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Hero For Christ

Fractal Metaphysics Defined



The following is excerpted from

On The Underlying Nature of Heraclitus' "On Nature"

Copyright © Y.S.Y. Landsberg, 2003. All rights reserved. Reprinted by Permission.

On Fractal Metaphysics

A non-fractal philosophy is one whose parts (the various assumptions, intermediate statements and conclusions of the particular philosopher per his philosophy) ideally add up to a whole and integral logical system of thought. Such statements of each non-fractal philosophy are on the whole separate and distinct from each other, i.e., the whole of the philosophy cannot be totally deduced directly from any one of its statement parts. On the other hand a fractal philosophy, after the fashion of mathematical objects called fractals, would ideally be a whole and integrated philosophy such as a metaphysics, whose indivi-dual parts and parts of parts and parts of parts of parts... would each have a particular property of fractals. More specifically, each statement of the fractal philosophy would have a fractal property called "self-similarity."

Self-similarity is a simple concept to visualize. One example is the definition of a fractal called a Koch Curve whose iterative recursive construction from an initial state x through a number of successive generations of x becomes y (and y becomes the next x) to some final "enough is enough" realistic approximation of a final end-state y is as follows:

Philosophically speaking, we begin with some initial x called the initiator, in the case of the Koch Curve, a straight line of unit length.

Then we replace x with y, a new form of line whose middle third is two line-segments, each of which has the same 1/3 length as the original line-segments on each side. This new form, y, is called the generator because it specifies how to generate a next generation of the Koch Curve y from a previous generation, x.For each new straight line, x, the process of generating a next generation of y is repeated.

The Koch Curve is the fractal "curve" that emerges by recursively iterating the replacements of x's with y's.

It is my intent to construct, or more, accurately, re-construct, a fractal philosophy -- the "meta-physics" of a "meta-transform" which among other things transforms physical strife into resolution, a behavior of human life referred to by Heraclitus in "On Nature". If I am successful, the whole and one nature of my philosophy -- as it is a fractal one -- will be able to be logically intuited and recreated by observing any of its parts. And I am propos-ing as well that it may well turn out that this "fractal metaphysics" philosophy of mine also causes the very ancient, very logical principal principle of "On Nature" to again emerge.
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