Laboratory
Draw the Boundary
Explore how widening an explanation to include tools, weather, and other people never erases the boundary of personal consent.
Explanatory inclusion is never ownership or personal consent.
When Gregory Bateson traces the mind of a blind man walking with a cane ([Plate III](/book/plates#plate-03)), the explanatory loop reaches across hand, cane, and street. As you check and uncheck elements below, notice how widening the boundary changes what you can understand about an action, while remembering our fundamental ethical rule: another person can be essential to your understanding and still remain wholly outside your authority.
Explanatory boundary: cane, body, road. Widening the loop changes what you can understand and thank in an activity. Yet an explanatory loop is never a claim of ownership: another person may stand inside the web of your life while remaining wholly sovereign over their own consent, time, and boundaries.