Definition of Thicket

What is a Thicket?

A thicket is a dense, interconnected ecosystem of actors, processes, technologies, and relationships that collectively gives rise to innovation and creative change. Unlike traditional models that portray change and development (innovation) as a linear tree-like branching path of a singular origin (breakthrough), thickets represent the messy, entangled, and transversal reality where novelty actually emerges.

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Within these complex networks, multiple agents are simultaneously exploring, some communicating with each other and some not, all participating in a distributed process of co-emergence that exceeds any individual contribution. What defines thickets is their multiple transversal connections that act to transduce novelty:

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Thickets and Creative Emergence

Thickets challenge our conventional understanding of innovation as emanating from individual genius or isolated moments of insight. Instead, they reveal creativity as fundamentally relational and emergent, arising from the middle of ongoing activity (doing). When examining historical innovations like human flight, we discover not a single heroic inventor (the Wright Brothers) but a thicket of simultaneous experiments, debates, and collaborations over multiple time-scales – some successful, others not – that collectively perturbated the space of possibility towards the emergence of the ecosystem of flight (see Epicycles and Feedforward).

The power of thickets lies in their transversal nature; connections form across domains, disciplines, and practices, creating rich environments where unintended capacities can be discovered and followed. These environments aren't merely collections of discrete components but complex assemblages that generate emergent properties exceeding the sum of their parts.

‍Another Way to See Thickets

Thickets can be understood as dynamic webs rather than simple extensions of human capacity. Consider how a bed isn't simply an object but exists within "a vast world of highly interconnected things upon things upon things" -from mattresses to sleep monitoring devices, from manufacturing regulations to cultural sleep rituals. This web-like logic reveals how nothing technological exists in isolation; everything participates in multiple assemblages simultaneously.

Thickets can also be viewed as nurseries for "epicycles" -novel patterns that gain independence from the ongoing network, developing their own agency and capacity to transform existing systems. These epicycles "feed forward," shifting our propensities and changing what's possible in our world.

‍Working Within Thickets

Operating effectively within thickets requires abandoning both the illusion of central control and that the world is ultimately organized in a linear tree-like manner in favor of relational agency-understanding that our creative power comes not from standing outside the system but from skilled participation within it.

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This involves:

1. Engaging and co-emerging with the thicket, attuning yourself to its dynamics, and participating in its ongoing development
2. Disclosing both established patterns and unintended capacities within the system
3. Blocking certain directions while following others that show promise
4. Spanning across the transversal thicket to find connections between seemingly unrelated elements
5. Embracing non-knowing as a creative stance-treating innovation as "an adventure" rather than a predictable process

Examples of Thickets in Action

The development of human flight exemplifies thicket dynamics. The Wright Brothers weren't isolated geniuses but bicycle builders who became embedded in an extensive network of experimentation and communication. They read literature, built kites, found appropriate testing environments, and participated in ongoing debates about flight principles. While they might have been the first to fly – it was not by much, nor was their contribution the source of all that followed. Within a decade and a half of their first successful flight, they no longer built planes. Rather, what led to the world of flight was a vast transversal ecosystemic thicket of interwoven experiments developing as a novel epicycle (see epicycles and feedforward).

Similarly, technologies like oak nuts reveal the multiple potential futures contained within thickets. An oak nut can become a tree when interacting with soil and sun, food when discovered by a piglet, or soil nutrients when damaged by a passing dirt bike. Nothing exists "outside of the complex assemblage that gives rise to multiple equally possible futures".

Innovation emerges not from mastering the thicket through control but from skillful participation that helps shape its self-organizing processes toward novel outcomes. By recognizing ourselves as part of these dynamic ecosystems rather than separate from them, we open ourselves to the rich creative possibilities that thickets contain.

Sources and Connections to Explore: Acquiring Genomes Lynn Margulis, A Thousand Plateaus Gilles Deleuze & Felix Guattari, Mutualistic Networks Bascompte & Jordano, Hypersea McMenamin & McMenamin

‍See: Transversal, Exaptation, Ecosystems, Configurations, Epicycles, Feedforward