a F-fractal-R-fractal-A-fractal-C-fractal-T-fractal-A-fractal-L world

We all trade and interact daily: some shop at grocery stores, some at a self-serve gas-station, others online and still others transact multi-million dollar deals over lunch or dinner. The money goes to banks which trade with each other within the country; cities trade with each other, as do states and nations.

We work at companies or at different institutions or are self-employed, but in our daily work lives, we jostle against each other, trying to be the best. The entities we work for (our companies, instructions or our-selves) jostle against each other, trying to be the best.

Within our bodies, the blood vessels split and split again as they nourish and sustain every single living cell in our body. Surprisingly, each set of branching looks like its "predecessor". The dendrites that facilitate the amazingly networked computer we refer to as our brain, split several times over in a pattern similar to the blood vessels.

These are just some instances of self-similarity from the countably infinite (could they be innumerably infinite??) examples that occur all around us. To me, this seems to vehemently suggest that there's a pattern underneath this all. I'm not implying the existence of God, but maybe a few "simple" "laws".

There is the second law of thermodynamics (paraphrased) "things tend to proceed in the direction of increasing entropy" or as Murphy stated it "Anything that can go wrong, will." But this isn't what I’m talking about. The 2nd law just makes a very detached, generic statement. It doesn't tell given a system how exactly it is going to evolve so that entropy increases, or even why. It just says things are going to hell (Ironically the final resting state of the universe would be when all mass/energy is uniformly distributed throughout so that everything will a uniform temperature fairly close to Absolute Zero Kelvin, quite unlike hell. Maybe that's what they mean by "when hell freezes over").

I'm more thinking about an explanation that tells given a system and its initial conditions (say, a tree of a particular kind with so many leaves and in this health with these environmental conditions) its state and that of the larger system it is part of (e.g. forest) at any time later would be determined by this "fractal" law. And I would love to use that on the stock/futures market :)

life and a sense of adventure

My last post "You have 0 friends" prompted a certain lovely lady to make the following remark... [quote]

ur 0 friends post shows that u have a really limited sense of adventure.just think of the adventure u r having fitting ur life, character, tastes and so on into those "neatly designed boxes" did u say?

the decidely (sic) odd qwerty keyboard also is a challenge. learn to find challenges in every thing...... u'll never find a place with out some. [/quote]

Firstly, let me express my honest gratitude for taking the time to comment on my post. It takes time, diligence and feeling, so thanks.

However, I would like to contest the allegation of "narrow sense of adventure”. What is adventure? I define it as pushing the limits of our existence... trying to determine where the bounds of lives are and how much can they be pushed, or better yet, breached. Would one still call that narrow? As narrow as the lady's suggestion of "finding a challenge in the decidedly odd qwerty keyboard"?

With all due respect, if someone "normal" thinks a QWERTY keyboard a serious challenge, they either have a very narrow view of their challenges, abilities or lives. It really isn't difficult at all to master the QWERTY keyboard. I'm not the most gifted or able, but I was able to self-tutor when I was 16, in a little more than a week. I've known of friends who did it just as fast, some faster.

What do I consider adventurous? Jumping off a plane, hang-gliding, standing inches away from the edge of a cliff and looking down when you know that you suffer from vertigo. "Ya right. Have you done any of those??" err... I have! And I must say, I've never felt better or more at peace with myself. Will I ever do these again? I'm looking forward to it...




"Learn to find challenges in everything you do...." sounds more like advice to an incarcerated inmate, who is coerced to make do with his / her restricted freedom. I on the other hand am free and capable to aspire to maintain that freedom. I find it a shame to willfully imprison myself within intangible, irrational bounds. I wonder if others feel the same way. If they don't, they are free to do as they please. It's their adventure!