Biomimicry, or "Nature Did it Better"
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This post is part of the Inspiration series, made possible by Veer.com.
In exploring this series on inspiration, certain recurrent themes come to light. We’ve repeatedly stressed that inspiration shouldn’t be thought of as coming from a sudden divine jolt. Indeed, surrendering inspiration to forces beyond our control would imply a near nihilistic randomness to success. That’s good news and bad news, because it implies that we can actually work toward inspiration. But right there is the bad news. Inspiration doesn’t come magically; it requires hard work.
Nowhere is the amount of work that’s required for progress made clearer than in the natural world. In his book Out of Control, Kevin Kelly quotes David Ackley of Bell Labs as saying “I can’t imagine any dumber type of learning than natural selection.” So that’s the good news. If natural selection can create brains smarter than computers, wings more efficient than planes and tongues as sharp as mass spectrometers, then there’s hope for even the densest of us. The trouble is that none of us has 3.5 billion years to experiment.
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