“The world is not like a computer. Computers – like us, like plants and animals, like clouds and seas – are like the world. Some more than others, some better attuned to its processes – and many not.”
“As John Cage discovered through his use of the I Ching, a complex dance of chance-driven and unexpected encounters was both the best way to approach the more-than-human world, and the best way of representing its heterogeneous, omnicentric reality. Cage’s realization prefigured that of evolutionary biologists, who in recent decades have started to acknowledge the crucial role that randomness plays in the creation of life itself. This has proven to be something of an uphill battle because the importance of randomness has been consistently undervalued in studies of evolution since its establishment, while the role of natural selection – competition – has been consistently overvalued.”
James Bridle, Ways of Being, pp. 178, 234
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