<p>Luckily, those sharks didn't patent the dorsal fins, something that could have forced the dolphins to "innovate" ;)</p>
<p><blockquote type="cite">El 21/04/2011 14:18, "Michael Mehaffy" <<a href="mailto:michael.mehaffy@gmail.com">michael.mehaffy@gmail.com</a>> escribió:<br><br>Dear All,<div><br></div><div>There is one other interesting dimension of this discussion. It is the question of the balance that human technology strikes (or perhaps often doesn't strike, often) between innovation and "boring old stuff." And the comparison we can make to natural systems, and the differences that result.</div>
<div><br></div><div>There is a perception (especially among many of my architect colleagues) that what we need is stuff that is "exciting and new," "innovative," "thinking outside the box," and so on. Often this is about creating visual excitement too, and replacing what has become a neurologically uninteresting perception with one that triggers more excitement because of its salient differences. Advertisers know all about this phenomenon, of course, and they exploit it rather opportunistically. But among designers, there is a sophisticated rationale for the same kind of thing, which amounts to an argument to get "unstuck," "out of a rut," "able to see successful new approaches," etc. </div>
<div><br></div><div>Of course, what we often see is that much innovation falls flat. This is certainly true in nature. Self-organization is a messy process with a lot of bumps and pratfalls -- but it progresses by virtue of a kind of editing process. At the heart of this editing process is a simple principle: keeping what works! </div>
<div><br></div><div>And what works may be infinitely boring, from the above perspective. Ho-hum, how many years have we had to look at all these turtles and crocodiles? All these horseshoe crabs, these bacteria? Nature keeps a lot of very old stuff around, for a very long time... (And that;s also an example of "sustainability...")</div>
<div><br></div><div>Nor does nature ever hesitate to shamelessly copy or reproduce what has already been done successfully before: the dorsal fins of sharks, recapitulated by the dolphin 300 million years later, or the boring old tubular forms of worms, snakes, eels, or varieties of spirals, whorls, etc etc... Come on, can't we use our imaginations here? Why not a swoopy tail sticking out of a head once in a while, or eyes on the belly for once? Let's not be reactionary - let's dare to experiment! </div>
<div><br></div><div>I am being satirical, but with a serious point: nature does experiment, but as often as not those are the quick fatalities of evolution. When something works, it's kept, or repeated, or only slightly modified -- it's adapted and transformed.</div>
<div><br></div><div>But what do human designers do? Very often they try to stick the tails on the heads, or do other things for purely visual, dramatic effects. Or they take one variable, and design just to that variable -- in effect, putting a propeller on the head of a shark to get energy, forgetting what else might happen to that propeller over time. (Hint: it won't turn out well!) This is not resilience, and tellingly, it is not the way natural "technology: works.</div>
<div><br></div><div>I think one of the things we all have to get very clear on very soon, is how resilient technology, sustainable technology, will have to incorporate the proven, the old, the boring, even. And use the exciting and the new only very, very sparingly! (To do otherwise is to further clutter up an increasingly unsustainable culture with disorder, and failing systems...and that ain't sustainability by any definition!)</div>
<div><br></div><div>Best, m<p><font color="#500050"><br><br>On Thu, Apr 21, 2011 at 2:39 AM, Michel Bauwens <<a href="mailto:michelsub2004@gmail.com">michelsub2004@gmail.com</a>> wrote:<br>><br>> Araceli<br>><br>
> I...</font></p></div>
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