203
sent, say, a macaw’s, social insect’s, or tapir’s brilliant reasoning and poetic capacities requires far less energy than that required for programming basic sensorimotor
functionality. How is that possible? Mechanically, it seems that everything is upside
down. But that’s because hundreds of millions of years have gone into the exquisite
perfecting of the physical realities of a jaguar. By now such motion comes easily.
But not if it has to be simulated from the beginning. Whereas abstraction, by evolutionary standards a newborn, is freakishly untoward, clumsy, without precedent
within the rubrics of natural selection. These manuscript pages are, in the most real
sense, unnatural, and therefore a kind of utterance, all at once, easily edited, taken
in a single grasp. They do not require eons to prepare. Flight feathers or night vision
are very different. They rely upon the comparability of evolutionary time to hope for
something akin to simulation.
Our proxies fail us, not for lack of imagination but because poetic license is
shackled the moment it hits the level of a species.
Alice’s wonderland is a Yasuní effect: We stand amazed and unable to surmise
the extent of our surroundings, like proverbially gawking tourists aiming cameras at
the wilderness from our lazy canoes
23
. What do we expect?
24
What can, what should,
we even hope for?
23 See “Some paradoxes in biology,” By Prospector PJ, Beyond pharmacy blog30 APR 2014
The Pharmaceutical Journal, A Royal Pharmaceutical Society publication, https://www.pharmaceutical-journal.com/opinion/blogs/some-paradoxes-in-biology/11137939.
blog?firstPass=false, Accessed April 13, 2019.
24 See “Yasuni: A Meditation on Life,” A Yasuni-ITT-Dancing Star Foundation-SATRE Production,
2012, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AJP_jlw3brw.
Fig. 21.3 A Capped Heron (Pilherodius pileatus), Yasuní National Park. (Photo © M.C.Tobias)
21.3 Evolutionary Enigmas
sent, say, a macaw’s, social insect’s, or tapir’s brilliant reasoning and poetic capacities requires far less energy than that required for programming basic sensorimotor
functionality. How is that possible? Mechanically, it seems that everything is upside
down. But that’s because hundreds of millions of years have gone into the exquisite
perfecting of the physical realities of a jaguar. By now such motion comes easily.
But not if it has to be simulated from the beginning. Whereas abstraction, by evolutionary standards a newborn, is freakishly untoward, clumsy, without precedent
within the rubrics of natural selection. These manuscript pages are, in the most real
sense, unnatural, and therefore a kind of utterance, all at once, easily edited, taken
in a single grasp. They do not require eons to prepare. Flight feathers or night vision
are very different. They rely upon the comparability of evolutionary time to hope for
something akin to simulation.
Our proxies fail us, not for lack of imagination but because poetic license is
shackled the moment it hits the level of a species.
Alice’s wonderland is a Yasuní effect: We stand amazed and unable to surmise
the extent of our surroundings, like proverbially gawking tourists aiming cameras at
the wilderness from our lazy canoes
23
. What do we expect?
24
What can, what should,
we even hope for?
23 See “Some paradoxes in biology,” By Prospector PJ, Beyond pharmacy blog30 APR 2014
The Pharmaceutical Journal, A Royal Pharmaceutical Society publication, https://www.pharmaceutical-journal.com/opinion/blogs/some-paradoxes-in-biology/11137939.
blog?firstPass=false, Accessed April 13, 2019.
24 See “Yasuni: A Meditation on Life,” A Yasuni-ITT-Dancing Star Foundation-SATRE Production,
2012, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AJP_jlw3brw.
Fig. 21.3 A Capped Heron (Pilherodius pileatus), Yasuní National Park. (Photo © M.C.Tobias)
21.3 Evolutionary Enigmas