"Those who make wheels, make them round."
Stirling places this line in the context of a religious discussion, where it is indeed apt, but upon reflection I began to see the enormity of scope it can reference.
The idea encompassed goes beyond that of unconscious similarities in the methods or results of those with the same general goal. It makes me wonder about the finiteness - or infinity - of creation, creativity, and diversity.
Diversity is life. One needs only look at any ecosystem to realize and understand that. An ecosystem without diversity will not survive. (For more on this idea, read Daniel Quinn's incredible works: Ishmael, My Ishmael, Story of B, Beyond Civilization, and The Man Who Grew Young.)
More to follow in future edits; just throwing this idea up in a mini-post to start some wheels (square wheels?) turning.
2 comments:
Natural selection works within the parameters of natural law.
Hence, round wheels -- it's the only shape that will work; there's one and only one optimum solution.
And that's why dolphins and fast fish have roughly the same shape -- it's the most efficient form for pushing quickly through a resistant medium like water.
On the other hand, kangaroos and deer fill roughly similar ecological niches and use rather different ways of solving the run-from-predators problem... 8-).
It is true that diversity is life, yet humans seem to confuse diversity with danger. There is a bioartist, Angelo Vermeulen, whose recent installation Blue Shift [LOG.1] attempts to change the course in the practical adaptation (or microevolution) of water fleas. In tanks there are collections of fish, water fleas, and water snails and algae. The fleas are genetically ingrained to perceive the color blue as deep water, where their fishy predators inhabit. As the fleas flee in the opposite direction of the blue-hued water, they move straight into the portion of the tank with the fish, ready to gobble them up. The water fleas who do not adapt to the shift will die, so to save the collection of fleas they must microevolve to accept the blue water.
This can be interpreted in many ways, such as the human "microevolution" to shift from spiritually-driven reasoning to the scientific, or questioning the motivations behind racism and xenophobia. It seems that for all the free will humans may posses, we are still trapped by a few simple rules of survival. As long as those rules are not broken, we survive- even if it means we are less humane to others (I guess this is where people got the idea of "original sin").
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