Re: virus: Fractals and drips

Wade T.Smith (wade_smith@harvard.edu)
Fri, 11 Jun 1999 22:22:49 -0400

On 06/11/99 16:30 the inimitable Eric Boyd made this comment ‹

>You're probably right about that, Wade. Much of fractal mathematics
>is about self-similairity, or the emergence of pattern/order from
>chaos. Both of those tie right into my understanding of memetics.

Thanks, Eric, because I was reacting to what I know, which is precious little, but what I do know is that, yes, a math that somehow managed _reactions_ in a chaotic environment would seem to be the only one that would work- in the sense that we could tilt and shine some patterns out of it.

The other side of my 'feeling' is that the maths I have seen, and not understood, seem to be interesting academic exercises, but never seem to have any predictive power, and do not seem to have the germ of 'creative' formation that fractal math does, and do not map over the general territory.

Anywho, a nice picture is a nice picture, and I much prefer the idea that our behavior maps to a fractal surface than to any set of graphs, especially graphs made up out of whole cloth, like a certain not-to-be-named-here person's are.... Because, if you call him, he will come, and I am most sorry I put his moniker out there not too long ago and brought him out of the woodwork.