Blog ArchiveThe Emérgéntly Backstory

A Short Essay by Jon Brett on the Genealogy of the Idea

This is a rough chronological cast of characters that have contributed to the development and evolution of ideas behind Emérgéntly.

Remember Yoda from Star Wars? Well, Emérgéntly is based on the Ancient Wisdom of Yodimi, Yoda's Grandmother who used to say: "may the fours of Nature be with you" which over time became shortened to: "may the force be with you".

Te Ao Mārama, the Natural World, according to indigenous New Zealand Maori, consider us all to be part of Nature where everything is connected. The ancient Greek, Empedocles suggested that all structures in the world consisted of different proportions of water, fire, earth and air. Later, the Greeks related the four Elements to four Temperaments or Humours of human behaviour or personality type. We learned too, how an ancient Chinese philosopher used Nature and her Elements to describe people according to their behaviours and health ailments.

OK, so we now know life is a bit more complicated than four elements, but they make a wonderfully rich, cross-cultural metaphor to look at anything from four different perspectives (beyond polar opposite perspectives like strengths and weaknesses).

Aristotle was a great teacher and a big fan of Metaphor. The greatest thing by far is to be a master of metaphor. He thought it was a sign of genius, and it certainly provokes creativity.

Yoshimi and Jon Brett created TetraMap as a behavioural model to understand how people are different. It is based on a metaphorical map of Earth, Air, Water, Fire equilateral triangles that fold up into a tetrahedron. They developed a simple 10 line questionnaire that can distinguish the behavioural preferences of 63,000 billion different people. These are condensed to 16 different combinations of each person's two main preferences, i.e. each of us is totally unique, but we have distinct similarities. Note that Emérgéntly is not part of the core business or approved/endorsed by TetraMap International.

The tetrahedron has four triangular faces with each face touching every other face, and no opposite faces. What a wonderful metaphor of interdependence and structure to explore how we can work together in collaboration instead of combat?

In his book, Cosmography, Buckminster Fuller stated: We wonder how it can be that nature develops a virus or the billions of beautiful bubbles in the wake of a ship. how does she formulate these lovely geometries so rapidly? she must have some fundamental, simple, and pure way of developing these extraordinary life cells and chemistries. I discovered that the tetrahedron was at the root of the matter... I have found the tetrahedron to be the minimum structural system in Universe.

Simpler than a triangular piece of paper!? Yes... the paper triangle has a top, bottom and three edges (very thin sides) totalling 5 sides, thus is more complex than a 4-sided tetrahedron.

At its simplest, any structure or system, must have at least four interdependent aspects/parts/elements.

Unfortunately, our brains prefer to break things down into totally independent, mutually exclusive opposites - good/bad, strengths/weaknesses... However, if you change the context, any strength can be a weakness, and any weakness a strength. So, to better understand something, we must not only explore the parts, but also their relationships within diverse contexts.

David Bohm was a theoretical physicist who proposed that two different realities enfold and unfold between each other. Like when the four Emérgéntly triangles are folded up into a tetrahedron, we cannot see all the triangles at once - some of them are implied. When unfolded, all the triangles become explicit. Bohm called these two states the implicate order and the explicate order. One interpretation is that most of what we experience is the explicate order which is a temporary unfolded expression of the implicate order.

Fritjov Capra asserts: While the social Darwinists of the nineteenth century saw only competition in nature, we are now beginning to see continual cooperation and mutual dependence among all life forms as central aspects of evolution. Evolution is no longer seen as a competitive struggle for existence, but rather as a cooperative dance in which creativity and the constant emergence of novelty are the driving forces... Life did not take over the globe by combat, but by networking... Based on the fundamental ideas of complexity, networks, and patterns of organization, a new holistic science is slowly emerging.

Yuval Harari says: Fiction has enabled us not merely to imagine things, but to do so collectively... Sapiens can cooperate in extremely flexible ways with countless numbers of strangers. That’s why Sapiens rule the world.

By collectively re-imagining our world as interdependent relationships instead of independent objects, we can re-story our current challenges into current opportunities for collective action and global cooperation.

Let's Dance!

Next: Context and Perspective

Metaphor opens our minds to changing perspective AND context. Aristotle said being a master of metaphor is a sign of genius. I think most indigenous teachers would agree.

Blog Archive

Eco-Logical Song

Unfolding Emérgéntly

Why the Tetrahedron? It's the way Nature works!

Formula for Success

Net Zero Shared-Sufficiency

The Net Positive Imperative

Hope in Uncertainty

Why Metaphor? It is very personal and very relevant!

The Green House Element Relationships

Rotating Tetrahedron

(copyright TetraMap International)

David Bohm's Implicate and Explicate Orders

Basil Hiley: How the Classical World Emerges from the Implicate Order

Contact Us

We love feedback and feel free to ask questions.

What worked well for you? How could Emérgéntly or the website be improved?

Or, contact Yoshimi & Jon Brett via this form.

Interdependent Functions Spiral

How Whole Systems Spiral Through Four Interdependent Functions

Functions Spiral

Whole-systems thinking considers the metaphors:

Fire: How/what the whole system ENERGISES

Earth: How/what the wholesystem SOLIDIFIES

Water: How/what the whole system UNIFIES

Air: How/what the whole system TRANSFORMS

Emérgéntly uses metaphor to map complex systems and to bridge between linear thinking and non-linear, whole systems thinking. However, remember:

The map is not the territory. (Alfred Korzybski)
A logical sequence may vary in reality.

Now imagine the triangles folding into a tetrahedron...

Notice how each element folds into each other element with the edges representing the interdependent relationships. Emérgéntly helps to visualise the relationships and interdependencies between the functions of a whole system. Like the elements of a leaf, the real value is in the relationships between the energy from sun, the minerals from the earth, the flow of water, and the transformation of carbon dioxide from the air into hydrocarbons and oxygen.

A solid tetrahedron has:

an inside and an outside, reminding us to always consider the context outside the system.
no opposite sides, reminding us to avoid polarised thinking in terms of strengths and weaknesses.
four sides and six edges, reminding us to always consider the multiple relationships between the different parts of the system.
at least one side not visible at any one time, reminding us to always consider the implicit - what we cannot see.

The tetrahedron reflects how the elements of Nature are:

Diverse. There are no opposite sides. Each side is just different.
Synergistic. The whole is greater than the sum of its parts e.g. the four sided tetrahedron is much stronger than the six sided cube.
Structured. There is a recognisable pattern of relationships between its different sides.
Interdependent. Each side of the tetrahedron touches every other side. No side is independent from any other side.

The above graphics and text by Yoshimi & Jon Brett are marked with CC0 1.0 (OK to copy)

The greatest thing by far is to be a master of metaphor

It is a sign of genius, since a good metaphor implies an intuitive perception of the similarity in dissimilars.
Aristotle

For the physicists and mathematicians, the tetrahedron is a metaphor for what David Bohm calls the Implicate Order, and the unfolded Emérgéntly Spiral is a metaphor for the Explicate Order.

...the metaphoric intelligence (if we may so tentatively label this set of capacities) is defined by the very capacity to integrate diverse intelligences.
H. Gardner 1983

Metaphor provides a way of unifying the disparate and ordering the complex. It provides a deeper understanding of behaviours that becomes a tipping point to significantly impact productivity, systems, work cultures, and vision.
From TetraMap: develop people and business the way Nature intended by Yoshimi and Jon Brett

NEXT: Practices Spiral

More on the Principles Spiral More on the Eco Ego Spiral

Example Projects

Eco projects go beyond ego-centric decision-making and become more sensitive to local context and the potential for global impact.

Gift 4 Nature

Air Travel $Footprint = Reciprocity $Handprint

To offset Jon and Yoshimi's air travel for their 2023 round-the-world trip, they matched airfares dollar-for-dollar with donations that serve Nature. They ran through the Emérgéntly Process to explore how to implement this desire for reciprocity. The Gift 4 Nature project was the result.

The Gift 4 Nature project invited 5 youths who J&Y visited in the USA and Germany. The Emérgéntly framework summarises the project design.

Some of questions they explored with them:

Values What was important for you to remember throughout this learning journey? What values kept you on track? (Auntie Y & Unc J's values are "Reciprocity-Interdependence-Synergy-Love")
Potential Context in 2030 How old will you be? How much better will things be thanks to everyone understanding the power of RECIPROCITY and HANDPRINTING?
New Habits What new habits have or will you develop to keep us and Mother Nature healthy and happy?
Reflection What was surprising/amazing?

MORE: ► Outcomes... ►Precession... ► Strategy... ► Invitation...

Integration Potential for TetraMap & Emérgéntly
(2 models created by the Bretts)

Yoshimi and Jon used the Emérgéntly Process to explore the potential synergy generated by integrating TetraMap and Emérgéntly. As proven for over 20 years, the initial understanding and experience of TetraMap demonstrates the significance of Nature as a metaphor and its utility in seeing self and others from different perspectives. Now more than ever, this understanding provides the foundation needed for humanity to trust that Nature's principles can save us from ourselves.

The Emérgéntly Process requires trust in self, in each other and in Nature. TetraMap supports us to see how our human nature is firm, clear, calm and bright. Emérgéntly builds on that, empowering us to make the shifts necessary to design and create regenerative futures for all of life.

The Emérgéntly process took about 5 hours spread over 2 days. Interestingly, on completing the Feedback Phase, a much clearer understanding of Purpose emerged. The purpose of integration is to:

Generate courage and trust in individual behavioural transformation
to seed emergent, regenerative leaders, systems and futures.

MORE: ► Integration Actions... ► Emérgéntly Process...

ZENET100 Voluntary Building Performance Standard

Zero energy-source Emissions and NET 100% On-Site Energy Generation/Consumption.

The plan is to create a Voluntary Building Standard for zero emissions and net 100% renewable energy per year. (Embodied carbon is not part of the standard.)

This is the WHY do this, not the HOW.

MORE...

Arborlaria Tropical

A regenerative farm in Venezuela.

Our goal is the production of high purity vegetable oils for cosmetic, aesthetic, culinary, aromatic and medicinal use made from high quality raw materials. These raw materials are obtained from sustainable agroforestry crops and local food forests which allow the regeneration of deteriorated natural ecosystems, leading to the preservation of biodiversity and restoring the social fabric of the rural communities involved.

MORE...

Nature Wisdom

A regenerative farm and school in Brazil.

Nature Wisdom is a project that envisions the transformation of people and their relationship with nature. By being in a natural environment and seeing us as nature, the project seeks to facilitate learning processes and awaken environmental awareness through experimentation and manual making.

MORE...

Shift Mindsets: An Important Climate Action

The collective ‘we’ have ample evidence-based solutions to our climate emergency. We also have a myriad of vested interests that deny the evidence and thus keep us embedded in mindsets that spiral us down rather than up. The purpose is to initiate a process that widens an upward regenerative path forward. Far better that the path is wide enough to invite a diversity values and beliefs that believe in a healthy, peaceful future for all of life. Engaging this diversity requires us to consider HOW we engage our family, friends, communities and institutions by gently and defiantly catalysing Mindset Shifts.