Form follows function

But what is our function?

They say that form follows function. Someone, somewhere was the first person to say this, but I do not particularly care about the history of this phrase, I only care about what I think it means. And I think it means that your being is shaped by your purpose. A simple case is a hammer — a hammer is shaped so because, over thousands of years, we collectively have decided that the form of a hammer is near-optimal for smacking nails into things. The back end has that nice nail-gripper that rips out misplaced nails, there is a somewhat elongated handle to leverage increased power, and there is a durable, metal head for driving nails. To fulfill its purpose of nail-hitting, a hammer has just developed to be a particular way. The form of hammer follows the function of hammering. Now looking at the human, what is the function, the purpose of a human? Why are we the way that we are? Why must we see, hear, blink, think? What is our existence directed at?

Well, I think the lame answer is just surviving. Our existence is directed at surviving. We have eyes to see predators so as to not get eaten. We have ears to listen for rattlesnakes. We have brains to outsmart prey. Nearly everything in our body is formed for the function of surviving. But I think this is where we start to see a problem — so much of our lives do not align with what we have been formed to do. We were not designed by natural selection to live our lives the way we do. We were not designed to sit around on screens all day and drink carcinogens and do heroin and watch porn and eat microplastics and love AI chatbots and invent atomic weapons and write essays on Substack. The only naturally human things you do on a daily basis are likely eat, drink, sleep, and socialize. Everything else is separated from our evolution via an unfathomably complicated series of events. I am not sure how to resolve the gap between what we were designed to do, and what we do.

I am not sure of exactly what I am trying to say, but it has something to do with bunions. On this planet there is something called a foot, a human foot to be particular. It was designed over millions, billions of years for the express purpose of navigating earthly terrain. The foot grants its possessor the ability to walk over plains, climb up mountains, and even swim in water. The foot is amazing. Now riddle me this? Why in the world would we ever shove our feet in shoes? Dogs do not wear shoes, and yet dogs can go everywhere that we go. Is it because our feet are ugly? First, ugliness is arbitrary and subjective, and second, surely we would not sheath something so useful for so trivial a reason. Is it because shoes are better? Frankly, dogs do not seem to have any issue with walking anywhere that shoe-wearing humans do. Is it because not wearing shoes hurts? If you did not wear shoes, the skin on your feet would thicken and you would be impervious to pain from small bumps in the ground. So what is my point? My point is that we took the fantastic foot and shoved it in a shoe, and now a whole bunch of people have bunions. Tight toe boxes and arch support and elevated heels wreak havoc on the biomechanics of your foot (and whole lower body system), and yet we still wear them. I still wear them of course, but I wish I did not have to. How many metaphorical bunions do we have?

There is a metaphor that I am trying to draw here — we humans have replaced many parts of our lives with lesser surrogates that we disguise as improvements. We replaced meeting face-to-face with phone calls with text messages. Humanity is more interconnected than ever before, yet individuals are plagued by loneliness. How, how! is this possible when I could text anyone in the world instantaneously? I believe it has a whole lot to do with our form, or what we are naturally disposed towards. News flash: we were made for a certain type of social interaction, not texting. Real social interaction has body language, tone, laughter, and maybe even physical touch, things that are actually very important for creating happiness in our caveman brains. We just simply are not living the way in a way that resonates with our biological or psychological makeup.

This is becoming increasingly important to me the farther artificial intelligence advances. No longer are we substituting shoes for feet, we are substituting AI for humans. Maybe this isn’t a problem. It will solve cancer! Ok yes, maybe. A robot maid can do your housework! I can get on board with that. It will do all work and you can sit at home all day! This is where I hesitate. Sit at home doing what? What will my existence be directed at in a world where I do not have to work, or do anything, to sustain my life? Humans have evolved to survive, but now if that task is automated for us, what good will our evolution be for? I think this is a critical thing for everyone to think about. You, reader, must think about how your purpose must adapt in the coming future AI dominated future, if it comes at all.

Form will no longer follow function, function must follow form. If the task of surviving is done for you, you must change your function to something different than survival. We cannot change our form, we can not change the way our brain values physical touch or our stomach reacts to food (forget what the transhumanists want), but we can change the way we live our lives. Find a way to align your life to your natural human nature. If it means decluttering, do that. If it means throwing your phone away, do that. If it means hanging out with your friends for hours every day, do that. Do something, anything human. Do something that does not make your entire body scream for something different. Create a value system for yourself that can survive no matter the future. Align your values with your human nature, not with the world.