
The Hindu Temple as a Model of Fractal Cosmology (2015) - vkreso
http://www.dataisnature.com/?p=2138
======
nabla9
Mathematician Felix Klein (famous for Klein bottle) used Hindu concept of
Indra's Net as a inspiration for developing algebra for infinite reflections.
It produces nice fractals.

[https://www.amazon.com/Indras-Pearls-Vision-Felix-
Klein/dp/1...](https://www.amazon.com/Indras-Pearls-Vision-Felix-
Klein/dp/1107564743)

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amriksohata
Incredible, Hindu temples are not churches or mosques, they were made with
incredible thought about positioning, with size and geometry taken into
consideration. All optimised using numerics, we've lost a chapter in human
history as to how Vedic structures were created with such elegance.

[https://www.facebook.com/238044912896496/videos/163973293272...](https://www.facebook.com/238044912896496/videos/1639732932727680/)

~~~
chimeracoder
> we've lost a chapter in human history as to how Vedic structures were
> created with such elegance.

Just to be clear, this knowledge wasn't lost accidentally. It's part of what
was contained in the books and manuscripts destroyed intentionally by
colonizers.

~~~
amriksohata
Yes I agree with you, Muslim (Mughal) invaders burnt a lot of scriptures.

~~~
chimeracoder
> Muslim (Mughal) invaders burnt a lot of scriptures.

Actually the particular books I'm referring to were burned by the Portuguese,
but lots of invaders destroyed Indian books - Portuguese, British, French,
Dutch, and yes, Mughal as well.

~~~
dmix
One interesting historical narrative which helps put this into perspective was
how the Spanish conquest of Aztec and Mayan regions resulted in a lot of
burning of "heretical" books by the Christians missionaries, "which they (the
Maya) regretted to an amazing degree" [1]. But further research showed that
most of the books burned were already heavily biased historically by the
Aztecs - as the Aztecs had already burnt all of the Mayans books when they
conquered them before the Spanish arrived.

So it really is a (shameful) repeating pattern of many conquering human
civilizations throughout history rather than one of a particular culture which
happens to be dominate.

This is another piece of history which doesn't fit neatly into the colonizer
narrative, which is popular today, from which people try to hold modern
cultures responsible for past generational cultural events, somewhat like an
'original sin' which needs to be attuned. One could go further and try to
point to religion itself as the main driver - but even then that is merely
another abstraction over standard human tribalism. Which is somewhat ironic as
the colonizer narrative is typically used today as a tool for pushing other
forms of tribalism (political, cultural, etc).

[1]
[https://www.wikiwand.com/en/Book_burning](https://www.wikiwand.com/en/Book_burning)

~~~
amriksohata
I'm sure many colonialists burn books, doesn't distract from the fact we have
lost knowledge and replaced with Christian and Islamist propoganda, they
couldn't have people thinking we lived for more tHan a few thousand years as
it contradicts the Bible and Qur'an!

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wbhart
The article seems to assume that the universe is fractal, but Wikipedia can't
seem to make up its mind whether fractal cosmologies are fringe ideas or not.
It's certainly far outside the consensus.

~~~
canoebuilder
How about a fractal of fractals?

Your circulatory system is a fractal for similar reasons that trees are
fractals for similar reasons that watersheds are fractals.

Fractal structures are probably the rule rather than the exception for basic
reasons of space and energy efficiency.

Here's another interesting fractal thought, where is the universe? In your
head, or outside of it, or both?

So the neuronal structure representing the universe in your head is at least
in some ways similar to the objective outside universe, if there is such a
thing, and if there is such a thing then that neuronal structure in your head
is also _in_ (and _of_ ) that objective universe while also being similar to
it.

A good term for fractals is self-similar.

Self-similarity all the way down.

 _I am a strange loop._ \- Douglas Hofstadter

 _It 's in you, and you're in it._ \- Alan Watts

~~~
spiderjerusalem
I've been fascinated with occult/esoteric stuff lately, so I want to add one
more quote there.

That which is below is like that which is above & that which is above is like
that which is below. - The Emerald Tablet

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emerald_Tablet#Newton.27s_tran...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emerald_Tablet#Newton.27s_translation)

~~~
Kroniker
It seems fascination with the occult is a growing trend among the educated for
some reason. In the past year I've met physicists, engineers, mathematicians,
and more who have all gotten in to the field recently. I have too, so I
suspect some confirmation bias, but it seems to me more than I was expecting.

~~~
spiderjerusalem
I don't know many STEM type people apart from me who are into such things
honestly, so your claim is very interesting to me. Do you know someone with an
online presence (blog for instance) who would fit into the category?

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Cozumel
This is another good read on it, Hindu temples are built to reflect the human
body.

[http://www.surya-world.org/hindu-temple-and-the-structure-
of...](http://www.surya-world.org/hindu-temple-and-the-structure-of-human-
body-comparison/)

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FullMtlAlcoholc
When something is referred to as fractal, does it always imply a degree of
self-similarity? As I understand it, Mandelbrot developed fractal geometry as
a tool to examine the "roughness" of reality as opposed to the smoothness of
calculus and fractal dimension is a measure of complexity at every scale, with
a self-similar pattern being an easy example to follow.

If that is so, that the universe has a high degree of complexity at every
scale, is that really controversial?

Here is an excellent 20 min introduction to fractals:
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gB9n2gHsHN4](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gB9n2gHsHN4)

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kuwze
This reminded me of mandelbulb[1] and on a somewhat unrelated note the
original demo video of Euclideon[2].

[1]:
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tsuYZg8k-Zc](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tsuYZg8k-Zc)
[2]:
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=00gAbgBu8R4](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=00gAbgBu8R4)

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carapace
Cf. Christopher Alexander's "Fifteen Properties"
[http://www.livingneighborhoods.org/ht-0/fifteen.htm](http://www.livingneighborhoods.org/ht-0/fifteen.htm)

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bitwize
This sort of thing doesn't just happen in Hinduism. Behold, the Sagrada
Família:
[https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sagrada_Família](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sagrada_Família)

~~~
curiousDog
I think the cool thing about this from what I gather is that the instructions
to the masons were basically a recursive procedure and they got to decide on
the recursive depth.

~~~
canoebuilder
That is cool, a compressed blueprint. Also cool is that it is still under
construction, maybe someone reading right now is involved and can tell us
more.

~~~
saeranv
I'm not involved, but I've met the researcher at a couple of computational
architecture conferences: Mark Burry - [https://www.rmit.edu.au/media-
objects/multimedia/video/proje...](https://www.rmit.edu.au/media-
objects/multimedia/video/projects/sagrada-familia-and-rmit-university)

The other interesting thing about the Sagrada Familia is that Gaudi based the
primary structure on catenary structures.

Off the top of my head, I believe he first made weighted string assemblies of
the vaults, such that the string structure is held in perfect tension from the
gravitational force of its own weight.

Then by casting the resulting shape in concrete, and flipping the shape over,
the resulting structure is optimized for compression. The tensile structure
reflects the force of gravity on the string assembly - it is "optimized" for
its own weight, so when flipping it over, and swapping the tension members for
compression members, we know this new structure is perfectly shaped to
distribute internal and self-weight for compression.

