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The Patterning Instinct: A Cultural History of Humanity’s Search for Meaning
This fresh perspective on crucial questions of history identifies the root metaphors that cultures have used to construct meaning in their world. It offers a glimpse into the minds of a vast range of different early hunter-gatherers and farmers, ancient Egyptians, traditional Chinese sages, the founders of Christianity, trailblazers of the Scientific Revolution, and those who constructed our modern consumer society.
Taking the listener on an archaeological exploration of the mind, the author, an entrepreneur and sustainability leader, uses recent findings in cognitive science and systems theory to reveal the hidden layers of values that form today's cultural norms. Uprooting the tired clichés of the science-religion debate, he shows how medieval Christian rationalism acted as an incubator for scientific thought, which, in turn, shaped our modern vision of the conquest of nature. The author probes our current crisis of unsustainability and argues that it is not an inevitable result of human nature, but is culturally a product of particular mental patterns that could conceivably be reshaped. By shining a light on our possible futures, the book foresees a coming struggle between two contrasting views of one driving to a technological endgame of artificially enhanced humans, the other enabling a sustainable future arising from our intrinsic connectedness with each other and the natural world. This struggle, it concludes, is one in which each of us will play a role through the meaning we choose to forge from the lives we lead.
Taking the listener on an archaeological exploration of the mind, the author, an entrepreneur and sustainability leader, uses recent findings in cognitive science and systems theory to reveal the hidden layers of values that form today's cultural norms. Uprooting the tired clichés of the science-religion debate, he shows how medieval Christian rationalism acted as an incubator for scientific thought, which, in turn, shaped our modern vision of the conquest of nature. The author probes our current crisis of unsustainability and argues that it is not an inevitable result of human nature, but is culturally a product of particular mental patterns that could conceivably be reshaped. By shining a light on our possible futures, the book foresees a coming struggle between two contrasting views of one driving to a technological endgame of artificially enhanced humans, the other enabling a sustainable future arising from our intrinsic connectedness with each other and the natural world. This struggle, it concludes, is one in which each of us will play a role through the meaning we choose to forge from the lives we lead.
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Published September 19, 2017
About the author
Jeremy Lent
7 books185 followersJeremy Lent is an author and speaker whose work investigates the underlying causes of our civilization’s existential crisis, and explores pathways toward a life-affirming future.
His new book, Ecocivilization: Making a World that Works for All, (Melville House, May 2026), lays out the potential for a fundamentally different world system—an ecocivilization based on life-affirming principles rather than principles of extraction, exploitation, and wealth accumulation. It demonstrates the specifics of an alternative, positive future available for humanity, weaving together the groundbreaking work of visionary leaders, thinkers, and communities around the world.
His award-winning book, The Patterning Instinct: A Cultural History of Humanity’s Search for Meaning, examines the way humans have made meaning from the cosmos from hunter-gatherer times to the present day. His more recent award-winning The Web of Meaning: Integrating Science and Traditional Wisdom to Find Our Place in the Universe offers a solid foundation for an integrative worldview that could lead humanity to a sustainable, flourishing future.
Lent has written extensively about the vision and specifics of an ecological civilization, and is a founding member of the Ecocivilization Coalition, a worldwide alliance of changemakers coming together to act as a transformation catalyst in service of this potential future. He is president of the Coalition’s parent, the Institute for Ecological Civilization, and is a board member on the executive committee of the Global Compassion Coalition.
Lent is the founder and host of the Deep Transformation Network, an online global community of over 5,000 members exploring pathways toward a life-affirming future on a regenerated Earth.
His new book, Ecocivilization: Making a World that Works for All, (Melville House, May 2026), lays out the potential for a fundamentally different world system—an ecocivilization based on life-affirming principles rather than principles of extraction, exploitation, and wealth accumulation. It demonstrates the specifics of an alternative, positive future available for humanity, weaving together the groundbreaking work of visionary leaders, thinkers, and communities around the world.
His award-winning book, The Patterning Instinct: A Cultural History of Humanity’s Search for Meaning, examines the way humans have made meaning from the cosmos from hunter-gatherer times to the present day. His more recent award-winning The Web of Meaning: Integrating Science and Traditional Wisdom to Find Our Place in the Universe offers a solid foundation for an integrative worldview that could lead humanity to a sustainable, flourishing future.
Lent has written extensively about the vision and specifics of an ecological civilization, and is a founding member of the Ecocivilization Coalition, a worldwide alliance of changemakers coming together to act as a transformation catalyst in service of this potential future. He is president of the Coalition’s parent, the Institute for Ecological Civilization, and is a board member on the executive committee of the Global Compassion Coalition.
Lent is the founder and host of the Deep Transformation Network, an online global community of over 5,000 members exploring pathways toward a life-affirming future on a regenerated Earth.
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February 2, 2026
Overall a great book, but there were a few chapters in eastern religion (the philosophy, not the history portion) which were mind numbing. The overall concept is great, though, looking at values and how cultures and language shape those. I particularly enjoyed his expounding in the church and Galileo incident.
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