XPost: alt.buddha.short.fat.guy, alt.philosophy.taoism, alt.philosophy.zen   
   From: tanghuyen@gmail.com   
      
   On 11/1/2016 9:19 PM, Nobody in Particular wrote:   
      
   > Yeah, that happens at a zoom level of about 10^26. Many years ago, a guy   
   > bragged that he went all the way to 10^89. Took him running 3 machines   
   > 24/7 for over 8 months. The very last frame of the video alone took 18   
   > hours to render. He figured that going to 10^120 would take about 2   
   > years. So he made the statement: "And I expect this will never be   
   > equalled or excelled." He just couldn't imagine that computer power   
   > could increase that much.   
   > Well, computers became much, much more powerful than this guy could ever   
   > imagine. I remember how awed i was when i saw a video that went to   
   > 10^275, then one to 10^598. Now i saw one to 10^1429. There truly is no   
   > "end" to the Mandelbrot set.   
   >   
   > This has become a metaphor for me. I envision that "life, the universe   
   > and everything" (as Douglas Adams put it) is like a Mandelbrot set.   
   > Doesn't matter what the field of study is (where you zoom in on that   
   > set), humanity will discover more and more and more, but there will   
   > never, ever come a time where we will know everything about *any*   
   > particular field, let alone the fact that there also is an infinite   
   > number of fields to study; they just branch off, the more we learn about   
   > anything in particular.   
   >   
   > Now, the question: Do those fields of study, all the facts that we   
   > discover, exist before we come across them? Just as in the Mandelbrot   
   > set that goes to 10^1429, do all those fantastic shapes "exist" before   
   > anyone went that deep? How about all the practically infinite number of   
   > other paths that one could have started at, or branched off from?   
   >   
   > Time to go to bed.   
      
   The French have a saying: With increasing specialisation,   
   the experts will know everything about nothing.   
      
   Tang Huyen   
      
   --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)