Hello, and thank you for letting me participate in the BFI forum.

I'd like to offer a very brief synopsis of my impression of Bucky Fuller's messages, and speculate a bit on the apparent philocosmology of why the messages appeal to people well outside of design science. I offer my additional thoughts for points of consideration, and while I will not defend where anyone sees differences, I would be interested in feedback.

First of all, it was Bucky who saw the ethical implications of efficient design for global stability and a long-term, peaceful, high-quality of life presence of humans. Low-impact living is an obvious way to make room for our fellow human beings. The design of living and working structures that are simultaneously strongest (most permanent) and use the least material therefore resonates with anyone with a globally-minded ethos.

Second, we're all naturally drawn toward systematic beauty in nature. Why is that? Why do young children's minds buzz when they see a regular pattern, like honeycomb, or regular mosaic patterns? I believe that we, as products of natural selection, are drawn to study such patterns to maximize our efficiency. I believe that our current lifestyles are anathema to ourselves, our evolutionary history, and obviously to our bodies. Elegance and sophistication requires efficiency. But then so did survival. During famine, or drought, those of us who could most efficiently divide out portions, and space them regularly over time, as in subsitence living, survived, whereas those who gobbled up dwindling resources perished. I don't think it's learned. It think we're hard-wired to have the ability to determine long-term sustainable solutions. So I share hope in humanity as the solution of humanity's and this planet's problems. But smart people need to speak the truth. We need to publish the solutions we consider important to us. That's why, I think, so many of admire Bucky. He said what he thought was true, and he trusted his mind to be the generator of solutions. That's an important message today. So many sources of input are constantly telling us that we, as individuals, do not matter, that we can't make a difference, that we are not legitimately endowed with sufficient power or experience to produce real and lasting solutions. "Stay down" is the message. How often do we, like obediant albeit mostly hairless pets, listen to our master? This leads to a new struggle - an eternal artificial power struggle over whose version of reality is going to reign supreme. A quick solution there is to relax, and admit to one's self (most importantly), and to others (moster importantly) that there are as many versions of reality as their are senscient minds on the planet. No more, no less. There are recordings of past realities, but when they are shown, they are become part of a viewers' or listener's reality. It takes a mind to know. It takes a mind to be. Reality requires perception and interpretation. Peace without war is possible only when the problem is angled into what looks like a common solution to the two warring parties. It isn't one solution, it's always two (or more); the two opposing minds are viewing a common solution (or lengthy set of solutions), but their minds do not really become capable of viewing the solutions in precisely the same way. Any new content into the mind is subject to difference in interpretation. Peace is only possible when we realize that the problem of "Who is Right?" becomes a problem with an unidentifiable solution. The solution is to not engage in conflict, and to keep yourself and your would-be opponent safe from harm.

Many in the more developed parts of the world have of course been removed, by our cultural evolution, far away from our ancestors' struggle to survive. But I think it's interesting that even as natural selection, time and again, evolves efficient structures, she also evolves efficient solutions to problems. In my own research, we use genetic algorithms to explore optimal solutions to complex problems. The web is filled with examples of very neat applications of genetic algorithms, with applications such as the evolution of a radio on a circuit board suited to tap into heterogeneous wireless environment, so I won't enumerate all of their applications. Some in academia consider GAs to be a form of AI (artificial intelligence). I don't know what 'intelligence' really is, I guess; some people confuse the concept of 'intelligence' with 'self-awareness' and 'consciousness'. I think GAs are a system that can evolve solutions that we naturally find attractive to us - because our own evolution evolved an intelligence in us to recognize, use, and imagine abstractions from complex patterns.

Efficiency itself, to many, is elegance (especially in mathematics). But complexity can also be beautiful. We're attracted to elegant solutions because we trust them. A solution with too many moving parts looks awkward, inefficient. But that solution (or an approximation of a solution) can be a tinkerer's dream. I believe that we should explore the adoption of systems that can simulate problematic scenarios, and evolve solutions that can be proven to work - whether we understand the solution or not is at this moment in history now a luxury - a sidebar discussion. Complex solutions that bring about effective change for the betterment of humankind will never be popular. But is puzzles me why this is so. If we are generous, if we care about long-term planetary survival, then a complex solution that leads, say, to efficient distribution, is to be preferred over a simple but inefficient solution. So in this way, we see that simplicity and efficiency, while correlated, do not always correspond. Our cultural evolution has vastly outstripped our biological evolution, in that we can create dynamic systems that we don't fully understand. But cultural evolution continues, as well. Adults pre-occupied with adult things in life (the artificial struggle) should undertake education of children as an avocation. I mean our own children, certainly, but I also mean other people's children. They, not we, are the future. By neglecting their education, we imperil the planet world-around.

I'll expand on education in another post.

peace through action, in Bucky's memory!