Modern human is called Homo Sapiens ‘the man who knows' but what is it that we really know?
We generate what we perceive as knowledge and meaning from subjective experience. This process is influenced by our senses, societal values, preconceptions and definitions. Knowledge is ultimately a human construct.
Lack of comprehension leads to fear. We imposed a localised meaning on what we observed – the flocking birds that called in the winter, when the life-giving rains would fall, which Moon would signify the harvest. We wanted to understand the way of things so we simplified. However, the world isn't simple. It's infinitely complex…but not complicated. For thousands of years we have followed Greek philosophical tradition – Cause and Effect, A leads to B leads to C and the causality of Aristotelian physics. But life isn't linear. It's not a causal chain. This is too basic.
In 1202 Leonardo Fibonacci introduced the West to a number sequence that had been developed by Indian mathematicians from as early as the 6th century. It revealed Nature as the infinitely masterful pattern-maker. The original algorithm, the Fibonacci sequence, goes forward, jumps back on itself and goes forwards again in a repeating feedback loop. Life, we discovered, is neither random nor fixed, but a complex composite of collective exchange – a multiplex.
Quantum theory re-affirms ancient insight.
Our perception of reality has been fundamentally reversed. We no longer prescribe to the classical notion that the world is comprised of autonomous ‘elementary parts' that follow chance formations. Instead we have come to recognise the interconnectedness of the Universe, and discover that the existence and behaviour of these ‘independent' elements are particular and contingent within a universal whole.
We have organically begun to re-interpret ourselves and our surroundings.
“But what do we see? Simultaneity and overlap. Everything happens because of feedback within this system of interconnectivity,” exclaims Cecil Balmond.
We think the world differently by acknowledging and confronting the system, by exploring its overlapping strands. Each one has its own equilibrium. But we must embrace the whole.
The more we observe, the more we discover. The possibilities are beyond our imagining.
COLOMBO
LONDON