non bipedal humans

Peaceful greetings,

The obejctive of these blogs is to publicly enquire and explore aspects of human life that are so central to modern life that they have become almost invisible to us. Laws of nature that govern our actions and the world around us from archaic times that have thus far more or less evaded our scientific proding.

To ease the way into this, a simple example to begin with. I envisage the objective to become clearer and discussions to blossom within the first 7 or so blogs.


At hospital today, we did our morning round. A patient with an amputated leg because of blocked arteries was on our list. Another one awaiting an amputation to prevent the infection from the leg spreading. Though unfortunate and saddening, a common sight in hospitals.

Then at lunch time I went to the library (better seating than the canteen :) and looked out the window. I saw an elderly lady walking off-centre on 3 legs (2 legs + walking stick). (A horrible comparison, but like the spiders when we try to peacefully chuck them out the house but accidentally catch and break their legs so they're only left with 3 thus limping off-centre. I blame this on too much cleaning/vacuuming at home these days)

While some have their legs amputated and sit with one leg on chairs with wheels to get around, others use their hands to hold sticks and complement their two legs with a third just to keep themselves standing and mobile.

What is it that has made us with 2-legs and cats with 4, spiders on 8, caterpillers on...? Where is it in our genetic code that encodes this rule? Is this an example of an archaic code that governs our modern lives? When we are born, we struggle to move. Then when we do, we're on all 4. Eventually we stand and walk on 2 (is this ontogeny recapitulating phylogeny?).
Then like the waxing and waning moon we regress, using a stick to stand and walk on 3...

As current understanding goes, more or less fair to say that this bipedal (or otherwise) code is engrained in us both throughout our development in history (evolution) and our own lives. Fractals of our lives mimicking our predecessors' history.

"Something of everything, in everything"
- Anaxagoras (Greek Philosopher, 450BC)