|
Fractal of the Day
by Jim Muth
|
|
Fractal visionaries and enthusiasts: The fractal part of today's FOTD is brief. All my energy went into the philosophical part which appears in the philofractal version of this discussion. Today's image combines Z^(0.065) with Z^2 and adds C. Since I did almost no extra work on the image, I gave it neither a name nor a rating. The render time of 6 minutes is a bit slow, but the already-rendered GIF image may be picked up from the FOTD web site at: When I stopped writing my philosophy yesterday, I had reached a point where things looked bleak indeed. One might say that things looked so bad that they couldn't possibly get worse. But don't be too sure of that. We have not yet touched the topic of life after death. Before the age of scientific enlightenment, when the church served as the dispenser of knowledge, people lived a life that by our present-day standards would be considered unbearable. But they were not quite as miserable as one might suppose, for they had hope. At that time, most people took the church's doctrine of life after death as an established fact. Their earthly lives were primitive by our standards, but they endured their earthly miseries by looking forward to the unimaginable happiness that the church told them they would find in heaven if they followed the rules of behavior set down by the church. Then came the scientific enlightenment. It began as an investigation of God's activity in the material world, with full faith in the existence of God. But as time went on, men began to notice that the causes of physical processes were turning out to be other physical processes. They realized that nothing beyond the physical universe is needed to explain the things we observe in the world around us. The idea of a God who intervenes in the physical world slowly became less necessary, until the idea was entirely dropped from the scientific method. It began to look like God might have started the universe going, but if so, he had long ago gone elsewhere and left it running on automatic. And what of the one remaining hope -- the hope of a happy life to come in a spirit world after death? The news for believers was no better. It was not long before men using the scientific method discovered that man's internal subjective mental processes were connected to the functioning of the physical brain. The source of self-awareness remained elusive but it was demonstrated that damage to the brain results in a corresponding change in the subjective world and behavior of the one whose brain is damaged. Since it can be demonstrated that the brain affects consciousness, it was most logical to assume that the brain also creates consciousness. Nothing else exists that might do it. From the scientific viewpoint, the answer to the question of life after death was and still is a resounding NO. Self-awareness without a healthy brain is as absurd as a smile without a face. So we find ourselves in a situation exactly opposite that of our distant ancestors. Our ancestors had few worldly material goods but a wealth of spiritual riches to look forward to. We have a material abundance but only a bleak spiritual nothingness to anticipate. The rich spiritual outlook of our ancestors led to our present day world of material comfort. What will the empty spiritual outlook of today lead to? Some people try to fill the gap left by the loss of spirit by substituting the incredible richness of the natural physical world. They are sincere but mistaken. Standing in awe of the physical universe is no substitute for true spiritual peace. Those who might disagree should try to comfort a woman who has just lost her beloved husband by telling her how vast the universe is or how complex the world of atoms is. We find ourselves spiritual paupers in a world of technological plenty, a race that has developed the means to destroy itself and lost the spiritual reasons that could prevent it from doing so. How long can the inevitable armageddon be held at bay? Will it come in our lifetimes? The lifetimes of our children? We have at last reached the abyss. We find ourselves a meaningless colony of ants doing meaningless things while floating on an insignificant pebble in the middle of an unimaginably vast impersonal ocean of space, with almost no hope of survival and no caring super-being to rescue us. You really don't think I'm going to leave us here, now do you? I have apparently eliminated all hope. But the story is not yet ended, so stay tuned for further developments in the days to come. The absolutely perfect weather continued on Monday here at Fractal Central, as did the perfect behavior of the fractal cats. Today is stating perfect. The cats will likely have another perfect day. My day will be somewhat busy, but nothing that I cannot finish in a few hours. The next FOTD will appear in 24 hours. Until then, take care and take hope. Jim Muth jamth@mindspring.com jimmuth@aol.com |
START PARAMETER FILE=======================================
06-09-05 { ; time=0:04:20.91--SF5 on a P200
reset=2004 type=formula formulafile=allinone.frm
formulaname=MandelbrotMix4 function=ident passes=1
center-mag=-1.85383322516782500/+0.549316619250768\
70/1.993234e+007 params=1/0.065/1/2/0/0 float=y
maxiter=1000 inside=0 periodicity=10
colors=000iNQgIPgFNfBLd8Kd4Ib0G`0F`0D_0B_09t00z00z\
04w0Dp0Li0V_0bS0jK0sB0z60z20z08z0Gv0Qp0_j0gd0pY0yS\
0zL6zVLzd`zmnzv_pwbsydtygvyiwzkyzmzznzzqzzszzvzzwz\
zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzqzzfzzbzv`zs_znXzkVzgUzbQz_PzVNzSLv\
_SqgYmnditidzn_ztVzzQzzVzy_ztdzpizjkzfpz`tzVyzQzz0\
zzLkzqVyzQnzNdzDYvKVsPSpUPmYLjdKgiGdmD`q9Yw8Vz4Sz0\
Pz0Lz0Kz0Iz0Gz0Fz0Dw0Bt09q08n06j04g02d00`00X00U00Q\
00N00S00X00`46f69j8FmBIqDNvFQzIVzKYzGfzL`zQYvVVp_S\
jdPdiLYmISqFLtBUpI_mPgjVmg`tdgz`msYimVdgS``PXULSNI\
PGFK9BGKPPS`V`mbiyiszypznnzfmzVkzLjz9zz0iz0Is20k6D\
yjXzzX0zQ0yK0wF0v82t04s00z06q08p09n0Bm2Bk4Dk6Fj8Fi\
9GgBIfDKfFKdGLbIN`IN`FXYBfV8nS4wP0zL0zI2zF8zDDzBGz\
9Lz8Qz6Uz4Yz2bw0fv0jt0ns0qp0vn0zm0zk0ym0vm0sm0nn4k\
n8inBdpG`pKYpNUqQQqUNqXIvbKq_LmXLiUNdSN_PPVLPQKQLG\
SGDSB9U68U04V00S00V00X02_06`29d6Ff9IiFLjIPkLSpPXsQ\
`vSfyUjzVnzXszYwz_zz`zzbz }
frm:MandelbrotMix4 {; Jim Muth
a=real(p1), b=imag(p1), d=real(p2), f=imag(p2),
g=1/f, h=1/d, j=1/(f-b), z=(-a*b*g*h)^j,
k=real(p3)+1, l=imag(p3)+100, c=fn1(pixel):
z=k*((a*(z^b))+(d*(z^f)))+c,
|z| < l }
END PARAMETER FILE=========================================
|
times.
