Nature is the best Teacher, Scientist, and Healer, and it can already provide everything needed to organize scientific, educational, and medical systems. We just need to see it, which is difficult in a centralized community motivated by profits.
Stories are up to 22 times more memorable than facts alone
(Jennifer Aaker)
This article is an attempt to create a story about the lessons we could learn from nature to organize Science. You are about to travel to NatureLand with the Hedgehog.
What nature has to teach is more than we have ever imagined
(John Lanie)
This article is a continuation of the previous ones. Initially, the Hedgehog traveled through his native village and met some animals that helped him to get rid of illusions and realize that centralization and money are the main obstacles that made science serve the interests of big corporations rather than general public. However, the rest of the villagers and neighbor villages were still under control of the illusions which have been created by evil witches.
Then, the Hedgehog traveled to the 5th dimension into DeSciLand where he learnt the principles of Resource-Based Economy and got familiar with 31 projects that helped him to turn his scientific ideas into reality and build a free energy device.
Afterwards, the Hedgehog went back to Earth (3rd dimension) (3rd dimension) to his village, where he found out about the evil witches “poisoning” everything with two types of fogs (money and centralization). The Hedgehog came up with a device that helped to get rid of them, so that the inhabitants of the Earth could implement Resource-Based Economy and appropriate scientific system. Then, the Hedgehog traveled into Cyberspace to learn how to organize DevOps to implement a web-platform called BioUniverse that would allow to build Scientific and other systems.
It's been three years since the Hedgehog started implementing Resource-Based Economy and building an appropriate scientific system. Everything already was in place and functioning. Aside from the Scientific system, there was also Educational and Medical systems. BioUniverse powered by Āut Labs was the software for every system. The village was called NatureLand.
Once the inhabitants of the Earth got rid of illusions (money and centralization), they realized that Nature already had everything needed to organize Science, Education, and Medical System. Nature always was the best Scientist, Teacher, and Healer, and not just a resource.
Biomimicry. If you have a problem, ask Nature first
Biomimicry is innovation inspired by nature.
And it's a new way of inventing by looking to the natural world for inspiration.
And asking, before we design anything, what would nature do here?
(Janine Benyus)
Knowledge is everywhere. And Nature is the best source of wisdom, because it faces the same problems as we do, but had much more time to come up with solutions during evolution. Life forms have to perform specific functions, and they use different strategies for that. We just need to recognize and use them appropriately in our systems design. We can take this inspiration on different levels: molecules, tissues, organs, organisms, ecosystems.
PROTECTION framework
There’re 5 basic principles that allow different life forms to adopt and survive in a changing environment, namely: resPonsiveness, heteROgeneity, decenTralization, rEdundancy, and CooperaTION. They are collectively known as the PROTECTION framework [1]. For more information about it, you can read this article (Cybersecurity + Biomimicry: Why, What, and How We Could Learn from Nature).
This framework was the core of NatureLand. It was the basis that every system operated on, because it allowed to develop adaptive and resilient strategies.
Scientific System
Maximizing profits is the primary moto of traditional centralized scientific system motivated mostly by money. Traditional Science is sort of a business run by Big Corporations.
Scientists care more about running different pointless experiments and improving their ratings rather than solving the most pressing concerns faced by every living organism. Even different departments of one faculty at universities compete with each other for students and money.
In NatureLand, Science served the interest of general public. Helping every organism to solve the most immediate problems and protecting the environment were the primary focus here. And collaboration was the order of the day.
Some organisms run experiments, some delt with data processing, and others took care of infrastructure for everything. They did so just to help the system that supported them, not for profits. In a Resource-Based Economy money didn’t matter. Abundant natural resources were relocated to those in need in special resource distribution centers or changed into innovations to solve specific problems.
Nature Laboratory
Living organisms need to adapt constantly and creatively in order to survive in a changing environment. For that, they always run experiments on different levels: molecular, physiological, anatomical, species or ecosystem. Living organisms always face some challenges and come up with different strategies to solve them. And the inhabitants of NatureLand just learned how to use them for their systems design. Life forms (plants, animals, microorganisms, fungi) themselves are the most advanced laboratories in the world. There are trillions of chemical reactions happening in them every second.
The Nature itself served as a Lab in NatureLand. This Lab was designed in such a way that different molecules created by plants, animals and other organisms served as reagents for experiments. The waste products coming from these experiments and different organisms were utilized by microorganisms and fungi. The latter produced their own waste products that serve as reagents for experiments and nutrients for plants and animals. All substances were recycled here. Also, there were special waste water treatment plants. They looked like gardens, but root microbiome utilized the waste.
Innovation Development Center
In NatureLand, there was a monitoring system that collected the data from every living organism. These data were analyzed by AI (Artificial Intelligence) in collaboration with inhabitants to identify the most immediate problems and set priorities.
Here, biomimicry was the basis for innovation development. Every living organism served as a catalogue of inspirations for innovations. AI itself was inspired by Nature.
AI and different organisms made appropriate proposals to solve the problems and voted on the most promising ones in a decentralized manner with the help of a blockchain.
Education
Traditional schools and universities serve the interests of big corporations. Their environment and curriculum are designed in such a way, so that they would help to prepare perfect slaves for the centralized system we live in to support business. The environment destroys the health of students, because there’s no movement there. No movement - no life. Immobilization is the order of the day here.
In NatureLand, the focus was on helping inhabitants to master every skill needed to solve problems faced by everyone and support the infrastructure for the Resource-Based Economy. Nature itself was considered as the best decentralized Teacher and School. The main subject was Biomimicry. And Nature served as a School and Museum visited by students, where they could get familiar with different strategies used in Nature to solve all sorts of problems.
Instead of competing for scores, students helped each other. There was a dynamic learning environment there. Students constantly moved. There were no common desks. Instead, there were standing desks used occasionally to take some notes [2]. The rest of the time students constantly moved and listened to stories about different strategies and innovations told by inhabitants in the Museum. Every plant, animal, or microorganism presented a whole holographic catalogue of strategies and innovations inspired by its properties.
The most popular game in NatureLand was Biomons. It was a card game that featured different organisms along with strategies and innovations inspired by them. It helped students to get familiar with existing strategies and innovations and come up with new ones.
Medical system
Modern Medical system is mostly just a business to make profits. There’s no point to cure diseases. No diseases – no business, and no profits.
Substances used by this system are often developed based on the molecules found in Nature [3]. Natural molecules have to be modified, so that they could be patented and generate profits for their owners. But these new molecules usually have a lot of side effects compared with the original ones.
In NatureLand, the Medical system was completely decentralized, because everyone was skilled and knowledgable enough to take care of himself, instead of relying on doctors. There were no hospitals.
Mother Nature itself was considered as the best Healer and Healing Center. Herbs provided any molecule needed to help with any health condition. Also, they showed holographic catalogues on how to use them.
Conclusion
Nature is not just s supermarket, but is also a museum of inspiration for innovations.
Nature already can provide everything to organize Science. It is our best Teacher, Scientist, and Healer. We just need to change the way we think to see this, as we were blinded by money and centralization. Helping everyone in any way possible should be the order of the day.
The headline image was composed by me with the help of the hedgehog and world map images.
Other images sourced from Pixabay.
The divider was created by me with the help of the world map image.
References
- Rzeszutko, Elzbieta & Mazurczyk, Wojciech. (2014). Insights from Nature for Cybersecurity. Health security. 13. 10.1089/hs.2014.0087;
- Vladimir Bazarny. The Human Child: Psychophysiology of Development and Regress, Jun 16, 2020;
- Clark, A.M. Natural Products as a Resource for New Drugs. Pharm Res 13, 1133–1141 (1996)
Initially, this post was published on HackerNoon