ABSTRACT
The final chapter offers a theoretical summary of the investigations presented throughout the book. The basic assumptions are that there exists a ‘norm’ negotiated at the very beginnings of the biosphere and since recognized by all its inhabitants. Particular ‘lineages’ develop their own variants of living, with their own memory and experience of the past, yet-thanks to having recognized the Norm-all such variants overlap. The overlaps represent platforms for mutual understanding between lineages. The memory and experience of a lineage represents a much larger pool of understanding, i.e. capacity for living, than can be ‘lived’ or ‘digested’ by a single individual during its lifetime; moreover, the pool is changeable. While life and its development cannot be described from within any sole level of description (commonly genetics), it is primarily epigenetic; thus we find many sources of variation, which include meaning attribution, symbiotic interaction, environmental interaction and contingency. The chapter further deals with the definition of life and the characteristics of complex dynamic systems: how they come to exist, develop and function. The final section closes the book with an analogy between species and cultures by pointing to a general pattern of evolution of the lineages of life, be they human cultures or biological communities.
