Exploring the Ideasphere: Anne Riley’s Journey to The Human Idea

Anne Riley, MBA, has worked in various industries, including technology, manufacturing, finance, banking, and business systems. Influenced by Michael Rothschild's Bionomics-Economy as Ecosystem, Riley developed a theory known as the Ideasphere, exploring the parallels between human and ecological systems. Her theory is articulated in the non-fiction book The Human Idea, Nature's Newest Ecosystem. Riley's writing, characterized by humor and depth, aims to engage and improve the lives of her readers and the world.

Her latest work, The Human Idea, is out now and explores the profound questions of existence. In this groundbreaking book, the compelling narrative delves into humanity's quest for understanding -- why we exist and how our unique capacity for inquiry sets us apart from all other life forms.

Anne sat down with Writer’s Life to share the ideas in her work, her inspirations, the importance in getting these theories out into the world and much more. This is what she had to say:

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Tell us a bit about your background.

My background is in business. I have a degree in Accounting and an MBA. This opened the door for me to work in many industries. I have worked in very small and very large companies. I have worked in manufacturing and high tech and banking and education. This wide variety of experiences helped me to see the common patterns in all sorts organizations.

Tell us about your new book, The Human Idea.

The Human Idea is an overview that describes how humans fit into the scheme of existence. One can look at the universe as consisting of three levels of existence. The bottom layer, on which everything rests, is made of energy and matter. The second layer, the ecosystem, consists of life on Earth. Life depends on the layer below it, but can do things that layer cannot do, mainly turn resources into body parts and a new generation of life. Humans have created a third layer, which I call the Ideasphere. They can create ideas and turn them into physical form, such as books and clothing and buildings. In doing so, they have changed the world. This book explains how each level works and how humans, in particular, have changed the nature of living on this planet, how their actions may lead to self-extinction and how they can do things differently to enhance their chance of survival.

What was your impetus for writing your book?

From a very young age, I was convinced that everything on this Earth was connected. Yet humans seemed like a huge aberration from everything that came before. The more natural history I read, the more convinced I became that everything made perfect sense if we could only connect the dots properly. In the early 1990’s, I read Bionomics by Michael Rothschild, in which the author brilliantly explained how human economic systems mirrored biological systems. It gave me the foundation to think of humans using a new perspective, but there was a gaping hole in the book; if human economic systems are like nature then humans must be like nature too. It was such an obvious gap that I expected someone way smarter than me to write the book to explain it. Twenty-five years later, I was still waiting. Finally, in 2018, I decided to write the book I had been waiting for.

What is the Ideasphere?

The Ideasphere is the sum total of all the ideas and products made from human ideas. It is a layer of existence that sits atop the natural world and is totally dependent on the natural world. Ideas evolve just like organisms in nature evolve. They start simple and become more complex with time.

What really makes the Ideasphere different is that people have choice. Choice enables people to select which ideas they will act on. Animals cannot do this. They are programmed to respond to their DNA with very minimal choice. Because of choice, humans have been able to bend the rules that entities in natural world have evolved to ensure their survival.

While changes in nature are required to fit into the existing environment to survive, human ideas are not so tightly bound to nature. Humans can conjure up all sorts of ideas that aren’t linked to anything. War, slavery, and power, are a few human ideas that nature would not permit in its collaborative structures. A human idea, good or bad, truthful or not truthful, need only exist if it is accepted and shared by others. As a result, humans can go a long way on some very bad ideas. This is now catching up to us and threatens our survival.

Why was it important for you to write and share this book with the world NOW?

I think humans are reaching a tipping point where some long held non-beneficial ideas are catching up to us and are now threatening our very survival. Climate change, nuclear annihilation, pollution, autocracy and oligopoly to name a few, all stem from human created ideas.

Humans insist on doubling down on ideas that have not necessarily worked from the very beginning. If we instead, look to how nature collaborates at a cellular level, we find valuable clues as to how collaborative bodies made up of trillions of cells, survive and thrive. Even adjusting for the human superpower of choice, we can use the rules found in nature to build more effective societies. And human societies would look much different than they do today if we made decisions more akin to the way a body behaves in nature.

Do you see some parallels in your theories with some of the world’s current events?

Absolutely. If a body operated the way our human societies operate, it would be dead. Government, elections, education, taxation, homelessness, and a plethora of other issues would be done very differently if they operated using the tools nature uses as a guide.

What we are seeing today, is a breakdown of human systems that has been a long time in coming. We have never applied the real lessons of nature because we never really learned them. How could we? We have been using basic ideas that are thousands of years old, while the knowledge of how cells collaborate is less than a hundred years old. Our old ideas are grounded so deeply in us that it has never occurred to us to discover the parallel about how cells work in a body to how people work in a society.

Our current ideas, based on strategies that are not sustainable, are now catching up to us. Humans are the only species capable of self-extinction. I worry this is our fate unless we begin to change our ways.

Do you think we, as humans, resist nature’s lessons? And if so, why?

Of course. Ideas are not physical. Humans are born with all their DNA intact to enable them to survive in the physical world, but we are born with no ideas. How do we develop ideas? We learn them from others. If we only ever learn ideas from other, it can be extremely difficult to come up with new ideas. Yet we come up with new ideas all the time. Right now, the problem is that new ideas are hard to share. Our current world is filled with people who have made a lot of money from the existing (and non-sustainable) system. People rarely give up their powerful positions for new ideas that they perceive will hurt them. Currently, the majority of resources are held by a very small percentage of people who want to make sure that the system that is working so well for them stays in place.

Who are some people that have inspired you along the way?

• Stephen Jay Gould. Gould was a paleontologist who wrote extensively about both nature and humans. His book, Wonderful Life. was particularly insightful.

• Charles Darwin. The Origin of Species was amazing. What a thinker Darwin was. Also, The Voyage of the Beagle which he wrote as a young man shows clearly he had been thinking about the concepts of evolution for a long time.

• Michael Rothschild. Bionomics was truly an inspiration of new thinking for me. I did not accept his conclusions, but his ideas really showed me that there really was a through line form the Big Bang to humans.

• The writers of the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution. These two documents are, to me, the best representation of the way nature works adjusted for human behavior. The whole point of these documents is to assure that people retain the power over themselves and grant leaders the limited right to act on behalf of the people.

What are the lessons you want readers to take away from reading your work?

Nature has one rule for collaborative survival. In a body, every cell is free to perform its function as long is does not harm the other cells. If a cell does do harm the coordination system of the body (the neurons in the brain) do everything they can to make sure the cell shapes up and acts properly. Only if the cell cannot be helped, does the cell get destroyed.

The corollary in human societies is this: Humans should be free to make whatever choices they want, but they cannot harm others. If they do, every effort is put forth to help them to shape up and act without harm. Only if that effort does not work, does separation or prison come into play.

I firmly believe if we developed our human systems around this principle, we would have much healthier societies and we would improve our long-term chances of survival.

What are you working on now and what can we expect from you next?

Right now, it is imperative that I share this idea as far and wide as I can. My fervent wish is to have others understand this core idea and start following it in the personal and professional lives. If people use this principle to live by, they will make better decisions, and we will make better societies.

Where can people find out more about you and your work?

The best place to reach me is via my website at www.thehumanidea.com.