Hey Guys! Been a long time lurker round these parts, and the insanity this thread has caused most of us has finally projected me to surface my head from beneath these stormy waters, for my first post! So, do go easy on me if I make any mistakes on this post, and enjoy, criticize and delve into to your contentment =) now, onwards.
So, after doing a little wikisurfing, and with credit to all the posts before this ( I do apologize if this has been mentioned before ), I think that the entirity of Roshar is either :
a ) a giant fractal
b ) governed by the pattern of a particular fractal
now, this is purely based on this wikipedia page, but it sparked some pretty awesome revelations. Somewhere further down the page it states, with regard to Natural Phenomena with Fractal features :
Approximate fractals found in nature display self-similarity over extended, but finite, scale ranges. The connection between fractals and leaves, for instance, is currently being used to determine how much carbon is contained in trees.
Examples of phenomena known or anticipated to have fractal features are listed below:
clouds
river networks
fault lines
mountain ranges
craters
lightning bolts
coastlines
Mountain Goat horns
animal coloration patterns
Romanesco broccoli
Pineapple
Heart rates
Heartbeat
Earthquakes
Snow flakes
Crystals
blood vessels and pulmonary vessels
Ocean waves
DNA
various vegetables
soil pores
Psychological subjective perception
looking at the list of fractal related natural phenomena, I couldn't help but think that perhaps with regard to most of the things on the list, that they ring a bell when it comes to thinking about them in the context of Roshar's anthropology, mythology, magic systems, geography and the number 10 of course. Now, I do apologize for any ineptitude displayed with regard to maths (it's not my strongest subject) but I do believe that the fractal pattern governing Roshar's self-similarity is inextricably linked with this number, so much so that it governs the pattern which Roshar the supercontinent matures by. Now, it's a bit of a long shot but hey, that's what speculation is, innit? =)
So, there it is, do let me know on any areas I can improve!
Oh, and i almost forgot, that last one there, yeah that last one on the list? Well, one wiki-click away blew my mind. (This one right here!)
"The subjective character of experience is a term in psychology and the philosophy of mind denoting that all subjective phenomena are associated with a single point of view ("ego").
The term was coined and illuminated by Thomas Nagel in his famous paper What is It Like to Be a Bat?"
I think the NAHEL bond was inspired by Thomas NAGEL's work!
On the page, it states that :
"Nagel argues that, because bats are apparently conscious mammals with a way of perceiving their environment entirely different from that of human beings, it is possible to speak of "what is it like to be a bat for the bat" or, while the example of the bat is particularly illustrative, any conscious species, as each organism has a unique point of view from which no other organism can gather experience.To Nagel, the subjective character of experience implies the cognitive closure of the human mind to some facts, specifically the mental states that physical states create.
The subjectivity of perception of reality implies that perception of all of the things, concepts, and "truths" in the universe differ between individuals: we all live in different worlds, each of which may have things in common, because of our unique perspectives on our worlds. The only thing to which one can hold oneself is something one has experienced or perceived. Until someone has had an experience of something the object or concept within itself is not real. Someone in Africa is aware of the existence of fire and sees it but for an Eskimo who has never seen fire before the fire does not exist in the same way. The idea of the subjectivity of reality also hints at an aspect of moral relativism, that each person's opinions are the only things they can hold themselves to."
I think that the Nahel bond too has to do with this self-symmetry that Roshar is governed by, and the phenomena regarding psychological subjective perception to be referred to as having fractal tendencies also has a part to play in this mystery.
I think there's waaay more to this, but I'm tired, and I'm pretty confident that the Nahel bond and Thomas Nagel's work are somewhat connected, but I need to do a whole lot more research on this. Hopefully all you lovely people out there can dissect this and flesh it out into a bigger theory, with a whole lot more information! Cheers guys! =)
