Fractal Theory

Maxus · Post by **Maxus** » Sun Oct 28, 2012 1:17 am

So lately, I've been thinking about fractal theory and the whole "things come in threes" and how it's kinda weirding me out that I'm getting to expect them.

F'rinstance:

-My sister had to get surgery on her ankle to get a wire removed (she broke it badly a couple of years ago).

-My mom sliced her thumb open on a can's lid and had to get twelve stitches

-Dad was in a minor car wreck and broke a rib from hitting the steering wheel

-A friend got rear-ended

-A cousin's blood sugar crashed, resulting in a hospital visit.

All within, like, a two-week period.

So after mom's stitches (one of the last of those things), I told my boss at work about fractal theory and then said I felt like another one was coming.

The next day, one of my co-workers had a severe anxiety attack--which we thought was a heart attack--and got taken to the hospital in an ambulance.

So as the ambulance was pulling away, my boss looked at me and said, "Dammit, Alex, I was a lot happier before I knew about that fractal shit. Please tell me this creepy feeling is gone."

Which is was. Haven't had any untoward emergencies since.

So I was thinking about it. Then realized that there's one going on in sports--a couple of college football coaches and Lance Armstrong have been disgraced in...broadly similar circumstances, in a short period of time. Past wrongdoing coming to light, etc.

(Of course, I'm not 100% on Lance Armstrong being guilty. Just seems weird to me that they haven't said what he was taking. Anyway, neither here nor there).

So yeah. Maybe it's confirmation bias, but I've been consciously noticing clusters of similar events. And it's a weird feeling.

erik · Post by **erik** » Sun Oct 28, 2012 2:04 am

Maxus wrote:So lately, I've been thinking about fractal theory and the whole "things come in threes" and how it's kinda weirding me out that I'm getting to expect them.

...

So I was thinking about it. Then realized that there's one going on in sports--a couple of college football coaches and Lance Armstrong have been disgraced in...broadly similar circumstances, in a short period of time. Past wrongdoing coming to light, etc.

It's a weird feeling because our brains are full cognitive biases that make us leap to faulty conclusions. Humans are HOOOOOORRRRIBLE at making sense of statistical data. We don't expect clustering of phenomena, even though that is what is supposed to happen in a truly random system. And then when we do observe clustering we presume that it means that it will continue, which is also a failure to understand random phenomena.

We're creatures highly primed to pick up on coincidences and try and make patterns of them. That gets kicked up a notch when it is something that draws more of our attention like personal trauma (and thanks to our celebrity culture, their pains are often felt more personally than other strangers).

My general inclination when someone says things come in threes after two bad things have happened is to want to punch said person in the face, which I suppose would be a fulfilling the prediction come to think of it. It's a horrible thing to say to someone because it messes with their head when they're already having a less than stellar time and are a bit more vulnerable to mind-fuckery (and as previously noted, the human mind is already a playground for such affairs).

A "things come in threes" is not actually happening in sports, or rather there's always plenty of other wrong doing that has been going on and you're mostly just focusing on those 3. As for it being 3 things in a short time... Sandusky was indicted by a Grand Jury almost a year ago (Nov 4, 2011) and that was after a 3 year investigation. As for doping scandals in biking, I'm pretty sure that's not uncommon. I'm not sure how far we'd have to go way far back before Lance Armstrong wasn't being accused of doping.

It sounds like there was some damning allegations on Lance, but it baffles me why they can't come out and say what he done since samples were taken and kept over many many years. I presume if they cannot find it STILL, then it has to be something that breaks down without leaving any traces... which is pretty frickin awesome, and makes me wonder how anyone else is getting caught. With my quasi-recent experience at getting wrongfully screwed via false allegations, I suppose I am somewhat sympathetic to Mr. Armstrong since if he did what was accused of, then there should be rock solid physical evidence to back that up.

Maxus · Post by **Maxus** » Sun Oct 28, 2012 2:17 am

True enough there. Maybe I'm just getting jumpy.

Anyways, Fractal theory. Amazin' stuff. And makes for cool desktop backgrounds.

Maj · Post by **Maj** » Sun Oct 28, 2012 2:23 am

I've been thinking about fractals lately, but it was because I ate this:

It's delicious, BTW.

Prak · Post by **Prak** » Sun Oct 28, 2012 3:02 am

What does it actually taste like? My friends were telling me about it last week, too.

erik · Post by **erik** » Sun Oct 28, 2012 4:09 am

Imma gonna guess it tastes like broccoli. Which puts the lie to Maj's last statement.

(I actually like broccoli with the all-too appetizingly named "brown sauce" that is common on Beef and Broccoli dishes at chinese food joints... but attribute that liking to the sauce rather than the broccoli)

[edit:] oh harrumph, apparently wikipedia says it tastes a bit different, "Romanesco broccoli has a milder flavour, more creamy and nutty, and less bitter, than conventional broccoli or cauliflower". That's what I get for not taking a few seconds to check before making my snarkpost.

Maj · Post by **Maj** » Sun Oct 28, 2012 6:56 am

I do find romanesco less bitter, but it's similar enough to broccoli that people who find broccoli revolting probably won't like it much. It was easier for me eat because the florets are smaller, and the consistency was a bit firmer. Personally, I love broccoli when it's cooked properly, so romanesco was perfectly enjoyable with a little butter, parsley, and garlic.

Prak · Post by **Prak** » Sun Oct 28, 2012 7:12 am

So, basically I should try a bit in the presence of someone who loves broccoli, so that if I don't like it, they can have all the rest. Got it.

Username17 · Post by **Username17** » Sun Oct 28, 2012 7:31 am

Beef and Broccoli is made with oyster sauce or soy sauce or both. Brown Sauce is like fermented ketchup that British people put on things. There is no tomato puree in beef and broccoli dishes.

As for Lance Armstrong, what they have him on is a bunch of direct testimony from people who claim that they saw him doping. That's not enough for a court of law, because they don't have any actual chemical evidence. But it's enough apparently for the racing board that already doesn't like him and wants to be shown going after a "high profile" doping candidate to prove that they are "tough on doping". Now that he is no longer racing in the Tour de France, he is a safe target for them to attack because he wouldn't be racing in their race anyway.

The reality is that high level sportsmen specially tailor everything that goes into their body to increase performance. Some of that involves making sure that they get very specific levels of protein, carbohydrates, fat, vitamins, and hormones from their food. Some of that involves supplements of the same from pills and injections. Everyone does this. You can't be a high level sportsman without doing this. Well, you can be an X-man like Usain Bolt and eat chicken nuggets before races, but I point out that those are full of protein and hormones too.

Sports Medicine is way ahead of the governing bodies when it comes to pushing performance out of athletes, and stars backed by major countries and firms basically never get caught doping because the things they do to boost their performance are not even illegal (yet). The sponsoring agencies have no reason to share their Sports Medicine breakthroughs with the world and every reason to keep quiet, so the governing boards are left sniffing after performance enhancing regimes that are twenty years old and more. That's why periodically the governing boards feel the need to try to pretend that they aren't a bunch of pathetic dinosaurs by crucifying someone high profile on hearsay allegations. Basically, it's This.

-Username17

tussock · Post by **tussock** » Sun Oct 28, 2012 2:43 pm

@OP: Wut?

It's the rule of three, not the fucking rule of six. You're not even being superstitious properly. It's like you're throwing spilt sugar over your shoulder, or not liking when a black dog crosses your path, or treating Saturday the 12th as an auspicious date. Broke a DVD and are worried about 4 years bad luck. Walked under an escalator. Stepped on a pebble.

Not to mention thinking you broke causality by thinking about fractals. Wut? OK, good of you to seek clarification, because no you didn't. Rule of thumb: shit happens, commiserations, life goes on, at least for some.

Whatever · Post by **Whatever** » Sun Oct 28, 2012 3:42 pm

I'm really confused what fractals have to do with any of this. I mean, you could have a fractal theory of events, where you look at how small scale events are repeated at a large scale: a car crash victim is both a person and a statistic. An economic crisis is a regional event, but it plays out as thousands and millions of individual events, too. I'm not sure if you could actually come up with anything meaningful to say, but at least it'd be a better start than letting your brain find patterns in the random noise of daily life.

Maxus · Post by **Maxus** » Sun Oct 28, 2012 4:41 pm

tussock wrote:@OP: Wut?

It's the rule of three, not the fucking rule of six. You're not even being superstitious properly. It's like you're throwing spilt sugar over your shoulder, or not liking when a black dog crosses your path, or treating Saturday the 12th as an auspicious date. Broke a DVD and are worried about 4 years bad luck. Walked under an escalator. Stepped on a pebble.

Not to mention thinking you broke causality by thinking about fractals. Wut? OK, good of you to seek clarification, because no you didn't. Rule of thumb: shit happens, commiserations, life goes on, at least for some.

Nah. The rule of three isn't true. Although the basic idea of similar events coming in streaks apparently is.

What makes me think there's a grain of truth to it is because shit like the above. No one's in the hospital for months, no medical emergencies happen. Then a large group of visits occur in the same two week period. Pretty much every other day, I'd check facebook and see something's happened.

Not to mention a guy with no history of anxiety attacks falls over from one. That shit was scary.

Now, as others have rightly pointed out, confirmation bias, I might be crazy, etc., etc. Which is true. I might be. Carry on. I don't try to live my life around this shit, but I can believe the idea's true.

[joke]
And, actually, stepping on a pebble is terrible bad luck. Once when I was a kid, I stepped on a pebble while running in the yard and limped around for, like, three days thanks to a deepass-yet-pinpoint bruise on my heel. Hurt like a motherfucker, too. And if wincing with every step with your right foot isn't unlucky, what is?
[/joke]

Kaelik · Post by **Kaelik** » Sun Oct 28, 2012 5:49 pm

Maxus you are the dumbest idiot on a forum that sometimes hosts Shadazar.

Statistically speaking there should be people who can grasp at straws like "five people I know, including a cousin all had to visit the hospital (except the one who didn't) for something relatively common and minor" to claim things come in streaks.

The only amazing thing here is that there still exist alive people stupid enough to believe this counts as a reason (much less a good one) to believe in magic causality breaking streaks.

erik · Post by **erik** » Sun Oct 28, 2012 6:30 pm

I think Kaelik is being characteristicaly overly harsh, and stand by my assertion that the human brain is basically unreliable if you just go by what feels right because our instincts with respect to statistics are craptastic. Wonder why so many people believe in superstitions and (at risk of redundancy) religions, then look no further than this thread to see an otherwise rational and intelligent being that is beguiled by our natural propensity to err in the quest of finding patterns and meaning.

Although the basic idea of similar events coming in streaks apparently is (true).

Depends upon what you mean. If you mean that there are such things as hot or cold streaks then no, that is not real. If you mean that random clustering of events happens over time, then yes, that's true, especially when said 'similar events' and 'time spans' are very sketchy arrangements, and the thing to take away from it being true in that sense, is that it is not special at all.

There area about 6 million adults in the U.S. with panic disorders or about 40 million adults in the U.S. with some sort of anxiety disorder. That's nearly 1 in 5 adults. Does it seem that freaky now considering how common anxiety disorders are, and how many people whose state of being you are constantly aware of (directly or via acquaintances, facebook, etc)? Hopefully not. Especially considering that if it hadn't been an anxiety disorder but instead had actually been a heart attack, cancer or something equally scary it would have had a similar impact on your psyche. Consider the probability not just of one specific ailment, but of any possible ailment that would have been considered, and you are looking at an incredibly high likelihood of something scary happening to someone.

As I understand it...

If we still lived in tiny social circles then it would make sense to be hunting for patterns where a tiny number of people become afflicted with something because that's statistically relevant to our own well being. Our brains are geared for that. But now that we live in a society where we are tapped in to the well being of hundreds, or more likely even thousands of people's state of being, our brains are all fucked up when trying to make sense of what is going on. We see common things happening to a much larger group and effectively flip out thinking that it is more relevant than reality would attest because our brains are still trained to a small-community mindset.

Maxus · Post by **Maxus** » Sun Oct 28, 2012 7:16 pm

Kaelik? Overly harsh? Perish the thought! He's always a voice of sweet reasonbleness and moderation.

And yeah. I've accepted that posting this was kinda dumb. Confirmation bias, doing superstition wrong, etc, etc.. It stings a little, but I've been wrong before. I'm a big boy, I can take it. After the first few times, it doesn't bother me so much, so there isn't much that bother me on this topic now.

Kaelik certainly can't.

CatharzGodfoot · Post by **CatharzGodfoot** » Sun Oct 28, 2012 9:15 pm

I'm still wondering what any of this (except the broccoli) has to do with fractals.

Koumei · Post by **Koumei** » Mon Oct 29, 2012 12:24 am

Kaelik wrote:you are the dumbest idiot on a forum that sometimes hosts Shadazar.

This might be the best insult ever.

Whipstitch · Post by **Whipstitch** » Mon Oct 29, 2012 4:27 am

erik wrote: My general inclination when someone says things come in threes after two bad things have happened is to want to punch said person in the face, which I suppose would be a fulfilling the prediction come to think of it.

Depends on how many times you beat them. Be thorough, I say.

tussock · Post by **tussock** » Mon Oct 29, 2012 2:36 pm

As for how to think your way out of this sort of thing: if your brain is trying to find connections between events, consider seriously if there are any real ones, and dismiss it otherwise.

Sister is old news, booked in long ago, maybe the operation is risky enough to worry your parents, but probably not a big deal compared to the original.

Can lids can be super sharp, a lot of people learn that the hard way. Conceivably a sign of something else, but more likely wear on the opener is slowly making lids sharper as age continues to make skin less elastic.

Your father needs to wear a fucking seat belt. That's just stupid. Get a belt cutter if you're paranoid about getting trapped.

Did your father rear-end your friend? Oooh-er. Same corner, different times? No? Not related. Lots of people have minor car accidents, because they just let all sorts of people drive cars. Very common. Very difficult to see how it relates to a cut thumb or a scheduled minor surgery.

So your other cousin has diabetes, and they'll have a lot of hospital visits over the next ten or twenty years and then be dead. Again, this doesn't seem to be caused by car accidents or cuts or surgery.

You know how stuff works, trust yourself, look for real links if you want to, people talking on the phone to each other about something that makes everyone upset and distracted. Anxiety? Me too, it's ass, but it's not related to the superstitions of random work colleagues.

RobbyPants · Post by **RobbyPants** » Mon Oct 29, 2012 4:44 pm

Man, I forgot all about the rule of three. My grandmother told me all about it when I was young, and I remember taking it at face value at the time.

The whole thing seems sort of like the Texas Sharpshooter Fallacy to me. All you have to do is wait an arbitrary amount of time for three semi-related things to happen, draw your circle around the arbitrary time-line, and claim victory. The next time around, don't feel the need to adhere to your last arbitrary length of time; lengthen or shorten it as you see fit until you get three more data points.

Basically, it seems like if you broaden or narrow your criteria for "similar" when looking at events, you could just as easily coin the Rule of Two or the Rule of Four.

The Gaming Den

Fractal Theory

Fractal Theory

Re: Fractal Theory

Re: Fractal Theory