Does God Play Dice? Insights from the Fractal Geometry of Nature
Albert Einstein and Huston Smith reflect the old metaphor that chaos and randomness are bad. Scientists recently have discovered that many phenomena, from the fluctuations of the stock market to variations in our weather, have the same underlying order. Natural beauty from plants to snowflakes is de...
| Main Author: | |
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| Format: | Electronic Article |
| Language: | English |
| Check availability: | HBZ Gateway |
| Journals Online & Print: | Drawer...
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| Fernleihe: | Fernleihe für die Fachinformationsdienste |
| Published: |
2004
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| In: |
Zygon
Year: 2004, Volume: 39, Issue: 4, Pages: 933-940 |
| Further subjects: | B
loaded dice
B fractal geometry B Science and religion B chaos and complexity B Polarity B Evolution B Fractals B genetic algorithms B randomness and law B contemporary theologians |
| Online Access: |
Presumably Free Access Volltext (lizenzpflichtig) Volltext (lizenzpflichtig) |
| Parallel Edition: | Non-electronic
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| Summary: | Albert Einstein and Huston Smith reflect the old metaphor that chaos and randomness are bad. Scientists recently have discovered that many phenomena, from the fluctuations of the stock market to variations in our weather, have the same underlying order. Natural beauty from plants to snowflakes is described by fractal geometry; tree branching from trunks to twigs has the same fractal scaling as our lungs, from trachea to bronchi. Algorithms for drawing fractals have both randomness and global determinism. Fractal statistics is like picking a card from a stacked deck rather than from one that is shuffled to be truly random. The polarity of randomness (or freedom) and law characterizes the self-creating natural world. Polarity is in consonance with Taoism and contemporary theologians such as Paul Tillich, Alfred North Whitehead, Gordon Kaufman, Philip Hefner, and Pierre Teilhard de Chardin. Joseph Ford's new metaphor is replacing the old: “God plays dice with the universe, but they're loaded dice.” |
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| ISSN: | 1467-9744 |
| Contains: | Enthalten in: Zygon
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| Persistent identifiers: | DOI: 10.1111/j.1467-9744.2004.00629.x |