tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-69126114650457790192024-03-07T21:14:40.393-08:00Evolutionary Dynamics ExplorationTom Atleehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02805089235874252851noreply@blogger.comBlogger11125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6912611465045779019.post-17598422429482832822008-05-30T19:25:00.000-07:002008-05-30T19:42:42.087-07:00Context as a focus for evolutionary interventionsPeggy Holman and I have been exploring the idea that evolution is driven by the interactions of diverse entities in nurturing and challenging contexts. The focus on contexts opens an interesting inquiry: What are influence-able contexts which we can address in ways that may help catalyze positive social evolution? Here are some possible answers:<br /><ul><li>awareness of our roles in systems, inspiring system-conscious behavior</li><li>legislative / legal constraints and channels for behavior</li><li>conformity dynamics: social status / taboos / rewards / fashion systems</li><li>power dynamics</li><li>location, location, location</li><li>cultural practices and habits </li><li>aesthetic space, hospitable environment, beauty that speaks to the heart -- or lack of it</li><li>support / challenge programs; self-help, mutual-aid, and answerability systems</li><li>cultural narratives which shape and motivate what is possible, real, good</li><li>conversations through which the past, present, and/or future are co-created</li><li>journalism and non-fiction which increase our understanding of the real world and our relationship to it, and engage us (or not)</li><li>structures -- physical, process, institutional, bureaucracy, etc. -- i.e., what we have to work within and through in order to live, work, move, accomplish, etc.</li><li>economic factors -- incentives, availability, convenience, cost, pattern of needs met or not met, etc.</li><li>leadership -- visionary, participatory, wise, etc.</li><li>meaning -- language / metaphors / memes / perspectives / worldviews / assumptions that enable, shape, expand, contract, or impede our thinking about certain things</li><li>technologies -- telecom, digital, sustainable, social, etc.; the availability of certain tools</li><li>hearing, seeing, loving; respect, honoring, appreciation; permissional and dissonance-handling systems (using story, questions, reflection) which make it safe for people to be and to transform</li><li>locality and distance (localness often helps tighten up important feedback loops)</li><li>temporal contexts -- pace: slowness and speed, time or lack of time</li><li>questions and inquiries -- strategic questioning, curiosity, etc.</li><li>existence of and experience with alternatives to the status quo (e.g., Fran Peavey in India invited people from all castes and genders to her going-away party in a small space so they had to be close to each other, and told a story of MLK being inspired by Gandhi, contradicting cultural imperialism -- and they all sang We Shall Overcome)</li><li>community, companions, colleagues, friends, networks</li><li>organizational forms -- hierarchies, flat, networks, etc.</li></ul>Tom Atleehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02805089235874252851noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6912611465045779019.post-71560105180374324802008-05-11T15:31:00.000-07:002008-05-11T15:37:40.669-07:00Systems Thinking and the Dalai LamaQuotes from the Dalai Lama<br /><a href="http://www.connectingforchange.ca/node/174">http://www.connectingforchange.ca/node/174</a><br /><br /><blockquote></blockquote><blockquote>I feel the individual, oneself, is of course, very important. So, taking care of oneself or looking out for oneself is very justified. But if you look deeper, then one individual no matter how able or strong a person, without society, he or she cannot manage, cannot survive. That’s clear. That’s a reality...In modern times, ...individual futures very much depend on unknown other people, other continents. That’s reality. So therefore, just for one’s own interests you have to take [into consideration] others’ welfare, others’ well-being... Change or events in the outside world eventually affect us.<br /><br />I believe every human profession or human activity is actually meant for human beings, meant for humanity. Human actions are for human beings—particularly in today’s world. I think in the past, maybe, different sectors carried on work more or less independently. Now today...everything is interdependent, interrelated. That’s the reality. Under these circumstances, it falls on us to work together.</blockquote><br /><br />The Dalai Lama -- like many other Buddhists -- is very aware of interconnectedness, interdependence, even "inter-being" (as Joanna Macy puts it).<br /><br />But that, as important as it is, is not systems thinking. Systems thinking involves the NATURE and STRUCTURE of that interdependence, that interactivity, those relationships -- especially the habitual forms that are used in the exercise of power, or in feedback dynamics, or experienced as reality -- "the way things are" -- and that are maintained by the system as part of its identity. And systems thinking involves more -- including examining widely held built-in assumptions, stories, worldviews and success criteria, and noting where the system is most open or resistant to change, etc.<br /><br />I see only the most rudimentary understanding of and attention to all this in what I've read so far about or by the Dalai Lama. But I sense a hook or bridge in the fact that systems thinking and systems interventions can be framed as what compassion looks like in our era when human or human-distorted systems are what cause most suffering. There is definitely a hot opportunity for the emergence of systems-conscious Buddhism. And the meta-project of awakening systems. Not only is the next Buddha a collective, but the next enlightenment is collective IN ITS VERY ESSENCE (i.e., not just an accumulation of enlightened beings, but an enlightenment of collectiveness, itself).Tom Atleehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02805089235874252851noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6912611465045779019.post-80253065657306969272008-04-27T11:46:00.000-07:002008-04-27T11:47:09.471-07:00Bigger ways of seeingI'm fascinated with the idea that society collectively "sees" through<br>* statistics (like Gore used in "An Inconvenient Truth"),<br>* stories (like the Story of Stuff <a href="http://storyofstuff.com">http://storyofstuff.com</a>,<br>* images (like earth from space),<br>* computer models (like climate change), etc.,<br>through which the larger phenomena of life -- especially of human <br>impacts -- can be drawn into the consciousness of a (hopefully large) <br>number of individuals. <p><br>Many of these, like Chris Jordan's consumer society art<p><a href="http://chrisjordan.com">http://chrisjordan.com</a> and now "water footprints"<br><a href="http://www.independent.co.uk/environment/forget-carbon-you-should-be-checking-your-water-footprint-812653.html">http://www.independent.co.uk/environment/forget-carbon-you-should-be-checking-your-water-footprint-812653.html</a><p>help us sense our personal or group role in vast systems whose <br>complexity hides that role from our otherwise ancient cognitive <br>systems designed to directly perceive and respond to the here-and-now.<p><br>This is a hot point of intervention for waking up our social systems <br>into active consciousness and response-ability, and thus for <br>conscious evolution.Tom Atleehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02805089235874252851noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6912611465045779019.post-62613954263314390172008-04-22T12:24:00.000-07:002008-04-22T12:55:09.944-07:00Beyond Competition and Cooperation - Winter CSA!BEYOND COMPETITION AND COOPERATION<p><br />One of the most common phenomena in nature is the (co)evolution into<br />a new niche, a new micro-environment for a particular life form. In<br />any given instance, niche-creation may arise from competition (the<br />organism gets squeezed out of its familiar niche by a more successful<br />organism into a new microenvironment, into which it then evolves or<br />modifies to fit better) or cooperation (an organism forms a new<br />symbiotic relationship with another organism, such as birds which eat<br />food from the teeth of large mammals, whose mouths become a new<br />niche). But actual evolution into -- and functioning and persisting<br />in -- a new niche is intrinsically neither cooperative or<br />competitive. It is a unique form of organism/environment interaction<br />distinct from both. I have a feeling it is one of a broader spectrum<br />of interactions beyond competition and cooperation which have been<br />overshadowed by human obsessions with (and debate about) competition<br />vs cooperation in nature.</p><p><br />I was drawn into looking at this evolutionary dynamic by a conscious<br />application of it shared with me by my daughter Jennifer. <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Community_supported_agriculture">Community<br />supported agriculture</a> (CSA) involves community members buying shares<br />of a farm's crops for a season and then being provided with their<br />portion of the harvest during that season. Jennifer is joining both<br />a summer CSA and a winter CSA -- in Vermont. Given that Vermont is<br />frozen pretty thoroughly in the winter, I asked her what a winter CSA<br />was. She said it was a farm that grew food in the summer and then<br />canned and otherwise preserved it and offered it to the community in<br />the winter. Members could participate in the canning and preserving.<br />Jennifer said that the woman who owned the farm and created this idea<br />did so because the farm next to her had a summer CSA and she didn't<br />want to compete with it, undermining it. She therefore created a<br />totally new niche, the winter CSA.</p><p><br />Jennifer also notes that this manifests in individual social life as<br />"finding your own place."</p><p><br />I see this as a manifestation of the evolutionary dynamic identified<br />by <a href="http://users.tpg.com.au/users/jes999/">John Stewart</a> and promoted by <a href="http://thankgodforevolution.com">Michael Dowd</a>, in which entities find<br />(or are given) ways to pursue their self-interest that support the<br />well-being of the larger whole they are part of. In Jennifer's<br />story, the conscious, value-based niche-creating farm supported its<br />own well-being not by competing with its neighbor farm but by<br />providing an additional local food source for the whole community<br />where none had existed before.</p><p><br />What is the name for this dynamic? Will "niche-creation" do?<br />Without a name for it, we are left with only the language of<br />competition and cooperation. With a name, we can consciously learn<br />about it, reflect on it, share it, and use it for the betterment of<br />society and life.</p><p><br />Clearly there is more going on in evolution than merely cooperation<br />and competition.</p>Tom Atleehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02805089235874252851noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6912611465045779019.post-7683456007886659632007-08-05T21:00:00.000-07:002007-08-05T21:04:18.660-07:00Personalities rampant in "species"I always thought of a species as one kind of thing, pretty homogenous. David Sloan Wilson in <span style="font-style: italic;">Evolution for Everyone</span> introduced me to a very different and provocative vision.<br /><blockquote>"The conventional idea of a single species as a relatively uniform entity occupying a single niche has yielded to a much richer notion of a single species as a community of individuals employing different strategies to survive and reproduce.... [manifesting] individual differences that we recognize with the vaguely defined term 'personality.'" pp 107-108.<br /><blockquote></blockquote><br /></blockquote>He gives many examples, including a fascinating one on p. 104 where one species of fish in one lake occupied different niches and were adapted to their different environments -- to such an extent that their bodies looked and acted significantly differently. I didn't know that was possible, outside of us and other mammals, at least....Tom Atleehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02805089235874252851noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6912611465045779019.post-16412401495476709652007-08-04T21:57:00.000-07:002007-08-04T22:03:48.936-07:00"Getting out in nature" continues the illusionYesterday I missed doing my blog. I was moving a bit further "into nature" -- "out in the country," as they say -- for a few days. In this primitive setting I have only dial-up, not wireless. And the tap water tastes fabulous. "Out in nature." Such an interesting concept. Such an illusory distinction...<br /><br />I decided to develop some thoughts I was toying with last week.<br /><br /><ul><li>Play arises from and serves survival (as practice for adult behaviors), but we can and do use it for so much more.</li><li>Sex arises from and serves reproduction, but we can and do engage in it for so many other purposes. </li><li>Intelligence and imagination arise from and serve survival, but we can and do use them for so much more -- often for things that don't enhance our survival at all..</li><li>Intention arises from and serves survival, but we can and do use it for things that don't enhance our survival, or even endanger it.</li><li>This list could go on.</li></ul><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">The fact that some capacity or tendency arose out of and serves the evolutionary dynamics of "survive and reproduce" does not mean that that capacity or tendency will only be used to serve such "positive" evolutionary dynamics.</span> It can be used in ways that have little to do with evolution -- or that lead to degradation, death, or extinction -- "negative" phenomena that have their own evolutionary significance.<br /><br />Free will arose progressively from and has served our survival, individually and collectively. But we are using it in ways that make us look more and more unnatural, as if we are separate from nature. This is an illusion. We never left the Garden, no matter how much we pave it over and lace it with chemicals. <span style="font-weight: bold;">We are not separate from nature, no matter how we try to free ourselves from its balancing feedback loops -- with medicine, with shelter, with levies, with manipulative technologies -- stretching our human systems increasingly out of that natural balance -- a balance which WILL snap back.</span><br /><br />How hard it snaps will depend largely on how soon and in what ways we decide to attend to and align with the evolutionary dynamics of survival and the natural feedback loops of balance. It seems to me that our learning to do that very consciously -- as whole societies -- is at the heart of our next evolutionary leap. <span style="font-weight: bold; font-style: italic;">Through the creation of consciousness, cultures and institutions that align us with the realities of nature, we can begin a whole new evolutionary ballgame. </span> Without that creation we will arrive at an evolutionary dead-end, and turn over the game to some new players.<br /><br />Only with our departure as a species -- extinction -- would we actually be "outside of nature." May we wake up to that.Tom Atleehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02805089235874252851noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6912611465045779019.post-77115806900580757452007-08-02T21:34:00.001-07:002007-08-02T21:50:14.432-07:00Notes on the evolution of responsiveness and free willObviously -- by definition -- organisms that can respond (to environmental conditions) in ways that enhance their survival and thrival will survive, reproduce, and be selected FOR through the process of natural selection. So, over the eons, we tend to see more entities that have increasingly sophisticated systems of response.<br /><br />Responsiveness tends to include different forms of<br /><ul><li><span style="font-weight: bold;">awareness</span>, perception, intelligence, etc. (including increasing diversity, clarity, and interconnectedness of various forms of information available to the entity)</li><li><span style="font-weight: bold;">will</span>, intention, choicefulness, option-creation, initiative</li><li><span style="font-weight: bold;">agency</span>, action, impact, technique/technology</li></ul><br />So what I'm calling "responsiveness" is a whole line of evolutionary development that we could explore -- i.e., What manifestations of responsiveness show up in unicellular, multi-cellular, mammalian, human, and cultural entities and interactions (and so forth)?<br /><br />Looking at this more closely, we see that the <span style="font-weight: bold;">VARIABILITY of environmental conditions</span> -- different weather, changing predators, loss of food or habitats, etc. -- <span style="font-weight: bold;">selects FOR variability of responsiveness.</span> The more flexible certain organisms or populations are in the face of changing conditions, the more likely they are to survive and thrive.<br /><br />So we can hypothesize that the variability of environmental conditions stimulates a progressive development of choicefulness, freedom, and flexibility in organisms, populations and species, over time. To roughly outline this:<br /><ul><li>Some entities evolve single-option <span style="font-weight: bold; font-style: italic;">stimulus-response mechanisms</span> that we associate with "instinct".</li><li>Some entities evolve <span style="font-weight: bold; font-style: italic;">a genetic "Plans A, B, and C" repertoire</span> of "if-then" responses, depending on their current situation or the conditions of their early development (reptilian fight or flight, beetle aggressiveness or deviousness, rabbit long or short hair depending on temperature).</li><li>Some groups of entities evolve many <span style="font-weight: bold; font-style: italic;">variations within their species</span> so that some of those variants will survive no matter what conditions develop (within limits!).</li><li>Some entities and groups evolve ways to evaluate their circumstances and actually <span style="font-weight: bold; font-style: italic;">create new options for response</span>. We see in human society -- at least in the case of certain groups and organizations -- an evolution towards increasing capacity to understand, innovate and change ideas, attitudes, and behaviors in increasingly complex, novel situations.</li></ul><br />Intriguingly (paradoxically?), all this is developing within a largely causal universe, constrained by the many physical laws that have led some philosophers to postulate <span style="font-weight: bold;">a "deterministic" universe</span> -- a universe in which everything is pre-ordained because it was caused by things that had causes, etc., so what happens is the only thing that could have.<br /><br />Other philosophers, noting the sense of choicefulness I have described above, have postulated <span style="font-weight: bold;">a universe in which "free will" exists</span>. Naturally, the two sides argue over whose view is right or if the two views can co-exist (see <http: org="" wiki="" free_will=""> for example, <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Free_will">this wikipedia entry</a>).<br /><br />Not being an academic philosopher, I am not sure how this will affect the debate about free will and determinism in philosophy, but it seems to me that we could generalize that a largely deterministic universe has given rise to an increasing measure of <span style="font-weight: bold;">free will AS AN EMERGENT PHENOMENON</span>. In other words, thanks to the deterministic laws of Darwinian evolution noted above, Life is coming up with increasingly complex and intriguing ways that organisms and groups can exercise choice in their activities.<br /><br />In short, might we say that <span style="font-weight: bold; font-style: italic;">the universe is determined to have free will</span>?<br /><br />As CONSCIOUS knowing, CONSCIOUS identity, CONSCIOUS choicefulness, CONSCIOUS agency, and CONSCIOUS interdependence (social interactivity) emerge and intertwine, we begin to develop that level of responsiveness that we call RESPONSIBILITY. <span style="font-weight: bold;">Responsibility is conscious agency.</span> Responsibility is knowing and owning that<br /></http:><ul><li><http: org="" wiki="" free_will="">we did / didn't / could have done things</http:></li><li><http: org="" wiki="" free_will="">we are / aren't / could be doing things</http:></li><li><http: org="" wiki="" free_will="">we will / won't / could do things</http:></li></ul><http: org="" wiki="" free_will=""><br />At early stages "responsibility" is mostly tied to social networks of expectation, often linked to guilt, shame, regret, punishment, etc., as well as pride, status, rewards, etc. As a person individuates (matures into a more whole human being), "responsibility" begins to mean something more like "ability to respond" and has an empowering "I do, can, and will make a difference" flavor to it. To "take responsibility" for a past act includes learning from mistakes, failures, and successes, in ways that enhance performance in the future.<br /><br /><span style="font-style: italic; color: rgb(102, 0, 204); font-weight: bold;">To the extent this kind of responsibility is accompanied by highly developed forms of awareness and creativity -- all manifesting at individual and collective levels -- it is on the leading edge of the evolution of "responsiveness".<br /><br /></span></http:><div style="text-align: right;"><http: style="color: rgb(51, 204, 0);" org="" wiki="" free_will=""><span style="font-style: italic; color: rgb(51, 255, 51);font-size:85%;" >Thanks to John Abbe for the conversation from which all this emerged.</span></http:><br /><http: org="" wiki="" free_will=""></http:></div>Tom Atleehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02805089235874252851noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6912611465045779019.post-84982289875019379502007-08-01T19:58:00.000-07:002007-08-01T20:00:41.100-07:00Continuing this line of inquiry...So here we are exploring the basic factors of persistence and change. These two factors have been dancing together since the Big Bang, but mostly in various shifting conglomerations of stardust pushed and pulled around by energy, gravity, and other stardust conglomerations. <br /><br />Then self-catalyzing molecular sets showed up and we got actual REPRODUCTION, which innovated a whole new type of persistence -- which, because of mutation, then sex, then culture, etc., had/has change embedded in it. In other words, we got LIFE -- a new dance of persistence and change in which entities take on a new type of individual persistence -- SURVIVAL -- and a new type of species persistence -- HEREDITY. Entities began taking action to survive long enough to reproduce.<br /><br />With Life, Things and Conditions started to become increasingly important. Because when a pattern of stardust took on the project of interacting with its environment in order to SURVIVE, it necessarily became a true ENTITY relating to other ENTITIES. That's the unit of survival, the entity. And that entity -- that unit of survival -- started to develop increasingly sophisticated forms of awareness, will, and agency. Not because it decided to, but because reproductive entities that had these capacities tended to survive to produce more entities that had them -- while those that didn't, tended to drift into oblivion.<br /><br />So we got an evolution of entities, awareness, will, and agency -- all of which have taken on new forms as life complexified, differentiated, connected up, etc.... <br /><br />Now, in a conversation with Karen, it became clear to me that this dynamic was happening in ways that stretched beyond your usual Darwinism. Take the African villager who, when you ask her who she is, says she is Xusa of X village of Y tribe of Z land of Q ancestors etc. It takes a village to raise a child, they say -- which in evolutionary terms means it takes a village to reproduce. And to survive. And so the entity we are talking about here is the village within its tribal, ecological, and ancestral context -- that's what's surviving and reproducing by having a child.<br /><br />Which suggests that a person's IDENTITY -- the ENTITY that they identify as -- has a tremendous lot to do with how they play their evolutionary role. Which suggests that one of the social systems we need to evolve is how we modern/post-modern folks identify ourselves. As aspects of systems. As Earth. As stardust. Etc.Tom Atleehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02805089235874252851noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6912611465045779019.post-5562109632729720192007-07-31T19:34:00.001-07:002007-07-31T19:46:15.458-07:00Stumbling towards the dynamic underlying natural selectionI was determined to focus 90% of my time on this project Tues (today), Weds and Thurs. Between stuff for the Story Field Conference and working things out with my partner Karen, I didn't really get started until 3pm. Sigh.<br /><br />So I began my re-read of Evolution for Everyone, and took massive notes -- mostly thoughts stimulated by what I read, which I won't burden this poor blog with. But I found myself distracted by my first meta-inquiry noted in the previous post. I kept stretching my mind beyond what it could tolerate and having to lie down for cat-naps. Between the last three cat naps and dinner, the following iteration of that inquiry precipitated into this:<br /><br /><span style="font-style: italic; color: rgb(255, 0, 0);">What underlies the dynamic called "natural selection? What is the general evolutionary dynamic, existing since the Big Bang, that natural selection is the biologic manifestation of? Call it X. Natural selection includes and transcends X. Cultural evolution includes and transcends natural selection. What is X, and what are the other elements of cultural selection, above and beyond natural selection?</span><br /><br />One flow of answers to that:<br /><br />Any pattern/entity/system/dynamic interacts with its environment, and there are outcomes/results/consequences, which set up the conditions for the next interaction.<br /><br /> Let's consider physical systems and patterns: A system or pattern (let's say a desert, a supernova, an organism, or a capacity) persists or recurs wherever conditions and factors are sufficiently similar to sustain it as a continual outcome or generate it as a new or temporary outcome.<br /><br /> What organisms add above and beyond this physical dynamic (i.e., what they have that includes but transcends it) is reproduction/heredity.<br /><br /> Physical entities/phenomena (patterns) persist through internal dynamics or they recur because certain conditions are in place (e.g., a desert didn't exist here before, but it does now, and deserts show up whenever and wherever certain conditions are in place -- a phenomenon similar to convergent evolution in biological systems, in which eyes (for example) show up in different species that have no common ancestor with eyes).<br /><br /> Reproduction requires "survival until reproduction", so "survival" becomes a big deal, and can be extended beyond reproduction (just as sex can be used for other things than reproduction), but the evolutionarily relevant factor for biological persistence is "survival until reproduction." So "persistence" -- which in nonliving systems is simply continuity of form until external or internal dynamics change the form -- shows up in biological systems as linear survival and reproduction (heredity).<br /><br /> So all that is good as far as it goes. But what are the dynamics of physical persistence? It seems we primarily attend to what makes physical systems change, a la Newton -- they persist unless acted upon by an external force: persistence is the given. Interestingly, the evolutionary dynamic of natural selection is an integrated mix of persistence and change. Is there a similarly elegant theoretical integration of persistence and change for physical systems?<br /><br /> And then we have the question of conscious systems, cultural systems, or some other "include and transcend" systems beyond "merely" biological ones. What is their elegant integration of persistence and change that would shed light on how to more consciously evolve our social systems? Something tells me there are keys in complexity and chaos theories, and possibly in feedback dynamics, which I haven't seen framed quite like this before. Also, Peggy Holman's inquiry about the evolution of interactivity, itself, may be key....Tom Atleehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02805089235874252851noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6912611465045779019.post-22979017624197953562007-07-29T20:01:00.001-07:002007-07-29T20:26:24.296-07:00OK, time to get started, for real...I've been doing lots of reading and thinking and conversations for the last several months, but have been longing to get down to this research project really seriously. I think I'll have much more time for it in August (until the <a href="http://storyfieldconference.net/">Story Field Conference</a>, and a bunch of gigs afterwards, into mid-September), and then late September and most of October, when Michael Dowd's <a href="http://thankgodforevolution.com/"><span style="font-style: italic;">Thank God for Evolution!</span></a> comes out and things may take off in unpredictable ways.<br /><br />So... I've read Robert Wright's <span style="font-style: italic;">Nonzero</span> and John Stewart's <span style="font-style: italic;">Evolution's Arrow</span>, and bits of Brian Swimme and Thomas Berry's <span style="font-style: italic;">The Universe Story</span> and Joel Primack's and Nancy Ellen Abrams' <span style="font-style: italic;">The View From the Center of the Universe</span> -- and I just today finished David Sloan Wilson's <span style="font-style: italic;">Evolution for Everyone</span>. And I've read a number of articles and watched Michael Dowd and Connie Barlow's DVDs -- and had many discussions with them and did lots of editing work on Michael's <span style="font-style: italic;">TGFE!</span> book (above). So I'm off to a good start.<br /><br />During the next week I hope to go through the Wilson book again, mining it for dynamics that could be used to change social systems and/or useful overview theory. Then I'll tackle <span style="font-style: italic;">The Universe Story</span> to expand beyond Darwinian perspectives on evolution into the cosmic realm.<br /><br />One of my meta-inquiries is "What is the general principle(s) that 'natural selection' is a manifestation of, which applies to non-biological systems, including physical systems starting with the big bang?" Something about the evolution of choice, in the sense of increasing possibilities or <span style="font-weight: bold;">options</span>, and the relationship of that to <span style="font-weight: bold;">persistence</span> (in biological systems, "survival" and "reproduction"). Like "<span style="font-weight: bold;">options that persist tend to interact to generate new options and broader fields of possibility</span>" (a phenomenon which relates to the supposed <span style="font-style: italic;">directionality</span> of evolution towards greater <span style="font-style: italic;">complexity</span>).<br /><br />Another (related) meta-inquiry comes out of my past as an activist and process/conversation convenor -- a believer in the evolutionary power of conversation to generate emergent phenomena: How do cosmic and biological principles relate to this seeming power of conversation?<br /><br />Some of this came together this morning in a conversation with my life partner Karen. Here is an overly theoretical model (rather than interesting narrative :( ) of what emerged -- a sort of touchstone of notes to work with more later:<br /><br />1. GUIDANCE: Genes don't direct how we will relate to our environment. They provide a pallette of options for relating to a range of environments that have been relevant in the past. Traditional knowledge serves the same purpose.<br /> CORROLARY: It isn't a question of nature or nurture, genes or environment. It is a question of how genes (or traditional memes) manifest in or interact with specific environments.<br /><br />2. STRESS: When we encounter an environment/situation/challenge for which we have no clear option in our pallette of options we<br /><br /> a. FREEZE - deer in the headlights, get stuck, get depressed, are part of systems paralyzed by conflict<br /><br /> b. SUBMIT - to some authority who will decide for us (sometimes wise and kind, sometimes despotic and stupid). Letting go (into mystery, accepting God's will, etc.) is a form of this.<br /><br /> c. REFLECT - through (personal or collective) deliberation, conversation, scientific inquiry, etc., to generate new options for our pallette. This is where intelligence and creativity come in.<br /><br />Submission and reflection provide leadership that can embody or replace genetic or traditional memetic guidance, while reflection can generate new forms of guidance that become embodied in the traditions and knowledge-bases of (1).<br /><br /><br />We are nurturing a form of evolutionary leadership that grounds itself in the powers of genetics and tradition while providing wise, compassionate guidance for reflection and the systemic supports for reflection, so that every stress generates new wise guidance.<br /><br /><br />This represents the evolution of choice -- of <span style="font-style: italic;">the range of choices</span> and <span style="font-style: italic;">where choices come from</span> -- which began with the Big Bang and has come to the place of wise evolutionary leadership that uses interactive process to generate new choices (possibilities) from challenges, diversity, dissonance and stress. (This begins to make sense of <a href="http://tobe.net/">Jim Rough</a>'s naming his process "choice creating").Tom Atleehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02805089235874252851noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6912611465045779019.post-61666257722962814932007-04-29T12:27:00.001-07:002007-04-29T12:27:45.219-07:00Getting startedI'll be using this blog to explore evolutionary dynamics that can be used to change social systems.Tom Atleehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02805089235874252851noreply@blogger.com0