Recognition of the importance of pattern in science only came in the
1920s. The most important outcome of the initial research into
networks was that the brain was seen as a complex of cells that
communicate with each other as patterns of intertwined webs nesting
within larger webs. The brain is a networked community of cells with the
capacity of self-organisation, and this is how virtual images of
environment are produced and modified through perception. This
fundamental networking ability probably resides in the ability of a cell's
collection of working parts, the enzymes, to set up complex networks
that form closed loops. A mental picture of how such a catalytic network
of fifteen enzymes could catalyze each other’s formation, and link up to
produce a molecular pattern, was created by the molecular biologist
Eigen (Fig 1.5)
Fig 1.5 Eigen (1971) ‘A catalytic network of enzymes, including a
closed loop’
Eigen called his mind maps ‘hypercycles’. His depiction of a hypercycle
is a personal pictorial creation that has the balance of lines and an
enclosed form characteristic of art. Important to the present context is
that, although a scientist produced the diagram, it exemplifies the
process of artistic creativity. It came into existence to stand for an entity
that is too complex to be visualised. The diagram is a meaningful
scientific abstraction that follows a major precept of modern art which
states that details are confusing and it is only by selection and emphasis
that an artist can get to the real meaning of things.
Graphical models of scientific concepts are examples of the special
artistic skills of some scientists to communicate ideas that are too
complex or abstract for words. There is now correct way to make a
particular model and so much room for artistic style.
