and a bit of both by growth. Our criteria of separation and independent operation have failed, but we cannot deny a history that still stares us in the face.
Siphonophores do not convey the message—a favorite theme of unthinking romanticism—that nature is but one gigantic whole, all its parts intimately connected and interacting in some higher, ineffable harmony. Nature revels in boundaries and distinctions; we inhabit a universe of structure. But since our universe of structure has evolved historically, it must present us with fuzzy boundaries, where one kind of thing grades into another. Objects at these boundaries will continue to confuse and frustrate us so long as we follow old habits of thought and insist that all parts of nature be pigeonholed unambiguously to assuage our poor and overburdened intellects.
The siphonophore paradox does have an answer of sorts, and a profound one at that. The answer is that we asked the wrong question—a question that has no meaning because its assumptions violate the ways of nature. Are siphonophores organisms or colonies? Both and neither; they lie in the middle of a continuum where one grades into the other.
The siphonophore paradox is illuminating, not discouraging. It cannot be resolved, but when we understand why, we grasp a great truth about nature’s structure. Siphonophores deliver the same message as that old one about the lady who visits her butcher one Friday morning, seeking a large chicken for the Sabbath meal. The butcher looks in his bin and finds to his chagrin that he has but one scrawny animal left. He takes it out with great fanfare and puts it on the scale. Two pounds. “Not big enough,” the lady says. He puts it back in the bin, pretends to rummage amidst a large pile of nonexistent alternatives, finally pulls out the same chicken, puts it on the scale, and puts his thumb on the scale. Three pounds. “Fine,” says the lady. “I’ll take them both.” * Things that seem separate are often the different sides of a unity.
2 | Theory and Perception
6 | Adam’s Navel
THE AMPLE FIG LEAF served our artistic forefathers well as a botanical shield against indecent exposure for Adam and Eve, our naked parents in the primeval bliss and innocence of Eden. Yet, in many ancient paintings, foliage hides more than Adam’s genitalia; a wandering vine covers his navel as well. If modesty enjoined the genital shroud, a very different motive—mystery—placed a plant over his belly. In a theological debate more portentous than the old argument about angels on pinpoints, many earnest people of faith had wondered whether Adam had a navel.
He was, after all, not born of a woman and required no remnant of his nonexistent umbilical cord. Yet, in creating a prototype, would not God make his first man like all the rest to follow? Would God, in other words, not create with the appearance of preexistence? In the absence of definite guidance to resolve this vexatious issue, and not wishing to incur anyone’s wrath, many painters literally hedged and covered Adam’s belly.
A few centuries later, as the nascent science of geology gathered evidence for the earth’s enormous antiquity, some advocates of biblical literalism revived this old argument for our entire planet. The strata and their entombed fossils surely seem to represent a sequential record of countless years, but wouldn’t God create his earth with the appearance of preexistence? Why should we not believe that he created strata and fossils to give modern life a harmonious order by granting it a sensible (if illusory) past? As God provided Adam with a navel to stress continuity with future men, so too did he endow a pristine world with the appearance of an ordered history. Thus, the earth might be but a few thousand years old, as Genesis literally affirmed, and still record an apparent tale of untold eons.
This argument, so often cited as a premier example of reason at its most perfectly and preciously
Siphonophores do not convey the message—a favorite theme of unthinking romanticism—that nature is but one gigantic whole, all its parts intimately connected and interacting in some higher, ineffable harmony. Nature revels in boundaries and distinctions; we inhabit a universe of structure. But since our universe of structure has evolved historically, it must present us with fuzzy boundaries, where one kind of thing grades into another. Objects at these boundaries will continue to confuse and frustrate us so long as we follow old habits of thought and insist that all parts of nature be pigeonholed unambiguously to assuage our poor and overburdened intellects.
The siphonophore paradox does have an answer of sorts, and a profound one at that. The answer is that we asked the wrong question—a question that has no meaning because its assumptions violate the ways of nature. Are siphonophores organisms or colonies? Both and neither; they lie in the middle of a continuum where one grades into the other.
The siphonophore paradox is illuminating, not discouraging. It cannot be resolved, but when we understand why, we grasp a great truth about nature’s structure. Siphonophores deliver the same message as that old one about the lady who visits her butcher one Friday morning, seeking a large chicken for the Sabbath meal. The butcher looks in his bin and finds to his chagrin that he has but one scrawny animal left. He takes it out with great fanfare and puts it on the scale. Two pounds. “Not big enough,” the lady says. He puts it back in the bin, pretends to rummage amidst a large pile of nonexistent alternatives, finally pulls out the same chicken, puts it on the scale, and puts his thumb on the scale. Three pounds. “Fine,” says the lady. “I’ll take them both.” * Things that seem separate are often the different sides of a unity.
2 | Theory and Perception
6 | Adam’s Navel
THE AMPLE FIG LEAF served our artistic forefathers well as a botanical shield against indecent exposure for Adam and Eve, our naked parents in the primeval bliss and innocence of Eden. Yet, in many ancient paintings, foliage hides more than Adam’s genitalia; a wandering vine covers his navel as well. If modesty enjoined the genital shroud, a very different motive—mystery—placed a plant over his belly. In a theological debate more portentous than the old argument about angels on pinpoints, many earnest people of faith had wondered whether Adam had a navel.
He was, after all, not born of a woman and required no remnant of his nonexistent umbilical cord. Yet, in creating a prototype, would not God make his first man like all the rest to follow? Would God, in other words, not create with the appearance of preexistence? In the absence of definite guidance to resolve this vexatious issue, and not wishing to incur anyone’s wrath, many painters literally hedged and covered Adam’s belly.
A few centuries later, as the nascent science of geology gathered evidence for the earth’s enormous antiquity, some advocates of biblical literalism revived this old argument for our entire planet. The strata and their entombed fossils surely seem to represent a sequential record of countless years, but wouldn’t God create his earth with the appearance of preexistence? Why should we not believe that he created strata and fossils to give modern life a harmonious order by granting it a sensible (if illusory) past? As God provided Adam with a navel to stress continuity with future men, so too did he endow a pristine world with the appearance of an ordered history. Thus, the earth might be but a few thousand years old, as Genesis literally affirmed, and still record an apparent tale of untold eons.
This argument, so often cited as a premier example of reason at its most perfectly and preciously
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