Looking at the Pollock paintings in class made me think about the human drive to find meaningful images in non-representational or non meaningful objects. On the surface it is a silly thing to do, a figment of the imagination taking a panel of paint squiggles and turning them into a scene with human forms and a story. Our discussion in class, however, reminded me of an article I read in the Kohler bathroom about seeing images in clouds or faces in potato chips. The image above is a photograph of clouds that many people believe to be the hands of God reaching down to earth. The article stated that it was evolutionarily stable to recognize faces and objects everywhere, even in unlikely places. For example, if you think you see something that could be a face in the leaves of a dense forest, it is best to run. If you were wrong, you're none the worse. If you were right, you're not dead. Thus the gene for recognizing or imagining faces and images grows in the gene pool. Nowadays that has spread to not just recognizing potential dangers, but seeing things everywhere. The seed for abstract recognition was planted, and as we evolved it expanded.
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