something for the sharper arbor!

[Tony Croft aka hamadryad]

:thumbup1:Alan rayner, we all know is the top gun when it comes to all things fungal, he is developing a theory which is very interesting and for those that might also enjoy this here is a taste. enjoy

 

Reflections of a Natural Includer

 

 

Summer 2009

 

By Alan Rayner

 

On the morning of Tuesday 30th June, 2009, I had a strong sense of history, both in the making and in the breaking, as I prepared to give a talk on ‘Fungus-Tree Relationships’ in the very room where Darwin & Wallace’s paper on the ‘Origin of Species’ was first presented. My anxiety was not dispelled when recent President of the Linnaean Society, Professor David Cutler warned all speakers that Darwin’s eyes would be following them, from his enormous portrait on the wall! I addressed Darwin’s portrait and expressed my delight in his insight, as a naturalist, into the evolutionary kinship of all life, but my dismay in his rationalistic explanation of this kinship as a consequence of ‘natural selection, or the preservation of favoured races in the struggle for life’.

 

For I knew that the key message I wished to get across is that we need to move on from the Darwin-inspired habit of thinking about trees, fungi and indeed all life forms as if they are self-centred objects, subject to the selective influence of external force. If we want to evolve more sensitive and sensible ways of working with them, we need to consider the dynamic context of the complex, variable, fluid neighbourhoods they truly and naturally inhabit. I also knew that practitioners who work with real life are intuitively already all too aware of this truth, yet may find it difficult to be explicit about as they struggle with standardized rules, regulations and formulae imposed by a rationalistic mindset fearful of uncertainty.

 

How had I come to find myself in this situation?

 

1. I have been working on the development of a way of explaining evolution that doesn't suffer from the inconsistencies, paradoxes and adverse social, psychological and environmental implications of natural selection theory. I have called this new explanation 'natural inclusion'. Briefly, 'natural inclusion' can be described as 'the co-creative

transformation of all through all in receptive space'.

 

2. I was alerted to the problems of natural selection theory - arising from the fact that the logic of 'selection' isn't actually 'natural' - by my many years of research on fungi and trees. I found that it wasn't possible adequately to understand the variable dynamic relationships and patterns of development of these organisms by regarding them as if they are self-centred objects. Moreover, to do so may result in damaging instead of beneficial

methods of managing trees and their cultivation, which neglect the ecological context in which they thrive - for example by growing trees in adverse soils and locations, intolerance of risk, and pruning and felling them inaptly or unnecessarily. It makes more sense to think of trees and fungi - and indeed all organisms - as naturally variable neighbourhoods or flow-forms, whose development and interrelationships are sensitively dependent on their environmental situation. Experienced practitioners are often more

intuitively aware of this situation than theorists who attempt to formulate standard codes of practice.

 

3. During the 1990s I gradually realized that these problems weren't confined to understanding trees and fungi but extended to how we human beings have mostly come to study, interpret and educate ourselves about the natural world and our place in it, based on a rationalistic, 'whole way of thinking' that promotes profound intolerance and conflict. This rationalistic thinking is founded in the supposition - deeply embedded in

orthodox mathematics, science, governance and theology - that matter can be isolated from space. There is neither any evidence for this supposition, nor does it make consistent sense of our experience. But the damaging effect that it has is to compel us to draw an imaginary hard line or 'discontinuity' between our individual 'selves' and our natural neighbourhood. This imaginary hard line is at the root of conflict between

all kinds of intolerant fundamentalist ideologies as well as a source of great difficulty in predicting and relating to environmental change.

 

4. Partly as a result of this realization, I stopped actively researching fungal and tree biology in 1999 and started to research in an interdisciplinary way with any artists, mathematicians, natural scientists, engineers, sociologists, therapists, theologians, philosophers, educators, former drug addicts, managers, organizations - and most

especially Bath University undergraduates - I could find who shared my view that we have been teaching ourselves to think in a way that is socially, environmentally and psychologically damaging. This research led to the development of a new ecological and evolutionary understanding of natural energy flow called 'inclusionality', from which the concept of 'natural inclusion' arose. Unlike rationalistic thinking, inclusionality does not assume or impose completion at any scale of natural organisation and so is a source of deep tolerance and love of natural variety.

 

5. I am continuing to research the implications of inclusionality, and how most effectively to communicate this understanding to a wider community, along as many avenues and with as many like-minded people as I can. I include art, poetry and a new kind of mathematics, as well as scientific observation and inference in my approach.

 

Websites:-

Welcome

Inclusional Research Forum and Learning Space - IRFALS - Inclusionality Research

Alan Rayner

 

 

Online books:-

Rayner A.D.M. (2006) Inclusional Nature: Bringing Life and Love to Science. Available from Inclusional Research Forum - Inclusional Nature

 

Rayner A.D.M. (2006) Natural Inclusion: How to Evolve Good Neighbourhood. Available from Inclusional Research Forum - Natural Inclusion

 

 

Rayner A.D.M. (2008) Natural Communion: Poems and Paintings About Our Human Inclusion in the Evolutionary Flow of Place-time. Available from http://www.inclusional-research.org/furtherreading/naturalcommunion.pdf

 

Rayner A.D.M. (2008) From Emptiness to Openness: How Inclusional Awareness Transforms Abstract Pride and Prejudice Into Natural Sense and Sensibility. Available from http://www.inclusional-research.org/furtherreading/inclusionalessays.pdf

[Tony Croft aka hamadryad]

What! no takers yet!

[MattJordan]

I commend your knowledge, but, I are too thick, Innit.

[Tony Croft aka hamadryad]

lol, dont do yourself down, did you read? and if you did was it of interest or was your reply post serious!

[David Humphries]

That was the first time I had heard Rayner speak, was inspired and awed in equal measure.

 

His knowledge, passion and Art was laid bare on to a captive audience, which certainly made up for Mr Worms tired, although strangely fascinating offering.

 

Was a privalege to be in such grand surroundings listening to a very well put together speaker list.

 

Nice work Neville

 

 

 

 

.

[Tony Croft aka hamadryad]

Alan is one of those real deep thinkers, a genius, no doubt.

 

and dont forget Elanas work in those talks!

Edited December 17, 2009 by Tony Croft aka hamadryad

[scotspine1]

Reflections of a Natural Includer

 

 

Summer 2009

 

By Alan Rayner

 

On the morning of Tuesday 30th June, 2009, I had a strong sense of history, both in the making and in the breaking, as I prepared to give a talk on ‘Fungus-Tree Relationships’ in the very room where Darwin & Wallace’s paper on the ‘Origin of Species’ was first presented. My anxiety was not dispelled when recent President of the Linnaean Society, Professor David Cutler warned all speakers that Darwin’s eyes would be following them, from his enormous portrait on the wall! I addressed Darwin’s portrait and expressed my delight in his insight, as a naturalist, into the evolutionary kinship of all life, but my dismay in his rationalistic explanation of this kinship as a consequence of ‘natural selection, or the preservation of favoured races in the struggle for life’.

 

For I knew that the key message I wished to get across is that we need to move on from the Darwin-inspired habit of thinking about trees, fungi and indeed all life forms as if they are self-centred objects, subject to the selective influence of external force. If we want to evolve more sensitive and sensible ways of working with them, we need to consider the dynamic context of the complex, variable, fluid neighbourhoods they truly and naturally inhabit. I also knew that practitioners who work with real life are intuitively already all too aware of this truth, yet may find it difficult to be explicit about as they struggle with standardized rules, regulations and formulae imposed by a rationalistic mindset fearful of uncertainty.

 

How had I come to find myself in this situation?

 

1. I have been working on the development of a way of explaining evolution that doesn't suffer from the inconsistencies, paradoxes and adverse social, psychological and environmental implications of natural selection theory. I have called this new explanation 'natural inclusion'. Briefly, 'natural inclusion' can be described as 'the co-creative

transformation of all through all in receptive space'.

 

2. I was alerted to the problems of natural selection theory - arising from the fact that the logic of 'selection' isn't actually 'natural' - by my many years of research on fungi and trees. I found that it wasn't possible adequately to understand the variable dynamic relationships and patterns of development of these organisms by regarding them as if they are self-centred objects. Moreover, to do so may result in damaging instead of beneficial

methods of managing trees and their cultivation, which neglect the ecological context in which they thrive - for example by growing trees in adverse soils and locations, intolerance of risk, and pruning and felling them inaptly or unnecessarily. It makes more sense to think of trees and fungi - and indeed all organisms - as naturally variable neighbourhoods or flow-forms, whose development and interrelationships are sensitively dependent on their environmental situation. Experienced practitioners are often more

intuitively aware of this situation than theorists who attempt to formulate standard codes of practice.

 

3. During the 1990s I gradually realized that these problems weren't confined to understanding trees and fungi but extended to how we human beings have mostly come to study, interpret and educate ourselves about the natural world and our place in it, based on a rationalistic, 'whole way of thinking' that promotes profound intolerance and conflict. This rationalistic thinking is founded in the supposition - deeply embedded in

orthodox mathematics, science, governance and theology - that matter can be isolated from space. There is neither any evidence for this supposition, nor does it make consistent sense of our experience. But the damaging effect that it has is to compel us to draw an imaginary hard line or 'discontinuity' between our individual 'selves' and our natural neighbourhood. This imaginary hard line is at the root of conflict between

all kinds of intolerant fundamentalist ideologies as well as a source of great difficulty in predicting and relating to environmental change.

 

4. Partly as a result of this realization, I stopped actively researching fungal and tree biology in 1999 and started to research in an interdisciplinary way with any artists, mathematicians, natural scientists, engineers, sociologists, therapists, theologians, philosophers, educators, former drug addicts, managers, organizations - and most

especially Bath University undergraduates - I could find who shared my view that we have been teaching ourselves to think in a way that is socially, environmentally and psychologically damaging. This research led to the development of a new ecological and evolutionary understanding of natural energy flow called 'inclusionality', from which the concept of 'natural inclusion' arose. Unlike rationalistic thinking, inclusionality does not assume or impose completion at any scale of natural organisation and so is a source of deep tolerance and love of natural variety.

 

5. I am continuing to research the implications of inclusionality, and how most effectively to communicate this understanding to a wider community, along as many avenues and with as many like-minded people as I can. I include art, poetry and a new kind of mathematics, as well as scientific observation and inference in my approach.

 

 

From reading the above text I think this man is totally delusional. So he thinks he's up there with Darwin does he? Badly written, American spellings, poor grammar and to add insult to injury nothing he proposes can be substantiated in any meaningful way.

 

He should stick to fungi and trees.

[Dominic Phillips]

Thats very interesting.

 

it will be interesting to see what he finally comes up with, and how he will try to get this across to the every day person, or whether this will be more for the people in the trade of ecology and the like.

[WeeDee]

I've just the passage above and am interested in the idea that 'understanding' can evolve. I can't make my mind up about what is being said because I feel that much more would need to be explained or proposed (as I'm sure is the case).

However, I'm determined that my ignorance will not prevent me keeping an open mind until I know more of the argument.

 

Thanks for posting, Hamadryad.

[raafbeard]

From my understanding what he says could unite the world as one - assuming that we all evolve as products of our environment and are each special based on the factors included within a given environment.

 

Hard to follow what was written but could have opened a door.. As Arborists we already know this though because each tree is "treated" in sympathy to its individual environment... hmmm