These seed heads are doing a very convincing imitation of chains of gold and silver jewelry.]]>
3 thoughts on “POTD: Latent Potential #13”
Kathy Eyster
Larry, I don’t disagree with your description above, but I find it interesting how “man-centric” we humans have become. In the past, we described mechanical things by comparing how they were like natural things (e.g. a car motor “purring” like a cat). Now it seems we more and more often reverse the two and describe natural things in terms of man-made items, as you did here. Kind of a chicken & egg thing, I guess. To me its an indication of how as a society we have become more and more disconnected from the natural world we are part of.
Kathy, I think you mean “human-centric” here. (I was glad to see your comment wasn’t about something sexist I had said!) I don’t see it odd or new that viewing the world from a human-centric position though is at all odd. That is after all what we are, humans. To view things first off in terms of our own world seems most natural. Dogs look at the world in dog-centric terms, my dogs always seemed to interpret everything in terms of how they related to treats, walks, pats on the head etc., you know dog stuff. What we as humans see is only an indication of disconnection from the natural world if we were never to see the natural connection. But, at least in the art world there seems little danger of that occurring as nature themes permeate art.
I’m not sure which side of the thinking of nature in man-made terms or vice-versa coin this example falls on, but on NPR this morning they were reporting on the first discovery of what they called gears in nature. We’re used to thinking of gears as a man-made construct but some biologists have discovered some gear-like structures in the legs of species that is a relative of the grasshopper. By meshing the gears between their two back legs, they can assure that both legs jump at the same time so that their jumps are almost always straight in the direction intended. The gears are important in this action because the jumps occur very quickly, on the order of a couple of microseconds, which is faster than their neurons could send signals that would otherwise be needed to synchronize the movement of both legs in order to insure a straight jump. They are of course now considering the possibility of how such nano-gears could be used in human inventions.
Larry…yes “human-centric” is probably a better term! And I appreciate your reply. That bit about the “gears” in a grasshopper like creature is amazing!
Latent Potential #13
Bozeman, Montana
2013
Larry, I don’t disagree with your description above, but I find it interesting how “man-centric” we humans have become. In the past, we described mechanical things by comparing how they were like natural things (e.g. a car motor “purring” like a cat). Now it seems we more and more often reverse the two and describe natural things in terms of man-made items, as you did here. Kind of a chicken & egg thing, I guess. To me its an indication of how as a society we have become more and more disconnected from the natural world we are part of.
Kathy, I think you mean “human-centric” here. (I was glad to see your comment wasn’t about something sexist I had said!) I don’t see it odd or new that viewing the world from a human-centric position though is at all odd. That is after all what we are, humans. To view things first off in terms of our own world seems most natural. Dogs look at the world in dog-centric terms, my dogs always seemed to interpret everything in terms of how they related to treats, walks, pats on the head etc., you know dog stuff. What we as humans see is only an indication of disconnection from the natural world if we were never to see the natural connection. But, at least in the art world there seems little danger of that occurring as nature themes permeate art.
I’m not sure which side of the thinking of nature in man-made terms or vice-versa coin this example falls on, but on NPR this morning they were reporting on the first discovery of what they called gears in nature. We’re used to thinking of gears as a man-made construct but some biologists have discovered some gear-like structures in the legs of species that is a relative of the grasshopper. By meshing the gears between their two back legs, they can assure that both legs jump at the same time so that their jumps are almost always straight in the direction intended. The gears are important in this action because the jumps occur very quickly, on the order of a couple of microseconds, which is faster than their neurons could send signals that would otherwise be needed to synchronize the movement of both legs in order to insure a straight jump. They are of course now considering the possibility of how such nano-gears could be used in human inventions.
Larry…yes “human-centric” is probably a better term! And I appreciate your reply. That bit about the “gears” in a grasshopper like creature is amazing!