The Yew Tree

Inclusionality is the awareness that we are in the world and the world is in us. We are not separate causal agents in a Euclidian geometric space; we resonate with each other in a dynamic co-produced by all the constituents of the environment. This insight, if applied to any emergent complexity, transforms the way we experience the world. It is no longer seen as out there, but also in here - we are immersed in an acoustic space, no longer surveying a visual space as if we were a detached observer.

For me, inclusionality represents a way of understanding my involvement in the collective dynamic without the loss of self implied in holistic thinking; the position of the individual is dynamically related to the collective via the interface between the two, and each of us brings our uniquely situated perspective to the continuing evolution of ideas. This resonates with my interests in language, the history of ideas, new media for communication, and Paganism, and brings these ideas together in a new way.

rationalist/reductionist
  • visual space
  • Perceive what is "out there" as separate
  • Euclidian geometry
  • time is linear and detached from space
  • Logical/rational
  • "Objective" transcendent observer
  • Edges
  • Static objects
    		•  
    inclusionality
  • acoustic space
  • What is out there is also in here
  • Relativity
  • Time is immersed non-linearly in space
  • Mythopœic
  • Community/constituent codynamic
  • Resonance
  • Flow, transformation
    		•  
    holistic/primordial
  • ‘touchy-feely’
  • There is no boundary between out there and in here
  • Holism: all is one
  • Time and space are one
  • Myth is reality
  • No individuality
  • Stillness
  • Stasis
    		•
    More information about the comparison of the three world-views
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    Key ideas and metaphors

    Key ideas and images Implications
    A hurricane simultaneously asserting itself into and being transformed by the space in which it moves All movement changes simultaneously and reciprocally with the space in which it moves
    The sea and the sky moving together The waves are created by the air pushing the water and the water pushing the air
    Living underwater Water is very clearly a space whose shape is transformed by moving within it
    Possibility space - the opening up of niches and corridors for becoming We can close down or open up this space according to what opportunities are offered to which groups or individuals
    The sharing circle (talking stick) "where each member listens respectfully, not to contrived argument to win a debate, but to the heartfelt sharing of unique personal experience, without comment from the others, as the talking stick is passed from person to person, and the 'holographic' imagery of the way the world 'really is' takes form." (Ted Lumley)
    Nested holeyness "surfaces are always complex, holey arrays rather than perfectly smooth coverings. And as these holey arrays are examined from closer and closer range, more and more holey arrays come into view. This is a geometry of nested holeyness, of necessarily incomplete surfaces leading into and out of each other over scales ranging from sub-atomic to universal. Moreover it is a dynamic geometry of reciprocally shifting relationships between inner and outer inductive spaces - a geometry of participatory rather than excluded space." (Alan Rayner)
    Acoustic space In an acoustic space, everything resonates with everything else, and everything is interconnected by the sound waves moving, and the waves transform and are themselves transformed by the objects in the space.
    Interpermeability Everything is interpermeable with everything else - we breathe in and out, eat food, transform it into waste, etc.
    Intraconnectedness "A human being is a part of a whole, called by us "universe", a part limited in time and space. He experiences himself, his thoughts and feelings as something separated from the rest... a kind of optical delusion of his consciousness. This delusion is a kind of prison for us, restricting us to our personal desires and to affection for a few persons nearest to us. Our task must be to free ourselves from this prison by widening our circle of compassion to embrace all living creatures and the whole of nature in its beauty." (Albert Einstein)
    Relativity The alternative, 'relativistic' assumption wherein 'space is a participant in physical phenomena' (Einstein's words), avoids the assumptions of 'inertial reference frame' and 'absolute time', which Einstein calls 'frightening ghosts', leaving the 'space-time' of our natural experience intact. This 'participating space' assumption was the choice of Heraclitus and it puts space-time 'flow' or 'transformation' in the primacy over the notion of material kinetic transactions as the basis for physical phenomena. (Ted Lumley)
    A flock of geese flying together and moving so as to create sweetspots in the slipstream A group moving together has more "energy" than a bunch of disparate individuals
    The included observer In the rationalist world-view, we are taught to view the world as if we were absent, but in reality, we are included in the space we are observing (the observer affects the observed).
    Everything is three-fold Things are not either/or, they are frequently both this and that, and the combination of this and that is a third thing
    Dynamical balance Everything is always changing; nothing is ever lost
    Inductive and assertive The inductive (valley, well, gravity, yin, Goddess) is as powerful as the assertive (mountain, hierarchy, yang, God)

    Related ideas: Taoism, alchemy, relativity, fuzzy logic, complexity theory, chaos theory, Kepler's astronomy, Goethe's colour theory, ecological postmodernism, deep ecology.

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      pictures

    - click on each image to view a larger version

    the sharing circle

    This picture shows the participants in a sharing circle making connections with each other. They float in the community-constituent codynamic (the blue background) but share the possibility space of a circle. The participants are stars because they are radiant. The spaces between their interconnections are like the stomata of a leaf: where air and light can enter. They also make connections outwards.
    the inclusional self

    This image shows the inclusional self, floating in possibility space, immersed in the community-constituent codynamic, interpermeable with its environment. Ideas and images bubble up from its interactions, and as it expands the possibility space of others, it receives bubbles from them. To paraphrase Herman Hesse, it is cultivating the thousand flowers of its soul.

    the eye of the storm "The implication of the behaviours of assertive agents simultaneously, reciprocally transforming the opportunity space they are asserting into, is equivalent to saying that ‘space-time is a continuum’, that the ‘agents’ are not independent but are like the eye of the hurricane in an atmospheric storm or the eye of the vortex in river-flow which appear to be independent and move in kinetically independent fashion, … but which ‘are’ the containing space which they are asserting into." (Ted Lumley, "Including the Tools of Inquiry in the Inquiry", 2001)
    geese flying

    “The flock of geese ‘co-produce’ a community dynamic that is more efficient and delivers more migratory range and agility than could ever be achieved by an ‘individual perfectionist’ team of the most able solo constituents and the geese achieve their synergistic community dynamic not by perfecting the abilities of the individuals but by perfecting the manner in which their dynamics ‘interact’ resonantly with one another.” (Ted Lumley, The Relativity of Community - Constituent Behaviors, 2002)

    the game of pool

    “The skilled pool player plays ‘shape-over-shots’ (i.e. [s]he puts the need to manage the coherent transformation of the geometry of space into the primacy over the management of the actions and transactions of the balls since the geometry of space constitutes the ‘opportunity-to-act’ for the constituents immersed in that space).”
    (Ted Lumley, Inclusionality: Bringing Evolutionary Awareness to Perception, Inquiry and Community-Constituent 'Management', 2001)

    what is not there

    "Thirty spokes share the wheel's hub;
    It is the center hole that makes it useful.
    Shape clay into a vessel;
    It is the space within that makes it useful.
    Cut doors and windows for a room;
    It is the holes which make it useful.
    Therefore profit comes from what is there;
    Usefulness from what is not there."

    (Lao Tsu, Tao Te Ching)
    a tiny core of stillness in the heart like the eye of a violet

    There is nothing to save, now all is lost,
    but a tiny core of stillness in the heart
    like the eye of a violet.

    D.H. Lawrence
    the social whorl

    "Big whorls have little whorls,
    Which feed on their velocity;
    And little whorls have lesser whorls,
    And so on to viscosity."
    (L F Richardson)

    copyleft Yvonne Aburrow 2002 - you are welcome to use these images as long as you acknowledge me as the artist; you are not permitted to sell them or otherwise make money from them, directly or indirectly; also please do not put them in a context that would give them a different meaning to the ones intended here.

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