Welcome to Fractal Forums

So I joined this forum partly because I am newly interested in this and would like to know more, and also partly because I want to conversate about your opinions on how this is integrated into reality. Like the Holographic Universe or Quantum Field. P.s. I've never wrote in a forum before...Ever....

errr ummm is this only about programming?

hello and welcome to the forums, we discuss all kind of stuff here, i moved your post to the philosophical part, i hope it is right ...

Hello and wecome to the forums.
No, it isn't - it is also about art.  :dink:
Philosophy is neglected here imo. The few discussions, I followed, were one dimensional and dominated by the deterministic component. Even among fractalers sience-believers of the newtonian style seem to be the majority. I am one of the minority and also interrested in philosophical implications of fractal geometry and the real world analogon non linear dynamics. So I'm looking forward to some maybe interresting discussion...

Hi and Welcome to the forums.

I am a bit of a Mystic and an Old Hippy to boot   O0 , but I never much went in for the whole "Our Universe Is A Fractal" idea.

I feel that Infinity is a Mathematical Construct with absolutely No corollary in the Real World.  I believe that everything is finite.  There is a smallest particle, and a real boundary to the Universe.

Math makes great use of Infinity - especially in fractals - but it's all Intellectual Gymnastics.  It has nothing at all to do with reality.

Sure, many things in the Universe use Fractal Geometry and look like fractals, but they are finite and merely approximate fractals.  They are not actually fractals  (but some sure put on a good illusion of being so!).

Is that the sort of Philosophy you mean?

If so, I am full of such nonsense   :jabbering: :stickingouttongue:

From this point of view all visual stuff here on ff is not fractal. It's all only a finite approximation. So noone ever saw a fractal, as the infinity, used to create fractals is theoretical with no computable corollary in finite math.
Sorry, but this is the same dull stuff like those "Our Universe Is A Fractal" Hypotheses. :ugly:

Agreed!

Infinity is a practical impossibility.  It exists only abstractly in Math.

While possibilities are indeed infinite - the concept never leaves the realm of imagination.  What we see here is merely the finite approximation you mention.

We can never "see" a fractal because none exist in reality.  We can see many examples of iterative phenomena, fractal geometry, and other similar and familiar stuff - but I believe in the limits that physical existence imposes.

If that makes life dull, then life is dull.  I find it just makes me appreciate even more what we can see and do and create within our limits.

Hello World !

I am new also, my name is Francois.
I join your discussion, because I think the subject is really interesting.
Sure, fractal constructions make use of both mathematical concepts of infinity and continuity. But from time to time, they show "as if" some metaphysical message was encrypted inside : landscapes, buildings, machines seem to pop up out of a chaotic maze. Right ? Truth or trick ?

Well... at first it is not the first time mathematical tools based on concepts of infinity and continuity are relevant to describe the real world. It began with Newton and Leibniz, and propelled Physics to become a major science. But since Zenon and Epicure in antiquity, humans know that using the concepts of infinity and continuity may be tricky. So the discussion went back on the scene with Abel, Cantor, Hilbert... and Richard Feynmann who shown also that even Quantum Mechanics - that was supposed to get the Physics out of the trap of continuity - was more than ever dependent upon paradox generated by infinity (see "renormalization theory")...

By another way, fractals don't show so spontaneously "reallike" objects... At first they are nothing but clouds of points in pure geometrical spaces. Say that you *want* to see, let's say...  a building there for example. At first you add light, transform clouds into textured and coloured surface at a given scale, and then add perspective and optical laws. This is not quite different from what is done by a teacher at college, talking about the sphere. OK in R^3 the sphere is just defined by "r^2=1" That's all folks. But most of the time you give it a scale, a colour, and you light it. Even if you just have a pencil and a sheet of paper. Draw a sphere, and immediately children will say : "Oooooh ! This is the Moon".

OK, from an equation some people will build a representation and others will seek for interpretation in the real world. Of course the Moon is not a bowl, no more than Italy is a boot or Africa is an horse head. This tendency to seek interpretation in any shape is called pareidoly : given any shape, any people will seek an interpretation in it (it is even the basis for the famous Rorsach test).

On th eother sense, fractal description of the Universe seems to be of an analogic nature to any mathematical description of the Universe through Physics. Should there be any meaning there in these planets, landscapes that spontaneously emerge from chaos ?

Francois

Greetings, and welcome this particular forum !!!    :D

Yes, everything about fractals is really interesting.   :)
 

Fractals are a state of mind?
Any discussion of that aspect?