Nature As Discourse: A Co-Evolutionary Systems Approach to Art and Environmental Design by Susannah Hays A dissertation submitted in partial satisfaction of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in Interdisciplinary Studies and the Designated Emphasis in New Media in the Graduate Division of the University of California, Berkeley Committee in charge: Professor Galen Cranz, Chair Professor Greg Niemeyer Professor Alva Noë Professor Richard B. Norgaard Professor Hertha D. Sweet Wong Spring 2016 Nature As Discourse: A Co-Evolutionary Systems Approach to Art and Environmental Design COPYRIGHT© 2016 by Susannah Hays ABSTRACT Nature As Discourse: A Co-Evolutionary Systems Approach to Art and Environmental Design by Susannah Hays Doctor of Philosophy in Interdisciplinary Studies University of California, Berkeley Professor Galen Cranz, Chair Transdisciplinarity, an international education movement that explores pathways to a coherent epistemology beyond all disciplines, seeks to become a sustaining vital force in human development. To do so, it needs to be complemented by a branch of epistemology called epistemics or self-knowledge. Only if co-evolutionary phylogenetic principles of human-brain and autonomic nervous system functioning are included in transdisciplinarity’s model can individuals experientially evolve to the levels of reality the model entails. An actual, “true to life,” transdisciplinary education teaches isomorphic qualities intrinsic to perception, pattern mapping, language, and aesthetic (non-directive) skills. Curricula utilizing these educational tools will result in indispensable, creative learning environments. A trajectory not yet explored in other literature on Transdisciplinarity is an emphasis on cross-cultural research in human- brain and autonomic nervous system dynamics. Three key understandings that guide human biological evolutionary processes toward higher levels of consciousness are Paul MacLean’s triune-brain neuroethology, Stephen Porges’ Polyvagal Theory of emotions, and G. I. Gurdjieff’s three-centered self-study practice. Each chapter describes a non-profit organization whose goal is to raise humanity’s normative level of participation in environmental sustainability. These organizations demonstrate how Transdisciplinarity can recalibrate human evolution, if the educational movement synthesizes the autonomic/cognitive forces within Homo sapiens’ biological organization. 1 Chapters 1 and 2 introduce central figures: Goethe, Husserl, Gurdjieff, Piaget, MacLean, Laborit, Porges, Jantsch, Lupasco, Nicolescu, and Mouffe. Chapter 1 draws a relationship between the science of evolutionary human-brain dynamics and the philosophy of Transdisciplinarity, with special emphasis on isomorphism. Chapter 2 asks what is a human being and what is possible for human evolution, looking specifically at Paul MacLean and Stephen Porges’ brain/ body research in relation to G. I. Gurdjieff’s self-study practices. The chapter concludes with a description of the Entropy/Consciousness Institute’s program development. Chapter 3 delineates Eastern and Western knowledge of states of consciousness, levels of reality, and the central importance of ecological approaches to visual/cognitive perception. Chapter three concludes with a description of the Center for Ecoliteracy’s pedagogy for sustainability. Chapter 4 presents Centre International de Recherches et Études Transdisciplinaires’ “Moral Project” and presents an imagined conversation between Henri Laborit, Basarab Nicolescu, and Immanuel Kant illuminating what methods from biology, critical theory, and philosophy would advance the Transdisciplinary movement. Chapter 5 proposes Art as research is fundamental to supporting Transdisciplinary methods, as in the quest of Helen and Newton Harrison’s life work, and their founding of the Center for Force Majeure Studies. Chapter 6 describes the curricular vision of two university-level art/theory courses, which apply methods presented in chapters 2, 3, 4, and 5. Chapter 7 concludes that nature is not a separate reality outside ourselves, but integral to cultural discourse. Transdisciplinarity is the appropriate methodology for advancing the principle of psyvolution, an action that produces a conscious flow of biological connectivity in human- brain dynamics. This cognitive re-blending of substrates innervates our psychic organs in relation to processes of exchange between energy and matter in human/global environments. Organizations assisting schools and communities to prepare and adapt coherent systemic evolutionary frameworks can play a role in translating future findings in science, art, and environmental design research into curricula. 2 When every element The mind’s higher forces Has seized, subdued and blent, No Angel divorces Twin-natures single grown, That inly mate them; Eternal Love alone, Can separate them. GOETHE, Faust II i Contents List of Figures . iv Glossary . .v Abbreviations . vii Preface . .viii Acknowledgments . x Introduction . xi 1. Evolution and Transdisciplinarity . 1 1.1 Forerunners of The Transdisciplinary Movement . 1 1.1.1 Jean Piaget . .3 1.1.2 Erich Jantsch . 5 1.1.3 Stéphane Lupasco . .7 1.2 Relationship between the Science of Human Evolution . 10 1.2.1 Aesthetic Experience of Isomorphisms . 13 1.2.2 Differentiation, Symmetry Breaking, and Integration . 18 2. Humans, What Are We? . .23 2.1 What Humans Need to Know About Their Potential to Evolve . 24 2.2 Evolutionary Processes and Paul MacLean’s Triune Brain . 27 2.3 Stephen Porges’ Polyvagal Theory of Emotion . 32 2.4 Model of Understanding: Entropy/Consciousness Institute San Francisco, California . 39 3. Enacting Perception . 48 3.1 Crisis of Perception . 48 3.2 Perception and States of Consciousness . .50 3.2.1 Four States of Consciousness . 51 3.3 Ecological Approaches to Visual Perception . 53 3.3.1 Goethe’s Way of Science . 55 3.4 Self-Observation/Self-Remembering . 57 3.5 Third-Force: A Three-Centered (ternary) Study. 61 3.6 Model of Understanding: Center for Ecoliteracy Berkeley, California . 65 4. Advancing Transdisciplinarity’s Model. .68 4.1 Syncretism And Evolutionary Aesthetics . .68 4.2 Swiss, Zurich, German group “Mode 2” Model . 70 4.4 CIRET’s “Moral Project”: Advancing Transdisciplinarity’s Aim. 72 ii 5. Art as Research: Scale of the life work of Helen and Newton Harrison. .83 5.1 The Land Art Movement . 83 5.2 Watersheds to World Oceans . 87 5.3 The Third Hand . 88 5.4 Model of Understanding: Center for Force Majeure Studies U. C. Santa Cruz. 93 6. Two Courses Taught at the San Francisco Art Institute . .96 6.1 Teaching Philosophy . 97 6.2 Topologies: The Construction of Space . 98 6.3 Embodied Camera . 99 6.4 The Problem of Language . 100 6.6 Model of Understanding: Equipoise . 104 7. Conclusion . 113 References . 117 Appendix One: Charter Of Transdisciplinarity . 125 Appendix Two: Harrisons’ “Manifesto For The 21st Century” . 128 iii Figures 1.1 Education/Innovation System (after Eric Jantsch) 2.2 Tricameral Brain Structure (after Paul MacLean) 2.3 Autonomic Nervous System (after J. Hughlings Jackson/Stephen Porges) 2.4 Hierarchal Relationship (after J. Hughlings Jackson/John Chitty) 2.5 Vagus Nerve Anatomical Diagram I 2.6 Vagus Nerve Anatomical Diagram II 2.7 Ergodic Life Cycle (after Terry Lindahl) 2.8a Triptych Paintings (after Terry Lindahl) 2.8b India Ink Triptychs (after Terry Lindahl) 2.9 Transmutative Chemistries of Digestive Metamorphosis (after Terry Lindahl) 3.1 Double Arrow Dynamic (after P.D. Ouspensky) 5.1 Between Cedar & Vine pencil sketch (after Stefan Pellegrini) 5.2 San Diego as the Center of a World (after Newton and Helen Harrison) 6.1 Egypt, 1992 (after Susannah Hays) 6.2 Empty Bottle series, 1998 (after Susannah Hays) 6.3 Skeletal Leaves, 1998 (after Susannah Hays) 6.4 Microscope series, 2001 (after Susannah Hays) 6.5 Iluminated Garden, 2002 (after Susannah Hays) 6.6 Fractal Tree, 2014 (after Susannah Hays) 6.7 Icarus, 2010 (after Susannah Hays) 6.8 Mirror Landscape 5 (after Susannah Hays) iv GLOSSARY OF KEY TERMS Autonomic Nervous System—neuro-endocrine-immune structure that enables survival. Often described as having two branches, parasympathetic (rest/rebuild) and sympathetic (fight/flight) is now understood as a triune hierarchal system. The third branch, termed Social Nervous System, acts as a controller of the earlier (evolutionarily speaking) reciprocal branches. If the social nervous system isn’t successful inhibiting the fight/flight system, it will naturally default to it, under stress. Co-evolutionary—is a biological term coined in 1964 by Paul R. Ehrlich and Peter H. Raven. Co-evolution occurs when changes in at least two species genetic compositions reciprocally affect each other’s evolution. In this sense, humans also share a biological relationship to nature. Cosmopomoral—Entropy/Consciousness Institute’s term for the organic reasoning, resolution process between Anthropocentric, Empirical Mathematical studies and Mystical/Gnostic Eschatological concerns. Eco-revelatory design—ecological design concept in the field of landscape architecture that attempts to enhance a sites’ ecosystem as well as engage users by revealing ecological and cultural phenomena, processes and relationships affecting a site. Empirical—originating in or based on observation or experience as in, empirical data; 2: relying on experience or observation alone often without due regard for system and theory; 3: capable of being verified or disproved by observation or experiment as in empirical laws.