Monday, August 22, 2011

Are we listening?


Are we really listening to ourselves?

If you are a craft brewery, are you attuned? Way existential... do we really have obligations to society? To the environment? To a notion of a unified trajectory toward deeper values, a deeper sense of connection, or perhaps, a collective sense that presses all of us toward a new awakening, toward an era of both restoration and evolution?


Expected, correct? Adaptation? Evolution? I like Punctuated Equilibrium's high-gravity approach to system stresses and the courting and resolution of paradoxes.

More on Punctuated Equilibrium

Punctuated Equilibrium (PI) is an important but often-misinterpreted model of how evolutionary changes occurs. PI does not: Suggest that Darwin's theory of evolution by natural selection is wrong; Mean that the central conclusion of evolutionary theory, that life is old and organisms share a common ancestor, no longer holds; Negate previous work on how evolution by natural selection works; Imply that evolution only happens in rapid bursts...

Punctuated equilibrium predicts that a lot of evolutionary change takes place in short periods of time tied to speciation events. Here's an example of how the model works:
Stasis: A population of mollusks is experiencing stasis, living, dying, and getting fossilized every few hundred thousand years. Little observable evolution seems to be occurring judging from these fossils.



Isolation: A drop in sea level forms a lake and isolates a small number of mollusks from the rest of the population.



Strong selection and rapid change: The small, isolated population experiences strong selection and rapid change because of the novel environment and small population size: The environment in the newly formed lake exerts new selection pressures on the isolated mollusks. Also, their small population size means that genetic drift influences their evolution. The isolated population undergoes rapid evolutionary change. This is based on the model of peripatric speciation.




No preservation: No fossils representing transitional forms are preserved because of their relatively small population size, the rapid pace of change, and their isolated location.




Reintroduction: Sea levels rise, reuniting the isolated mollusks with their sister lineage.




Expansion and stasis: The isolated population expands into its past range. Larger population size and a stable environment make evolutionary change less likely. The formerly isolated branch of the mollusk lineage may out-compete their ancestral population, causing it to go extinct.





Preservation: Larger population size and a larger range move us back to step 1: stasis with occasional fossil preservation.





This process would produce the following pattern in the fossil record:




So??????????????????????????????????

Evolution appears to happen in sharp jumps associated with speciation events. We observe similar patterns in the fossil records of many organisms. For example, the fossil records of certain foraminiferans (single-celled protists with shells) are consistent with a punctuated pattern.
However, it is also important to note that we observe examples of gradual, non-punctuated, evolution as it is properly understood. The question that needs answering is: what are the relative frequencies of punctuated and gradual change? Or even more importantly from a non-shelled organism: is there a need and how do we move a new speciation forward? Speciation, in this instance, meaning how we cognitively, socially, politically, ecologically, etc., move forward, as brewers and beer drinkers?

Yeah, so? What to make of this Punctuated Equilibrium? Transformation? Our ability to respond way before (as?) events go down - the human experience (limitations, of course). 

How? Collectively. How do we get good data? Authenticity, transparency, co-evolution through co-creation and cooperation all seem to stink of fodder much needed for our own punctuated equilibrium. Mind shift? Mental economy? Social intelligence? Or are we just static victims of mass consumerism and industry pressure, reducing our amazing potential to the whims and economic dictates of age-old conventional "wisdom"?

Worst still, our mollusk-like stasis, sloshing around in perilous planetary challenges like snails separated into adverse conditions, look on but miss so many opportunities for survival, nay, flourishing. While punctuated equilibrium's effect on mollusks wipes a bunch of 'em off the evolutionary bus, all we need to do is wipe out, nay, replace, the dangerous trajectory us shell-less humans find ourselves in. Outbreed? Sounds sexy, but no. Outthink. Sounds rad. Thinking. Listening. Attuning - bringing back the fitness of the human experience, seeking out and manifesting a more sustainable way together.

Do you feel the external stimulus? Ocean acidification, climate destabilization, resource depletion, global strife over all of the above? Probably not much, but you face price fluctuations, six and a half acres of anxiety, or maybe you just get the feeling that we are squandering a really cool opportunity for civilization? Just the tip of the mollusk shell. We shouldn't out-compete, but in-cooperate. We can all grow together, as we've seen with craft beer, its culture, and especially, in its near-ecosystem-wide adoption of at least tacit sustainability awareness and action. We might be buzzed, but we're pretty sure things have gone awry. And because we are buzzed, we are no longer inhibited by it, but rise to the challenge. No fisticuffs, just a wobbly ascension to great adventures of innovation and restoration, collaboration and evolutionary capacity.

It can work, but one must think in these terms - a future orientation, a sensibility for both the micro and macro context in which we commence commerce, how we impact society-as-a-stakeholder, and the anticipation of a more robust, more durable, planet earth. Can we "speciate" consciously and purposefully, growing bigger in hearts and minds? Is common vision possible because common fate is assured? What other scenario could possibly trump this notion?

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