Celebrating the Release of Ben Callif's "Organumics"

On August 1, 2019, the actual publication date of Organumics: An Epigenetic Re-Framing of Consciousness, Life, and Evolution, we gathered at Boswell Book Company to celebrate the release of Ben Callif's new book. There, friends, family, colleagues, and members of the community had their first glimpse into Ben's world of Organumics. (Photo by Dick Blau.)

Organumics is a new coinage for a philosophy / scientific field Callif proposes based on his repurposing of the musical term, organum, an early type of polyphony developed in the middle ages. Callif suggests organum as a new taxonomic/conceptual unit for the life and information sciences as a way of shifting how we think of all organized units of life (be they viruses, bacteria, cells, plants, human beings, memes, societies, galaxies, et. al.), how they evolve, how they interact, and how consciousness fits into that bigger picture. (Photo by Dick Blau)

Ben introduces party-goers to his ideas by starting at the beginning, with the interconnectedness of all life and the idea that all life can be traced back to a common ancestor. Early reviewers on Amazon show delight in his work: "Not your grandfather's Darwin!" and "A supremely eclectic, comprehensive, and joyous look at the mechanics of life" and "The rhythm of this book reminds me of nothing so much as A Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy or Slaughterhouse Five...We’re shuffling through Gregor Mendel's garden and then abruptly transported to the secret of Life, Consciousness, and Everything on Trafalmadore." (Photo by Dick Blau)