A systems view of biological health

Section 2: Theory

32 : Not One, Not Two - the multiplicity of the biological self

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"A meshwork of selfless selves"

Francisco Varela’s "star duality" of Not One, Not Two[1] is a relational duality in which mutual systems can act as one but also independently. They have a distinct existence of their own that can be made visible - but rely on each other so much that the existence of any single one (without the other) as an organic entity is not viable. They may have very different or even opposite functions but those functions are complementary rather than opposing or contradictory, and are synergistic and simultaneous rather than being exclusive. It is the loosely coupled relationship that allows this complex Not-One, Not-Two-ness to exist, and their function is modulated by the degree of looseness vs rigidity of their interactions. It is well worth sitting with this and letting it sink in – because Western culture is shot through with ideas that are Aristotelian exclusive, oppositional dualities; and the "Star Duality" of living systems is notthat[2], and is not commonly referred to in everyday conversations or represented with any clarity in Western thinking.

In later sections I will describe some of the more anatomically obvious "higher-level" organisational Not-One, Not-Two, such as the central and Autonomic nervous systems, which themselves are sub-entities of the three-compartment body plan. Since [3] each "part" of the Not-One, Not-Two has some degree of self-actualised autonomy, it necessarily possesses a degree of sentience or intelligence, not unlike a single blade of grass might grow within a clump that grows in a meadow within a landscape within a particular climatic zone on this particular planet. The blade of grass, the clump, the meadow (etc.) all self-organise and at the same time participate both in the wider world and with other sub-entities that share and contribute to the common ecological space, (as Varela described it) a "meshwork of selfless selves". Thus it is with a single cell of your body, or even with a single mitochondrion within that cell. Pathologies such as cancer dohave human DNA, but disobey the dictates of Form, having lost a sense of having a common identity with the other cells and tissues that surround them [4] - they have lost their sense of not-two-ness.

All of these entities, large and small, participate in continuous conversations with "amicity", thus creating feedback loops of information – a series of whispers and gestures (and sometimes tabloid headlines) that translate and pass on meaning upwards, downwards and sideways in every direction. These have of necessity to be connected by some unknown mechanism to the act of will, that allows you or a bug in a pond to decide to move in a certain direction, resulting in the extraordinary fact that the organic body mobilises itself into action. Will is a "top-end" function, so something in the rest of the Not-One, Not-Two body-mind complex must take notice of will-to-action and respond to it, and that be picked up by literally every single corner of your physical being. I have therefore come to use analogies form the human organisational world – of CEO’s and corporations, of army platoons, and so on – because there is something about them that reflects accurately enough the communication of intent and attention through your whole body. Sitting in the middle is an apparently unitary id-entity – your core inviolable self – around which everything is loosely organised and more-or-less responsive to. It’s a wonderful thing to be able to choose to take a breath or to shift your attention – and also a wonderful thing to feel the body take a breath on its own or turn your head "automatically". All this infinitely wonderful potential comes with a certain responsibility, just as the CEO of a company has a responsibility to treat employees well, to abide by the law, and so on.

The semi-autonomous loosely-coupled nature of the body means that information does not proceed directly from top to bottom, but rather passes via a set of feedback loops. All living creatures use their attention to interact with the world. The "meaning" of the external world (as in the meaning that invokes a specific physiological response by informing the feedback loop hierarchy) is interpreted by "lower" levels of consciousness via

• the quality of cognitive attention and
• the mental-emotional state that accompanies it.

The reason all of this has been written is that modern Western techno-industrial society has forgotten or ignored or misunderstood the basic principles by which the cognitive mind and body-mind evolved so as to to be able to "talk" with each other. This in turn has resulted in an accumulation of threat-adaptive states that are never normalised – which we have come to call "trauma". These are literally fragmentary parts of the entire body-mind complex that are no longer calibrated to the present moment because they never de-calibrated from an overwhelming even some time in the past. Most people are – knowingly or not – carrying a rucksack full of rocks (or fragmented selves) gathered along the way. This accumulation is completely unnecessary, and is a direct cause of many physical illnesses and mental health problems.