User:Jeffwb/sandbox2

= Symmathesy =

Life requires both chaos and order. Between them is the liminal world of mutual learning.

Symmathesy is a combination of the Greek words Syn/Sym (together) and Mathesi, (to learn), to create Symmathesy = Learning together.

A working definition of symmathesy is:

Symmathesy (noun): (Pronounced: sym-math-a-see) 1.	an entity formed over time by contextual mutual learning through interaction. For example, an ecosystem at any scale, like a body, family or forest is a symmathesy. 2.	the process of contextual mutual learning through interaction.

Symmathesize (verb, intrans.): •	to generate contextual mutual learning through the process of interaction between multiple variables in a living entity.

History
Nora Bateson coined this term in 2015, while struggling with words to capture the way in which learning occurs in a variety of biological, social, and cultural systems. She was dissatisfied with the traditional views of “learning” as acquiring conceptual content, which did not capture the dynamics of how systems learn. She and her colleagues had just finished a research project that looked at how people with paralysis regained full motion after what was fundamentally therapy that focused on learning as a multi-system phenomenon. As therapist guided patients through sensory, imagination, and memory exercises, the patients slowly began to regain sensation and muscular control. Learning across interacting systems such as was evidenced in this clinic could not be described by the language that has been available. From this experience and others, as well as the concepts that her father, Gregory Bateson Gregory Bateson, discussed in his work, she came up with “symmathesy” as a way of capturing the dynamic nature of systemic learning.

Description
Biology, culture, and society are dependent at all levels upon the vitality of interaction they produce both internally and externally. A body, a family, a forest or a city can each be described as a buzzing hive of communication between and within its various life forms. Together the organs of your body allow you to make sense of the world around you. A jungle can be understood best as a conversation among its flora and fauna, including the insects, the fungi of decay, and contact with humanity. Interaction is what creates and vitalizes the integrity of the living world. Over time the ongoing survival of the organisms in their environments requires that there be learning, and learning to learn, together. Gregory Bateson said that the evolution is in the context or “It is the context which evolves.” So, mutual learning in living contexts can now be called symmathesy.

Interdependency is vital to the health of any system. But, the interdependency does not sit still. All of biological evolution, and development of culture and society is a testament to the characteristics of contextual multilayered shiftings through time. Nothing stays the same. So, from this perspective change is a kind of learning.

The core aspects of symmathesy include the following seven concepts:
 * 1) Context – All living systems, from single cells to ecosystems to social and cultural systems, contain multiple contexts, live within multiple contexts, and throughout the systems lifetime confront a variety of contexts. For example, the human body is a context in itself, but it also contains multiple contexts, such as the microflora ecology within the digestive system, the external ecology of bacteria and mites, and the various systems that are contexts, as well as our own particular contexts of meaning  and other psychological contexts. Each human being also lives within multiple adjacent as well as embedded contexts, such as family, workplace, community, local and national political contexts, religious organization, social circles, and physical location within one or more ecosystems. Each person also confronts various contexts that may arise during one’s life, which can involve the criminal system, jury duty, new job, new relationships, sickness, hospital stays, new contexts from travel, and so forth. All of the interactions that take place contribute to learning or symmathesy, as each context learns from the interrelationships.
 * 2) Calibration – As contexts and entities interact, there are underlying calibrations or adjustments taking place as the interrelationships and interactions are negotiated. Such processes of calibration are rarely at levels at which people or other entities are conscious of them. These calibrations can involve finding some sense of balance or homeostasis, adjusting one’s voice levels, or regulating population as pigeons do by tending to or abandoning nests.
 * 3) Play – Play is the sense of trying out possibilities, testing the effects of some “idea” or action, exploring some new avenue, or experimenting with some new way to communicate or act. Play is critical to learning. As a critical component of learning, play involves (a) abstractions in cognition and communication; (b) development of relationships; (c) abduction or the testing out of “ideas” across contexts; (d) recursion where relationships, “ideas,” and meaning are enhanced with each iteration; (e) understandings of contexts in which play is occurring; (f) tensions between binaries of relationships or ideas; (g) finding the limits of what is possible; (h) interactions with others, with objects, or with contrasting “ideas.”
 * 4) Time – Time in this sense is not just linear and sequential. Rather, time a sense of circularity and recursion, and that order is not static. Time also refers to how relationships and interrelationships develop over time, and that efficiency is not particularly beneficial in learning and growth.  As a context, time is the notion of development and growth, of change and transformation, and of adaptation and acclimatization.
 * 5) Bias – Bias has to do with how we filter or perceive incoming information. Humans have particular belief, theoretical, and knowledge frameworks (personal epistemologies ). In other living systems, such as plants, fungi, protists, and bacteria, such “filters” or “frameworks” are biologically mediated out of necessity and, as we are finding out now, are experientially and contextually constructed . These filtering systems are both useful, if not necessary, and problematic. These systems can prevent too much information from overwhelming a living system and provide a focus on what information is important. However, these filtering systems can be problematic in reacting to tense situations where clear understandings are necessary; in not being subject to one's assumptions and biases; in how we categorize objects, people, and events; and so forth.
 * 6) Stochastic Processes – Stochastic or processes that generate random possibilities or random variation. Among other cognitive processes, the random generation of specific ideas or trains of thought can lead to creative insights.  As in evolution and continuity of species, random variation is necessary for long-term survival and well-being.
 * 7) Boundaries – Living systems do not have clearly defined and delineated boundaries, contrary to what may seem to be a solid boundary, such as skin or shells. However, the human body has both internal and external ecosystems of other living entities that intermingle with the body’s own cellular and tissue structures. Our living system includes the air we breath in and out, the skin cells that fluff off, hairs that sense the surrounding environment and affect air flow. And, the flow of information that affects what we do extends throughout our environment. When we drive a car all parts of our bodies are receiving sensory information about the car, the road, the surrounding context. We make adjustments and calibrations based on this information. In social situations, cognition and learning is distributed among participants in the social context. However, these fuzzy boundaries that define systems are the locations for mutual learning or symmathesy. As boundaries or borders make contact and intermingle, play, calibration, and all the rest occur.

Symmathesy, in its present form, does not address conceptual learning. However, conceptual learning involves all of the elements of symmathesy as well as processes of categorization and developing meaningful interrelationships or interconnections.

‘’’SEE Also’’’

 * Nora Bateson’s “Symmathesy” paper
 * International Bateson Institute
 * International Bateson Institute Archive
 * Nora Bateson
 * Gregory Bateson
 * William Bateson
 * Stochastic Process

‘’’References’’’
Alvarez-Pereira, C. (2016). Towards a society of living: Provocations on economy and economics by a layman and entrepreneur. Eruditio: E-journal of the World Academy of Art & Science, 2(2), 72—101.

Bateson, G. (1972/2000). Steps to an ecology of mind. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.

Bateson, G. (1979/2002). Mind and nature: A necessary unity. Cresskill, NJ: Hampton Press.

Bateson, G. (R. E. Donaldson, Ed.). (1991). Sacred unity: Further steps to an ecology of mind. New York: A Cornelia & Michael Bessie Book/Harper Collins.

Bateson, G., & Bateson, M. C. (1987/2005). Angels fear: Towards an epistemology of the sacred. Cresskill, NJ: Hampton Press.

Bateson, N. (2015). Symmathesy – A word in progress. Proceedings of the 59th Annual Meeting of the ISSS – 2015. Berlin, Germany: 1(1). Available at: http://journals.isss.org/index.php/proceedings59th/article/view/2720

Bateson, N. (2016). Small arcs of larger circles: Framing through other patterns. Axminster, Devon, UK: Triarchy Press. (Available through: http://www.triarchypress.net/small-arcs.html#sthash.myaj2ir1.dpuf)

Bloom, J. W. (2016). ''Learning, thinking, teaching at the Madeley School: Relationships, complexity, and symmathesy in a community of explorers and learners''. Occasional paper of the International Bateson Institute. Stockholm, Sweden.

Bloom, J. W. (2016). Habits of mind. Blog entry, June 12. available at:

Bloom, J. W. (2015). Learning content is the trivial part of learning. Blog entry, November 5, available at:

Bloom, J. W. (2015). Beyond systems thinking… Climbing out of boxes & breaking arrows. Blog entry, August 31, available at:

Bloom, J. W. (2014). Play: The dynamics of learning and teaching across scales of meaning, abstraction, and context. Manuscript for the International Bateson Institute, Stockholm, Sweden.

Buhner, S. H. (2014). Plant intelligence and the imaginal realm. Rochester, VT: Bear & Company.

Huberman, O. (R. Barak, trans.). (n.d.). What do mushrooms think of? Available at:

Keyte-Harland, D. (2015). Reflection on a week with the International Bateson Institute at Madeley Nursery School, Telford. Paper presented at Thinking About Thinking Meeting, October 19—23.

McGrane, S. (2016). German forest ranger finds that trees have social networks, too. New York Times, January 30. Available at:

Uexküll, J. (1936/2001). An introduction to unwelt. Semiotica, 2001(134), 107—110.

Volk, T. (1995). Metapatterns: Across space, time, and mind. New York: Columbia University Press.

Witzany, G. (2006). Plant communication from a biosemiotic perspective. Plant Signaling & Behavior, 1(4), 169—178.

‘’’End Notes’’’
1 Centro Studi Riabilitazione Neurocognitiva Villa Miari, Santorso, Italy. 

2 Bateson, G. (1972/2000). Steps to an ecology of mind. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, p. 155.

3 Alvarez-Pereira (2016); Bateson, N. (2015)

4 Bloom, J. W. (1990). Contexts of meaning: Young children’s understanding of biological phenomena. International Journal of Science Education, 12(5), 549-561.

5 Bateson, G. (1972/2000, 1979/2002, 1991); Bateson, G. & Bateson, M. C. (1987/2005); Bateson, N. (2015)

6 Bateson, G. (1979/2002, 1991); Bateson, G. & Bateson, M. C. (1987/2005); Bateson, N. (2015)

7 Play as defined here is primarily from a Batesonian perspective: Bateson, G. (1972/2000; 1979/2002, 1991); Bateson, G. & Bateson, M. C. (1987/2005); Bateson, N. (2015); Bloom (2014)

8 Bateson, G. (1972/2000; 1979/2002, 1991); Bateson, G. & Bateson, M. C. (1987/2005); Bateson, N. (2015)

9 Gregory Bateson (1972/2000, 1979/2002) considered epistemology from the perspective of personal or social constructs as opposed to from the philosophical perspective of formal epistemology as an academic construct.

10 A number of authors have discussed the cognition in a variety of animals, plants, fungi, and bacteria, including Buhner (2014); Huberman (n.d.); McGrane (2016); von Uexküll (2001); and Witzany (2006).

11 Bateson, G. (1972/2000, 1979/2002); Bateson, N. (2015)

12 Bateson, G. (1972/2000, 1979/2002); Bateson, N. (2015); Volk (1995)