fractals, the mandelbrot set

'islands of order in a sea of chaos, the thumbprint of God, one of the most astonishing discoveries in the entire history of mathematics, generating images of literally infinite complexity'

The question is not whether God plays dice but how he plays dice. Fractal geometry is a combination of Newtonian determinism and quantum chance; we can have both at the same time.

Arthur C. Clarke: “We’ve all read stories about maps that revealed the location of some hidden treasure; well, in this case the map is the treasure.”

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Globular clusters are densely-packed groups of stars. Populations might range from a few thousand to millions of stars. These stellar collections tend to congregate on the outer rim or "halo" of most spiral galaxies, with the Milky Way home to more than 150. They’re sometimes called mini-galaxies within a galaxy. How dense is the packing? Generally, stars intersperse themselves with a ratio of 1 star per 300 cubic light-years, but in globular clusters it’s 2 stars for each cubic light-year, and sometimes stars collide with such close accommodation. It's been said that if you lived on a planet in one of these clusters, the entire night sky would be filled with stars. 

‘truth is a living thing’

In his lectures, Krishnamurti states, “I am a living thing” or “truth is a living thing.” What is this “living thing”?

As K describes, and as we also come to personally know, when we become intensely alert, especially in a mental state of “no you and no me,” when psychological “distance” collapses between “subject and object,” when there is no existential separation, we will experience “sparks”, flashes of insight.

As we sensitize ourselves to this process – what is this process? – we begin to perceive the mind, the essential self, as a seething, roiling, churning mass of cognitive energy, in constant flux and movement. It begins to feel, very much, like a “living thing.”

What does it mean, “truth is a living thing”? Truth is a word for reality, “what is.” Universal Consciousness (UC), not matter, is the ground of all being, the elemental constituent, of the cosmos (see on the "quantum" page). Matter derives from UC. To say that truth is a living thing is to acknowledge truth’s linkage to UC. And what is UC? We could say that it is the mind of God.

We are individualizing units of UC. And UC is not only a “living thing” but the source of what we call life. We can feel, deep within, this to be true, this “living” reality, this vibrant, dynamic, pulsating “living” essence, throwing off “sparks” of insight, as we "open a channel" to the molding, shaping influence of UC.

All this needs to be actualized, reified, for us to truly understand. But once the process is under way, the “sparks” come every day – pop, pop, pop – as UC, the ultimate and quintessential “living thing,” reconfigures us in Its own image.

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