Fractal geometry, scriptures and the gospel

This post is the result of a teacher training in the neighborhood of Almeria, Spain organized by the Sunday school. In this case I received the invitation of Daniel, one of his counselors
This post is not a transcript of this training, but a development of it.
For that, it is necessary for me to see the fractal concept. It takes a little patience, but it is essential to become familiar with this term to understand what we are going to talk about.

Fractal geometry

Fractal geometry, scriptures and the gospel
It is the geometry of nature

A fractal is a figure, which is composed of smaller parts that are similar or equal to the original and that are repeated at different scales. Both large and small scales.

We see the example of broccoli. Broccoli has a fractal geometry because it branches out into smaller pieces each time and they are all similar to the main set. Its fractal dimension, that is, the exponent of how it fills space is 2.66. If you are interested in seeing how you get to this exponent you can see it here.

In the same way our lungs, circulatory system, the heart. Everything is developed with a fractal geometry. It is the geometry of nature.Our world does not

Fractal geometry, scriptures and the gospel
Sierpinski’s triangle

It is made of smooth and regular objects. Our world is composed of rugged, complex and chaotic objects. The mountains are not cones, nor are the clouds cotton balls. The rivers are not straight and we can not predict the shape of the rocks. Everything is of a chaotic or fractal geometry.

The geometry of the world of human invoice, that of Euclid, studies objects created by man or reduces the complexity of the natural world to straight lines, triangles, squares, etc.

It can not describe nature. The fractal geometry or geometry of chaos can describe the shapes of nature. In its greater simplicity it creates similar models like this simple one, the triangle of Sierpinski with a fractal dimension 1,58, inferior to 2, since it is flat and not with volume like broccoli.

Fractal geometry, scriptures and the gospel
Fractal figures

Fractal figures as art

The elaboration of fractal figures with an artistic approach is really amazing, you can see it in this link  . These creations, which are generated without an artistic will, overwhelm those who see them because they show us a world that is not human and yet its forms and beauty are familiar. It is interesting to perceive when observing them how they overwhelm us. Through simple formulas they generate natural forms, similar to the world where we live.

 

The fractal in the scriptures

       If we look closely at the prophecies of the Old Testament, the Apocalypse of John or the words of the Savior, they are generally rough, difficult to understand in all their extension, for a mind of Euclidean geometry. By this I mean for someone linear thinking, logical and trained to understand a world of human objects, someone who as  «… the natural man receiveth not the things of the Spirit of God: for they are foolishness unto him: neither can he know them, because they are spiritually discerned» 1 Corinthians 2:14 .
We often get the impression that the scriptures leave our linear world and order and begin to curve our sense of things, both in time and space. but what in appearance are broken in the logic are only reliefs of a strange and different knowledge to the daily one.

Examples in D & C

In section 88 of the Doctrine and Covenants we find a coastal outline, with ledges and inlets and not so much a linear outline of ideas. We can see a map of that coast in the heading of the section. We see salients, difficult access coves, beaches and promontories. It is not a dissertation of linear and straight issues.

Someone accustomed to reading technical books or organized stories, has difficulty transiting through the landscape of the scriptures. It is rough for those who are not used to it.

Written coast of the scriptures
Fractals and writings

        Even when the development of this section is understandable, its rhythm is broken and contains disruptions, that is, sudden interruptions. Let’s see some of them.

  • From verse 6 to 7 there is a change of direction in the ideas, using the end of the 6 the light of truth , and the beginning of the 7 Which truth shinethEven though these words are in different verses, they are part of the same phrase. But in that same sentence there is an interruption and turn to another matter, that is why in the organization of this section it was divided into two verses.
  • From verse 13 to 14 we see another, going from speaking of the light that exists in all things to the resurrection of the dead.
  • From verse 39 to 40 goes from talking about the kingdoms and their laws to exposing a scene where intelligence, wisdom and truth make a very aesthetic and beautiful turn of language. Regardless of the continuity of ideas.
  • From 117 to 118 at this time in the section he is talking about the second coming and then he advises us to seek wisdom in the best books.

For those accustomed to the study of the scriptures, it is not a great difficulty to deal with these reliefs and sudden turns to another side. Sometimes they look like fractures in the groundwhere we read. Changes in the timeline and space are puzzling in the prophetic books. Going from future to present and vice versa in consecutive verses.

The scriptures, a natural environment

Custom makes us ignore those accidents. But if we find those fractures in our C programming manual in which we are leaving the tabs, we will feel cheated by its author. Because we expect a continuous terrain, without interruptions in ideas. We want a paved environment.

Fractal geometry, scriptures and the gospel
He is the reason for all growth

But the scriptures introduce us into a natural world, that is to say with a certain measure of chaos in its construction. However, and there for me is the key, chaos is not such but belongs to a greater order. All his work from the first day, obeys a fractal geometry, started from a dark and shapeless world. And the light, Christ, was introduced as order in the Universe.

We can see an explicit statement in D & C 88:47,  «Behold, all these are kingdoms, and any man who hath seen any or the least of these hath seen God moving in his majesty and power.»  By reading  all these Realms would beg the reader to scroll up and look at our Sierpinski triangle.

Seeing each one of those little triangles is the same as seeing the whole. In the same way that seeing a piece of coastline is seeing the whole. Just as seeing the least of those kingdoms is seeing God at work in his majesty. Just like reading any part of the scriptures is to perceive the totality of them. However, all this may seem like chaos on our scale.

The fractal in the law of Moses

In previous post we have been able to see the fractal dimension of the law of Moses, and that is Christ. He is the reason for all growth of that law because it is the light that penetrates all things. We can not understand the law of Moses and the prophecies of the old testament without having Jesus Christ present. If we renounce it, the projection of its laws in time does not generate an increase of light and knowledge.

Ancient Israel, by rejecting it, was deprived of that gene of growth that is its name. And they remained in the same state without increase during the following centuries. Inserted that fractal dimension that is its word, in any realm, be less as a person or greater as a nation, or even greater as a planet, the fruit will be the same. Increase in light and knowledge.

Fractal geometry, scriptures and the gospel
El Salvador is present in each segment of the Gospel

Let’s take the example of the US Constitution or the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. The achievements and advances achieved, for example, from the facts reported in section 110: 13-15 are formidable for anyone contemplating them. But if the one we found in verse 2 were not present , we would have nothing, absolutely nothing.

In the same way that 2.66 is the growth rate of broccoli or 1.58 that of the triangle of Sierpinski. The Savior is present in each segment of the Gospel, in each of its aspects and in each space.

In section 19 we can trace its outline starting with a statement of its power and its endless quality. It happens to the repentance and the punishment of God, which is also endless. and from that thread he introduces us into the intensity of his sufferings in the atonement. Suddenly he moves on to verse 25 where he commands us not to covet our neighbor’s wife. He ends up addressing Martin Harris.

The natural contemplation

fractal geometry, scriptures and the gospel
When reading, it is necessary to have an exploratory attitude and not just traveling

In section 59 he talks about the laws that must be fulfilled by those who inhabit the land of Zion. But in verse 9 he stops on the Sabbath and we can contemplate from it, the most beautiful description of that day that I know or have never heard.

The language stops in this command and rises in the landscape to form a promontory that is impossible to pass by. You have to stop to see the forms of a totally different narrative. When reading, it is necessary to have an exploratory attitude and not just a traveler. It is not a matter of getting to know but of discovering.

It is imperative, like the naturalist, to observe the details of this language to identify, in each of its words, the species of spiritual flora and fauna that populate the words of the savior. Following the natural tendency of the traveler absorbed in the arrival at his destination makes us lose the hidden treasures in the rugged relief of the scriptures that the explorer accesses.

 The fractal in the church

       In The Church of Jesus Christ, we can see the concept of the trinity of the heavens, spread through all levels of organization. From the first presidency of the church formed by a president and two councilors to the presidency of the youngest of their congregations and their auxiliary organizations, everything is constituted the same. The scheme is the same.
Fractal geometry and the gospel
The scheme is the same.

Government by council extends equally at all levels. The work agendas, the operative, the contents of classes, courses and instructions. Everything obeys a fractal dimension of three values. Proclaim the gospel, perfect the saints and redeem the dead. All area plans, local and even family plans follow that growth rate. In any segment, no matter how small, the whole set can be inferred.

Fractal dimension of the restoration

There is a formal beginning of this growth. I place it in section 110 of the Doctrine and Covenants, where it relates very important events that occurred in 1836. Before the first presidency of the Church was organized, in 1841 formed by Joseph Smith as president and Sidney Rigdon as first counselor and William Law as second adviser. As I say before that, in 1836, the fractal dimension of what would be the development of the great panorama of restoration was received.
Section 110 recounts the visit to Joseph Smith and Oliver Cowdery in the Kirtland temple of various characters. Among them Moses, Elijah and Elijah the prophet. Each of them handed over the keys, that is, the authority to carry out an aspect of the gospel of Jesus Christ.
  •  11 «After this vision closed, the heavens were again openedunto us; and Moses appeared before us, and committed unto us the keys of the gathering of Israel from the four parts of the earth, and the leading of the ten tribes from the land of the north.»
    Here we have the proclamation of the gospel, the missionary work
  •  12 «After this, Elias appeared, and committed the dispensation of the gospel of Abraham, saying that in us and our seed all generations after us should be blessed.»
    We have the sealing power, perfection of the saints
  •  13 Elijah the prophet comes later … «to turn the hearts of the fathers to the children, and the children’s to the fathers, so that the whole world would not be hurt with a curse.» The redemption of the dead or Family History .

These three keys are the fractal dimension of the church, the reason for its growth. They constitute the «genetic» information that reproduces the original properties again and again on any scale. Those that were received in 1841.

Contemplate the scriptures as a creation

Fractal geometry, scriptures and the gospel
The nautilus, fractal example

We find them from the activities of a small group of members in a village in Nigeria, to the whole of a world church. It does not matter the place of the world and the volume of the sample. The properties are the same.
However, it is very easy to get lost in the landscape on a small scale.

How many Israelites were lost in the details of the law, not contemplating the whole of it, nor where it pointed. How we become disoriented when we read Isaiah or the Apocalypse without considering Christ. Or when we do not consider that center of growth that we mentioned in section 110 and forget who was on the pulpit’s handrail. It is easy to get lost in the fractal labyrinth of the nautilus of the image when we only see fractures in our path.
      Contemplating the scriptures as one more creation of their hands, as well as the nautilus, helps us prepare to explore and discover hidden mysteries. Incredible shapes, unknown landscapes, amazing mountains, rivers of living water. To deal with these places, we have to discard the carnal mind, clothe ourselves with the simple mind of the humble walker who does not understand all things but who maintains what he finds on the road.

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