What if we lived in hexagonal dwellings like bees...

[helen99]

I wonder what the effect of dividing the world up into little squares has been on overall human consciousness.

What if we'd chosen a different shape - a hexagon or septagon, say, for the unit of land instead of the rectangle/square. I wonder if our minds and thoughts would have taken on different shapes as well...
Triangles would be too constricting. Bees seem to like hexagons for some reason.

Comments

Bad Hexagon Haiku

[gleef.livejournal.com]

I like hexagons.

They are very niftykeen,

and have pointy bits.

Re: Bad Hexagon Haiku

[helen99.livejournal.com]

The more wealthy and landed gentry, however, would sport hexadecahedrons.

[feyandstrange.livejournal.com]

I blame agriculture. You plow in rows, it leads to rectangles.

[helen99.livejournal.com]

But if you don't want your farm to wash away in little rivulets, I would think you'd be better off plowing in circles or ovals or something (not that I know anything about farming)...

[aekiy.livejournal.com]

Or.. or maybe we could make new shapes. Like a hexapedaldonon. It'll cover like six dimensions, or something. :nod:

Or maybe we could just use flower shapes for things. (^*^)

[helen99.livejournal.com]

That would work. The little diamond shapes in between the petals could be left wild. Extending into several dimensions would increase the aount of room a lot. Multidimensional badminton would become popular again... A tiny house could extend into many worlds...

shapes

[iliandriel.livejournal.com]

I think we may have turned out a bit more spontaneous. It is a nice shape allows for bodily contours better. The Hexagon that is. Bees like it I think for that reason. They don't want to be thought of as squares.lol hahaha. Just my little bit of fun on it.

Re: shapes

[helen99.livejournal.com]

I wonder if it has something to do with their faceted eyes. Their hives are composed of endless perfect hexagons, exactly the same size and shape. They never seem to get it wrong...

I think adding one more side and making it a prime number (7) makes it a bit more chaotic and unpredictable, and allows change into the equation. I'm going to try to construct a little seven-sided cairn and see what happens...

Re: shapes

[laurelindel.livejournal.com]

Ooo! Let me know how it turns out... I am very interested.

Re: shapes

[elenbarathi.livejournal.com]

O wonder if it's to do with the fact that insects have six limbs, whereas we've got four

Re: shapes

[helen99.livejournal.com]

Maybe, but theirs are always perfect, unflawed hexagons of exactly the same size. Ours are just sort of iffy but generally rectangles of some sort. I think it has to do with the agricultural and architectural unit of measurement and land sale. As the almanacks would have it, it's supposed to make it easier for farmers to plan out their acreage (hunter-gatherers generally don't go by squares). But whatever the reason, I wonder what its effect has been on a relatively non-rectangular brain's way of thinking over the millennia that the Square has been in use... I have the same question about birds on telephone wires - does providing strait lines for them to sit on (that carry a powerful magnetic field) change their behavior or way of thinking about the world...