One helpful way to think about natural, embodied, and cognitive up-hierarhcies is in terms of habitat and habitas. Both words come from the root word for “dwell.” You might think of habitat as a dwelling, and habitas as an in-dwelling.1 Habitat-habitas is also a helpful way to think of interpenetration and the point that everything is mutually dependent on everything else (the Buddhist doctrine of co-origination). What we will add to these models is the realization that on the micro-scale, no one thing is dependent on another thing in the exact same way. Or, in other words, while it is true that any one entity is dependent on every other entity, no one entity is dependent on an other entity in the very same way the other entity is dependent on it. This is a fundamental law of asymmetry in process philosophy that recognizes the necessity of assymetric relations in a generative and creative universe.
At at certain level of understanding, this is fairly straightforward. The child depends on the parent in a different way than the parent depends on the child. Yet there is a powerful mutual interdependency--- which is more precisely called an aymmetric mutual dependency. At the level of deep metaphysics, this is actually profound and help release all kinds of confusions that lead to, or underpin malware.2
Now we can use the words habitat and habitas in the same manner. We know that the beaver depends upon the pond (*habitat) *in order to live. But we also know that the pond depends upon the beaver’s (habitas) in order to be a pond. Here the word habitat doesn’t just mean “environment” --- because of the deeper interpenetration between the habitat in which the beaver acts, and how the activities themselves create that very same habitat. 3
The challenge here is that it is easy to see/point to the habitat. But where is the habitas located? The first part of the answer is that the habitas is internal to the beaver. We are going to unpack this by saying the habitas in the collection of action protocols that become embodied in the beaver partially through its interaction with the habitat and partically through its “behavioral instincts.”
The second challenge then is *where is the instinct located? In the beaver’s body or brain? *Well, yes and no. Yes because that’s where we can look. But no, because the beaver’s body itself is a habitat of other members, with internal habitas of “beaver” in themselves.
This kind of fractal overlap between asymmetric internal and external relations is how we get to the deep continuity of life, where
all members are active agents, interacting with and enacting their habitat and also building unique and situationally intelligent action protocols that are internalizations of their habitat.
Let me give you an example. When I see a tree in my habitat, this creates a cascade of actions in my body at micro-scales. Think of neurons trying to find each other and attempting to connect:
My looking at the tree directly effects their response--- which means my interaction with my habitat changes the habitat in which my neurons seek to connect (or disconnect) from each other. In turn, the habitas of the neurons are changing (individually) and also changing their collective habitat. These changes, become a habitas of my self--- action protocols that code for tending to do more of this and less of that. Perhaps it results in me looking more at trees and less at twitter. More interaction, enaction, and habitas-creating together, and I might be embued with the habitas of affection for the tree. If I develop affection for the tree, I will have certain action protocols that I might not have had before.
Through the simple process of seeing, the tree becomes infolded in me. This infoldment shapes a new, unique habitat that the cellular, intra-cellular and extra-cellular agents in me sense.
Through the simple process of sensing, the tree-me becomes infolded in them.
It would be impossible to draw a simple illustration of the complexity of the relations. But in the next post, I will talk more about action protocols and see if we can build more understanding.
Further Resources
Footnotes
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I am using these terms in the way that process relational philosophy talks about the difference between external and internal relations; where habitat is constituted by external relations, and habitas is constituted by internal relations. ↩
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The most famous use of this realization was Hartshorne’s critique of Nargarjuna:
Nagarjuna says “Emptiness is form/form is emptiness.” That is a symmetrical relationship of equivalence. Hartshorne says “Emptiness and form are mutually dependent but emptiness depends on form in a different way than form is dependent on emptiness.But” Hartshorne would ask Nagarjuna, “how did you get to your conclusion in actual experience?” “Well,” Nagarjuna replies, “take any form and subject it to deconstructive analysis…” “Wait just there,” Hartshorne interrupts. “What you are saying is that you start with form, but do you ever start with emptiness?” “Well, yes, you can start with emptiness,” Nagarjuna smartly replies, but then has to check himself: “but when you start with “emptiness” that is the “emptiness” which is conceptual, and so it too is a kind of form — a thought form.” “So,” says Hartshorne, “if we stay with the actual experience, we always start from some form, some r-term, in order to derive the a-term — “emptiness.” “Yes,” Nagarjuna agrees. “So, in some way, then the a-term is dependent upon the r-term, in some way emptiness is dependent on form in a way that form is not dependent on emptiness,” Hartshorne suggests. “Oh yes!” Nagarjuna agrees. And that changes everything!
from https://www.integral-review.org/issues/vol_15_no_1_roy_why_metaphysics_matters.pdf
Although John Whitney Petit claims the confusion comes from mistranslation, suggesting that Nagarjuna actually said: Emptiness is form. And form empties. ↩
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This is also closely aligned with the notion of enactment. ↩