The Brittlestar and Classical Dynamics

Physicist and philosopher Karen Barad has given us an account of an amazing sea creature, the Brittlestar, an invertebrate related to starfish, a creature that has no eyes, but is all eyes. The approximately ten thousand spherically domed calcite crystals covering the five limbs and central body of the Brittlestar function as microlenses that collect and focus light directly onto nerve bundles which are part of the Brittlestar's diffuse nervous system, giving it compound-eye capability (Barad in press). The Brittlestar's microlenses are optimised to maximise visual acuity enabling them to discern predators or discover hiding places. However, all of this activity takes place in a creative tension between the resolution of detail and diffraction effects and between geometrical and physical optics. Scientists, she notes, are studying the Brittlestar in the hope of mimicking its technique for producing vision. Of special interest is the information that the Brittlestar is a creature without a brain; it is simply a visualising apparatus, a metamorphosing optical system.