“…human retinas are hardwired to spot edges and differences. When we look around a room, our retinal ganglion cells fire more strongly when they see borders and contours than when they see the blank middle areas of uniform color. As the information gets bumped up through higher levels of brain cells, those edges yield more information — tuned by our predispositions. We are sensitive to the outlines, because that’s where the news is. A blank piece of paper may not contain much to attract us, but if we draw a single line across it, now there’s a piece of information and our eye gravitates there. The line has divided the field into two pieces. Information is measured in bits or binary digits, a single distinction. So this mark creates one bit of information — either yes or no, on or off, one or zero, this side of the line or that side. In the light of common themes from logic, philosophy, neurology, psychology, and computer design, Bateson established that the fundamental unit or atom of mind is a single difference.

In the Bible, the universe begins with a single binary distinction. “Let there be light” cleaves the unformed void into light and darkness, and everything develops from there. If you look at the first page of Genesis — the page that is consonant with the theory of evolution — we see more advanced life-forms evolving from less advanced life forms. By advanced I mean more differentiated. First there’s the division between light and darkness. Then the division between above and below. Then the division between wet and dry; between land and sea; living things and nonliving things; plants and animals; and you know how it goes, by powers of two. After three or four billion years of divisions, you are a complex, sentient organism, composing a book about your life’s work. It all stems from one distinction, one binary division, one mark on a blank page.” — Stephen Nachmanovitch

The above passage comes from Stephen Nachmanovitch’s fantastic book, The Art of Is: Improvising as a Way of Life, and this is unabashedly my second blog post in a row that involves this book.

I’m fascinated by this passage for a few of reasons: First, I’m intrigued by the way Nachmanovitch describes Gregory Bateson’s definition of a single “unit of mind” as being “a single difference.” I don’t know if I agree or not but one thing that does spring to mind for me here surrounds curiosity about whether the french philosopher, Gilles Deleuze, would agree or not. I wonder about this because Deleuze is a process thinker whom I’ve admired from a distance for a while (and whose work I’m only familiar with second hand) but he is also someone who has famously been referred to as the “philosopher of difference.”  (*shortly after publishing this I learned that Deleuze was greatly influenced by Bateson in a variety of ways. Cool.)

Second, being a special kind of religious naturalist I do hold to a certain kind of evolutionary deep-time world-view, informed by contemporary science including ecology, biology, physics, et.al as well as contemporary philosophy, theology, economics, and social science so I immensely appreciate Nachmanovitch’s integral, evolutionary reading of Genesis here (very reminiscent of Michael Dowd’s work for me in a lot of ways).

Lastly, considering evolution once again, I definitely like how advanced life-forms is expounded to mean complexly differentiated; once again I wonder if Deleuze would agree here and I have a feeling he might. I have a stronger feeling that process theologian, Bernard Loomer, would agree. Nachmanovitch’s inspiring summation of the creation story in Genesis recalls, for me, another inspiring decree about expanding, evolutionary abundance. Regarding his idea of the S-I-Z-E of one’s soul Loomer writes:

“By ‘S-I-Z-E’ I mean the stature of a person’s soul, the range and depth of your love, your capacity for relationships. I mean the volume of life you can take into your being and still maintain your integrity and individuality, the intensity and variety of outlook you can entertain in the unity of your being without feeling defensive and insecure. I mean the strength of your spirit to encourage others to become freer in the development of their diversity and uniqueness. I mean the power to sustain more complex and enriching tensions. I mean the magnanimity of concern to provide conditions that enable others to increase in stature.”

Lovely isn’t it? May we all appreciate how complex things are after three or four billion years of divisions. And may we all have the power to sustain more complex and enriching tensions so that we may help others increase in stature. Amen.

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Painting above by Barbara Casavecchia

Tags:deleuzedifferenceGregory BatesonLoomerphilosophy of mindStephen NachmanovitchTaoismwhiteheadZen