Bacteria, fungus, whale, sequoia - we do not know any life of which we cannot say that it emits information, receives it, stores it and processes it. For universal rules so incontrovertible that, by them, we are tempted to define life but we are unable to do so, because of the following countexamples. Crystal and indeed rock, sea, planet, star, galaxy–we know no inert thing of which we cannot say that it emits, receives, stores and processes information. Four universal rules, so uniform that we are tempted to define anything in the world by them but are unable to do so because of the following counterexamples. Individuals but also families, farms, villages, cities and nations–we do not know any human, alone or in groups, of whom we cannot say that they emit, receive, store and process information.
Michel Serres, Information and Thinking, 2017 # 10
Rocks, cities and mushrooms - Information flows
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- But who really owns land and nature? Humans have no more self-evident rights than grass, trees, and squirrels, not to speak of fungi and bacteria. Property, the conceit that state-backed human social relations give us absolute rights over things, does not go far in the realms of land and nature, wh …
What if we tell a different history
Who are the subjects in our stories?
Being used to the classification principles of traditional biology, it might come to our surprise to see analogies between mushrooms, cities and people. Looking at these entities through the lens of their practices though, the classification of them into species and things becomes a matter of minor importance, instead it is the agency of the different entities that turns out to be relevant: Receiving, sending and storing information. Telling history in such a new way might open our minds to see the decentral position of human agency and reevaluate the interrelatedness of everything. The exceptional status of humans might be put into question.
of our Imagination
