Constructal Law and Indigenous Insights into the Nature of Life

Constructal Law was discovered in the 1990’s by a Duke University Professor of Engineering. It may provide insights into numerous ecological and geological processes, and argues that for a finite-size flow system to persist in time (live) it must evolve in such a way that provides easiest access to the currents that flow through it.  Thus, everything that moves and morphs in order to flow and persist is alive. This might explain why Indigenous cultures regard water, air, and even stone as being alive, while also negating the need to evoke random processes in the generation of structure and change, including Gould’s idea that evolution is a random process.  I will discuss these and other consequences of examining this law in both ontogenetic and macroevolutionary changes, including how endosymbiosis led to the origin of multicellular forms and the origin of hypertrophy in the human brain.