Essential Flower
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There was an experiment by a famous neurologist ( V Ramachandran- Phantoms in the Brain ) in terms of shapes associated with sounds. Specifically, a sounds like "Booboo" and "Kiki" . Independent of cultural factors, age, education etc all people associated "booboo " with soft cloud shape and "Kikki" with sharp-edged shape. these seem to be hard wired . Does not answer your question though !!

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- RD

Curved or straight, its a shape only formed in the 2 dimensional space. Its design and form is apparent only In the 3 Dimensional space when we get above the FLAT. But here is the tricky part we actually exist in a 4 dimensional space!!! And wonder how they would show up in that dimension? And What wondrous shapes of the 3 Dimensional world we would be confronted in that dimension?

Remember reading a while back curvature and shape of leaves is one of nature's way of achieving optimal packing so that max number of leaves have exposure to sunlight required for photosynthesis. This was again a theory. Lot of unanswered questions. So many things in life we contemplate and after a while take it as given for the sake of "moving forward".

On a different note the sense of mystery in this image suddenly reminded me that neelakurinji bloom must have started on the slopes of western ghats.

Essential flower or Lord Ganesha, whatever .. I would love to let myself carried away in it.
Tfs.

A roller coaster ride really ..from image to words and back. To my mind the reason could be economy of space since a sphere requires least surface area to enclose a given volume. Not sure though if flatter shapes were tried by nature in its evolutionary journey. Also in the whole shape-gamut sphere turns out to be the most space neutral...Harsha's fourth dimension appears to be growth. Time accumulates in expanding shape and form...