Nature and Humans

The universe is not best understood as a collection of isolated things, but as a continuous unfolding of relationships. At every scale, reality organizes itself through patterns of interaction that persist, adapt, and repeat. Systems theory describes this not in terms of objects, but in terms of relations, feedback, and organization (von Bertalanffy, 1968; Meadows, 2008). What appears stable to us is not static substance, but recurring structure.

Nature, at every scale, finds ways to transmit information efficiently. From genetic codes that compress and preserve instructions for life across generations (Crick, 1958), to neural networks that propagate signals with remarkable speed and efficiency (Kandel et al., 2021), to chemical signaling within and between cells, and ecological feedback loops that coordinate entire ecosystems (Simard et al., 1997), living systems evolve patterns that maximize meaningful communication while minimizing energy and resource cost. This principle is not imposed from outside—it emerges naturally from the pressures of survival, coordination, and adaptability (Shannon, 1948; Bateson, 1972).

Humans are not separate from this process. We are nature expressing itself through conscious abstraction. Our bodies, brains, and behaviors follow the same physical and biological laws as the rest of the natural world. The distinction we often draw between “nature” and “human” is not structural, but symbolic—a conceptual boundary created by thought rather than an ontological divide (Cassirer, 1944).

What distinguishes humans is not that we escaped nature, but that we developed the capacity to externalize information deliberately. Language was the first technology of this kind: a symbolic system that allowed experience to be compressed into sounds and gestures, enabling memory to travel beyond the limits of individual perception (Chomsky, 1957; Cassirer, 1944). With language, coordination no longer depended solely on proximity or immediate sensing—it could occur across time, space, and generations.

Writing extended this process further. By externalizing memory into marks, symbols, and records, societies gained the ability to preserve information beyond living memory (Ong, 1982). Numbers and mathematics emerged as specialized symbolic technologies, enabling the compression and communication of abstract relationships. Each step in human progress corresponds to a new medium for storing, transmitting, and interpreting information.

In this sense, technology is not a collection of tools—it is the medium through which information flows. From oral traditions to writing, from printing to computation, from networks to artificial intelligence, every technological advance follows the same underlying logic: increasing the reach, fidelity, and speed of information exchange. This mirrors precisely what we observe in natural systems, where efficient communication pathways are selected for because they support coordination and resilience (Shannon, 1948; Wiener, 1948).

As technologies interact, they give rise to systems. A system is not a thing in isolation, but a pattern of memory, rules, and coordination that produces consistent behavior over time (von Bertalanffy, 1968; North, 1990). Financial systems, governance structures, institutions, and cultures all operate this way. They persist not because of any single component, but because shared memory is stored, rules interpret that memory, and coordination aligns behavior.

When systems scale further, they form networks—distributed structures where coordination emerges without centralized control. Hayek demonstrated that such coordination depends on dispersed information rather than top-down authority (Hayek, 1945), while Ostrom showed that when rules align with lived reality, collective systems can remain stable without coercion (Ostrom, 1990). These insights mirror natural networks: neural systems, ecosystems, and genetic populations all rely on decentralized information flow.

Seen from this bottom-up perspective, the story is continuous.
Nature discovers efficient ways to handle information.
Humans extend those pathways consciously.
Technology amplifies them.
Systems organize them.
Networks distribute them.

There is no rupture between nature and humanity—only increasing layers of abstraction.

Understanding this continuity matters. When technologies distort memory, when symbols detach from lived experience, or when coordination becomes forced rather than emergent, systems lose resilience. Collapse is rarely sudden; it is the delayed consequence of misaligned information and memory.

Velera begins from this recognition: that the future of human systems depends not primarily on faster computation or larger networks, but on how information is stored, interpreted, and coordinated. Technology, when aligned with nature’s principles, becomes a stabilizing force. When it is not, it accelerates fragmentation.

Humans and their technologies are expressions of the same informational processes that organize nature; understanding those processes is a prerequisite to understanding civilization.

References

Bateson, G. (1972). Steps to an Ecology of Mind. University of Chicago Press.

Bertalanffy, L. von. (1968). General System Theory. George Braziller.

Cassirer, E. (1944). An Essay on Man. Yale University Press.

Chomsky, N. (1957). Syntactic Structures. Mouton.

Crick, F. (1958). On protein synthesis. Symposia of the Society for Experimental Biology.

Hayek, F. A. (1945). The use of knowledge in society. American Economic Review.

Kandel, E. R., Koester, J. D., Mack, S. H., & Siegelbaum, S. A. (2021). Principles of Neural Science. McGraw-Hill.

Meadows, D. (2008). Thinking in Systems. Chelsea Green.

North, D. C. (1990). Institutions, Institutional Change and Economic Performance. Cambridge University Press.

Ong, W. J. (1982). Orality and Literacy. Methuen.

Ostrom, E. (1990). Governing the Commons. Cambridge University Press.

Shannon, C. E. (1948). A mathematical theory of communication. Bell System Technical Journal.

Simard, S. W., et al. (1997). Net transfer of carbon between tree species. Nature.

Wiener, N. (1948). Cybernetics. MIT Press.