Chance that Mimics Choice

This collection of short stories has, as a guiding theme, the idea that the world is alive with meaning, and that nature itself uses metaphor and metonymy in its creations. In organic processes when things are coincidentally like each other (metaphoric) or coincidentally near each other (metonymic), this can constrain the way they interact and may affect the probabilities of certain causal processes. I believe that such factors underlie what is called “self-organization” in nature, which has been described historically as “purposeful” nature.

I want to capture a sense of purposeful nature that is very different from a religious or spiritual notion, such as Wordsworth had for example, one that relies instead upon an ecological and semiotic notion. As a philosopher of science, I have been researching and publishing on this topic for years (see The Biologist’s Mistress and various articles), but it’s really from my creative work as a poet-novelist that I have gained insight into the natural creativity of evolutionary processes, metabolism, pattern formation and etc. The first several pieces in this collection describe how human purpose is unconscious, sloppy, and creatively dependent on accident and misinterpretation. As I move on, I show how nature behaves in this “humanly” creative way too.

Contact: Joan Brookbank Projects