1. Chapter 3- Section 2-
Life And It's Human Form
This journey begins in the objectively verified world described by the most basic tenets
of science. I am taking science as my starting point since it has the widest and most
consistent foundation in observations of the world as we find it. It's broad
accomplishments are generally unassailable. Therefore, it is assumed that the physical
world that science has described is obviously self-evident.
The first assumption that informs a proper understanding of this world is that there are
three aspects to understanding phenomena: structure, process, and pattern. I am going to
be proposing that our human form is unique because we experience narrative structure
that manifests as a pattern of identity through the meaning making process.
A new concept of self is implied by this proposition in which experience is viewed as a
by-product of subtle forces that interact with reality rather than a direct apprehension of a
pre-existing reality. What we can share with each other of our experiences makes up the
narrative world.
Narrative is a universal human trait. As a practitioner of a discipline, a member of a
community, a student of a topic, or an expert in a subject, I am fundamentally a
participant in a shared narrative regarding the objective world that constitutes that
discipline, community, topic or subject. As an educator, on the other hand, I am not
primarily concerned with the objective world of the given narrative, but with the
subjective world of that narrative. My job is to help my students to create a subjective
experience that allows them to participate meaningfully in the narrative of whatever
2. topic, subject, community, or discipline I am sharing as a teacher. (Obviously, discerning
relevance requires participation in the narrative, therefore, an educator must have at least
minimal expertise and/or familairity with the appropriate narrative in order to do their
job.)
The objective world and the subjective narrative are interdependent within human
experience. The objective world outside of human experience is presumably indifferent to
the narrative world and conversely subjective narratives can be indifferent to the
objective world, as well. Despite the capability of divorcing our narratives from reality,
most of us, most of the time, are actively interacting with the objective world as we
generate narratives of our experience.
The river of life is the flow of experiences and those experiences all have commmon
aspects of structure, process, and pattern. Understanding the river of life means
understanding the interactions of the different aspects and ideally being able to create a
model of those interactions that can help us make accurate predictions regarding that
experiential world.
There are more things in heaven and earth than are dreamt of in your philosophy,
Horatio.
William Shakespeare, Hamlet
There has arisen in this world a group of people who claim to know the world in all it's
diversity of forms. An extreme scientistic point of view claims to know the real world
and that existence beyond that world is an illusion. There is another group of people who
claim to have experienced the unity of all possible existence. An extreme spiritual point
of view claims knowledge of the reality of pure existence and that the world is an
illusion. These groups seem to be continuously in conflict and occaisonally vie for
control of important social institutions.
The river of life is the flow of experience. Everyone in the debate about what is real and
what is illusion have something of value to contribute, if for no other reason than they
have experienced a flow of events throughout their own lives. Given only a unity of
existence there is no reason to privilege one flow of experiences over another. The
challenge here is to have a unified method of describing that flow and it's characteristic
twists, turns, rapids and falls. With a unified method of description we could see where
each flow of experiences has gone and thereby determine the validity of each of their
claims relative to the other's claims (and any other flows of experience.) This would not
be a determination of any objective truth or falsity, but rather a relative determination of
why one claim is consistent with a particular type of flow of experiences which is invalid
from the perspective of a different flow of experiences.
The physical world is the completely uncontroversial world that the most basic sciences
describe and everyone can agree upon, although I am insisting that proper understanding
must integrate all three factors of structure, process, and pattern. I have relied on Fritjof
3. Capra's definition of life from his book The Web Of Life. I accept that the three factors
are obviously fundamental regardless of whether the precise definitions are exactly
correct. I also assume that they do not represent distinct and clearly differentiated aspects;
they are, in fact, aspects of an inseparable unity that are only distinguishable due to some
artifact of our abilities to observe, understand and then describe to each other our
observations and understandings.
The whirlpool is a non-living dissipative structure. Dissipative structures are a special
kind of structure that consists of a flow of material rather than a static unchanging mass
of material which we commonly think of when we discuss structure. The whirlpool is a
structure that is generated by the spontaneous interaction of liquid material that has
encountered certain conditions wherein the energy of a random flow becomes
spontaneously organized, and thus structured, to more efficiently dissipate the energy of
the flow. The system can be described as materially open, because the structure is entirely
dependent on the continuous movement of material through the system, unlike the
material machine system of say a bulldozer. The open system transforms energy, whereas
the closed system stores it. The material machine structure relies on a static, unchanging
set of material components. A living system is a particular kind of open system that
transforms the flow of not only material, but information, as well.
The fanciful picture of gears turning in a person's head is a metaphor for a complex
process that scientists now attribte to all living things. Cognition is the ability to
intelligently react and structurally adapt to changing conditions in order to preserve
existence. Even the most primitive single celled organisms have this ability which
entirely eludes all non-living things. The cognitive process involves interaction with the
environment in order to detect and subsequently act in response to conditions that
threaten the existence of the organism. The actions of living systems are not only
behvioral, but also structural. This is not the traditional idea of neurological brain activity
as cognition, but a broader concept that includes all intelligent behavior in response to
environmental condtions. For instance, even the amoeba, which has no nervous system is
able to react intelligently to changes in its environment, including making structural
changes.
The cognitive process guides the embodiment of the dissipative structure by way of the
autopoietic pattern. Life is defined by it's ability to participate in it's own creation. Just
like in the M.C. Escher drawing in which two hands seem to reach out from the page in
order to draw each other, living organisms play an important role in maintaining their
own continued existence.
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The New 3R's:
Respect, Responsibility, And Resourcefulness
4. Fore Word
Chapter 1- Chapter 2- Chapter 4- Chapter 5-
Mapping the River: The Titanic: Chapter 3- Thriving On A Life The Watercourse
Understanding The Our Scientific/ Global Cartography: Boat: Way:
Challenge Industrial Heritage Addressing The Making Narrative The Story Of
Subjective Challenge Choices In Techno- Navigation On The
Mechanical Reality River Of Life
Section 2- Section 3- Section 4- Section 5-
The Living World The Narrator The Self Illusions
Subsection 1-
The Human World
Aft Word
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