On Thursday, September 13, 2012 4:26:45 PM UTC-4, John Clark wrote: > > On Tue, Sep 11, 2012 at 5:20 PM, Craig Weinberg > <[email protected]<javascript:> > > wrote: > > > Statistically, shouldn't we see this simple 1K sequence frequently in >> nature? I mean precisely. Shouldn't there be hundreds of species of beetle >> that have patterns on their backs which are derived exclusively from the >> Mandelbot set. >> > > There's nothing special about the Mandelbrot Set, it's just the first > example found where huge complexity can be generated from very little. And > if you want to see what can be done with a 400 meg file just look in a > mirror, that's about the size of the human genome; you could burn the > entire thing onto a CD and still have room for 100 pop songs from iTunes. >
I was using Mandelbrot as an example because it's popular. From what I've seen online, the human genome is at least 700Mb, but yeah it's not a lot. You can look at what this means in at least two ways though: 1) Simple rules generate enormous complexity in the universe. or 2) Rules are just a tiny part of what the universe is about - it's what executes the rules that matters and experiences. The former is only true if the simple rules are applied to a medium which is inherently able to support rich pattern recognition, so I would say that it really is a view which tainted with reductionist ideology. Craig > John K Clark > > -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Everything List" group. To view this discussion on the web visit https://groups.google.com/d/msg/everything-list/-/yekxmLVmT9oJ. To post to this group, send email to [email protected]. To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [email protected]. For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en.
