I. Nobody’s Perfect, a Long Preamble
This will make him sound like the caricature of a physicist, but a colleague at Heriot-Watt University once told me that human beings are essentially “categorisation machines,” by which he meant that our understanding of the world relies on our ability to recognise patterns and use them elsewhere.
It may seem like a cold and strange thing to say but he’s right.
Pattern recognition is fundamental to how our brains work, the electrical activity of our neurons encodes the patterns that we see in space and time1.
And recognising patterns is only half of it, we also create our own.
Wherever you are, look around you.
You’ll see them there.
A green traffic light, an outstretched hand, an electricity bill.
Each is a part of its own unique pattern for us to follow.
We establish patterns, we establish structure, we establish order.
But inwardly our bodies do not meet the same standards…