FIELD GUIDE / LIVING SYSTEMS

The Understory

Natural facts, living strategies, and the questions hiding inside them.

tomato dFBA trail Loading the collection…

01 Plants do not need intentions for evolution to leave purpose-like shapes in their bodies.

SPECIMEN CABINET

Things worth noticing

Some are simply delightful. Others disturb the border between organism and environment, behavior and mechanism, self and partnership.

/ to search

Natural observations arranged beside the philosophical questions they open.
01 Philosophical hook 02 Natural mechanism 03 Field mark

MY RESEARCH NOTEBOOK / TOMATO dFBA

The model under the tomato.

A return-later shelf drawn from the jun22greenhouse notebook. These are not all conclusions: some are implemented ideas, some are explicit assumptions, and some are results that deserve suspicion.

Open the notebook PDF

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Questions, notebook observations, and next checks from the tomato dFBA model.
01 The interesting question 02 What the notebook does 03 What to check next 04 Review

WORKING RULE A simulation result becomes a biological claim only after its assumptions, units, sensitivity, and independent measurements survive inspection.

A NOTE ON LANGUAGE

“The plant wants” is a useful fiction.

A plant does not plan to recruit a bird or bargain with a fungus. But lineages carrying traits that accomplished those things left more descendants. Natural selection can produce an exquisite appearance of purpose without a planner.

Here, playful language opens the door. Evidence decides how far we walk through it.