Talk:Patterns in nature/Archive 1

Congratulations!

What a beautiful article! μηδείς (talk) 16:59, 8 May 2012 (UTC)

Thank you so much! I'm conscious there's much left to do... Chiswick Chap (talk) 18:02, 8 May 2012 (UTC)

• Awesome work! Thanks for taking the time to write this. Lemurbaby (talk) 03:57, 29 September 2012 (UTC)

Many thanks. Chiswick Chap (talk) 08:25, 29 September 2012 (UTC)

Wording

I have one small problem with the article and that only with the (neo-platonist) wording of phrases like: "Real objects can only approximate to such exact mathematical perfection." It is the real world that exists and mathematics that approximates to it, surely.Novagge (talk) 18:34, 8 May 2012 (UTC)

I had no idea I had neo-Platonist leanings. Still I guess if we have two sets, As and Bs, which have a set of relationships r(A, B) and which both have their own kinds of existence, it's a matter of words whether As r Bs or Bs r As. Mind you, how do you know the real world exists? ;-} Chiswick Chap (talk) 18:43, 8 May 2012 (UTC)

What sort of evidence for the existence of the real world will you accept? Real evidence, or only unreal? μηδείς (talk) 19:54, 8 May 2012 (UTC)

Joshing aside, there's a lot more on spontaneous order from the Greeks than just Plato. I'll see if I can add some. μηδείς (talk) 19:54, 8 May 2012 (UTC)

Thanks, that's great. Chiswick Chap (talk) 19:58, 8 May 2012 (UTC)

Vitruvian Man

I've added a section on Da Vinci's Vitruvian Man. Vitruvius is also mentioned; maybe he should have a separate section below Plato. - M0rphzone (talk) 02:42, 1 June 2012 (UTC)

These are more like patterns or ideas from nature; see Mathematics and art, Mathematics and architecture. I similarly wondered about the Pythagoreans but they seem just to miss the bar. Chiswick Chap (talk) 07:19, 1 June 2012 (UTC)

"These are more..." - kinda ambiguous, but I assume you mean the scope of the article. I was thinking that the Vitruvian Man was based on human proportions, so these might be relevant; I thought humans are part of nature, right? But Mathematics and art is closer and fits these topics better, so nvm. - M0rphzone (talk) 22:25, 2 June 2012 (UTC)

Yes. 'Part of nature' would widen the remit enormously - every law of physics for instance, every discernible regularity or rule in molecular biology... So I've limited 'patterns' to visual regularities. And as it happens, WP contains excellent articles already on many of the other kinds of regularity in nature. Chiswick Chap (talk) 07:42, 3 June 2012 (UTC)

Early Greek Philosophy

The following section has been moved here as probably not fitting directly into an article on visible patterns. The problem is that if every philosophy of nature - explaining the grounds for all the regularities of nature - is to be included, then we end up covering all of (Greek) philosophy (there's a whole book called The Idea of Nature, and hundreds on philosophy), which is not the topic here. We already have a sentence in the lead explaining the article is only on visible aspects of pattern, and that pattern in the broader sense covers everything; that should probably be enough. Hope that's ok for everyone.

Here are the sections:

===Empedocles===

According to Aristotle, the Greek philosopher Empedocles held that biological order arose by chance, with simple organs arising randomly and surviving if they were harmoniously composed: "Wherever, then, everything turned out as it would have if it were happening for a purpose, there the creatures survived, being accidentally compounded in a suitable way; but where this did not happen, the creatures perished" The first century philosopher Aetius reports in his fragmentary Opinions of the Philosophers:

"Empedocles held that the first generations of animals and plants were not complete but consisted of separate limbs not joined together; the second, arising from the joining of these limbs, were like creatures in dreams; the third was the generation of whole-natured forms; and the fourth arose no longer from the homogeneous substances such as earth or water, but by intermingling, in some cases as the result of the condensation of their nurishment, in others because feminine beauty excited the sexual urge; and the various species of animals were distinguished by the quality of the mixture in them..."

===Plato===

The Greek philosopher Plato (ca 427 – ca 347 BC) – looking only at his work on natural patterns – argued for the existence of universals. He considered these to consist of ideal forms (εἶδος eidos: "form") in his philosophy, Platonic realism. Platonic forms are perfect abstract objects or (in a sense) patterns in nature; physical objects are never more than imperfect copies of the ideal forms. Thus, a flower may be roughly circular, but it is never a perfect, mathematical circle.

Chiswick Chap (talk) 07:18, 5 July 2012 (UTC)

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Patterns in living beings exhibit order which is explained various ways, by evolution or by teleology. Given these are the earliest theories of how order arises it appropriate to mention them, although perhaps the second quote from empedocles could be deleted and the section condensed to one paragraph. μηδείς (talk) 17:18, 5 July 2012 (UTC)

They do, but I am concerned that we are still confusing two or more meanings of Pattern - visible or not, Platonic or not; and worse, there are hints of an edit war (not between us, but with random visitors who are over-excited by Greek philosophy). I am minded to have no Greek section at all - it is at best only marginally relevant - but we can give it a try. So, let's leave it for now, but if it causes continued strife, we will remove it. We should not be devoting 95% of the effort to 5% of the article (History), and to the least relevant part of it, at that. So, this is an experiment. OK? Chiswick Chap (talk) 08:16, 6 July 2012 (UTC)