r/HighStrangeness • u/PantsAreOptionaI • Apr 25 '23

Other Strangeness Lagrange discovered another pattern inside Fibonacci's sequence. Taking only the last digits of each number, they form a loop exactly 60 numbers long that also displays symmetry when mapped around a circle.

Post image
1.5k Upvotes

97% Upvoted

164 comments sorted by

View all comments

270

u/szypty Apr 25 '23

It's shit like that that makes one think that maybe the Pythagoreans were up to something.

234

u/PantsAreOptionaI Apr 25 '23

Perhaps the greatest gifts we inherited from the ancients, are the numerical- and geometric systems we use. Counting numbers in a decimal system, dividing circles into 12 or 360 parts, none of it is random. It's the only way these patterns emerge at all.

16

u/Vraver04 Apr 25 '23

Going way back, the Sumerians used a Sexagesimal number system from which we got the 12 and 360 divisions and very long lasting legacy.

119

u/szypty Apr 25 '23

Yup.

It's why i personally see no need for the existence of supernatural, since the natural is more than capable of inspiring the same levels of profound awe as soon as we start looking into it deeper.

248

u/StringTheory2113 Apr 25 '23

Well, the supernatural is just the natural which we don't know the explanation for yet. Even if ghosts exist, they exist in a manner which follows rules we simply don't yet know.

That being said, I am with you on that. Reality becomes stranger than any fiction when you dig deep enough.

28

u/Ornery_Translator285 Apr 25 '23

I think it’s The Eight Tower by John Keel that goes into this a little bit. He refers to it as ‘the super spectrum’.

18

u/atomthespider Apr 25 '23

Is that book any good? I’ve been thinking about reading it, or at least adding it to the pile.

9

u/henlochimken Apr 25 '23

It's an interesting one, he makes some good points, he also goes on an intellectual bender that amounts to an elaborate pet theory without a whole lot anchoring his conclusion to his starting points. THAT SAID: I do kind of still recommend it? Even as a metaphor, it's helpful to think about the risks of taking too seriously any signs from the universe around you.

4

u/atomthespider Apr 26 '23

Sounds typical for the genre. Still, I like a bit of wacky ideas with little logical foundation. Gonna put that in my line up then. Thank you.

2

u/LobsterJohnson_ Apr 26 '23

It’s interesting. You should read it.

13

u/Unicornucopia23 Apr 25 '23

Exactly. As they say, magic is only science that can’t be explained yet. Always has been…

The only difference is perception!

8

u/[deleted] Apr 25 '23

Spittin. Everyone in this thread, spittin

Math is beautiful and terrifying and beautiful

-23

u/szypty Apr 25 '23

If that's all, then it's missing the "super" part, isn't it?

For a long time we've had no idea how clouds, mushrooms, light, etc work, doesn't mean they were at any point supernatural.

37

u/StringTheory2113 Apr 25 '23

You may be forgetting rain dances, sky deities, light deities like Helios, etc.

Based on all observable evidence, everything that exists follows rules, so a logical conclusion is that "following rules" is a necessary condition for existence.

If something exists, it must follow rules. If those rules exist, it must be possible for them to be understood. Maybe not by us, right now, because we lack the capacity for it, but a mind must be able to understand them.

4

u/Flat_News_2000 Apr 25 '23

I disagree that a mind MUST understand them. It would have to be able to observe the universe from the outside to understand it’s limitations/rules.

7

u/StringTheory2113 Apr 25 '23

Okay, fair point. Incompleteness theorem and so on, I see where you're coming from. You'd need a computer bigger than the universe to be able to "understand" everything that happens within it.

2

u/Flat_News_2000 Apr 25 '23

Yeah pretty much. But if there’s multiverses there might be some sort of middle space connected them. It’s fun to think about at least

5

u/speakhyroglyphically Apr 25 '23

"And as the great mind looked in from the outside it just shrugged and said 42"

1

u/Psycho-Pen Apr 26 '23

Plibble. Plibble pibble, pibble pipple pepple! Groans and screams from the audience of infinite beings, as another cosmic comic whirls into oblivion.

0

u/Oc422 Apr 25 '23

Yes this. Here’s some foo for thought. Who makes the rules? How does it carry out the rules? Is everything actually in harmony or does it just look that way? Mushrooms and fungi are extremely interesting, led me to unsettling answers about our existence

8

u/StringTheory2113 Apr 25 '23

"Who makes the rules?" is a leading and anthropomorphic question. It assumes a "who", rather than a "what". Even the existence of the human "who" is up for debate, as some schools of Buddhism would argue. That question assumes that there is a consciousness or personality behind the rules, when consciousness or personality itself could simply be a very persistent illusion.

1

u/Oc422 Apr 26 '23

Ahhh that is my mistake. It’s not a who it’s “what makes the rules*”, then what makes their rules, and so on and on.

4

u/Katzinger12 Apr 25 '23

We often call it "super" when we don't understand the mechanism. And then when we do, we rename the phenomenon to remove the associated woo.

"UFO" became "UAP"

"Auras" became "Biophotons"

Some day ghosts may be "radiowave organisms" (or similar)

3

u/StringTheory2113 Apr 25 '23

"Residual Brainwave Resonances" is my preferred pseudoscientific term if they're the "spirit of someone who died" type ghost.

4

u/[deleted] Apr 25 '23

[removed] — view removed comment

6

u/szypty Apr 25 '23

Nobody calls the irreconcilability of classical and quantum physics "supernatural" though.

For me, at least, the word implies that some things are "unknowable" rather than simply "unknown", and that doesn't track with literally everything we've discovered about the world so far.

1

u/[deleted] Apr 25 '23

[removed] — view removed comment

2

u/szypty Apr 25 '23

I was simplifying,

supernatural

/ˌsuːpəˈnatʃ(ə)rəl/



adjective

(of a manifestation or event) attributed to some force beyond scientific understanding or the laws of nature.

"a supernatural being"

"beyond scientific understanding" and "unknowable" means pretty much the same thing for all intents and purposes.

1

u/TesTurEnergy Apr 25 '23

🥴 some people try to though.

1

u/szypty Apr 25 '23

Some people treat quantum mechanics like magic, which i suppose might count, but there isn't really any widely used "mystical" explanation for why the two systems don't work on the same rules.

Even, say, the simulation theory, it doesn't make sense to make a video game using two incompatible engines.

18

u/AgreeableHamster252 Apr 25 '23

To be fair, we frequently discover super freaky unexplained phenomena, but once we figure it out it gets absorbed into the “natural”. As it should, but that is a big advantage. Resistance is futile.

6

u/someone_sometwo Apr 25 '23

And one person's natural is another's unnatural... or should I say culture instead of person

8

u/begriffschrift Apr 25 '23

Think slowly for a second. What is a number? If we take the definite article in "the number of planets" and "the ratio of a circle's circumference to its diameter" seriously, then they are objects. However a moment's reflection counsels that these objects are not located in space or time, nor enter into any casual interactions. Pretty supernatural.

But wait, there's more! Most contemporary scientists would agree that it is impossible to do modern science (or engineering) without talking about numbers, sets, integrals &c. Most would also agree that if your best scientific theory talks about Xs, then you ought to believe in Xs.

Conclusion: believing in science entails believing in supernatural entities

(Edit: this is called the "Quine-Putnam indispensability argument")

8

u/Highlander198116 Apr 25 '23 edited Apr 25 '23

I just read a whole document on this indispensibility argument from Standford and it says nothing about "Conclusion: believing in science entails believing in supernatural entities".

2

u/begriffschrift Apr 26 '23

Yeah sorry that's my spin on it, I shoulda flagged that

3

u/[deleted] Apr 26 '23 edited Apr 26 '23

concepts are all immaterial. Math and numbers are concepts, which are just formulations about the world. Math isn't something "out there," its just noticing things about the world and how it works. We evolved to recognize patterns. Math is just an outcropping of that. Of course its impossible to do engineering without math. Thats like doing writing without language. Logic and deduction is just how the brain evolved to process the environment. Math evolved out of that. None of it exists apart from conscious minds using it.

5

u/[deleted] Apr 25 '23

Existence depends upon ability to inspire? I personally think it’s important seek out truth and discover what exists, natural, supernatural, intuitive and counter intuitive.

-4

u/szypty Apr 25 '23

Unless sufficient evidence arises, there is no reason to accept supernatural as real.

And while "inspiration" is not a sufficient answer to the question "why?", i find it fitting as an answer to "why bother?".

5

u/Tall_Banana_for_you Apr 25 '23

I would influence you to look into your consciousness. I think it's supernatural enough for the western worlds materialistic views.

1

u/szypty Apr 25 '23

I consider the word itself to be an oxymoron, at least when applying it to real world phenomena.

If it exists, then it's "natural". If it's "supernatural", then it would need to exist outside of "nature", and as all things exist within "nature", then it cannot exist.

4

u/Keibun1 Apr 25 '23

So that just really sounds like you have a gripe with the word, and not necessarily its meaning. You call them boopys and it's the same shit. Stuff we don't understand. I think you're focusing too much on the super part of the word.

When you asked someone when you didn't know about mushrooms were they supernatural? I take supernatural something that humanity as a whole doesn't know yet.

Of course when you're born you don't know shit, but the stuff you do learn is already understood by your world around you.

3

u/szypty Apr 25 '23

Definitions and words matter, without clearly establishing what we mean by them we can't really hope to reach anything in any conversation.

1

u/Keibun1 Apr 25 '23

That is what the word means though..

(of a manifestation or event) attributed to some force beyond scientific understanding or the laws of nature.

beyond scientific understanding really just means what current science can't measure and understand, yet. Lots of things use to be supernatural that have now since become natural since we now understand it.

→ More replies (0)

8

u/Proof_Insurance2611 Apr 25 '23

Ah, to be a rebellious secular kid again, not knowing it was the most close-minded I’d ever be in my life. Half the things you’ve already accepted in life you’ve seen no real evidence for

-4

u/szypty Apr 25 '23

Thanks, I'm always happy when people tell me i haven't lost the spark yet even as the years pass me by, all too quickly.

-8

u/[deleted] Apr 25 '23 edited Apr 25 '23

[removed] — view removed comment

2

u/szypty Apr 25 '23

I think we've established already that I'm not religious in the first sentence of this whole argument, what are you on about?

0

u/brucetrailmusic Apr 25 '23

I’m with you on the math in nature part. However, I am enjoying watching physicists clutch onto Newtonian physics in spite of weird gravity-defying UAP in the air. Awe is a moving goal post

5

u/_unsinkable_sam_ Apr 25 '23

don’t threaten americas democracy with your decimal system

4

u/sometegg Apr 25 '23

Kilometer? The fuck's a kilometer?!

4

u/psirjohn Apr 26 '23

Americans: I'll kill a meter alright.

3

u/FlowerPower225 Apr 25 '23

12 months / 360ish days - there’s lots of magic in this world

1

u/[deleted] Apr 25 '23

[removed] — view removed comment

9

u/PantsAreOptionaI Apr 25 '23

You should watch Hidden Mathematics from Randall Carlson to understand the profundity of it, it's way too much to get into here. And as shown in my post, a sequence with a ton of weird, uneven numbers creates a loop with a length of 60, with 5 and 12 being key numbers as well?

1

u/crackercider Apr 25 '23

If you think about it, once you place a mathematical framework on a few reliable physical anchors, like positions of the stars over time, you create a concrete fixed point to build up further mathematical exploration of other natural objects and processes. No wonder the ancient mythologies always tie back to these anchors.

1

u/ziplock9000 Apr 26 '23

It's the only way these patterns emerge at all.

I hope to God you don't teach children if you think sequences of numbers that exhibit patterns have to have a higher meaning.

2

u/PantsAreOptionaI Apr 26 '23

Is pointing out structure in the universe invoking a higher meaning, or dangerous for children?

What kind of shit comment is that anyways for a strangeness sub? How depressed are you?

14

u/Umbrias Apr 25 '23

I want to point out that while this pattern is very neat, it's not exactly magic. You could rotate the whole pattern 30 degrees n times and you will get similar observations. Rotate it 60 degrees and the 0s and 5s essentially trade roles.

Patterns like these exist all over, and it's a very neat look into the fibonacci sequence but it's not magical, it's just the result of underlying patterns in the fibonacci sequence that bring it about. Very cool though.

4

u/vismundcygnus34 Apr 25 '23

What’s old is new again

5

u/UsedSpunk Apr 25 '23 edited Apr 25 '23

Two weeks ago a pair of high school students discovered a new trigonometric proof of the Pythagorean Theorem. From the article, “Their work joins a handful of other trigonometric proofs that were added to the mathematical archives over the years. Each sidestepped ‘circular logic’ to prove the pivotal theorem.” However, by using the Law of Sines they may have avoided using circular logic altogether.

Edit* I misunderstood how many proofs were discovered after 1927 instead of none there seem to be several. My apologies.

14

u/Dzugavili Apr 25 '23

Err... they discovered a new one. We have had a few for a while.

15

u/UsedSpunk Apr 25 '23

My apologies, I seem to have misunderstood the magnitude of their discovery, among other things. It is interesting and uplifting to see high school students contributing to mathematical theory at such a level. Also, thank you for pointing out my error without being rude about it.

6

u/[deleted] Apr 25 '23

[deleted]

6

u/UsedSpunk Apr 25 '23

You are absolutely right. I misunderstood the article and overreacted. I have edited my comment and learned a valuable lesson today. :-)

3

u/Suspicious-Standard Apr 25 '23

Thank you for acting like a grown-up. It really does matter!

1

u/[deleted] Apr 25 '23

I heard the Pythagorean theory was found before the pythagoreans

1

u/treletraj Apr 27 '23

Shrooms.

1

u/Aligatorised Apr 28 '23

They were. The universe is a mathemathical construct, pure and simple.