THE PATTERNING INSTINCT
The Patterning Instinct is the name of a two-volume work currently being written by Liology Institute founder, Jeremy Lent, examining the human search for meaning in our lives and in the cosmos.
Volume 1 | A Cognitive History of Humanity's Search for Meaning
The first volume examines the different ways in which humanity has searched for meaning in the cosmos since we first evolved. It investigates those attributes that make us uniquely human, such as symbolic thinking and language, and traces the rise of a mythic consciousness in early hunter-gatherer societies worldwide. It examines how the rise of agriculture affected the human understanding of the cosmos and then how different civilizations went their separate ways in forming their views of the universe.
The book identifies an importance divergence that occurred in Eurasia in the first millennium BCE between the dualistic structures of thought emerging in both Indian and Greek civilizations, and the integrative cosmology of China. It traces how Christianity emerged as the world's first systematic dualistic cosmology, paving the way for the scientific revolution and the current predominant global worldview. Meanwhile, it contrasts this trajectory with traditional Chinese thought, which, during the Song dynasty, evolved in Neo-Confucianism a dynamic cosmology incorporating Taoist, Buddhist and Confucian ideas.
The book's approach is a form of "cognitive history": using cognitive science as a lens by which to understand the constructions of meaning applied by different cultural complexes through history. It identifies the prefrontal cortex (pfc) as the crucial part of the human brain that mediates the search for meaning and drives the "patterning instinct" of the title, and explores how the pfc's conceptualizing function interacts with culture to create a "ratcheting effect," leading to the unsustainable trajectory of our modern global civilization.
Click here to read the introductory chapter of the book.
The book identifies an importance divergence that occurred in Eurasia in the first millennium BCE between the dualistic structures of thought emerging in both Indian and Greek civilizations, and the integrative cosmology of China. It traces how Christianity emerged as the world's first systematic dualistic cosmology, paving the way for the scientific revolution and the current predominant global worldview. Meanwhile, it contrasts this trajectory with traditional Chinese thought, which, during the Song dynasty, evolved in Neo-Confucianism a dynamic cosmology incorporating Taoist, Buddhist and Confucian ideas.
The book's approach is a form of "cognitive history": using cognitive science as a lens by which to understand the constructions of meaning applied by different cultural complexes through history. It identifies the prefrontal cortex (pfc) as the crucial part of the human brain that mediates the search for meaning and drives the "patterning instinct" of the title, and explores how the pfc's conceptualizing function interacts with culture to create a "ratcheting effect," leading to the unsustainable trajectory of our modern global civilization.
Click here to read the introductory chapter of the book.
Volume 2 | Liology: Towards a Democracy of Consciousness
The current heated debate in our society between reductionist science and dualistic religion gives the impression that these are the only two serious choices available to someone seeking to understand the cosmos. Volume 2 of The Patterning Instinct argues, however, that this is a false choice. Instead, it explores an approach to the cosmos that finds the source of spiritual meaning to be intrinsic to the natural world, consistent with the findings of modern advances in systems thinking and complexity science.
The book uses the findings of cognitive science to explore the different aspects of human consciousness, identifying a split between our pfc-mediated "conceptual" consciousness and the "animate" (or core) consciousness we share with other animals. It then uses the systems approach to life to further investigate animate consciousness, noting how life and animate consciousness have emerged through processes of self-organization, and it explores some of the philosophical and cosmological implications of these findings.
Some leading modern systems theorists have been searching for a framework that could integrate their findings into the modern discourse on the source of values, ethics and spiritual meaning in our lives. This book identifies the coherent philosophical system of the Neo-Confucian school as a basis for that integration, noting the powerful congruence between the principles of self-organization described by complexity science and the dynamic patterning principles of the universe, or li, described in Neo-Confucian philosophy.
The final part of the book introduces "liology" - an integrated framework for understanding deep spiritual meaning in a form that is coherent with the findings of modern scientific research. Liology offers a pathway for exploring the profound ethical and spiritual implications of the discoveries of complexity science about the natural world. The approach of liology is then used to offer systems-based interpretations of age-old Western philosophical issues such as how mind arises from brain, theories of self and free will, the source of ethics and morality, and how to live harmoniously and sustainably in the natural world.
The book uses the findings of cognitive science to explore the different aspects of human consciousness, identifying a split between our pfc-mediated "conceptual" consciousness and the "animate" (or core) consciousness we share with other animals. It then uses the systems approach to life to further investigate animate consciousness, noting how life and animate consciousness have emerged through processes of self-organization, and it explores some of the philosophical and cosmological implications of these findings.
Some leading modern systems theorists have been searching for a framework that could integrate their findings into the modern discourse on the source of values, ethics and spiritual meaning in our lives. This book identifies the coherent philosophical system of the Neo-Confucian school as a basis for that integration, noting the powerful congruence between the principles of self-organization described by complexity science and the dynamic patterning principles of the universe, or li, described in Neo-Confucian philosophy.
The final part of the book introduces "liology" - an integrated framework for understanding deep spiritual meaning in a form that is coherent with the findings of modern scientific research. Liology offers a pathway for exploring the profound ethical and spiritual implications of the discoveries of complexity science about the natural world. The approach of liology is then used to offer systems-based interpretations of age-old Western philosophical issues such as how mind arises from brain, theories of self and free will, the source of ethics and morality, and how to live harmoniously and sustainably in the natural world.
