Are fractals real or is it a part of how our minds work?

[jehovajah]

http://m.youtube.com/watch?v=8OvltlOA8XE
Any philosopher has to tackle the use of the word "time" . But many will ignore the Psychological basis to the discussion . Culturally to assert something is true is to challenge or assent to a cultural or social norm

[TheRedshiftRider]

I am not sure whether this is related but it might add something to the discussion.


Within several weeks I will start my study for analytical chemistry. One of the things I am going to learn is to correctly measure and observe things. I can of course start making measurements but that does not mean that the measurements are accurate enough to make up a correct conclusion out of the observations. I will learn how to analyse the measurements in such a way that they can be considered to be good enough.

I have seen that for my education I have to assume some generally accepted standards are right. And from there I have to start making my own conclusions. That way there actually are for everyone, two types of data:
The observations someone makes and the observations of others that are observed by that person.

In the case of fractals we could say that for instance the evolution of nature caused fractals to be there. Or it could be that our own observations different than we think they are. If they would be then we would not have to worry but observations are different of everyone. If there were no different observations we would not have this discussion!


This is just an observation. Feel free to correct me or add you own thoughts.

[rloldershaw]

The scientific evidence says they are real.

Take the general study of turbulence from which the term of self-similarity originated.
Virtually everyone who has studied turbulence has independently noted the many levels of self-similarity that are fundamental to this exceedingly common physical phenomenon.

You could say the fractal self-similarity is real, but how could you explain the fractal properties of turbulence as some kind of mental illusion?
I doubt that one could make a convincing, or even sensible, case for the latter.

RLO
http;//www3.amherst.edu/~rloldershaw

[jehovajah]

The question at the head of this thread is a labelling question.
Any dispute would be in defining what characteisics merit the given label. Most scientists are trained in visual characterisation, and indeed a fractal topology impies space.,but it is space to experience the 8 senses; the 8th sense is a sense of time. That is a sense of process sequence and stage duration.
It is the synaesthesia of all these sensory experiences that I learn to call reality, and that is totally subjective. Later I learn to perceive a part of my experiential continuum as objective. It helps if it stays fixed as I move relative to it.
The collection of these perceptions I learn to call inner and outer space, and because they are learned  labels I am subjectively unsure if I agree with the others who use the terms, but social interactions enable me to perceive a range of semantically similar applications .

As a subjective entity I learn to anchor perceptions against verbal and non verbal agreements with others but it is my acceptance of a fixed set of relations that transforms my experiential continuum into a rigid model of the continual flux of experiences. I learn to develop confidence and certainty as experiences of my model along with the perceptions of identity and independent individuality.
 I learn to protect this certainty by many internal referrents, these experiences are either fixed or dynamically stable like a movie loop for example or a song set on replay.

Later I apprehend the role this collective plays in developing my  identity, understanding, personality, intuition and social adjustment and acceptance. Around teenage years my brain is developmentally streamlined and in a process kin to lobotomy certain connections are lost others strengthened , all I know is maturity tends to establish a fixed model of my experiences which I have learned to call normal.

But I notice some have differing expressions beliefs personality systems etc and if I am lucky I learn to apprehend these differences as structural outcomes of the same model of development.

So now I apprehend that my reality is unique to me, the other reality is a convention I adopt first from my parents and family, then peers and schools and eventually from a larger collective labelled as society. .
I learn if I meditate that the "I" is not constant and so every day it must refresh itself , but if I refuse to acknowledge these refreshes I become stuck in a mind warp. In that case I believe certain things are objective and independent of a me that is subjective and I therefore have to decide if I have created the objective world or if it has created me!

But if I do not get stuck like this I can accept that a process has resulted in an experiential continuum such as I have described which is influx and can be expressed in any way it chooses to accept a perception collection as fixed.
Thus an experience of the cyclicity and spirality in perceptions underpins the apprehension of "almost similarity.". For me this is the heart of fractal topology a perception not of self similarity or evn similarity, duality trilingual etc but of almost similarity.

The question about labelling is in my opinion counter productive if it has a fixed answer! But very productive if it stimulates thought meditation and growth in awareness .


These considerations are not necessarily my own. Classical Philosophy has pondered these things from of old . The challenge is not to forget or ignore these deliberations of the enquiring mind for the latest technological innovation or the next scientific advance!