The majority of my work explores how seemingly independent phenomena are, upon analysis, actually interdependent with their environments. Such interdependence may be understood in terms of the Buddhist notion of emptiness, which holds that no object, physical or mental, exists in isolation from the rest of reality. For example, humans often think of themselves as embodied individuals that act separately from their surroundings and other people. However, when people examine even the most basic unit of the individual self-the human body-they find it composed entirely of "non-self" physical elements (e.g., parents' genetic material, food, and water that all, ultimately, originate from ancient stellar explosions), which are in continual exchange with the environment and with others (e.g., through genetic transmission, eating, respiration, immunological processes, etc.). Similarly, human mental structures and processes, including languages, ideas, memories, and preferences, all emerge fiom our interactions with other individuals and society. Even when alone, the imprints of these interactions drive our mental processes. Such a view of interdependence and emergence has gained widespread contemporary support in the fields of complexity theory, social psychology, and network theory.