13.1. The naturalist concept is not the naturalist’s operation

“We can say metaphorically that natural selection scrutinizes the slightest variations every day and every hour, throughout the world; rejects those which are bad, preserves and adds up all those which are good; works silently and imperceptibly, at any time and in any place where the opportunity is given to him, for the improvement of every organic being in the organic and inorganic conditions of his life” [DAR 66].

“The indigenous taxonomy is often sufficiently precise and unambiguous to permit certain identifications; thus, the one made just a few years ago by the “Big Fly” evoked in myths, the Tachnidiae, Hystricia pollinosa” [LÉV 62].

“The natural sciences are blamed for there being too many names. But what should we do? Nature is immense, and to be understood when you want to make an object known, you have to give it a name. For nomina si nescis, perit et cognitio rerum” [LAC 72, p. 10].

Our work leads us to hypothesize that the proposal for a new MO.O.N. must be able to resist a combination of skills and abilities that are too obvious, induced or deduced from other MO.O.N.s. That is to say, we shouldn’t be able to extrapolate several abilities from one MO.O.N. onto the abilities of another MO.O.N. In addition, a MO.O.N. can only be apprehended in a C.U.P. of which the U (utility) remains the point of attention and for which the core components must activate in pairs.

This theoretical principle is intended to limit intellectual empiricism, from which we “invent” “intelligence” according to our conceptual projections. Let us remember that the word intelligence is a Greek invention. As soon as we associate a word with it by composition, we induce the rule instituted by the first to the latter. Thus, to speak of moral intelligence is to induce the concepts of intelligence to the word moral. It is the same for existential intelligence or social intelligence. As a Western concept, existence (ousia) or morality (sôphrosunè, moral thought), as described by Gardner [GAR 04], is not “operative”. To Gardner, morality amalgamates the principles inherent in two “forms of intelligence”, mathematics and the interpersonal. He says:

“The principal characteristic of people who would manifest moral intelligence must be that they show a particular interest in all matters relating to rules, behaviour and attitudes, which are part of the sanctity of life (of human life, but also, in many cases, of every living creature and of the universe in which they inhabit). To have a sense of morality is to recognize these subjects and to be able to judge them” [GAR 04, p. 91].

Gardner’s implicit semantics and “taxonomic” organization involve words and expressions such as “sacred”, “moral sense” “rules”, referring to “all questions”. However, the problem of involving several conceptual categories in this characterization is to encourage intellectual negotiation that cannot be verified from an operational point of view. The word judgment belongs to the intelligence category, but it is not operative. We know that judgment is the verdict of mind and spirit (nous) and thinks according to the laws and rules of logos and mathesis, good or evil. Judgment decides where the assessment is directed (the assessment is the opposite side of the judgment). To judge implies to “know” without having to justify experience: is it necessary to judge this person guilty for the committed act? Should we judge the work done by this manager or this student “good” or “bad”? Judgment is, by definition, the spouse of difference, and they have two sons called subjective and arbitrary. Moral intelligence is only valid if it accepts its filiation with intelligence “G”; it then becomes a sub-family category of intelligence because of “identical” common ground. Elucidation and semiotic and scientific investigation allow us to go back to the source of the operating modes, favoring these conceptual (then behavioral) manifestations; we will be able to observe-ascertain that “moral and existential intelligence” is the expression of observable combinations of natural mathematical (abstract-general) and interpersonal (empathic-interactional) operating modes.

The naturalistic MO.O.N., inspired by Gardner’s concept of naturalistic intelligence [GAR 04], was the subject of numerous debates between 2011 and 2013 with Thomas Parle, co-architect of the TalentReveal project of which we manage. The latter expressed serious doubts as to why naturalistic intelligence was, according to him, not “reliable”, due to too close a relationship with scientific intelligence (which we had split from Gardner’s logic-mathematics). We also had some “doubts” as to the reliability of the latter because of its operational proximity to scientific intelligence, which now differs in several aspects from the scientific MO.O.N. proposed. This raised the following question: was the naturalistic mode of operation sufficiently autonomous, observable and assessable to be valid as a MO.O.N. in its own right, or should it be considered as one of the scientist’s sub-components/activities. If this were the case, then we would have had the following core component: correlative-naturalistic and not correlative-pragmatic, as was our choice. The study and in-depth observation of naturalistic operating modes led us to validate – according to the criteria presented – that these MO.O.N.s were autonomous, observable and assessable.

We take the time to ask things, because the stakes are important for the performance of organizations – which we will deal with in the last section – for education and, more broadly, for all the themes raising (still) “dangerous” questions regarding (possible) the “superiority” of human categories over others. Such a question, as written at the beginning of this work, is as obsolete as thinking the “earth is flat” or thinking of physics solely from the Euclidean (geometric) point of view, or a concept of thought named “intelligence”. Thus, if the company wishes to operate in naturalistic terms, in order to understand the issue of “talents”, it will have to deal with this question from the point of view of observable, appreciable and classifiable principles. In this case, it will choose a principle of dynamic opposition (collaborative and in propensity). But if it decides to operate according to the old model (onto-logical), then it will remain a “management” model and will treat the human with rationality, in a quantitative and normative way (therefore ideal).

The problem between the scientific and mathematical MO.O.N. is similar and hence our separation of these two operating modes, while maintaining the principle of coherence (see Wheel of MO.O.N.s, section 5.2). Hence, the scientific MO.O.N. was (naturally) correlated with the naturalistic MO.O.N. Indeed, and contrary to what it is possible to read, especially for the criticisms or “opinions” put forward on Gardner’s theory, neither the scientific nor the naturalistic MO.O.N. is a subcomponent of mathematical intelligence. Without going into detail on our previous development, let us recall that logical-mathematical intelligence, in its Western sense, is “abstract” and “rational”. It doesn’t need reality to “think”, nor to elaborate long chains of reasoning. To function, it can separate an “object” of thought from reality and be satisfied with the latter to unfurl the said reasoning. Among these principles, we can find the search for perfection (the ideal), for a “beauty” without relation to reality. We assessed many managers for whom an Excel table could be “beautiful” by its composition, no matter if the latter was “useful” in absolute terms; for them, the main thing was the construction and the logic with which the “things” were put forward. For these managers, a (well) quantified table is as real as a pounding rain. The scientific MO.O.N., however, requires reality so that an Excel table can eventually be realized (if useful). Whether it is Darwin, Lorentz, Lévi-Strauss or Oppien, there are no pages in regard to mathematical equations or references, or pure concepts of thought. Their travel diaries evoke a sum of descriptions, personal notes, notes of music (see Lévi-Strauss), diagrams, sketches, but no equations, let alone metaphysical thought. There is no reference to ontology or its remoteness to be considered as a support of thought.

In his book Animals in Translation, Temple Grandin, an autistic Professor at Colorado State University with a Ph.D in Zoology, says:

“The price to pay for large frontal lobes is an inadvertent blindness that does not affect animals or people with autism. Normal people no longer see the details that make up the table, they only have an overview. This is what your frontal lobes do for you, they give you an overview. The animals, on the other hand, perceive every detail precisely” [GRA 06, p. 72].

The scientific MO.O.N. is deployed because there’s physicality. It needs the possibility of linking universes together in order to make a new concrete and practical idea emerge-actualize. The scientific MO.O.N., by correlation and combining universes, can develop an “intuition”, in other words, a spontaneous knowledge without making a “mathematical” demonstration, etc. The example of Sarah Rey is such an example.

Although scientific “intelligence” is “coherent” with logic-mathematics, it does not, however, share the same “common ground”, whereas between the naturalistic and the scientific, it does: the (attentive) observation of reality. Indeed, the naturalistic MO.O.N. requires physicality to initiate a taxonomy, as well as a process, in order to apprehend the processes of transformation of reality (here, fauna, flora). In both cases, it is advisable to go into the field to observe phenomena, populations, processes and configurations. It is also necessary to experiment, adjust and propose hypotheses on phenomena. On the one hand, the scientific MO.O.N. aims to produce a useful result for a community by inventing, innovating, theorizing about the process or invention, and on the other, the naturalistic MO.O.N. aims to appreciate (wei), apprehend and classify (lei) species of fauna and flora operating in the wild. This is what is seen in the works of Darwin, Oppien, Lévi-Strauss, Lorentz, Cyrulnik, but also in so-called “primitive” people:

“This appetite for objective knowledge is one of the most neglected aspects of thinking of those we call “primitive”. Although it is rarely directed towards realities at the same level as those to which modern science is attached, it involves comparable intellectual approaches and observation methods. In both cases, the universe is an object of thought, at least as much as satisfying needs [...] When we make the mistake of believing that the savage is governed exclusively by his organic or economic needs, we do not take care that he addresses the same reproach to us, and that to him, his own desire to know seems better balanced than ours” [LÉV 62, p. 13].

In the person with a naturalistic mode of operation, there is an importance of observation, not so as to theorize in order to produce a useful “thing”, but to appreciate (ji-wei) the way in which reality is organized (at the functional level) and unfolds in what we call in the West Time, and what the Chinese call Process. Classification is therefore no longer a pure-minded activity, aimed at rationalizing things in order to cut something out (separate-distinguish), but to apprehend the principle in propensity conferred by reality and the way in which it is useful to human and social activity.

Hence, contrary to what could be thought, naturalistic (MO.O.N.) intelligence cannot be considered as a sub-component of logic-mathematics. Five points argue this position:

• – mathematics is organized in an abstract symbolic system, aiming to “encode” objects of thought, where the observation of nature is configurational and temporal (appreciative-assessable);
• – mathematics/logic seeks demonstration and explanation (asking knowledge about a situation without it necessarily being directly related to reality), whereas the naturalistic principle aims to explain (producing plausible knowledge from a situation, a phenomenon) by remaining “stuck” to reality;
• – mathematics isn’t interested in the sound of fauna and flora, nor in drawing or reproducing the shape of plants, animals, geological configurations, nor in waiting in narrow or wide spaces to observe the way in which plant or animal species “operate” and unfold, etc.;
• – mathematics/logic does not suffer any “almost”; it is “unbearable” to it; the naturalist accepts the principle of doubt, not the Cartesian doubt inherent in the object of thought, but the (Confucian) doubt relating to the observation itself.

Therefore, if mathematics requires the “identical”, the naturalist prefers the “similar”;

• – mathematics/logic isolates the elements in order to extract a generality, whereas the naturalist correlates, combines and classifies (in a taxonomic way) by preserving specificities and singularities (thus refusing the “pure generality”), etc.

Therefore, it is not because naturalistic “intelligence” sometimes uses mathematics (as a tool and not as an operating mode) that this makes it a sub-component of it. Lastly, let us emphasize without insisting, but to keep it in mind, that an abstract symbolic system cannot be elevated to the rank of an operating mode. There is – once again – a categorical error, since the element of one category is placed in another category.

To conclude, we can specify that the naturalistic MO.O.N. mobilizes what has been looked at, listened to, touched and perceived, in order to be deployed where mathematics can make do with being purely “mental”.

13.2. From Oppien to Darwin

Our research work related to the strategies for actualizing potential led us to carefully study the writings of Détienne and Vernant and, in particular, Les ruses de l'intelligence: Les métis Grecs [DET 74]. This long investigation made us lean towards Oppien, the philosopher, poet and naturalist of year 2 of the common era. Access to the Halieutics [OPP 77], written by a man who lived in the city of Hermes, Coryce, surrounded by water, offered us twice the material: firstly, numerous examples of tricks operating in animals, and secondly, numerous clues to identify a naturalistic mode of operation. Let us keep in mind that Oppien lived in the city whose protective god was Hermes, the inventor of fishing whose deviousness was only equivalent to that of Athena. He inspired Oppien de Cilicie to write his poems, but above all, he allowed him to potentiate, in the latter, the naturalistic skills-abilities that supported the writing of the Halieutics. Oppien died at the age of 31, but his verses and in particular his study of marine animals were referred to at least until the 18th Century with Buffon (1707–1788, a mathematician, naturalist, French philosopher):

“The immense and boundless sea steals most of the things it conceals from us. Man’s mind and his means are weak, and he cannot speak of what he ignores. But I think that the sea is no less fertile than the land, either in terms of the number or the size of the animals that live there. Only the gods can say if there is equality between them, or if one prevails over the other; we know how to reduce ourselves to the knowledge that we share. The birth, the habits of fish, the places in the sea where they live, the substances they feed on are not always the same. Some prefer the lowest beaches: their food is sand or what it produces; such as the hippocampus (1¹), the fast coccus (2), erythrin (3), “cythare” (4), the “trigle” (5), the silly melanin (6), the numerous trachae (7), the hubbub (8), the weak taenia (9), the “plating” (10), the “myrtle” with varied colours (11), the scombroids, the cyprinids, and so many others who frequent the shores” [OPP 17, p. 39].

Oppien deploys a form of looking useful to the description and the organization of species, but also to the configuration where the latter evolve. Chant Premier describes a sum of species and how they evolve in the most favorable configurations for their development. Just as Oppien describes the places in his work, he does the same for the routes used by the inhabitants of the waters:

“The wrasse does not depart from the bed of the rivers, but comes up out of the sea into their mouths; the eel, on the contrary, leaves them to be dragged on the shores. Rocks of various shapes, around which waves roll, are kept in constant humidity by the fucus (of the algae family), abundant mnies (of the moss family) cover them. […] Not far from sandy seas are other sharp rocks inhabited by skyrre², sciene, basilisk³, mulle and red trigle [...]”.

The naturalistic modus operandi that permeates Oppian’s poetry mobilizes elucidation (shuo), that is to say, the process combining the gaze with a word in order to make something implicit visible. This implicit thing, otherwise called “the evidence”, is what we no longer think, look at or perceive. The naturalistic mode of operation describes so that it can, by paying attention to details (shapes, colors, feeding habit places, temporality, etc.), initiate a natural taxonomy. This natural taxonomy will “know” how to categorically organize the observed specificities, because it will be able to correlate principles for which it will “give” a consistent tendency. It will therefore not be a “method” already learned and belonging to a concept, or an established traditional theory of a type such as genres, families, orders, classes, branches/divisions, kingdoms, but of an organized principle, resulting from the meticulous investigation of an investigated space. This aspect seems key to us; in fact, Claude Lévi-Strauss, speaking of the classification principle, says:

“The truth is that the principle of classification can never be postulated: only ethnographic investigation, that is to say, experience, can reveal it a posteriori” [LÉV 62, p. 77].

The word naturalistic only became scientific in the 16th Century. This puts forward the (strong) hypothesis that Oppien does not use method(s) in the Platonic sense. Moreover, after careful reading of the Halieutics, it does not seem to present – even implicitly – any reference or “awareness” of the philosophers’ “right and fixed” thinking. Oppien is the “son” of Hermes. He was born and grew up in the city protected by the son of Zeus, from whence appears this appetite for aquatic and earthly ruses dear to the ingenious divinity, whose mètis, as we recall, is equal only to that of his half-sister, Athena. There is more proximity to Homeric thought, with regard to the recurrence of terms relating to deception and skill, than to the search for something ideal in terms of a logos and a mathesis. This leads us to say that the taxonomic process is not close to a logical-accurate analysis. Indeed, as said by Darwin, this way of operating would come to separate the living objects between the similar and the dissimilar through an “artificial method to state, in as short a way as possible, general propositions – that is, to indicate the common characters in a single sentence, for example to all mammals [...]” [DAR 66]. Taxonomic functional analysis, whose proximity to Chinese notions of organizing-classifying (lei, bing) that are more coherent to us, can respond to the possibility of organizing families according to criteria that can vary according to the experience of individuals and groups, and not according to arbitrary thinking. For example, let us take the mathematical MO.O.N. and try to apply, with an amateur approach, some rules of taxonomy. We have identified abstract and general components in our work related to this MO.O.N., but these have been studied in two cultures apart from each other. To clarify the species, we could begin by formulating their Latin names according to Linnaeus’ binominal nomenclature: Mathesis abstrahere and Mathesis generis. However, we know that there are two “distinct populations”, one is Chinese (Sinological) and the other Western (intelligible). Hence, we could assign a trinomial name to designate the “subspecies” Mathesis abstrahere occidentalis (Occident), then Mathesis abstrahere sinae (Asia) for the “abstract” component, then Mathesis generis occidentalis, and Mathesis generis sinae for the “general” component. This “logic” would make it possible to start a potential classification of culturally specific operating modes by integrating their particularity, their operating principle, their writing and thought system, etc. We could then think in terms of gaps and not in terms of differences.

The lei character (類, category, classify) makes it possible to reconcile objects of the same category by specifying that a category is neither unique, nor immutable, nor a quantity. Darwin sets an example with the platypus, the “strange creature”:

“If the platypus had been covered with feathers, and not with hair, this external character of minimal importance would have been considered by naturalists as a precious help in determining the degree of affinity of this strange creature with birds. The importance, in terms of classification, of characteristics of minor importance depends mainly on the fact that they are correlated with many other characteristics of greater or lesser importance. […] This is why, as has often been noted, a species may deviate from its relatives by several traits of high physiological importance, as well as an almost universal prevalence, yet leave us in no doubt as to its appropriate classification. It is also for this reason that a classification based on a single character has always failed” [DAR 66].

The naturalistic MO.O.N. deploys abilities inherent in this first key component, such as the ability to recognize species of fauna and flora in a specific configuration. This ability to recognize is observed by the ability to perceive the nuances (wei) of shapes, colors, sounds, coatings, taste, but also symbols, totems, durations, moments of day, directions, etc. This is done, for example, by the Fulani of Sudan by classifying the plants according to the day of the week and according to the cardinal points [LÉV 62, p. 59].

13.3. Represent, discern, draw, name: the field notebooks

The common point between Claude Lévi-Strauss, Konrad Lorentz and Darwin is the ability to sketch⁵, but also “photography”. The naturalistic operation implies visually representing how the experience of looking makes it possible to distinguish. The principle shows what the gaze desires, in order to apprehend, make hypotheses, and then to explore the tracks of knowledge which result from it.

In the works of Claude Lévi-Strauss, for example, drawings represent about 15% of his notes. The latter illustrate village plans, varieties of animals, but also portraits of his informants to understand the way they work and how they wear make-up. The use of specific colors makes it possible to code information observed and heard. It is the same with Darwin, who, although not a draftsman, nevertheless knew how to “sketch” and provide representations of plants or geological configurations in order to illustrate his observations, such as, for example, his sketches relating to the geology of the Andes or in his drawing of plants and flowers, such as the Habenaria chlorantha (Orchid). This trace, thus referring to the principle of the figurative sign, makes it possible to memorize images, details and consequently traces which imply the observed-viewed. The viewed-drawn pair favors a sense of nuance that can be found in the way of using a precise sum of words, organized into semantic categories, such as colors, scents, principles, explanations, hypotheses, temporalities, transformations, winds, clouds, waters, etc. Drawing it involves naming it precisely and unequivocally. The sign shows, while the concept of “infinite” discussion shows nothing (anymore). This is what characterizes the naturalistic mode of operation, whether among the so-called “primitive” people or among the so-called “civilized” people: in both cases, there is a sensitive representation of perception.

Drawing participates in the emulation of thought, because it remains available over time. It is possible to return to it, complete it, annotate it and detail it. The traced, as a figuration of reality, allows the naturalistic operator to deploy dynamic analysis (ji) by pushing the reasoning (tui, 推) either by induction or abduction by formalizing, for example, an implicit theory as soon as the convergence of observations seems coherent.

Drawing (“sketching”) favors the organization of notes in the notebook (whatever be the medium), but also the use of codifications, comparisons, analogies and similarities useful for taxonomy⁶. Take Darwin’s example and how he analyzes the insect populations observed and collected (e.g. Dytiscidae Darwinianae: beetle, Coleoptera family) in the field. He begins by organizing the different parts of the insect around the latter to which he gives a reference number (5), and then he codes and names each of the parts, a number associated with a letter, for example [Pl. I, Figure 5(a), mandible; 5(b), maxilla; 5(c), labium; 5(d), antenna; 5(e), for leg; 5(f), hind leg.]:

“Closely allied in appearance to Hygrotus, Steph., but distinguished by the structure of its antenna and palps”⁷.

In a certain manner, drawing re-trains the lost forms of looking of many Westerners, which the so-called “primitive” people have been able to keep alert and competent. This is what engages in such semantic fertility to name and describe trees and plants, for example, in the Tewa language:

“The morphological description of the leaves of trees or plants consists of 40 terms, and there are 15 separate terms, corresponding to the different parts of a corn plant” [LÉV 62, p. 19].

It is a simple writing whose intention is not abstract, but descriptive and faithful to the observed; it is in line with Levi-Strauss’s purpose, in other words, the production of an attentive and disinterested practical knowledge. Natural classification is not taxonomy turned science. The term, proposed by the botanist Augustin Pyrame de Candolle at the beginning of the 19th Century, manifests itself in Darwin’s ability to classify living and non-living things in order to compare them, in the Chinese sense of the term lei, (類), but also pi (譬), signifying a mode of comparison that renders it possible to understand what a “thing” is from one or more possible angles. Lei and pi favor elucidation as much as shuo favors explanation, that is to say, the means by which one enlightens (makes visible-available) in order to explain reasons; not reasons in the Greek sense, but reasons whose name describes reality. Hence, shuo combines with wei, (謂), in the sense of saying, meaning and designating. The constant correlation between words and reality (drawn, sketched) engages in “appreciating” the life process of the living thing observed. The natural naturalistic mode of operation operates in the field (the configuration) and focuses on how the situation (che, 勢) changes (hua, 化).

Within the context of our work, we mobilized this operating method in order to appreciate (wei) the silent transformation⁸. (bian-hua) of a Glutinous Alder leaf (Alnus glutinosa (L.) Gaertn). Our challenge was to observe-appreciate the transformation of a leaf in late summer 2014 (September 13–September 21) in an evolutionary cycle (t’ong): summer-autumn (heng-li). We photographed it every day at a precise time with a 50-mm lens in order to avoid visual distortion. Our focal length adjustment was 3 (f/3) to generate a visual separation with the background. We wanted to focus on the leaf and not on the surrounding details. On a paper board, it is possible to draw the leaf alone, the photo does not allow it and hence the adjustment of the focal length. We identified three observation zones (the three triangles). These were chosen after the photos were taken by observing the colorimetric deviations of the leaf.

The concrete observation of an ongoing process ([JUL 09d, pp. 435–436]) allowed us to apprehend the transformation (hua) of a form of the living thing. Getting close to the leaf, looking the side, from below, from behind, getting as close as possible to all the movements that we never talk about, but that are part of a naturalistic mode of operation. The assessment of gaps can start from these movements, however minute (wei, 溦) and, consequently, can promote semantic work to designate-name (wei 謂), with simplicity (yue 約), that which is observed. This then favors the formalization of knowledge that makes it possible to “look” at what, in general, escapes the sight of the mind.

However, let us look back with Darwin and, in particular, with an aspect which, in our opinion, is unexploited in the naturalistic MO.O.N.: process. Indeed, the study of the works of the one who called himself a “born naturalist” allows us to apprehend an aspect available in other naturalist writings, but whose semantic discretion can make us miss this operative reality.

Remember that the natural naturalistic mode of operation makes all the thoughts and views, relationships, interactions, mutual affinities, shared things, comparisons, propensities and gaps between the populations (later becoming the concept of species) observed and real, available. It is thus a question of naming in order to make the knowledge of the observed last, not to stop it onto itself, but to allow humans to apprehend the way in which the living world unfolds and cohabits. What can be named exists, as we remind you: nomina si nescis, perit et cognitio rerum. This amount of observation in multiple configurations led Darwin to propose the theory of “natural selection”, but its interpretation is so biased that it can “send shivers down your spine”.

NOTE.– Detecting a talent, from the point of view of the naturalistic operator, consists of naming the sum of skills-abilities which we will avoid rationalizing, but of which one will be able to explain the process with regard to their correlations with the C.U.P. Appreciating (ji) a “talent” consists (therefore) of not looking at it with pleasure and knowledge, but observing the operative variations during periods, of which the duration is necessary, for the reliable development of assumptions. Appreciating consists of explaining, and thus naming, using a rich and figurative vocabulary with precision, the indications and the minute details that a movement indicates and that a semantic organization elaborates in order to structure and realize its activity and that potential initiates in terms of availability and fertility.

It is necessary to develop one’s insipidity (dan) and indifference in order to appreciate the dullness of the details concealed in the “talents” of the ordinary and in day-to-day life.

13.4. Classifying in order to appreciate the process of living things (basis for the development of talents)

The naturalistic mode of operation values, not in terms of a (subjective) quality, as we have said many times, but in terms of a perception of the nuances that take place in reality. The observation of fauna, flora and configurations, which leads to classification, implies the ability to perceive, scrutinize and value the minute indications relating to modification-transformation (bian-hua). This ability is based on the capacity to discern subtle things, such as the observation of a leaf in its senescence, but also on a larger scale, the way in which a fauna evolves in a gradual way and affects its way of living, behaving, acting and operating “sooner or later”.

This ability will allow the recruiter to appreciate the trend of a “market” because he is able to observe the gradual maturation of habits, but also of the operating methods of a “classical” profession, an “emerging” profession, a profession on the “verge of disappearing”.

In Darwin’s comments about what he decides to call Natural Selection (“This preservation of favourable variations, and the rejection of injurious variations, I call Natural Selection”) we perceive his ability to appreciate (wei, 溦) the influence of the process of things on natural evolution, but also on what we call actualization, which the Chinese express with the concept xing (form-actualization) or ji (幾 transformation to come). This skill leads to perceiving what is visible, without being significant enough to be considered as a “cause”, that is to say, from where it “begins” (the starting point). The assessment of the transformation cannot therefore be “obvious”, but inscribed in a probing of these minute indications of movement over time. Hence, note-taking alone is not sufficient for the naturalistic operating mode. It would come to distort what the gaze examines and supports without blinking, for fear of losing key information that would offer, for example, a movement of an animal, an insect or a plant.

The leaves, shown in Figure 13.3, illustrate the role of “looking at”, being appreciative, but also the ability to match shapes (lobes, blades, petioles) with each other in the classification of plants. Appreciating so that matching is coherent.

The operating dynamics underlying the ability to “appreciate” implies the woven perception of analysis (li), in other words, to perceive and “weave” the coherences and dynamic correlations offered by the observation of reality. And by reality, let us specify again the physicality organized in configuration; we could propose that san yuan er shi wei, that is to say, the three distances (san yuan, plane, deep, high), are just as congruent as they are opposed (see our development on “er”) to temporality and spatiality (shi wei, giving rise to process):

“During a period of drought [in the Amazon forest], some animal species were limited to small jungle islets, in very different conditions from the previous ones. New species appeared. When the climate returned to its wet phase, they had become sufficiently different from each other that they could no longer cross from one to the another” [LAN 98, p. 41].

The assessment of mutations and transformations takes place through the attention to those spaces, for which the time of attention devoted makes it possible to match (ju 聚) the said observations to hypotheses. Thus, to match designates: where it happens, what happens and how it agrees in a positive way (without deviation). This operating principle allows the development, for example, of concepts such as the “continuous growth” [HAL 08, p. 167] observable in palm oil or papaya, or the “rhythmic growth” of oaks or rubber trees. This rhythmic growth, evoked by Francis Hallé, can be observed in plants such as Chinese Glycine or Hops, the latter being able, as we have observed, to grow 22 cm in 24 hours (according to a specific potential-configuration pair) and “slow down” in order to “only” evolve 5–7 cm 3 days later. The appreciate-matching pair is articulating for the naturalistic operative, because it implies a mental process which, even though it seems discontinued by the work of formalization, continues in the “background” of thought. The process of observation “immortalized” by drawing, video, photography, sound of the engine, the mast, is ordered, adjusted and correlated without continuous intervention of the person. This processual activity motivates the curiosity generated by the question translated into images: “where” and “how” will it be observed and assessed tomorrow? The explanations, always in the Chinese sense (shuo), are the intermediaries of this observation time. Indeed, the naturalistic operative produces a concept in the person who deploys it. Appreciating the living by the forms of looking (the perception tool) makes it possible to follow the course of the things in which humans, animals, plants, materials, but also elements are engaged. This proximity with the process of living things implies writing, drawing and actualizing through words, what perception-attention matures into ideas, thought and therefore into concepts: Darwin’s natural selection is the concrete example. Hence, according to us, translation must incorporate common ground for as many people as possible.

The naturalistic operation of the biologist, botanist, ethologist, ethnologist, anthropologist, nature “enthusiast”, but also the evaluator, recruiter, profiler, sociologist, psychologist, etc. leads him to initiate the assessment of progressive or rapid mutations. Observable from narrow and widened configurations, he can then think-suggest a coherent taxonomy without reducing it to a few pure logics:

“To deduce, explain and conclude too quickly is an attitude the ethologist is wary of. The ethologist must possess a fundamental quality: laziness. He will experience an event, a situation and slowly let himself be permeated by it, by all the pores of communication, until a form appears” [CYR 10, p. 62].

The naturalistic mode of operation, in what it implies of “patience”, makes the concepts of humility and modesty emerge. He knows “nothing” in advance: “the forest attracts me, it has always attracted me. A world of herbs and flowers, mushrooms and insects”, says Claude Lévi-Strauss in the documentary Lumière et brume de voyages [BRI 08]. The latter evokes the patience and humility that must be maintained in the face of the world and concludes:

“It is when man is rare, that he is welcome”.

13.5. Talents and potential: new Darwinian natural selection

Talent development, for which we prefer the expression talent potential, is certainly the forgotten naturalistic process of organizations. Indeed, the “talent management” model seems to have forgotten the principles of natural observation. As discussed at the beginning of our book, the results leading to the word “talent” being evoked can be observed, and it is from this observation that the skills and competencies of assessment-appreciation derive. It seems that the naturalistic MO.O.N. could prove to be one of the most consistent with this activity of assessing, detecting, valuing and actualizing “talents”, in addition to competencies.

Centered on ancient philosophical models of Being, pure logic and Clausewitzian war (the art of war on the European side based on cause-effect, end-medium and war genius), many operators of the company “recruit” according to the principle of necessity, of school rate, of “profile” and of pure competition, according to surprisingly rudimentary modalities (rudimentum), in other words, whose theoretical, practical, operational or conceptual outline is little developed, but very “processed”. The amalgam between the concepts of the gifted, those with a high potential, talent, promise, personality, skills, abilities, competency or values, shows a form of incompetence, in the original sense of the term. By incompetence, we mean the inability to operate intentionally with respect to an expected result, for the simple reason of what it is, then, how much it is, followed by what the rules are.

The current draft can neither be conclusive nor generalized, as long as it is fixed on the ideal candidate model according to the current conceptual models. A management team, of which the HR position is often a part, wishing to “change” its paradigms and models to “think differently” and to be “agile”, should not recruit a person according to the concepts mentioned, but firstly by embracing the coherence of the C.U.P., and secondly, by explaining the expected result so that the actualizing of the said result is favored. When a company recruits people who are similar, who think “identically”, who speak “identically” and who see “identically”, it promotes a specific general propensity and dissolves its own ability to actualize the potentials extrinsic to its activity.

In Darwin’s chapter of on the origin of species on natural selection, which he refers to as Nature (personified), he says that “any harmful variation, by its nature, to any degree, is necessarily condemned and rigorously destroyed” [DAR 66]. In other words, any system whose activity and model prove harmful for a given population is led to disappear by the emergence of new populations, but also by the pure and simple dissolution of the model whose ability to adapt to the course of things proves unfit; this is what the company is trying to do to “lead change”, in order to make its populations “fit” the course of things. The somewhat fantasized use of Big Data shows to what extent the so-called “civilized” man delegates the “mechanical” and probabilistic detection of “talents” to machines and their virtuality, a little as if a botanist entrusted a machine with the task of finding where the desired plants “are” in the forests of France. It would be so focused on the object that it would lose the ability and knowledge to observe, appreciate and assess. The only thing that Big Data can do in the field of “talent” is to identify, measure and link generic and general items, resulting from concepts invented by human beings that are put forward to other human beings.

The gradual loss of this ability to observe has therefore remained blind to natural selection. Indeed, the dynamic propensity escapes the principle of normative generality. One of the reasons, it seems, is the error in understanding, reading and interpreting Darwin’s work. The main error is the interpretation of the concept of natural selection or the “famous” idea put forward in the theory of the survival of the fittest. This concept has been over translated-interpreted according to the Greek model of intelligence. Whoever is intelligent is the most capable of progress, so it has been thought. Thus, whoever is the “strongest” ensures his continuity, because natural selection is the “law” of those who are “more” than others. Concepts concerning the question of “talents” and those with a high potential feature this “idea” abundantly. However, there are few theories on which they should rely. To do this, ethnologists, ethologists, anthropologists or anyone with similar skills can bring useful knowledge to organizations, especially in terms of simplicity and consistency of observation of individuals and groups in situations. The identical intellectual generates what we call “intellectual consanguinity”; nothing of potential can emerge. The idea that natural selection is the selection of the “intelligent” over the “stupid” and other abnormal people is certainly one of the most absurd ideas of our modern history, although it persists as long as natural selection produces its effect.

Darwin’s natural selection is none of this, and thus the future of the concept of “talent management” is destined to give way to new principles. Indeed, the thinking behind the current model cannot have a sustainable reality. Moreover, his model is not based on aptitude with regard to a reality, but on pseudo-quality with regard to an objective (objectum). Hence, there can be no positive propensity for this idea. Why? Because the theory of natural selection makes it explicit that in nature, there are always places to be occupied (more) efficiently. Nature combines, correlates, weaves and permeates with multitudes of variations, which in turn grow, adjust, dissolve and actualize the living (and the useless). The very principle of natural selection is to favor the useful. Nature is not for anyone in particular; not for humans, nor for animals, nor for plants, but for “life” in general. It gives everyone something useful so that they can deploy, adapt and move in the configuration in which they live. Natural selection modifies and adjusts what fluctuations induce as a silent but discernible transformation. It then participates in initiating the evolutions of the living thing aiming to follow the course of things “internally”. Thus, being the fittest is not being the strongest (in the sense of the kratos), but the one with the ability to not resist transformation, therefore conforming to it, not by submission, but by trending coherence:

“Although natural selection acts only for the good of each being, it nevertheless seems to exercise an influence on characters and conformations, which we are willing to look at as trivial. When we see some insects that live on green-coloured leaves, other bark eaters that are grey-green, the Ptarmigan of the Alps, white in winter; the Grouse, heather-colour; we must believe that these shades render services to these different animals, and are advantageous to them by protecting them from danger” [DAR 73, p. 90].

Natural selection can be observed in the way in which populations modify-transform their way of operating in order to adapt to new configurations, as well as to the new potentials that are emerging. The Internet illustrates an example of a large variation. It accelerates societal-global transformation and offers new islets where new populations (species) emerge. YouTube (islet) is one example: Youtubers, whom we could codify as Digitalis professio, if we apply Linnaeus’ binominal nomenclature, are a population whose evolution makes it almost impossible for it to go back in time: a classic wage earner. The very high bandwidth offered by the Internet has led to the emergence of new populations that are relatively unknown to the company, such as “experts”, from the same taxonomic family as Youtubers, but not of the same species or genus. The “experts” (as a specific population of the Web, providing a pointed and practical knowledge, in a field) are more related to the trainers whose activity is primarily a face-to-face type. The first experts could be identified as Forma digitalis, again according to Linnaeus’ nomenclature, the second (trainers) as Forma praesentia. We would thus have Digitalis professio (Youtubers) and Forma digitalis (experts) belonging to the new species resulting from natural selection and Forma praesentia (trainers). The Forma digitalis are a species distinct from the Forma praesentia, although the Forma digitalis species can operate according to the modalities of the Forma praesentia species.

NOTE.– Talent potential is correlated with natural selection. Not as an expression with a reputation distorted by more than a century of obvious ignorance of the theory, but as a strategy of actualizing the potential favorable to the propensity of “talents” and skills. Talent potential, from the point of view of natural selection, would amount to rediscovering our former abilities as hunter-gatherers and relearning to look, perceive, assess and appreciate the nuances of life and its complexity in relation to the expected result.

“It may metaphorically be said that natural selection is daily and hourly scrutinising, throughout the world, every variation, even the slightest; rejecting that which is bad, preserving and adding up all that is good; silently and insensibly working, whenever and wherever opportunity offers, at the improvement of each organic being in relation to its organic and inorganic conditions of life. We see nothing of these slow changes in progress, until the hand of time has marked the long lapse of ages, and then so imperfect is our view into long-past geological ages, that we only see that the forms of life are now different from what they formerly were” [DAR 66, p. 95].

When ideas relating to talent management begin with the issue of measurement and what is “remarkable”, they de facto turn towards an abstract and “useless” model, because they renounce the forms of looking. Natural selection involves the living, where the figure, in principle, is “non-living”.

One possible consequence of natural selection is to be found in the Belgian company Passwerk. It employs 50 autistic people [LEC 16, p. 62] (out of 60 employees), whose autism spectrum disorder (ASD) offers special qualities. The website focuses on the ability of autistic people to “look differently”, in addition to focusing longer, supporting attention to detail, the “eye for detail”,¹² but also so-called split capabilities involving many skills and operating abilities, such as visual memory or “scientific” skills. These specific skills are an asset for clients because of the consistency and correlation between utility and operating methods. Why is this a possible example of natural selection? Because the project actualizes Willy Piedfort and Kristiene Reyniers’ proposal, following a conference in Poland, to offer work to people with ASD. This “population”, often neglected by companies, has thus been potentiated in order to respond to a utility detected in the IT world. The project is deployed on a converging market¹³ (configuration) and thus the following approach:

“It is no longer an isolated entity, and a field of investment and attention within the company. Passwerk is a renewed RSE concept. Passwerk is active as an economic operator with pronounced social benefit. The starting point is the concrete requirement of the client, and the objective goes much further than the optimization of the gain”.

The natural variations in the market and society, as well as the emergence¹⁴ of autistic people, have led to a trend that has resulted in the emergence of a “business” concept such as Passwerk. The latter responds to a utility for which the “autistic” potential is mobilized without a priori (with indifference). Natural autistic ability is consistent with the C.U.P. market; the company’s managers and shareholders adhere to the principle that the modus operandi is more important than the preconceived notion of “autism”. Nature, in its great process, makes autistic and neuro-typical people (“normal” people) cohabit. Taking the example of the islet in the Amazon given by Languenet, the Passwerk company project, from a metaphorical point of view, is its actualization.

The naturalistic MO.O.N. operates with a strong proximity to the scientific MO.O.N. and hence our correlative type of classification. The utility of the one and the other is sufficiently distinct not to amalgamate them, and not to classify the “naturalist” as a subfamily of the scientist. This choice is made with regard to observable and assessable modus operandi. Hence, the realized table can once again take abilities of the scientific MO.O.N. whose treatment may seem similar, when in fact the tendentious principle is apart from it. The former leads one to theorize-invent, the latter leads one to apprehend-appreciate in order to classify-itemize.

For example, the naturalistic operating mode favors the practice of many activities, such as recruitment professions, through the ability to pay attention to details, the environment, to the instigation of singular universes where “classical recruiters” will more naturally follow the standards and the method in progress, but also “organic” professions and that of ecology (but not an “ecological intelligence”), and of cooking with regard to the attention to vegetables and fruits, their maturation and their origin, their position in the ground, etc. Sociology is the study and observation of populations, without reducing them to psychomorphic models and norms. The sum of trades is related to nature, ranging from gardener to ethologist, but could also be useful in the field of research in biology, the innovative entrepreneurship. However, let us make no mistake; a MO.O.N. must never be based on the concept of personality; a natural operating mode can operate in a combined, correlated and coherent way. There is no “profile”, but there are trends. After more than 2000 assessments, it is possible to talk about operational trends. Human diversity, just like the diversity of the living, is such that we have never had identical results. Hence, we refuse to define a “norm” which would be useless, on the one hand, since the norm is indifferent to reality, and on the other, because it would be a scientific error, it would imply that we assume that human beings are the “same”; however, this is not the case. Jeremy Narby’s statement, with regard to this, can conclude our chapter, because it expresses the humility of the researcher in the face of natural immensity:

“Humans can learn from nature. This requires grasping the capacity of knowledge of the natural world. We are a young species, and we are just beginning to understand” [NAR 05, p. 170].