About

Chang­ing Mat­ter is a cat­a­log of ideas, tools, and approach­es for whole-sys­tems trans­for­ma­tion toward the year 2050.

In the tra­di­tion of the Whole Earth Cat­a­log pub­lished more than fifty years ago, and posi­tioned as a gen­uine alter­na­tive to ego‑, growth‑, and tech-cen­tric mind­sets that pro­long sys­temic prob­lems, this cat­a­log mix­es per­spec­tives, dis­ci­plines, and his­tor­i­cal con­text to envi­sion human­i­ty and human-Earth-sys­tems, like econ­o­my, health­care, and edu­ca­tion, renewed to hon­or the nat­ur­al inter­con­nec­tions and imper­ma­nence intrin­sic to our Universe.

Uncom­mon Knowl­edge, Whole Earth Catalogue

Like the cat­a­log itself, the title, Chang­ing Mat­ter, is a call to action: to shift con­scious­ness and there­fore real­i­ty by inte­grat­ing ancient wis­dom, emerg­ing capa­bil­i­ties, and evo­lu­tion­ary laws into rad­i­cal human potential.

PCH Inno­va­tions cre­at­ed this cat­a­log to invite con­ver­sa­tion around top­ics that inspire us, in hopes this may inspire oth­ers in turn. Our heart­felt belief is that inno­va­tion is core to being human, and will guide our way toward far-out hori­zons only when aligned with pos­i­tive intent and holis­tic aware­ness to over­come struc­tur­al chal­lenges. To achieve this vision, and to break from so many destruc­tive pat­terns repeat­ed over cen­turies, our think­ing and heart-space needs to become more open, imag­i­na­tive, and dar­ing. By shar­ing insights and giv­ing atten­tion to what mat­ters, we accel­er­ate change in how we think and act. Now, in this moment and momen­tum of a glob­al reset, as we shift how we live, work, trav­el, and cre­ate, as we feel the injus­tice waged on indi­vid­u­als, soci­ety, and plan­et, we are ener­gized to undo the struc­tures that oppose the hoop of life, and rebuild a thriv­ing civ­i­liza­tion upon the foun­da­tion of inter-being with­in a greater, inclu­sive and ulti­mate­ly cos­mic com­mu­ni­ty. To pur­chase a copy, send an email to moonshots@pch-innovations.com.

_________________________

PCH Inno­va­tions is a cre­ative engi­neer­ing stu­dio that weaves sto­ries through design, engi­neer­ing, robot­ics, AI/EI, future-visions, and bespoke high-fideli­ty pro­to­types — born in Mal­ibu in 2006; raised in Berlin.

  1. Whole Earth Cat­a­logue Website

  1. PCH web­site

Get your own
catalog here

Chapter Overview

Chap­ter 1

Recognize

To rec­og­nize means to re-per­­ceive, to know anew. Reflect­ing on what we think we know becomes the foun­da­tion for any sub­se­quent change.

This sec­tion aims to acknowl­edge uni­ver­sal truths and sug­gest proac­tive mea­sures for curb­ing exploita­tive sys­tems. The top­ics that fol­low are arranged around a cen­tral ques­tion: How can we, as humans, evolve in a sus­tain­able man­ner with­in the evolv­ing sto­ry of existence?

Pur­su­ing this ques­tion will yield insights that will help devel­op an under­stand­ing of the chal­lenges that with­hold our access to the truth. The fol­low­ing sub­sec­tions express our fun­da­men­tal hypothe­ses for what we believe will enable the next wave of inno­va­tion from now until 2050. By explor­ing top­ics includ­ing con­scious­ness, inter-being, and the end of cap­i­tal­ism, we hope to rethink cur­rent con­ven­tions in order to shift human sys­tems, mak­ing them more inclu­sive, empow­er­ing, and regenerative.

Chap­ter 2

Align

Align exam­ines how parts of human sys­tems work togeth­er toward spec­i­fied goals. On an indi­vid­ual lev­el, we believe in the impor­tance of align­ing our thoughts, words, and deeds. Strength­en­ing the con­nec­tion between what we think, what we say, and how we act will result in pos­i­tive trans­formational change.

When our bod­ies feel stiff or expe­ri­ence pain, we seek align­ment between our skele­tal and mus­cu­lar sys­tems. When we feel dis­con­nect­ed from oth­ers in terms of our con­ver­sa­tion or atti­tudes, we seek align­ment in our mindsets.

This sec­tion inves­ti­gates sys­tems that are in har­mo­ny with nature’s restora­tive prin­ci­ples and pat­terns. Most of all, we want to draw atten­tion to how we can align human sys­tems to help life thrive. We believe that ecol­o­gy, health, edu­ca­tion, and econ­o­my can all be bet­ter realigned with respect to one anoth­er. In this way, we can begin to repair and renew human cap­i­tal in the ser­vice of a cre­ative, just, and regen­er­a­tive society.

Chap­ter 3

Unify

Uni­fy is a call to action. It indi­cates a desire to bridge the divides that cause harm­ful sep­a­ra­tions between peo­ple and plan­et. We choose the word uni­fy for this sec­tion, instead of uni­ty, because we want to empha­size the impor­tance of this action being a verb—a process of con­tin­u­al motion—rather than a sta­t­ic noun.

We want to sum­mon the pow­er of belong­ing. We want to under­score that notion of every­thing in exis­tence hav­ing a place and pur­pose. We are inter­est­ed in pur­su­ing the action of uni­fi­ca­tion as a way to hon­or and har­mo­nize impor­tant dif­fer­ences. We endorse work­ing toward a lov­ing and sus­tain­able strat­e­gy for enhanc­ing every type of ecosys­tem for the bet­ter­ment of life on our planet.

As a means for col­lec­tive uplift, we are moti­vat­ed by the uni­fi­ca­tion of heart, mind, and soul in the indi­vid­ual. This pur­suit reminds us of the Jun­gian arche­typ­al notion of the self, the idea of a uni­fi­ca­tion of con­scious­ness and uncon­scious­ness rep­re­sent­ing the psy­che as a whole. This type of holis­tic con­cep­tu­al­iza­tion is what we seek to expand aware­ness around in these pages.

Chap­ter 4

Depart

Depart refers to the delib­er­ate act of leav­ing behind pat­terns, behav­iors, and sys­tems that no longer serve our species.

This sec­tion is inspired by the arche­typ­al myth of the hero’s jour­ney. In our case, human­i­ty is the hero of the sto­ry, depart­ing from an envi­ron­ment pol­lut­ed by injus­tice and mis­guid­ed power.

In our telling, human­i­ty must learn to: be account­able for past trans­gres­sions, be cog­nizant of mak­ing sus­tain­able choic­es, and be respect­ful of an inter­re­lat­ed nature in order to restore our glob­al home as a healthy place to live.

The sub­sec­tions that fol­low speak to dif­fer­ent kinds of depar­tures. Depar­tures from: con­ven­tion­al approach­es to inno­va­tion, anti­quat­ed notions of a healthy econ­o­my, a restric­tive edu­ca­tion­al sys­tem, a failed health­care indus­try, and a poor­­ly-con­struc­t­ed notion of how to treat our environment.

We believe ful­fill­ment of the hero’s quest will occur when we right­ful­ly repair the rela­tion­ships that have led to the slow destruc­tion of our­selves and the plan­et. In tak­ing this course of action, we will cre­ate sup­port­ive con­di­tions for the next gen­er­a­tion to rebuild civilization.

Chap­ter 5

Rebuild

Rebuild refers to a series of sys­temic recon­struc­tions designed to for­ward a regen­er­a­tive soci­ety found­ed on eco­log­i­cal and spir­i­tu­al align­ment. We believe that the basis for a bet­ter tomor­row exists with­in time­less foun­da­tion­al prin­ci­ples such as healthy circulation.

The toolk­it to rebuild soci­ety through cir­cu­lar and “Space­ship Earth” approach­es requires del­i­cate appli­ca­tion of inten­tion­al adjust­ments, mul­ti­fac­eted intel­li­gence, and an explo­ration of self-moti­­vat­ed con­scious­ness. This field of aware­ness, along with solar, wind, water, and biodegrad­able bat­ter­ies will pow­er the next gen­er­a­tion. Inno­va­tion will leap into new dimen­sions of heal­ing and per­for­mance, replen­ish­ment and restora­tion, revi­sion and renewal.

The ensu­ing sub­sec­tions aim at iden­ti­fy­ing the com­po­nents of a sys­temic rebuild of our socio-eco­nom­ic, tech­no­log­i­cal, and cre­ative ecosystems.