Hyperceptivism: Simply Trees, Complex Species

(this is follow on 2 of at least 4 from the original Hyperceptivism blog)

The unseen energy from trees is one of the most simple yet appealing art subjects of infrared photography.  I want to share what they revealed recently, something formerly unseen to me.

All of us have heard, read or watched comparisons of the human species to trees.  Branching genetics, flowering exploration, apples not far from the tree, individuals as leaves, the gender knot, kid twigs, family roots.   The branches and the leaves of trees appear highly contrasted in the infrared, unlike the visible.

There’s a different kind of comparison to the human species using trees that I want to make here. Perhaps this blog is a little philosophic, but have patience with me, please, and enjoy the many tree photos here.

Humans are tribal.  Every one of us has roots in a genetic clan, or phenotype.  Cutting edge, inexpensive DNA sequencing is answering fundamental questions about where humans originated and how we came to populate and migrate the Earth, using haplogroups and other key gene groups showing ancestral parentage.

I recently heard John Stewart, as many before him, describe America as a grand experiment in reprogramming the human species to forget tribalism and melt into a diverse community of all background types.  While that goes against our evolved instincts to regard family and tribe as a priority, it seems to have succeeded in sociology and political forms.

True, to some degree our tribal roots have merged into a trunk of melted diversity in most democratic nations.  That merging of cultures may even be part cause for the abundance of creative invention that is rapidly becoming the foundation of economic prosperity and future development. Perhaps, some say, our environmental ruin.

It seems that one of the motivators for this technological expansion is humanity’s insatiable need to communicate with each other in myriad ways—phone, text, chat, tweet, snaps, instagrams, iMessage, skype, facetime, kik and more.

However, the melting pot experiment seems it may fail in one way.  None of us has the neural bandwidth to keep up with the flood of human generated opinion and the nonstop expansion in science and technology.  Not even us niched, ever specializing, interdisciplinary scientists.  It’s highly probable not one of us will keep up with all the increasing ways to communicate and find social connection.  

In academia, specialization is the pathway to expertise.  In humanity’s future, narrowing adaptation could become the way to stay afloat in the flood of technology.  Cliques and niches will grow and society may branch from the melted trunk of our tree into fragmented twigs of tech culture and tribal ideology.

The explosion of technical and social diversity may very well implode into hyper-focused sub cultures.  We will pick our future "family" to go along with our interests, hobbies, beliefs and chosen self-identities.  Instead of genes, we'll group by genres.

Our communication may devolve into specialized language revolving around these diversions. National and genetic familial lines will blur.  Haplogroups and gene types of ancestral parentage will give way to techno-ideological cliques, pneuma genres and online societies. We'll bond across the globe with those closest to our heart's embrace not our living space.

This seems inevitable if our learning, our neural bandwidth remains limited by our genetic ancestry, our biology.  Either the trunk will disperse into diffuse branches or humanity as a whole must expand our ceberal capabilities. Will technology expand all humanity together, or will we splinter with our limits?  What do you think will happen next?