7.4.1 "To understand a pattern we must map a configuration of relationships." (Capra, 1996, pg. 81)

7.4.2 Nature itself, at the chemical level, does the prime structuring. If the patterning attempted by the architect is not inherently associative within the local regenarative dynamics of chemical structure, his buildings will collapse . . . The principles governing structure not only prescribe what man can put together, but they are operative at the molecular level. They are also operative in each of man's living cells and throughout the principles of structure in the starry heavens. They are universal, they are purely mathematical, weightless. (Fuller, 1965, pg. 68)

7.4.3 Patterns are key to self-organisation-the understanding of life begins with understanding patterns. Fuller's work sets a precedent in this way of thinking, but was unfortunately never considered seriously by the scientific community too set in specialisation and specific "scientifically correct methodologies."

7.4.4 Metapatterns is a word that Gregory Bateson (1904-1980) used in the preface of his master work, Mind and Nature (1979) and was years later developed into an entire book by his student, Tyler Volk (1995). Bateson was a great synergist who worked in anthropology, biology, philosophy, epistemology, cybernetics, and ecology. Patterns that connect use metapatterns of variation and selection. Metapatterns to Volk appear throughout the spectrum of reality: in clouds, rivers, and planets; in cells, organisms, and ecosystems; in art, architecture and politics. Metapatterns are closely related to Fuller's ideas of Synergistics.

7.4.5 During the 1950's and 60's strategic thinking using "systems analysis" emerged, pioneered by the RAND corporation, a military research and development institution. This was happening at the same time that the greatest discovery in biology occurred-the physical structure of the DNA. Watson and Crick explicitly described DNA in computer terms as the genetic "code," comparing the egg cell to a computer tape. This school of thought is perpetuated in even more extreme terms by proponents of Artificial Life such as Chris Langton, who speaks of separating the "informational content" of life from its "material substrate." (Langton, 1989) As Richard Cotne notes: "Information is thought to be the essence of life, as in the DNA code. To record and break the code is to have mastery over life." (Coyne, 1995. pg. 80)

7.4.6 It would take many years before the two worlds would merge and the foundation was being laid by quite a few people, including Fuller, who imagined how systems based on biological principles would work. Attention shifted from cells as the building blocks of living organisms towards exploring the molecular structure of the gene. Biologists moved into explaining all biological functions in terms of the molecular structures and mechanisms, and most became fervent reductionists, losing the "big picture." Although researchers know the precise structure of more and more genes, very little is known about ways in which genes communicate and cooperate in the development of an organism.

7.4.7 During the early 1960's, physicist Herman Haken of Germany made the discovery of self-organising systems through his research in the physics of lasers. The phenomena he found was called the "light amplification through stimulated emission of radiation" (LASER). Haken coined the term "synergetics" to indicate the need for a new field of systematic study of those processes, in which the combined actions of many individual parts, such as laser atoms, produce a coherent behaviour of the whole. (Haken, H. 1987)

7.4.8 In Education Automation (1965), Fuller tells of being on a conference panel with Ludwig Von Bertalanffy, a biologist who gave the name "general systems theory" in effort to describe systematic biological behaviour in logico-mathematical terms. In a 1968 book entitled, General Systems Theory, Von Bertalanffy argued that general systems theory offered modern science a general theory of organisation, an account of "structural uniformities" or "isomorphic traces of order." ( Von Bertalanffy, pg. 30-49) In the Synergetics Dictionary edited by Applewhite (1986), Fuller credits the biologically-inspired Von Bertalanffy with recognising synergy inherent to physical reality by virtue of a wholistic approach. Ultimately, Von Bertalanffy was not successful in his goal, because the mathematics of his time were too limited to describe the non-linear nature of living systems. It was not until the development of new powerful computers that non-linear mathematics came to be, which gave rise to the concept of self-organisation.

7.4.9 Patterns of organisation that cyberneticists were concerned with are equally important in the new theories of self-organisation. Indeed, study of patterns has been with humanity throughout, taking shape in different forms depending on particular need at a given time. Most of the studies of the last century have been focused on measuring, weighing, and determining the structure of things. Patterns involve making manifest the invisible and looking at the relationships of a particular system. Living organisms are indeed made of atoms and molecules, but they are not only that. The key to that elusive something else that is nonmaterial is in the patterns of organisation. The study of patterns is closely related to mapping our worlds and consequently shifting our perception about ourselves. [top]