a thoughtful web.
Good ideas and conversation. No ads, no tracking.   Login or Take a Tour!
comment by mk
mk  ·  4581 days ago  ·  link  ·    ·  parent  ·  post: choices
>That is a rather surprising statement from a biologist, mk. The biological cellular architecture -- which has hugely influenced my thinking about systems -- has been effectively static relative to the huge variations of organisms that it has spawned.

In some sense, yes. But (and not to be difficult), I think that variation is much a matter of perspective. There's a lot of riffs on similar themes.

But, I do admit, it is a building block without equal. Sometimes I look in a culture flask, and have to come to terms once again with the abilities and activities of those cells (creatures!) I am looking at. Cell is such an understatement. -I have joked with my colleagues that we should call them 'pals' instead.





alpha0  ·  4581 days ago  ·  link  ·  
I am not trying to be difficult either, but this is a key point.

For example, this is a great work of architecture: http://static.panoramio.com/photos/original/377345.jpg

This is a bit closer to giving us hints as to the architectural system that informs this specimen: http://homer.ceat.okstate.edu/2003/updates%20S04/part4/image... (There is a pyramid in there ... ;)

And this is closer still (literally the DNA of Robie House): http://pica.taliesinpreservation.org/catalog/product/cache/2...

Frank Lloyd Wright produced -- he boasted he could "shake [his] sleeve and the design would come out (that crafty Frank ;) -- many such specimen of his architecture. They are all distinct, but share the same Architecture.

Same with organic architecture -- CH molecules; that ever important 'ring'; proteins; RNA; cell. That is the Architecture. It has not changed in God Knows how many years.