Oct
25
KARY: […] I enjoy fractal geometry as a sort of hobby. Fractal geometry doesn’t have any straight lines in it. It doesn’t have any edges, any background or foreground, and yet it’s really pleasant to look at.
DAVID: Just like nature.
KARY: Yes. I think nature is more like fractal geometry than it is like Euclidian geometry. Euclidian geometry says there is such a thing as a line — except a line is an infinitesimally thin thing. It’s not a pencil line — that’s a sort of an approximation to a line. But a real line doesn’t have any thickness. A real point doesn’t have any volume. A real square doesn’t exist anywhere I’ve ever seen on the planet. No triangles either. Everything is an approximation to that, and the finer you look at it, the less of an approximation it is.
Let’s say you ask: What is the perimeter of England? You could take a map of England, draw a circle around it, and say that is the perimeter. But if you get down really close, it becomes more difficult. How do you measure the perimeter of England? Let’s say you take a rod and you see how many times it takes to walk around England with this rod end over end, and the rod is ten meters long. Then you say, Well, it took me a million times, so it must be 10 million meters around England.
But now if you get smaller rod, perhaps five meters long, and do the same thing, it will turn out that you’ll measure the larger perimeter of England, because that will work itself in and out better. The smaller the rod, the longer the perimeter of England gets. You finally have to conclude that it doesn’t have a perimeter. (laughter)
DAVID: Or that it is an infinite perimeter.
KARY: A perimeter is a practical word that we use to approximately measure something that we think about, like skin surface. But it’s the same as with the perimeter of England. It goes in and out, and in and out. There’s not really an edge of you. You really stick out into everything, and it sticks into you.
DAVID: So, in other words, the boundaries that we percieve in the world are merely arbitrary creations of our own minds?
KARY: Yes. I think that the Buddhists have a name for that. It’s the interpenetrability of things — like when you close your fingers together like this. (Kary interwines his fingers together.) That’s how you are with the universe. That’s another thing, just like evolution, that you don’t really need to prove to yourself. You just look at the principle and you say, Yeah, that’s got to be true. “Chemistry and the Mind Field”, David Jay Brown’s interview with Kary Mullis, quoted from “Conversations on the Edge of the Apocalypse” by David Jay Brown
DAVID: Just like nature.
KARY: Yes. I think nature is more like fractal geometry than it is like Euclidian geometry. Euclidian geometry says there is such a thing as a line — except a line is an infinitesimally thin thing. It’s not a pencil line — that’s a sort of an approximation to a line. But a real line doesn’t have any thickness. A real point doesn’t have any volume. A real square doesn’t exist anywhere I’ve ever seen on the planet. No triangles either. Everything is an approximation to that, and the finer you look at it, the less of an approximation it is.
Let’s say you ask: What is the perimeter of England? You could take a map of England, draw a circle around it, and say that is the perimeter. But if you get down really close, it becomes more difficult. How do you measure the perimeter of England? Let’s say you take a rod and you see how many times it takes to walk around England with this rod end over end, and the rod is ten meters long. Then you say, Well, it took me a million times, so it must be 10 million meters around England.
But now if you get smaller rod, perhaps five meters long, and do the same thing, it will turn out that you’ll measure the larger perimeter of England, because that will work itself in and out better. The smaller the rod, the longer the perimeter of England gets. You finally have to conclude that it doesn’t have a perimeter. (laughter)
DAVID: Or that it is an infinite perimeter.
KARY: A perimeter is a practical word that we use to approximately measure something that we think about, like skin surface. But it’s the same as with the perimeter of England. It goes in and out, and in and out. There’s not really an edge of you. You really stick out into everything, and it sticks into you.
DAVID: So, in other words, the boundaries that we percieve in the world are merely arbitrary creations of our own minds?
KARY: Yes. I think that the Buddhists have a name for that. It’s the interpenetrability of things — like when you close your fingers together like this. (Kary interwines his fingers together.) That’s how you are with the universe. That’s another thing, just like evolution, that you don’t really need to prove to yourself. You just look at the principle and you say, Yeah, that’s got to be true. “Chemistry and the Mind Field”, David Jay Brown’s interview with Kary Mullis, quoted from “Conversations on the Edge of the Apocalypse” by David Jay Brown
