The Tree of Knowledge: The Biological Roots of Human Understanding

I came to this book years ago through, of all things, a two-year course in business and sales, for which it was required reading along with "Computers and Cognition", another eye-opener; the latter anticipated the current transactional nature of the Internet. You might ask how a work as theoretical and speculative as "Tree of Knowledge" could be part of a pragmatic and hardnosed business course, and that is one key to its attraction for me: as intellectually intriguing as the ideas and assertions in this book are, even more engaging is how they might actually change the way we act in the world.The authors drill down to molecular biology and then carefully build upward their premise that we construct the worlds we live in out of language. Each of us exists inside a story we tell ourselves about the way the world is, and we are completely contained within that story. In that sense, we interact with other people through the way our stories talk to their stories. And the success of our relationships and the effectiveness with which we act in our world is dependent on how well we can recognize the stories of others and understand the nature of our own story.This is good news, once we recognize it, because we are a narrative species. On my way to work in the morning, I am telling myself a story about the way I want my day to go: what I expect, what I want to accomplish, how I will confront the challenges along the way. The story I tell myself about my life has heroes and villains, goals and challenges, grand themes and petty foibles. The more we understand the soaring, rich, complex stories those around us are telling themselves, the more we can overcome misunderstandings, conflicts and cultural dissonance - the more, in a sense, we can construct a meta-story that serves us all as human beings.This is not a quick and simple read, but it is so logically and carefully laid out that I never felt lost along the journey. It is a wonderful book to read in tandem with a friend, or as part of a book club. The discussion and the "aha!" experiences it prompts make for a lively exploration of its ideas. Part of the joy of "Tree of Knowledge" is its potential for promoting tolerance of those different from us, through recognition of what drives their story rather than through compromising our own values."ladylucero", in her review, noted that "Tree of Knowledge" is required reading in some American universities. I read that in the authors' native Chile it is even taught in high schools. This, I believe, is good news: the earlier in life we recognize how our individual stories drive our hopes and expectations, our fears and disappointments, the more capable we will be of living well with our fellow human beings.

I picked up Maturana and Varela’s book because Peter Senge had riffed on autopoiesis in one of his talks (on You Tube) and then mentioned Maturana as the person who had coined the term and suggested that people read his books. OK, challenge accepted.I struggled with the first couple of sections only because biology is not my home base, but as I read I began to understand that the authors were working to show the reader how all organic life forms with a nervous system respond to their environments. What’s interesting about humans is that our nervous system is really a system of systems and therefore our responses to our environment are such that we can reshape that environment to meet whatever goal we have in mind.Towards the end of the book, the authors drop this quote on the reader:The business of living keeps no records concerning origins. All we can do is generate explanations, through language, that reveal the mechanism of bringing forth the world. By existing, we generate cognitive 'blind spots' that can be cleared only through generating new blind spots in another domain. We do not see what we do not see, and what we do not see does not exist. Only when some interaction dislodges us--such as being suddenly relocated to a different cultural environment--and we reflect upon it, do we bring forth new constellations of relation that we explain by saying that we were not aware of them, or that we took them for granted.That whole kit bag of regularities proper to the coupling of a social group is its biologic and cultural tradition. Tradition is not only way to see and act, but also a way to conceal. Tradition consists of all those behaviors that in the history of a social system have become obvious, regular and acceptable. Since they do not require reflection to be generated, they are invisible unless they fail. This is when reflection steps in" (242).This quote impressed me on a couple of professional levels. First, it made me think about the larger “traditions” that make up our educational system and also the more local “traditions” that exist within the district in which I teach. But you can move from there to think about the “traditions” that exist in your department and then moving further in, you can then think about the “traditions” that you live within in your classroom, in your pedagogy, and further, you can start to think about the “traditions” that your students come into your class with, and in thinking about the effectiveness of what you are doing or the goals that you have for the class but never seem to meet, you can pretty much assume that the real problem lies in these traditions, but which ones?This is what systems thinking would call a “wicked problem” because it’s multi-headed, but its base it a solid foundation made up of beliefs, values and habits. You know, those damned "traditions".Maturana and Varela’s book presents the reader with more insight than just this quote but I won’t go on at length because I’m just writing a "quick" review; however, I strongly recommend this book. I was in a meeting the other day with some colleagues and I was asked to share my grading strategy. When I announced that I let students determine their final grades, there was some pushback, but all of the questions asked were geared around what I did; no one asked me why I was doing what I was doing. In other words, no one was asking me about my beliefs and values, they only wanted a prescriptive answer from me, which tells you more about their beliefs and values than anything else. Next, it's onto Sufi Wisdom with Indris Shah. Wish me luck!

For those merely linking Maturana and Varela with the idea of autopoiesis, this book will open the mind to the greater sweep of their thinking.

The book arrived in very good condition, and was delivered promptley.

A clear and valuable read of the journey into understanding the nature and relationship of mind and body by two brilliant scientists. Accessible to researchers and non-academic interested parties alike.

Un ouvrage essentiel pour toute personne s'intéressant au savoir, à la connaissance et ses fondements biologiques et notamment la dimension corporelle de la connaissance.

Wonderful! Provides a meaning to our existence!

Ein sehr interessantes Thema, wie und wann fängt das Leben auf unsere Planet Erde