Wild Systems Theory: Non-Reductive Naturalism and Narratives of Meaning, Choice, and Self

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As culture looks more and more to science and asks, 'What are we?', one encounters an increasing number of deflationary stories about important phenomena such as meaning, choice, and self. Reality is inherently physical and meaningless, choice is an illusion caused by the brain, and the self is really nothing more than a physical brain process. Although some believe such negativity follows logically from science, this book argues that this reactivity reflects a philosophical commitment to a reductive form of naturalism that emerged during the Enlightenment's 17th-19th century struggle with supernaturally inspired worldviews.As a contemporary alternative, Wild Systems Theory (WST) presents a scientifically inspired philosophy that is consistent with non-reductive forms of naturalism that emerged during this same period. These non-reductive narratives were consistent with cultural beliefs in a meaningful reality, the necessity of choice in personhood, and the non-reducibility of the self to the physical brain. WST revitalizes these views and reconciles scientific and cultural narratives by first asserting that all of reality is inherently interrelated. Meaning, therefore, is this ubiquitous web of interrelations, choice is the means by which we navigate it, and selves are the patterns of interrelations we embody and manage over the course of our lives. Because such meaningful selves emerge step by step out of the trajectory of lived life, they are story-like; that is, they are narratives. And because these narratives always reflect a constellation of choices and chance, they are wild. In short, we are wild narratives.