permaculture

[Toby Hemenway <hemenway@jeffnet.org>]

on 7/8/00 4:19 AM, Judith Hanna wrote:

>> Part of the difficulty is that we¹re taking observations of natural systems
>> and not just using them to describe those systems, but turning them into
>> rules to guide the creation of human-designed systems.
> 
> Are we? I thought we we saying that 'if you want your design to result in a
> nature-friendly system, these are ways to achieve this sustainability'.
> That is, the principles can also be seen as tests to apply to alternative
> options or elements of the system.

We're looking at the same thing from different ends; I'm describing how we
came up with the "guidelines" and you're describing what we use them for.
Your statement doesn't say anything different from mine; of course we don't
select design alternatives that don't meet the guideline's criteria.

>> The rules are a human construct and
>> emerge from our observations of the interactions of organisms.
> 
> Fair statement: nature evolves; we humans abstract observations and put
> them into words. What's the alternative: acting without thinking?

There are plenty of useful alternatives to abstract thinking (and I say this
as a hard-core scientist). But that wasn't my point. We're observing a whole
system that intellectual analysis cannot understand completely, making a
simplified abstract model of it, then pulling "rules" out of the model, and
using them for design. My point is, we should do this with caution and not
cling too hard to these rules.
> 
> One of the features of
> English as a language is that words are clusters of connotations, with
> dictionary definitions based on previous usage. They aren't limited to
> precise definitions -- and people don't use them with precision. I think
> you are trying to do brain surgery with a feather duster.

Unless I misunderstand you, I don't agree at all. In casual conversation,
sure, people don't use words with complete precision. Words are not
*limited* to precise definitions, but in nearly every case, at the center of
that "cluster" of meanings is a precise definition that fits the word in
question better than any other. That's why writers spend hours finding the
perfect word: because almost no two words create the same cluster of
connotations in the reader's mind. Principle, guideline, or any other word
that might work, all can be pounded into roughly the same shape when we're
being careless. But undeniably, they have different meanings, and people
will regard a principle differently from the way they regard a guideline. (I
make my living as a writer and am trained as a scientist. Both fields would
be useless without extreme precision of meaning.)

When defining terms, writing a manual, or explaining something--and that's
what we're talking about here--precision is both possible and essential.

Here's one reason why: I've just come from a permaculture booth at a large
fair, where the question "what is permaculture?" from passers-by elicited
highly variable answers from the people running the booth, and some
confusion from the listeners. We've all seen this happen many times. This
says to me that some sort of agreement over terms and definitions would be
of great value to permaculture. This whole thread is a result of a
historical absence of precision in Pc writing and thinking that has confused
a lot of people and, I think, slowed permaculture's acceptance by planners,
conventional designers, researchers, and other sticklers for precision. No,
the principle/guideline distinction itself isn't worth worrying about very
much. But believing there's no difference is just sloppy thinking. I harp on
this because many non-permies regard us as very sloppy, as having no
intellectual rigor and a lot of  airy-fairy "solutions" that don't hold up
to inspection. 
    

>> as in ³diversity creates stability,"
>> which isn¹t true)
> 
> Depends -- I don't think that is proven.

For every example of a diverse, stable system, I could give you one of a
simple, stable system or a complex, unstable one. It's been very well proven
that the relationship between diversity and stability is not one of cause
and effect (it's been a heated subject in ecology for 30 years). With that
example I was making a plea for getting away from just repeating simple
slogans, especially slogans like that one that strip all subtlety from a
nuanced and complex situation. My point here is that "principles" can be
very misleading if taken as dogma or if applied by rote, and that calling
them principles suggests that they be used that way--as firm, proven
properties of sustainable systems, rather than as our current and partial
guesses at what make natural systems work.

Toby