ONENESS, INTERCONNECTIVITY; SYSTEMS THINKING & COLLECTIVE INTELLIGENCE

“The whole is greater than the sum of its parts.”

-Aristotle

“There is nothing in a caterpillar that tells you it's going to be a butterfly.”

-R. Buckminster Fuller

Introduction

Ana, beekeeper

There is one fundamental misunderstanding in our world today. Its consequences are immense. You can see them all around you - they spell disaster. This fundamental misunderstanding is that we as humans believe ourselves to be separate entities in a cold mechanic universe that doesn’t care about us. That we are alone, basically, and as such, afraid. Being afraid we act defensively, egoistically, driven by primitive survival instincts. We care for ourselves, at least we think so. The millionaires’ gated communities, the refugees stuck and imprisoned at the border controls, the wars in the Middle East, the rising sea levels, the death of hundreds of species every year… it can all be traced back to the same basic misunderstanding, misconception, misintuition and mis-experience. Because it’s so deeply immersed in our culture that we can hardly imagine otherwise. But if we want a world that is whole and makes sense, we better look at it as a whole. And as making sense. Right?

When we were creating Bridgedale360, we had a lot of these discussions about feelings of being alone. Isolated and separated from other humans and all other living entities in the world. We wanted to leave these negative feelings behind and create something better, a place where we all live in harmony and cherish each other, knowing that we are all interconnected. This is how I actually became a beekeeper. If we look at the bees we’ll understand how immensely and beautifully complex the natural world is. How everything works together. We understand that nothing, literally nothing, is separate from anything else. Being human “bee-ings” we are equally intertwined in the web of life. Without the air around us we would die within minutes. Is it then meaningful to see us as separate from the air? Why is the air outside my body not me when the air inside my lungs is? What about the thousands of organisms dwelling in my body? Are they me? When you go down this line of thought there can only be one conclusion, nothing is you, and at the same time all is you!

So we’re moving towards what is often called a holistic worldview. It’s a perspective where nothing is seen as isolated and separated, where everything is interlinked. The zen-master Thích Nhất Hạnh used to talk about inter-being, referring to the ultimate oneness and unity of all beings. Many people in Bridgedale360 are actually practicing zen meditation, inspired by this feeling of oneness and interconnectivity.

But also, we try to adopt this holistic perspective on a more practical level. When we’re designing systems, whatever they are, we need to keep “the whole” in mind, otherwise we’re destined to do the same mistakes that we’ve done so far, over and over again. Take the food-production system in the old society, for example. Does it produce food? Yes. Does it cater for the well-being of the whole? No! The consequences of the linear thinking monoculture food system is that it destroys the soil from excessive use of pesticides and fertilisers, in itself based on oil and other unsustainable resources, instead of slowly building up the soil and treating it as a living ecosystem. Moreover, when it comes to biodiversity, which is the basis of all ecosystems, the effects are horrendous. Just one crop, acre after acre, do you think that nature is happy like this? No! And how does it cater for the people? Maybe you recall the banana plantations where the cancer rates are booming due to airplane dumped pesticides.That’s a big no! So when we’re designing food systems and any other system in Bridgedale360 for that matter, we always remind ourselves that we think of the whole. A great holistic design tool that’s been around for a while now, even though you’ve probably never heard about it in school in the old society - is permaculture.

To illustrate, if you look at a chicken, our industrial modern society would normally apply a linear system design. You bring in fodder from the outside, you breed the chicken, you slaughter them, and you produce meat. Instead, when looking from a holistic perspective, applying permaculture design, you would consider all the benefits the chicken bring, and even more, you would see the chicken as an integral part of the whole, with its intrinsic value. You then see that the chicken can help you prepare the soil for your garden and eat harmful snails and slugs, that they also produce eggs, feathers and valuable manure, as well as being fun fellows to have around. Then some will be eaten by the fox, which are needed to keep the rabbit population in balance. If you think about it - all is connected. And us humans are not the sole beneficiary of the system. No, we’re an integral part of it and our duty is to cater to the whole. Because if nature is happy, we’ll be happy. Because ultimately we are nature.

Learning Outcomes

• To see systems and understand that we are part of them

• To recognize patterns in nature and human society and see them as complex vs. linear

• To understand feedback loops and how to influence and restore them

• To learn tools to evoke collective intelligence

• To experience holistic thinking/systems