Europe comes late to the fractal party

Plato’s reproductive hierarchy

• Man and woman -> flesh child -> decay, flux• Philosopher and boy -> philosopher• Philosopher -> “brain child” -> if true lives

forever

• Truth is just remembering• The realm of the forms: static, eternal truths• The world of flesh is “flux” = “rhea”=diarrhea

Plato’s math hierarchy

• Inferior math systems are based on change or flux. Infinite regress -> paradox and confusion

• Superior math is static and eternal

Inferior spiral of change

The “perfect spiral” of Archimedes

African traditions celebrate flux, fecundity, and the infinite recursion of ancestry

Ancient Egyptian tradition of alchemy was founded on microcosm /macrocosm

“As above, so below”

Jacob Bernoulli: an anti-essentialist example?

• Studies Leibnez’ calculus (1684)• Becomes fascinated by logarithmic spiral • Requested log spiral on tombstone but got

Archimedean instead! Even if individuals defy, culture “corrects.”

Georg Cantor, RosicrucianCapital of column from ancient Egyptian temple, representing the recursive self-generation of the world as a lotus blossom opening its petals.

Georg Cantor studied the Rosicrucian religion, which believed that ancient Egypt held the secrets of life.

His cousin Moritz Cantor was an expert in the geometry of Egyptian art.

Could this be the origin of the Cantor set?