Fractal: Recursively constructed or self-similar, that is, a shape that appears similar at all scales of magnification (and is therefore often referred to as "infinitely complex.)"
Reference: Fractal
Kathy made a post entitled, what is reality? and shared several quotations that approach the subject. It reminded me of the question, "Who am I?"
I cannot seem to describe who I am. Describing my activities doesn't come close. Describing myself by making statements of relationship; me, a less-finite thing, in relation to other more-finite things, starts to sketch out something nebulous, yet formed, from afar... and infinite in detail under magnification.
Thus (not explaining the thought process) my conclusion; I am a fractal.
What is reality? Same fractal.
13 comments:
Interesting. I've been thinking about that some too recently. The fractal comparison is great, but I think there's another side to it too. While I am a fractal (infinitely complex) I'm also infinitely simple. I'm one. I am. I'm not defined by my body, profession, or even thoughts. I am simply defined. I would say the same is true for reality.
It's funny because as soon as this statement is made, one can start looping back towards complexity. So, you're argument about the fractal turns out to be recursive in itself. :)
I like how your blog makes me think.
Whatever! It doesn't really help to think too much. Just be, whoever you are. Becoming is for the ambitious. You will never find out who you are this way. Well, anyway, it's not about who you are, it is about what is. To be what is, you have to forget yourself. In order to forget yourself, you have to find out why you keep thinking of yourself.
Nobody is perfect. Just keep thinking of yourself. It really doesn't matter. If you don't look after yourself, who will?
Being selfish is not necessarily wrong and sick.
If you don't worry about how you look like, who will want to look at you. Most likely people will be disturbed by what they see.
However, if you can't help looking the way you do, be happy with it.
Just writing whatever comes to mind. Thoughts, thoughts, and more thoughts.
Yes, I'd like to believe you are a fractal. Try to be happy with that.
However, why would it be wrong to try to be somebody or something, or to achieve anything? Would it be wrong to have more money, buy more things you don't really need?
If being enlightened means being a nobody or nothing, would you be happy with that? Some people are led to believe they actually become wiser, more creative, more popular and more successful, and more powerful (that probably explains why gurus become very successful).
What if becoming enlightened means being completely forgotten, being stupid indeed, and being used as a doormat by everybody, will you stay enlightened? Or do you become more enlightened?
Anyway, if you just forget about enlightenment, and try to meet your daily needs and try to be useful to yourself and other people by sharing your ideas and talents, would that make you happy?
And if you become disillusioned and frustrated, would you finally become enlightened?
I guess whatever you do, you finally become enlightened, if you don't worry too much.
God is likely fractal. Nature is fractal. Rivers and coastlines are an example of this. Arteries, veins and capillaries are examples of this. Yet, all these things happen without a single thought. Your body which is a marvelous piece of biomechanical and biochemical engineering works without conscious thought. The neural pathways in your brain work and process information for the most part without you thinking about how it does this. That marvelous brain allows you and I to think such thoughts, those thoughts are creations of that brain and the mind overlaying it. They are just thought forms trying to encompass all of reality. They are wonderful and yet, incomplete in their description. Truth and yet, not Truth.You are fractal in nature, yet you are also part of the fractal called Humanity which is part of the fractal called the biosphere which is part of the fractal called Earth, which is part of the fractal called a solar system, which is part of the fractal called a galaxy, etc., etc. It's the same as a cell is part of a tissue which is part of an organ which is part of a human. You are a microcosmic version of the macrocosmic Universe. Layer upon layer of complexity. Yet, at the core of it all is Stillness. It is born out of Stillness and it will return to Stillness in due time. It is Stillness now, wondering about itself and its place in this Universe. As complete and whole as a flower, a flowering consciousness seeing the fractal nature of itself. That is a beautiful thing to behold.
a microcosm, who thinks it is a macrocosm, inside a macrocosm, that the microcosm, wants to make into the microcosm, in order to actually become the macrocosm, in short, a thing, turning continually inside out, and wanting to stop, outside in.
pardon me, but i was thinking from the point of view of 'fractal' but now i think that is a Torus? What is a Torus?
but then, i am thinking that the fractal is real, and is both the inside and the outside, the micro and the macro, but at exactly the same time, the torus is operating and existing in the same places as the fractal, and it is doing the turning inside to outside.
sort of like two mechanisms going on at one time in the same space or spaces, then the space would be apparent 2 dimensions inside a real 4 dimensions.
maybe the 2d is the illusion, that would be the fractal by itself, and the 4d, the fractal in the hands of the torus, that would be the greater reality,
also the 2d fractal mechanism would be the conscious mind, while the 4d reality would be the operations of the unconscious mind, the one which is actually in charge and exercising control and authority over the illusion, the 2d fractal.
sorry, just a continued thought.
Zach, thank you :) In my final semester of architecture school, a professor had the (audacity? so it seemed at the time!) to suggest that if the metaphor for the design stopped working, to let it go. It became a guideline rather than a hard and fast rule... the fractal thing does have a rather delightful ouroboros nature, doesn't it!
Kathy, they say that it's important not to miss the forest for the trees. Likewise, not to miss the wonder of the trees, for the forest. :)
Imemine, huh? What? The becoming is only apparent; in truth it's just learning to be, no? There was a lovely comment by Trev (probably at wisdomreading) about loving others as we love ourselves; that loving others is loving God is loving ourselves. I look like myself, and moreso everyday. Although the other evening I came in, glanced at myself in the mirror by the door; saw somebody distinctly a familly member but not immediately recognised as myself.
JBMoore; Stillness is but a Word away from exploding into Being. Someplace in that mess of words you captured something lovely. :-)
Jim, maybe ouroboros? The first statement could become the picture-of-a-picture ad infinitum. No reason for the fractal to be two-dimensional, save for ease of iteration.
Why bother dividing the 'conscious' from the 'unconscious' or anything else? Arbitrary boundary in a fluid thing, people start believing there's a difference just because there seems to be one, and everybody's in therapy over it. Tesseract!
In my opinion the fractal metaphor is just a useful tool; a partial explanation of reality. (Please nobody go after the tesseract... lol.)
"I cannot seem to describe who I am. Describing my activities doesn't come close."
Perhaps one can best describe one's self by what one is not.
What we are is greatly dependant upon the extent of our self awareness in that moment. If we read(now) without any awareness that we are reading then we are simply a biological reading machine. At this level the concept "I" is really a lie because it implies consciousness and unity.
When we are aware or ourselves reading then we are no longer the thing that is reading. We become an observer and a conscious being.
We become a different kind of material.
Isaiah; perhaps; I like it conceptually, but to calculate... I am, or have been, or might be, anything; good bad or indifferent. Have you tried to estimate yourself in such a fashion? Maybe I am missing something...
Warning: heavy-duty thought experiment follows (and if I'm mathematically innaccurate please correct me, somebody):
This is how it seems; the chances of some things are greater than the chances of others... possibilities are in families, are related to each other; physical, emotional, spiritual, intellectual, (other?) realms, and can be roughly divided so forth, although most things fall to degrees into many realms. So if we could place points of all possibilities, egads, it might move into five or six dimensions just to do that, and then calculated (err, estimated) the likelihoods of each possibility... it'd end up looking like an escape-time fractal, I think... those deal with how many times a data point has to be iterated (and its results re-iterated) before it exits the set... which as you can imagine creates a string of data points through the iterations, each one step closer to the edge. So the resultant image is mapped in a spectrum rather than black-and-white (as with the geometrically calculated fractals). Follow, I hope?
This is an animation of the Mandelbrot set, which is one such fractal. It's pretty. Go watch. *grin*
Beard; yes, absolutely. It's what Alexander was talking about that C.S.Lewis referenced that I mentioned here.
The Unmanifest is simple. The manifestation complex. Perception of complexity and simplicity varies with focus.
You are That, Julie.
Not part of It, but All.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Novelty_Theory#Criticisms
Scary idea about being a fractal!
Enjoy!
whieber
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