Shape

112 I What Makes It Visual?
and this won’t do. Science is out—of course, there are experiments, but then divisions
are after the fact—and clairvoyants and seers are best silent with predictions that are
hard to trust. What could possibly prompt a decision until I move the triangle to
make the star
and then pick out another triangle and move it—remember, this isn’t calculating—to
get the final shape
But even preknowledge that’s perfect may not give an exact solution. I failed rotating
squares in the introduction (pages 25–30)—the future was set shape after shape, only
my answer for three squares didn’t scale to five squares, seven squares, etc. And it’s
simply hopeless otherwise, when the future isn’t clear. It’s asking a lot to know what
to expect, so that there’s no reason for ongoing experience. The shape
may begin a longer series in which arbitrarily distant shapes determine what’s necessary
to segment it into constituents. This isn’t an inference (induction) I know how to
make. And really, who does? It’s way beyond the reach of reason—visual or not. Think
of all the things I would miss if I got it wrong—but how can you think unless you can
see? That’s the problem—thinking isn’t blind. It’s good that constituents aren’t needed
to calculate. I can draw without having to infer anything about what I’m going to see
and do, as long as there’s embedding. (Alternatively, embedding lets me anticipate
everything without having to say what it is.) That’s the secret that makes shapes
and rules indispensable in design.