The thing that mostly gets in the way of dialogue,” he says, “is holding to assumptions and opinions, and defending them.” This instinct to judge and defend, embedded in the selfdefense mechanisms of our biological heritage, is the source of incoherence.

It is a most important characteristic of the mechanistic philosophy, however, that it permits one to make a limitless number of adjustments in his detailed point of view, without giving up what is essential to the mechanistic position.

Most of the material environment in which we live — houses, cities, factories, farms, highways, and so on — can be described as the somatic result of the meaning that material objects have had for human beings over the ages. Going on from there, even relationships with nature and with the cosmos flow out of what they mean to us. These meanings fundamentally affect our actions toward nature, and thus indirectly, the action of nature back on us is affected.