BioInspired! So What? Now What!

Giles Hutchins, author of The Nature of Business: Redesigning for resilience, sent the following comments:

Thanks for this Anthony. This is a well written and presented article. Zygote do good work : - )

Alas I have never got that passionate about biomimetic design work although there is great work being done – it often strikes me as copying Nature’s ways without really attuning with Nature in any deep and meaningful way. And hence leaves the underlying cause of our unsustainability unattended or over-looked in our rush for more (albeit smarter) stuff.

I refer to ‘nature-inspired’ in my work which fits with the ‘transformative’ area your report mentions – new ways of thinking and doing for humanity in these paradigm shifting times. I suspect biomimicry is growing into a new stage of maturity and so runs into the sort of cross discussions we humans love to have once there is a crowd forming (and importantly so to ensure clarity, detail, direction, etc.) so no doubt it will go through its growing pains. For me, most of what happens in biomimicry still falls short of actually ‘transforming’ our relation with Nature - which is where I believe we need to focus if we are to have any hope of transforming beyond our current evolutionary cul-de-sac, to use Gregory Bateson’s words. It is always useful for me to read about where things are at, so thank you, and it all seems quite normal progression for any developing field of innovation.

I cc Denise Deluca from BCI: Biomimicry for Creative Innovation, she is based in Seattle and works in the traditional biomimetic design area (as well as ‘transformational’ work). She used to be part of Biomimicry 3.8 and still teaches students in this design space. She will no doubt resonate with your findings in the article below, and is a useful contact for you in any event (no doubt she already reads Zygote Quarterly, but may not have your, Janice and Norbert’s contact details). Perhaps Denise may even wish to write an article for Zygote with you that explores some of the ‘transformational’ nature-inspired work? This could be interesting, and may help with the ‘what’s the future trajectory for biomimicry’ question I often get asked at conferences. [My response, is that we need to develop from the places, products, processes into the people, purpose – this is where the transformational stuff is, and now is a pretty good time to transform. This is not to undermine or in any way look down on the places, products and processes work as it is most fundamental and gives great momentum, shared successes, live examples from which to move into the people and purpose dimensions.]

What would be insightful for me is if Zygote ever did a poll on how ‘experts’ in biomimicry attune themselves with Nature and how these experts feel humanity could best attune (individually and collectively) with Nature to deeply resonate with her ways. This goes more to your ‘biophilia’ point. Biomimicry not just as a rationalistic reductionist orthodox approach that Western science has unfortunately tended towards, and so over-looking the real wisdom, but also a wider, deeper more transformative stage of evolution for nature-inspired work in general. Such work could open up profoundly important synergies and opportunities for partnering/cross pollination with other evolving disciplines such as eco-psychology, permaculture, indigenous wisdom, ecological thinking, nature-based education, etc. This excites me.

Anyhow, thank you for thinking of me. I hope this response helps. Am happy to discuss these points further with you and Norbert if useful at some point in the future. Hope you both connect with Denise in the meantime.

Warm regards, Giles.

I responded with:

I do not think that the various perspectives you describe are necessarily in conflict. In fact, I believe we need the bring a wide range of approaches to bear if we are going to be transformative. As you point out, a narrow perspective on biomimetic design is unlikely to encourage the kind of mindshift that we need. At the same time, turning 'nature-inspired' into action can also be challenging, at least based on past history. Perhaps what is different this time is an emerging alignment between the ethos and rationalist approach. I recall meeting an executive from Interface. When asked about the long term prospects of the transformation that Ray Anderson had driven at Interface, she responded that it all depended on the continuing success of the Interface product line.　

to which Giles said:

Yes, agreed, no conflict, in fact the whole idea of opposite-mindedness is perhaps part of the problem and certainly not the way forward.  So most definitely, there is synergy ahead not some form of separation.

Rolf Mueller raised a number of points in his Zygote Quarterly interview that paralleled discussions over the B3D initiative, including the lack of a theoretical foundation and the importance of "scientific validity and depth, contribution to fundamental progress, and originality."  Rolf is a good example of a trans-disciplinary approach - he is applying tools and methods from physics and engineering to better understand biomimetic systems.  At the same time, he is closing the loop by applying the insights gained to develop better sensors and sensor systems.  Rolf is exploring an area where engineering has starting to hit its limits - if he can solve how bats manage complex sonar information processing with tiny brains, it could transform how we design and build sonar/radar arrays.

Sustainability often gets raised in B3D discussions.  Rolf suggested that "While positive societal impacts are an important final goal, they are hard to predict and should not be used to stifle creativity and the expansion of knowledge."  One interpretation is that sustainability is an emergent property - it is hard to know what actions might contribute to future sustainability.  This does not prevent us from looking for evidence that we are making a difference.