(Not) Recognizing Our Patterns

When we wake up in the morning, we start a pattern (we sometimes call it a routine). We do our usual things, brush our teeth, shower, eat breakfast and so on. I pose this question to you, do you think we realize that we are going through patterns every second of our lives?

This then brought me to the idea of how our book Fluid Concepts and Creative Analogies by Douglas Hofstadter was set up. I saw patterns happening all over the place. There was a pattern when the author finishes a section and moves to the next section (e.g. ends paragraph and section, new bold heading, starts new section etc...). A pattern was formed. I think that a main idea that the author was trying to convey was that everywhere we go, and everything we do, there is some type of pattern associated with everything we do.

An idea that the author brought up was on page 24 when he was talking about the 2121121212112... pattern, and how it creates a "child" pattern, which in turn creates another "child" pattern (all "child" means is that there is another pattern after the initial one has started). This brings us to recursion, and my favorite part of the chapter that the author talked about, the Fibonacci numbers (1, 1, 2, 3, 5, 8, 13 ...) These numbers are recursion at its finest. To find the next number, just take the previous two numbers and add them together (to find the next number after 13, add 8 + 13 = 21 etc...). So, recursion in itself is the process of backtracking to smaller patterns to figure out the entire pattern.

This idea of recursion comes into play when we (as humans) try to figure out complex ideas. We have to work at a smaller less complex level to be able to build up to the end result. We do this with logic, start with the smallest sentence (or idea, hopefully atomic sentences) and build on the system from there. I guess the motto, "aim big, start small" comes into play here. Which is a very key concept if one is to figure out how very complex patterns work.

-Bryan