Ecologic & Economic & Can they Just Get Along

To Dialecticians and Colleagues
Across the Curriculum

One of Gregory Batesion's "models" (analogies) for
talking and thinking about the interface between
"mind" and "nature" is the thermostat: it's inter-
mediating function between house (ecos) and
outside Environment .An ecological &
economical relationship.

Play with it.

Environmental Studies
& Stimulus Packages

I’m inside my house. It’s cold
outside. I’m the master of my
domain, boss, ruler, governor,
so I re-set the thermostat from
68 to 72 degrees.

It don’t matter what the weather’s
doing, global warming or freezing,
sun shining or snowfall: my
thermostatic setting (72 degrees)
sustains constant temperature in
accord with my comfort zone.

I’m driving my car.
Up hills and down.
Master of my automotive
industry, I set my cruise control
for 55. It don’t matter whether
roads rise or fall or I’m driving
thru Kansas: speed remains
constant— inert: sustained by
my pre-set regulation of variables.

I’m a smart bomb headed for a
bunker in Pakistan. Will I stray—
one way or another? Tossed and
turned by vicissitudes of environ-
mental conditions? Zig and Zag,
sure, but ultimately I’m guided muscle:
controlled, regulated, and programmed
to hit my mark.

How do I DO that?

Would you call me a a destiny-maker?
Predestined determined determinator?
I will maintain constancy in the face of
chance & uncertainty, continuity despite
change & indeterminacy? But how?

Imagine the devise that mediates
regulates and adjusts discrepancies.
between internal affairs & external:
the 2 environments: inside the house
and outside, road conditions and
mind-set of-the-driver, Pakastani
terrain & high-flying soaring aims
of a guided missile.

A rheostat: twist of the knob to re-
calibrate the tolerances: my margins
for error; my rooms for play.

It would have to speak 2 “languages,”
as it were.Outside language & inside: talking
to the elements (environmentalism-without)
and talking to a MindSet, say, (boss of
environmentalism-within: master of my
domain which I aim to sustain)

—two radically different and
incommensurate realms, yes?

MY FIXED INTENT (aim, purpose, goal,
measurable objectives) on the one hand.

Fluctuation (contingency, indeterminacy,
emergency) on the other hand.

And how do they Just Get Along?
So as to stay warm, drive to Santa Cruz,
annihilate out some Taliban in Pakistan?

I'm asking.