ABSTRACT
The problems facing contemporary decision-makers committed to peace, development, and justice are increasingly recognized as paradoxes. Armament makes an enduring peace more elusive; aid to the Third World deepens their underdevelopment; greater individual liberties reduce the collective good. These problems are paradoxical because our understanding depends on the simultaneous validity of incompatible theories. The incompatibility of the “wave” and “particle” theories of light is a well-known paradox in physics. If paradoxes contribute to the crises of understanding facing contemporary decision-makers, where can the solution be found? I concur with R. A. Schwaller de Lubicz (1978) who contends that the solution lies not in further knowledge through analysis but with the expansion of consciousness toward “direct” synthetic vision. The purpose of this chapter is to explore some possibilities at hand for the expansion of political consciousness, considered as an avenue out of the crises of political understanding. Specifically, what is the potential contribution of simulation to the expansion of political consciousness?
