We can be attracted to symmetry on one level and become
bored by it on other levels. For instance people seem to enjoy looking
at hand-made objects and even appreciate them more because of their
imperfections than perfectly symmetrical factory-made counterparts. The drawings of Cy Twombly (see examples at the Kunstmuseum Basel) are far from symmetrical or perfect. On the same site there is a sculptural example; an assemblage by Jean Tinguely. His machines were unpredictable, sometimes self-destructing and mocking of their invention. These two artists pry open our the disorder that we fear and try so hard to keep out of our machine culture. Two spheres form, one has a machine for a centre and the other has the "standing reserve" of nature ready to be put into use of the machine. The "standing reserve" is what Martin Heidegger defines in "A Question Concerning Technology" as potential energy at ready to be used. It is in waiting but defined by its potential. Heidegger gave the example of an airplane on a runway - unautonomous; completely dependent by definition to be a flying machine only by flying. Be it human nature or our cultural triumph, symmetry makes this happen faster; on a larger scale, the industrial scale. This is because "the ordering of the orderable" depends on defining an order and divisible objects can be ordered more easily.

The Body is a Temple

Why not,
instead of declaring that people like symmetry, it is industrialized society likes
symmetry? We are surrounded by mathematically measureable and identical
items. We protect the fine balance between buying and earning; keeping the market as symmetrical as possible.
Mechanization also works much better on symmetrical things, like aiplanes or
cameras. These kinds of items rely on being measurable and dissectible.
In turn, they measure and dissect the world for us according the their
rules, rules we control, rules we tilt in our favour. Its spread is like that of the capitalist market.

This symboitic specialization of labour creates an efficient society able to mass produce at primary, secondary and tertiary levels. Like the factory that builds the robot that builds the truck, which in turn delivers the produce to the denizens of the city, who are the workers that build the former robot.� This is the predictable beauty we want to see in our heroes. At least this is what computerized beauty recognition wants to tell us. A deeper look into symmetry and beauty reveals fetishistic belief in being able to recognize a superior human through external characteristics, at best a pseudo-science left over from the dawn of psychological theories. These ideas are cousins of phrenology and hopelessly confused studies in criminal behavior based on facial characteristics. In these studies, the people chosen as criminally-minded were often uglier, less graceful and generally less symmetrical than what the average person would aspire to be. These theories haven't died out since the late 19^th century, they've metamorphosed.

Back to basic organic shapes; let's take a rock. With it we have
something harder to measure, to quantify. It is irregular; it is a
noise pattern instead of a melodic pattern. But is is not beautiful? If
we simply define beauty as something measurable and patterned or
symmetrical we fall into a trap; how big is the pattern we are looking
at? When we define concepts we seem to move from our perspective
towards a primitive version of the idea; but the gamut does not run the
other way. For example very few people consider the Earth to be a
living being because it doesn't reproduce like we do nor the primitive
versions of ourselves ie: algae. Our vision is as limited as our use for it. If it helps us survive then our reality adjusts to this version. What is the version we are living now? Maybe perfect order and uniformity, two conditions best to be sought after but not achieved, because achieving it would enable us to use up the entire planet instantly. Disorder is the greater solution to environmental and energy problems.�