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The purpose of fractal-recognition?

TheAppleCore

TheAppleCore

Bluelighter
Joined
Jul 14, 2007
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5,510
The other day, while watching spiraling fractal patterns emerge from the forms of tree branches, tripping on 25I-NBOMe, it suddenly occurred to me that this isn't something that only happens on psychedelic drugs. Serotonergics are just simple catalysts, agonists for receptors in your brain that already exist -- receptors that are constantly being activated by your own endogenous serotonin. Scanning our visual field for fractal geometry is something that our sober brains always do, it's just that psychedelics bring it to the conscious attention.

So, assuming that this is true (which seems like a reasonable assumption), why have we evolved to identify fractals in our environment? Fractal geometry must be a defining characteristic of some important structures, either natural or man-made. In other words, fractal-recognition must have been, during our evolution, a signal that alerted us to the presence of some particular important thing. But what is that thing?

I don't think men have been able to construct their own, artificial fractals until the age of computer rendering. Whereas, we know that fractals have existed in nature for hundreds of millions of years. A classic example is the geometry of the fern frond:

671px-Barnsley_Fern_fractals_-_4_states.PNG


So I can only conclude that we evolved fractal-recognition in order to identify the geometric patterns of nature. I'm not quite sure why this would help us, though. Surely a human being could easily conclude that he is in the presence of ferns without deciphering their fractal geometry? Maybe the geometric patterns are just a very quick, near-instantaneous way of identifying one's natural surroundings -- especially important if one is running quickly through the jungle in the escape from of a saber tooth tiger, or the chase of a meal on four legs.

Any ideas?
 
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Maybe we scan and recognize fractals because we have always been around them and have co-evolved with them. We recognize them because they are all around us and have always been. I like where you are going with your theory too. Just my 2 cents.

Very interesting thread. Fractals are incredible and super trippy. I have always felt that we live in a sort of fractal. I think it is no coincidence that the largest, the universe, and smallest areas, quantum, of science are where man is unable to give complete scientific explanation.
 
I like your train of thought about fractals cuing environmental identification. Perhaps it could have developed to differentiate between different regions of terrain before language developed? Human design is extremely easy to differentiate from nature, and pattern recognition could help identify if terrain is natural, or of man-made origin.
 
^ Good point. I had forgotten about the incidental phenotypes. What are those called again? GRR, now I'm going to go nuts trying to remember the official nomenclature.
 
^ Heh. Looking up the definition of "spandrel" in the dictionary, it is indeed a fitting word for this application. I like it.
 
I think it's not that we become more able to recognize fractals where we see them, we also seem fractals when they aren't there and my belief is that this is because of the way neural circuits are wired, how LSD activates them including positive feedback effects creating repetitive patterns in signal transduction which can be experienced conceptually but best of all when visual information is processed.

The reason we see a lot of other fractals in nature is because the underlying operations are the same: a combination of infinite recursive patterns and feedback loops and wiring of circuits through different levels of biological machinery.
 
^This. Think not 'purpose' but rather 'byproduct'. Edgefinding and chaotic recursive feedback loops provide all the necessary explanation :)
 
I think we see fractals because of our eyes and spatial recognition. I think its how our eyes and brains map out the world. I think our eyes are constantly drawing lines and connecting the dots, measuring the distance between points. Its how you can recognize someones face as soon as you look at it.
 
Yer I think we notice it just cos its there we recoginize paterns we perseve as it can lead to being able to predict what will happen in simlar systems
 
I think its an even more general issue: people are great at recognizing patterns of all kinds, not just fractals -- we even tend to perceive patterns where there are none. When presented with a truly random distribution of black and white dots (generated by running a random binary algorithm at each pixel of a screen), people will tend to perceive the natural grouping inherent to any random system as a pattern -- that's just how our brains work. Its this same tendency to perceive patterns in random systems that gives rise to conspiracy theories and other forms of systematically fallacious thinking.

Pattern recognition is a functional consequence of two partially related neural processes: (1) facial recognition, and (2) the ability to keep track of the complex web of interrelationships between members of a social group (which can get staggeringly large, growing proportionately to the factorial of the total number of group members -- for a group of 50 people, that's on the order of 10^64). So people need to be extremely adept at recognizing patterns complex patterns, because our social ability (and therefore our survival) depended on it at one point in time.

Music, written language, mathematics, etc are phenomena that emerge directly from our hyper-developed ability to recognize patterns.
 
IMO, the fractals are a visual manifestation of the interconnectedness of our universe. Maybe these fractals are always there creating a massive web that connects all things physical and metaphysical. In our heightened states of awareness we can see and even feel these connections. Maybe that's why many people report a feeling of unity with their environment. The fractals we see are our brains attempt of making the metaphysical physical
 
ModernDayHippie said:
IMO, the fractals are a visual manifestation of the interconnectedness of our universe. Maybe these fractals are always there creating a massive web that connects all things physical and metaphysical. In our heightened states of awareness we can see and even feel these connections. Maybe that's why many people report a feeling of unity with their environment. The fractals we see are our brains attempt of making the metaphysical physical
Click to expand...

That is really far out there. I never understood this interconnectedness some people speak of. It just seems irrational.
 
jecra said:
That is really far out there. I never understood this interconnectedness some people speak of. It just seems irrational.
Click to expand...

I used to think the same thing, until a breakthrough DMT experience. I was taken behind the scenes of the universe and saw how everything worked. And all things were connected by a normally invisible energy field. It's a long story and hard to explain, but hopefully that provides the just of it.
 
I have been refining a bit of a 'personal' theory pretty much every time i've tripped. It has not much to do with the purpose of fractal recognition itself but it definitely touches the subject.

^modern day hippie, you speak of this 'normally invisible energy field.' I believe it is actually a complex signature of electromagnetic energy that has yet to be researched very much by modern science.

I had been developing this theory for months after having an ecstatic, life changing ++++ on 30 mg of 4-aco-dmt on the beach. I looked into information on the electromagnetic spectrum and stuff and kept trying to put together the pieces. Each time I would trip I would come up with a new aspect of this theory. Until recently I just stumbled upon this website http://www.universal-tao.com/dark_room/enlightenment.html

I assure you I am not being paid to advertise this, I only posted that link because I had been accumulating this theory for seriously months but then came across this and realized IT'S FUCKING SPOT ON!!!!!!

AND on top of that, while it's very spiritual, it's the most scientifically sound explanation i've come across so far! The only part that I question particularly is the cosmic particles that 'have the same cell structures as humans.'

but I do very much believe that DMT acts as a neurotransmitter that dramatically alters the sensory input we can receive from certain parts of the electromagnetic spectrum. All these overwhelming vibrations are interpreted by our subconscious mind and turned into very basic information which then our subconscious tries to apply to all different aspects of your reality.

When exogenous Serotonin agonists(such as LSD) saturate Serotonin receptors, homogeneous DMT acts as a neurotransmitter and interacts with your LSD/psilocybin/mescaline/RC filled mind and allows more areas of the brain to interact with each other easier by allowing ideas and stuff to pass through the pineal gland(and perhaps even the visual cortex) rather than just the hypothalamus.

I have very limited knowledge of neurochemistry and biology so if you feel the need to shoot down some part of this theory go right ahead!
 
SONN said:
I have been refining a bit of a 'personal' theory pretty much every time i've tripped. It has not much to do with the purpose of fractal recognition itself but it definitely touches the subject.

^modern day hippie, you speak of this 'normally invisible energy field.' I believe it is actually a complex signature of electromagnetic energy that has yet to be researched very much by modern science.

I had been developing this theory for months after having an ecstatic, life changing ++++ on 30 mg of 4-aco-dmt on the beach. I looked into information on the electromagnetic spectrum and stuff and kept trying to put together the pieces. Each time I would trip I would come up with a new aspect of this theory. Until recently I just stumbled upon this website http://www.universal-tao.com/dark_room/enlightenment.html

I assure you I am not being paid to advertise this, I only posted that link because I had been accumulating this theory for seriously months but then came across this and realized IT'S FUCKING SPOT ON!!!!!!

AND on top of that, while it's very spiritual, it's the most scientifically sound explanation i've come across so far! The only part that I question particularly is the cosmic particles that 'have the same cell structures as humans.'

but I do very much believe that DMT acts as a neurotransmitter that dramatically alters the sensory input we can receive from certain parts of the electromagnetic spectrum. All these overwhelming vibrations are interpreted by our subconscious mind and turned into very basic information which then our subconscious tries to apply to all different aspects of your reality.

When exogenous Serotonin agonists(such as LSD) saturate Serotonin receptors, homogeneous DMT acts as a neurotransmitter and interacts with your LSD/psilocybin/mescaline/RC filled mind and allows more areas of the brain to interact with each other easier by allowing ideas and stuff to pass through the pineal gland(and perhaps even the visual cortex) rather than just the hypothalamus.

I have very limited knowledge of neurochemistry and biology so if you feel the need to shoot down some part of this theory go right ahead!
Click to expand...

Holy shit SONN no one else has ever understood what I was talking about. At least on the level you do. I think we're on to something here. It's cool to know someone else shares my theory. I don't think we'll be able to prove anything for a very long time lol, but I'm sure we're on to something
 
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