Mitchell Thomashow (From To Know the World: Why Environmental Learning Matters, forthcoming, the MIT Press, 2020)

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1 BIOSPHERE NETWORK ARCHETYPES Mitchell Thomashow (From To Know the World: Why Environmental Learning Matters, forthcoming, the MIT Press, 2020) I believe that the structure of the Internet is simply an archetypal form, the inevitable consequence of a previously proven evolutionary model, which is also seen in the human brain: diagrams of computer networks bear resemblance to both mycelium and neurological arrays in the mammalian brain. Paul Stamets, Mycelium Running (10) Mycorrhizas form an infrastructure of interspecies connection, carrying information across the forest. They also have some of the characteristics of a highway system. Anna Lowenhaupt Tsing, The Mushroom at The End of the World (139)

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3 Mycelium are a network of fine white, branching filaments, the connective tissue that simultaneously decomposes organic material while providing nutrients to plants, typically forming a symbiotic relationship, crucial to the health of a forest. Plants use mycelium to communicate with each other, These networks are extensive, stretching in some cases to several thousand acres. Fungi are the earth s decomposers, preparing the substrate on which all land-based life depends. Their reproductive spores, often appearing as mushrooms, are vectors of communication and transportation. When you see a mushroom, you are observing an ephemeral fruiting body of what is typically a vast underground net-

4 work. Mycelium, active agents of forest exchange, information, and messaging, are a robust and efficient ecosystem exchange process, stretching back at least 400 million years, associated with the origin of land plants. Compare the networks of mycelium, tree roots, watercourses, brain neurons, and galaxies. We perceive trees as single organisms, grouped together. However, they form underground networks and exchange nutrients amongst themselves (even different tree species) and participate with mycelium in a comprehensive forest nutrient regime. Dendritic drainage, one of many geomorphological watercourse network patterns, are also nutrient and information transport systems. Brain neurons are another example of an intricate organismal messaging system. Possibly galaxies are too! These are examples of what I like to think of as biosphere network archetypes, multi-scalar structures for supporting communication within and between species and their environments. Yet these networks, fundamental to evolution, ecology, and species survival, are not typically visible at ordinary scales of human observation. Mycelium and underground tree roots are below the surface of the earth. And you can only observe drainage patterns from an airplane or a mountain. Cellular networks like brain neurons are microscopic. To see galaxy networks you need powerful telescopes supported by advanced computers.

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7 Here are some more examples of networks that can only be seen with the assistance of scale visualizations. The sooty shearwater navigates most of the Pacific Ocean as it searches for breeding grounds and nutrients. Contemporary human migration networks are neatly depicted on the global map that charts knowledge transfer through skilled return migration how knowledge moves around the globe through the flow of migrant communities. The global transportation system consists of millions of micro-networks connected through a planetary system, a century worth of symbolic golden spikes. Have some fun and do a google image search for Internet network visualizations. You ll find hundred of intricate and often very beautiful diagrams of the Internet, revealing complex patterns that are splendid to behold but difficult to understand.. Do the same for the professional networking program Linked-In. The diagram pictured above is a typical example, depicting clusters of connections. Manuel Lima, in his exceptional book, Visual Complexity: Mapping Patterns of Information, traces the history of network visualization, develops a taxonomy of network visualization forms, provides design advice for ways to represent networks, while emphasizing the splendor of networks as an aesthetic form. Lima writes that this ubiquitous topology, prevalent in a wide range of domains, is at the forefront of a new scientific awareness of complexity further asserting that as nonhierarchical models, networks are embedded with processes of democratization that stimulate individuality and our appetites for learning, and evolving, and communicating, They are, in essence, the fabric of life. He advises that we start thinking in networks. That s the focus of this chapter how can network thinking better inform environmental learning? To address this, we ll look more deeply at both ecological and social networks, discuss how to navigate networks,

8 explore the relationships between networks and identity, and some of the risks of network thinking as well. We ll constantly return to the concept of constructive connectivity. What criteria shall we use to assess how we engage in network thinking? For starters, let s engage in a deliberate pause and take some time to observe the networks in our lives, both visible and invisible, taking note especially, of all of the networks that surround and influence us, typically just below the surface of things.