earthstar decay

The rain has brought the fungi. The diversity of those living in our small patch of garden and nearby is extraordinary! Most recently discovered is an Earthstar (Geastrum pectinatum) right outside the front door. A round shell of tissue splits open along lines of longitude forming a multi-pointed star with a spherical centre that (apparently) contains the spores. I am waiting for rain drops to cause this to explode in a puff.

Dozens and dozens of shaggy ink caps are forming miniature castles before distintegrating into the telltale black goo that sticks to your shoes if you inadvertantly brush past one. A huge mushroom (well, it was perhaps 10 inches in diameter) sprang from the mulch, no doubt growing on the remaining roots of a recently removed tree. It was tempting to BBQ it but I am no expert at identifying these things and don't wish to end my days writhing in pain from a toxin-laden winter's supper! In a nearby garden perhaps a dozen Fly Amanita, the infamous red toadstools with white spots, form a garden fit for a faery rave. Winter is a terrific time to be looking at your feet. True, the wildflowers are in hiding, but their "opposites" are well worth investigating. As always, decay and beauty go hand in hand. Nature's amazing organisms provide the ultimate display of ingenuity and diversity.

complexity increase in evolutionary software

Daniel W. McShea, Perspective: Metazoan Complexity and Evolution: Is There a Trend?, Evolution, Vol. 50, No. 2 (Apr., 1996), pp. 477-492.

[Image credit: Fig 1. Increasing complexity in evolution? McShea, 1996]

It would appear at a glance that evolution has driven increases in complexity from replicating molecules up to conscious humans. Is this justified? Or are humans simply so self-centered that we line everything up behind us, even in this modern day and age? A-Life has held the production of open-ended evolution in-silico as one of its aims for some time. Early models such as Ray's Tierra or Yaeger's PolyWorld are two of my favourite approaches to the problem. Each of these software ecosystems has spawned a complete lineage of programs addressing similar concerns. McShea's paper looks at data on real organisms and attempts to discern any trends in their evolution that would justify the belief that organisms evolve towards greater complexity. Consequently, it addresses an issue of real importance to A-Life that harks back to the formative years of Tierra and PolyWorld.

McShea's approach is firstly to clarify the kinds of complexity that can possibly be measured in real organisms. This has long been a sticking point... the real world is not always so easy to divvy up as information theoreticians might like. Useful, information-theoretic measures of organism complexity are difficult to specify. McShea simplifies matters a little by trying to count organism parts and internal processes that are specific to some groups of Metazoan. I won't go into detail here. His conclusions is interesting: we still don't know enough to say either way. He proposes an "emphatic agnosticism". This is a far cry from the usual assumption we make about complexity increase. There is room here for debate. Anyway, leaving that aside also since it still isn't the main point I want to raise in this post...

If, for some obscure reason, biological evolution turns out to be closed, could we modify the scenario in simulation to generate virtual ever-increasing complexity regardless? A-Life has always assumed that the real world offers an example of open-ended evolution and that somehow our simulations are missing some secret herbs and spices that will allow this to occur. It is pretty clear that our software evolutionary systems fall far short of biological evolution as complexity generators. We have probably missed an element or two. But could it be that we will correctly simulate real evolution and still not get open-ended evolution? Maybe the simulation will clarify our perspective on real evolution by showing us why it must be closed. What then? Could software evolutionary systems exceed nature's ability to evolve complexity?

I think that is an amazing possibility. For now I will just keep on playing "catch up" with nature.

fungus spore acceleration

The acceleration record for an airborne natural system is not held by a cheetah, nor a flea. According to this video from New Scientist it is held by a fungus spore. Some fungi live in cow manure and need to be ingested by a herbivore to propagate. The spores therefore eject themselves from the dung at 25 m/s (90 km/hr). In a second from launch they travel 1,000,000 times their own body length! With acceleration like that, a Melbournian getting out of bed in the morning could expect to find himself in Brisbane before he had completely put on his slippers. Its quite amazing the stuff that comes out of dung if you take the time to look.

notes on monuments

Note 1. In the paper, Public Monuments, from Alan Sonfist's contribution to Artful Ecologies, University College Falmouth, 2006, pp 9-10, the artist reiterates some of his ideas from the late 60's. Specifically, he suggests that a city should erect public monuments to commemorate the natural systems that they replace. We are all familiar with memorial statues, plaques, monoliths, commemorative parks and gardens, even symbolic trees. But these are usually placed in recognition of significant human events such as wars, adventures, political careers, lives spent in service of the poor or perhaps the prior existence of an important civil building or the residence of a respected citizen. Sonfist wishes for monuments to be made for nature. Why not place a reminder of a river that has been lost? A copse of trees to commemorate a forest that was axed?

Note 2. A monument is, by definition, something that aims for the permanence of stone. The ancient Egyptians had this idea and it has been dominant right through the Greek and Roman periods, the Middle Ages and Renaissance right up until the present day. The art of sculpture took until the 20th century to overcome its obsession with monolithic forms carved from stone or cast in bronze (See Herbert Ferber, On Sculpture, 1954). On human time-scales these massive works are sturdy yet... Andy Goldsworthy remarked when observing the stone about him (documentary, Rivers and Tides, 2000), that where it has bent and buckled in its molten form, or where it has crumbled and decayed through weathering to be returned to dust and recycled by the same processes that created it, it is easy to see that even stone is fluid. A geologist works with this same fluidity on a massive scale. A rock climber recognises stone's seams and pockets, bubbles and streams at the macro level. Yet humans are short-lived and physically weak so of course stone is for us a powerful symbol.

Note 3. A planted tree has an immensity, power and above all a dignity about it that a stone monument can never have. A tree, like us, has a beginning and an end, even if these are thousands of years apart. A tree also has the active force of any organism. A tree makes a lovely symbol without the arrogance of stone. The tree retains its own identity even when used as a symbol. A stone's identity is stripped when it becomes a monument.

Note 4. The act of scratching a person's name into a cut stone as a long-term reminder of their existence, presence or passing is ancient. Have such cuts been made in living trees for as long? What is the first evidence for the practice?

(Examples: the Dig Tree in Queensland has become an icon due to the unique set of circumstances surrounding its carving. The Sister Rocks near Stawell in Victoria are an indication of just how arrogant and ugly people can be.)

Image credit: picture from Wikipedia of the (ugly!) stone monument in Royal Park to commemorate Burke and Wills' expedition departure in 1860 from the site.

oldest tree is in sweden

The world's oldest tree, a Spruce in Sweden, has been dated at 9550 years. That's old enough to cause some reconsideration of the retreat of the ice following the last ice age.

rotting art

Damien Hirst's famous (Australian) shark in a tank, The Physical Impossibility of Death in the Mind of Someone Living (1991), is of course no longer the "original". The first shark was replaced in 2006. Despite earlier attempts to maintain it, the shark had decomposed and lost its shape due to inappropriate preservation techniques. The fact that a new shark is in the tank doesn't make any important difference to the art — this isn't a case of substituting an inferior or forged artefact. Any shark will do as long as it looks powerful and threatening. In its perfectly preserved state the work deals sculpturally with the sublime.

The interesting point that the episode raises for me is the attempted halt by an artist to the natural process of decay. Its one thing to stick a shark in a tank, its quite another to attempt to preserve its menace against the ravages of time. The work is far more interesting for its failure to maintain ferocity. Not only beauty fades.

I still wonder if the sharks died for a worthwhile cause. Science and art alike take from the natural world what they will. I admire the form and the concept. But I am uncomfortable about their encapsulation in a work that destroyed the processes giving rise to both.

life and art

On the picture: "It does not harmonize with this or that environment; it harmonizes with things in general, with the universe: it is an organism" --- Gleizes & Metzinger, from ptI, Cubism, 1912.

"To begin with a 'point', which is the origin of all other forms and of which the number is unlimited, the little point is a living being possessed of many influences upon the spirit of man" --- Kandinsky, Concrete Arte, 1938.