Building a Science of the Social Field: Deep Sensing for Regeneration in Times of Rupture

Abstract

Humanity is entering an era defined not only by ecological and geopolitical instability, but by a deeper and more subtle crisis: the erosion of shared reality. Algorithm-driven social media ecosystems amplify fragmentation, AI systems recycle distorted signals, and public discourse becomes increasingly detached from lived experience. As trust declines and polarization rises, societies lose the very capacities required to respond intelligently to complex global challenges. This paper argues that the roots of this crisis lie not only in institutions or technologies, but in the relational and attentional conditions from which collective perception and action arise. Modern science has excelled at analyzing external systems, yet it has paid comparatively little attention to the social field - the quality of relationships, awareness, and sense-making that determines whether communities can see reality clearly and in shared ways, learn together, and act coherently. Without strengthening this “social soil,” even the most sophisticated policies, technologies, and innovations fail to take root. To address this gap, the paper proposes an expanded framework for scientific inquiry that integrates multiple domains of knowing. In addition to third-person observation (objective data), first-person experience (subjective experience), and second-person interaction (intersubjective dialogue), it introduces a fourth domain: trans-subjective or “field-based” knowing. This form of knowing becomes accessible when individuals and groups cultivate disciplined attention and shared presence, allowing emerging possibilities to be sensed before they fully materialize in observable form. In this paper, we explore the ontology and epistemology of deep sensing as a gateway to trans-subjective knowing and unpack the practical implications of deep sensing as a method for collective inquiry, drawing on a case example from our own initial steps and experimentation. Our intention, with this work, is to support this unfolding by providing a meta-paradigm for scientific inquiry that includes consciousness, i.e., the underlying structure of attention that shapes how we make sense of reality and act within it, into both its conceptual frame and methodological application.