permaculture

["Dick Pierce" <dickpiercedesigns@gmail.com>]

Hello, Jason,

Wow, did you hit on/come real close to my favorite subject(s). I predict
that you will have the task of sifting/selecting from a huge body of info
and reference as a result of your question to this group - you'll get a
flood, not a trickle - and it will come from all directions.

One of the great things about Permaculture is that it comes at you and at a
problem/challenge from all directions - that's holistic. In that sense it is
very sympathetic with most Indigenous and land-/earth-/Nature-based views
and methods. Modern science comes at it from essentially one way -
empirical, logical, data that can be sensed/verified. That leaves out most
of philosophy, most all of religion, spirituality, and most attempts to
integrate/utilize these other disciplines.

For the last 100-200 or so years, science has had the upper hand and has
forcefully pushed both religion, spirituality where it could, and philosophy
out of the mainstream of modern life. This has lead to a very warped and
dangerous world-view in my opinion - facts, instruments improving our
senses, and experimental verification as the way to knowledge. Duplicating/
isolating something in a lab has become the necessary practice. - a lot of
Permaculture (compost, Biodynamics, farm practices) is about doing things in
a real-world/integrated setting, like in a garden or on a farm. Science has
some good stuff and has made some great progress, but it needs to be put
back together with other thought/knowledge disciplines - otherwise it stands
alone, arrogant, un-listening, withering, and dying on its own vine.

I could go on longer than you need listen - I have a 1-2 hour talk on
Science, Religion, and Philosophy that I love to give. It notes that lots of
the smaller pieces of science are chipping off (explanations no longer
valid, ideas/products not working or giving off bad, bad side-effects) and
headed back toward a common ground.

There are also some ideas and people have never left this common place.
Kuhn, Fritzoff Copra, and Heisenberg lead with Systems Theory - that the
system tells us things that the pieces/parts cannot (reductionism) and that
the experimenter influences the experiment (so much for rigor in the
scientific method). Also, Evolution requires a long, long time to work (if
it ever could make Species A into Species B) and needs the scientific
backdrop of Uniformatarianism popular in the last 2 centuries. That is, much
of science requires to have the background stay still and assumes that
conditions have been the same for eons - for instance: same time (same day,
same year, same month - not to Mayans, Egyptians, even Romans who put 2
months into the calendar, Julius and Augustine); same atmosphere (CO2 stays
the same for Carbon Dating??); same continents (now in trouble with Gaia,
Pangaea, drift); same Solar System (the Moon, Sun, Venus, Mars, orbits,
missing planets). Catastrophism used to be the reigning  paradigm and gave
science and religion and indigenous knowledge [loosely] some common threads.
That changed with Lyell and Darwin - it's quietly changing back with comets
striking Jupiter, the US Congress convening a committee on an Asteroid
strike, and folks agreeing that the major comet going into the Yucatan some
50-60 million years ago changed things on earth radically (dinosaurs,
mammals, day/year length?). Indigenous myths and creation stories, even
those of Judeo-Christian folks, are beginning to make more sense to science
- Indigenous never gave up these beliefs.

Most of Indigenous cultures and Arab, Eastern, Far Eastern have different to
very different views or worldviews or science than the Western World and
Science. Christopher Columbus used Arab maps to help him, as an instance.
Does anyone believe that Columbus "discovered" America anymore? - a belief
held strongly by Europeans, their Church, their Promoters/ Settlers in the
New World, and their trading companies/empire builders. Modern Science needs
badly to listen to these "stories" of these other folks and other times with
a new and open mind - not the arrogant, narrow, dismissive attitude of the
past. I had the privilige of coordinating conferences among Indian Elders a
decade ago on Indian Knowledge of the Natural World - Stars, Plants,
Animals, and Origins. Their knowledge and worldviews were and are astounding
both to me and to the very few scientists invited to attend.

American Indian elders, medicine men (their "intellectuals) have been
watching the Western people, world-views, and actions for over 5 centuries.
Patient and Protracted [and Open-minded] Observation is the first principle
of Permaculture - they have been doing this in watching us and our science.
We have not [by a long shot] been watching/asking them for their
ideas/philosophies - much of which is valuable science, philosophy, and
spirituality.

My dear and now departed friend, Vine Deloria, Jr., Standing Rock Sioux, was
my mentor on this subject. I highly recommend his book: "Red Earth - White
Lies" as a starting text on how another culture looks at our science and
theirs. His more popular books are "God is Red" and "Custer Died for Your
Sins" - and his most obscure, but brilliant, is the "Metaphysics of Modern
Existence" which takes on and explains Freud and Jung, et.al. You will find
it clear that, while respecting the accomplishments of modern science, he
feels that it is deficient and certainly not stand-alone and that Indian
Science/knowledge is a time-honored/time-gathered integration, not
separation, of science, philosophy, and spirituality.

Another place that I'd recommend, because it says some of the same things,
is Rudolph Steiner and Spiritual Science (Anthropoophy). Steiner respected
science and its analytics, but included "other ways of knowing" -
intuitiive, spiritual, divine inspiration/communication, a spirit world,
etc. This shows up in Biodynamic Farming - which is for me a wonderful
affirmation of and addition to of Permaculture principles. "Secrets of the
Soil" by Tompkins and "The Biodynamic Farm" by Lovell are good starters into
Biodynamics and Steiner before you dive into some of his works - they can be
rather tough going.

This was meant to be a short note with just a couple of book references, so
I'll draw to a close with just a comment on the Western [Scientific] World
View and others. It is a fascinating study in ego, arrogance, and in being
trapped, as I see it. Western science and thought needs desperately to come
to the table, sit, and listen with an open mind - to many, many things that
it has in the past: dismissed as primitive/superstitious, not valid, or not
verifiable. There are lots of little forces that are chipping away at its
stronghold/fortress and the opinion that it alone rightly occupies the seat
of power and intelligence is not valid. The evidence keeps piling up -
silting of Western US lakes and closing of power projects, comets slamming
into Jupiter, systems theories including revelation and intuition, psychics
present at most archaeological digs, dowsers finding people or water,
Findhorn growing bushel basket cabbages with help from plant spirits, the
Secret Life of Plants, complaints that Science/Business has no conscience or
ethical compass, and on and on....

There is hope, but only if Science will come to a table of equals, as an
equal, and as a willing student, and really listen. In the meantime, I view
Permaculture as a great place where people who believe in the value of
integration of views/information, of observing and helping Nature, of
regarding Nature as the Grand Designer, and of seeking other opinions - can
do very productive work and move the ball forward.....one swale, one herb
spiral, one design, one biodynamic preparation at a time.

I'll be doing the Science, Religion, Spirituality talk on April 8, 2009 as
the last in the Austin Permaculture Guild's Winter Sreies of Talks. I'm
afraid that your paper will be long done by then, but check the Series out
on www.permie.us. Email me back if you have questions or want more sourses
on the thoughts/themes above.

Best to you with the project.

Dick Pierce



On Thu, Oct 30, 2008 at 4:10 PM, jason brown <jasonbrown644@hotmail.com>wrote:

>
> Hello, my name is Jason Brown. I did my Perma cert this summer with Scott
> Pittman in NM. (HI SCOTT!)
>
> I am currently doing a masters degree in forestry. While the material is
> amazing and I am learning a lot. There has been a consistant mechanistic
> world view expressed and assumed. I am working on a paper analysis for the
> class and would like to include a critique of the mechanistic world view.
>
> 1) any references that come to mind on forestry, holism, mechanistic
> science, general philosophy of science...
>
> 2) What are your thoughts one the convergence of western science and other
> world views. Clearly permaculture uses plenty of the things we have learned
> from science, but is critical of its rigid institutions and assumptions...
>
> thanks!
>
> Jason b
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-- 
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