I often say that life is fractal. What does it mean?
Take a little snippet of one segment of reality, magnify its contents, extend the perimeter of the segment to fit another seemingly unrelated segment of reality, and you'll realize that the same processes are happening in both. It fits together. The way one thing happens is how other things happen.
Life is not a series of mirrors, however. It's not that simple. I will show you what I mean. Take the idea of entropy—of the continued trend toward dissolution and disintegration of order into chaos. It applies to everything in the world.
Biology: Stop training your body and it will weaken, atrophy, and fail.
Machines: Leave a car outside long enough without driving it and the elements will destroy it. Hell, leave it long enough inside a protected sterile garage without driving it and it will stop working.
Relationship: Stop giving your wife compliments or taking her out to dinner and the relationship degrades. Try it and see (don't try it).
It's like that old book we all read in English class: Things Fall Apart. They do. They absolutely all fall apart if not tended to: institutions, societies, families, relationships, muscles, machinery, organs.
As you can see, entropy applies to everything, even non-tangible objects or abstract ideas. But it's not a mirror, it's a fractal. It's a fundamental rhythm running through and indeed undergirding everything we see, think, know, and love. A basic component of reality. It's not the foundation of the house. It's an integral component of the concrete used to build the house.
What else is fractal about life? What have you noticed?
