Network Thinking and Holism
By
Erik Davis Can you shed some light on your ideas about the distinction
you draw between networked intelligence and holism? One of the most important things for me that I've been thinking about
lately is the difference between what I'll call network intelligence or network
thinking and holism, because often what you find in a deep ecological situation,
environmentalist community, and even broader including a lot of different spiritual
ideas that are very popular now, you have this emphasis on holism - the idea that
we can overcome the separation we feel in our own daily lives, the separation
between mind and body, the separation between bodies, the separation between humanity
and nature; that we can overcome that by embracing a new holistic perspective
- a paradigm shift where we'll shift away from that old way of looking and suddenly
be immersed in the whole. That's a very attractive idea, but I think in some ways,
it manifests some of the same problems that we have seen in traditional religions.
It functions in a religious way; in a way that I don't think is necessarily helpful.
| ...it's more important to see
the way that you're involved with immediate networks - local networks, genetic
networks, brain networks, communication networks. What does it mean to be always
moving inside of these constantly shifting networks? | The
reason I like to contrast holism with network thinking, even though many think
they're the same thing, is that I think it's a different thing to live your life
recognizing that you are deeply embedded inside a huge set of networks, then it
is to live your life in the shadow of the whole because it's always a hard thing.
How do you define what the whole is? Is technology part of the whole? A lot of
people who argue for holism will say, "Well, technology is not really part of
the whole." Well, but if that's the case, then what kind of whole is that? But,
if it is part of it, well what about alienation? Is that pat of the whole? Is
estrangement from nature? Is that part of the whole? It gets very difficult to
say and I think that what is really inspiring us about holism, why we're really
drawn to that model, has more to do with the need to experience the way that we
are interconnected. But, it's not that we're interconnected immediately with the
entirety of the cosmos. Maybe on some mystical level that's true if you meditate
long enough you can see that that's true, but in the world that you and I share
where we're different people and we're living in this world of finite resources,
it's more important to see the way that you're involved with immediate networks
- local networks, genetic networks, brain networks, communication networks.
What does it mean to be always moving inside of these constantly shifting networks?
To me that seems much different, as it carries with it a different quality than
living in an almost religious way with this idea of the whole, and that this is
something that we can do that supports the whole and this is something we do that's
against the whole because everything we do is part of networks - even going off
to the side and thinking we're separate is part of the loop of the network.
So, I'm trying to shift the environmental new paradigm movement away from a kind
of religious conversion idea about the new paradigm towards a more pragmatic,
everyday recognition of the networks that we're already embedded in. Radio-V/Ethoschannel
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