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Subtle Agroecologies
food, we also create specifc informational patterns, and not all of those patterns are conducive for
our thrivability and planetary health.
Owing to their lack of reciprocity with the healthy patterns of planetary ecosystems, food produced through systems that inhabit diseased information patterns also produces informational disease patterns that we in turn consume and propagate (Sahtouris, 2013). This gives a whole new
meaning to the saying that you are what you eat. This understanding of health and disease as
specifc informational patterns is starting to emerge in the feld of holistic medicine (Laszlo, 2017).
In order to better understand which infodynamics to apply for healthy and ecological food cultivation, we frst need to understand the infodynamics of thrivable living systems. Living systems,
compared to mechanistically created human systems, emerge from and generate healthy and regenerative infodynamic patterns due to the direct resonance and in-tunement with the cosmological
intelligence of life.
Currivan’s book and research demonstrate that when we reinterpret the frst two laws of thermodynamics as laws of infodynamics, we start to see how the universe’s informational content
increases and diversifes as it spatially expands over time. This gives rise to growing complexity
and evolutionary coherence (Currivan, 2017). Understanding evolutionary complexity is essential if
we are to address complex issues such as runaway climate change, as indicative of systemic barriers that emerge from harmful complexity and degenerative growth patterns (see Smitsman, 2019).
The cosmological insights about the infodynamics of living systems through this chapter transform our understanding of reality itself – and turn the perception of a material, separate and essentially meaningless world on its head. Our beliefs drive our behaviours, and a wholeworld-view
has the potential to empower transformational social change, including our behaviour towards our
planetary home.
We will now apply some of these key points to evolutionary systems’ design, which can also be
applied to the design of evolutionary farming systems and practices. Anneloes Smitsman’s PhD
dissertation summarises the infodynamics of thrivable living systems as falling into fve categories
(adopted from Smitsman, 2019: 436):
1. Embodied Informational Wholeness That Is Holographically Distributed: Wholeness is
a fundamental organisational principle of living systems, which cannot be understood by
merely studying the parts of systems (Capra and Luisi, 2014). Thrivable living systems
embody the systemic informational wholeness of life in their in-formation, organisation
and behaviour. Informational wholeness in living systems gives rise to diversifcation
(variability) that remains evolutionary coherent and unifed (integrated) at deeper levels
of the system (Smitsman and Currivan, 2019). When living systems grow more complex,
their consciousness-actualising capacity also increases (Sahtouris, 2013). This embodying
capacity is incredibly important from a developmental perspective of how consciousness
as potentiality becomes aware through actualisation, from undifferentiated to differentiated awareness and back (Smitsman and Smitsman, 2020).
2. Future Creative Attractors: The future creative capacity of a living system is based on
its capacity for renewal through its evolutionary development. The term ‘future creative’
also refers to a creative process that generates new patterns and new possibilities, i.e.
new futures. In living systems, such a future creative process emerges from its evolutionary learning and development capacity. Evolutionary learning and development requires
specifc systemic attractors, affordances and sensory organs that combined make it possible to explore the infodynamics of the system’s activities for new goals and purposes.
Accordingly, living systems develop the sensory and attuning capabilities for adjusting
their patterns and structures in a way that enables their further evolutionary development. The possibility space of a living system, its future potential, is precisely what
acts as the attractor towards this developmental learning process (see Smitsman and
Smitsman, 2020).
Subtle Agroecologies
food, we also create specifc informational patterns, and not all of those patterns are conducive for
our thrivability and planetary health.
Owing to their lack of reciprocity with the healthy patterns of planetary ecosystems, food produced through systems that inhabit diseased information patterns also produces informational disease patterns that we in turn consume and propagate (Sahtouris, 2013). This gives a whole new
meaning to the saying that you are what you eat. This understanding of health and disease as
specifc informational patterns is starting to emerge in the feld of holistic medicine (Laszlo, 2017).
In order to better understand which infodynamics to apply for healthy and ecological food cultivation, we frst need to understand the infodynamics of thrivable living systems. Living systems,
compared to mechanistically created human systems, emerge from and generate healthy and regenerative infodynamic patterns due to the direct resonance and in-tunement with the cosmological
intelligence of life.
Currivan’s book and research demonstrate that when we reinterpret the frst two laws of thermodynamics as laws of infodynamics, we start to see how the universe’s informational content
increases and diversifes as it spatially expands over time. This gives rise to growing complexity
and evolutionary coherence (Currivan, 2017). Understanding evolutionary complexity is essential if
we are to address complex issues such as runaway climate change, as indicative of systemic barriers that emerge from harmful complexity and degenerative growth patterns (see Smitsman, 2019).
The cosmological insights about the infodynamics of living systems through this chapter transform our understanding of reality itself – and turn the perception of a material, separate and essentially meaningless world on its head. Our beliefs drive our behaviours, and a wholeworld-view
has the potential to empower transformational social change, including our behaviour towards our
planetary home.
We will now apply some of these key points to evolutionary systems’ design, which can also be
applied to the design of evolutionary farming systems and practices. Anneloes Smitsman’s PhD
dissertation summarises the infodynamics of thrivable living systems as falling into fve categories
(adopted from Smitsman, 2019: 436):
1. Embodied Informational Wholeness That Is Holographically Distributed: Wholeness is
a fundamental organisational principle of living systems, which cannot be understood by
merely studying the parts of systems (Capra and Luisi, 2014). Thrivable living systems
embody the systemic informational wholeness of life in their in-formation, organisation
and behaviour. Informational wholeness in living systems gives rise to diversifcation
(variability) that remains evolutionary coherent and unifed (integrated) at deeper levels
of the system (Smitsman and Currivan, 2019). When living systems grow more complex,
their consciousness-actualising capacity also increases (Sahtouris, 2013). This embodying
capacity is incredibly important from a developmental perspective of how consciousness
as potentiality becomes aware through actualisation, from undifferentiated to differentiated awareness and back (Smitsman and Smitsman, 2020).
2. Future Creative Attractors: The future creative capacity of a living system is based on
its capacity for renewal through its evolutionary development. The term ‘future creative’
also refers to a creative process that generates new patterns and new possibilities, i.e.
new futures. In living systems, such a future creative process emerges from its evolutionary learning and development capacity. Evolutionary learning and development requires
specifc systemic attractors, affordances and sensory organs that combined make it possible to explore the infodynamics of the system’s activities for new goals and purposes.
Accordingly, living systems develop the sensory and attuning capabilities for adjusting
their patterns and structures in a way that enables their further evolutionary development. The possibility space of a living system, its future potential, is precisely what
acts as the attractor towards this developmental learning process (see Smitsman and
Smitsman, 2020).