spiritual strange attractors...
And I kind of lose my mind about her mirrorshades.
And the strange attractors that surround her.
-- Mirroshades by Information Society
What is a strange attractor, you ask? Here's the Wolfram definition:
An attracting set that has zero measure in the embedding phase space and has fractal dimension. Trajectories within a strange attractor appear to skip around randomly.
In simpler terms, an attractor is basically the pattern that appears when you plot the points of certain equations. A strange attractor is one that seems to jump all over the place, almost randomly, with each point plotted, but after a while a definite pattern emerges.
Probably the most famous of these 'strange attractors' is the Lorenz Attractor (Lorenz, who first coined the term "butterfly effect").
Depending on the initial conditions (i.e. butterfly flapping it's wings in Tahiti), the resulting graph can vary widely (i.e. tornado in Kansas). The same set of equations can result in widely varying dynamic graphs.
I find that when various groups try to wrangle the divine God into a certain definition, all starting with different assumptions (initial conditions). They say "see, God is here and looks like this". Another groups says "no, you have it wrong, He is like this". And on and on throughout history. (similarly explained by G'Kar in the Babylon 5 episode "Citizen G'Kar" in the light/wall analogy.)
Truth be told, if such a God lives outside our spacetime plane of existence, we probably couldn't come up with a complete set of descriptors to fully explain such a divine being by our own limited symbology. We are left to trying to figure the divine the best we can, using what ancient texts and revelations are left to us.
We plod along plotting points onto our spiritual journeys. Each point appearing randomly in the graphs of our lives. Only after many points are plotted can we possibly glimpse the beautiful pattern emerging from the apparent chaos. Even though each of us may have differing initial conditions, we all have a definite resultant pattern, each pattern being completely correct. The thing we sometimes fail to realize is that all our patterns arise from a common set of equations. We become too engrossed in either the individual points or parts of the pattern we fail to see the glory of the whole. Then when we see the whole, sometime we ignore the equations that brought the patterns about in the first place... Not only should our goal be to find our patterns, but to discover those equations - therein will we find our spiritual commonality...
For you are bringing some strange things to our ears; so we want to know what these things mean.
-- Acts 17:20
(Thanks to goth4god and darkladyothsith for the thought-inspirations)
And the strange attractors that surround her.
-- Mirroshades by Information Society
What is a strange attractor, you ask? Here's the Wolfram definition:
An attracting set that has zero measure in the embedding phase space and has fractal dimension. Trajectories within a strange attractor appear to skip around randomly.
In simpler terms, an attractor is basically the pattern that appears when you plot the points of certain equations. A strange attractor is one that seems to jump all over the place, almost randomly, with each point plotted, but after a while a definite pattern emerges.
Probably the most famous of these 'strange attractors' is the Lorenz Attractor (Lorenz, who first coined the term "butterfly effect").
Depending on the initial conditions (i.e. butterfly flapping it's wings in Tahiti), the resulting graph can vary widely (i.e. tornado in Kansas). The same set of equations can result in widely varying dynamic graphs.
I find that when various groups try to wrangle the divine God into a certain definition, all starting with different assumptions (initial conditions). They say "see, God is here and looks like this". Another groups says "no, you have it wrong, He is like this". And on and on throughout history. (similarly explained by G'Kar in the Babylon 5 episode "Citizen G'Kar" in the light/wall analogy.)
Truth be told, if such a God lives outside our spacetime plane of existence, we probably couldn't come up with a complete set of descriptors to fully explain such a divine being by our own limited symbology. We are left to trying to figure the divine the best we can, using what ancient texts and revelations are left to us.
We plod along plotting points onto our spiritual journeys. Each point appearing randomly in the graphs of our lives. Only after many points are plotted can we possibly glimpse the beautiful pattern emerging from the apparent chaos. Even though each of us may have differing initial conditions, we all have a definite resultant pattern, each pattern being completely correct. The thing we sometimes fail to realize is that all our patterns arise from a common set of equations. We become too engrossed in either the individual points or parts of the pattern we fail to see the glory of the whole. Then when we see the whole, sometime we ignore the equations that brought the patterns about in the first place... Not only should our goal be to find our patterns, but to discover those equations - therein will we find our spiritual commonality...
For you are bringing some strange things to our ears; so we want to know what these things mean.
-- Acts 17:20
(Thanks to goth4god and darkladyothsith for the thought-inspirations)