Is it just the easiest way around for nature to form some structures or what? Many thanks in advance
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First, because our brains can notice patterns very easily because it helped our evolution, so it’s only natural to make connections based on the shape of these things, even when there isn’t one.
Second, cauliflowers will have as many seeds as they can fit in that space, so natural selection will encourage them to fit as many as possible, thus developing a fractal-like pattern. Our brain’s outer layer, where the grey matter is – and where the real magic happens within the brain – , acts very similar, the less smooth it is, the more grey matter there is, thus more ‘processing power’ (in the ‘middle’ of the brain there’s the white matter which forms the connections within and between the gray matter, the brain stem and the spinal cord). So naturally to these two problems, selection will find a similar solution because of simple geometry.
Of course there are examples where there’s no connection, but when you’re growing from one point with cell multiplication and want to include fluid transferring with veins or other tube-like structures, as in all organs of animals and plants, of course you won’t try to make a dodecahedron or cube but a round, mostly bilaterally simmetrical structure with thinner and thinner tubes within it. The overall shape is determined by the shape of nearby organs, surface area in case of photosynthesis (flat leaves with one layer of veins), thermic and/or water evaporation regualtion (like the leaves of pine trees or cactii in plants or the huge ears of elephants or desert mice within the animal kingdom), etc.
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