Stories and Fractals Part 3

When I was four or so, I remember my mom saying something to me about God loving me.  My response was “Where’s God?” She replied, “God is everywhere”  I thought for a bit, “How do you see God?” She replied, “If you look hard enough and want to, you can see him”  I stared out the window at the leaves and branches of the walnut trees, straining my eyes trying to tell if there was something that I was missing.  As I looked through the upper part of the tree seeing the green and white patterns overlapping, my vision sort of twisted and a wave of emotion came over me. A sense of peace, love, and awe.  “Is that God?” I asked.  She stared at me for a second, “Um… maybe?”

When working on my research paper a key component came to me from an article that my brother sent me written by  Lance Hosey on “Why We Love Beautiful Things“.  Later he sent me another overlapping one on fractals and design.  I’d like to pull from both to outline the significance to my research.

“The natural world is replete with fractals–in spinning galaxies and spitting sunbursts, in splitting crystals and splintering lungs, in creeping coastlines and veining leaves, in forking rivers and shivering snowflakes, and–importantly for human perception—in the explosive joy of a tree. Touching everything everywhere, fractals have been dubbed the “fingerprints of nature” and the “thumbprint of God.””

“In recent years, physicists have found that people invariably prefer a certain mathematical density of fractals — not too thick, not too sparse. The theory is that this particular pattern echoes the shapes of trees, specifically the acacia, on the African savanna, the place stored in our genetic memory from the cradle of the human race. To paraphrase one biologist, beauty is in the genes of the beholder — home is where the genome is.”  It goes on to explain, “We respond so dramatically to this pattern that it can reduce stress levels by as much as 60 percent — just by being in our field of vision.”

Not only does research shows that looking at fractals reduces stress; there are also studies showing that patients recover from surgery faster “when given hospital rooms with windows looking out on nature.“, as Richard Taylor points out in his article on fractal patterns.  He has even used research on fractals in Jackson Pollock paintings for “developing retinal implants to restore vision to victims of retinal diseases.” Going on to explain, “At first glance, this goal seems a long way from Pollock’s art. Yet, it was his work that gave me the first clue to fractal fluency and the role nature’s fractals can play in keeping people’s stress levels in check. To make sure my bio-inspired implants induce the same stress reduction when looking at nature’s fractals as normal eyes do, they closely mimic the retina’s design.

When I started my Pollock research, I never imagined it would inform artificial eye designs. This, though, is the power of interdisciplinary endeavors – thinking “out of the box” leads to unexpected but potentially revolutionary ideas.”

This means the there is a basic pattern of existence that is echoed everywhere, even within our own bodies. And that by staring at it, by simply seeing it, we reduce stress and heal; and that this is a relationship that’s built into the physiology of our eyes.

A piece of information I haven’t seen however, is an explanation of why this is the case.  I can’t help but assume that there is simply more going on than we can understand.  This is especially interesting when considering that staring at beauty in nature (often fractals) not only reduces our stress but is also often a source of inspiration and connection that speaks to our basic sense of meaning in life.  Think of all the feelings inspired from looking at the forests, mountains, rivers, and stars.  Any branch of spirituality has connections and inspirations from nature, from fractal patterns.

This idea of fractals influencing our sense of meaning is especially interesting when we consider that they are a visual expression of growth.  Veins on leaves, lungs, patterns on shells, even galaxies, all formed this pattern through their development.  The implication here ends up being the same conclusion that we get when looking at stories.  That we are inspired to a sense of meaning in life through growth and relationship.  I add relationship because there are the growing trees, then there are the feelings that come from looking at them.  That is a relationship.  And here we haven’t even begun to discuss the feeling we get from climbing, hugging, or swinging on them.

So my question is; does the stress reducing effect of fractals have a relation to our sense of meaning in growth, in the pattern of stories?  I can’t think of any method of how to prove this, but I can’t imagine that there isn’t some kind of connection.

Oh and if you are unsure of what a fractal is, here’s a fun picture.

And here’s an up close picture of a human eye.