Weaving Worlds: Harmony in Diversity in Times of Disruption

In Aboriginal Dreamtime, the Rainbow Serpent winds through deep waters as a creative force, birthing life and carving rivers across the land. Revered as a primal creator, this Serpent embodies the unity of nature. Its rainbow body a mosaic of every hue, its breath the source of all water and life. By its legend we are reminded: every color, creature, and river in the great tapestry of life is connected. 

Modern science finds the same harmony in nature. As Indian poet Tagore noted, the forest itself “is a unity in its diversity…united with Nature through our relationship with the forest,” where “every species sustains itself in cooperation with others”. In other words, the forest teaches us that true strength comes from embracing diversity, not uniformity.

This lesson of unity leads us to a surprising insight: each living being truly inhabits its own private world. Biologists call this an organism’s Umwelt. As science writer Ed Yong explains in his amazing book An Immense World,“umwelt” isn’t the physical environment but each creature’s unique sensory environment, the blend of smells, sights, sounds and textures it alone can perceive. 

A bat’s world, for instance, is mapped in echoes: it emits high-pitched chirps and “sees” through sound, detecting prey and obstacles in complete darkness. To us, night is silent blackness, but to the bat it is a living sonar-map. Bees likewise navigate by patterns invisible to us: their ultraviolet vision reveals flowers as glowing targets, and even spiders concealed on petals appear in stark relief. 

In each case, reality is richer and stranger than human senses suggest. In the words of sensory ecologists, “every organism inhabits a world” of information uniquely filtered by its biology. What is a garden to us becomes a kaleidoscope to a honeybee, and a calm pond may be a bustling city to a microbe tasting chemicals we cannot imagine. By acknowledging these countless perspectives, we begin to sense the immeasurable tapestry of life beyond our own vision.

Designing Tech for the Forest, Not the Factory

Human cultures reflect this multiplicity of perspective as well.  Social psychologists model our collective understanding through “Spiral Dynamics,” an eight-level spiral of value systems and worldviews. Each level – from earthy survival concerns to higher-stage ecological consciousness – has its own color and wisdom. Conflicts often arise when one stage tries to impose its view on another, but Spiral theory suggests that as we mature, we can embrace all colors of the spectrum. 

In other words, progress comes not from erasing earlier views but from weaving them together. Imagine human society as a living rainbow: the passionate red of tribal honor, the cautious blue of tradition, the creative green of community, the visionary yellow of systemic thinking, and beyond. When these hues are balanced, we achieve a kind of cultural harmony in diversity.

This idea is not merely academic. Many indigenous traditions have long seen reality as an interconnected whole. In contrast to a fragmented modern view, a typical Indigenous worldview holds that “everything and everyone is related”, that people, animals, plants, land and spirit form a sacred web.  For example, Tagore’s forest wisdom emphasizes that Indian civilization drew its renewal “from the forest…away from the crowds,” finding inspiration in “the diverse processes of renewal of life” – “always at play in the forest, varying from species to species, from season to season”. 

This “unity in diversity” is, in Tagore’s words, the very principle of life’s democracy.  Similarly, Taoism teaches that all things carry yin and yang and naturally find harmony when they balance. Wind does not blow endlessly, rain does not pour without end; eventually, the forest returns to stillness. Nature’s secret is this flow: by blending with the vital breath of existence, life achieves balance and renewal.

These cultural and philosophical insights converge on a profound shift in perspective known as biocentrism. In a biocentric view, life itself – not things or humans – is the center of meaning. Every organism is considered a “teleological center of life,” as philosopher Paul Taylor put it, each with its own intrinsic good or purpose. In other words, a river, a tree, a hummingbird is not a mere backdrop to our story; each has its own end and contributes to the whole. 

This contrasts with an anthropocentric or mechanistic outlook, and it resonates with both quantum physics (which hints that consciousness and observation shape reality) and traditional wisdom (which often sees humans as just one thread in a vast tapestry). Biocentrism invites us to view exponential technological change through a new lens: as stewards and participants in a living cosmos, rather than isolated masters of it.

A Symphony of Futures in Every Color

Today we stand amid exponential change, from artificial intelligence and quantum computing to climate shifts and synthetic biology creating life from scratch. These forces can feel bewildering or alienating. But the rainbow-serpent logic of biocentric harmony suggests we need not face them blindly. If we anchor ourselves in the understanding that every form of life has value and place, then our innovations can serve life’s flourishing instead of undermining it. 

We might ask, as Taoism would, “Can we hold the world without trying to conquer it?” – recognizing that “the world is a sacred vessel that cannot be changed by force” (Tao Te Ching) but by cooperation with its rhythms.  In practice, this could mean designing technology that enhances natural resilience or treating ecosystems as rights-bearing communities, or simply rediscovering the ancient art of listening to nature’s signals (like frogs croaking or gut microbes fermenting) as indicators of balance or distress.

Ultimately, the guiding image is simple yet profound: harmony in diversity. The rainbow is beautiful precisely because of its full spectrum, and the forest thrives because every plant and creature plays a part. 

By honoring our individual umwelten – be they human cultures, animal senses, or microbial networks – we do not fracture reality but enrich it. As we move into the future, we carry with us an empowering truth: in our differences lies our shared strength. Each perspective, each life form, is a vital note in a symphony that spans from the tiniest bacterium to the grandest whale, from the wisdom of Tao to the code of AI.

Let us remember the Rainbow Serpent’s lesson: all of life flows together. In this age of change, may we weave our many worlds into a coherent whole, guided by the rhythm of life itself. When we do, the coming dawn will find each of us — human and animal, microbe and machine — dancing in step with nature’s eternal song.

The below is an abstract from my upcoming book Now What? How to Ride the Tsunami of Change.