
The man who hand-draws fractals - dfield
http://www.newappsblog.com/2012/01/the-man-who-hand-draws-mathematical-fractals.html
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mgualt
Padgett's drawings, viewable from the link below, are not fractals. The fact
that they resemble mathematical diagrams in Euclidean geometry does not make
them fractals. I would be curious to find out who first christened his work
'fractal', as I think it does him a disservice.

[http://fineartamerica.com/profiles/jason-
padgett.html?tab=ar...](http://fineartamerica.com/profiles/jason-
padgett.html?tab=artwork)

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aangjie
I don't know why or how they called it fractals.. but am not surprised.... i
would have believed them a couple of years ago right out.. Now,i know that am
not sure either way.... The point is it's near impossible to be accurate when
translating from the language of mathematics to English.. The only difference
btw me now and a years b4, is now i have a slightly better understanding of
hausdorff and box-counting dimension.... Not good enough to be a
mathematician, but good enough to spot the problem in this picture..

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ars
No, he's right, those are not fractals. Although they are pretty impressive to
do by hand.

I'm sure the Greeks would have had a name for these Compass and straightedge
constructions because they made a lot of them.

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kghose
The loss of particular functions like the ability to see color, or sense
motion are interesting demonstrations of the localization of cortical
function.

In this case, it is possible that visual area MT (V5) is damaged. This area
processes motion signals.

For people interested in follow up reading the story of Phineas Gage is an
interesting illustration of the functions of the frontal lobes, and the book
"The man who mistook his wife for a hat" is also very interesting.

Also fascinating is Gazzaniga's book "The cognitive sciences" which has
chapters relating to very odd sensory/cognitive deficits.

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Flam
I used to see fractals when I was a child. No one understood what I was
saying. Now it's evolved into something larger than that. People still don't
understand what I'm saying.

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stephth
What do you mean by larger than fractals?

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Flam
I used to "daydream" a lot. When I would "daydream" I would no longerr see or
hear or smell, but I would follow these strange patterns in my mind, always
going deeper and seeking and end but never finding one. After about 20-30
minutes, I would always reach a strange point where my mind could not go any
further, but I knew there was something beyond the point I had reached.

There were no clear directions, it was a very strange experience. I can't
attribute it to a dimension and I did 2 years of University Math. I wish I
knew what it was.

They became less frequent as I grew older and I had my last experience at 16.
Nowadays, I feel like it has translated in me viewing the infinite of the
patterns in this world. It's kind of more than that though, and still I cannot
explain it. It makes me not want to speak because everything I say, even in
this explanation, is incorrect because these words I'm using do not accurately
express the thought, emotion, and experience involved at all.

~~~
stephth
Thanks for sharing, I think it's very interesting. Don't give up on explaining
it though. I'm sure with time and effort you will find a way and/or the words
to explain it. If we all spoke more about how we perceive the world, we all
would have better words for it, and a better understanding of everything.

