Life is the most amazing and mysterious thing that ever happened in the Universe. Let's take a look, for example, at:
GARDENS
Even the most modest garden is a very mysterious place. The greatest mystery is, perhaps, its very existence. Why do people grow gardens? Because flowers are beautiful and they'd like to surround themselves with them, you'll say. And why are flowers beautiful? This is a good question.
Scientists say flowers have evolved to attract insects. Are insects attracted by beautiful things, then? Do they have an aesthetic sense? It's hard to believe the tiny body of a butterfly is enough to contain such "superior" concepts as aesthetics, but the fact is, their food has evolved into flowers and their wings are a delightful whim of nature. It looks like they've been choosing beauty for millions of years.
But this is preposterous, you'll say. Beauty is relative, every culture has its own canons of good taste. Then, think about this: many different cultures in the world have chosen to make gardens. All the peoples in the world find flowers beautiful. And why should we human beings find flowers beautiful? We don't eat them. They're pretty useless for us, except to make a lovely view.
You may say, only a few flowers are beautiful. Only a few flowers are used in gardens. It's just a coincidence that we happen to like some of them. But this is not true. I know all the wild flowers in my area, and the main difference between wild flowers and garden flowers is just... size! We prefer big flowers because we're big, that's all.
I once suggested several experiments to Rupert Sheldrake, and one of them was about flowers. It was quite easy, anybody with a garden could do it. Just make many paper flowers, some beautiful, some ugly, and put a bit of sugary water in them. Now, all you have to do is wait and watch which ones butterflies prefer. Mr Sheldrake commented it was an interesting experiment, but he saw a drawback: it's been proven that insects are influenced by previous experiences. I don't think this invalidates the experiment at all. We are certainly influenced by previous experiences, so what difference does it make if insects are, too? All I want to find out with this experiment is if there's something in flowers that both people and butterflies appreciate, indepently of what they've seen before. If there is really something, that would be a very interesting result indeed. If you make this experiment, please tell me about your results: lusina@redestb.es

A tale
The palace gardens of the Emperor of New China were famous in the whole world, and justly so: the chief gardener was a real artist. With the passing of years, the style of the gardens changed slowly, and they looked wilder, more like a forest than a garden. But still, it was an incredibly beautiful forest, and the Emperor loved it.
One day, the Emperor died and was buried like an acorn, and his son took his place. He heard unsettling news about the gardener: he had dismissed most of his helpers, he never pruned the trees and he almost didn't work. When the new Emperor asked the gardener, he mused strange things about talking with plants in a language they could understand. He said plants and trees didn't understand scissors, because they kept growing the same way; he said one should explain them what one wanted with light and water. The Emperor thought the gardener was a bit crazy, but the gardens were lovelier than ever, so he kept him at his service.
Time passed, and one day a messenger came and told the new Emperor, who was old by now, that the gardener had died at a very advanced age after a long illness. The Emperor was very surprised, because the gardens weren't neglected at all. But the surprise was much bigger when he knew that the old gardener had never gone out in the last ten years. He'd made a garden that didn't need care at all: just rainwater and sunlight. The shapes of plants weren't cut with scissors, but modelled by water and light and different kinds of soil.
And for the next fifty years, the garden growed carefree and without a gardener, until a fire destroyed it.

You may like to read some other philosophical insights about a different kind of life, i.e. virus (perhaps less serious, but not less interesting)


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