A new "philosophical-psychological complex" is offered that confronts the "ever increasing growth of bureaucratic rule and the attendant rise of a complacent citizenry." Given the intensification of globalization and migration, a trans-dermal consciousness allows for a transactional emphasis on "human dignity and uniqueness" despite "a matrix of anxiety and despair [and] feelings of alienation." Transactionalist psychologists and philosophers replace a once sought-after existentialism as a remedy to feelings of alienation with a trans-dermal, organism-environment orientation to living. Rather than applying a theory or approach that emphasizes the individual as a "free and responsible agent determining their own development through acts of the will," subjects are invited to co-create functioning among all other organism-environments, including the specific conditions and consequences of any objects and personalities involved, in order to intelligently structure existence in and among it all. The very act of participating in co-creation, according to transactionalists, gives and allows each person her/his unique status and dignity in their environment. Distinct from an aesthetic theory of taste or a rationale for the beauty in an object of art, a transactionalist theory of aesthetics concerns the perceptual judgments we use to define value, purposeful activity or satisfaction in any experience. Based on studies by transactionalist psychologists Adelbert Ames, Jr. (known for The Ames Demonstrations), William Howard Ittelson, Hadley Cantril, along with John Dewey, the biological role of perception is key to understanding transactionalism. Perceiving is viewed as "part of the process of living by which each one of us, from his own particular point of view, creates for himself the world within which he has his life’s experiences and through which he strives to gain his satisfactions." The sum total of these assumptions was recognized as the "assumptive world." The assumptive world stems from all that we experience, all the things and events we assess and assign meaning to, which function as a "contextual whole" also known as a "transactional whole". Dewey also referred to the assumptive world as a "situation" (where organism and environment are inseparable) or as a "field" in which behavior, stimulus, and response are framed as if a "reflexive circuit". Trevor Phillips noted, "To the modern transactionalist, experiences alter perceptual processes, and in the act of altering them, the purposing aspect of perception is either furthered or its fulfillment interfered with."