Friday, March 30, 2012

Patterns - the beginning.

This is the first post of many on the interesting phenomenon of patterns in nature.  I have discovered a lot of them, but each one is so interesting and merits its own creative context that I have allotted each its own post.

I'm certain the reasons these patterns are important extend beyond the one I choose to illustrate, nevertheless this one is incredibly pertinent to a certain argument I have ensued between me and my mirror, AND any unlucky passerby who is caught in between.

Realizing patterns is a product of the original, purest form of art: making relevant connections between seemingly unrelevat concepts.

more about this form of art has been explained here:
http://curiousityandscience.blogspot.com/2012/03/chill-your-art-out.html


First let me begin with this diagram:














                 Nature                                                                                  Human



elements           -    emotion < method....................................old             -     emotion < method

(plants)              -                (?)..............................................(?)              -          (?)

animals              -     emotion = method..............................middle-aged    -     emotion = method 

homo sapiens     -     emotion > method................................young           -     emotion > method


As the diagram illustrates, there is pattern with how each organism balances its emotion/method ratio, emotion being unbridled, uncontrolled acts and method being the mechanical process it maintains to continue life.  I also admit they are in direct correlation with time.

This can be easily seen with the oldest of nature-the elements: water/earth/fire/wind etc.  The seasons changing methodically like clockwork.  The fall of rain and snow. A stream's flow.  How the mountains are raised and canyons hallowed.  How all this can be predicted even by a swallow.

All these methodical processes must have at one point been unpredictable, but over the millenia, the chronological success of how they work today could mean the emotion of it seemed to have all but disappeared into the mechanical contraptions of time.....all but the fact that it is still unpredictable.  An earthquake here, a tornado there.  A typhoon ravaging a coastal city, an unexpected snowstorm making you late for your daughters piano recital.  These are all emotional outbursts of nature.  These are all expressions from nature to its inhabitants that it is still alive, as alive as the baby in your baby momma's tummy that is unpredictably not yours because she unpredictably lied to you to take advantage of your unexpected wealth that your garnered from your investment in the unpredictable success of google.

Every characteristic's pattern from above can be found in any OLD person within our race of human.  To directly lure an emotional response out of your typical Oldie is as hopeless as expecting rain after dancing for it.  Why?  because Old people have seen it all.  Done it all.  Felt it all.  They have developed their methods which have worked for them their whole life, and they stick to them so obstinately they appear to have been sucked dry of any emotion.  But like the calm before the storm, any Old Fogie's heart is constantly in tremor, a precursor to the emotional earth shaker he/she was and still is capable of.  Why do you think the highest demographic that frequents the local burlesque house in any town on this planet is your one and only OLD.

I could just let you deduce the remaining patterns between animal and the middle-aged,  homo sapiens and the young, but that wouldn't be any fun for me.

Animals are emotional and anyone who disagrees has been killed by PETA a long time ago.  But the curious thing about them is that they don't express their emotions so openly like we humans do.  As if they aren't as aware of them as we are.  This emotion distinction between us and animals has been easily ticked off as an evolutionary gap between us, but the assumption has always been humans being the more advanced beings in the evolution race.  My stream of logic is counter-intuitive in that possibly animals were at one point as emotional as humans, but like the weather, over the millenia, much of what they did emotionally became hidden behind the success of the methodical.

Let me expound on this counter-intuition for a bit because I view counter-intuitive thoughts as a sign that you are onto something exceptional.

According to this article, evolutionary success could be seen as finding that peak emotion/method balance.  This isn't too difficult to imagine.  Look how effective less visibly emotional creatures at doing the basics for evolutionary success: sexual reproduction from living in balance with the environment.  All the destruction caused by humans is almost exclusively a result of unbridled emotion.

From this pointy of view, compared to animals, we are little babies in evolutionary life, and microscopic spermies in the shadow of the elements.  An animal still has emotional outbursts far more often the elements, but nowhere near as often as a human.  An animal has found a manageable balance with the methodology of its life and the emotional reactions within, but as a middle aged human, there is still room for improvement.  Just as a father will lead his family to righteousness, but occasionally pass out on the street  in a drunken slumber, or a CEO will make millions for his company, but always be the first in line to see his favorite titties shake. 

Now the species homo sapiens.  As aforementioned, in the Natural world humans are no different then a baby in our collectively conceived societies.  We run around the planet staring at this new animal and poking that new fungus, just like a baby stares at its mothers face, and pokes at the house cat.  We find a new land and try to claim it humanville, just as a little kid claims ownership of his daddy's house with the phrase "This is my house".  We go to war over a simple emotional difference as when should the national tea time be, just as a kid's arms go flailing when his friend gets more candy than him.

For some reason by discovering flint and fire, establishing governments and religions, and devising strategy and logic, our brains have convinced us that we are of a superior existence then anything else in this world.  What if Nature is just laughing at us as we ignorantly run around thinking we aren't ignorant.  Like a Grandfather amused as he watches his grandson try to use a can-opener. Aren't there traces similar to what we call governments and devices and logic in every facet of animal and natural life?  The collective and cooperative nature of a wolf pack.  The use of a tree to escape a predator.  The fact that animals know where they should and shouldn't hunt/roam/sleep.  It is as if everything but us humans has already understood the importance of emotional control, and the systematic success of the adherence to a methodology and we are ignorantly trying to catch up.

What if nature is just an organism that was once emotional like us, but learned the right balance after millions of years of mistakes.

What if our unavoidable fate will force us to find a balance with our emotions and methodology of life's sustenance, and over the millions of years it will take us to do so we find ourselves looking more and more like the animals we so barbarously try to control, and then the trees we so swiftly chop down, and then the elements we so pompously try to predict.

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Just think, this new idea was created by seeing a pattern, in other words, seeing a connection between two seemingly distinct objects, in other words Art.   This new idea is an original artistic creation.  equivalent to anything created by Weezer, Michelangelo, or George Lucas.  YES!!!!


-Side note-

I gave plants a sort of intermediary category to illustrate exactly that.  They are a kind of emotion/method ratio stepping stone between that of animals and the elements.  They show from a more stretched point of view, a path we are all on in this endeavor to find the best emotion/method ratio.  Plants seem to be the closet "living" organism, a KEY if you will, to the door upon which access would allow us passage be as one with the elements themselves.  What could this intermediary be for the us humans?


The scarring of a wound on their bark gives us a tactile demonstration of an emotional existence, but it is so detached from our personal depth of reality that we still feel better cutting a tree down than killing an animal.  This doesn't really matter in the terms of it's prolonged existence, it is quite pompous of us to even think we humans can halt the very existence of something as resilient as a tree.  If the species homo sapiens were to ever go extinct, I suspect the first sign of life to sprout forth from our ancient relics would be the green of a tree sapling. 


-food for thought-


within this pattern, I have also seen other patterns.  We all accept Old people have emotions, though they are very controlled now because of experience.  could we literally say the same thing about the elements.  not just metaphorically, but literally.  could the elements be an actual organism that was once as emotionally unstable as a child, but over time gained control of itself as our elderly do?  with this pattern being clearly evident, what else can we deduce from it about our own species, and nature itself?