We make things out of other things. Lego is an incredibly versatile example of this—a range of bricks that can make a multitude of things. On the face of things a Lego model of the Willis Tower seems so straightforward; there is a form—in this case the famous Willis Tower—and there is stuff of which the tower is made—in this case Lego bricks. But to arrive at this simple understanding there is a great deal of thought going on in the background. To highlight this, and the relationships between form and substance, consider a few questions.
The model of Willis Tower is indeed made of Lego bricks, but we could also say it is made out of plastic, or chemicals, or molecules, or atoms, or sub-atomic particles. It seems more relevant to talk of Lego bricks rather than sub-atomic particles, but why is this?
If we switch our attention from the model to a Lego brick what is that made of? Once again, it seems most useful to pick out the next level down in our hierarchy, in this case plastic, not sub-atomic particles. Why and does this pattern hold for all objects?
The Lego model is of course not the tower; it is a representation of it. The model ‘stands’ for it through a resemblance, despite massive differences in scale we can see both model and tower have the same basic form. But some things are not represented in the model; the stuff of which the tower is made for example does not correspond to the plastic Lego bricks. Why choose the form of the building as the basis for representation and not the substance of the building?
When we focus on the model and think of the tower, what the bricks are made of becomes less significant. But when we look at the model and think of Lego, other ideas come into play. Part of the charm of the model is the clash between Lego—that started out at least—as a toy, and a classic of modernist architecture (designed by Bruce Graham and structural engineer Fazlur Rahman Khan). There is a clash between seriousness and fun, high and low art, between a more elite architectural culture and a more popular culture of play. The bricks are also not just any plastic bricks, but Lego bricks, and this brings with it a huge number of associations from blockbuster movies, to the most basic Lego kit. There is the idea that the whole world in all its diversity can be re-made as Lego. How does this feed into the meanings we make from the model?
There is just one Willis Tower but many Lego models of it. Each model was purchased as a kit and individually made, each brick in every model is a unique physical entity. But I doubt that many would be interested in the uniqueness of a brick, perhaps a little more so with respect to the uniqueness of a model, but we are very invested in the uniqueness of the actual building. We seem to navigate seamlessly between thinking of one unique thing—buildings or individual models, or of types of things, types of models, types of bricks. Why do we choose to think of some things as unique and individual, and other things as types and multiples?
So to recap, in relation to what things are made of there seems to be a hierarchy. In the case of Lego, there is: the Lego model, Lego bricks, plastic, chemicals, molecules, atoms, sub-atomic particles. When we ask the question about what something is made of, it seems appropriate to say that it is made from the next level down in the hierarchy. Lego models are made of Lego bricks; Lego bricks are made of plastic, and so forth.
When one thing represents another, the form of the representation can represent the form of the thing represented. Alternatively, we can use the substance that a representation is made of to represent another thing made of the same substance.
Depending on what is useful to us, we can effortlessly switch between thinking of something as one unique thing, or, of thinking of it as a type or category of things.