Week Five Discussion

1. Can diversification save species?
2. Do you vote for the chicken or the egg?
3. "I always eat my broccoli."

1. Of course diversification is a more sustainable and extinction-preventative way of being than singular and unilaterally focussed strategies like mono-cropping. I don't know what else to say really. Just look at fungi - while this isn't a directly correlating example, it illustrates an multidimensional approach that protects against failure. Fungi spread themselves throughout the ecosystems, hybridizing and joining forces with other organisms; if a section of their mycelial matrix is attacked, they have a billion super-fine cells all interlaced over massive areas to prevent total and complete vulnerability by putting all their eggs in one basket. Diversification in ANY context seems like a way to expand outward and create a multi-armed prevention of any possibility of situations that arise to contend with the normalcy and coherency of the 'thing being protected or maintained'. If we were to diversify our diets, diversify our crops and diversify our stocks, we would find ourselves less concerned about the coming and going of one of our many 'eggs' in our lovely baskets. Maybe we could then focus our creative energies towards productive and generative activities like developing new strains and species through breeding rather than investing so much energy in freaking out about losing the one and only kind of egg we have.

2. Maybe the problem with the chicken or the egg question lies in the question???
Has anyone considered asking what this question really aims to answer? Brian seemed to bring this up in class and I would like to explore it further -

What came first? The fully formed chicken or the seed of this form, the egg?
Spoken in a different way: What came first? the idea or the dream of the idea?

Which came first? Yin or Yang?
Which came first? Emptiness or Infinite Form?

The answer is found only in a enormous laugh!

3. As for eating greens, especially broccoli, I find this article and the discussion it prompts to be yet another laughable distraction from common-sense - ie. why do we need to dissect the broccoli to discover that it can prevent illness? We know it is healthy for us? Why do we need reasons further than the simple deliciousness, beautiful emerald flowerettes, and unending flavor possibilities of this and any other foods?

This study reminds me of science projects in which the student goes about testing something they already know the answer to - like, "Does the Sun rise every day?" and undoubtedly, they discover that it does... only to realize (or not) that they wasted their time NOT investigating deep and meaningful questions about reality and instead chose to be safe and answer a question they already knew they could prove.

4. Fritjof Capra - Is this guy on it or what?

Our new understandings of the fundamental unity of Nature and the new paradigm of consciousness as the basis for matter and all reality is changing "the way we relate to each other and to our living natural environment, the way we deal with our health, the way we perceive our business organizations, our educational systems, and many other social and political institutions. In particular, the new vision of life will help us build and nurture sustainable communities - the great challenge of our time - because it will help us understand how nature's communities of plants, animals, and microorganisms - the ecosystems - have organized themselves so as so maximize their ecological sustainability. We have much to learn from this wisdom of nature, and to do so we need to become ecologically literate."

"...the network is a pattern that is common to all life." - Reality is a infinitely potentiated space of multi-dimensional networks that interrelate and interreflect one another. Everything is connected to everything else. As my Aunt likes to say, "It's all connected." Well, it literally is yet simply knowing this as a concept is much different than actually living in a way and being in a way that reflects this understanding. It is going to take some time before we see this way of thinking grossly manifest in the ways of being throughout our conventional and shared reality. That is why patience is such a valuable way of being - it allows a human consciousness to remain still and unified without becoming disturbed by the apparent process of unfolding of each idea and each reality. Flowers take time to become flowers from a seed - this is a mysterious thing - SPACE-TIME-MIND

"In this new view, cognition involves the entire process of life - including perception, emotion, and behavior - and does not necessarily require a brain and a nervous system."

5. Moose World - I love how wonderfully inspired people can be by anything. what is there to learn about moose that can enrich my daily experience of life and its beauty? Well after looking at some photographs I can honestly express my deep respect and honor felt for the moose and their power and amazing presence. Even from photographs I get a sense of their amazing spirit! Wow.

The Immunse System and a New Theory of Cognition

In Fritjof Capra's essay on the Immune System's intelligence, he notes the web-like spreading of the immune system throughout our body:

"Instead of being concentrated and interconnected through anatomical structures like the nervous system, the immune system is dispersed in the lymph fluid, permeating every single tissue. Its components - a class of cells called lymphocytes, popularly known as white blood cells - move around very rapidly and bind chemically to each other. The lymphocytes are an extremely diverse group of cells. Each type is distinguished by specific molecular markers, called "antibodies", sticking out from their surfaces. The human body contains billions of different types of white blood cell, with an enormous ability to bind chemically to any molecular profile in their environment. According to traditional immunology, the lymphocytes identify an intruding agent, the antibodies attach themselves to it and, by doing so, neutralize it.

Recent research has shown that under normal conditions the antibodies circulating in the body bind to many (if not all) types of cell, including themselves. The entire system looks much more like a net- work, more like people talking to each other, than soldiers looking out for an enemy. Gradually, immunologists have been forced to shift their perception from an immune system to an immune network." (Capra)

This reminds me very powerfully of the way in which the fungi spread themselves throughout the ecosystems in which they take root. Stamets describes this complex spread as such, "Covering most all landmasses on the planet are huge masses of fine filaments of living cells from a kingdom barely explored. More than 8 miles of these cells, called mycelia, can permeate a cubic inch of soil. Fungal mats are now known as the largest biological entities on the planet, with some individuals covering more than 20,000 acres." (Stamets) Not only is this simply an amazing interconnected web of living micro-filament, Stamets describes this as the "essential wiring of the Gaian Consciousness".

Something I have noticed in my experience and observations of reality is a pattern of fractalized pattern. "As above, so below," is the basic idea but this concept appears throughout science, mathematics, and everywhere in nature. Try checking out the Fibonacci sequence: