Julio Cortázar wrote “The Continuity of Parks”. Nature wrote the convergence of waterfalls.

Wings 

Natural selection is a powerful, creative force, obedient in its creativity to the laws of physics and chemistry. This obedience to the natural canon is seen in evolutionary convergence, when similar environmental conditions lead to similar bioengineering solutions. A classic example is the superficial resemblance of the wings of insects and birds. The wings converged morphologically because such a structure is the most direct evolutionary path to generate lift in Earth’s atmosphere.

Parks

Parks¹ are nature grown for recreation, they are greenery and flourishing from the hand of a designer. Although there are no natural selection processes in the creation of parks, their design can become similar in response to natural and universal human predilections². Therefore, it is not surprising that parks in different parts of the world tend to converge (I could swear that the same park hobo scowled at me in Parque La Carolina in Quito and in Planty Park in Krakow – though it may just be a convergence of hobos).

Waterfalls

In addition to the convergence of wings and parks, there is also a convergence of waterfalls. Even though I had seen it many times, even though I had thought and read about it many times, it was only when I stood in front of the frozen waterfall in Montana that I named and captured it. For what is not named is lost. What language cannot save, loses its meaning. Homeless, irrevocable, it moves straight towards non-existence⁴. Thirty-six weeks earlier, thirty-six degrees of latitude south, and thirty-six degrees Celsius up, I had already seen the waterfall in the thicket of the Costa Rican jungle. Just like the wing of an insect and a bat, or La Carolina and Planty parks, the waterfalls in Montana and Costa Rica were convergent.

The Evolution of Convergence

There is nothing special in the examples I chose. Waterfalls, like wings and parks, represent a broader class of objects and phenomena characterized by convergence. There is also, for example, convergence of estuaries, cliffs, dunes or, going beyond the “tangible”, stars. These three classes can be ordered “historically”, in the order in which they appeared in the universe: abiological convergence, evolutionary convergence and artifactual convergence. They are related by the independent repeatability of certain structures, suggesting the existence of universal forces that funnel the creation process. In pre-scientific times, these forces had a supernatural character, which effectively reduced everything to the artifactual convergence. Despite their shared subordination to universal forces, these convergences differ fundamentally.

The emergence of life brought a new kind of convergence. Waterfalls and wings are both natural consequences of the laws of nature, but in different ways. Firstly, is natural consequence synonymous with necessity? In other words, are both waterfalls and wings necessary? It is necessary (inevitable) for water to flow against the height gradient in a gravitational field, but there is no law that determines the emergence of wings, even after the development of multicellular life⁵. Therefore, there is a difference of necessity. Secondly, unlike the waterfall, the wings have a function. This does not mean the wings were created for a specific purpose. Evolution does not aim for goals because it is not able to set them. The wing has a function, but it is purposeless, just like a waterfall. In conclusion: waterfalls are necessary, purposeless, and non-functional; wings are non-necessary (contingent), purposeless, but functional. And what about parks?

The emergence of conscious life is associated with the origin of intentionality and with the third type of convergence. The recognition of intentional actions may seem trivial, but it is a skill we hone during the first five years of life⁶. During initial developmental period, the world is inevitable, like a stream flowing down a rocky wall. Then, without flashes or eureka moments, a significant part of the world around us becomes qualitatively different. It turns out to be “goal-oriented”. Intentionality is breathed into the actions of people and the objects they create. Walking through the park, we feel that it is not a forest⁷, that in the network of alleys there is a plan that encompasses both purpose and function. And what about necessity? Of course, by denying necessity to wings, we must do the same with parks. Parks are therefore non-necessary (contingent), purposeful, functional.

Coda

I recorded the above stream of consciousness in my own, and then computer memory, shortly after returning from Hylite Canyon, where waterfalls freeze in November. As I wrote, I became aware of the autobiographical link between the convergence of waterfalls and the continuity of Cortazar’s parks

Several years ago, under one of California’s Sierra Nevada waterfalls, I noted in my travel notebook: “the waterfall generates wind”. This can be seen in the video below. On subsequent visits to other waterfalls, I confirmed this observation. It seems intuitive⁸ that waterfalls generate wind, yet before I experienced my first big waterfall, I had no concept of the wind in my imagination. There was a roar, but perhaps because I had heard it before in a movie.

This unexpected experience reminded me of my father’s philosophy. In short, it states: why should I travel and experience when I can imagine what it’s like in other places? The problem with this is that even with infinite imagination, knowledge is finite. Unless you have an extraordinary intuition about the laws of physics, it’s hard to imagine that a waterfall produces wind if you don’t know it. The same applies to cultural experiences.

Thinking of the convergence of waterfalls, I recalled The Continuity of Parks (lexically continuity and convergence are mathematical terms, parks and waterfalls are natural objects). It is one of my father’s favorite stories. Having in mind the waterfall wind, I realized that ironically my father’s favorite story is a critique of his philosophy of non-experiencing.

The story is structured like a matryoshka. The protagonist of the “second park”⁹ plan is comfortably seated in an armchair and reading a book set in the third park. Cortazar elsewhere referred to such a reader as a “reader-plant”. By the end of the story, the boundary between the second and third parks fades, and the reader from the armchair unwittingly becomes a protagonist of the story they are reading.

When my stream of consciousness meandered from the waterfalls of Montana to Cortazar’s Parks, I saw my father on the couch in front of the television. A documentary about waterfalls on the screen. Just behind him, on the wall above his gray head, a frozen waterfall is hanging. It is melting slowly in the warmth of home. Cold drops are sliding down. Cold sweat on my father’s neck. The water is impatiently awaiting to rush down.

Footnotes

1. Parks are not the most illustrative case of artifactual convergence. However, the link to Cortazar’s “Continuity of Parks” compelled me to use this example.
2. The notion of biophilia, or humans’ natural affinity for nature, is a matter of debate, as with many other hypotheses of evolutionary psychology.
3. By definition, evolutionary convergence requires the independent emergence of a given trait. If all parks in the world are based on a single source of inspiration and “originate” from one original park, then convergence cannot be said to have occurred. However, for illustration, let’s assume some parks were created independently.
4. From the song To co nienazwane (What is not Named) by Anna Maria Jopek
5. This unequivocal statement demands constructive debate!
6. Intentionality is an expansive topic in philosophy and psychology. My arguments, classifications, and examples do not have the precision and thoroughness this topic requires. Stream of consciousness is not the most effective way to discuss complex topics.
7. Since the forest is the result of certain forms of life, we should consistently consider it contingent and purposeless. But does the forest have a function? By reducing the forest to a collection of trees, we can compare it to a herd of animals: herding has evolved to reduce the risk of predation, and as a structure, has a function. The situation with the forest is more complicated. Trees grow taller to compete for light (evolved behavior), but the shade and density of the forest, as a side effect, can be compared to the ground trampled by the herd. Therefore, forests do not have a function as such and are contingent, purposeless, and non-functional. However, if there are mechanisms governing the growth and movement of plants, resulting in trees creating “vaults” that limit the growth of competitors, then the forest could be considered functional. Of course, there is also the issue of defining what a forest is.
8. Generating wind may appear intuitive, but I believe it is an example of hindsight bias. Can something be intuitive when it becomes intuitive as we learn about it? Perhaps it can. Another question is the relationship between intuition and the mechanism. Why does a waterfall produce wind perpendicular to the direction of the water’s flow?
9. We, (allegedly) real readers, are the first park.