Crafting Living Systems

we think art, engineering are about making things but they're about making systems of relationships The "life" of a thing—biological and metaphorical—can only be seen by looking at its relationships with other things. In fact, it is these relationships, and not the things themselves, that are alive and whole Think of your own consciousness. What is it? Just this: the relationship between yourself and the external world. If you don't believe in souls (and we've never scientifically observed anything like a soul), this is the only possible explanation: consciousness is not in the material of the brain, the end goal is always relationships among people, or people's relationships with themselves a system that is alive sustains itself without much outside help. a system that is less alive destroys itself, or thrashes between unsustainable states.

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