Visual mathematics metaphors &

Epistemology

 group theory painting        
             
 

Emergence
Emergence is not unlike the word "gestalt," which means that the whole is greater than the parts. "[Scientists] inevitably encounter emergence, the appearance of complex phenomena not predictable from the basic elements and processes alone, and not entirely conceivable from the algorithms." says E.O. Wilson, entomologist.

  
An example is the mind. It is hard to conceive how it arises from mere matter in the brain. With new scientific tools, this is a huge new frontier.

Emergence is a 47 X 48" painting on Plexiglas, with a pattern from mathematics carved into it.		            
                 
          space curvature print          
                                 
Science is System
        Searching for System
This explores an intriguing idea put forward by some physicists: Does mathematics describe the real world, or do we notice only those facts that fit our mathematics?
Shortly after this print was made, the first electron microscope pictures of viruses became available. Some were in the shape of Platonic solids, geometrical constructions 		that were codified 2500 years ago. No one anticipated this. Myrrh then preferred to believe that a deep ordering principle in the universe exists, one the ancient Greeks called Cosmos or logos. This inspired the Logos banner in 1975, culminating in the painting, A Vast Consilience, in 2004.
Science is System Searching for System, Linoleum print, 20 X 30 inches, 1972 		 
   
  <BACK
The human search.		   NEXT >         NEXT>
Change, and how we move with it.