Peggy wrote
I have
been in an inquiry over the last number of months around what would it mean
if we put INTERACTIONS at the center of evolutionary dynamics rather than
the current approach which highlights a progression of how things evolve
(e.g., evolution of galaxies, stars, planets, geology, species, cultures,
etc.).
There is a dynamism to a relational view that for me, gets lost when the
focus is on fitness (a la Darwin.) I think if we switch the foreground and
background, moving the visible patterns of the path of evolution into the
background for a while so that we can explore the entirely different set of
questions and patterns that come out of paying attention to relationships
and interactions, we may uncover some very useful insights for our work.
I couldn't agree more Peggy. Evolution of... whatever is described as
if it was some objective and frozen reality, as if the description of
that evolution is concrete and a singular possibility not a
description made from the observation of the describer. It is not
that I don't see any purpose that can come out of that scale. I just
think that it is as easy to wander from the permeable edge of
possibility at that scale as it is at scale represented in our day to
day living. Both can be very small and closed if the patterns we
discover are used as a singular truth. I think that if we focus on
the interactions at whatever scale keeps us at the permeable edge
where life happens. My own predisposition is to explore the micro
world for understanding. I started out in this world as a quilter.
It is the first transformative work I ever did. In quilting you start
building from the center and if you make a 1/4 inch error in
representing your pattern it will become inches out square before you
get to the outside edge because they are so large. I think that is a
metaphor that is true for large systems like galaxies too. Anyway I
tend to see the quilt from the stitches that it is built from and tend
to look at the world through the living of a cell.
I am thinking about this switching of the foreground and background
that you suggested and realize I don't really know what the evolution
conversations are. The problem for me in a typical science way of
thinking is that evolution is viewed in the past tense as if we were
reading a book. Those conversations feel less productive to me as I
can't get to the now from them, it doesn't get me to the edge of the
event. But I think evolution is happening now. The evolving body has
a present whether that is a galaxy, an immune system or a cell.
I find Maturana, Varela and some of their colleagues in thought to be
very helpful to be in finding language to talk about this. Huberto
Maturana calls the most primary of interactions structured coupling.
Maturana defines structured coupling as recurrent interactions leading
to the structured congruence between 2 or more systems. In other
words these entities trigger perturbations with their presence or
being which triggers responses from other entities like the
environment they are located. I think so many of the other
conversations that have been woven together into this conversation are
present in the moment of this exchange. This seems to me to be the
most foundational conversation that can be had. The entities,
especially those we classify as living in a traditional western
science model have to have an identity to converse in this way and the
conversation itself discloses a pattern of identity and relationships.
I am not a Maturana scholar but I think it would be fair to say that
in his work this is an example of languaging. This is the languaging
that occurs in action and interaction. It is not the talking about it
kind of talking. It is a more primary communication, it is the
talking in. It is a communication through action. This talking lays
down a pattern that becomes the history of the evolution of the
conversation. There is a difference between the actual conversation
and the recording of the conversation.
Open space is for me nothing less than a brilliant expression of this
dance. Every component of the process that we explore has a
counterpart on this bio logic level. The regular conversation about
is less more in the introduction is explored in immune responses.
Immune responses to a stimulus happen at the lowest possible level so
that the body will survive the response. The chat about what is micro
and what is macro. I agree with Arturo that there is that micro and
macro pulse going on but am now wondering if there is still another
whole level of nano micro to explore. There is the part of the
facilitator just holding space, of them being the space. In the
current musings I am wondering if the holding of space is not the most
fundamental agent? In my experience it is the one thing when laking
that seems to insure systems failures.
If interactions are a central focus, then understanding what draws us
together and what tears us apart is key. I see our work as smack dab in
understanding the nature of interactions in social systems.
For me, that is what community is when our hearts are open (and the love
flows) and we feel our connection to each other and the larger whole. When
our hearts are closed (like when we are fearful), we are still connected, it
is just that the connections are invisible. And so most of us act out, as
if we are alone.
Interactions do keep us at that primary languaging level. Language is
not an abstraction at that level. It is not about anything it is. As
I think about this know I wonder whether one of the outcomes of
languaging at the secondary level doesn't keep us at responding to a
current stimulus with evolutionary history level response? I wonder
how the fear /love forces for interaction are in play here? I wonder
what implications that would have in how we do social justice work
which probably always has a evolutionary history component?
Lots to wonder about.
Pat
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