Emergent Phenomena

I was lying on a couch and looking at a plant earlier today. What struck me about it at the time wasn’t the aesthetic beauty of the plant, the patterns of the leaves, the elegance of the whole thing - it was that it was *alive*. That it was made, on some very basic level, of the same building blocks as me. DNA, cells, and the like. The implementations of most everything higher level than that - cell behaviors, form, ability to move, were different, but on some very deep level me and this elegant stationary green thing were both sitting in a room, breathing, experiencing life firsthand.

I feel like in some circles science get a bad rap for disconnecting people from the beauty of nature - for causing people to ostensibly be too wrapped up in analysis to just appreciate something for what it is. And sometimes, that happens. But I feel like it often comes from bad experiences and being forced to learn it without being taught to appreciate it. Knowing science doesn’t rob nature of life - it conjures a surreal new lens to appreciate it through.

Furthermore, science (and math) are sort of magical in the sense that they can be thought of as life trying to understand itself in earnest. This extends beyond science as well - writing, poetry, studying history - viewed through a certain lens, all study at its’ core is an emergent phenomena of biological life, which is that, at least when it exists in human form, it seeks to understand its’ own deepest patterns.

This was one of the first shirts that I designed, and it was a direct attempt to visually capture some of that bridging between the often seemingly dry world of math and science, and the living reality that it seeks to understand.

Stats:
+2 Perceived ability to do math by waving hands in air and muttering incomprehensibly
+0 Actual ability to do math
+1 Pride in math skills
+1 Appreciation for beauty of patterns underlying our existence

Photography: Brian Alvarez - Website - Instagram 

Model: Alex Maki-Jokela - Website

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