Sing to me muses- just like that.
Or let me sing to you.
As anyone who has tasted joys in life will observe, nature is bursting forth- veritably exploding with beauty. What is the form to its essence? But as anyone who has danced with decay would vouch for, lasting satisfaction is unobtainable in this finite world- why do our minds fall short of understanding the mechanics of this world?
My question here is why should a simple peon, such as myself or your statistically average human, study mathematics? Most people I have met hate logic, rigor, and critical thought. Why should we continue to fear the forge that sharpens our mind? This series of posts are about mathematics in nature- what the Ancient Greeks called φυσική – Physics. It isn’t my eyes that see them. The emphasis is on applied, embodied dynamics- a philosophy of science that empower’s one life to both use their reason and live in harmony with nature. Indeed, what is new under the sun?
The thought involved in a high quality understanding of natural system mechanics is itself of high quality craftsmanship. The application is remarkably involved and useful. But more than anything, we are robbed of the richness of it in our modern infrastructure… would we wake up and smell the fresh forest air- we could witness its highly erotic content. Nary any fellows have I met who seriously took a jump into this study and isn’t tickled and teased the rest of their lives by the charm of its elegance. Indeed, the theory itself is a central way our minds engage with reality in a way that makes us distinguishably human.
Indeed, what is your answer, my friend, to that everlasting question: “How can I model this?” Not merely “what kind of toy can I make about it, whether with math or structure,” but “how can I fit this sphere of activity into my understanding?” How can I see the moving parts of this phenomenon and tether my identity to them in a flourishing and resilient way. Of course, its reality cannot be contained within the self- but the self-conception of it grows and forces someone to dynamically interact with the forces that make them who they are. If I can approach an unknown with an open heart, my mind might just crack open a little bit more, and get the blessed opportunity to dynamically interact and thus evolve with whatever reality I can grasp in the situation.
There is a much more dramatic sense in which logical rigor is required to resolve situations adequately. A fool may perish if he does not think through things properly when he stops being carried under a cheap oil bed. Think about the international space station that exploded due to a user-error unit conversion. You throw a number or a fact at me- I want to listen to you but it’s difficult, because you haven’t given me an explanation for that number. Please, friend: give me a testament to your volition. I can accept generalizations- and assumptions, but you need to tell me why you want to reach the goal you are striving to reach just as much as how you can make it happen, assuming you’re serious at all. If you are not experimenting, do you have a hypothesis about something in life? If not; why live? The question of mathematics is far deeper than all of our ambling words can stretch for.
This series will portray different instances of physics in nature that one would see living off the land in a way consistent with our human nature being fleshed out to the fullest extent in our relation to the sublime world around us. In a way, it is a fusion of physics and farming- of theory and practicality. The old greek tale Sisyphus got the rock rolling on this discussion quite a bit- and a bent spine is often the solution. So scisypharmer is a fusion word of all these things- one who buries his fate just as he carries his weight.
That central mystery which cannot be expressed-
As so, life is beautiful itself for its own sake.
It is better that it should exist than it shouldn’t
Permaculture knowledge is worthless unless you have real life land or relationships or vision you can give yourself to. All cool ideas are dead within me if they do not manifest themselves. Generally, we will look at case by case practical scenarios in design/nature, often with a technical lens. Math will be used to illuminate rather than confuse, and occasional videos will visualize concepts. There are a great many instances of tasty, technical science appearing before our very eyes. What do you see?