FIELD GUIDE / LIVING SYSTEMS
The Understory
Natural facts, living strategies, and the questions hiding inside them.
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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.
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| 01 Philosophical hook | 02 Natural mechanism | 03 Field mark |
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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.