The Words of the Selle Family
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The Words of the Selle Family |
In
the receiving line at the ICUS XIII welcoming reception, Mother
greets Dr. Frederick Sontag.
This year's science conference, streamlined and geared to make an Impact on society, accomplished a great deal during its three working days, not only in interdisciplinary scholarship but in support of Father. The conference gathered together 250 scientists and philosophers from 46 nations between Sunday, September 2 and Wednesday, September 5, at the J.W. Marriott Hotel in Washington, D.C., the Marriott chain's flagship hotel. The conference theme, suggested by Father, was "Absolute Values and the New Cultural Revolution."
On Sunday evening, a reception was held in one of the hotel ballrooms to welcome all the scientists to Washington and to the thirteenth annual International Conference on the Unity of the Sciences (ICUS). Among those in the receiving line were: Mother; Hyo Jin Nim; Dr. Kenneth Mellanby, chairman of ICUS XIII; Neil Albert Salonen, president of the International Cultural Foundation, of which ICUS is a project, and other no- tables. Amidst an atmosphere of elegance, participants were served hors d'oeuvres and fruit punch and chatted warmly.
The next morning, the conference opened with a plenary session that gathered the scientists together in one spacious high-ceilinged room. The chief speakers of the morning were Mother, Hyo Jin Nim, and Dr. Alvin Weinberg, director of the Institute for Energy Analysis at the Oak Ridge Associated Universities, Tennessee. Mother gave brief welcoming remarks, speaking to the scientists from her heart about Father's determination to help America and the world.
"For the last 12 years, he has given his heart and soul and every drop of sweat and tears for the sake of this nation and the world," she said. "He is praying every day in prison for God to bless this country."
Praising the conference, she said that
ICUS has always been very special to my husband. It is a remarkable example of a project devoted to the building of the Kingdom of God on earth. Bringing together scholars from all parts of the world and from every academic discipline, it has the potential to address and solve the world's problems in ways that no other organization can do.
Then Mother introduced Hyo Jin Nim to deliver the Founder's Address in place of Father. Hyo Jin Nim, dressed neatly in a conservative gray suit, read the speech with dignity, clarity, and confidence, his voice rising with emotion from time to time.
In the address, Father warned that the future of humanity is dependent on scientists pursuing their analyses of the physical world on the basis of -moral values.
"My ardent wish," Father said, "is that all scientists and scholars develop their respective fields on the basis of a solid view of moral values, thus exalting human dignity by adopting a spiritual and unified method as well as a materialistic and analytical one."
After the applause for the Founder's Address died down, Dr. Morton Kaplan, past chairman of several ICUS conferences and international president of another ICF program, the Professors World Peace Academy, revealed that three scientists -- Dr. Morton Kaplan, Dr. Richard Rubenstein, and Dr. Kenneth Mellanby -- had visited Father at Danbury prison on August 24 in order to present to him the completed plans for the science conference.
Dr. Kaplan, a professor of Political Science at the University of Chicago, told the participants that during the three-hour meeting Father was "completely serene."
"He was totally focused on how he could make the world a better place," Dr. Kaplan said. "He voiced no expression of bitterness or acrimony. He was centered only on what he could do for the world, not on what was being done to him."
Following Dr. Weinberg's insightful plenary address, titled "Values in Science," the participants broke up into seven committees to present and discuss in-depth scientific papers. Due to the high level of organization, which the participants repeatedly praised, the scientists were free to concentrate on their academic subjects, working, thinking, and exchanging information with maximum efficiency.
A number of the committees this year were of an experimental nature because of their orientation toward either pragmatic or philosophical questions, as opposed to matters of pure science. These were: Committee III, "Human Beings and the Urban Environment: The Future Metropolis"; Committee IV, "Crisis in Education in the 1980s: A Survey of Educational Values and Systems"; Committee V, "The Ocean in Human Affairs"; Committee VI, "Spirit and Science"; and Committee VII, "The Search for Global Ideology," which was a frank attempt to explore the strength of the Unification Thought worldview.
The other two committees were: Committee I, "Unity of the Sciences": and Committee II, "Theoretical Empiricism: A General Rationale for Scientific Model-Building."
The plenary session on Tuesday morning featured an address by Dr. Eugene Wigner, Nobel Laureate and Professor Emeritus of Physics at Princeton University. He spoke on the topic "Reflections on the Role and Purpose of Science."
In an interview with Dr. Kenneth Mellanby, ICUS XIII chairman and one of Britain's leading ecologists said that a policy decision was made three years ago to streamline the conference and make it as effective as possible. There were eight hundred participants in the ICUS X (1981) in Seoul, Korea, but this number was deemed too unwieldy. In the succeeding years, fewer participants were invited, and to those who were, it was made clear that they would have to contribute some concrete scholarly work either at the conference itself or at various pre- conference meetings during the year prior to the conference.
ICUS today, Dr. Mellanby said, is geared toward each of its committees turning out a high-quality, scholarly book, with the cooperation of ICF's, Paragon House, a publishing house serving the vision of ICF which will hopefully have a real impact on the world of science and philosophy. He said that, up to now, "the conferences have not had the impact on the larger academic community that they deserve."
Asked whether the participants, by concentrating on their own pet subjects, in effect ignore the theme and goals set for the conference by Father, Dr. Mellanby replied,
No, certainly not. We do work in the wide framework of what Rev. Moon says. The slant of the papers, although they tend to be highly technical in nature, certainly do fit with what the Founder wants. The conference has had two sorts of themes: unity, and science and values. The ICUS papers show how many fields contribute toward the two themes.
At the closing plenary session Wednesday afternoon, Dr. Mellanby read a letter of appreciation and solidarity with Father, which he proposed the conference send to Father in Danbury prison. The writers of the letter deplored Father's confinement and stated,
Although you cannot be with us in person, we feel that you are very much with us in spirit. Your vision and support cannot be confined by prison walls.
The 250 participants adopted by acclamation the motion to send the letter.
The seven committees then presented brief summaries of their three days of work. The chairman of Committee I, Dr. Gerard Radnitzky, reported that his group had studied, among other things, how various sciences had been unified in the past. For example, Newton's theory of mechanics unified the theories of the motion of bodies on earth and the motion of heavenly bodies, and quantum mechanics unified the notions of the wave and particle properties of light.
"Specialization is necessary, but it should be accompanied by fruitful interchanges between the disciplines," said Dr. Radnitzky, professor of Philosophy of Science at the University of Trier, West Germany.
Dr. Herman Wold, chairman of Committee II on creativity in science, or scientific model-building, called for a "collaboration" between science and the arts. "Human knowledge is a loosely knit network of scientific models," said the professor of Statistics at the University of Uppsala in Sweden. He further noted that:
Around each model and its active research frontier there is a gray zone where human knowledge is enriched and science is inspired by quasi- scientific approaches, often interdisciplinary, often tentative or speculative.
Philosophy and the arts arc indispensable agents in the gray zone. ICUS, unique as an open forum for interdisciplinary discussion of important problems, has great potential in the gray zone, potential for fruitful promotion of scientific endeavors.
The report of Committee III, given by its chairman, Dr. Ervin Galantay, affirmed an "outlook of optimism and a philosophy of hope" for the metropolis of the future.
Dr. Galantay, professor of Urban Planning at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Lausanne, Switzerland, related an anecdote whose point was that there is much hope for solving the manifold problems faced by the speedily growing cities of the world. He said that a study made in the last century concluded that London could never achieve a population of 5 million because the accumulation of horse dung would make the streets impassable and the noxious vapors would overcome innumerable "delicate" women, while taxing to the breaking point the limited supply of smelling salts needed to revive them. But, due to the felicitous and unforeseen arrival of the internal combustion engine, London now easily supports a greater metropolitan population of over 7 million.
Dr. Galantay said that by the year 2000 there will be at least 60 metropolitan agglomerations with populations in excess of 5 million each. "Numerous 20-million-plus cities are emerging in less-developed countries," he said.
Committee IV was chaired by Dr. Nobuyuki Fukuda, president of the University of Tsukuba in Japan. He summarized how the committee grappled with the education crisis of the eighties. He said the group explored forms of inter- national cooperation to solve problems brought on by the sudden arrival of the age of science and technology, information, and internationalization, and also explored the problems of how to address the lack of value education around the world and the weakening of family education.
The report of Committee V, dealing with the ocean in human affairs, was given by its chairman, Dr. Athelstan Spilhaus, who is president of PanGeo, a corporation devoted to producing and promoting inventions related to the sea. He gave a short account of the importance of the ocean in the evolution of life, how it influences the climate, and its enormous commercial potential. One of the papers presented in the committee dealt with ocean tunnels and highways.
Committee VI dealt with the relationship between spirit and science, and how science is beginning to address the problem of spirit.
"For a long time, mind was a kind of taboo in physics," said committee chairman Dr. Jean Charon, theoretical physicist at the University of Paris and director of the Center of Research on Complex Relativity and Relations to Consciousness.
Physicists, in order to go further and deeper into the nature of matter, had to delve into the position and function of mind in the physical world.
He said that the field of "psycho- physics" has opened up, and that scientists must now begin to take seriously the existence of something called "psychomatter."
"Each particle of matter may be associated with a 'mind-like' dimension," he said. "Man is not only a thinking animal, but is part of a thinking universe."
The chairman of Committee VII, Dr. Frederick Sontag, professor of Philosophy at Pomona College in Claremont, California, dealt with the possibility of a global ideology. He said that
it is crucial to search out global ideologies because any clash with another culture has dire consequences if we come into conflict due to a failure to understand.
Dr. Jan Knappert, a professor of Oriental and African Studies at the University of London, headed a committee assigned to evaluate the conference. He summed up ICUS XIII by lauding the spirit of "democratic discussion" he saw present throughout the committee meetings. Such a spirit, he said, "is so necessary to meaningful scientific exchange."
Col.
Bo Hi Pak addresses the participants after the Farewell Banquet meal.
The farewell banquet on Wednesday evening was a warm-spirited, glittering affair. In the afterglow of the sumptuous dinner, Col. Bo Hi Pak delivered a prepared speech, describing the background of Father's court case -- the constitutional and civil rights principles involved, the religious freedom movement which it is fueling, and the growth in the Unification Church and ICUS which such persecution is certain to stimulate.
Then the entertainment began an electrifying series of vocal and dance performances featuring Sheila Baer and Jeff Benson, followed by guest artist Lorin Hollander, a virtuoso pianist who played three Bach choral preludes and a Prokofiev sonata.
In the peaceful atmosphere that pervaded the banquet hall after the entertainment, Mother rose to speak. With true motherly warmth, she said farewell to everyone present. She called for applause for the conference chairman, vice chairmen, plenary speakers, and committee chairmen. Everyone responded with enthusiasm. Mother concluded by saying she looked forward to the day when all the good-hearted, high- minded participants would "play a prominent role in the decision-making process of all nations."
September 5, 1984
Reverend Sun Myung Moon
Federal Correctional
Institution
Danbury, Connecticut
Dear Reverend Moon,
We the undersigned scientists and scholars, who serve as chairpersons at the thirteenth annual Conference on the Unity of the Sciences or as senior consultants of the International Cultural Foundation, wish to thank you for making possible both this year's ICUS and the entire ICUS tradition We also wish to express to you our profound appreciation fur entrusting to us at this crucial moment the responsibility of leading ICUS and the other ICF activities we serve. We shall endeavor to do all in our power to be worthy of that trust.
We deeply regret your absence from this year's ICUS, the first which You have been unable to attend. We deplore the unfortunate circumstances that have deprived you of your liberty, and your family of your preserve e. Indeed, your presence is sorely missed by all of us. Nevertheless, although you cannot be with us at ICUS in person, you are yen much with us in spirit. Those of us who have had the privilege of working with you in the past feel closer to you now than ever before.
Because of your vision, imagination, and generosity we have been able to work together this year in Washington under optimum conditions. Yet we cannot ignore the conditions in which you find yourself We are mindful of the fact that even in prison you have not been concerned with your own difficulties, but have sought to do everything possible to make this international gathering of scientists and scholars a superb vehicle by which science and higher learning can be placed in the service of humanity.
We wish to express our solidarity with you, and our determination to continue to work aids you for our common ideals. Your vision of a world united in harmony, working together for a shared a felicitous human future, offers believers and non-believers alike a challenge of singular importance for our times. We take up that challenge in tribute to you. We believe we can best express both our appreciation and our solidarity by the resolve to work together for the fulfillment of the ideals that hind us together. It is in this spirit that we see in ICUS a resource of ever greater international importance in fostering our mutual ideals.
Moreover, it is our earnest hope that the government of the United States will restore America's tradition of religious liberty to its fullness so that the justice of your cause be recognized, and that you be speedily and completely exonerated.
May God bless you and your family. May you speedily and happily be reunited with them.
Sincerely yours,
September 5, 1984
Reverend Sun Myung Moon
Federal Correctional
Institution
Danbury. Connecticut
Dear Reverend Moon,
We, the participants at the Thirteenth International Conference on the Unity of the Sciences meeting at the J. W. Marriott Hotel in Washington, D.C., gathering under the theme "Absolute Values and the New Cultural Revolution," wish to express our appreciation and to thank you for making possible both this year's ICUS and the fine tradition of ICUS over the years.
We deeply regret your absence from this year's ICUS, and we deplore the fact that your confinement makes it impossible for you to be with us. Nevertheless, although you cannot be with us in person, we feel that you are very much with us in spirit. Your vision and support cannot be confined by prison walls. We scientists and scholars who represent nations front every part of the world and every major religious tradition have come to Washington to further the work you initiated over 13 years ago. 0 e seek the unity that underlies all science and knowledge, as well as those values which endow human existence with abiding meaning and hope.
This year you have enabled us to present our findings and share our insights with each other under the best of conditions. When we compare the conditions you have provided for us with those in which you find yourself we are moved by the ironic contrast. We are especially mindful of the fact that even in prison you have not been concerned with your own difficulties but have sought to do everything possible to make this international meeting of scientists and scholars an effective means by which science and higher learning can serve humanity and promote the well-being of all the peoples of the world.
We wish to express our determination to continue to work with you for our common ideals. We are challenged by your vision of a world united in harmony, working together for a shared and felicitous human future. At this time, we believe we can best express our appreciation of your work and our solidarity with you by our resolve to make this ICUS and those that are to come a resource of even greater international importance in fostering the unity of science and knowledge in the service of a united humanity.
Sincerely,
On behalf of the ICUS XIII participants,
Kenneth Mellanby
Conference Chairman ICUS XIII
Approved by unanimous voice vote at the Closing Plenary Session.