Biospheric insights into whether the brutal collapse of societies is the normal human trajectory—or whether more stable forms of civilized existence are possible.
You did not mention philosophical idealism, which is completely consonant with quantum physics, and is rapidly accumulating experimental evidence and academic interest. Best of all, it is likely to have the most positive effect on the biosphere through various means.
Currently we have a system of inheritance where the work of the previous generation can be passed down to the next to build upon for the growth of society, this has lead to value based barriers of inclusion. How long do we expect these to be abided by when the added stress of overpopulation in certain areas of the world will not understand the length of time based moderation it takes to build these societies? I agree that many minds make light work but and specialization is the key to productivity but do we not all need to breed at the same rate for this to work when the biggest constraint we now face is scarcity of space? this just leads to the other problem that to understand the biophysical functions of our life support system which is the natural evolution of life as we know it we need access to it, to immerse ourselves in it, an act of osmosis that allows us to moderate ourselves in the natural frequencies of life. The Tao of physics where the emphasis is on relationships, patterns, and processes instead of isolated objects. To find a place in this I believe is our goal yet the more we populate the less ability we have.
Greek root of entropy (“a turning toward” or “transformation”) aligns beautifully with the second law of thermodynamics describing the direction of transformation—toward states with more possible micro-configurations. I think we need to understand this as this holds the key to our success as a species as it has been the process of evolution.
Thank you Anastasia for a very deep and thoughtful post, conjoining a number of important lines of thought. Very powerful, I think, and worth deep contemplation!
A couple of preliminary thoughts.
1) The Sceptical (Empirical/Emergent) Enlightenment: William James held that Hume was on the right track, but he got some things wrong. Unfortunately, James felt, there were no adequate successors to correct those wrongs, and instead Kant's philosophy of transcendental idealism gained predominance. James believed Kant to be basically irrelevant, and he proposed a correction of Hume's wrongs via his "Radical Empiricism," which is based on both subjective and objective experience that is inclusive of a "full fact." These full facts are held together in a web of relations that I believe are consistent with your observations of how living systems work.
Alfred North Whitehead is another important contributor to this line of thinking, with his "philosophy of organism" that is consistent with James. Whitehead said, "For Kant, the world emerges from the subject; for the philosophy of organism, the subject emerges from the world."
This process-relational view holds that relationships and patterns emerge from the world, and become felt qualities of experience for us. I believe that when we can begin to name these patterns and be able to talk about them in a pattern language, we can then develop a stronger set of datum of experience with which to further refine our language, which can then further extend our lived experience, as long as we stay engaged in the process of this reciprocal and codeterminate relationship.
This is what we're trying to do with the pattern language called PatternDynamics, developed by Permaculture pioneer Tim Winton.
2) The Maximum Power Principle: I think you've made an important contribution to this concept here in this post, and I will spend more time with this. I have a post in the works myself on MPP, and I feel it is often over-simplified to explain "power-over" dynamics. HT Odum himself, beginning in his first paper on the topic (“Time’s Speed Regulator: The Optimum Efficiency for Maximum Power Output in Physical and Biological Systems.”), noted that MPP manifests differently depending on conditions, most importantly the availability of energy.
You've underscored this point in your post above with various examples from different living systems. Here's a quote from Odum himself:
"It is a well-known property of growth acceleration that the competitor that starts first wins out. Thus in capitalism enterprises that begin by borrowing money to get a quick start win out as long as resources are not limiting. Later, after all sources are in use, they are replaced with more diversity, more controls, and longer-lasting structures. But many, if not most, people believe humans are somehow above the limits of energy resources. Ignorance about energy develops during a lifetime of accelerating growth.”
Thank you, David. Regarding "after all sources are in use, they are replaced with more diversity, more controls, and longer-lasting structures", this is not exactly so, in my view, because there is this option of a centralized structure forming to subdue others and claim all or most resources. This is how empires arise. A lot depends on what "all resources" mean in this context.
One of my main statements is that "a spontaneous increase in size and energy consumption—even when it appears to be accompanied by greater specialization and complexity of internal parts—can be understood not as a gain in orderliness, but as a common route of decay of a formerly persistent population of smaller objects. That is why human society has anti-monopoly laws."
This runs counter to the idea that more complexity is associated with greater energy consumption. It is not the "right" complexity.
Yes another masterpiece that explains the intricate working of nature that is beyond my knowledge of the relevant science(s).
It is our collective disconnection from nature that is holding us back from effective and lasting climate and environmental action.
I think that our community group, as part of the Community Sustainability Hub, is now some years down the track of implementing. The priority now is to grow more food. This requires that a fragmented community be brought together.
Anastassia, Excellent article showing your wide breadth of thought. The Global Earth Repair Convergence, which you will be contributing to, seeks to help with this global coordination and mutual understanding you speak of.
Anastassia, yes, since both are quite spherical, elephants have a smaller surface-to-volume ratio and better heat retention than mice. However, unlike teapots designed to minimize surface area for maximum heat retention, elephants and mice are alive with ears. This gives them the agency to regulate, holding heat to warm or releasing heat to cool.
You address the seminal question of whether individuals are well off at the expense of civil society, and hunkering down and going local, turning their backs on community suffering.
Not sure if we're more spherical or more sponge, let’s look for the ears changing homeostasis. The Industrial Revolution replaced agrarian society, creating profit-driven consumerism in which even farmers were compelled to turn a profit for the captains of industry, who hawked chemical fertilizers and “labor-saving” contraptions at great expense to the land. Workers were poisoned and deprived of the flocks of birds that used to forage in fields.
Second, the government gave corporations individual rights. No longer an integral part of communities where the health of any individual was a concern for all. Instead, when millworkers in Lowell struck demanding compensation for brown lung and the loss of limbs on the job, the Bread and Roses Strike, J.P. Stevens Company, like an individual, was free to move to North Carolina, where those desperate for work would not complain.
It's time we turned the tables by calling for the Earth Rehydration Revolution, since the Industrial Revolution has done quite enough, thank you.
Harriet Rix writes about how trees first had to be good at communicating before they could stand close together, close enough to form forests, strong in their unity. How can humans get it together to demonstrate the genius of trees with compassionate solidarity?
"Meanwhile, the woody parts of trees, which make up most of their visible biomass (several hundred gigatons of carbon globally), are largely metabolically inactive, apart from the thin cambium layer. They do not consume energy, but serve structural purposes. That is why trees can remain alive even when their trunks are severely damaged, like the willow below."
-- the willow in the photo in the post grows on the White Sea coast.
Recently I saw an even more remarkable example, with a live tree having a dead trunk with holes. This tree lives near London
You did not mention philosophical idealism, which is completely consonant with quantum physics, and is rapidly accumulating experimental evidence and academic interest. Best of all, it is likely to have the most positive effect on the biosphere through various means.
Currently we have a system of inheritance where the work of the previous generation can be passed down to the next to build upon for the growth of society, this has lead to value based barriers of inclusion. How long do we expect these to be abided by when the added stress of overpopulation in certain areas of the world will not understand the length of time based moderation it takes to build these societies? I agree that many minds make light work but and specialization is the key to productivity but do we not all need to breed at the same rate for this to work when the biggest constraint we now face is scarcity of space? this just leads to the other problem that to understand the biophysical functions of our life support system which is the natural evolution of life as we know it we need access to it, to immerse ourselves in it, an act of osmosis that allows us to moderate ourselves in the natural frequencies of life. The Tao of physics where the emphasis is on relationships, patterns, and processes instead of isolated objects. To find a place in this I believe is our goal yet the more we populate the less ability we have.
Greek root of entropy (“a turning toward” or “transformation”) aligns beautifully with the second law of thermodynamics describing the direction of transformation—toward states with more possible micro-configurations. I think we need to understand this as this holds the key to our success as a species as it has been the process of evolution.
Thank you Anastasia for a very deep and thoughtful post, conjoining a number of important lines of thought. Very powerful, I think, and worth deep contemplation!
A couple of preliminary thoughts.
1) The Sceptical (Empirical/Emergent) Enlightenment: William James held that Hume was on the right track, but he got some things wrong. Unfortunately, James felt, there were no adequate successors to correct those wrongs, and instead Kant's philosophy of transcendental idealism gained predominance. James believed Kant to be basically irrelevant, and he proposed a correction of Hume's wrongs via his "Radical Empiricism," which is based on both subjective and objective experience that is inclusive of a "full fact." These full facts are held together in a web of relations that I believe are consistent with your observations of how living systems work.
Alfred North Whitehead is another important contributor to this line of thinking, with his "philosophy of organism" that is consistent with James. Whitehead said, "For Kant, the world emerges from the subject; for the philosophy of organism, the subject emerges from the world."
This process-relational view holds that relationships and patterns emerge from the world, and become felt qualities of experience for us. I believe that when we can begin to name these patterns and be able to talk about them in a pattern language, we can then develop a stronger set of datum of experience with which to further refine our language, which can then further extend our lived experience, as long as we stay engaged in the process of this reciprocal and codeterminate relationship.
This is what we're trying to do with the pattern language called PatternDynamics, developed by Permaculture pioneer Tim Winton.
2) The Maximum Power Principle: I think you've made an important contribution to this concept here in this post, and I will spend more time with this. I have a post in the works myself on MPP, and I feel it is often over-simplified to explain "power-over" dynamics. HT Odum himself, beginning in his first paper on the topic (“Time’s Speed Regulator: The Optimum Efficiency for Maximum Power Output in Physical and Biological Systems.”), noted that MPP manifests differently depending on conditions, most importantly the availability of energy.
You've underscored this point in your post above with various examples from different living systems. Here's a quote from Odum himself:
"It is a well-known property of growth acceleration that the competitor that starts first wins out. Thus in capitalism enterprises that begin by borrowing money to get a quick start win out as long as resources are not limiting. Later, after all sources are in use, they are replaced with more diversity, more controls, and longer-lasting structures. But many, if not most, people believe humans are somehow above the limits of energy resources. Ignorance about energy develops during a lifetime of accelerating growth.”
Hi David, Nice to see you on this substack. Skeeter. Good contributions by you.
Thank you Skeeter! Good to see you here!
Thank you, David. Regarding "after all sources are in use, they are replaced with more diversity, more controls, and longer-lasting structures", this is not exactly so, in my view, because there is this option of a centralized structure forming to subdue others and claim all or most resources. This is how empires arise. A lot depends on what "all resources" mean in this context.
One of my main statements is that "a spontaneous increase in size and energy consumption—even when it appears to be accompanied by greater specialization and complexity of internal parts—can be understood not as a gain in orderliness, but as a common route of decay of a formerly persistent population of smaller objects. That is why human society has anti-monopoly laws."
This runs counter to the idea that more complexity is associated with greater energy consumption. It is not the "right" complexity.
Very good points, Anastassia. Thank you for the reply.
Yes another masterpiece that explains the intricate working of nature that is beyond my knowledge of the relevant science(s).
It is our collective disconnection from nature that is holding us back from effective and lasting climate and environmental action.
I think that our community group, as part of the Community Sustainability Hub, is now some years down the track of implementing. The priority now is to grow more food. This requires that a fragmented community be brought together.
Thank You Anastassia. Can't you clear enough for a good garden and make use of, or share, some firewood?
I want these trees to live, John, not make firewood of them.
I certainly understand that, but where will you grow food?
Growing food is also part of human integration into ecology.
You can trust the large farms and the system for staples, of course.
Russia has passed through its periodic crisis in the 1990s.
The US is in the early days of its crisis.
Anastassia, Excellent article showing your wide breadth of thought. The Global Earth Repair Convergence, which you will be contributing to, seeks to help with this global coordination and mutual understanding you speak of.
Anastassia, yes, since both are quite spherical, elephants have a smaller surface-to-volume ratio and better heat retention than mice. However, unlike teapots designed to minimize surface area for maximum heat retention, elephants and mice are alive with ears. This gives them the agency to regulate, holding heat to warm or releasing heat to cool.
You address the seminal question of whether individuals are well off at the expense of civil society, and hunkering down and going local, turning their backs on community suffering.
Not sure if we're more spherical or more sponge, let’s look for the ears changing homeostasis. The Industrial Revolution replaced agrarian society, creating profit-driven consumerism in which even farmers were compelled to turn a profit for the captains of industry, who hawked chemical fertilizers and “labor-saving” contraptions at great expense to the land. Workers were poisoned and deprived of the flocks of birds that used to forage in fields.
Second, the government gave corporations individual rights. No longer an integral part of communities where the health of any individual was a concern for all. Instead, when millworkers in Lowell struck demanding compensation for brown lung and the loss of limbs on the job, the Bread and Roses Strike, J.P. Stevens Company, like an individual, was free to move to North Carolina, where those desperate for work would not complain.
It's time we turned the tables by calling for the Earth Rehydration Revolution, since the Industrial Revolution has done quite enough, thank you.
Harriet Rix writes about how trees first had to be good at communicating before they could stand close together, close enough to form forests, strong in their unity. How can humans get it together to demonstrate the genius of trees with compassionate solidarity?
In case this sounds interesting :-) -the Co-creation with the More-than-Human sandbox 🌿🌱🐞🌳🌸💦🏔️ now also has a home on Substack: https://repatterningcollective.substack.com/s/co-creation-with-the-more-than-human
In case this sounds interesting :-) -the Co-creation with the More-than-Human sandbox 🌿🌱🐞🌳🌸💦🏔️ now also has a home on Substack: https://repatterningcollective.substack.com/s/co-creation-with-the-more-than-human
"Meanwhile, the woody parts of trees, which make up most of their visible biomass (several hundred gigatons of carbon globally), are largely metabolically inactive, apart from the thin cambium layer. They do not consume energy, but serve structural purposes. That is why trees can remain alive even when their trunks are severely damaged, like the willow below."
-- the willow in the photo in the post grows on the White Sea coast.
Recently I saw an even more remarkable example, with a live tree having a dead trunk with holes. This tree lives near London
https://www.linkedin.com/posts/georgetrott_how-fricken-cool-is-this-i-found-this-activity-7450812800492490753-XqUu?utm_source=social_share_send&utm_medium=member_desktop_web&rcm=ACoAADnO6ZoBp_xP2jOGHwwgWh32owe18d7pjxU