Why are certain specific patterns so common in the universe?

[Skyhilist]

NOTE: I'm not just talking about in biological organisms. In some cases I am, but that's more understandable I think. For example, lets suppose that a flower modeled after a Fibonacci sequence attracts more bees or something like that (made up example, just go with it). If it's in accordance with the principles of evolution, then it's a little less puzzling to me, since certain geometric compositions are obviously going to have an advantage over others in life for different reasons. However, that said, I still don't understand WHY Fibonacci spirals are evolutionarily advantageous in nature in so many cases. And there are A LOT of cases: http://wellaware1.com/docs/ear/fibonaccipdf.pdf

But we don't just see this in life. We see this throughout our universe and in non-living things. Even hurricanes and universes often resemble Fibonacci spirals.

The Fibonacci sequence isn't something anywhere near as simple as a simple triangle or circle. Although it can be easily understood what the sequence is with a few minutes of research, the sequence itself seems much more mathematically complex. Now, we have a lot of sphere-sh things in the universe too. But a sphere (or something close to a sphere) is a fairly simple shape and forms due to gravity pretty easily, so I'm not extremely surprised by this. But what when something as complex as the Fibonacci sequence is repeated over and over again in the universe, I have a hard time believing that it just happens by sheer chance, at least given my current understanding of the matter. It seems that there must be some specific reason why this pattern, and other equally complex patterns are so ever-recurring in the universe. So my question is, what is this reason? Why do we see such specific complex patterns and sequences recurring so much in the universe? And why is it those patterns and sequences rather than the other equally complex/simple ones that aren't seen extensively in nature?

If it were just one force acting upon these things forming these shapes, then I'd understand the tendency for these things to form better. But when we've got radically different types of forces like gravity and evolution (yes I know evolution isn't a force in the same way that gravity is) forming things based on the same, relatively complex patterns over and over again, I found it really confounding and hard to conceive that this just happened by chance and that there isn't some hidden unifying force behind all of it (note: not suggesting anything supernatural or "godlike", just some hidden physical force or principle of organization in the universe). Can someone please help me understand?

[Skyhilist]

You know, know that I think about it, I don't even the tons of reccurances of the Fibonacci spiral in life, at all.

Different ecosystems have different environmental conditions, and therefore in every different ecosystem what constitutes the most evolutionarily advantageous traits is driven by the different factors in these different ecosystems. How do these vastly differing factors create the same exact geometric result so often, yet simultaneously independently? I understand convergent evolution, but it's extremely rare that a geometric pattern that is so specific is repeated so much, and also repeated extensively in non-living things like the shapes of galaxies and hurricanes. I mean, we don't see leg bones floating around in outer space. It's just confounding to me how patterns like this that are so specific recur so much across places with radically different factors driving their occurrence.

[Slavic]

You know, know that I think about it, I don't even the tons of reccurances of the Fibonacci spiral in life, at all.

Different ecosystems have different environmental conditions, and therefore in every different ecosystem what constitutes the most evolutionarily advantageous traits is driven by the different factors in these different ecosystems. How do these vastly differing factors create the same exact geometric result so often, yet simultaneously independently? I understand convergent evolution, but it's extremely rare that a geometric pattern that is so specific is repeated so much, and also repeated extensively in non-living things like the shapes of galaxies and hurricanes. I mean, we don't see leg bones floating around in outer space. It's just confounding to me how patterns like this that are so specific recur so much across places with radically different factors driving their occurrence.

Everything that has ever existed occurred from the same occurrence. Its not that far-fetched to assume that a pattern could resonate though all of matter.

Also, identifying patterns is a human thing. Some part of me wonders if we humans are finding patterns because are just desperately seeking to find meaning in all the chaos.

[Skyhilist]

Everything that has ever existed occurred from the same occurrence. Its not that far-fetched to assume that a pattern could resonate though all of matter.

Well it all arises from the big bang or whatever I know. But more specifically, it arises from forces existing after the big bang that are radically different. I mean the big bang creates these radically different forces operating based on different rules, only to have those radically different forces create extremely similar yet complex patterns millions of times over and across numerous forces? It just seems like for this to happen there'd need to be some underlying principle woven into the creation of the universe itself that favored these patterns, otherwise why would we see such complex things being created in such similar ways by such radically different forces? I guess what I'm saying is, is there any hard evidence for this "underlying principle" that I speak of, and if so, what do we know about it? Do we know why this underlying principle would favor the creation of these complex patterns time and time again over other complex ones even when operating outside the arena of biological evolution? I just feel like the answers to these questions are probably "who knows, we DON'T understand this yet", which makes me think maybe there's something elusive about the principles of the big bang responsible for these things that has been totally missed thus far. Is that plausible?

Also note, by big bang I mean the creation of the universe, I personally find m-theory to be the most well-reasoned explanation for this creation but don't really know if this, or however the universe came into existence would be properly be called "the big bang" these days by people who study this sort of thing these days.


Also, identifying patterns is a human thing. Some part of me wonders if we humans are finding patterns because are just desperately seeking to find meaning in all the chaos.

Yeah, I mean who knows. It could all be an illusory pattern that we're perceiving. When I thin about the fact that my entire perspective on the world is shaped by my neurotransmitters, physical organs, etc., and when I think about that if these things were altered I'd see the world around me very differently makes me wonder. Who's to say our combination of these factors create a more "real" perception of the world around us anymore than any other combination of these factors would? I mean, I don't see any hard evidence that it'd be evolutionary advantageous for us to perceive reality as it is. And even if I did have evidence, that evidence would be based in the reality that I'm seeing, so what if it's not evidence after all and just another perception that is no more real than what my perception would be if I had totally different neurotransmitters, organs, etc.

Anyways, long story short we certainly do live in a world of perception and not reality. So I wouldn't be surprised if us seeing these patterns is just an illusion that happened to be evolutionarily advantageous to have or just a harmless byproduct of our evolution. There could be so many things that are illusions though, so it's really impossible to speculate I think. We might as well just operate under the assumption that what we see is at least similar to what exists even if it's wrong... because if we don't go based on this then we have literally nothing to go by, since every scientific inquiry has always arisen based on questions people had or wanted to solve in the universe that they saw around them (as opposed to the universe existing around them).

[bcbm]

because the universe is a holographic simulation

[Lily Briscoe]

http://cdn.meme.li/instances/500x/53525726.jpg

[Anglo-Saxon Philistine]

NOTE: I'm not just talking about in biological organisms. In some cases I am, but that's more understandable I think. For example, lets suppose that a flower modeled after a Fibonacci sequence attracts more bees or something like that (made up example, just go with it). If it's in accordance with the principles of evolution, then it's a little less puzzling to me, since certain geometric compositions are obviously going to have an advantage over others in life for different reasons. However, that said, I still don't understand WHY Fibonacci spirals are evolutionarily advantageous in nature in so many cases. And there are A LOT of cases: http://wellaware1.com/docs/ear/fibonaccipdf.pdf

But we don't just see this in life. We see this throughout our universe and in non-living things. Even hurricanes and universes often resemble Fibonacci spirals.

The Fibonacci sequence isn't something anywhere near as simple as a simple triangle or circle. Although it can be easily understood what the sequence is with a few minutes of research, the sequence itself seems much more mathematically complex. Now, we have a lot of sphere-sh things in the universe too. But a sphere (or something close to a sphere) is a fairly simple shape and forms due to gravity pretty easily, so I'm not extremely surprised by this. But what when something as complex as the Fibonacci sequence is repeated over and over again in the universe, I have a hard time believing that it just happens by sheer chance, at least given my current understanding of the matter. It seems that there must be some specific reason why this pattern, and other equally complex patterns are so ever-recurring in the universe. So my question is, what is this reason? Why do we see such specific complex patterns and sequences recurring so much in the universe? And why is it those patterns and sequences rather than the other equally complex/simple ones that aren't seen extensively in nature?

If it were just one force acting upon these things forming these shapes, then I'd understand the tendency for these things to form better. But when we've got radically different types of forces like gravity and evolution (yes I know evolution isn't a force in the same way that gravity is) forming things based on the same, relatively complex patterns over and over again, I found it really confounding and hard to conceive that this just happened by chance and that there isn't some hidden unifying force behind all of it (note: not suggesting anything supernatural or "godlike", just some hidden physical force or principle of organization in the universe). Can someone please help me understand?

Well, the short version is that they aren't, not as much as people claim, anyway. Take the example of the human arm - if you actually measured people's arms, in most cases the proportions would not follow the golden ratio. Likewise the shell of the nautilus, which is often claimed to be an example, is in fact a logarithmic spiral.

Galaxies have all sorts of shapes. In fact a good portion of them are simply blobs. Others have shapes determined by their rotation etc.

Living organisms, galaxies, and so on, all of them "follow" the laws of physics, and obviously they have to "obey" certain geometrical laws and so on. This often produces similar patterns in unrelated phenomena. A drop of a viscous liquid in water, for example, will often have a shape similar to that of a jellyfish - or is it the other way around? - because that sort of shape means the jellyfish will not be hindered by things like uneven pressure, significant pressure gradients and so on. It won't get squished.

If you're interested in these things, check out the work of D'Arcy Wentworth Thompson. He was a bit of an anti-Darwinian, so his theories are crap (and horribly vague), but he did gather a lot of examples, including some really clever work with fish and geometric transformations.

[consuming negativity]

There are only so many ways to do things. If you want to fly in the air, you've pretty much got to have a wing of some sort, or be aerodynamic. It's nothing cosmically pre-ordained... it's how matter interacts. And the properties of matter come from their component cells, atoms, etc.

[Rafiq]

It is important to recognize first and foremost that we perceive patterns and consciously attribute them names and so on. What I mean is that the patterns were first, our perception is secondary. Meaning something like the fibinachi sequence is a name we attribute to an identifiable pattern, it was not developed from pure thought.

The same goes for shapes. The universe doesn't care about our consciousness.

[Slavic]

It is important to recognize first and foremost that we perceive patterns and consciously attribute them names and so on. What I mean is that the patterns were first, our perception is secondary. Meaning something like the fibinachi sequence is a name we attribute to an identifiable pattern, it was not developed from pure thought.

The same goes for shapes. The universe doesn't care about our consciousness.

That may be true, but humans are only able to identify and name patterns because they contain similar properties that we deem important if not for arbitrary and humanistic reasons.

Someone can say, "Look at all these creatures that have four limbs, there is a pattern that relates all these creatures together and we shall label such pattern."

And someone can inject with, "These creatures are not related, for they all have varying sizes and different color fur/skin. There is no pattern that can link all of these creatures."

Both of these statements are true following that identification of patterns is a human phenomenon that is imposed and validated by human cognitive sorting.



The Big Bang occurs and in a fraction of a second all the physical laws of the universe are established by the interactions amongst matter and anti-matter. From that second forward, since all physical laws are set in place, the interactions between all forms of matter will always occur in the same manner. The universe unfolds in a way that was predetermined by the very first fraction of a second of its origin. That is why any pattern we see may be correlated ultimately to the method in which the birth of the universe occurred.

As for why Up is Up and and electrons and protons repulse? I have no idea and frankly do not care. All things exist due to their current existence, there is no reason or "plan" for this, just the raw observation that things exist.

[Skyhilist]

For the record, I wasn't suggesting that this was anything divine to begin with. I was just curious why the same pattern if formed a lot of radically different forces. Good explanations. I'd also be interested in why people tend to see fibonnaci and logarithmic spirals in specific so much as opposed to other equally specific geometric patterns when tripping on acid or mushrooms, if anyone knows the answer to that one.

[Ele'ill]

Pareidolia

[edwad]

dialectics