Fractals Baby

"Everything happens for a reason” -- Justin Bieber

There are three concepts which many people push into the realm of the spiritual when they are used in reference to life, the universe, or everything. Some maintain that these three concepts; reasons, purposes, and meanings, have no definition without invoking god. I have even been told that these three concepts are “the personality traits of a loving god”. Many positive benefits of spirituality have been credited to mastering these three concepts.  Some atheists have suggested that these concepts are worthless since they apparently require the manipulations of an interested god. In keeping with the central purpose of this blog, to steal whatever is worthwhile from religion and spirituality, I think it is unwise to dismiss these three concepts capriciously.

Justin Bieber uttered the quote at the start of this entry to displace cultural responsibility for rape. As a cute little 16-year-old boy Bieber may have been either the perpetrator or the victim of many rapes, and therefore he could be displacing his own pain or guilt with this statement; though I suspect not. The statement is used to avoid the responsibility for engaging in the conversation about rape that should continue until there is nothing to talk about.

Who can know god’s reasons or meaning for causing suffering without knowing the purpose of existence? If you try to wrap your brain around that you will not have to hit it with a hammer to know how rubbery it is. There are many ways to avoid personal responsibility, and vapid reliance on an unknowable plan of an invisible overlord is one of the laziest. I will not be talking about rape in this entry. My only experience with rape is that I have dearly cared for several people who were the victims of this crime; I have never personally raped or been raped. I clearly and unhesitatingly state that I have little wisdom or experience to bring to the important conversation about rape, and so I will discuss other things at this time. Anyone who has ever been or known a 16-year-old realizes that t is almost impossible for one to admit a shallow lack of wisdom and experience in anything, so I can understand the Bieb’s need to blame a god. Perhaps as the Bieb grows up and his knowledge matures he will experience the Adult Onset of Atheism. Until then we should look to find the measure of his sage wisdom in other quotes from him like:

“Mine, mine baby, baby, baby, oh like baby, baby, baby, no like baby, baby, baby, oh” – Justin Bieber from his song “Baby”

The real gem worth saving in these three concepts is seen shining in what religions do so well: psychological manipulation. This essence is captured well in the following quote from the theist psychologist Mira Kirshenbaum’s book titled “Everything Happens for a Reason”:

“I want to reassure you: When you discover the true meaning of the events in your life, everything changes.
You feel stronger because your sense that everything has meaning gives you great confidence.
You feel wiser because you see how everything connects.
You're more in touch with who you are because you know that you're living the life you were meant to lead.
And you're happier because you're able to put your loss behind you and have a sense of a future filled with good things.
Until you get to this place, nothing is going to feel right.”

-- Everything Happens for a Reason: Finding the True Meaning of the Events in Our Lives By Mira Kirshenbaum

Proper use of these three concepts purportedly leads to: assurance, strength, wisdom, self-knowledge, and the big one –happiness-. These goals are quite worthwhile, but how do we extricate god from the path to using these three concepts in achieving them? Will removing god make the attainment of these five goals easier and more complete? I think so.

If the human mind were able to float free of its frame of reference many maladies of the psyche would not exist. We know that in physics all measurements are tied to the frame of reference in which they are made; psychologically all reality is tied to the perspective in which it is formed. In physics the special theory of relativity gives insight into ways in which measurements from different frames of reference relate. Psychologically we have the ability to change our perspective and affect the way we relate to everything we have ever observed.

"I believe that everything happens for a reason. People change so that you can learn to let go, things go wrong so that you appreciate them when they're right, you believe lies so you eventually learn to trust no one but yourself, and sometimes good things fall apart so better things can fall together." — Marilyn Monroe

Time teaches everyone that the impact of events is not eroded by insisting that the event has no impact. Channeling the impact of the event allows the event to be assimilated in a potentially constructive way. Seeing life-altering events as lessons and opportunities allows one to live with an event rather that live on in spite of an event.

I am discussing these things in general terms. There is a popular and annoying over-generalization that is often encountered here. The idea that one can shape the reaction to an event suggests that attitude governs the impact an event has. If we go further down this rabbit hole it appears as if attitude is a choice and so the outcome of an event is happiness if we choose it to be. This leads to conclusions that generate irritatingly ignorant statements of the form: “you experienced a (insert horrible life changing tragedy) and you will see that it is the best thing that ever happened to you”.

The truth is that I have most often heard variations of this fantasy sentiment uttered by Santa-bellied white men in grease-collared suits who append it with: “if you find jesus in your heart”. I prefer to picture the speaker as a woman whose smile and clear eyes each vie with the noonday sun for title of brightest object in the galaxy; the same sun mocks her attempt at modesty with each breath of her filmy cotton garment. I’m sure she thinks more of the Bieb’s 18th birthday than my 50th. Darn you to Heck Justin Bieber!

"The real lover is the man who can thrill you by kissing your forehead or smiling into your eyes or just staring into space." — Marilyn Monroe

The reason why the three concepts are so useful is that they imply looking outside of one’s own malleable perspective for clues in redirecting response to life events. The reason this leads to a god requirement in many people’s minds is that any imposed order on an outside world requires an imposer. The reason many atheists that I know discount the three concepts is that the forces that impose order on the universe do so in such a general way that such order is way too ephemeral for most practical psychological uses.

The thing about order is that we really don’t pay too much attention to it. If you believe that there is a god which imposes order you don’t have a clue as to what most of god’s plan is. However you look at it the best you can say is that there are similar patterns you have come to rely on. As humans we are very good at seeing patterns even when they are hardly there at all. The more philosophical see arrangements of self similar patterns existing at many levels of scale. The arrangement of self-similar patterns across multiple levels of scale is called a fractal. Most people call the arraignment of those patterns “normal”.

The searcher can find self-similar pattern everywhere. It is in self-similarity that the universe seems to store most of its complexity. Fractal patterns are beautiful whether they are seen, heard, or inhaled. Fractal patterns do not require the detailed manipulations of any god; they can be constructed using simple mathematics. You know fractals, and when you uncover a new scale in one there is a feeling of true joy.

For any particular pattern we have a field of view which fits into a larger “pattern of patterns” whose arrangement is similar to the patterns within our field of view. This description of the examination of a fractal landscape has three components: what one can see in the immediate region, what one can see looking as far as one can see, and a pattern that entire field of view fits into. I believe we can map the three concepts onto this fractal philosophical space. Reasons exist within a purpose that fits into a greater meaning. The concepts are a description of self-similarity across three levels of relative scale. 

Mutant-Gecko-Rat-Monkeys

There is a well worn bromide that goes something like this:

“Learn something new every day”

Sometimes it is generalized to:

“Never stop learning”

I have had other platitudes interpreted to me as containing the same advice. The snowclones often couple some folksy consequence to not following the advice.

“If you're not moving you're stuck”

“Once you're done ripening you start rotting”

As I get older I wonder what impact a friable memory has on the veracity of this advice. Plainly put: “does re-learning things count?”. If it does then I expect to be learning things at an ever increasing pace for the next several decades; should I live long enough.

Re-learning information is usually quite pleasant. I have not mastered the ability to forget unpleasant information. This leaves mostly pleasant information to re-discover. This last week I re-discovered that a friend I had not seen in over a decade was both a source of lively conversation and enjoyable company.

There are some things that I re-learn which are not hidden, but do not co-exist well with mundane activity. Strong -almost physiological- irrational reactions fall into this category. When I experience something irrationally thrilling the memory of the feeling fades from the mind. I like to say that I 'come down' from the experience.

Now...I am easily thrilled. There are some things that have a predictable effect on my brain. There are some thrilling phenomena which I catch my mind attempting to recreate in fantastical detail quite often. The shuffled memory bits don't really capture the essence of the thrill, but sorting them is an attractive hobby.

I am easy in more ways than the simplicity inherent in understanding the bulk processes in my brain. There are predictable and often utilized ways of providing myself with heart-stopping thrills; for instance I experience vertigo quite easily.  Get me to peer over the edge of a cliff, or off the top of a tall building, and the world loses many of its more stable physical properties. Length, height, distance, and gravity start to oscillate. Time becomes notional. My heart races and my guts develop a thick coating of foam rubber.

I have been told that vertigo is a psychological malady. I 'suffer' from some defect in the 'wiring' of my brain.

I often seek out tall edgy places to trigger the vertigo sensation. I abuse my own psychological defect for thrills.

I stayed in a couple of hotels this past week. In the last one my room was on the 19th floor. The outer wall was all glass. The view would have been impressive almost anywhere but Tyson's Corner Virginia. The entire town is decorated in post-apocalyptic roadkill deco. There must be some set of city covenants detailing the amount of bare mud and exposed re-bar everyone's lawns must have.

Still, if I pressed my face against the window, I could see straight down the two-hundredish feet to the ground. When I came back to the room during breaks in the scientific meeting I would walk over to the window and look down till I could not stand it anymore. When I woke up at night to pee I would walk to the window on my way back to bed and stare down at the lights. I was abusing the vertigo several times a day; sometimes several times an hour. Whenever I left the room I would immediately begin imagining the sensations I would experience when I returned. Slowly I would lose purchase on the thrill.  The immediacy of the feelings would fade; then the intensity would follow.  When I was headed back to the hotel after venturing out I would become giddy at the thought of staring out the window again.




I may have secretly wondered when the more psychedelic hallucinations would begin.

The sides of the hotel were featureless walls of glass. It was impossible to imagine a fingernail hold anywhere in the two-hundred-and-fiftyish feet of smooth reflective surface. So I was a little surprised when, as the sun set on my first day in the room, I heard scratching noises coming from outside the window. I successfully imagined several creatures that could be scaling the hotel; the names of each fantastical creature began with the word 'mutant'.

The mutant gecko rat monkeys were some of my favorites.

Sometimes learning new information erases old information. When I looked at the hotel from the outside I realized that the large glowing red sign attached to the outside of the hotel was probably hanging at the level of the 19th floor. I could just see an edge of it from my window wall. At dawn and dusk starlings would return to their roosts in the sign and scuffle against the window while vying for a landing place.

Starlings had never been as cool, and I've forgotten much of the identifying characteristics of the mutant gecko rat monkey. It is possible that I may re-learn them; I'm re-learning a bunch of stuff these days.

Even Without Dinosaurs

The familial relationship between the great blue heron and the giant Pterodactyls of the Triassic period might be best described as a stuttering semi-transparent weed-choked track that weaves in and out of the available fossil record, but every time I see one of these birds gliding in for a landing images of the extinct winged monster begin thrashing about in my mind. I believe I have stitched together the pterodactyl images from the many glimpses of great blue that I have been lucky enough to experience. The GBH in flight is such a singularly amazing sight that I am not sure that associating it with reincarnated flying fossils adds significantly to its impact, but I suspect it does because everything is made more awesome by relating it to dinosaurs (especially giant winged dinosaurs).

I doubt that anyone who reads this blog would pause at the the use of words like “awesome” and “amazing” being used in describing the GBH. Some of you might subconsciously begin ranking birds in terms of awesomeness. I'm sure at least one of you is thinking “aye the GBH is a mighty bird, but she is no Harpie Eagle!” It might be difficult to measure the worth of comparing birds on the basis of their awesomeness, but any time spent discussing awesomeness is not time wasted. There are people who would dismiss the idea of an awesome moment observing a bird because, despite anything going on in the mind of the observer, a bird can be nothing more than “just a bird”. I imagine such people are too busy complaining about why a particular boy wonderstar did not sweep the Gramys last week to bother with reading this blog entry.

I am writing this entry perched on a giant rock overhanging the Potomac river. The constant movements of wildlife past my perch make up for the slightly uncomfortable seating arrangement I have subjected myself to.

Impossibly patterned wood ducks bob past on the olive-drab current. I try to count the seconds they remain submerged when they dive, but get too distracted by the teasing warmth of the sun to be confident of my timekeeping, My foot begins to fall asleep so I shift into a more reclined position.

On the island across from me I hear the crashings of a large beast through the leaves. I imagine it is a white-tailed deer (I've seen several of them today). The brown deer against the brown pre-spring carpet of leaves could be invisible in plain sight. My butt is getting cold against the rock so I shift to a more kneeling position.

Despite the fact that I am less than a dozen miles from downtown Washington DC I am almost alone. If I was farther than twenty feet from the trail I'm sure I would see far fewer than the couple-of-people-an-hour I'm seeing now. I wonder why it is not packed with hikers and general walking-about-looking-at-things people. The afternoon here promises to be lazy, and I would stay to observe the accuracy of my prediction if I did not have to catch a plane.



I like looking into the eyes of the few people I pass here. They do not typically look away to avert their gaze. I imagine they are out here to look at just about anything with those eyes. I believe they will have little use for the word “just” when describing what they see today.



Some of the eyes look lonely. I've come to believe that there is too much loneliness in the world of people today. Why would someone carrying about a set of searching lonely eyes come to a place where the sights are so insistent they obviate the need for searching, and a place where there are so few people?

Last night a very old wise person said to me: “Isolation is not necessarily the best solution to loneliness”.

Two flocks of honking geese have just flown over. I am glad for this time alone. I've spent too long with my leg jammed against a rock that it has started demanding my attention by poking me with needles and pins.

I can't help thinking that if these few hours are not the best solution to everything psychological that the best solutions must be really awesome; even without dinosaurs.