Description
Instead of regarding the universe as made up of things, it may be considered to be composed of a complex hierarchy of smaller and larger flow patterns in which the things are invariant or self-maintaining features of the flow (even though matter, energy, and information are continually flowing through them). Such steady-state patterns or objects (organisms, or observers) can only be understood as being in a holistic relationship to their environment, with fields of flow extending outward indefinitely. Likewise, the environment only takes on stable form and meaning and points of reference through the objects which it sustains.