These are the first four segments in a larger series of exchanges between myself and Gemini, Google’s Large Language Model AI about life, the universe, and everything. The plan is to release about one video a day.
How did we come to see things the way we do? What events defined us? How are we informed? How do the defining forces and information contained within nature influence what we experience now as being? What role can and do we play in participating in the defining process?
If we trace the meaning of the English word “order” backward in time as far as the murky depths of history will allow, we see its early modern “subjective life” was a description of persons living as a group under a shared religious discipline. Religious orders were (and are) communities living apart from the rest of society, separated by devotion to certain rituals and practices believed to be sacred by the group. The behaviors and ideas that define an order of this type were typically laid out by a founder and later preserved by a committed group of devotees who would preserve the activity through time.
Further back in time, the word order can be traced to an earlier French word ordre. This meant “position, estate, rule, regulation, or religious order” Still earlier was the word “ordene”. This emerged from a still older Latin word; “ordinem”, which meant “row, line, rank; series, pattern, arrangement, or routine. The earliest roots are thought to mean a row of threads in a loom. The origin story of order gets fuzzier from there.
The meaning of words transforms over time. All descriptive words are an attempt to identify a certain domain of persistent patterns – a coherent object of some particular type – an order. We distinguish various “things” from their surroundings by way of the self-similar patterns that differentiate one ordered structure from another. A body of water is distinguished from the landscape and atmosphere that surrounds it by way of specific patterns. The objective forms we see expressed as objects in the natural world are identified by patterns. Unlike verbs which describe the animated relationship between objects, nouns originate from the naming of objective forms.
The word order is now generally associated with the condition of logical, coherent, or comprehensible arrangements of parts operating together as a whole. Related parts centered on a unified purpose are “ordered”. The shared purpose can be built of ideas, people, physical parts, or any combination. Ordered systems are built on relationship bonds that form a coherent whole – a pattern in the mist. This is not to say all orders are constructive. Order makes large-scale integrity of objective forms possible. Along with planets and stars which are ordered systems, businesses, organizations, organisms, and societies are organized by way of specific order.
Agreement on which side of the road to drive and so on are the roots of coherent social bodies. Order is when separate elements relate to each other in a specifically patterned way. This pattern – this agreement between parts – is what we sense as coherent. Ordered forms express coherent reliable expressions. They have a predictable quality that persists through time as long as the rules that govern the order nourish and protect it as a coherent form. We are products of order. The essence of the idea of order involves the emergence of relationships that contribute to the property of coherence.
Order is the means by which structures persist in the context of their local environment. Nature is a selection matrix that favors relationships that contribute to persistent coherence. This natural economics of relationships defines the patterns of relationships that emerge as coherent forms from the environmental womb. These patterns persist by way of contributing value as nourishing and protective agents of form. A membrane of coherence is how we sense distinct objects. Over time a development process of increasingly complex coherent patterns occurs. Patterns join with others to produce more layered and complex forms of order. These are still built around the principle value of nourishing and protecting coherence. The principle economic currency of relationships that emerge in nature is based on whether the return of coherence value is greater than the cost of generating it. This is the birthplace of the current state of patterns that have emerged so far, including us.
If the scientific map of past cosmological history is correct, base elements like hydrogen and helium were formed from an energetic field. This foundation of order led to stars that produced higher elements. This generated a platform for more complex relationship environments such as clusters, galaxies, and nebulae. This matrix of relationships is the one we now dwell in and of which we are made. This directional flow toward order is based on the relationships that contribute most to coherence in the context of their local environment. We are part of this grand developmental story.
Relationships that form in the past become the defining womb that makes the present possible. This transformational journey of emergence sets the stage for the future. The constant in the ever-changing forms we experience as nature is relationships that are able to produce persistent patterns are what persist as coherent objects. Objects are born of the defining properties of the environmental womb from which they emerge. The environment is the governing body that gives rise to form. There is a parent-child aspect to this development process. Depending on perspective, the environment and objects within them are intertwined in a parent-child relationship. Necessity really is the mother of invention.
What does nature say about our place? Who are we, where did we come from, and where are we going? What is our story and what role, if any, do we play in it? Questions like these have typically been the domain of religious narratives – explanatory stories that differ widely from culture to culture but share common plot narrative structures within them. These culture-orienting maps formed and propagated in the context of local social and cultural environments and blended as humans began developing trade routes, serving as a way of explaining place, origin, and destination. They are the lens through which we understand ourselves. Although the maps differ on the surface, they share a common root. Nature is the source of the story. We will explore this connection deeper in part 5.
Nature is a relationship economy built on a currency of coherence. It is self-evident that some relationship expressions work in nature and some don’t. The relationships that work, persist and tend to replicate. This favoritism of the patterns of relationship that contribute coherence value over those that do not generate self-similar patterns of behavior. These cyclic patterns of relationship are expressions of nature’s value system. We see this expression of patterned forms as objects. The currency of value in nature is coherence.
Biologically speaking, we are defined by a set of chemical and electric signals and responses. These relationships are centered on nourishing and defending the continuation of our coherent form in the context of the environment. The local biological relationship economy we call “human” requires a certain threshold of devotion to responding effectively to the necessities of remaining coherent in the context of the local environment. Like all organisms, indeed all objects, we are defined by our place. The environment is the defining womb in which objective forms are born and develop. We are one of the many story arcs of development expressed by nature.
Repeating patterns of environmental influence are responded to with patterns of perception and response centered on the value of coherence. Environments make defining statements about what is necessary to exist. Objects in these contexts become resonant responses to these necessities. This “statement and resonant reply” pattern expressed through nature may be why we are so tickled by music as a species. Music is composed of patterns of statements and resonant responses.
For an object to exist over time a resonant response to the regular patterns expressed by the environment must be present for an objective form to remain coherent. Because the environment is an expression of ordered patterns as well as a certain amount of random (chaos), a devotion to resonant patterns must be coupled with attendance to less cyclic and or novel environmental conditions. Objects must occasionally contend with discord to remain coherent. When the need for novel adaptation arises, as organisms, we are tuned to search for novel ways to adapt – we are driven to participate in a quest to defend and or restore equilibrium when it is threatened by antagonistic expressions of value. We are compelled at times to find our place again – to contend effectively with remaining coherent under new conditions.
Nature expresses more than process. Meaning is conveyed through the structure. Our story, for instance, is one of a journey of discovery and participation in the necessary devotion to a proportional blend of ritual and adaptation to novelty. This meaning expressed through our objective form is because we are a coherent expression of nature. The natural womb that conceived and fed us is what we reflect. It was and is our guide and instructor. As a blend of order and chaos, we are patterns interspersed with a specific attendance to novelty. We see this reflected in our individual and community stories. If we sample organized systems on various scales we see the defining marks of nature’s shaping hand. Objects contend with whatever is necessary to remain coherent in their environmental context. We are defined by our place.
Because biological organisms are tuned to resonate with the necessities of remaining coherent, our form is a reflection of both the regular patterns of expression of varying cyclic length in the environment as well as a certain capacity to perceive and respond to comparatively unique, random influences. Since this pattern of regularity and novelty is what the current environment looks like, we are a mirror image of these defining necessities. When we harmonically resonate with the defining call of the environment, the reward is continuing coherence. When our behavioral expressions drift too far from harmonic resonance, we become incoherent.
Because organisms must be a blend of consistency and adaptability to exist in nature’s defining matrix, a consistent pattern of properties in objective structure emerges. For instance; a stratified system of well-conserved patterns at the core of coherent organized structures. The relationships between these core structures is based on mutual benefit. They need to respond to each other’s needs in order for each to exist. This core architecture is surrounded by increasingly more flexible adaptive expressions that persist based on their coherence value. This blend of qualities defines coherent objects. Nature is the womb that defines objective forms. The more harmonic the objective response to the defining properties of the environment we are baptized in, the more persistent our coherence.
In developmental biology, local groups of cells that are fine-tuned to perceive a range of signals and respond in specific ways give rise to the various cell types, organs, and systems that contribute to what we know as a fully formed human. The development of specific morphological structures such as organs, the vascular and immune systems emerge from this defining matrix. This perception and response engine tuned to the local necessities of coherence is the grammar on which the language of objects is expressed. What is coherent or incoherent is based on a relationship economy with a central currency of value. That value is based on denominations of coherence. That which lends itself to serving coherence best is valued most. Evidence of this is how frequent and persistent the form is across space and time.
Quarks and atoms of the first order like hydrogen and helium were nature’s first fruits. These objective seeds gave rise to stars which gave rise to higher elemental forms. This led to the language of chemical evolution and eventually resulted in biological evolution. This includes us. We are a testament to the way nature’s developmental process produces structures built on the currency of coherence. The nested architectures in service of coherence from which we are composed is an expression of this value system. It also signals a way forward that depends on how aligned our expressions are with the necessities of coherence. Do we nourish and defend the environmental womb that nourishes and defends us? The response to this question determines whether we will persist or not.
Whoever Defines the Argument Has Already Won (Part 1)
Storytellers have a large amount of control in the human social economy. Although we don’t define the influence of things like gravity, light, atomic bonds, and heat on our experience, we do influence is the way this matrix of objective defining forces is interpreted. This has powerful implications. Brute force is not as powerful a defining influence in human social systems as faith is. The stories we come to believe about ourselves and the world become the tool by which we see and decide how to act.
The defining influences that shape the maps we use as a lens emerges from many sources. Among these is the broad-based communication inherent in the natural world. This physical matrix is an objective form of communication. It informs us who we are, what context we’re in, and what the opportunities and dangers are as we navigate this space. We infuse this natural-born map with our own emphasis using abstract methods for various reasons. How this blended map is structured determines how we frame the world. This influences how we act.
How we decipher raw data into action is the primary means of influence we have on nature’s broader defining matrix. It is our voice. Even if we never come to recognize our role it is still there as a latent possibility. This power to influence by way of story is so important that the contest for control over the map that governs us has been a preoccupation of humans ever since we crossed the population threshold of about 150 persons. Tribes are stitched together by a story. Stories are the currency of relationships within and between groups. Whether we forge mutually beneficial bonds between each other and the groups we encounter or take an antagonistic tone is governed by the stories we embrace.
It is not money, but stories that define how modern human social bodies operate. Money is just one of the many subplots swirling in a much broader galaxy of ideas. Governments, laws, businesses, and notions like justice and injustice – race, identity, citizenship, caste systems, and so on are all stories. So is how we view our place in the context of the broader natural world. How we treat each other and other organisms, what side of the road we travel on, and what authority structures we bow to are all based on the currency of stories. What we consider important, what we ignore, our name, our entire identity from that which we are seen as, to the way we see ourselves, is a story.
Exploring the basis of this defining narrative as well as some of the mechanisms and motivations by which our particular participation in the grander story happens is of value. By unveiling the engine of experience we can strategically apply that information to meaningful effect. We can become better equipped to define what we experience from within. The alternative to this is to be carried on the currents of defining forces imposed solely from the outside – to ride from womb to tomb a defined being, having never developed the capacity to define. We can become participants with a voice but it’s not a birthright. We have to work hard toward specific discoveries and practice the disciplines that can bring these discoveries to a mature state of fruition.
Panarchy is the name that describes this cyclic pattern of development on the biological landscape. The theory outlines how the complexities of dynamic systems scale across space and time by way of predictable patterns. At each scale, such as within a life span of the transitional journey of a species over time we see phases of growth, conservation, release, and reorganization. This model, however, applies to all complex systems such as social organizations like culture, businesses, nation-states, and the planet.
Evolution demands that organisms go through periodic birthing sequences on a number of scales in order to maintain coherence with respect to a changing environment. This is the essence of the development of net new traits that are suited to these environmental variables. As members of the biological economy, we have had to negotiate this sequence of seasonal developmental surges since the dawn of time.
When the former ways of being are no longer relevant, we undergo a type of birthing process. Expelled from a former environmental womb that can no longer sustain us, we are compelled to search for new ways of being. We must pioneer new territory and new ways of being because the old ways no longer serve to nourish and protect our integrity. Our cultural myths capture this as chaotic change events followed by the search for promised lands.
When single-celled creatures left the hydrothermal vents, when biofilms and multicellularity emerged, when fish came to explore the land, and when flowering plants and insects emerged, these were examples of response to environmental necessities. The antagonism of change brings about the necessity of innovation but this is a messy process. Birth can be bloody and painful but it is a necessary part of the developmental cycle when our former environmental womb can no longer carry us. As humans, we once had to leave the safety of the trees and wander the savannah looking for new ways to carve out a sustainable niche. We developed a number of new strategies to survive in different environments.
This birth-type architecture is always present but it pops up on large scales whenever the regular patterns of existence are disrupted to the degree that the former patterns no longer serve. When farming transformed into industrial economies we saw things like the Taiping Rebellion and the rise of Communism and Capitalism as quasi-religious movements with all the trappings of moral superiority and chasing down heretics to destroy them. These things are a response to the widespread angst of birthing new ways of life. To understate the disruptive aspects of these kinds of phases, we could call them cultural growing pains.
This natural protocol of conception and growth establishing an equilibrium followed by saturation and the necessity to leave (or extend past) our former place is archetypal. We see this pattern repeated in our recorded history on many scales and under many causal formats from political and environmental to technological. From a technological perspective, agriculture, writing, the industrial revolution, and the information age are of the same order of disruption as are environmental tipping points. In fact; we are undergoing a technologically induced birthing phase of monumental proportions right now.
As technology tames the means of production, we are increasingly undergoing a post-work type of world. As a species, we are not equipped to entrepreneurially recognize that we are biologically wired to hunger for ways to nourish and protect the community that nourishes and protects us. Our purpose was once defined by necessity. The immediate demands of survival in the local environment informed us of our purpose and the necessary tasks associated with it.
The enormous wealth pouring out of increasing technology also erodes the mechanism by which our former sense of purpose was established. Our confusion and angst are expressed in a number of ways, such as quiet desperation, hyper-attraction to busy distractions, addictions, retreat to virtual worlds, and open unrest. This disquieted social climate is fertile ground for populists and niche movements that market themselves as the way to a new promised land.
Alongside this unsettled undercurrent is a dawning recognition that we share the same environmental womb and that we must nourish and protect it just as it nourishes and protects us. This awareness and its practical application can lead us to the next phase of development. As with any birthing process, it is bloody and painful with a risk of death. We need to learn new skills to survive and thrive in the new environment. I for one hope we embrace the notion that having each other’s backs and that of the extended environment in which we live and on which we depend is a recipe for continuity and reemergent cycles of growth. In short, it is the way to a future that readily returns the continuous dividends waiting to be cultivated if we get our bearings correct.
As far as I can tell, embracing some form of map that lays out the universal principles of where our metaphorical bread is buttered as our shared navigation aid can unlock the available opportunities for a constructive fruitful purpose. In fact, this message has been there in the shadows all along. It is understandable we have not seen it clearly as a species. When in the heat of battle it is hard to see the principles at work in the larger arc of development.
Nature endows us with our current form by necessity. We are stitched together in the womb by these necessities. The continuing integrity of our species depends on a behavioral architecture that pays homage to these demands on many levels. This relationship landscape is a process but it is also a communication. It states that forms that serve as a means of establishing and maintaining coherence are necessary, therefore favored. It also says that coherence value is context dependent on the environment. We breathe air, therefore we need a nourishing atmosphere.
We have to nourish and protect the womb that nourishes and protects us. If we do not get how the relationship economy of nature operates and embrace these necessities, nature will still be “on the job”. If we fail to negotiate, we will be erased, and some other collection of sufficiently mutualistic and protective relationships that can navigate forward through time as a coherent entity will emerge. This natural draw to a mature coherent conclusion is inevitable.
Our current predicament/opportunity is because, at some point in development, as we saturate the carrying capacity of the planet, the discovery and application of this principle of coherence become critical to survival. We will either discover we are part of a singular body of life that extends beyond our species and encompasses the entire body of life and the environment in which it dwells, or we miss the mark on life itself.
The Wisdom Of Life 