Monday, October 20, 2008

Incomplete things

I've been trying to think of an idea or theme that hangs off the principle that there is an inbuilt incompleteness or randomness to lots of different processes, if only to prove the thinking behind the last post.  

So here goes...

If you think about it deliberate mistakes are what allows life to develop.  If everything was created perfectly then a new or different kind of perfect would be impossible.  Mutations are a good thing to help adaptaton.  

Or think back to chemistry lessons and you will remember that its the atoms that have an extra electron or one missing that are most happy to react and be transformed into something new.

Its not unreasonalbe to expect that culture might work in the same way.  A perfectly rounded story like a fairy tale is far less likely to create a new thought than something more unresolved like a mysterious painting.   

Someone on TV the other day said 'the media abhors a vacuum,' to justify the idea that if there is no useful leads on a big story then the press will naturally end up filling the void with conjecture and hearsay.  I expect that our minds work like this as well.  If something comes with room for interpretation or completion or a bit missing then the natural reation must surely be to close the loop and fuse this open ended structure with the Lego of other thoughts and ideas already there.  This also seems to ring true with modern teaching methods that do not teach facts and absolutes but processes and themes that have more of an evolutionary capability.

In other words development comes more easily when things are not fully ressolved which is why if you were designing a system you would leave a few pieces missing before passing it on to the next person.   

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