| “Our present global crisis is more profound than any previous historical crises; hence our solutions must be equally drastic. I propose that we should adopt the plant as the organizational model for life in the 21st century, just as the computer seems to be the dominant mental/social model of the late twentieth century, and the steam engine was the guiding image of the nineteenth century.” (McKenna, 1992) | “Our present global crisis is more profound than any previous historical crises; hence our solutions must be equally drastic. I propose that we should adopt the plant as the organizational model for life in the 21st century, just as the computer seems to be the dominant mental/social model of the late twentieth century, and the steam engine was the guiding image of the nineteenth century.” (McKenna, 1992) |
| Over millennia of evolution, humans developed increasing mobilty between places, avoiding environmental or social degradation by moving 'away'. On a cosmic scale, we are earth-bound organisms just as immobile as plants - there is no 'away' for a globalised human society. As our economies and cultures operate on an increasingly planetary scale, current instabilities cannot be overcome by moving 'away' - adaption needs to come from within. By suggesting “plants as organisational models” McKenna underlines several urgent human needs - to understand the value of diversity and collaboration over monocultures of competition; to approach problem-solving through whole systems thinking, rather than pure reductionism; to redesign industry and economics to adopt more cyclical, "cradle to cradle" processes (McDonough, 2002). The rise of nanotechnology and a “global, atmosphere-based energy economy” can be completely in harmony with detoxifying the natural environment and preserving biodiversity, if we as a species are willing to take the risks of “reestablishing channels of direct communication with the planetary Other, the mind behind nature” (McKenna, 1992). While McKenna's recommended lenses are the plant based psychedelic tryptamines((In particular; DMT (N,N-dimethyltryptamine), Psilocybin (4-Phosphoraloxy-N, N-DMT) and 5-Methoxy-DMT as contained in Virola or Ayahuasca preparations.)) (uncannily similar in structure to some human neurotransmitters((cf. Serotonin (5-Hydroxytryptamine) or Melatonin (5-Methoxy-N-acetyltryptamine)))), we suggest that a symbiotic HPI provides a technological analog and as such, is simultaneously more feasible, acceptable and perhaps insidious to a civilisation reinforced by global ICT. These technologies appear at the 'surface', an area of contact between the dissimilar realms of humans and machines. To operate on this surface, HCI reduces the range of human expressions in exchange for enhancing those actions in reasonably specific, agreed upon ways. Thus HCI is insular, autistic and often mute. Near future, bio- and eco-technology suggest the possibility for HPI to act at different scales with the living systems surrounding us, working with patterns, gradients and potentials. From rhizome to rainforest. From Deleuze & Guattari's "and . . . and . . . and. . ." of the rhizome, to the "and . . . and . . . and. . ." of the deeply interconnected, multivalent, multiplicit unity formed by a rainforest ecosystem. A "Pataecology", an ecological, biomimietic systems thinking, an ecology "superinduced upon metaphysics [...] extending as far beyond metaphysics as the latter extends beyond physics." (Jarry, 1996) An ecology of imaginary solutions, inhabited by the plausible and improbable, as they pollinate or mutate, eating or being eaten. | Over millennia of evolution, humans developed increasing mobilty between places, avoiding environmental or social degradation by moving 'away'. On a cosmic scale, we are earth-bound organisms just as immobile as plants - there is no 'away' for a globalised human society. As our economies and cultures operate on an increasingly planetary scale, current instabilities cannot be overcome by moving 'away' - adaption needs to come from within. By suggesting “plants as organisational models” McKenna underlines several urgent human needs - to understand the value of diversity and collaboration over monocultures of competition; to approach problem-solving through whole systems thinking, rather than pure reductionism; to redesign industry and economics to adopt more cyclical, "cradle to cradle" processes (McDonough, 2002). The rise of nanotechnology and a “global, atmosphere-based energy economy” can be completely in harmony with detoxifying the natural environment and preserving biodiversity, if we as a species are willing to take the risks of “reestablishing channels of direct communication with the planetary Other, the mind behind nature” (McKenna, 1992). While McKenna's recommended lenses are the plant based psychedelic tryptamines((In particular; DMT (N,N-dimethyltryptamine), Psilocybin (4-Phosphoraloxy-N, N-DMT) and 5-Methoxy-DMT as contained in Virola or Ayahuasca preparations.)) (uncannily similar in structure to some human neurotransmitters((cf. Serotonin (5-Hydroxytryptamine) or Melatonin (5-Methoxy-N-acetyltryptamine) )) ), we suggest that a symbiotic HPI provides a technological analog and as such, is simultaneously more feasible, acceptable and perhaps insidious to a civilisation reinforced by global ICT. These technologies appear at the 'surface', an area of contact between the dissimilar realms of humans and machines. To operate on this surface, HCI reduces the range of human expressions in exchange for enhancing those actions in reasonably specific, agreed upon ways. Thus HCI is insular, autistic and often mute. Near future, bio- and eco-technology suggest the possibility for HPI to act at different scales with the living systems surrounding us, working with patterns, gradients and potentials. From rhizome to rainforest. From Deleuze & Guattari's "and . . . and . . . and. . ." of the rhizome, to the "and . . . and . . . and. . ." of the deeply interconnected, multivalent, multiplicit unity formed by a rainforest ecosystem. A "Pataecology", an ecological, biomimietic systems thinking, an ecology "superinduced upon metaphysics [...] extending as far beyond metaphysics as the latter extends beyond physics." (Jarry, 1996) An ecology of imaginary solutions, inhabited by the plausible and improbable, as they pollinate or mutate, eating or being eaten. |
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