Evolutionary fascination

During the millions of years that the humans took to evolve into what they are today, the visual capabilities that we have developed are quite remarkable. Already in the retina, the sensitive layer at the back of the eye that catches the light, there are several levels of fast processing that help us detect image sharpness, contours, movement, so the information that goes into our brains is already like the annotated draft of a book: you have the bulk of it (the words of the book or the pixels of the image) and all the side information that has been added to it (typos that need to be corrected, sentences to be dropped or replaced, highlights, etc.). We recently visited the Museum of Illusions (it is a franchise, look for the one closest to you), which exploits and enhances many of these effects, and we enjoyed it very much.

But beyond the pure perception aspect of sight, the brain comes in and adds new levels of complexity to the analysis of the scene we are looking up. One of the most remarkable features is our ability to find patterns, what we also call connect the dots: even if an image is disrupted by adding elements that partially block the view we are able, for the most part, to reconstruct the original image, filling the gaps blocked by the obstacles. This probably makes sense living in the savanna: if you see two or three sections of a lion behind a bush you do not wait for confirmation that a whole lion is hiding, you just ran for your life.

The counterpart to this ability to complete patterns is that most people find broken patterns disturbing. So much so, that there a whole genre of memes on the internet (see this one, for instance). On the other hand, the peace of mind that repeatable patterns instill has inspired artists like Andres Amador and the increasingly popular pass-time of zentagle. I guess that the predictability of the patterns somehow soothes our persistent angst of an uncertain future.

Photo: Ascua

However, even more captivating than any static image of a beautiful arranged landscape is the vision of dynamic patterns: seeing the order emerge out of the chaos or a scene evolving along a predictable path can be incredibly satisfying. Seeing the time-lapsed video of a flower opening or the clouds drifting in the wind belong to this category. The logs burning in the chimney also follow a natural path, and each individual flame is unique and unrepeatable, but all the them together contribute to slowly convert the wood into ashes. There can be moments of unexpected change, when one of the logs breaks apart and the pile collapses, but then the process continues undisturbed and so captivating to watch.

I came to this thought yesterday evening when Trevor was asking about the diet of different types of animal, how herbivores had adapted to the long digestion required by most vegetables whereas carnivores can use the energy in the pray they eat much more readily. The idea of evolution remind me of this page, where a number of mostly terrible 2D-cars try to make headway along a rugged path. The first attempts fail miserably, but after a few tries the implemented evolution algorithm starts to learn what works and what does not, and even if it keeps trying wild experiments it always keeps most of the attempts close to the design that has worked best in the past. It is quite satisfying to see how the cars get better and better, although it normally takes lot of generations to get really good.

In these tormented times I cannot help occasionally succumbing to this weird pleasure and indulge in a few minutes of mindless watching. After a while it is time to come back to reality again, full of chaos, unpredictability and even bad faith. And yet, it is the only real thing that we have. Enjoy the evening.