A fractal is defined as a natural phenomenon or a mathematical set that exhibits a never-ending pattern. Fractals are infinitely complex patterns that are self-similar across different scales. They are created by repeating a simple process over and over in an ongoing feedback loop. Driven by recursion, fractals are images of dynamic systems -- the pictures of chaos and order. Geometrically, they exist in between our familiar dimensions. Fractal patterns are extremely familiar, since nature is full of fractals. For instance: trees, rivers, coastlines, mountains, clouds, seashells, hurricanes, and even Romanesco broccoli.
That may be why, for instance, we tend to gaze out the window to refresh ourselves when we're tired or having trouble focusing. Or why patients recover more quickly when their hospital room has a natural view, and why art that takes nature as its subject helps lower anxiety and stress levels. In a widely read study published in 1984, researchers examined the medical records of patients recovering from a type of gallbladder surgery in a hospital located in a Pennsylvania suburb. They found, after controlling for other influences, that patients in rooms with a window overlooking leafy trees recovered on average one day faster, suffered from fewer post-surgical complications, and took less pain medication than patients whose window opened up on a brick wall.
In the mid-1980s, Harvard Medical School cardiologist Ary Goldberger discovered that the fluctuations in our heart rates that occur over the course of seconds correlate statistically to those that occur over minutes and hours. In other words, our heartbeats are fractal -- and the more fractal they are, the healthier. Being fractal is a way for a system to be in touch with itself, talking to itself, but not locked in. You can't exist if you're fixed at one frequency, but if you're all over the place, that also doesn't work. It's a compromise.
Something similar is true of the brain. In patients with schizophrenia or depression, the brain's electrical activity (as measured by electroencephalograms or EEGs) is often too complex; in subjects with epilepsy, it's not complex enough. In the brain, as in the heart, "just right" means just fractal enough to walk the line between chaos and order. It is known that EEGs, signals correlated with conscious awareness -- like Goldberger's heartbeats -- exhibit fractal dynamics. The brain is a self-organizing system which displays self-similarities at different spatial and temporal scales. If the brain is fractal, could it be that our consciousness itself has a fractal character?
That may be why, for instance, we tend to gaze out the window to refresh ourselves when we're tired or having trouble focusing. Or why patients recover more quickly when their hospital room has a natural view, and why art that takes nature as its subject helps lower anxiety and stress levels. In a widely read study published in 1984, researchers examined the medical records of patients recovering from a type of gallbladder surgery in a hospital located in a Pennsylvania suburb. They found, after controlling for other influences, that patients in rooms with a window overlooking leafy trees recovered on average one day faster, suffered from fewer post-surgical complications, and took less pain medication than patients whose window opened up on a brick wall.
In the mid-1980s, Harvard Medical School cardiologist Ary Goldberger discovered that the fluctuations in our heart rates that occur over the course of seconds correlate statistically to those that occur over minutes and hours. In other words, our heartbeats are fractal -- and the more fractal they are, the healthier. Being fractal is a way for a system to be in touch with itself, talking to itself, but not locked in. You can't exist if you're fixed at one frequency, but if you're all over the place, that also doesn't work. It's a compromise.
Something similar is true of the brain. In patients with schizophrenia or depression, the brain's electrical activity (as measured by electroencephalograms or EEGs) is often too complex; in subjects with epilepsy, it's not complex enough. In the brain, as in the heart, "just right" means just fractal enough to walk the line between chaos and order. It is known that EEGs, signals correlated with conscious awareness -- like Goldberger's heartbeats -- exhibit fractal dynamics. The brain is a self-organizing system which displays self-similarities at different spatial and temporal scales. If the brain is fractal, could it be that our consciousness itself has a fractal character?
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