[p2p-research] peering with nature / natural inclusionality
Michel Bauwens
michelsub2004 at gmail.com
Fri Jul 2 17:13:59 CEST 2010
hi alan, when it does come out, we can give it book of the week treatment,
so come back to me then,
Michel
On Fri, Jul 2, 2010 at 10:11 PM, Alan Rayner (BU)
<a.d.m.rayner at bath.ac.uk>wrote:
> Thank you for the invitation!
>
> I guess you might, then, like to know about a significant development, in
> that I have a new book due to be published this year or early next year by
> 'O books', called ''NaturesScope".
>
> I have pasted some details below.
>
> Warmest
>
> Alan
>
> ------------------------------
>
>
> *NaturesScope*
>
> * *
>
> *Unlocking Our Natural Empathy and Creativity*
>
> * *
>
> * *
>
> * *
>
> *An inspiring new way of relating to our natural origins and one another
> through ‘natural inclusion’*
>
> * *
>
> * *
>
> * *
>
> * *
>
> * *
>
> * *
>
> *By Alan Rayner*
>
> * *
> *
> *
>
> *Preview*
>
> * *
>
> For thousands of years we have tried to study, interpret and teach
> ourselves *about* Nature from our own point of view, through the lenses of
> our telescopes, microscopes and binocular eyesight directed outwards. We see
> a rigidly framed objective picture ‘out there’ that does not include our
> selves yet upon which we project our own image and psychology. This one-way
> view has brought us into profound conflict with our natural origins and one
> another. ‘NaturesScope’ evokes a different view, *from* Nature, which
> brings human beings and the world into empathic mutual relationship. It
> assists us in enquiring imaginatively and creatively into how to turn the
> narrowed down objective worldview around and see our selves and our world
> through nature’s fluid lens of mutual inclusion. People who have experienced
> this view of natural inclusion have found it a source of profound
> inspiration.
> *About the Author*
>
> * *
>
> Alan Rayner is a naturalist who uses art, poetry and a new kind of
> mathematics, as well as rigorous science to enquire and communicate about
> our natural human neighbourhood. He was born in Nairobi, Kenya in 1950,
> educated at King’s College, Cambridge and is currently a Reader at the
> University of Bath. He has published over 150 scientific articles, 6 formal
> scientific books (including *Degrees of Freedom - Living in Dynamic
> Boundaries*), and six e books. He was President of the British Mycological
> Society in 1998 and has been a Miller Visiting Research Professor at the
> University of California, Berkeley.
>
> *List of Images*
>
> * *
>
> Page no.
>
> *‘Holding Openness’*
> 23
>
>
>
> ‘Vernal Illuminations’
> 34
>
>
>
> *‘Bowled Over’*
> 43
>
>
>
> ‘Figures of Space’
> 48
>
>
>
> ‘Fountains of the Forest’
> 56
>
>
>
> *‘Channel No. 5’*
> 62
>
>
>
> *‘How Compassion Fruits’*
> 72
>
>
>
> *‘Flow and Counterflow’*
> 95
>
>
>
> ‘Arid Confrontation’
> 122
>
>
>
> ‘Fungal Foraging’
> 123
>
>
>
> ‘Road Sign in Bali’
> 132
>
>
>
> ‘Willowy Bridge’
> 138
>
>
>
> *‘Honeysuckle Sharing Circle’*
> 143
>
>
>
> *‘I’m Migration’*
> 148
>
>
>
> ‘Loving Error’
> 166
>
>
>
> ‘The Hole in the Mole’
> 168
>
>
>
> *‘Opening Endings’*
> 181
>
>
>
>
> *
> *
>
> *Author’s Preface*
>
> * *
>
> * *
>
> On the morning of Tuesday 30th June, 2009, I had a strong sense of
> history, both in the making and in the breaking, as I prepared to give a
> talk on ‘Fungus-Tree Relationships’ in the very place where Darwin &
> Wallace’s paper on the ‘Origin of Species’ was first presented. My
> anxiety was not dispelled when recent President of the Linnaean Society,
> Professor David Cutler warned all speakers that Darwin’s eyes would be
> following them, from his enormous portrait on the wall! I addressed Darwin’s
> portrait and expressed my delight in his insight, as a naturalist, into the
> evolutionary kinship of all life, but my dismay in his rationalistic
> explanation of this kinship as a consequence of ‘natural selection, or the
> preservation of favoured races in the struggle for life’.
>
>
>
> For I knew that the key message I wished to get across is that we need to
> move on from the Darwin-inspired habit of thinking about trees, fungi and
> indeed all life forms as if they are self-centred objects, subject to the
> selective influence of external force. If we want to evolve more sensitive
> and sensible ways of working with them, we need to consider the dynamic
> context of the complex, variable, fluid neighbourhoods they truly and
> naturally inhabit. I also knew that practitioners who work with real life
> are intuitively already all too aware of this truth, yet may find it
> difficult to be explicit about as they struggle with standardized rules,
> regulations and formulae imposed by a rationalistic mindset fearful of
> uncertainty.
>
>
>
> How had I come to find myself in this situation?
>
>
>
> I have been working on the development of a way of explaining evolution
> that doesn't suffer from the inconsistencies, paradoxes and adverse social,
> psychological and environmental implications of natural selection theory. I
> have called this new explanation 'natural inclusion'. Briefly, ‘natural
> inclusion’ can be described as ‘*the co-creative
> transformation of all through all in receptive space*’.
>
> I was alerted to the problems of natural selection theory - arising from
> the fact that the logic of ‘selection’ isn’t actually ‘natural’ - by my many
> years of research on fungi and trees. I found that it wasn’t possible
> adequately to understand the variable dynamic relationships and patterns of
> development of these organisms by regarding them as if they are self-centred
> objects. Moreover, to do so may result in damaging instead of beneficial
> methods of managing trees and their cultivation, which neglect the
> ecological context in which they thrive - for example by growing trees in
> adverse soils and locations, intolerance of risk, and pruning and felling
> them inaptly or unnecessarily. It makes more sense to think of trees and
> fungi - and indeed all organisms - as naturally variable neighbourhoods or
> *flow-forms*, whose development and interrelationships are sensitively
> dependent on their environmental situation. Experienced practitioners are
> often more
> intuitively aware of this situation than theorists who attempt to formulate
> standard codes of practice.
>
> During the 1990s I gradually realized that these problems weren't confined
> to understanding trees and fungi but extended to how we human beings have
> mostly come to study, interpret and educate ourselves about the natural
> world and our place in it, based on a rationalistic, ‘whole way of thinking’
> that promotes profound intolerance and conflict. This rationalistic thinking
> is founded in the supposition - deeply embedded in
> orthodox mathematics, science, governance and theology - that matter can be
> isolated from space. There is neither any evidence for this supposition, nor
> does it make consistent sense of our experience. But the damaging effect
> that it has is to compel us to draw an imaginary hard line or
> ‘discontinuity’ between our individual ‘selves’ and our natural
> neighbourhood. This imaginary hard line is at the root of conflict between
> all kinds of intolerant fundamentalist ideologies as well as a source of
> great difficulty in predicting and relating to environmental change.
>
> Partly as a result of this realization, I stopped actively researching
> fungal and tree biology in 1999 and started to research in an
> interdisciplinary way with any artists, mathematicians, natural scientists,
> engineers, sociologists, therapists, theologians, philosophers, educators,
> former drug addicts, managers, organizations - and most
> especially Bath University undergraduates - I could find who shared my view
> that we have been teaching ourselves to think in a way that is socially,
> environmentally and psychologically damaging. This research led to the
> development of a new ecological and evolutionary understanding of natural
> energy flow called ‘inclusionality’, from which the concept of ‘natural
> inclusion’ arose. Inclusionality is the understanding of all natural form as
> flow-form - an energetic configuration of space in figure and figure in
> space, such that space, as a receptive (non-resistive) presence, is not
> assumed to be discontinuous (i.e. to stop at discrete boundary limits). Unlike
> rationalistic thinking, inclusionality therefore does not assume or impose
> completion at any scale of natural organisation and so is a source of deep
> tolerance and love of natural variety.
>
>
> I am continuing to research the implications of inclusionality, and how
> most effectively to communicate this understanding to a wider community,
> along as many avenues and with as many like-minded people as I can. I
> include art, poetry and a new kind of mathematics, as well as scientific
> observation and inference in my approach.
>
>
>
> I want this book to be a source of interest and pleasure for anyone who
> cares about our human place in the natural world. My aim is to provide an
> *opening* for imagination and reflection, not a scholarly course of
> instruction. *I can only explicate my perceptions and reasoning for
> opening the door into natural inclusionality in my personally unique way,
> using whatever means I have available to me, and invite others across the
> threshold if they wish*. I have therefore drawn together a variety of
> essays, poems, paintings and accounts from previous works, many of which can
> be found via the internet, and laced these together with some new writing to
> *reveal* what I hope will be a rich and exciting yet ultimately coherent
> unfolding of the meaning of natural inclusion. This cannot, therefore, be a
> straightforward account from beginning to conclusion, but more like a river
> for the reader to navigate in much the same way that a canoeist might, from
> upper reaches to sea. There will be rapids and shallows, meanders and deep
> pools, iterations and re-iterations, complex entanglements and smooth
> passages.
>
>
>
> Alan Rayner
>
> * *
>
> *Contents Summary*
>
> * *
>
> I have organized this book in an unusual way, which I hope will help to
> invite the more imaginative kind of thinking that I think is necessary to
> appreciate the source of human empathy and creativity in natural creativity.
> It is only by exercising our extraordinary human imagination that I believe
> it is possible to liberate ourselves from the oppressive unnatural
> confinements of oppositional logic that can lead us, like Charles Darwin, to
> regard life as a competitive ‘struggle for existence’ in which ‘only the
> fittest survive’. Most especially, we need to be able to imagine how it
> feels to be in the place of another – an ability called empathy, which is
> the deep source of human compassion and creativity. But to be truly
> liberating, this imagination needs also to be tempered and disciplined by
> realistic considerations of what is consistent with evidence and what makes
> consistent sense. In other words, we need to combine the analytical and
> linguistic linear-processing capabilities of the left hemisphere of our
> human brains, with the intuitive, pictorial, parallel-processing
> capabilities of the right hemisphere. We need to combine Science and the
> Humanities, not drive them into the apartheid between ‘Two Cultures’
> famously diagnosed by C.P. Snow.
>
>
>
> I have therefore populated the book with examples of exercising my own
> imagination in the form of poetry, prose and painting, as well as carefully
> argued text. I am not trying to ‘show off my talent’ – if anything, I feel
> rather embarrassed by its lack of erudition and exposure of my own mental
> blocks – but rather to tickle the reader’s imagination. Poetic expression
> especially strikes me as a way of bridging between the articulate and
> picturing mind in touch with our deepest feelings. Each of the following
> reflections therefore begins with one or more poems – or quote from a poet –
> relating to the theme in question. The examples of my own paintings are
> similarly used as a kind of ‘visual poetry’, neither completely abstract nor
> completely representational, to illustrate these themes in what I hope will
> be an evocative way. To reduce the cost of the book, they are printed in
> black and white. Original colour versions can be found at
> www.inclusionality.org and www.inclusional-research.org.
>
> * *
>
> page
>
> *0. Opening – The Need For Care
> *11
>
> An introduction to the core theme of the book and its psychological, social
> and environmental relevance
>
>
>
>
>
> *1. What happens when ice melts: the need for a global warming of human
> *30
>
> *thought
> *
>
> A reflection upon how we have imposed a frozen frame of abstract logic upon
>
> nature, how this leads us to lose sight of the primary inducer of fluid
> movement
>
> and co-creativity, and how our current fears of human-caused climate change
>
> could both hinder and help us to melt this frame into a more empathic
>
> understanding of human nature within nature.
>
>
>
> *2. Loving our natural neighbourhood as self
> *51* *
>
> A consideration of the benefits of logically and mathematically
> transfiguring our perception of ‘self-identity’ from discrete automatons at
> odds with nature to distinct natural inclusions with local, figural and
> non-local spatial aspects.
>
>
>
> *3. The meaning of natural variety
> *96* *
>
> An exposition of the evolutionary origins and significance of natural
> variety and
>
> why a mechanism of selective favouritism cannot sustain or generate it.
>
>
>
> *4. Fluidity as tolerance
> *144
>
> An appreciation of fluid tolerance as vital to evolutionary creativity, not
> just
>
> an aid to putting up with difference.
>
>
>
> *5. Creativity at heart
> * 167
>
> An account of the deep origins of human creativity within natural
> creativity.
>
>
>
> *After Thought – The flow-scape of the mind and co-creativity *
> 182
>
> by Janet McIntyre
>
>
>
> *Acknowledgements
> *186
>
>
>
> *References
> *187
>
>
>
> *Acknowledgements*
>
> * *
>
> There are a great many people who have come alongside, encouraged,
> informed, sustained and influenced me as I have developed my current
> understandings of natural inclusionality, which are nonetheless inescapably
> rooted in the idiosyncrasy of my personal observations, studies and
> interpretations of natural flow form. I hope these companions will find some
> benefit of their influence sprinkled at least implicitly through the pages
> of this book. There are some, however, who I feel the need to mention
> explicitly. First and foremost, my wife, Marion, and daughters, Hazel and
> Pippa, have witnessed and endured the difficulties and joys that I have
> experienced as I have worked my passage from objective science to
> inclusional flow. Lere Shakunle and Ted Lumley helped me early on to make
> the transition from thinking about ‘dynamic boundaries’, as described in my
> book, ‘Degrees of Freedom’, to recognizing the vital role of ‘receptive
> space’ in natural fluidity. Lere’s remarkable and original work on
> ‘transfigural mathematics’, especially, helped me to recognize the
> inseparable relationship between ‘figural’ and ‘transfigural’ presences in
> fluid boundaries and ‘local-in-nonlocal self-identity’. Jack Whitehead also
> came alongside early and has been a continual source of support and
> encouragement in helping me to recognize and describe the educational
> implications of natural inclusion. Rather more recently, Roy Reynolds has
> added his deep theological and psychological knowledge and insights, helping
> me to appreciate and draw out the soul-full dimension of my own and others’
> creative and empathic lives.
>
> ----- Original Message -----
> *From:* Michel Bauwens <michelsub2004 at gmail.com>
> *To:* Alan Rayner (BU) <a.d.m.rayner at bath.ac.uk>
> *Cc:* Peer-To-Peer Research List <p2presearch at listcultures.org> ; Alan
> Rayner <bssadmr at bath.ac.uk> ; jferrer at ciis.edu ; John Heron<jnheron at ihug.co.nz>
> *Sent:* Friday, July 02, 2010 4:05 PM
> *Subject:* Re: peering with nature / natural inclusionality
>
> don't hesitate to send further updates or even links to past stuff ...
>
> On Fri, Jul 2, 2010 at 10:03 PM, Alan Rayner (BU) <a.d.m.rayner at bath.ac.uk
> > wrote:
>
>> Dear Michel,
>>
>> Thank you very much!
>>
>> It's good to re-connect with you!
>>
>> Warmest
>>
>> Alan
>>
>>
>> ----- Original Message -----
>> *From:* Michel Bauwens <michelsub2004 at gmail.com>
>> *To:* Peer-To-Peer Research List <p2presearch at listcultures.org>
>> *Cc:* Alan Rayner <bssadmr at bath.ac.uk> ; John Heron<jnheron at bordernet.co.nz>;
>> jferrer at ciis.edu
>> *Sent:* Friday, July 02, 2010 3:41 PM
>> *Subject:* Fwd: peering with nature / natural inclusionality
>>
>> Dear Alan,
>>
>> Thank you so much for reminding me of your important work on the
>> philosophy of inclusionality.
>>
>> I have already forwarded your essay to a few people, but here is a message
>> to the list, which doesn't accept attachments,
>>
>> I will also present your economic essay on our blog, based on this draft
>> treatment here, see
>> http://p2pfoundation.net/Attuning_to_Natural_Energy_Flows_vs._Abstract_Economic_Rationality
>>
>> the 2nd essay on learning will have to be treated another time, as I'm
>> quite overwhelmed at present,
>>
>> thanks for this update on your p2p nature philosophy!
>>
>> Michel
>>
>> ---------- Forwarded message ----------
>> From: Alan Rayner (BU) <a.d.m.rayner at bath.ac.uk>
>> Date: Fri, Jul 2, 2010 at 3:59 PM
>> Subject: Re: in-depth profile of p2p theory vs resilience approaches
>> To: Michel Bauwens <michelsub2004 at gmail.com>
>>
>>
>> Dear Michel,
>>
>> Thank you for this!
>>
>> On a quick scan, there seems to me to be some 'co-incidence' and
>> complementarity with what I have written in the attached paper on natural
>> and abstract currency, currently under review with 'Environmental
>> Economics'.
>>
>> Also attached is a paper on 'Sustainability of the Fitting'. This can be
>> found published at www.bestthinking.com. Do, please feel free to share it
>> with your network.
>>
>> Incidentally, you may be interested to know that I had eventually to
>> distinguish my understanding of 'Natural Inclusionality', from Ted Lumley's,
>> because I was unable to accept Ted's insistence on erasing local
>> form/influence/agency. I recall that was the difficulty you had also with
>> Ted's version of 'inclusionality'. I do feel 'Natural Inclusionality' is
>> closer to expressing the underlying philosophy of your peer-to-peer work.
>>
>> Warmest
>>
>> Alan
>>
>>
>> ----- Original Message -----
>> *From:* Michel Bauwens <michelsub2004 at gmail.com>
>> *To:* Alex Rollin <alex.rollin at gmail.com> ; Adam Arvidsson<adam.arvidsson at unimi.it>; Alessandro
>> Caiani <alessandro.caiani at hotmail.it> ; Athina Karatzogianni<athina.k at gmail.com>;
>> andrea.mendoza at polimi.it ; andrew paterson <agryfp at gmail.com> ; Alessandro
>> Delfanti <delfanti at sissa.it> ; Andrea Fumagalli <afuma at eco.unipv.it> ; Arthit
>> Suriyawongkul <arthit at gmail.com> ; Andy Robinson <ldxar1 at gmail.com> ; Alexander
>> Grech <A.Grech at 2008.hull.ac.uk> ; Andreas Exner <andreas.exner at chello.at>
>> *Cc:* abcouwer at uva.nl ; Abdul-Rahman Advany <abdulrahman at advany.com> ; Amit
>> Basole <abasole at gmail.com> ; jose ramos <actionforesight at gmail.com> ; Actics
>> Limited - Mikkel Holm Sørensen <mikkel at actics.com> ; Nicolai Peitersen,
>> Actics <nicolai at actics.com> ; P.Hatzopoulos at lse.ac.uk ; Adisorn Na Ubon<naubon at gmail.com>; Adrian
>> Chan <adrian at gravity7.com> ; Adrian Taylor <adrian.taylor at eusg.de> ; Diederik
>> Aerts <diraerts at vub.ac.be> ; Miguel Afonso Caetano<miguel.a.caetano at gmail.com>; Allison
>> Fine <afine at afine.us> ; Eric Hunting <afillyjonk at gmail.com> ; AGUITON
>> Christophe RD-TECH-ISS <christophe.aguiton at orange-ftgroup.com> ; dr.
>> Agatino Rizzo <agatino at utm.my> ; Gil Agnew <gil at newinnergy.com> ; Maya
>> Van Leemput <agencefuture at skynet.be>
>> *Sent:* Friday, July 02, 2010 9:23 AM
>> *Subject:* Fwd: in-depth profile of p2p theory vs resilience approaches
>>
>> Dear friends,
>>
>> thanks for eventually reading or spreading the issue of this newsletter,
>> which gives a nice overview of our work at the P2P Foundation, it's one of
>> the best intro's I've seen so far, and quite accessible to the general
>> reader,
>>
>> there is also some basic info here:
>> http://p2pfoundation.net/Examination_of_Michel_Bauwens%27_P2P_Foundation
>>
>> it is otherwise 'embargoed' until August, the date of the official
>> publication by Gordon Cook,
>>
>> Michel Bauwens
>>
>> ---------- Forwarded message ----------
>> From: Michel Bauwens <michelsub2004 at gmail.com>
>> Date: Fri, Jul 2, 2010 at 3:11 PM
>> Subject: Fwd: in-depth profile of p2p theory vs resilience approaches
>> To: tiziana <tterranova at unior.it>
>> Cc: cosma at ruc.dk, Stefano Serafini <metafrasis at alice.it>, Andrea Glorioso
>> <andrea at digitalpolicy.it>
>>
>>
>> hi tiziana,
>>
>> thanks for spreading this around, as long as people know there's a
>> publishing embargo until august,
>>
>> Michel
>>
>> ---------- Forwarded message ----------
>> From: Facebook <notification+pjiidwm at facebookmail.com>
>> Date: Fri, Jul 2, 2010 at 2:48 PM
>> Subject: Tiziana Terranova commented on your link...
>> To: Michel Bauwens <michelsub2004 at gmail.com>
>>
>>
>> Tiziana Terranova commented on your link:
>>
>> "what's going on?"
>>
>> Reply to this email to comment on this link.
>>
>> To see the comment thread, follow the link below:
>>
>> http://www.facebook.com/n/?profile.php&id=528245547&v=wall&story_fbid=134020026618530&mid=29796efG1f7c632bGb8733a5Ge&n_m=michelsub2004%40gmail.com
>>
>> Thanks,
>> The Facebook Team
>>
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>>
>>
>>
>> --
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>>
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>>
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>> Think tank: http://www.asianforesightinstitute.org/index.php/eng/The-AFI
>>
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>>
>
>
> --
> P2P Foundation: http://p2pfoundation.net - http://blog.p2pfoundation.net
>
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