Cecil Taylor, Unit Structures (Blue Note)

Special Guest Posting (unconsciously so) by Jeffrey B. Wagman and David B. Miller, from "Nested Reciprocities: The Organism-Environment System in Perception-Action and Development" (Developmental Psychobiology 42 (2003): 317-334):

An additional primary tenet of the ecological approach to perception is that at the ecological scale, organisms and environments are both highly nested entities. Within a given niche, units are nested within units, and structure exists at all spatial and temporal scales. In the environment, for example, the movement of photons is nested within the reflection and absorption of light which, in turn, is nested within a leaf falling to the ground in the sunlight, and
so forth. Within a given animal, a process such as respiration is nested within the process of locomotion which is nested within the process of pursuing or evading prey, and so forth....

In development, expression of genes also is highly dependent on context. From the transactional perspective, this context extends well beyond the boundary provided by the organism’s skin. This context includes genetic, neural, behavioral, physical, cultural, and social influences. In short, perception and development are both context dependent, and both only occur in an environment. A fundamental consequence of this context dependency is the bidirectionality of development. That is, far from being unidirectional, development is necessarily (at least) a two-way phenomenon. The notion of sharply delineated critical periods in development is treated with skepticism from this point of view because it seems to require that development occur along a unidirectional and linear path. This is antithetical to the transactional view, according to which development can be both linear and nonlinear.

The responsibility for the regularity in the developmental process falls neither on an organism’s genetic endowment nor on its experiences in development. Both influences are necessary for development, and neither one alone is sufficient. Development is a continually evolving process that involves an ongoing exchange between factors both endogenous to and exogenous to the developing organism. Genes express themselves appropriately only in responding to internally and externally generated stimulation. Structures and behaviors continually emerge as a consequence of the synergetic combination of an animal’s internal and external environments. According to the transactional perspective, by virtue of its continually evolving relationship (and continual exchanges) with the environment, a developing organism is a ‘‘new’’ organism at each point in development.

In traditional accounts of development, organisms are passive recipients of instructions from the genes, and in traditional accounts of perception, organisms are passive recipients of stimulation patterns. However, in the ecological approach to perception and in the transactional approach to development, organisms are anything but passive. They play an active and circularly causal role in their perceptual experience and development. Animals neither perceive nor develop in a vacuum, but instead do so in a rich and structured flux of energy patterns and experiential factors.

Suggested Wine Pairing: After all that, you may ask?!? I think you need a wine of a different fruit: Oban 14 Year Old Single Malt Scotch Whisky. And gird yourself for Cecil Taylor's cluster bombs.