national capabilities in foreign languages that had

undermined cross-cultural interface at home and abroad, thus, causing barriers in

international commerce, diplomacy, military operations, and Homeland security. The

national safety, economic development, and domestic well-being demand that action be

taken in identifying the detrimental factors within academe to produce a significant

improvement of the citizens’ competence in foreign languages. Since the social reality

can be seen not only in a concrete situation but also in a broader socio-political context,

the given constructivist research aims at examining the current trends and setbacks in

academic system (at large) in terms of global and local perspectives.

For the last few years, some writers and journalists reported that, during the past

two decades, the increasing commercialization of higher education had become evident.

They asserted that academic drawbacks were due to an erosive character of corporative

trends growing within an ivory tower. The toxic mix of science and profit is prevailing

over the historic impartiality of academe. Universities are acting more like patent

factories, where professors are becoming more like entrepreneurs. The financial support

from both the governmental and private sectors is shifting from the humanities to

lucrative science labs, and “the emphasis [on] research and commercialization is [a]

reflection of the values and priorities that [now] govern academic life” (Washburn, 2005,

p. 209). Excessive, unbalanced, or poorly designed intellectual property protection is

becoming counter-productive. Secrecy is replacing the free flow of knowledge;

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departmental seclusion is making difficult the interdepartmental dialogue. Academic

administrators increasingly refer to the students as “consumers” and to the learning

outcomes and creative ideas—as “products.” “Across [the] country, schools [looking] to

trim [their] budgets are targeting programs [in] history, foreign languages, [and]

journalism” (Washburn, 2005, p. 215). A lack of fairness in hiring and firing, tenure and

promotion, misappropriation of creative ideas and their outcomes, hidden nepotism and

alienation of those “not fitting in” are corrupting the genuine foundations of democracy.

The skillful teaching and creativity, however, are valued less and less; the brilliant mind

and a versatile expertise of a “Renaissance man” are labeled “over-qualified” and “over-

educated” that is subject to underemployment. There is no wonder that someone

proclaims the death of humanities.

At this stage, the given research focuses on repercussions of sponsorship in higher

education. The researcher had to establish if it was sponsorship to blame for various

problems within academe and to check if there were other influential factors affecting

people’s mindsets with regard to academic realities and practices. The other researcher’s

task was to investigate if there was a dilettantish trend in understanding the nature of

academic acceleration, intensification, and organizational optimization that held back the

development of the national capabilities in foreign languages. The results of the online

investigation have not been uniform.

This chapter addresses Question 2 of this doctoral study: What factors are

detrimental for the functionality of the academic system (at large) and, thus, for the

development of national capabilities in foreign languages? Overall, the chapter describes

the results of the researcher’s investigation of factors affecting academic industry and

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restraining the national capacity in multilingual expertise. The section Demographic

Description provides a statistical analysis of the participants in this study (number,

academic degree, professional affiliation, current occupation/job title). It also clarifies the

researcher’s role and intermediate tasks at this phase of study. The section Data Analysis

delivers the results of data-mining by themes and patterns. It primarily shows how the

dependent variables have acted upon the independent variables; and then it filters the

obtained insights on acceleration, intensification, and optimization phenomena, central to

this doctoral research. This section also imparts the relevant data from additional digital

and printed resources (a technique broadly in use in grounded theory-based research) in

order to collect more details and to create a wide-ranging picture of academic reality as it

is now. The Summary goes over the main trends in academic culture and foreign

language education uncovered by this research.

Demographic Description

The Researcher’s Role and Intermediate Tasks

To identify the current status quo in the ivory tower, the researcher acted as an

official online surveyor (a doctoral researcher). The researcher’s intermediate task was to

find out the influential factors within academic culture (at large) by filtering them

through the sets of pre-programmed variables in the Questionnaire. The other transitional

task was to examine syllabi of teacher education and foreign language training programs

to look for suggestopedic trends (if any).

Population and Sampling

Population. The population of this study included faculty members related to the

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academic constructs known as foreign language teaching, accelerated/intensive training,

foreign language teacher educators, and others. The variable data concerning personal

characteristics were collected through the Part 1 of the Questionnaire. Fifty percent of the

respondents had a Ph.D. degree; the other half of the group had others (Bachelor or

Master’s) degrees in humanities. All respondents were affiliated with an academic

institution (domestic or abroad); almost 93% of participants were assigned to a foreign

language teacher education or ESL/EFL training program.

Sampling. This doctoral research had to accomplish two investigative tasks in the

process: (a) sampling the academic culture and (b) sampling foreign language education

and training programs. The prepared Questionnaire was emailed to 228 potential

respondents affiliated with 12 academic institutions in different countries; 14 answers

have been received. The researcher also sampled the syllabi of tertiary academic

institutions in addition to 25 randomly selected universities to gather data on the subject

of foreign language training and foreign language teacher certification. To establish a

commonality of issues, the researcher also took into consideration other data from online

and literary resources.

Data Analysis

The General Results

To look into the issues mentioned above, in Part 2 of Questionnaire, the

researcher offered to the participants a “forcing” design featuring an eliminating frame of

choice to help grasp the way the variables act upon each other if the socially constructed

reality changes. Two real life situated tasks with four identical sets of options in both

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featured the only difference: the affiliation with either a state-sponsored or a private

university. The main idea was to establish how much the sponsorship factor affects the

people’s decision-making. The table below shows the general outcomes of Part 2 of

Questionnaire (see Table 2). It demonstrates some characteristics (e.g., the academic

degree) of the respondents and their decisions in favor of either a state-sponsored or a

private sector.

Table 2. The General Results from Part 2 of Questionnaire

________________________________________________________________________

Type of Question_ _Degree____________ Total %

_Institution No. Option PhD’s % Others _%_____________________

1 a 6 85.7 4 57.1 10 71.4

P b 1 14.3 3 42.9 4 28.6

U 2 a 0 0 3 42.9 3 21.4

B b 7 100 4 57.1 11 78.6

L 3 a 6 85.7 4 57.1 10 71.4

I b 1 14.3 3 42.9 4 28.6

C 4 a 0 0 3 42.9 3 21.4

b 7 100 4 57.1 11 78.6

P 1 a 7 100 3 42.9 10 71.4

R b 0 0 4 57.1 4 28.6

I 2 a 0 0 2 28.6 2 14.3

V b 7 100 5 71.4 12 85.7

A 3 a 6 85.7 6 85.7 12 85.7

T b 1 14.3 1 14.3 2 14.3

E 4 a 0 0 1 14.3 1 7.1

b 7 100 6 85.7 13 92.9

________________________________________________________________________

The following bar graph (see Figure 7) is a summary of the answers obtained with

regard to Part 2 of Questionnaire. The main idea was, on the one hand, to establish if it

was commercialization of higher education to blame for many problems within academe;

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on the other hand, to check if there were other influential factors affecting people’s

mindsets with regard to academic realities and decision-making. The graph illustrates the

overall results of the emailed survey patterning the participants’ choices in favor of

public or private sponsorship.

0

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1-a 1-b 2-a 2-b 3-a 3-b 4-a 4-b

Public

Private

Figure 7: The sponsorship factor (general results)

As the bar graph above shows, the respondents have not made a big difference

between the public and private sectors. The participants’ reactions were identical in the

first set of options: 71.4% of respondents opted for “1-a” and 28.6% chose “1-b” in both

case scenarios. This result gives preferentiality to neither public nor private sponsorship.

With regard to the second set of choices, the results were slightly different: 21.4% and

14.3% of respondents opted for “2-a” with reference to the public and private sectors

(respectively); the other 78.6% and 85.6% selected “2-b” in both public or corporate

settings (respectively) slightly favoring the private sponsorship. The upshot of the third

set of choices shows that 71.4% and 85.7% of participants preferred the option “3-a”

concerning public- and private-funded institutions (respectively), while other 28.6% and

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14.3% of participants opted for “3-b” in relation with public and private endowment

(respectively). The outcome of the fourth set of options follows: 21.4% and 7.1% of

participants opted for “4-a” in the public and private case scenarios (respectively); the

other 78.6% and 92.9% chose “4-b” favoring the private sector over the state-sponsored.

The general results of the investigation show a divergence in decision-making

dependent on the type of—public or private—financial endowment; however, the

variation of data is not as big as expected. The following detailed analysis of the survey’s

returns provides evidence of the interference of the personal value factor that affected the

lenses through which the participants perceived the offered situations. Namely, the

personal merit disclaimer, sporadically bending people’s perceptions, conditioned their

way of thinking in the similar situations. The figures below show how the lenses of the

mind affect the decision-making process.

The Influential Factors

Knowledge vs. experience. In order to find out which one of two academic assets

(knowledge or experience) is currently given more value, the first set of the emailed

Questionnaire offered two options to chose from: (a) a Ph.D. degree holder with 2 years

of experience or (b) a master’s degree holder with 8 years of experience. The Figure 8

illustrates the unanimity of choice: 71.4% of the participants in this study opted for “a”

and the other 28.6% of respondents chose “b” with regard to both public and private

sponsorships (see Figure 8). So far, academic knowledge has been viewed as a greater

asset than experience.

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0

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80

Public Private

Knowledge

Experience

Figure 8: The knowledge vs. experience factor (general results)

Although the participants favored neither public nor private sector, a more

detailed analysis of answers revealed the interference of an additional factor—the earned

degree criterion. The following bar graph demonstrates how the personal merit (e.g., the

earned degree) factor shapes people’s decision-making (see Figure 9).

010203040

5060708090

100

PhD

(pub)

PhD

(priv)

Other

(pub)

Other

(priv)

Knowledge

Experience

Figure 9: The personal merit disclaimer interfering

with the knowledge vs. experience factor

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As it is seen from the chart, 85.7% of Ph.D.’s and 57.1% of other degree holders

favored knowledge over experience in relation to public sponsorship, while 100% of

Ph.D.’s and 42.9% of other degree holders gave preference to knowledge over experience

in relation to private endowment. Accordingly, 14.3% of Ph.D. holders and 42.9% of the

respondents with other degrees showed more appreciation for experience in relation to

public sponsorship, while none of Ph.D. holders and 57.1% of non-doctoral degree

owners valued experience over knowledge in relation to private sponsorship.

These results indicate that those with the highest academic achievement obviously

tend to value knowledge over experience in any case scenario, particularly, under the

pressure of self-imposed discipline of more competitive free market academics; but

hands-on experience evidently won over academic expertise among the non-doctoral

respondents in corporative academic settings. It means that the respondents of both

doctoral and non-doctoral categories surmised the excessive burdens of corporate

survival and, thus, put more trust in their own category made of “peers.”

Acceptance. Alienation from academe might not be the saddest story ever told;

however, for scholars with significant achievements on their professional tracks, it might

be the one. Perhaps, only few of well-qualified immigrants end up as professors and

engineers, but many others find alternative ways to make it to the middle class—

eventually. Under the supposition that much valuable knowledge had been lost “in

transaction” of those who embarked themselves on a hard journey in pursuit of happiness

overseas, this study made an attempt to examine the interplay of knowledge, national

origin, and sponsorship.

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The second set of options included in both public and corporate case scenarios

offered two alternatives to choose from: (a) a native citizen (marked “local” on the bar

graph below) with a bachelor’s degree in the required field, (b) a naturalized citizen

(marked “alien”) with a Ph.D. degree in the required field. The Figure 4 demonstrates

that the overwhelming majority opted for “b” in both public and corporate academic

settings: 78.6% and 85.7% (respectively). It advocates for a preferential treatment of

professional expertise over national origin issues; besides, the power of knowledge has

been valued even greater under the survival pressure in the private sector (see Figure 10).

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90

Public Private

Local

Alien

Fig.10: The acceptance factor (general results)

However, a cross data analysis revealed that the acceptance rate was more stable

(100%) in the doctoral group. The non-doctoral group of participants showed more

tolerance for a stranger under pressure of struggling entrepreneurial academics. The

graph below (see Figure 11) demonstrates that 57.1% and 71.4% of participants from the

non-doctoral group of participants voted positive for knowledge and showed a lesser

concern for the national origin in both public- and corporate-sponsored academics

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(respectively); the other 42.9% and 28.6% of non-doctoral degree holders thus favored

localism over education in public- and private-sponsored scenarios (respectively).

010

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50607080

90100

PhD

(pub)

PhD

(priv)

Other

(pub)

Other

(priv)

Local

Alien

Figure 11: The personal merit disclaimer interfering with the acceptance factor

As it is clear from the bar graph above, both (doctoral and non-doctoral)

categories of participants put a great deal of faith in their own category, although the

value of knowledge has obviously prevailed over cultural differences, particularly, in

relation to corporate sponsorship. Once again, group mentality associated—in this case—

with the personal merit (the degree earned) played the key role in the decision-making

process, bending its outcomes.

Connectivity. To examine how the personal connections impinge on people’s

decision-making and how it relates to the sponsorship status, the participants in this study

were offered the third set of limited options situated in public and corporate scenarios.

They had to choose between (a) a personally unknown expert in the required field and (b)

a personally known applicant with some expertise in the required field. The result of

voting is shown on the bar graph below (see Figure 12).

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0

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Public Private

Unknown

Known

Figure 12: The connectivity factor (general results)

Only 28.6% and 14.3% of participants felt that it was more appropriate to sustain

the personal bonds in spite of poor professional competence in both public and private

sponsorship scenarios (respectively). However, the majority of participants valued

professional expertise over personal connectivity: 71.4% and 85.7% of votes went to “a

personally unknown expert” in both public and private academic settings (respectively).

The appreciation for erudition over personal bounds was even higher in the offered

private endowment situation.

A more detailed cross data analysis revealed, yet again, the sophisticated interplay

of factors shaping the personal mindsets and choices. 85.7% of Ph.D. degree holders

stood strong for professionalism in both public and private academic settings. The other,

non-doctoral sub-group of participants demonstrated an amazing twist in the decision-

making pattern. In the state-sponsored academic settings, 57.1% of respondents were in

support of professionalism over personal connectivity, while the other 42.9% avoided

jeopardizing their personal connections. In the offered private-sponsored academic

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settings, the respondents from this sub-group dramatically changed their mind in favor of

professionalism: 85.7% of them felt the domineering importance of professional expertise

under pressure of self-supportive academic operations (see Figure 13).

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PhD

(pub)

PhD

(priv)

Other

(pub)

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(priv)

Unknown

Known

Figure 13: The personal merit disclaimer interfering with the connectivity factor

As it follows from the above-stated, the nepotistic tendency in the non-doctoral

sub-group has been higher, compared to the one of Ph.D. holders. Besides, the personal

worth stored in a nutshell of the human psyche as well as survival stresses associated

with corporate academic environment have, over again, altered human perceptions of

others, personal priorities, and decision-making outcomes.

Proficiency. To investigate the impact of the foreign language proficiency factor

on hiring of foreign language teachers, the fourth set of limited options of the

Questionnaire proposed to the participants to opt for (a) a native English speaker with any

bachelor’s degree complemented by a EFL/ESL certificate or (b) a Ph.D. holder near-

native speaker of English linguist-educator. From the entire study group, 21.4% of

respondents favored “native-speakerism” over professionalism in the state-sponsored

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academics and 7.1% of respondents gave the same preferential treatment in reference to

the corporate academics. Accordingly, 78.6% of participants showed appreciation for the

higher academic achiever with regard to public sponsorship; and the rating of 92.9% was

given to professionalism in connection with private-sponsored academic institution (see

Figure 14).

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Public Private

Native

Near-native

Figure 14: The proficiency factor (general results)

As it can be noticed from the chart above, the corporate survival sense dictated

once again its priorities, forcing the decision-makers to consider professionalism before

other qualifiers. The encouraging results of this part of the survey are quite contradictory

to academic realities pursuing that near-native speakers of English professional linguists-

educators have an extremely hard time to find a suitable employment while their less

qualified colleagues, native speakers of English are in a great demand all over the world.

Although the magnetic arrow of public opinion was steadily pointing to

professional aptitude, a cross data examination revealed again a hidden psychological

urge, which advocated for steering the key priorities while making decisions. The bar

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graph below shows a way the survival thrust manipulates human longing (see Figure 15).

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PhD

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Other

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Other

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Native

Near-native

Figure 15: The personal merit disclaimer interfering with the proficiency factor

In the sub-group of Ph.D. holders, 100% of respondents firmly stood for

professionalism. Those respondents invested all their trust in their own professional

category and appointed the highest academic achiever in both case scenarios. The

participants of the other, non-doctoral sub-group exhibited more flexibility, though

conditional on environmental change. In the offered public-sponsored case scenario,

42.9% of those respondents demonstrated somewhat class solidarity and selected the

lower academic peer; the other 57.1 % showed more appreciation for professional

aptitude and selected the higher academic achiever. The moral pressure in self-reliance

suggested changing the mindset in favor of the highest academic achiever: 92.9% of

respondents opted for professionalism as a greater asset in the offered corporate scenario.

Acceleration, Intensification, and Optimization

The growing numbers of humanities professors express their concerns about the

multifaceted crisis in the humanities. Evidently, commercial trends are on the rise in

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higher education. Voluntarily or against the will, administration and faculty must play a

part in corporatizing the university. As Jenifer Washburn states:

The collective effect was a dramatic increase in the overall amount of publicly

financed research now subject to proprietary commercial control—and the birth of

a new paradigm in American higher education variously described as the “second

academic revolution,” the “entrepreneurial university,” or simply “academic

capitalism.” (Washburn, 2005, p. 69)

Conversely, other authors call attention to the declining efficiency of liberal

education due to the financial support for the universities. Dr. Richard Vedder,

distinguished professor of economics at Ohio University, acknowledges that “the

productivity [of] university personnel is almost [certainly] falling” and that now “it takes

more professors and college [administrators] to educate a given number [of] students”

(Vedder, 2004, p. xv). He also argues that the decline in efficiency is rooted in economic

sponsorship provided for the state university system. He wrote, “The basic [problem] is

that universities [are] mostly nonprofit organizations, subject to [only] muted competitive

forces, and lacking market-imposed [discipline] to economize and innovate” (p. xv).

Thus, acceleration, intensification, and optimization have become the most desirable

targets of both academic instruction and organizational management.

In this relation, Part 3 of the Questionnaire included four open-ended questions to

gather information about the availability of knowledge on the subject under study:

acceleration, intensive teaching-learning, optimization, and an optimal (“smart”)

organization. The following is the analysis of the data obtained by the researcher.

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Acceleration. One of the primary concerns of this doctoral research is an

interdisciplinary investigation of the acceleration phenomenon to help clarify the

meaning and mechanisms of academic acceleration. Part 3 of the emailed Questionnaire

included an open question on the subject of acceleration. Half of the respondents

provided a variety of mechanical description of acceleration such as “speeding up,”

“moving forward at accelerated pace,” “the speeding up of a process,” or “the

mechanism, which allows to speed up some processes, e.g., learning.” Few others related

acceleration to the development of gifted children to encourage them “to proceed at a

faster pace or at an earlier age than their average peers” and “to experience a greater

challenge and less boredom than if they were in a regular program.” Someone suggested

a more behaviorist connotation as “when something happens very fast as a result of the

appropriate stimulus.” Approximately a quarter of participants described acceleration as

related to “the strategy and curriculum design and means to speed up the learning

process, that is, to condense it so that learning happens faster” or in connection with

intensive acquisition of a language as “an application of intensive methods of teaching,

which can help increase results.” One description referred acceleration to physics as “the

term… to denote the change in speed over time.” None of the respondents alluded to any

methodological model of accelerated instruction.

In addition, the researcher examined the syllabi of foreign language teacher

education as well as TESOL, ESL, and foreign language training programs currently

offered in twenty-five institutions of higher learning advertised online. The record of

academic institutions, which programs were examined, included Harvard University,

Johns Hopkins University, Princeton University, Stanford University, University of South

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Florida, Purdue University, Oklahoma State University, Pepperdine University, Oregon

State University, Oral Roberts University, California State University (Fresno),

Jacksonville University, Delaware State University, Stetson University, Cornell

University, University of California (Berkeley, San Francisco, and Riverside), Hawaii

Pacific University, Colorado State University, Columbia University, Concordia

University (Chicago), Iowa State University, Rutgers University (New Brunswick),

Rochester Institute of Technology, and other institutions advertizing online their

programs relevant to the researcher’s interests. Many aforementioned institutions offer

immersion style foreign language training abroad at a partnering campus. Others provide

aspectual, standards-based ESL or foreign language training, CALL, and TOEFL

preparation services. None of the investigated syllabi addresses teaching foreign language

communication with cross-cultural alertness.

With regard to foreign language teacher education, the Rutgers Language Institute

at Rutgers University (New Brunswick) is the only one imparting in its curriculum

teaching methods based on a communicative approach to language (no further details

provided). The majority of academic institutions have not made available a concise

course description addressing a particular methodological system or a didactic application

but only those pertaining to the improvement of particular teaching techniques. It is still

possible, however, that some of those teacher formation programs incorporate

methodological theories and didactics in their curricula but simply have not specified

them in their course descriptions. Regrettably, it was impossible to find any allusion to

suggestopedic methodology or foreign language accelerated instruction, although

“intensive” was mentioned fairly enough and mainly with reference to a concentrated

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class schedule or “rigorous” learning.

The investigation of the syllabi of corporate academics advertized online supplied

a controversial picture. The terms “accelerated” and “intensive” are quite popular in

virtual commercials related to ESL or foreign language instruction. No one, however,

provided a methodological or didactic clarification of the teaching approach in use.

Articles published online impart different interpretations of suggestopedic

instruction that range from “a teaching method with the use of music” to a “sensational”

learning technique. So many different versions of suggestopedia currently exist that it is

difficult to arrive at a description, which would cover all possible variations. A number of

adaptations are known as “psychopädie,” “superlearning,” SALT (“suggestive

accelerative learning and teaching”), LIND (“learning in new dimensions”), “optimal

learning,” and “holistic learning” to name a few. Some interpretations of suggestopedia

put emphasis in sound research findings while others focus on synchronized breathing,

but more often accelerated learning serves the ends of better commercial viability. Over

the years, that has resulted in confusion about the exact structure and content of

suggestopedic methodology and didactics.

Irritated by the abusive nature of pseudo-scientific interpretations of his psycho-

pedagogical innovation, Dr. Lozanov himself made an online statement pointing out that

“a lot [of] variants and adaptations of what was understood [to] be Suggestopedia were

developed. In [many] cases, these variants (such as some accelerated learning methods,

superlearning, and others) were represented [as] Suggestopedia, and my name was [used]

in association with them. In reality, [these] variants are far from our work [and] have not

been proven scientifically. Unfortunately, I could [not] challenge this misrepresentation

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of our work nor protect [the] purity of our methods, but [contrary] to twenty years ago, I

am now in [a] position to defend this science [for] the benefit of people” (Lozanov, 1999,

pp. 1-2).

Intensive teaching-learning. There was no agreement among the respondents on

the subject of intensive teaching-learning. Overall, the descriptions received can be

organized in five categories referring to: (1) reduced timing, (2) rigorous focusing on the

subject, (3) customized instruction, (4) computerization, (5) instructional system.

The overwhelming majority of responses fitted in the first category, which

classified the intensive teaching-learning as “achieving academic goals in a shorter than

‘normal’ period of time” so as “many contact hours in a short period” or “condensed

learning opportunity, where a semester or quarter term is shortened, but content and

learning outcomes are the same.” The second category featured a very traditional

viewpoint taking into account “teaching with rigor and high standards… when the

particular learning target is the exclusive focus of the exercise” or “a method, whereby

students and teachers cover a vast amount of subject matter with an acute focus to detail.”

The third category of responses interpreted the intensive teaching-learning as “the

alternative mode of the instruction to meet the needs of different student populations

(part-time postgraduates, professional students, life-long learners, international students

in increasing numbers, and so on) using modified schedule with increased work-load.”

The focus of the fourth category of responses (one comeback only) was on “new ways of

delivering course content” through online instruction in virtual classrooms and computer-

based training. The only reply falling into the fifth category of answers defined intensive

teaching-learning as “a system and a teaching environment with concentrated amount of

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classes; interactive methods involving active participation of students; setting priorities;

setting motivation; setting optimal environment and atmosphere in the class.” This

description closely tones with suggestopedic accelerated and intensive instruction. No

one of the respondents mentioned either known suggestopedic system or the development

of human potentialities as a methodological asset.

Although many commercially bound programs offer foreign language intensive

training, no sound description of intensive teaching-learning paradigm in use has been

found in a persistent search over the Internet. The only substantiation of methodological

foundations and principles of the intensive teaching system is posted (in Russian

language) by G. A. Kitaygorodskaya, author of the authentic method of activation of

potentialities of the learning group (Kitaygorodskaya, 2010). Nevertheless, solely an

online methodological narrative has made inaccessible the didactic design, algorithms,

classroom management, etc.

Optimization. Investigation of the nature and mechanisms of optimization is one

of the tasks of this doctoral study. For that reason, the participants were asked to provide

a concept of optimization. Some respondents found it difficult to answer this question;

the majority of others displayed the similarity of insights mostly referring to “a process of

leveraging performance or improving organizational environment and the use of

resources.” Few participants rooted their ideas of optimization in an educational context

with regard to the best teaching practices (with no detail provided, though).

An interesting account for optimization can be found in an online article about the

translation of observed ant colony behavior into working optimization algorithms

(Dorigo, 2010). Marco Dorigo, research director of the IRIDIA lab at the Université

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Libre de Bruxelles and the inventor of the Ant Colony Optimization meta-heuristics for

combinatorial optimization problems in soft computing, was awarded three international

prizes for his generalization of optimization theory and techniques suggested by the

Mater Nature. Inspired by the remarkable ability of social insects (such as ants) to solve

problems, Dorigo and allies introduced new principles of a highly creative technological

design for seeking optimized solutions to extremely difficult real-world problems, e.g.,

network routing and task scheduling.

An optimal (“smart”) system. To design an optimal system of foreign language

intensive teaching, this study was searching for a definition modeling an optimal

(“smart”) organization. This was the content of the fourth open question offered to the

participants. Some respondents could not answer this question; some others supplied an

insufficient description or a quite confined idea, which could not contribute much to the

picture. However, a few others expressed the ideas confirming the researcher’s standpoint

and, thus, added to the validity of this research. For example, “An optimal (“smart”)

organization means organization that allows achieving the desired results in the shortest

and most effective way.” Some ideas, expressed in this research, resonated in the

respondents answers such as, “An optimal organization is an organization, which can

provide optimal environment, devices, and means with help of which the best results can

be reached with minimum energy and within minimum time.” Another one also stated,

“An optimal (“smart”) organization is the organization, which utilizes its potential to its

maximum.” To apply the last brush stroke on the canvas, it is worthy to mention that, in

some responses, the researcher has found a valuable confirmation of her viewpoint of

optimal organization, which operates “with minimum costs and losses, with good

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communication among members and departments.”

Summary

The fact that liberal education (i.e., foreign language education) is in a state of

crisis is no secret. The array of problems seems to be sundry and extremely complicated.

Being framed by the dissertation topic and handcuffed to limited resources, this research

has merely focused on the following: (a) The effects of the type of subsidization on

academic practices, assuming that there are hidden trends that discourage both

organizational and scientific development, (b) co-dependence of the human mind and

environment, and (c) acceleration, intensification, and optimization phenomena

dilettantish understanding of which frustrates the academic practice.

Each moment in space-time is composed of situational building blocks that

construct the reality. Even a little shift in the arrangement, like a striking ball in the

billiards, sets in motion the entire composition and alters the course of events. Nourished

by perceptions, human consciousness mirrors the physical and socially constructed reality

by filtering it through the lenses of individual assessments, experiences, and intentions.

People often make decisions based on trust in partnership among equals. It demonstrates

the work of the uncertainty (rather, uncertainty avoidance) principle in the nature that

forces accumulation of similar elements in the system. However, a common survival

sense (e.g., self-reliant management) is able to produce a shift in decision-making. This

study has found that economically self-reliant academic operations are more likely to

create a performance-targeted system, more democratic and sensitive to implementation

of innovations.

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Acceleration, intensification, and optimization are the processes interconnected

with other processes. Their understanding is critical for technological sciences as well as

for methodology (namely, instructional technology, i.e., foreign language instruction),

which are primarily preoccupied with studying the processes. This research has not found

any comprehensive operational concept of acceleration. Since no operational concept

presently exists, it is difficult (if possible at all) to make use of it in practice.

There is no agreement among teachers on the subject of intensive instruction, and

many of them are still not informed about suggestopedic instruction models. Although

methodologically valid descriptions of suggestopedic philosophy have been found, they

are still not enough to help dissolve the obscurity in which suggestopedic didactics (i.e.,

design and algorithms) remain. The misinterpretation of terms “accelerated” and

“intensive” aggravates the confusion in foreign language methodology and correlated

didactics. The suggestopedic paradigm of foreign language accelerated and intensive

instruction needs a further clarification and conceptual facilitation to make it more

accessible to the teachers.

The recent findings (e.g., the ant colony optimization model) relating biology to

optimization in soft programming corroborate the researcher’s standpoint calling for

taking into account the designs and algorithms safeguarded by the Mother Nature. It also

suggests looking for an answer on a crossroads of different academic disciplines. The

contents of the next chapter of this dissertation will cover the aforementioned statements.

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CHAPTER 5. RESULTS, CONCLUSIONS, AND RECOMMENDATIONS

In the figurative sense, taking the quantum leap means taking a risk, going off into

an uncharted territory with no guide to follow. Such a venture is an uncertain

affair at best. It also means risking something that no one else would dare risk.

Fred A. Wolf, Taking the Quantum Leap

From extreme deep diving and extraordinary memory to space travel, people push

themselves to the limits of human performance. Astonishing discoveries fulfill the

dreams of those eccentric mavericks whose visions one day become reality. The 20th

century will be remembered as an era of the immense technological progress that gave

the rise to quantum physics, human cloning, atomic bomb, and the Internet. The global

expansion of high-speed communications facilitated people’s contacts. The world of

communication exploded. These days, information reigns without borders.

Regrettably, noospheric evolution has brought about a dangerous twist of

intellectual brilliance along with increasing egotism, social polarization, economic

breakdowns, and cultural clashes. In a globalizing world of cross-border flows of people,

commodities, money, ideas, viruses, etc., global integration is taking place no matter how

disparately nations try to hold on to sovereignty. Conversely, ethnocentric disintegration

aggravates global mismanagement, economic disparity, and international rivalry.

Almost a century ago, Vladimir Vernadsky and Pierre Teilhard de Chardin

created a concept of noospheric “aura” around the Earth that was, indeed, a precursor of

globalization and worldwide communications. Yet, they alerted their contemporaries of a

potentially negative effect of the global noospheric layer. Both of them predicted that the

noospheric age of exosomatic evolution could be the final stage of human civilization.

(For example, human activity generated an excessive heat on the earth’s surface that, in

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turn, provoked an abnormal tectonic activity and global warming.) However, while de

Chardin forecasted a pessimistic end of the global geo-political infrastructure involving

harmful ecological transformations, wars, and economic instability, Vernadsky called for

the wise global management that must be “in tune [with] the elemental geological

processes, with [the] laws of nature, and with the noosphere” (Vernadsky, 1999b, p. 100).

The wise global management has need of responsible citizens of the world whose

cosmopolitan open mind and multilingual ability can help overcome cross-cultural

misunderstanding, ethnocentrism, and economic disproportion.

The accelerated pace of noospheric occurrences requires express methods of

teaching to synchronize with the speed of knowledge growth. Slow learning puts at risk

learners’ competitiveness and, thus, jeopardizes modernization of a country as a whole.

Foreign language learning makes no exception. The pace of foreign language acquisition

must conform to velocity of exosomatic evolution to grant the fastest access to the global

database. That is why express learning of foreign languages with cross-cultural awareness

has nowadays become a priceless target for many involved in politics, academics,

international business, or national security.

Any human being makes part of a complex living system (e.g., an ethnic or

business culture, a learning group, etc.) incorporated in the physical world, as human

cognition is a process simultaneously nested in general human activity, group activity,

and global activity alongside noospheric evolution. This way, each individual is

concurrently involved in physical, social, and exosomatic dynamics in a local and global

scale. Pursuing that students learning a foreign language live at the same time in both

physical and noospheric worlds, their interaction and academic progress are subject to the

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logic of the universal order; because schooling can be just like any other process. Thus, to

be effective, teaching must harmonize with the universal principles—the quintessence of

the wisdom of Mother Nature. This was the primary analytical point located in the heart

of this doctoral study. Amazingly strange but until now academia has overlooked the

functional structure and mechanisms of natural dynamics that could be of help in

instructional modeling; and foreign language training keeps going at odds with

practicality.

Creative research and teaching mostly occur at a junction of sciences and

academic disciplines. Interdisciplinary scholarship is now recognized as a valuable

academic asset, and many colleges committed themselves to fostering interdisciplinary

departments. However, interdisciplinary study remains a pariah in ivory tower. This

doctoral research has broken the tradition and dared to explore the uncharted territory

across the borders of applied linguistics in order to clarify the mechanisms of academic

acceleration, intensification, and optimization. Inspired by the creative endeavors of

legendary Le Corbusier45

, this study delved into a variety of scientific domains quite

remote from foreign language education. A search for the universal wisdom hidden in

natural dynamics of life-building modules led the researcher to an intersection of

relativist philosophy, theoretical physics, psycholinguistics, biology, sociology,

culturology, and suggestopedic methodology.

Throughout the entire lifespan, people play games—in natural or digital settings.

All suggestopedic applications of foreign language instruction embrace gaming (e.g.,

role-plays, situated simulations, and language games) as an essential didactic instrument

45 Charles Edouard Jeanneret-Gris (1887-1965), Swiss-French architect-urbanist, who was often inspired by

structures and designs found in the natural world.

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of collaborative learning. Yet, digital gaming has found much public appreciation for its

interactive character and amazing 3D graphics, but computer-assisted language learning

(CALL) is still waiting for its place to be found within suggestopedic paradigm. This

doctoral study has adjusted suggestopedic algorithmic design to a digital modality.

Although advanced suggestopedic models of collaborative foreign language

learning were created and scattered around the world decades ago, it would be premature

to claim success of broad implementation because of extreme scarcity of professional

educators-suggestogogues and limited learning resources. Some of those hard-to-find

suggestogogues are confronted with conventional departmental hiring, steadily alienated

from the mainstream academe, and left in a shadow for years. An explanation of

alienation may be found in excessive bureaucratization, de-democratization, and

demoralization of higher education that negatively affect the functionality of academic

system (at large). While many forward-looking policymakers try to solve the conundrum

of how to improve the national capability in foreign languages, ivory tower does not

show a sigh of smart behavior. Considering that wanted information has been available

for decades, this doctoral study argued that the national capability in foreign languages

could be leveraged only through large-scale democratization of academic culture that

would endorse social fairness, knowledge sharing, and implementation of innovations.

One of the researcher’s tasks was to visualize ways of transformation of an ordinary

academic organization into a quantum (optimal, “smart”) system.

While adopting an educational perspective guided by the humanistic legacy of

great democrats-educators, this study fits a relativist, quantum-mechanical framework

with regard to perceptive experiences as well as a constructivist position targeting

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generation of a theory. Since the actual practice of theory construction involves a variety

of factors such as intuition, past experience, and the like, this dissertation is a result of

both cognitive and experiential achievements of the author. It embraces a grounded

theory approach, which (a) focuses on discovery and development of a theory, (b) shapes

research processes and outcomes from data, (c) checks developing ideas with further

specific observations, (d) studies the process itself, and (e) assumes that making

theoretical sense of social life is, itself, a process (Charmaz, 1983). As a variety of action

research, grounded theory is concerned with reflection, change, and personal

involvement; so does this research. It has attempted to understand issues under

consideration and to look for solutions to the problems. In tune with humanistic-

suggestopedic educational philosophy, it emphasizes democratization of education and

liberation of human spirit, leading to self-reliance within and outside the learning group.

This conclusive chapter consists of three parts addressing all inquired issues. Part

1 answers the first question of this doctoral study and partially fulfills the purpose of this

scholarly work, i.e., making a theoretical investment in the emergent field of quantum

linguistics. In addition, it strengthens the methodological foundations of suggestopedic

instruction paradigm, which needs a philosophical underpinning. Part 2 answers the

second question of this doctoral study and exposes the factors detrimental for the

functionality of academic system (at large) and, thus, for the development of national

capabilities in foreign languages. Part 3 answers the third question of this research and

has a more practical value for foreign language express instruction with computer-

assisted language learning (CALL) integrated in dynamic collaborative classroom.

Conclusion and Recommendations recap the outcomes of this doctoral study and suggest

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ways of functional optimization of academic culture and foreign language education.

Part 1. Quantum Linguistics: Pandora’s Box Wide Open

The truth, like beauty, lies in the eye of the beholder.

― Proverb

This part of the dissertation results from a theoretical endeavor of the author

whereas answering the first question of the given doctoral study: What are the

mechanisms and principles of the universal dynamics awareness of which would help

understand the nature of academic acceleration, intensification, and optimization in

order to improve foreign language instruction with cross-cultural alertness? The

researcher’s role is the one of a philosopher pioneering the sub-field of quantum

linguistics.

The first inquiry of this doctoral study targeted clarification of the mechanisms

and principles of the universal dynamics awareness of which could help understand the

nature of academic acceleration, intensification, and optimization in order to improve

foreign language instruction with cross-cultural alertness. The following axiomatic thread

sheds light on the researcher’s point of departure:

(1) Any person (or a human society) belongs to two parallel worlds: the physical

and exosomatic (virtual, noospheric) realities

(2) Any person is a living system incorporated into a larger living system/culture:

family, learning group, business entity, social class, ethnic community, and

global civilization

(3) Any person is an energy system integrated with a fluctuating energy field

(e.g., human conglomerations listed above)

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(4) Any person is a product and a vehicle of exosomatic (noospheric) evolution

(5) Any person is affected by the velocity (speed and vector) of exosomatic

evolution

(6) Human cognition is a process nested in general human activity, social activity,

and global activity alongside exosomatic evolution

(7) The human mind is a product of both cerebral and exosomatic

evolution/activity, as the noosphere is a product of bio-exosomatic

evolution/activity (the scale is the only difference); namely, the human mind

is to the brain, as the noosphere is to the biosphere; or digital software is to

computer hardware

(8) Academic interaction is a process akin to other processes involving living

energy fields/systems and is a network of energy as well

(9) A learning group as well as academic organization must be simultaneously

considered as a social entity, a living system, and a fluctuating energy field

(10)To be optimal, teaching-learning must harmonize with the laws of nature

(11)To be up to date, teaching-learning must comply with the speed of global

exosomatic evolution; but an educational vector, however, must affirm

humanistic-collaborative values to override ego-centric morality and deeds

and to reinstate humanitarian balance—locally and worldwide

(12)A person or a human organization of any kind (a foreign language-learning

group makes no exception) is subject to seven factors interacting with four

fundamental forces running the entire universe

The quest for the universal laws guiding cognitive and group dynamics in foreign

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language classroom started from going over life-building modules including seven basic

factors (“the Magnificent Seven”) interacting with four basic forces (“Quadriga”).

The Magnificent Seven

All reality modules involve seven elements: Matter, Energy, Motion, Space-Time,

Information, Freedom, and Chance (opportunity, possibility) that act in tandem steered by

the fundamental forces. In this sophisticated relationship, the matter serves as a unifying

component.

Matter. The matter is a physical substance filling all living and non-living systems

and fragmented structures of the Universe. The most remarkable attributes of the matter

are its abilities: (1) to survive and reproduce itself; since the Big Bang, the intrinsic

survival (reproduction) mechanism is rooted in the memory of matter within its

functional design46

and (2) to trade—to interact, to communicate—with environment via

perception and reflection while negotiating the survival conditions that makes possible

environmental adaptation.

Matter and energy. Resulting from the 1st law of thermodynamics, the energy

conservation law, energy does not disappear without a trace but transforms into another

physical form. The matter does not exist without energy and always holds energy within

its structures. In fact, the entire universe is a network of energy.

Matter and motion. Any material substance is engaged in a cyclic chain, which

involves creation, development, and end. Development, itself, is a cyclic activity. It

means that motion is a vehicle and attribute of matter: matter simply cannot exist without

motion/activity. There is no idle process in the nature: every single moment, the amount

46 E.g., The DNA life genomes of living systems and chemical-physical structural patterns of non-living

systems.

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of cells or atoms changes (increases or depletes). The perpetum mobile (Lat.) is in-built in

the design of matter: the particles inside the atoms never stop orbiting and leaping, as the

entire Universe never stops changing. The ability of matter to mirror and “decode” the

environmental signals is itself a process/activity.

Matter, energy, and motion. Any process (motion) requires energy to do work.

Without motion or energy, a material system cannot continue its existence, because it

needs to maintain its functional structure. In accordance with the First Law of

Thermodynamics, the Energy Conservation Law, energy does not exist without matter or

motion that suggests their indissoluble unity.

Matter and information. From the moment of conception and until death, every

living system (cells, or humans, or the entire biosphere) strives to survive. The survival

code is genetically carried on through evolutionary development on Earth. To survive, a

living system needs energy to grow and information about what and how to organize.

Matter must have a systematizing program in memory, specifying the qualities and

quantities of matter as well as algorithms of how to proceed with reproduction. For

example, every fragment of the DNA filament contains instructions with qualities and

quantities of the matter and of the process. The double helix is indeed a complex typical

container, a more or less stable stock of coded information without which the

reproduction of genetic material would go astray. The latter requires the material data to

be consistent with an algorithmic design of the process. With regard to education, the

curriculum contents (“what to teach”) must always tally with the teaching method (“how-

to teach”).

Matter, energy, motion, and information. If matter, motion, energy, and

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information cannot exist separately, they transpire in tandem: as signal activity. Any

activity is a process detectable by human senses or proper equipment and, thus, it is

inherently signal activity. The intrinsic ability of matter to mirror and “decode” the

environmental signals is a process/activity operating with information.

Matter and space-time. To exist, the matter must transpire into space-time of the

universe. According to the Relativity theory, any life occurrence/event is localized in the

universal “pipeline” and has spatial dimensions and duration. The economical nature of

the universe evades vacuum, which is nothing but a void of space. Recent scientific

findings have revealed that even the outer space, which was believed to be made of

vacuum, is indeed filled with the “dark” matter and “dark” energy (light could not keep

going otherwise), and the enigmatic black holes, viewed before as giant cosmic voids, are

now classified by their magnitude.

Matter, energy, motion, information, and space-time. If the matter is bound to

space-time, that means energy, motion, and information—through indissoluble affiliation

to the matter—have dimensions and duration in space and time. It also suggests that the

matter together with energy, motion, and information transpires into the physical world

or—analyzed by the human sensorial systems and condensed into information codes by

the brain—resides on a virtual drive of the quantum reality of the mind. It explains the

mechanisms of exosomatic evolution resulting from human activity on Earth.

Matter, information, and freedom. Although reproductive information enclosed in

the matter may repeat the same design, its contents may vary (e.g., any normal DNA

helix encloses different contents). Memory of the matter must be, however, slightly

unstable: strong enough to persist with existence and feeble enough to allow for variation

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of information stored in the life genome. While the adaptation mechanism of a living

system “negotiates” the survival conditions with different environments, its genetic code

becomes more or less altered. It leads to creation of new species. The mechanism of

exosomatic evolution is similar to the one of biological evolution: dealing with different

environmental settings amends an existing database. Cognitive processes are also tied to

freedom. If learning takes place in arduous conditions, forcing the learner to reproduce

only orthodox data, the acquired knowledge remains without change, framed within the

same knowledge base. Without freedom to explore the uncharted territory while dealing

with surroundings, the entire exosomatic—and potentially, physical—evolution would

not be possible at all.

Matter and chance. Without chance (opportunity, possibility, occasion), the event

simply cannot materialize in space-time. When chance comes to play, it suddenly

disturbs—like a striking billiard ball—the chain of consecutive events. An event does not

happen if a favorable opportunity has been missed.

Closing argument. If the matter does not exist nor develops outside the fellowship

of energy, motion, space-time, information, freedom, and chance, it makes all of them the

equal partners in the way the life creates itself and operates. It also means that all these

building blocks of life realities are always available and function jointly everywhere—

including culture, academic life, and foreign language classroom as well.

Quadriga

Throughout centuries of noospheric evolution, physicists persisted in their

attempts to penetrate in the structure of matter and uncover forces moving the material

world. In a pre-Newtonian era, things were believed to interact only if they were in

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physical contact. Newton’s theory of gravitational attraction, however, proved that the

contact mechanics view of the universe was not sustainable. Since that time, it became

unclear why certain phenomena of the physical world (the mental ones) are in principle

beyond its scope.

The appearance of the Relativity Theory and quantum mechanics revolutionized

not only physics but also the view of the universal order. Scientists discovered that all

material systems are run by four fundamental forces—gravity, electromagnetism, strong

force, and weak force—interacting with particles of matter (fermions).

Gravity (gravitation) is the natural force of attraction between any two bodies. It

is directly proportional to the masse of the bodies and inversely proportional to

the square of the distance between them. The mediators of gravity are named

gravitons. Human receptors cannot detect gravity. The studies of gravity began by

Sir Isaac Newton and culminated in the General Relativity by Albert Einstein.

Electromagnetism implies the electromagnetic field produced by the motion of

electric charges. A change of position causes a change of electromagnetic

radiation. The mediators of the electromagnetic force are photons. Unlike gravity,

electromagnetism is detectable by human senses, because electromagnetic

radiation is visible (e.g., color spectrum). The modern theory of quantum

electrodynamics has not stopped at this point and keeps going through the sub-

atomic processes exerted by electromagnetic force and undetectable by humans.

Strong force is the major inward-bound, centripetal force. Its mediators are called

gluons, because they act like nuclear “glue” holding the particles of every atom

together. The effect of strong force goes beyond the limited capability of the

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human sensorial apparatus. Quantum chromo-dynamics is a branch of modern

physics, which is preoccupied with studying different aspects of strong force.

Weak force is the major outward-bound, centrifugal force responsible for

radioactive decay. The Electroweak Theory describes the work of weak force,

which allows neutrons to turn into protons while giving off radiation in the

process. The weak force mediators are known as W & Z bosons.

The quantum mechanical viewpoint is that particles of matter do not directly

interact with each other but rather carry a charge and exchange virtual particles (gauge

bosons), which are the carriers of interaction (force mediators). The emergence of

quantum mechanics (Albert Einstein, Niels Bohr, Max Planck, and Werner Heisenberg)

revolutionized the concept of universal orderliness. “The new physics [uncovered] a

bizarre [and] magical underworld,” Fred Alan Wolf states in his seminal literary work

Taking the Quantum Leap. “It showed physicists [a] new meaning for the word order”

(Wolf, 1989, p.1).

Closing argument. All processes involve energy, i.e., the power to do work. The

latter is usually measured by the amount of horse forces. Given that all four forces

operate in tandem in the nature47

, their interaction with life-building basics bears a

resemblance to a quadriga of horses driving and maneuvering the Magnificent Seven.

Since a living system (i.e., learning group, an academic entity, etc.) is a part of the nature

and is located somewhere between the macro- and the micro- worlds, the same

fundamental forces shift atmospheric layers, move people, and steer group dynamics.

47 Although physicists would argue that gravity runs the world of cosmic systems, while the three other

forces operate within the corpuscular structures.

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The Orderly Chaos

Discontinuous continuity. By exploring the depths of matter and energy,

physicists discovered that energy of light operating with massless photons is emitted in

“packages” (quanta) that creates a leaping pattern in motion. “The discontinuous

emission [spectra] of light meant the atom was [undergoing] a discontinuous [jumping]

motion,” Fred A. Wolf states in his Taking a Quantum Leap (Wolf, 1989, p. 60).

The overall meaning of quantum leap refers to “abrupt motion.” At some point,

qualitative and quantitative transformations in composition of particles, tied in with

energy, abruptly set in motion the material substance forcing it to move in space-time;

and the entire process resumes in a new location. “The quantum leap is the tiny [but]

explosive jump that a particle of [matter] undergoes in moving from [one] place to

another. The ‘new physics’ – quantum physics – indicates that [all] particles composing

the physical universe [must] move in this fashion or cease to exist” (p.1). Quantum

leaping, thus, is [typical] to universal motion, because “the discontinuity [of] motion is

vital to [all] atomic and subatomic processes” (Wolf, 1989, p.59).

The quantum-mechanical Principle of Indeterminism advocates for the idea that

all material evolution is indeed a non-linear, a DNA helix-like chain of cyclic progression

of occurrences/events. Even though everything and everybody finally comes to a logical

end of the life cycle, continuity of cycles lasts forever that creates discontinuous

continuity of the universal development.

If energy comes in quanta, the other life-creating partners—due to their immortal

fellowship—come “in package” with energy, and the Magnificent Seven driven by

Quadriga hops at one fell swoop on the quantum field of space-time. Given that global

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exosomatic evolution emanates from biological evolution as the human mind arises out of

cerebral activity, noospheric activity patterns global activity and undergoes uneven

(cyclic) advancement. For that reason, any kind of exosomatic process—learning,

thinking, inventing, etc.—is non-absolute (relative) and non-linear discontinuous

continuity, as the entire universal activity is.

In a broad educational context, discontinuous continuity refers to the most

common academic realities (classes, courses, programs, etc.) integrated with life-long

learning. Knowledge base is only finite at a certain point in time, but learning never

stops; it may perhaps pause for a while—just to restart again in a new situation.

Co-centricity. Exactly one hundred year ago, English Lord Ernest Rutherford

uncovered the co-centric “planetary” model of the atom bearing a resemblance to a

miniature solar system. About seventy years later, Russian Academician Aleksey

Leontyev (Leontief) noticed the relevance between the structure of matter and the

structure of process: any process shelters another—smaller by magnitude—process that

creates a “nesting doll” pattern in the structure of universal activity. For example, foreign

language learning integrates with other cognitive processes nested within general human

activity entrenched, in turn, in universal activity.

Progressive co-centric inclusion. Progressive co-centric inclusion is a two-in-one

methodological manifestation of the universal principles of discontinuous continuity and

co-centricity. It reminds of a Russian doll inserted in a DNA double helix. In terms of

suggestopedic methodology, the principle of progressive co-centric inclusion refers to (a)

discontinuing continuity of learning, which is inherently integrative and (b) a specific

organization of suggestopedic curriculum and instructional process. The entire foreign

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language intensive course consists of micro-cycles each of which features an algorithmic

didactic design. While progressing throughout the course, the students make “quantum

leaps” from one micro-cycle to another, of a higher order. Besides, suggestopedic

accelerated (particularly, Lozanov’s) didactics give emphasis to intuition. The professor-

suggestogogue always saves a part of instructional data for the students to brainstorm it

independently and to make their own little “discoveries” involving the “Eureka” effect.

The intensive (Kitaygorodskaya’s) instruction method, however, does not completely rely

on inductive thinking and leaves more room for analytical clarifications.

Complementarity. The complementarity principle is a basic principle of quantum

theory. Niels Bohr (1885-1962) and Werner Heisenberg (1901-1976) are usually

associated with this concept. The concept refers to effects such as the wave–particle

duality in which different measurements made on a system reveal it to have either

particle-like or wave-like properties that is possible only in relation to the field. The real

world consists of fluctuating fields integrating the Magnificent Seven. The reflective

capability of matter allows mirroring the entire brotherhood (the Magnificent Seven) on a

virtual drive of the parallel—quantum—world.

Entropy. The 2nd

law of thermodynamics, or the entropy law, states that, in all

processes, some amount of energy irreversibly loses its ability to do work and irreversibly

decays, because every process converts energy into both work and waste. In any process,

entropy never decreases and, thus, entropy irreversibly increases in the universe. The

irreversibility makes the entropy law probably the most important law in understanding

the terrestrial processes including all living systems and social forms.

The entropy law was applied to a variety of sciences including—but not limited

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to—sociology. According to the entropy law, social entropy implies the natural decay of

human organization that results in disappearance of distinctions within a social system

and, thus, leads to deterioration of social dynamics. Much of energy consumed by any

social system (e.g., any human organization) is spent for maintenance of its functional

apparatus. In closed (“corrupted”) societies, entropy always increases, meaning that the

elements in a closed system tend to seek their most close horizontal distribution. In

democratic societies, some quantity of energy is lost in attempts to reduce social entropy

(e.g., through transparency, edification, legal actions, etc.). The 2nd

law of

thermodynamics was sought in economics, ecology, biology, psychology, and sociology

but never with reference to academic realm.

Coherence. Coherence refers to three parameters of the living system analysis of

which would allow making prognostics about system’s vitality. These parameters are

identifiable by spatial and temporal aspects relevant to reciprocity, synchronicity, and

velocity.

Reciprocity has a spatial value with regard to zoning, proximity of elements,

namely, vertical and horizontal allocation of elements in the system’s archetype elasticity

of which allows for horizontal and vertical stretches needed for organizational mobility.

Reciprocity of constituents affects functionality of system. The excessive elasticity,

however, triggers problems. Significant horizontal expansion gradually brings about

disproportionate individualization and chaotic networking (because of a lack of synapse);

vertical stretches turn out into social polarization followed by antagonism. Conversely,

limited freedom in allocation of elements, e.g., socialist order with its cooperative (“too

tight”) modus operandi, jeopardizes system’s mobility leading to organizational rigidity

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accompanied by social distress. In these conditions, it is difficult to discuss ways of the

development of human and system potentialities. In summary, extremely asymmetric

allocation of the elements of the living system brings about social distortions and

imbalanced composition of forces that causes a hydraulic effect with all its tribulations;

on the contrary, intense compactness provokes stiffness. Only relative freedom and

reasonable autonomy give desirable comfort in motion and release the latent power of the

person and the system. Diversity occurs only if reciprocity of the elements in a system

allows for a comfortable (optimal) distance between them that grants enough freedom to

deviate from a program and to self-actualize in a particular way.

That is the reason why suggestopedic methodology considers a “top-down”

reasonably flexible, golden middle-seeking social construct as an optimal model of group

dynamics and puts emphasis on collaborative learning. Collaboration apportions enough

freedom (and personal responsibilities as well) for one’s self-actualization through a

shared effort.

Synchronicity has a temporal value and concerns the degree of agreement among

the elements of the system within the rhythm of their activity. It bears in mind an analogy

with a jazz orchestra each musician of which integrates his solo improvisation into the

rhythm of a shared tune.

Velocity48

has both spatial and temporal values and implies the directed

magnitude of vector and speed of motion. In social sense, velocity applies to relationship

between the leader and the society, because there is no society without a leader and there

is no leader without organization. Wealth and miseries of people (without forgetting the

48 A detailed consideration of velocity is provided later, in the Acceleration section.

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learning group) are created by the leaders who are in charge for the direction and speed of

social development. The moral value of leadership is crucial, because its cost affects

many: from a small family to global civilization. The quality of leadership depends on

two psychological factors: (a) the leader’s ability (or inability) to override the inertial

force of followers and (b) to manage the energy flow between the social layers in both

vertical and horizontal directions.

In order to pre-empt chaos and anarchy, a social group must be given the central

authority and responsibility for an entire organization (or a project, or a task), because

delegating tasks and keeping a reasonable balance of power within the organization is a

condition of organizational success. When shared decision-making accounts for

individual interests and goal-directed cohesive efforts are rooted in personal motivation

for each member of the group, then, collaboration is encouraged and democracy is

served. The latter implies not the lack of inequality but the presence of social justice.

However, the problem is still around, because it is difficult, if possible, to figure out how

much personal power should be delegated to organizational leadership.

Uncertainty (or uncertainty avoidance). Revolutionary discoveries in quantum

physics, chaos theory, and biology overturned the models of science that have dominated

for centuries. The emergence of the String Theory (and then, the Theory of Everything)

radically altered the modern understanding of all the processes in space-time of the

universe and gave rise to a remarkably new conceptualization of human society, culture,

and cultural dynamics. The paradigm-shaking discoveries of wave functions, quantum

tunneling, probabilities, the ceaseless roiling energy fluctuations of the vacuum, the

warping fabric of space-time, and many others engendered a radically new view of the

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physical reality. As Bryan Greene, a prominent physicist, acknowledged, “there was [a]

whole new mind-boggling [world] lying just beneath the surface [of] things as they are

[ordinary] expected….But even [these] paradigm-shaking discoveries are [only] part of a

larger, [all]-encompassing story” (Greene, B., 1999, p. 386).

By now, it is an established case from quantum mechanics: at a social

“corpuscular” scale (i.e., the individuals), uncertainty rules that makes the world a game

of chance. Meanwhile, the historic timer sketches an established itinerary for the person,

the family, the culture, the global society, and the entire universe. In addition, the

universal laws suggest that S-force49

and W-force50

(the major inward- and outward

balancing forces) must be nearly balanced. Thus, when self-preservation, i.e., egotistic

propensity of a social system (a culture, individuals, etc.) overrides its altruistic efforts, it

leads the entire system to a state of crisis and collapse, because it cannot withstand its

own inner pressure, usually combined with system’s rigidity as a condition of self-

preservation. Conversely, when the energy pulling outward prevails over the energy

puling inward, it results in a system’s failure and disbanding.

Accretion. A cosmological implication of accretion refers to accumulation of

matter due to gravitational attraction between celestial bodies. In common sense, it

connotes integration of diverse elements, relationships, or values. A nepotistic drive in

any culture is a manifestation of the accretion principle found in many living system. The

sociological and educational meaning of accretion insinuates coherent “survival” activity

in order to reduce the discomfort of environmental pressure (e.g., a lack of self-

confidence due to the lack of knowledge).

49 Strong nuclear force acting like a molecular glue. 50 Weak nuclear force emitting radiation.

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As psychological comfort in social interaction is important in any situation, but in

the conditions of time-pressured express instruction it becomes vital. Since grouping

makes people feel safer in organization, suggestopedic methodology preoccupied with

teaching live communication puts emphasis on teaming as a principal didactic technique,

which encourages students’ knowing each other (by mixing) and talking with one another

so they can learn from one another. Teaming is very economical in use of classroom

time, because it involves all participants. It also helps change the synergy level by

varying group size. Progressing throughout suggestopedic course, a group of individuals

becomes a team of people who share the same organizational goals, philosophy, and

values and are involved in a socially positive and mutually beneficial activity.

Asymptotic deceleration. The 3rd

law of thermodynamics, or the law of asymptotic

deceleration, states that all processes slow down as they operate closer to a

thermodynamic equilibrium that makes it difficult to reach the equilibrium in practice and

guarantees the continuity of ongoing changes. Applied to a societal domain, this law

suggests that powerful and fast changes occur within a system only at levels far removed

from a thermodynamic equilibrium. From global warming to cultural clashes, hazardous

and unwise human activity has brought the global system at the verge of collapse.

A common academic sense refers the Principle of Asymptotic Deceleration to

non-linearness of the teaching-learning process. The suggestopedic intensive teaching

(Kitaygorodskaya’s method), however, relates this principle to a specific wavy didactic

pattern within each academic session and within the entire intensive course: from the

highest point in the beginning, it gradually decreases reaching the lowest point in the

middle and then rises again reaching a somewhat high level at the end (see Figure 16).

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Figure 16: The pattern of emotional dynamics

The patterned line expresses a (recommended) dosage of energy fused in

classroom operation and emotional behavior. It also reflects the strength of dynamics

throughout an entire suggestopedic course of intensive teaching. Suggestopedic

accelerated course (Lozanov’s method), however, embodies a lower level of classroom

dynamics because of its emphasis on relaxation.

Academic Acceleration, Intensification, Optimization

Probably, E = m×c2 (where E stands for “energy,” m—for “mass”/“force,” and

c—for “acceleration”) is the most famous formula in the world, which is rightfully

associated with Einstein’s name and achievements. Once again, it transformed the view

of orderly chaos that people call “the world.” The above-mentioned formula concerns

energy, velocity, and acceleration.

Energy. Energy is classified by: (a) status: kinetic (active) and potential (latent),

(b) origin: physical (mechanical, electromagnetic, and biological),

mental/intellectual/spiritual (deductive operating with verbally organized thoughts and

inductive operating with graphically organized thoughts), (c) the way of occurrence or

transfer: physical (in direct contacts), electromagnetic (direct or indirect), cyber-born

(computer-generated), and telepathic (mental only).

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Velocity. Velocity refers to: (a) the rate of motion in which direction as well as

speed is considered, (b) vector’s quantity, which magnitude is a body’s speed and which

direction is the body’s direction of motion, and (c) the rate of speed of action (or event).

Acceleration. Acceleration is the most interesting issue for this doctoral study.

The modern physics defines acceleration as the rate of change of velocity over time.

While solving the puzzle of relationship between energy, gravity, and acceleration, Albert

Einstein suddenly realized that gravity was the cause of acceleration and that acceleration

was directly proportionate to gravitational mass/force and conversely proportionate to

inertial mass/force:

(Einstein, 1961, p. 73). Thus, acceleration is equals to the intensity of the gravitational

field. This implication is very important for the given research preoccupied with

academic acceleration.

Einstein’s formula E = m·c2 (energy = massacceleration

2) sheds light on the

dependence of acceleration upon energy and mass:

C =m

E, that is, acceleration =

mass

energy.

It suggests that acceleration is directly proportionate to the amount of energy and

conversely proportionate to the mass involved in the process. Resulting from Einstein’s

formulas (see above), acceleration increases or decreases in direct proportion with the

intensity of the gravitational field or the amount of energy fused in the process.

In terms of modern physics, acceleration refers to the rate of change of velocity

(intensity of the gravitational field)” (inertial mass)

“(acceleration)

)

(gravitational mass)

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over time. Velocity proportionately depends on the vector and speed of motion: either the

change in the vector’s quantity or the change of speed of moving body affects velocity.

Besides, vector is a quantity that has direction and magnitude (i.e., directed magnitude).

Magnitude implicates amplitude (spatial aspect) and frequency (temporal aspect) of each

event or occurrence: the larger amplitude or the higher frequency, the greater magnitude.

Any change in amplitude or frequency of energy waves sheltered by the process disturbs

the entire chain: magnitude → vector → velocity → acceleration. Consequently,

acceleration is dependent on amplitude and frequency of vibration within the energy

field. If so, acceleration is conversely proportionate to time and directly proportionate to

the parameters of the fluctuating energy field, which include speed, direction, amplitude,

and frequency of vibration. The following equation encapsulates the researcher’s concept

of acceleration, bringing her a step closer to conceptualization of academic acceleration,

intensification, and optimization:

(acceleration) =mass) (inertial

mass) onal(gravitati= (intensity of the gravitational field) =

mass

energy=

= time

velocity =

time

speedvector =

time

speedmagnitude) (directed =

= time

speedfrequency)(amplitude directed , whereas amplitude =

unit space

amountand

frequency =unit time

amount mark saturation of the event.

Acceleration at maximum begets intensification (see Figure 17) that implies the

magnitude of event per unit of time, or in other words, the extreme degree of force and

energy used in the process.

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Time line

Acceleration phase Intensification phase

Figure 17: Acceleration and intensification

The utmost use of energy is redolent of unwise operations, because, in accordance

with the entropy law (the second law of thermodynamics), the system decays faster.

Moreover, an intensive effort requires more time for the system to recover its energy

balance; otherwise, it may collapse.

Now the reader is advised to recall the image of the “Magnificent Seven” driven

by the “Quadriga” inside the classroom, which is overwhelmed with particles of matter

(fermions) interacting with mediators of the fundamental forces (gravitons, bosons,

gluons, photons, and alike). Their interchange creates a fluctuating field of materialized

energy and information—a quantum field—alongside a rainbow of emotional reactions

that cannot be ignored by educational technology.

Closing argument. The meaning of academic acceleration is much more complex

than it is publically accepted. Considering each class session an “event” in the academic

course, the intensity of learning experiences is certainly expected to be higher in a

concentrated timetable, because frequency of the event (e.g., repetition of the same

learning contents, a class session, etc.) affects the persistence of memory and recollection

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of information. However, learning acceleration (and intensification as well) does not

solely apply to a concentrated schedule of classes but rather depends on a variety of

factors accompanying the instructional process: instructional method, curricular contents,

ergonomics, schedule, and size of the learning group.

Resulting from Einstein’s formulas, learning acceleration (i.e., intensification as

its extreme phase) increases and decreases in proportion with intensity of the quantum

field created by propagation of energy waves: the more energy is involved in classroom

dynamics, the greater learning acceleration/intensification is. Well-orchestrated dynamic

classroom activities involve a great deal of physical energy, entail positive emotional

responses, and, thus, leave—by association—vivid impressions in the learner’s brain

after wonderful learning experiences. An idle classroom decreases learning acceleration,

because boredom in classroom begets a shortage of actions and impressions and, thus,

weakens the memory traces.

In terms of methodology, accelerated teaching-learning stems from a moderate

amount of energy fused in didactics that produces an adequately moderate level of the

learning outcomes51

. Intensive teaching-learning implies the utmost pedagogical effort

fused with the utmost cognitive effort of the learning group in the shortest period of study

time. Accordingly, the pedagogical effort52

(gravitational force) must be able to override

the reluctance of the mind of students (inertial force) while piloting their collective

intelligence and collaborative activity in a direction most beneficial for learning.

51 Lozanov’s accelerated learning method showed the effectiveness 7 times higher than mainstream

instruction but 3 times lower than Kitaygorodskaya’s intensive teaching model (which is 22 times more

effective than traditional didactic paradigms) 52 Pedagogical effort refers to attractiveness of the instructional process and materials as well as the

professor’s personality.

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The balance in composition of forces acting in classroom is essential for learning

as well as for the human psychological and physiological wealth. Though a high quality

of professorial leadership is always a great asset, it becomes vital in conditions of time-

pressured instruction. The teacher’s ability to boost group coherence by transforming an

ordinary agglomeration of individuals into a union of peers becomes mandatory in

intensive teaching.

Communicating Across the Borders

The compass arrow of modern foreign language education clearly points to

teaching communication in a foreign language with cross-cultural awareness. The

category of foreign language falls into the one of language integral to communication,

which is a sub-category to a larger unit—signal activity—incorporated in general human

activity. Once again, the co-centricity principle heralds the wisdom of the Mother Nature.

It is necessary to highlight at least some characteristics and functions of language,

communication, and signal activity as well as particularities of cultural perceptions that

produce “unconventional” behaviors. All those create a unique composition of each, even

brief, intercultural encounter.

Language and languages. The most common stance about language refers it to

any ethnic tongue or any form of communication. The researcher offers her own

definition of language as follows: Language is a codified tradition, a systemic

organization of informational signals-symbols. The characteristics of language include:

Origin

o Natural: historically generated (ethnic tongues and dialects)

o Artificial: purposefully generated (Esperanto, Morse code, Braille system

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for the blind, mathematic operators, and computer languages)

Way of acquisition

o Taught and learned (consciously)

o Untaught (acquired intuitively)

Contextualization

o Meaningful (context-bound)

o Meaningless (mumbling)

Mode of operation

o Exteriorized: physical, detectable by the human senses (talking,

gesticulating, etc.)

o Interiorized: mental, undetectable by the human senses (thinking)

Command

o Conscious: controllable, intentional

o Subconscious: intuitive, spontaneous

Encryption

o Encrypted: scriptural (letters, hieroglyphs, ciphers)

o Unencrypted: graphic (pictorial, kinesthetic)

Way of interaction

o May or may not involve vocalization and verbalizing (including controlled

and spontaneous reactions)

Relation to sciences

o Subject to linguistic studies (phonology, morphology, lexicology,

semantics, comparative linguistics, etc.).

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The aforementioned factors do not exhaust the list. Language is a product and a

vehicle of exosomatic evolution. Without language, the intercourse of generations would

have interrupted thousands of years ago. Thus, longevity of language affects the entire

noospheric evolution. Yet, as historical linguistics corroborates, language does not

remain at rest but undergoes cyclic transformations: technological progress gives rise to

new terms and languages; English of Shakespeare is no longer in use; Sanskrit and Latin

have departed this world long ago; some others sleep in coma. The cyclic life of language

is evident. It corroborates the principle of discontinuous continuity running the universe.

Another important functional aspect of language is management. Owing to

language, people negotiate the means and coordinate efforts to achieve their goals at

school, at home, at work, at war, and at leisure. Language grants access to information

and may be used to warn the friend or mislead the foe. Language may be responsible for

healing and harming, grouping and plotting, and the quality of teaching and learning.

Language is a colonizing force, which is at fault for exosomatic pollution and the rise of

cross-cultural mutations such as Franglais, Spanglish, and alike. Language is a speed-

controlling device, which accelerates and decelerates events. In brief, language is a

joystick of collective intelligence, cognition, and security.

Communication. Communication refers to subjective-objective perceptive-

reflective activity that involves operations with information: encoding and decoding

information signals. The variety of forms of signaling fall into two main categories:

exteriorized (sensual, detectable by the human sensors) and interiorized (mental,

undetectable). The latter involves the inner processes (thinking), or interaction with self.

Overall, communication and language share many patterns referring to signal activity,

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because they are signal activity, that is, the exchange of informational signals. The

following table features the taxonomy of information signals involving all kinds of

linguistic and paralinguistic operators (see Table 3).

Table 3. The Taxonomy of Informational Signals

________________________________________________________________________

Factors Types Descriptors

________________________________________________________________________

Derivation natural ethnic tongues and para-languages (body

language, mimics, gestures, etc.)

artificial Morse code, Braille system, computer

languages, mathematic operators, etc.

Authenticity realistic factual, found in reality

fictitious made-up of isolated elements of reality

Conceptualization concrete explicit by form & content

abstract ambiguous by form & content

Command conscious controllable, intentional, purposeful

subconscious intuitive, unintentional, spontaneous

Way of acquisition taught (learned) requiring instruction

untaught (acquired) acquired spontaneously (intuitively)

Contextualization meaningful social/environmental context-bound

meaningless freeform, spontaneous self-expression

Mode exteriorized physical, detectable by human senses

interiorized mental, undetectable (thinking)

________________________________________________________________________

(table continues)

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Table 3 (continued)

________________________________________________________________________

Factors Types Descriptors

________________________________________________________________________

Communication path linguistic utilizing verbal operators

paralinguistic utilizing non-verbal operators

Encryption scriptural letters and hieroglyphs

graphic pictorial and kinesthetic

Sensory channel audio listening to the partner, to music, etc.

used

visual reading and writing

Alertness active related to production: speaking, writing

passive related to perception only: listening, reading

________________________________________________________________________

Given that public opinion does not differentiate between “language” and

“communication,” the researcher offers her own definition: Communication is both

synaptic activity (process) and means (instrument). Like language, communication is a

product and a vehicle of noospheric evolution. Unlike language, communication includes

non-systemic, arbitrary, spontaneous behavioral signals-signs, usually referred to as

“body language.” That is, as a specifically structured informational orderliness, language

does not include random elements (although it may involve spontaneous, uncontrollable,

intuitive reactions), but an isolated communicative action may include them. Taken as a

whole, communication applies to:

The process: (a) encoding/decoding of information, (b) cyclic synaptic activity

nested in general human activity, (c) non-linear, multifaceted social behavior, and

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(d) signal activity materialized via integrated verbal and non-verbal operators

The mechanism: (a) an inborn instinct integrated with the survival apparatus, (b) a

mediator between the inner and external environments, (c) a catalyst, (genuine

controller: coordinator, accelerator/decelerator) of global events, and (d) a

teaching-learning tool.

The primary role of human communication is negotiation of survival conditions

with outer (physical and social) and inner (subjective) worlds: scanning and clarifying the

situation, adapting to surroundings and adapting surroundings to the human needs, and

transferring and acquiring experiential or scientific information. The functionality of

“scanners” (sensors) supplying information to the central authority (the brain) affects the

quality of perceptions that, in turn, conditions the quality of mental representations,

impressions, and thoughts.

It is risky to underestimate the functional role of communication in any context.

Its role in global evolution is tremendous. A link between mushrooming high-speed

communications and accelerated globalization became obvious about three decades ago.

Nevertheless, many aspects of communication need further studies.

So far, there is no convincing evidence of mental (telepathic) communication

between remote persons. Limited knowledge of human extrasensory abilities does not

allow taking into consideration this aspect of interpersonal communication. That is why

this study has given emphasis to physical (perceptible) forms of communication.

As an indispensable feature of the universal activity, communicative activity is

controlled by the universal laws. Since education is primarily a type of communication

activity that involves multilateral interaction while transmitting and perceiving

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instructional data, it is subject to the universal principles and dynamics and, thus, must be

treated as an integral part of general universal activity run by the universal laws. Foreign

language instruction as a type of educational communication genuinely fits into a

structure of universal activity and is contingent on the universal principles.

A short contemplation about the smallest communicative unit (a communicative

act) helps understand communicative mechanics. It also divulges how extremely

sophisticated and multilayered communicative behavior may be. A communicative act

typically comprises a cycle, which consists of stimulus → sender’s filter1→ message →

mediator’s filter2 → recipient’s filter3 → feedback. An external—physical or social—

stimulus53

is filtered through the sender’s sensorial system (sorted, measured, and

compared with one’s previous experience) and reflected54

on a virtual drive of the

sender’s mind (usually called the “mind’s eye”) as an impression associated with the

current situation. If the following message is sent via a mediator (e.g., an interpreter or a

technological device), it undergoes the second round of filtration, which depends on

transparency of the mediator’s filters. When the message reaches its targeted destination,

it goes again through perceptive filtering the outcome of which features the contents of

feedback. If for any reason, transmission of information (i.e., either the primary message

or the feedback) fails or delays, it may result in a missed opportunity followed by a chain

reaction of events. The above-stated corroborates the tight relationship between the speed

of communication (i.e., information in motion) and chance, explaining how velocity of

communication affects velocity of local and global events. It also sheds light on the way

of how the crooked lenses of the mind are created.

53 A complex material signal. 54 That is due to the most remarkable mirroring ability of matter discussed before.

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The eye of the mind. Nothing can be seen in the dark. Only light makes the

physical reality visible and, thus, perceptible by the human receptors and replicated on

the virtual drive of the mind. Albert Einstein conceived the Relativity when he imagined

himself riding the end of a beam of light. Einstein’s fascination with light and energy led

to creation of an entirely new picture of the world’s order. If Einstein were born blind, the

Relativity would not be created, because he would be unable to replicate in his virtual

reality himself riding a beam of light.

The thought is believed a product of matter, as the human mind is a product of the

human brain. The latter is the most sophisticated computational device perfected by

millions of years of biological and exosomatic evolution. The working algorithms of the

brain still enfold an enigma for physiologists, psychologists, and psycholinguists.

The primary functional role of the perceptive-reflective mechanism in-built in the

memory of living matter is to communicate with environment and negotiate survival

conditions by adapting to them or changing them. Attributable to the genuine ability of

living matter to reflect environmental signals, information extracted from ambiance and

assessed by the human sensory systems comes—due to synaptic activity of neurons—to

the brain for a further (cerebral) analysis. Although each brain hemisphere has its own

primary functions, they work in tandem, simultaneously monitoring the entire physical

reality to a mind’s virtual drive. The brain “filters” acquired information, mirrors it onto

its virtual drive (as representations and impressions), and stores it in memory at two

levels: conscious and subconscious. The person sees what her/his brain projects for

her/him to see. The appearance of a new situational component, like a striking billiard

ball, affects human perceptions, alters the person’s mindset, and modifies behavior.

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Thinking is not a linear process. It works in a quantum way of leaping, as all the

universe does. It also applies to all forms of thinking: generating ideas, meditating,

associating, comparing, visualizing, dreaming, or composing. A moment of spontaneous

insight is called eureka-reaction (or aha-reaction) when the pieces of the puzzle suddenly

fit together.

The thought is verbally (linguistically) or non-verbally (graphically) organized

information that operates on a mind’s virtual drive. The abundance of data accumulated

in memory in the lifetime of a person would probably require the enormous digital

storage space. Being quite secretive as well as economical, the old wise Mother Nature

helped however solve the problem: the human brain developed the ability to condense

information in quantum codes (probably, to save more room for storage) and to keep it in

secrecy of the mind’s eye. Thus, a quantum code is an all-in-one, complex informational

signal having the status of a mental image. It is nothing else than a multidimensional

snapshot of a quantum momentum and, thus, is a tiny sediment of a new qualitative

modality—quantum modality.

Although the information code in the mind’s eye mirrors the qualities and

quantities of the physical reality, it is not completely an identical twin of its material

brother; but it takes in an entire quantum momentum (all-in-one informational contents)

and stores it in memory. This way, external signals-codes acquired from ambiance

undergo re-codification into internal (mental, psychological) codes.

The same informational content can be expressed by different signals-codes such

as concrete or abstract imagery, verbal or non-verbal symbols, metaphors, mimics,

gestures, etc. A combination of verbal and non-verbal communication signals creates a

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multifaceted, complex representation—a quantum code— in the mind’s eye and

impression in memory associating the informational content with both linguistic and non-

linguistic forms (see Figure 18).

Figure 18: Quantum code and re-codification of informational signals

Formation of complex—quantum—codes enriches perceptive experiences and

facilitates re-codification of information when needed external codes into internal ones

and verse versa. It is needless to repeat how valuable it is for foreign language training.

The parameters of each information signal-code are affected by the following

factors: (a) intensity (i.e., saturation: reciprocity of elements, direction, amplitude, and

frequency of waves), (b) frequency of appearance, (c) duration of sensual irritation, and

(d) abruptness of appearance (that attracts attention to the object). As the reader may have

noticed, the same factors affect the quality of vibration in the quantum field, and, thus,

External

verbal signal

Internal non-

verbal signal

External non-

verbal signal

Internal

verbal signal Quantum

code

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the discontinuous continuity principle is paving the way in pulsating motion of

information signals. By the work of its faithful agents—the universal principles,—the

thrifty Mother Nature reproduces the same qualities but in diverse physical forms

arranged at different levels of the life realm and emulated on the human virtual drives.

Collective global intelligence creates the planetary mind—the noosphere—the contents

of which may improve the global geo-political order and millions of human lives or may

destroy the entire planet.

The eye of the beholder. Each person is unique; each one reflects the world in a

particular way through her/his own crooked lenses of the mind. Each individual is an

outcome of genetics and cultural conditioning, which includes academic and experiential

learning as well as of social and physical environment.

It is important to touch upon few new ideas about culture, because any human

organization (e.g., a learning group, a business organization, an academic institution, etc.)

creates a mini-culture, which is indeed a sub-system to their matrix. A culture matrix is

an outcome of the survival mechanism: on the one hand, it struggles to adapt to

environmental settings; on the other hand, it strives to adapt surroundings to the human

needs. Culture matrix breeds a specific communication pattern and traditions, collective

intelligence and collective foolishness, shielding of its genotype and offending the

neighbors. Culture is a way of survival programming and adaptation: it incorporates

individual and collective responses to external and internal conditioning. Like language,

culture is a codified tradition, because it is taught and learned based on collective

experiences. Culture is a dynamic living system in a nutshell of quantum field.

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The results of scientific and technological progress together with different

combinations of historical, geopolitical, and economical factors bring about countless

varieties of signal activity embodied in ethnic languages. Language resides at heart of the

culture Mentalese and intimately relates to cultural identity, which is rooted in a specific

type of psycho-physiological reactions to the environmental pressure.

The type of psycho-physiological reactions merges particular with universal. It

stems from the person’s anatomic constitution and socio-environmental conditions and

includes two components: (a) a culture Mentalese—a type of mental reactions to the

informational contents and (b) emotionality that expresses the attitude toward the

information received. The relationship between these two components determines verbal

and non-verbal psycholinguistic behavior of a person.

However, it is important to emphasize that human perceptions are rather affected

by one’s physical conditions than ethnicity. In other words, individuals of different

ethnos perceive the world in the same way, within the same physiological parameters

applicable to average homo sapience, but they reflect the world in a particular way, which

indicates the degree to which they can tolerate the environmental pressure and which is

also subject to acquired experiences. For example, a perfect image of snowy forest would

evoke different psychological reactions in Canadians or Russians adapted to cold

temperatures, compared to Arabs or Mexicans accustomed to the warm weather.

Learning a foreign language with cross-cultural awareness calls for acquisition of

a sufficient communicative expertise alongside the ability to decode spontaneous non-

verbal signals of communicative partners. It involves not only awareness of an array of

historical and socio-geo-political data but also self-identification with the Mentalese of a

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target culture. Comparing and contrasting (native and target culture) Mentaleses in

similar life situations is important in foreign language didactics, but it is not enough. The

hand-on practice in adequate psycho-techniques is much more beneficial for the student

than rhetoric. In this relation, gaming pattern can considerably facilitate the pedagogical

task. Suggestopedic didactics anchored in situated business games and role-plays offers

inexhaustible possibilities in acquiring the target Mentalese intuitively and without effort.

Closing argument. Teaching a foreign language is always full of twists and turns.

Teaching a foreign language with cross-cultural alertness is even more challenging, as it

considerably magnifies the task and creative effort of the pedagogue. Accelerated

globalization calls for express acquisition of foreign language communication skills

alongside cross-cultural awareness. Express learning requires express methods of

instruction that, in turn, entails adjustment of curriculum contents (to comply with

accelerated didactics). Foreign language curriculum contents and didactics must

incorporate not only assorted data but also para-linguistic techniques fitting in the target

culture. It means intuitively self-identifying with culture Mentalese and communicative

behaviors. Intuitive “de-codification” of sensual signals does not come with static

lecturing but with hand-on practice, which must be as much dynamic as enjoyable.

Each moment in classroom involves plenty of environmental signals incoming to

the learner’s brain. Intense perceptive activity on emotionally positive background

produces vivid reflections in the mind’s eye of the learner and intensifies traces of

memory associated with exciting learning events. Situated tasks stimulate mental

operations; role-playing is always fun and creative; positive emotions promote

appreciation for learning and camaraderie. Yet, the intricacy of educational

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communication requires from the professor to account for all signals creating each

quantum momentum in classroom, because some of them may facilitate learning while

others may obstruct it.

Part 2: From Complexity to Quantum Order

Part 2 answers the second question of this doctoral study: What factors are

detrimental for the functionality of academic system (at large) and, thus, for the

development of national capabilities in foreign languages? The researcher’s task was to

probe and analyze—at least some—issues in academic culture damaging the reputation of

academe (at large) as the most forward-thinking social entity.

Eighty per cent of all American-made goods now face direct competition at home

or abroad. Few American business leaders or employees can speak any foreign language,

forcing corporations to hire graduates from abroad; nearly all of them are multilingual. A

wake-up Call to Action for National Foreign Language Capabilities of 2005 addressed

an urgent need in innovative leadership to improve the national capability in foreign

languages. Based on the supposition that entropy in academic culture impedes the free

flow of even highly wanted information and, thus, holds back the development of the

national capabilities in foreign languages, this doctoral study investigated some aspects of

academic culture (at large). An additional review of literature gave evidence of the

natural decay in academic culture with regard to economics, human resources,

communication, and leadership.

In the past few years, a growing number of academic authors took ivory tower at

face value calling for public attention with regard to different issues: commercialization,

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corporate corruption, tenure, promotion, leadership, dramatic hikes in tuition, declining

learning outcomes, and groundless subsidization of non-instructional activities such as

athletics. Drawing on extensive research, Jennifer Washburn, the author of University,

Inc., depicts the alarming facts of how one of America’s most prized institutions—

academia—deteriorates, colonized by a market ideology. She wrote, “Today, market

forces are [dictating] what is happening in the world of higher education [as] never before

causing universities to engage in commercial activities unheard of in [academia] a mere

generation ago” (Washburn, 2005, p. x). The involvement of American universities in

business operations undergoes under exclusive kinds of arrangement the corporate world

would dream of: They invest their government grants in risky start-up firms founded by

the professors, operate their own industrial parks, extract royalties for patenting and

licensing for their faculty’s inventions, and so on. Very often, these business operations

create conflicts of interests, because it is difficult to understand who really owns

academic research and runs the entire state-sponsored university system.

In spite of skyrocketing academic tuition and fees that bring more burdens to the

middle class, the main consumer of academic services. “The productivity [of] university

personnel is almost [certainly] falling, and it is clearly falling sharply [relative] to the rest

of [the] economy,” Richard Vedder, distinguish professor at Ohio University, states in his

Going Broke by Degree (Vedder, 2004, p. xv). The decrease in productivity was also

mentioned by Washburn, who pointed out the growing size of classes (up to several

hundred undergraduate students at a time) taught in large lecture halls by adjuncts and

graduate teaching assistants bearing nearly full responsibility for instruction, testing, and

grading. Many economists and experts on innovation warn that “the [commercialization]

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of higher education may [actually] impede long-term growth by drawing universities

[away] from their traditional roles,” Washburn warns (Washburn, 2005, p. xii).

Another issue involves the ineffective use of human resources. A shocking

divergence in salaries, allowances, and tenure-promotion reveals severe exploitation of

faculty members by academic establishment. The moral and economic cost of tenure is

tremendous for state-endowed academic operations (and tax payers as well) and is a main

demoralizing factor threatening collegial integrity. Along these lines, Vedder maintains:

First, tenure makes it expensive, if not impossible, to get rid of employees whose

contributions to the university mission are declining. It is not rare for a faculty

member to suffer from a progressive, debilitating long-term mental and/or

physical disability and continue to work, despite diminishing effectiveness in the

classroom and in his or her research. In the private sector, the worker would be

dismissed, pensioned-off early, given disability retirement, or somehow otherwise

let go. (Vedder, 2004, p. 75)

The term “leadership” in academic settings implies a hierarchy of being above

others (students or peer-teachers) in an administrative role with supervisory

responsibilities. The common faculty criticism about excessive bureaucratization and

steadily growing administrative expenditure has a factual basis. According to Vedder, by

1995-96, 48% of every dollar spent on instruction went to “administration and general

expenses” (compared with 8.4% in 1929-30). The gaps in faculty earnings show

disproportionate compensation for the work efforts. The salaries of state university

presidents rarely go below seven-digit numbers, while their teaching colleagues manage

to earn about fifty thousands a year or so. The ivory tower is expending vertically,

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steadily shaping the Eiffel Tower. The culture archetype is shifting from egalitarian task-

targeted (“guided missile”) to hierarchical task-targeted (“Eifel Tower”) for many

reasons. One of them is a shortage of ‘quasar’ leaders and visionaries who would be able

to overpower and re-direct velocity of inertial forces.

Another problem concerns interdisciplinary education and collegial exchange of

ideas. Marco Dorigo, research director of the IRIDIA lab at the Université Libre de

Bruxelles, studied the complex social behaviors of ants. His studies culminated in the Ant

Colony Optimization meta-heuristics for solving difficult combinatorial optimization

problems such as network routing and task scheduling. The attempt to develop algorithms

based on the ability of ants to find what computer scientists would call “shortest paths”

has become the most successful and widely recognized algorithmic technique. It

demonstrates how important cross-disciplinary connections are.

Nevertheless, the scholars who work at the junction of disciplines usually meet

confrontation with conventional departmental hiring, review, and tenure procedures that

are not suited to interdisciplinary work. Erudite “Renaissance persons” are less welcome

to join faculty and more vulnerable with regard to the progress of their careers. The

statement by Dr. Vedder explains why a narrow specialization in academic syllabi

overrides interdisciplinary synthesis and, thus, causes it steady declining. He underscores

sectarianism and segregation in higher education stating that “tenure plays [a] significant

role in ‘balkanization’ of institutions [of] higher education, diminishing [the] valuable

[interdisciplinary] discourse that is the heart of the [reason] for having universities

[instead] of research and teaching institutes [narrow] focused on individual disciplines”

(Vedder, 2004, p. 76). Veteran professors seemingly show more loyalty to their confined

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area of expertise and not to the public and academic needs.

A lack of dialogue between academic departments negatively affects

organizational topology. It provokes segregation and secretiveness, “as the [openness]

and sharing that [once] characterized university life has given way to a [new] proprietary

culture more akin [to] the business world” (Washburn, 2005, p. x). The reciprocity

principle (discussed earlier in this paper) justifies a comfortably optimal—not

excessive—distance between the elements of the system. Excessive individualization and

sectarianism lead to poor synaptic activity, that is, null networking.

The teaching of English throughout the world has become the largest educational

enterprise in history. The bulk of teachers working abroad do not have sufficient (if any

at all) pedagogical expertise and teach the way they were taught a couple decades ago.

Some chairpersons of methodology departments are unable to differentiate between basic

professional terms such as “methodology” and “didactics.” More often than not,

accountability-driven bureaucratic constrains overpower creative pedagogical efforts and

denigrate the functionality of teaching to the extent of “curriculum delivery.” There is no

wonder that professors with an advanced degree in linguistics cannot find any support

from their administrators and often face confrontation (and even discharge) for their

attempts to modernize teaching.

There is no one-size-fits-all policy that you could apply for all immigrant groups;

but one social trend is obvious: a “glass ceiling” syndrome made competing for a job

much harder for immigrants with an advanced academic degree and professional skills.

The monopoly of “gate-keepers” has made ivory tower inaccessible and, thus, global

knowledge shaping impossible. Although the survey did not achieve a high turnover, it

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revealed some nepotistic trends and biased treatment of immigrant candidates in state-

sponsored academic scenarios. However, the common survival sense in market-driven

scenarios took over prejudices and forced the respondents to give an overall priority to

what was more beneficial for academic operations.

Facts better than words give evidence of ineffective leadership and academic

exploitation. Greed, corruption, bureaucratization, and nepotism have made ivory tower

an unreasonably costly social establishment. A profound multi-layered conflict between

the highly developed productive forces (i.e., human power and production means), on the

one hand, and the archaic work relations, on the other hand, erode humanistic mission of

education and humanities overall.

Richard Vedder notices that high competition in private sector imposes a fierce

market discipline in for-profit academic corporations, because the financial status of for-

profit universities depends on their academic performance. The overall findings of this

research foretell a better future for the private sector, which is organizationally more

effective (“smart”) than a state-sponsored model. Millions of taxpayers’ dollars go for

support of ineffective academic operations. Ivory tower has become an arrogant monster

feeding on financial blood of society. If university behaves like a colonial empire, it

should accept all corporative risks and financial responsibilities as well.

While on the subject, it is important to touch upon some generalizations regarding

academic culture. Academic culture is (a) a business, (b) an organizational culture, (c) a

complex living system with the ability to self-organize and integrate a variety of smaller

sub-systems, and (d) a quantum field, localized and extended in space-time, which

operates as discontinuous continuity of events (quantum leaping). The quantum field, the

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flux of energy and information, emulates all occurrences and events of the matrix on a

virtual drive of the collective mind. As any living system, it is subject to the Magnificent

Seven (matter, energy, motion, space-time, information, freedom, and chance) driven by

Quadriga (fundamental forces). The parameters of their interaction determine the quality

and functional outcomes of academic organization.

Any process within the live system can be regulated (accelerated or decelerated)

through human communication, because communication is a catalyst and genuine

controller of local and global dynamics. If synaptic activity fails, the entire orderliness of

interlinked components falls apart. It applies to any living system: organic cells, ants,

humans, etc. The health and wealth of the complex system depends on the functionality

of its communication mechanism.

In mathematics and computer science, optimization of mathematical programming

refers to “finding the maximum of a function by choosing the best element from some set

of available alternatives.” The general term applies it to an act, process, or method of

making something (as a design, system, or decision) as perfect, fully functional, or

effective as possible. In (hypothetical) performance-targeted organizational culture, all

components work coherently while vertical and horizontal organizational topography

allows for the most reasonable operational distance55

(RE: the reciprocity principle). As

the ant colony optimization theory suggests, optimization involves meta-heuristics

relating to exploratory problem-solving techniques to improve performance.

Overall, optimization involves (a) activation of potential energy of the matter and

(b) the economical use of this energy within the process. With regard to organizational

55 It advocates for collaboration but not cooperation.

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optimization, it means emancipation of all human and system potentialities residing

within organizational structures and operational algorithms.

Optimization endorses democratization. It equally applies to any social entity: an

institution, a family, or a learning group. Rooted in humanistic philosophy of great

democrats, suggestopedic didactics establish democratic interpersonal relations among

the students and between the teacher and the students as well. Group coherence helps

transform a learning group into a symbiotic system. It is a key to learning optimization.

Closing argument. Any educational institution is, primarily, a business

organization. In order to survive and optimize its performance, organization must be

effective, “smart.” Being smart means being expert: intelligent, precise, gifted, intuitive,

and operative. It also means being economical in utilization of time and resources and

profitable enough to be able to develop and to withstand internal and external

environmental pressure. Optimization refers to a symbiotic orderliness whereas effective

synaptic activity and comfortable coherence of elements of a system allow for frequent

adjustments (quantum leaping) for the most effective performance.

Part 3. Quantum Didactics: Inspired by the Nature

Didactic Design and Principles

This sub-chapter of the dissertation has a more practical value for practicing

suggestogogues and answers the third question of this study: Question 3. How can

computer technology facilitate suggestopedic didactics? It addresses didactics of

computer-assisted language learning (CALL) integrated in dynamic collaborative

classroom. The researcher has undertaken the role of a didactic designer.

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The current socio-historical phase of accelerated globalization requires express

acquisition of foreign language communication skills with cross-cultural awareness.

Teaching a foreign language as a linguistic system is no longer on agenda. Besides,

foreign language training must go along with real life training that requires integration of

task-targeted, project-targeted, and problem-solving assignments that, in turn, involves

teaming. Suggestopedic instruction paradigm genuinely incorporates of all these

essentials in integrative, collaborative, learner-sensitive didactics.

However, both—accelerated and intensive—modalities of suggestopedic

methodology leave room for improvement. Lozanov’s Accelerated Learning method puts

emphasis on passive perceptions, thus, tending to overvalue the role of intuition and to

underestimate the analytical processes. Although suggestopedia provides a specific

didactic design, it does not incorporate a memorizing algorithm; two-phased activation of

instructional material also needs didactic reinforcement.

Kitaygorodskaya’s method of activation of learner potentialities (known as

intensive teaching) has a much better didactic structure, because it incorporates clear

didactic algorithms at any stage of the pedagogical work. Unlike Lozanov’s model, which

has inbuilt foreign language immersion techniques, Kitaygorodskaya’s method allows for

transitional bilingualism for better conceptualization and assimilation of learning

materials. So far, this method has proven to be the most effective one with a considerable

increase in learning outcomes: 22 times and 3 times higher than traditional and

accelerated instructional models (respectively).

Utilization of the performing arts is central to both—accelerated and intensive—

suggestopedic approaches. The professor-suggestogogue must have a great deal of artistic

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flair. A lack of dramatic talent considerably downgrades the learning outcomes, because

the latter affects the quality of mental impressions and, thus, the learning outcomes. It

also means that those professors, who do not have the articulacy of Sarah Bernard or

Anthony Queen, will stay without a job.

They say, leaders are not born but made. The quality of leadership is always

influential in any social activity, but it becomes crucial in time-pressured conditions such

as express learning. The professor-suggestogogue must have not only an outgoing

personality but also self-confidence of a great humanistic leader.

Although both original suggestopedic modalities encourage utilization of

multimedia in classroom, but until now, neither one of them has appreciated yet the

advantages of computer technology for express training. Thus, the teacher carries on the

lion share of burdens in orchestrating and conducting the scherzo sonata of group

dynamics. There is no wonder that the physical and psychological stresses related to the

intensive performance hold back the implementation of suggestopedic models.

To facilitate the pedagogical work, the researcher offers an innovative didactic

design integrating computer technology in teacher-led suggestopedic classroom.

Although it resides within a suggestopedic framework, it operates its own didactic design

and algorithms. Natarelli’s QLD56

model is rooted in the genesis of linguistic function

and sequenced as follows:

Acoustic adaptation

o Audio training: passive (silent) identification of sounds

Articulatory adaptation

56 Quantum linguistics and didactics

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o Whispering (slowly, emphasizing articulation)

o Increasing the volume of the voice (slowly, emphasizing enunciation)

o Accelerated verbalizing (up to the pace of normal speech)

Computer application helps create series of complex information signals by

integrating verbal and non-verbal signaling. The didactic design of a QLD micro-cycle

draws on Piaget’s cognitive stages of the intellectual development. These constructs

relate to each other as an invariant sequence:

Sensory-motor (SM)

Pre-operational: framed reproduction (FR)

Concrete operations: controlled reproduction (CR)

Abstract operations: free production, which includes (a) Quasi-free production

(QFP) and (b) free production (FP).

Intensive acquisition of foreign language communicative skills comprises series

of communicative actions, which include the entire units (without breaking them into

components). Differentiation and itemization of the language structures is subject to the

analytical phase after which the acquired skills leap onto another—higher—level of

performance. Thus, instructional design of foreign language intensive training imitates

the semantic co-centric model as follows: S1 → A → S2, whereas “S1” stands for

“primary language synthesis,” or initial immersion into a communicative situation; “A”

denotes “analysis,” or analytical mental activities, which involves manipulation with

grammatical and lexical material; “S2” refers to “secondary language synthesis” (or a

phase of a higher order).

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Training for adult learners does not yield total immersion into a foreign language

but integrates a bilingual support, which is particularly important in the beginning of the

intensive course. While students progress throughout the course, the (native spoken)

mediator language is gradually being replaced by immersion into a target language.

The set of QLD system-construing principles comprises different stages of

manipulation with information in accordance with the SIMPLE algorithmic steps:

Structured. It stands for “sequenced in accordance with Piaget’s cognitive stages”

(SM→FR+CR→QFP+FP), though with co-centric discontinuous continuity

(S1→A→S2) in mind

Integrative. It implies (a) didactic issue: all-in-one, multi-aspectual skill-building

and (b) social issue: team-building, educating the communities of learners

Multisensory. It involves several channels of perception to create quantum codes

based on complex associations and impressions

Poly-functional. It means (a) linguistically adequate and (b) socio-culturally

appropriate

Lovely. Information should be attractive, impressive, and inspiring

Easy. Teaching is supposed to facilitate learning by making it user-friendly and

stress-free (to avoid negative feelings about learning).

Didactic Algorithms

Introduction, or sensory-motor phase (SM). At this stage, the teacher aims at

making the learners acquainted with a communicative situation, i.e., a “story line” (the

core contents) of the lesson. It is a phase when the professor introduces an entire text on

the screen. Another important teacher’s goal at this stage is to facilitate memorizing of

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instructional materials by building associative links bridging verbal and non-verbal

information signals. This phase excludes randomization and follows precisely the

algorithm:

“Script reading” is performed by the professor (students are silent)

o Phrase-by-phrase presentation (loud) of the text-polylogue, accompanied

by translation (in a soft voice)

“Rehearsal” aims at building associative links (to facilitate memorizing) and

performed by the professor together with the students

o Phrase-by-phrase presentation of the text on the screen, accompanied by

translation (not word-by-word but of an entire sentence/unit)

o Didactic algorithm-1

After the professor (“Follow-me”)

With the professor (“Let’s say it together”)

With the professor’s articulation only (“Lip reading”)

With the professor’s “do-it-again” gesture (“Fast talks”)

“Reversed Rehearsal” (students are silent)

o “Swapped” phrase-by-phrase presentation on the screen: a translated

phrase (in native language) → the same phrase in foreign language

o Didactic algorithm-2

Translated phrase

Pause (1-2 sec.) for recollection by the students

Same phrase in foreign language

Pause (1-3 sec.) for silent reproduction

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Relaxation (students are silent)

o Audio presentation of the entire text accompanied by a soft, relaxing

musical background

Activation-1, or framed reproduction (FR). Transitory bilingualism is also

welcome at this stage to facilitate conceptualization and assimilation of information units,

because the learners are not ready to immerse entirely into a foreign language. The

description of communicative situation does not integrate the model. (The model is being

rehearsed separately.) This pre-operational stage consists of micro-operations each of

which features the following:

The content of each communicative assignment consists of

o Description of a situation: staging a problem

o Psychological motivation for the actors

o Verbal stimulus to action

A communicative model comprises 2-5 phrases

Segmented rehearsal of communicative models proceeds in accordance with the

didactic algorithm-1 (DA-1)

o After the professor (“Follow-me!”)

o With the professor (“Let’s say it together”)

o With the professor’s articulation only (“Lip reading”)

o With the professor’s “do-it-again” gesture (“Fast talks”)

Activation-2, or controlled reproduction (CR). At this collaborative phase,

bilingualism gives way to immersion into the target language. The entire lesson covers

situated tasks and role-plays with sporadic “recollection” of adequate communicative

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models (for “true beginners”). That is, a level of freedom for self-identification is higher

at this stage. The staged reproduction of communicative models features the following

contents:

The content of a communicative assignment consists of

o Description of a situation: staging a problem

o Psychological motivation for the actors

o A communicative model (not to be rehearsed)

o Verbal stimulus to action

Activation-3, or quasi-free and free production (QFP & FP). This didactic phase

comprises gradual transformation of situated macro-operations assigned by the professor

into communicative activity modeling real life communication but granting more

freedom to the students for their self-identification in decision-making. At this stage,

communicative tasks aim at making connections (5W+2H) among the proposed events:

Staging a situation

o What happened (or is about to happen)? (W1)

o Where? (W2)

o When? (W3)

Identifying the characters

o Who were (or are) the “actors”? (W4)

Analyzing the problem

o Why might (or may) it happen? (W5)

Creating a sequence of events

o How might (or may) it happen? (H)

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What happened/will happen first?

Next?

Then?

Coming to a solution

o How did (or will) we solve the problem? (H)

Modifying the problem (a “billiard balls” effect)

o Changing one of circumstantial ingredients (time, place, actors, etc.) can

lead to a new result, because each event in space-time has its particular

location, actors, and framework

o What would you do in this situation?

As many professional educators would agree, “classroom frameworks [should]

simulate as much as possible authentic situations [of] foreign language use” (Passov,

1985, p. 109). Each phrase may presumably be considered as a communicative action

step – if it is not taken out of context, because it fosters a certain semantic unity—the

sense. The latter may be “decoded” with a particular expression. Dr. E. Passov offers an

additional clarification regarding the contents of a communicative task:

For instance, if you hear from your communicative partner: “Oh no, I don’t want

to go there, that’s it!” there is a great probability that you won’t surprise him/her

with a phrase like “my dog ran away.” Almost certainly, you would ask

something like “Where do you need to go?” or: “Please go there, it’s important!”

and so forth (Passov, 1985, p. 109).

It is no less important to notice that verbalizing cognitive tasks for the students

must exclude formal stimuli such as “imagine that…,” or “answer the following

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questions…,” or “replace omitted articles,” etc. Those formal stimuli do not create a

motivational foundation for accomplishing the learning task. Instead, the teacher must

originate a psychologically justifiable communicative situation followed by a didactically

adequate stimulus, which encourages learner’s participation in brainstorming, decision-

making, or solving a puzzle of language game.

Computer technology at any stage of the given didactic design must undertake

multiple functions. Dependent on a pedagogical task, it helps build series of associative

links by integrating different instructional signal-codes into an all-in-one quantum

modality. It can create a variety of real life situations and trigger spontaneous re-

codification of verbal and non-verbal signals that involves speaking. It can help improve

reading techniques (by gradually unfolding the text). No less important, it considerably

reduces professorial burdens and brings in a component of fun, serving as a smart and

ever-ready robot. The last but not the least, it facilitates classroom management and,

depending on a learning assignment, develops both students’ foreign language abilities

and computer skills.

Since language is an indispensable feature of cultural identity, integrated

exploration of both promotes students’ interest for a target culture. That does not

necessarily mean sharing every other culture but familiarizing with it. Seeing one new

perspective can often go a long way toward opening a whole world of new perspectives.

If someone has experience with any culture different from his or her own, it makes this

individual more sensitive to all other cultures. The sensitivity is important to employees

of international corporations and of domestic multinational enterprises as well as to

anyone who wants to be a responsible citizen adept at making informed decisions about

279

how to deal with the world. That knowledge is power, because if someone cannot

communicate in foreign languages or is ignorant about ethnic specificity, he or she may

easily get in a trap of false anticipations.

Conclusion

We are drawing on Socrates’ concept of the ‘examined life,’ on Aristotle’s notions

of a reflective citizenship, and above all on Greek and Roman Stoic notions of an

education that is ‘liberal’ in that it liberates the mind from the bondage of habit

and custom, producing people who can function with sensitivity and alertness as

citizens of the whole world.

― Martha Nussbaum, American philosopher

Quantum linguistics is an interdisciplinary field, which is in a state of infancy.

Few attempts to develop the foundations of quantum linguistics ended up in the obscurity

of mystification. Since the person is a part of both physical and exosomatic worlds,

education must account for the natural laws and intrinsic patterns of the universal

processes. In this relation, the researcher’s goal was to collect available knowledge about

the universal processes to identify the principles of a nature-anchored system of

suggestopedic foreign language instruction with cross-cultural alertness.

A lack of understanding of the nature, genuine mechanisms, and principles of

acceleration, intensification, and optimization in a methodological context misguides

foreign language didactics that entails multiple interpretations in practice. Based on a

relativist, quantum mechanical approach in consideration of consciousness, cognition,

communication, culture, and cross-cultural interface, this research developed an

innovative concept that helped understand the meaning and mechanisms of acceleration,

intensification, and optimization.

280

Accelerated globalization of planetary processes, the rise of instantaneous

communication, and national security concerns prompted an urgent need in foreign

languages. In a nation of immigrants, multilingualism and linguistic uniformity of the

population is an area under continuous discussion that never goes away, raising questions

that range from bilingual education curricula for minority students of different ages and

ethnic background to foreign language express training for professionals and diplomats.

Nevertheless, the ways of how this education should be handled to address educational

equity and excellence, on the one hand, without harming people’s feelings and cultural

identity, on the other hand, remain a focal point of numerous debates among foreign

language educators. Since the social reality can be seen not only in a narrow societal

context but also in a broader (or a smaller) living system, the given research has exposed

various problems in academic culture that obstruct knowledge sharing in terms of global

and local perspectives and hold back the development of the national capabilities in

foreign languages.

Didactics correlates to methodology as tactics correlates to strategy. A consistent

methodological theory accounts for those definitions and provides adequate didactic

options. One of the outcomes of this study culminated in a new didactic design of

suggestopedic express instruction incorporating computer-assisted language learning

(CALL) in teacher-led suggestopedic collaborative classroom.

Recommendations

Additional studies are needed in the area of comparative effectiveness of

suggestopedic methods with and without CALL integration in teacher-led foreign

281

language training. The impact of organizational culture on the development of the

national capabilities in foreign languages also needs more investigation.

282

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APPENDIX. QUESTIONNAIRE

PART 1 – Please select what applies:

1. Your academic degree: In progress ____ Bachelor’s ____ Master’s ____ Ph.D. ____

2. Your professional affiliation: Institute ____ College ____ University ____ Other ____

3. Your current occupation/job title ___________________________________________

PART 2 – Please consider the following situations (A and B) and mark your choice:

A. You are a search committee chair of a state-sponsored university hiring new faculty

members. There are eight candidates for four available positions. After having

considered their CVs and supporting documentation, you have decided to endorse the

following candidates (Please select only one for each position):

1st position goes to:

(a) ( ) A Ph.D. degree holder with 2 years of experience in the required field

(b) ( ) A Master’s degree holder with 8 years of experience in the required field

2nd

position goes to:

(a) ( ) A native citizen of your country with bachelor’s degree in the required field

(b) ( ) A naturalized citizen (legal immigrant) with Ph.D. degree in the required field

3rd

position goes to:

(a) ( ) A personally unknown to you expert in the required field

(b) ( ) A personally known to you applicant with some expertise in the required field

4th position in EFL/ESL goes to:

(a) ( ) A native English speaker with any bachelor’s degree and EFL/ESL certificate

(b) ( ) A near-native English speaker, professional linguist-educator with Ph.D. degree

B. You are a search committee chair of a private university hiring new faculty members.

You completely realize that the quality of the personnel is vital for your successful

business operations. There are eight candidates for four available positions. After having

considered their CVs and supporting documentation, you have decided to endorse the

following candidates (Please select only one for each position):

1st position goes to:

(a) ( ) A Ph.D. degree holder with 2 years of experience in the required field

(b) ( ) A Master’s degree holder with 8 years of experience in the required field

2nd

position goes to:

(a) ( ) A native citizen of your country with bachelor’s degree in the required field

(b) ( ) A naturalized citizen (legal immigrant) with Ph.D. degree in the required field

3rd

position goes to:

(a) ( ) A personally unknown to you expert in the required field

(b) ( ) A personally known to you applicant with some expertise in the required field

4th position in EFL/ESL goes to:

(a) ( ) A native English speaker with any bachelor’s degree and EFL/ESL certificate

(b) ( ) A near-native English speaker, professional linguist-educator with Ph.D. degree

PART 3 – To the best of your understanding, please describe the following:

289

1. Acceleration is _________________________________________________________

________________________________________________________________________

________________________________________________________________________

________________________________________________________________________

2. Intensive teaching-learning is _____________________________________________

________________________________________________________________________

________________________________________________________________________

________________________________________________________________________

3. Optimization is_________________________________________________________

________________________________________________________________________

________________________________________________________________________

________________________________________________________________________

4. An optimal (“smart”) organization means____________________________________

________________________________________________________________________

________________________________________________________________________

________________________________________________________________________