Customer Reviews

Metapatterns

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As a freshman at NYU, I had a seminar with Tyler Volk based around Metapatterns. It is difficult to characterize the book without going on for pages, but I will do my best. Metapatterns is epistemology, meditation, mythology, systems theory, ecology, and a thousand other fields of thought. As Volk defines it, a metapattern is a "pattern of patterns... so wide-flung that it appears throughout the spectrum of reality: in clouds, rivers and planets; in cells, organisms, and ecosystems; in art, architecture, and politics." Volk is essentially a tour guide with only a rough outline of an itinerary, but this is a good thing: rigid formalism would preclude many of the connections he is making. Since each chapter is an account of one of the patterns' appearances and significance throughout the "spectrum of reality," there is a lot of ground to cover. This results in an unconventional structure but it's still easy to follow Volk from one point to the next. The collages interspersed through the book help with this a lot, especially since the whole idea of metapatterns is largely visual. Most of the time Volk is both comprehensive and coherent, but this is not always true. Occasionally (I'm sticking with the expedition metaphor here) some bushwhacking is required to get back to the original path. But the further you get into the book, the more you can follow its logic. "Spheres," the first chapter, is the strongest, and best makes the case. This may be because the sphere is, in a sense, the primary metapattern. Later chapters spring off in different directions. Some seem not to fit well (calendars, for example), but the whole time you are getting a better sense of what is actually going through Volk's mind. And eventually, as you move through the book, the ideas become self-evident. The metapatterns come to seem archetypal.
Some of the students in the seminar complained that Metapatterns was too long, too rambling, and didn't really have a point. They had a few good points, but it seemed that those students were expecting the book to provide The Answer. Metapatterns, as I understand it, is only laying out an idea. It provides a new way of looking at things, a way that could lead to some new answers, but it is not claiming to be The Answer. Part of the idea is that fields of thought are so compartmentalized and narrowly focused that a broader development is stunted. But the really revolutionary work happens in the spaces between! Bridging two or more fields allows for totally new angles on old questions. There's no inherent problem with specialization; it is only a problem when it happens to the exclusion of other avenues of thought. Volk is interdisciplinary to a point that is nearly all-encompassing.
Amazon.com states that scientists, New Age types, interdisciplinary thinkers and the intellectually adventurous will best like the book. This is true, but the book is jargon-free and easily understandable (i.e., NOT a standard science book). Do not allow yourself to peg the book; it will most likely shake off any label you apply. Instead, just pick it up without any agenda and you will probably take away something worthwhile.

As a practicing architect who has a regular opportunity to explore the "meaningful making of space" this book was quite an eye opener. I've spent a great deal of time looking for order amongst the disorder of everyday life and the designed environment, finding the threads in "Metapatterns" was a good pathway to understanding the relationships. If Lou Kahn were alive today, it would probably take him to new spaces and forms. Excellent!

Tyler Volk's book, Metapatterns..., is an extraordinary book. In the spirit of Gregory Bateson from whom the term "metapatterns" originates, he does not give the reader the whole story or "the answer," but rather provides a rich source for readers to develop their own stories and their own answers (or to make metapatterns their own). As an educator and researcher, I have found the metapatterns described by Volk to be infinitely useful as (a) tools for analyzing data from studies of cognition, discourse, classrooms, interpersonal relationships, the politics of schooling, etc.; (b) tools for designing social and physical contexts of classrooms, curriculum, and representations of material; and (c) the specific content to study in courses. Since metapatterns appear almost everywhere in every discipline and in every aspect of everyday life, they address our basic understandings of the world in ways that can allow us to make connections in new and exciting ways. It is truly a revolutionizing book. When I have taught courses based on metapatterns, the better students have cursed me for introducing metapatterns: "damn you! All I see is metapatterns!" Such comments are a testament to the power of metapatterns in transforming the way we see the world. This book is a must read for those who are willing to take fresh view of their worlds, to think critically and creatively, and to take control of their own learning rather than be spoon fed answers.

Man and woman, the double helix, positive and negative, acid and base, action and reaction, predator and prey. These are pairs of twos found in the world around us. Tyler Volk names them binaries, which are one of his `metapatterns' or `pattern of patterns' or universal motifs described in great detail in his book.

Some might find the metapatterns proposed as crazy manifestations. Some might find them real and useful, especially as analytical tools, which can be applied to any field to better understand the larger picture or the behind the scene activities of that field. For example, as an athlete and athletic trainer, I have used the metapattern of `boarders' to better understand why different sports share very common characteristics and lack others. Whatever one's opinions are about the existence and relevance of metapatterns, "Metapatterns" has much to offer beyond its main theory.

The observations and analytical methods of "Metapatterns" are truly a feat in the name of interdisciplinary work. Dr. Volk brings you along on his life journey of exploration. Observations are vividly represented and written in a way in which non-science people can understand. Dr. Volk's ability of transcending disciplines to find connections, which become Volk's metapatterns, will urge you to do the same.

"Metapatterns" will dive into ideas and explore them from many angles, sometimes more than the reader may have bargained for. The reader must be ready for a true mental exercise. "Metapatterns" will surely take you to uncharted waters.

I feel that if you are up for it, "Metapatterns" will be a mind-expanding and illuminating read. As the great interdisciplinarian Gregory Bateson suggested to others, Dr Volk truly discards magnitudes in favor of shapes, patterns, and relations. The explorative, interdisciplinary, and connective methods of thinking are awesome tools in understanding the world around us, and "Metapatterns" will expose you to them in action.

I initially found this book intriguing, but after a while I became quite bored with it. So there are many things in the world that are round, flat, tubular, bordered, etc., and these can be metaphors for other things. Ok, so what? I kept waiting for the author to make his point, but the descriptions just went on and on.

This book may have some value as a source of pretext for meditation or creativity exercises, or those seeking material for artistic collages. There are some short passages that were evocative. But overall I didn't get much from this to justify the time I spent reading it.

Metapatterns is a valuable text for the broadminded and curious. Dr. Volk seeks to bridge gaps that too often separate intellectual disciplines, most successfully connecting patterns within the physical and social sciences. It is one of several books from college that I continually find myself returning to, often unexpectedly. As a student of both History and Architecture Metapatterns has provided me with a sort of conceptual template in both fields. Whether investigating social currents or analyzing the effect of physical form, Metapatterns has something to contribute. As a tool Metapatterns allows the user to more quickly recognize trends or conceptualize a set of data while simultaneously challenging him/her to question the nature and implication of such mental models.

Volk's book is a groundbreaking exploration of the world of patterns. By taking the reader through a myriad of examples Volk demonstrates the universality of basic patterns (metapatterns) in both the physical and cultural realms of existence. By showing the interconnectedness of consciousness, metaphysics, and epistemology, Volk has opened the door for a new holistic approach to science. Metapatterns has implications for the study of consciousness, chaos and complexity theory, the philosophy of science, and the sociology of knowledge. In the years to come, Metapatterns will be considered one of the books which paved the way for the science of the 21st century.

Tyler Volk has set himself the task of exploring the universal, invariant relationships between number, form, and function at all levels of existence, cosmic, systemic, planetary, biological, and cultural. Using such simple concepts as Spheres, Arrows, Surfaces, Lines, Cycles, etc. he examines the commonalities that exist across all scales of measurement. Volk's prose is fluid, poetical, and highly imaginative while remaining true to the corpus of scientific knowledge. An inspiration to cross-disciplinary thinkers everywhere!

Einstein once lamented that his work "changed everything but the way we think." If you are attached to a dog-eat-dog existence, and change is just too...bothersome, Metapatterns is probably not for you. Science is rapidly changing, and Dr. Tyler Volk generously invites us all to be in on it. If you would like some cobwebs tenderly removed, and would like a window on the new disciplines being born and old ones coming alive, just sit back and watch this guy go. With a flood of vivid images, taken from mainstream culture, everyday life, essential Science laid bare, the banquet shared of one man's experience, Tyler Volk empties by filling. If you believe that meaningful relatedness is essential, read this book. You will learn lots of nourishing stuff and it won't even hurt.

If one does not encompass the fundamentals, how may one comprehend the complicated? Dr. Volk takes us through those basic archetypical forms, which by their ubiquity are the sources by which and in which we live. However, as with all phenomena which stares us in the face; someone must awaken us to the obvious, for nothing is more elusive than that which manifests itself before one's eyes. Science and poetry dance across Dr. Volk's pages like entranced lovers, uniting science and poetry into a Unity.

While Metapatterns is realized as a scientific artifact, to this reader it strongly resembles a prose edition of Lucretius', "The Way Things Are". Proof? Here is a paragraph chosen at random:

"The simplest animals - for instance sponges - are slso dispersed. But once the path of animal evolution detatches its candidates From such substrates as rocks and set them gliding and swimming Through fluids, mobility calls for global network of communication and control A new center was born The nervous system."

Anyone who cannot feel the cadence of poetry in this paragraph has been blindsided by prose.