Many fields have been forming a new post-post-modern worldview linked to sustainability, provisionally labeled as “emergence.” In philosophy, systems theory, science, and art, “emergent” properties of a system are not possessed by any single part; instead, these properties emerge when multiple parts interact as a wider whole. This can be seen retrospectively in the emergence of the Axial, Classical, Medieval, and Modern eras. During the emergence of the modern era, travellers such as Von Humboldt and Columbus recorded changes in the body of life and its climate caused by colonial consumption and destruction of habitats. Thoreau and Darwin made careful recordings of widespread losses in nineteenth century and through the whole of biological time. Early in the twentieth century, W. C. Allee developed ecological theories detailed in Animal Aggregations, which was advanced by Levins and Lewontin in their mathematical models of overadaptation with loss of resilience and risk of extinction. Since then, scientists have been documenting acceleration of loss of species and habitat across the planet, to which humans are responding with dissemination of information as well as global efforts to restore habitats.
With the publication of W. H. McNeill’s Plagues and Peoples in the 1970s, historians became aware of the impact of epidemics on human history. Now, bubonic plague is recognized as a cause of the emergence of the modern era. The new epidemics that are just now being defined herald the emergence of a new era that will, in part, be defined by changes in human and habitat ailments and the human adaptations that will catalyze survival in the way of modern medicine’s reintroduction of the anatomical gold standard with empirical definitions of pathologies and later with the interventionist medicine of the Scottish Enlightenment. Put differently, humans create new eras in response to paradigm gaps revealed by changes in context that present unforeseen challenges.
Now, at the end of the modern era, our species is being taken to task by the consequences of its own conduct, which threatens its own future as well as the future of evolved life. That is, we humans are consuming and contaminating the biome at an alarming rate. All fields of endeavor, including medicine, must adapt and evolve without delay. The following fields have much to offer medicine as doctors develop new ways of seeing that enable them to face new ailments that damage the human microbiome, human health and well-being, and all of the species and habitats that comprise the body of life.
Agronomy
Late modern mass production of chemicals became a cornerstone of the post-WWII economy, including industrial farming, which was followed by antidotal organic farming that hearkens back to traditional methods. Traditional farming has a history that dates back before the time of Hippocrates. These methods work with life rather than embattling it, and offer clues to disorders of the human microbiome and gastrointestinal tract, as well as ailments of modified habitats racked by industrial agriculture.
Theology
Throughout history, mystics and contemplatives have discovered and rediscovered unitive thinking—that is, perceiving how everything fits together to form a big picture. This ‘big picture’ then invites the recognition that is apprehension, which precedes comprehension. Discovery of the Dead Sea Scrolls and the Gospel of Thomas reopened theologians to larger timeframes that invite evaluation of modern boundaries, including those that have riven science from religion (see Science and the Unseen World by Arthur Stanley Eddington; The Constant Fire: Beyond the Science vs. Religion Debate by Adam Frank; Radical Judaism: Re-thinking God and Tradition by Arthur Greene; God and the Big Bang by Daniel Matt; and Christophany: The Fullness of Man by Raimon Panikkar). Pope Francis’ raising of ecologic concerns and the new popularity of Saint Francis illustrate the growing theological aspect of deep ecology, as do Earth Ministry and Simple Way.
Ecology and Field Biology
Rachel Carson’s book Silent Spring made the public aware of the dissemination of human-made poisons and their consequences, particularly those of DDT on birds. At that time, late moderns demanded action when the frames and constructs were not ready, which resulted in the creation of fixed bureaucracies that purport to manage the unknown. This could not but fail, specifically by attempting to handle an ever-growing flood of synthetic chemicals one by one. The radical destruction of life continued apace for the next 50 years, and is accelerating now. To date, scientists have generally passively documented an on-rushing loss of evolved life, recording the extinctions of species and habitats and the related global warming and wildfires that accelerate them. Ongoing catastrophic loss of the last 300 million years of evolution threatens the sixth extinction. This is on course to end the Anthropocene with the dominant species that defined it: humans. Many people have been advocating for preserving one species or another, but now biodiversity is emerging as an integrative metric for the health of whole habitats. Fortunately, habitat restoration is expanding rapidly, as is epochal change that may enable humans to rescue the habitats that remain. Doctors can assist by exploring ways to diagnose chronic ambient poisoning and to treat lives in and with their contexts through Integrative Medicine, biofiction, and the Evolve Medicine community. Extinction studies and restoration ventures are increasing the knowledge base available to doctors of life.
Architecture and Design
The progress towards emergence in architecture and design evident in many TED Talks has a localist, experimental beginning in the cob house movement in the lower Gulf Islands of B.C.; to Mike Reynolds’ Earthship Biotecture; and most especially to the Seven Petal Living Building Paradigm as demonstrated by Seattle’s Bullitt Center. Also proliferating have been EcoNest, net-zero building, Passivhaus, and off-site construction options such as Method Homes. The field of architecture is thus a model for contextual, sustainable, human-scale, localist, feasible, and practical emergence. Living building clinics with an Evolve Medicine type of care team (see Medical Eldering text or course) would be immersed in life and in a good position to respond to it, and to restore it in real time, and so to give doctors a chance to emerge empirically and experientially—as always.