The Mandelbrot Set - Proof of a Higher Intelligence?

Are the amazing intricacies and beauty of the Mandelbrot set evidence of a higher intelligence?






BTW - for the uninitiated, the most amazing thing about the Mandelbrot set is that it was discovered, not created, by a man named Benoit Mandelbrot. i.e. it has always been there (in Plato's mathematical world), but only in the last 30 or so years have humans been able to view due to inventing computers.

Just to give a very brief outline of how it works:
The 'plane' or 'surface' on which the diagrams are drawn is like a 2-dimensional grid, with each point representing a number, but a number with two parts (like (x,y) co-ordinates) - named complex numbers.
A very simple function is given (e.g. x^2 + c).
What the computer does is takes each point (number) of this plane in turn and plugs it into this formula. Then it takes the result and plugs that into the formula. This happens a certain number of times, and what happens is that after this, the end result will be a certain 'distance' away from the starting number (the end result will be another point on the plane).
Generally, what happens is that the end result either stays close to the starting number, or it shoots off.
If it stays close, then the original number is colored one color on the diagram. If it shoots off, it's colored another.

Now you may think that a fairly mundane pattern would emerge - a square maybe, or just randomly colored dots.
When Mandelbrot first tried this on a computer, he had little idea what to expect, and thought his computer had gone haywire when it produced the result it did!

The result is called a "fractal", generally something that displays the same level of intricacy and complexity no matter how far you 'zoom in'.

The basic contention is that neither Mandelbrot nor anyone else 'created' the Mandelbrot set - they discovered it.

Basically, the Mandelbrot set is far more beautiful and intricate than anything existing in the natural world (where nothing exhibits the infinite complexity) or that man can create.

For more info, please visit this link: Link1

For a very good Java applet that lets you create and explore the Mandelbrot set: Applet

BTW, you may ask what this has to do with conspiracies in religion?
Just this - before the invention of computers, it would have been pretty much impossible for anyone to come across fractals.

[edit on 10-5-2008 by Le Protege]

[edit on 10-5-2008 by Le Protege]

I remember learning about this in Math Survey course back in school. Part of the instruction included a video called "The Thumb Print of God" or something like that.

It's been a while, but I seem to remember one of the points of the video was that the Mandelbrot Set could be used as a Chaos "forecaster/predictor" kind of thing. I didn't really understand it then, and I don't now. But if such a thing is true, it seems like it could be a pretty good argument for an underlying order to the universe in spite of entropy.

Or maybe not.

Just this - before the invention of computers, it would have been pretty much impossible for anyone to come across fractals.

And yet the concept underlying the evidence that fractals seem to provide was not only well-known to thinkers and mystics many centuries, perhaps millenia, ago, but was actually the basis of their outlook on the world.

Visual evidence is not the only "evidence" there is.
And people do not - well... DID not - need computers to unravel the mystery underlying the (para)physical unity of the world.

Mandelbrot actually used the equations discovered by a (french) mathematician from the 18th or 16th century... (I can't remember atm) I will try and find the video that explained it and I will post it.

Here is a thread that you might enjoy:

Fractal Patterns in African Villages

and an old one:

Genesis of Fractals

Originally posted by PuRe EnErGy
Mandelbrot actually used the equations discovered by a (french) mathematician from the 18th or 16th century... (I can't remember atm) I will try and find the video that explained it and I will post it.

You probably mean Leibniz.
(He was German, not French, although he did write in French, too.)

Originally posted by Vanitas

Originally posted by PuRe EnErGy
Mandelbrot actually used the equations discovered by a (french) mathematician from the 18th or 16th century... (I can't remember atm) I will try and find the video that explained it and I will post it.

You probably mean Leibniz.
(He was German, not French, although he did write in French, too.)

I believe that is correct, the name sounds familiar lol

For some GREAT reason I never saved the video so I'm going to have to browse thru my history to try and find it.. ARG!

reply to post by PuRe EnErGy


Before you go on your googling hunt, try the links in my earlier post: they may very well lead to the video you're looking for.





[edit on 10-5-2008 by Vanitas]

Originally posted by Vanitas
reply to post by PuRe EnErGy

 

Before you go on your googling hunt, try the links in my earlier post: they may very well lead to the video you're looking for.

Ah Hah! and Ta-Da!

Unfortunately the Google Video button is NOT working correctly so I will just post the link...

video.google.com...

I have will have alert the MODS about the Google Video Problem.

Ah Hah! and Ta-Da!

Unfortunately the Google Video button is NOT working correctly so I will just post the link...

Thanks!

And I wish more people were interested in fractal-threads...




[edit on 11-5-2008 by Vanitas]

reply to post by Vanitas


Well Im interested But I dont know what to say. I have been studying fractals for a long time. I have a B.S. degree in mathematics. I wrote a fast mandelbrot set generator in assembly language.
I've always thought that mathematical concepts pre-exist anything. I've always felt that Platonic idealism was somewhat correct.

I've always felt that Platonic idealism was somewhat correct.

So do I, totally.

And just keeping this thread alive - by posting, if only occasionally - is enough, I suppose...

Personally, I find such threads important because people tend to get carried away by all kinds of things - and ignore the very visual (and very beautiful) evidence of a higher order that fractals and such provide.










[edit on 11-5-2008 by Vanitas]