Ron Eglash, Ethno-Mathmatician researches the mathematics behind the culture of ethnic groups. In this specific lecture, he talks about the fractal systems in African culture s and philosophy about life (of recursion and perpetuation). But what was really interesting was the last few sentences when he draws the connection between fractal systems in an African religious ritual and the invention of binary system... Obviously, the inspiration for the binary system was this specific ritual, which eventually lead to the von Newmann's Universal constructor. The conclusion is that it all started from Africa.
So, this fact has been facinated me for a while, and now I think about it, it is all about aspects of life that how things repeat and perpetuate. The idea of fractals and recursion used in the cultures are specifically pointing this out - and if the computation is the inspiration for that, it totally makes sense why it is there now.
I am not saying that now we should make computation as new religion or something, but at the same time, it is a big portion of daily life, culture, economics and even society. Although the format of that had been mutated so much from the beginning....
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Yea, I saw video last week, really interesting! I wonder if the african fractal system for the village inside of a village... and other fractals came about by a certain phylosophy that was used at all scales....
H mentioned the mathemitician 200 years ago that 1/3'rd a line, then 1/3rd it again, and again, applying the same exact process again and again, getting an infinite fractal.... Okay you do this to your town, then your family's houses, now to your fence, now to the wall of your house, now to the corn on your plate... If you apply a rule set to everything regardless of scale maybe you do get fractals by mistake, without even thinking about it. So now what?
i am thinking it is more about using a singular system in different context - the system should be robust and flexible enough to do that, but fun to imagine this kind of stuff.
dude. it's the perpetuation of life. :p
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