"Ideas that could further exploration in space are coming from a surprising source - animals such as ants, fish and squirrels.

The future of space exploration could lie in biomimetics, where engineering meets biology. In effect, it steals nature's evolutionary tricks to create revolutionary applications.

Engineers like Dr Alex Ellery, head of the Robotics Research Group at the University of Surrey, are trying to find out how natural systems might inspire human-made technology in space." - link

Mankind taking inspiration from nature - since when was anything we did not natural?

Modern humanistic/naturalistic society often revels in the idea that humanity comes from nature and yet in our day to day language we seem to misperceive how intimately our actions are governed by laws branded onto evolution many hundreds of millions of years ago. How can it possibly be surprising that we are resorting to natural inspiration? As if in just 50 years of space exploration we could somehow elevate our technological prowess beyond the many millions of years of trial & error-driven evolutionary process.

Where man sets out to imprint fresh technological footsteps, nature is already waiting with a 30 foot pit in which to trap us and proclaim that nothing humans do is above the natural order:

"Cities are no more artificial than Bee-hives. The internet is as natural as a spider's web...

...We ourselves are technological devices, invented by ancient bacterial communities as means of genetic survival - we are part of an intricate network that comes from the original takeover of the Earth. Our power and intelligence do not belong specifically to us, but to all life..." - John Gray, Straw Dogs

It is easy in our fast-paced world to look around and see society as a symbol of our superiority, but this is a mistake. No one alive today can possibly imagine how the next several thousand generations of humanity will change; will splinter; will mutate, yet it is only on these time scales that anything we could label natural exists.

Natural law governs humanity who in turn reflect on the natural law which rules them to drive a 'progress' they are utterly misguided is under their control in the first place. A simulacra of gargantuan proportions if ever I've seen one.

But let's not be complacent, if only because so many of the world's progressive sciences & technologies are truly awe inspiring. And yet there is more; signs deeply embedded in our arrogance suggest the universe has evolved to such a grand complexity that consciously aware creatures made from its own elements are now driven to examine the workings of the very system that 'created' them. The mind-blowing outcomes of this make all other things/gods/technologies/infinities seem feeble in comparison. Nature is, and we are too. That is all they will ever be.

Categories: Human, Future, Technology, News, Reality, Space, Simulacrum, Philosophy, Humanism, Religion, Nature

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