Fractal time

6 Jun 2021

Last updated: 25 Feb 2024

thinking

Fractals

Fractals are mathematic objects that have finite area but infinite perimeter. That means that you can see the whole thing, but you cannot measure exactly how long a rope had to be in order to outline it.

Fractals are mostly known on the internet because their calculations can be approximated to high precision, resulting in animated videos where we zoom in infinitely. That said, sometimes when zooming, patterns look the same. This is: the original pattern that we were looking at in the very beginning can be found again and again if we look closer. The pattern is made of the pattern itself.

This idea sounds crazy, but I feel like time behaves in much the same way.

Time

Picture a day: we begin in the early morning, continue to the afternoon, the evening and eventually, night time. That is repeated again, so the day as a concept can be define as a cylinder, since no matter where you start, you always roll in the same direction.

Now picture a year: we’ll arbitrarily start in spring time, followed by summer, autumn and winter. And then spring again and summer… again, a cylindric shape.

Lastly: picture a life. Your life. You start by being born as a baby. We can call that childhood. Then you become a teenager, with all your existential crisis and arguments with almost everyone else. You grow up older being an adult, and finally become an elder.

Can you see the pattern? morning - spring - childhood, afternoon - summer - teenage, evening - autumn - adulthood and night - winter - old age.

No matter how much you zoom in or out, the same pattern repeats. It is a looping pattern. That may tell us that there is actually life after death. Life is a looping pattern. Or maybe not.

What it is clear is that whenever we finish another day, month, year, another loop… we start over again, but nothing remains the same as before. Time continues to loop forever, but we always keep moving forward.

2024