[I’m using Knoll’s book here as a starting point, so it isn’t strictly a ‘review’.]
As people we tend to simplify things, explain them linearly through either deductive reasoning, taking an accepted rule and applying it to the available ‘evidence’; or follow the process of inductive reasoning, examining the evidence first and using that to make sense of the what we observe. The world itself is very complex and our tendency is often to assume certain things about it and then act on that. In a dangerous world, where genuine threats abound, if we attempted to analyze all possibilities, we might be dead before we decided what to do. Part of our process leads us to isolate problems, things, into different categories…to streamline it, speed it up. Some people simply call this ‘focusing on the problem’, ‘if it walks like a duck…’, but this can result in our ignoring the context…and missing something absolutely essential.
We do similarly with ourselves, when we view ourselves as independent individuals. Doing this doesn’t negate the fact that everything, every being, came from another and so exists in relationship ‘with’. Because we study particular individuals, groups and processes ‘separate from’ others, does not in fact mean that they are independent. The universe is a connected whole. While each of its ‘parts’, each of its processes, may seem to exist to us independently, ‘free’ from others, they aren’t. We are enmeshed in a matrix of relationships. No individual, no function, no process, can be understood entirely on its own. Nothing occurs in the absence of the ‘other’, of other actions and actors. The passage of time can reveal this, if we are looking. Even the controlled lab experiment happens within a context that goes beyond itself. Such isolation is a construct and its result can never define something in its entirety. We need to understand this when we examine life in a singular, narrow way.
Physicists talk about the ‘three body problem’, that as soon as you introduce a third variable, precise prediction becomes impossible. A similar result occurs even in simple two body problems when you extend them out over time, each subsequent interaction, adding ever more uncertainty. Complex systems are inherently impossible to predict precisely. Outcomes become more or less probable. Not certain. In systems involving life, the complexities, the outcomes, occur within limited ranges, between ‘survivable’ margins. These results cannot go to the extreme or death/extinction occurs. As humans we are biased toward a belief in our independence, our ‘freedom’ of thought, of action, and imagine a capacity to predict and control outcomes. We frequently exaggerate our ability to effect the world and interpret results in ways that ignore outside influences, other ‘actors’. Our ‘independence’ appears to give us choices and agency that we don’t actually possess. We are, in reality, intimately enmeshed in the universe and so can not be sole determiners of its outcome. Life is an inclusive process in which we each play a role. The reality is that we can never act truly alone. Our impacts echo across time, distance and type…and are moderated by those of others. Extremes are reeled back in by the system, as long as it remains overall in a healthy state/condition. Our effects are never truly our own. We remain, perpetually, under the influence because we are ‘of’ the same whole. We get into ‘trouble’ when we ignore this. Continue reading
