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believe that space is linear, we believe that progress is linear, we believe that education is linear. In fact, none of these concepts is at all linear. There is absolutely nothing in the natural universe that is linear. The only place that linearity exists is in the abstract convulsions of the human mind – in the idea of the “square” or “right angle” or most appropriately “straight line.” These artifacts of geometry enable us to create order in the utterly chaotic environment that is the universe. These squared concepts have given us the architecture of our homes, the defense of our militaries and the convenience of our currencies.
Like the natural concepts of time and space, change is often thought to be linear as well. Darwin is as guilty as anyone in perpetuating the myth of linear change. Change is by no means linear. This means that movement is non-linear as well. Movement is staggered and explodes in spurts. The firmest evidence for this argument comes from geology and modern evolutionary theory. The geologic fossil record exposes an overwhelming testament to the stasis of evolution. Far from being the glacially gradual process envisioned in the models of Darwinians, biological evolution explodes in relatively short time-spans. The biological fluctuations that deliver a fully developed species take only hundreds of thousands of years – a blink within the millions of years that a species typically perpetuates. Biological evolution is not a constant process, it is only triggered by extreme conditions in an environment. A further illustration of this idea can be abstracted from the theoretical sand pile game. Most of the books I've read lately make a point |
of highlighting the implications of the sand-pile game. So, we shall follow suit. This game (more of a computer simulation) measures the effect of accumulating grains of sand upon an existing pile of sand. Depending on the scale of the pile, hundreds of thousands of grains of sand can be added to the pile with a negligible effect upon the dynamics of the pile. After an appreciable time though, one insignificant, fateful grain of sand will set of an avalanche within the pile, disrupting the entire dynamics of the pile system and establishing an entirely new status quo within the pile. After another million grains are added, the process will repeat.
The point of this simulation, or one of the points anyway, is that long periods of stasis are punctuated with rapid, volatile change – change is not constant and linear. Another point is that you never know what grain of sand will trigger the avalanche. Each grain of sand theoretically possesses the same odds of triggering the uncontrollable change. As the tipping point approaches, the smallest of grains can act as a catalyst for universe-altering fluctuations. A third point that the sand pile game presents is that completely theoretical games modeled on one minimal extreme of nature that have no bearing on the actual interplay of human confusions can be widely accepted by the scientific community as a representation of real world trends.
The illusion of linearity carries a noticeable sociological influence. The belief in linearity perpetuates a sense of inevitability. It inclines us to a deterministic view of the world. This determinism presents the argument, “if the forces of evolution will eventually perfect or annihilate our way of life, what
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