This book offers a radical transformation in our understanding of evolutionary
processes, giving hope of liberation from currently alienating ideas about human
and non-human nature. It describes the author’s experiences of pain and joy,
strengths and frailties, alongside his quest to make sense of the world in a way
that brings together scientific, artistic and spiritual views so that they complement
rather than oppose one another. It treats individual consciousness as a vital
inclusion of the wider collective realm from which we all emerge and into which
we all subside like ripples at the interface of water and air. It may even help us to
find more creative, peaceful and environmentally sustainable ways of living
together, through a deeper understanding of our natural neighbourhood.
At the heart of the book is a distinctive way of understanding the dynamic
geometry of human and non-human nature, based on modern scientific evidence
of the inextricability of space from energy, time and matter. This ‘inclusional logic’
treats all natural form as receptive-responsive flow-form, lacking any fixed
executive centre or centres. Correspondingly, space and boundaries are
envisaged as connective, reflective and co-creative rather than divisive. They
therefore play a vital role in producing varied and dynamic natural form.
This understanding leads in turn to some new and exciting ideas about what it
means to be human in a complex, rapidly changing world. These ideas are based
on regarding the human ‘Self’ as a dynamic coupling of inner and outer through
intermediary aspects, in much the same way that we can understand a river
system as a creative interplay of stream with landscape mediated through its
banks and valley sides. Each aspect simultaneously shapes the other.
This form of reasoning makes sense of many long held human emotional values
and principles. With it, we can appreciate our complex self-identities as receptive
neighbourhoods in dynamic, loving and responsive relationship.
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