These are not genuinely new patterns, independent of those I described in the underlying patterns of everything in existence, but are what we could term "practical patterns". Everything that any living thing has ever done can be described by seven basic patterns, but these are all built on those fundamental patterns described in "The Most Basic Formula" and "Advanced Patterns". Life is very simple indeed.
It would be very good to become closely familiar with this set of patterns because it is how all of life operates. Everything that we do consists of manifestations and combinations of these patterns.
The first pattern of life is LEVER. A lever is used to redirect a force in one direction to another direction. So, a lever exchanges one thing for another thing.
All living things manifest the LEVER pattern virtually all the time. We exchange our time to complete necessary tasks. We exchange the money we earn to buy the things we need (This pattern could also be called "Exchange" or "Trade"). Whenever we move, we exchange northness for southness, eastness for westness or, downness for upness.
All machines made by humans manifest the LEVER pattern. In physics, a lever is actually the simplest of machines. A transmission exchanges rotary motion for linear motion. Motors exchange the energy in fuels for movement. A saw, axe, wedge or, nail exchanges force over a wide area for the same amount of force but over a very narrow area.
Money, time and, energy are "currencies" often exchanged whenever the LEVER pattern is manifested. Freedom is another such currency. Marriage is exchanging freedom for the marriage partner and membership is the exchange of some degree of freedom to belong to a group.
A mechanical lever pushes back in the opposite direction from which it is pushed and in the same way, the LEVER pattern of life represents how we tend to get back what we give out, if we work hard, we tend to prosper and if we are nice to others, they tend to be nice in return.
LEVER is all about living things exchanging something they have for something they require, it is not a genuinely new fundamental patterns but is associated with the second prime, LEVEL, and represents the exchange of one level for another.
The next pattern of life is RIDGE. I have heard the saying somewhere that "Life is a beach" but it seem to me to be more accurately a ridge. The ridge of life represents balance and the aim is to remain as close as possible to the crest of the ridge during the path through life.
RIDGE is the practical manifestation of the PEAK pattern in the third tier of patterns in our universe that I described in "Advanced Patterns". The pattern that differentiates living things from inanimate matter is that living things manifest some peak of efficiency that is meaningless with non-living things.
In the tasks that humans perform during the manifestation of the LEVER pattern, there is always some optimum way of going about it that is sought. For example, it does not make sense to train some people as bricklayers and some as surgeons and then send the bricklayers to perform operations and the surgeons to lay bricks. It would bring us closer to the peak of efficiency to have the surgeons performing the operations and the bricklayers laying the bricks. Either way, the LEVER pattern would be manifested equally but not the RIDGE pattern.
The "Golden Rule" to treat others as you would like to be treated is an example of the balance that is the RIDGE pattern as is any legal system because it is an attempt to balance the rights of some people against other people, thus forming a ridge. Anything utilizing checks and balances to keep a system in balance from constitutional government to the prey and predators in the food chain manifests the RIDGE pattern.
In our economic system, the division of labor (labour) seeking the assign the number of workers to each task in such a way that maximum efficiency of production will be attained is the RIDGE pattern again. Another clear example is the balancing of wages on one side and prices on the other side that forms a ridge.
Seeking a balance in the lives of workers between work and recreation is another manifestation of the RIDGE pattern as is having a well-rounded curriculum in school and the fact that one of the requirements of a good diet is that it include several food groups.
Think of the several supporting poles of a tepee leaning together to form a ridge. All of these are the ways that the RIDGE pattern makes living beings different from inanimate matter. When people express opinions and disagree on things, this is yet another manifestation of this pattern. An opinion, religion or, philosophy is an effort to find the crest of the ridge in some way.
A sub-pattern of the RIDGE pattern is what we could call support. Many activities and things constructed by living things, including the maintenance of life itself, requires some periodic supports. This is because our level of complexity is higher than that of our inanimate surroundings, and there must be some supports to maintain us at this higher level. The RIDGE pattern of life is at a higher level of complexity then it's inanimate surroundings, and must have certain supports to hold it at this higher level.
Some of the basic manifestations of this support sub-pattern are necessary regular habits like sleeping, eating, drinking and, washing. In anything that we build, we impart our higher level of complexity and so our buildings and machines require periodic maintenance. Just the buildings and machines themselves, with walls or framework to support their structure, are manifestations of this support sub-pattern.
The third fundamental pattern of life is the TREE pattern. The most obvious manifestation of this is an actual tree that spreads out from the central trunk to seek as much sunlight as possible. This pattern is also manifested in non-living things, streams come together to form a river, for one example.
Some life patterns are also found in the lower two tiers of patterns, as described in "Advanced Patterns". However, in the world of inanimate matter, it is almost manifested as a concentration due primarily to gravity instead of a spreading out, while living things use the pattern in both ways, explosions of stars and volcanic eruptions being among the rare exceptions.
Any activity centering around a home, base or, hub and gathering food, possessions or knowledge is a manifestation of the TREE pattern. This includes exploration and discoveries, the branching outward and seeking to gather in.
Farming involves the TREE in both ways, the sowing out of seeds and the gathering in of crops. Any kind of manufacturing utilizes the same pattern, the "sowing" out of the product, the gathering in of profit and, the sowing out of wages to keep the operation going. A hierarchy of any type in an organization is also a tree in structure as is a city surrounded by a supporting hinterland.
A variation of the tree pattern, which I decided not to define as a separate pattern of life, is a pyramid. Any hierarchy is shaped life a pyramid. An athletic elimination tournament is also a pyramid. The wealth structure, with many common people on the lower level and wealthy people on top, is also obviously a pyramid.
Another variation of the TREE pattern of life is stages or generations. Human generations, from grandparents to parents to children, clearly resemble the branches of a tree. The trunk of the tree can be seen as the first generation. The major branches extending directly from the trunk are second generation branches. The more minor branches extending off those branches are the third generation, and so on. The stages in completion of a major project follow this pattern. Successive improvements in technology or sometimes political changes are also described in terms of generations.
A stage in the development of something is often what we could call a negative. When something takes place, it sometimes ends up creating a negative image of itself, and it is worth becoming familiar with this sub-pattern. A mold, used in manufacturing, is useful in that it forms a negative image of itself. If you walk in snow, you can see your footprints, but this may compress the snow that was stepped on into ice so that, when the snow melts, the raised negative image of your footprints can be seen on the surface. In the Bible is the story of Ruth, daughter-in-law of Naomi. Naomi moved to Moab with her husband and two sons, her sons married before the husband and both sons eventually died. We could thus say that Naomi was left with a "negative image" of her original family.
The fourth life pattern is SHELF. This is manifested any time living things store or house something or "put it on the shelf". This pattern covers the storage of fat in the body just as it does food in the kitchen. It also includes the dens and nests of animals as well as the homes and buildings of humans. It includes the momentum stored in a flywheel and the energy stored in a battery. Books on library shelves as well as merchandise in stores are also manifestations of the SHELF pattern.
The fifth life pattern is COPY. The most obvious manifestation of this pattern is reproduction, but it goes far beyond this. All intelligent living things learn from experience and try to copy that which has worked previously. The corrections and adjustments that are made in order to attain perfection are represented by the RIDGE pattern, with the goal to be as close as possible to the crest of the ridge.
Learning from experience is represented by the RIDGE and COPY patterns together. Doing or making anything according to, or taking account of, a previously used plan manifests the COPY pattern. Any type of mass production is another example of the COPY pattern.
A variation of the COPY pattern is what we could call spiral. A spiral is something that creates more of itself. The universe as a whole is anti-spiral, but the complex realms of living things often witness spirals taking place. An obvious example is in economics, a recessionary or wealth spiral can get started as an upward or downward spiral.
The sixth, and final, life pattern is PIXEL, as in the pixels of a computer screen. PIXEL represents our knowledge and view of the world around us. As we gain knowledge and experience, we are looking at the same picture, but with a higher pixel count.
We could have included knowledge and experience under the TREE pattern of life. But PIXEL is different in that it can be distorted like a funhouse mirror when we think with our emotions instead of with logic.
The last pattern of life has to do with organization, which is us imposing our level of complexity on the lower level of surrounding inanimate matter. This pattern is ALPHABET, and is when something is not meant to have meaning in itself but only as part of a larger structure.
Inanimate matter can be no more complex than the Big Bang, which began the universe, and the laws of physics. When further complexity is added to inanimate matter, it results in alphabetization. The first thing that we usually think of when we think of an alphabet is the letters of which words are composed, but that is only one example of the concept.
Alphabetization is the difference in complexity between inanimate matter and living things. This pattern is not seen in inanimate matter.
Suppose that you see a rock on the ground. The rock is a sub-domain of a larger domain, which is the entire planet. However, the rock would have just as much meaning if it were on the other side of the world, at the bottom of the sea, on another planet, or floating around in space.
But how about one of your feet? It would not make any sense, or have any purpose, anywhere except where it is. It would be completely illogical to have feet in existence by themselves without being attached to bodies.
This is what I mean by alphabetization. A foot is a part of the alphabet of the whole body. The way that complexity is added to some system, the body is composed of the same elements as inanimate matter but is far more complex, is to alphabetize it. In other words, taking meaning from sub-domains of the system and transferring the meaning to the whole domain.
Whenever we organize anything, we add complexity in the form of information by alphabetizing it. We see this alphabetizing in all that humans do. When cars are built, the parts are part of the alphabet of the whole and, in most cases, make little sense as sub-domains by themselves.
Now, doesn't life seem so much simpler? Everything about all living things is a manifestation in some way of six simple patterns; LEVER, RIDGE, TREE, SHELF, COPY, PIXEL and, ALPHABET.
This development of the fundamental patterns really changed my way of thinking. After I had completed the Theory of Primes and really became attuned to how everything is just a manifestation of a few underlying patterns, my thinking felt so fluid and nimble and I could quickly and easily jump from one field of knowledge to another since it was the same patterns underlying everything.
THE PEAK
In my description of the fundamental underlying patterns on this blog, I explained that there are three tiers of patterns overall which I have identified. The first tier is the four primes, the second is the underlying patterns of the laws of physics and the third tier is about living things. The bottom two tiers are manifested by inanimate matter.
The only fundamental pattern manifested by the third tier is PEAK. The lives of living things revolve around manifestation of the peak pattern. This is a pattern which has no real meaning in the universe of inanimate matter.
The Patterns Of Life are: LEVER, RIDGE, TREE, SHELF, COPY, PIXEL and, ALPHABET. The two most fundamental of these are RIDGE and PIXEL.
RIDGE is simply the peak continued over the dimension of time. PIXEL, as in the pixels on the computer monitor you are looking at, represents our knowledge and understanding. We look at the same scene, but as we gain knowledge our pixel count increases in terms of patterns.
In my pattern definition, living things differ from inanimate matter in that all living things manifest a relatively sharp peak. The highest and most complex forms of life manifest the sharper peaks. The peak manifested by a living thing can have any number of dimensions, each factor in the life of the being is one dimension of the peak. When there are more factors or dimensions pertinent to a living thing, it manifests a sharper peak. When there are fewer, we have a rounded or duller peak.
The way in which we usually express this peak which is manifested by and which defines our existence is in terms of quality. In the universe of inanimate matter, the idea of quality is meaningless. Quantity is all that matters. All that there is concerning inanimate matter can be expressed in terms of quantity.
But when we come to living things, it is quality that matters. In life, quality represents the optimum combination of quantities. Quality could be defined as "complex quantity". This vital concept of quality is most easily expressed as a peak, we are at the peak when the optimum combination of quantities exist for the living thing.
Many complex systems will manifest this peak pattern, even those involving inanimate matter. The simplest peak pattern is the shape known to statisticians as "the bell curve". This is the simple curve, shaped like a bell, which is manifested by such things as star and planet sizes, test scores and, life expectancy of living things or products. The bell curves involving people or other living things, such as test scores, are simple because the complexity of the people taking the tests cancels out.
The bell curve involving test scores, for example, means that most people taking the test will score somewhere around the average score while a relatively few people will score well above or well below the average. This means that if plotted on a sheet of graph paper, a shape like a bell will be formed by the number of people falling within a range of scores. Having more people take the test will not sharpen the peak formed by the bell.
In my "Theory Of Puddles" described in "Advanced Patterns", I explained how reality forms a "sloped landscape" in which "puddles" are most likely to form in the low areas and least likely to form on "high ground". These puddles represent anything that exists or happens.
Hydrogen atoms, which represent about 75% of all matter in the universe, are seen as a very large puddle which formed in a very low area on the landscape. Red giant stars, which are relatively rare, are a small puddle on the "high ground" of reality.
The slope of this reality landscape also forms a peak. Actually, it is an upside-down peak, or a valley. The things which came into existence most easily, such as hydrogen atoms, are at the bottom of the valley, while the more rare elements of reality are at the top.
This PEAK pattern is manifested by living things in many ways on many levels. The optimum factors for existence in terms of biological is only the most fundamental. In any task done by humans or other living things, the need for the task forms one side of the peak while the resources available to perform the task form the opposite side. When the task is completed, the two sides meet to form a peak.
A buyer and seller form a peak in a similar way. Human relations manifests a similar peak, we tend to treat others the way they treat us and the two sides meet to form either a high or low peak.
The only fundamental pattern manifested by the third tier is PEAK. The lives of living things revolve around manifestation of the peak pattern. This is a pattern which has no real meaning in the universe of inanimate matter.
The Patterns Of Life are: LEVER, RIDGE, TREE, SHELF, COPY, PIXEL and, ALPHABET. The two most fundamental of these are RIDGE and PIXEL.
RIDGE is simply the peak continued over the dimension of time. PIXEL, as in the pixels on the computer monitor you are looking at, represents our knowledge and understanding. We look at the same scene, but as we gain knowledge our pixel count increases in terms of patterns.
In my pattern definition, living things differ from inanimate matter in that all living things manifest a relatively sharp peak. The highest and most complex forms of life manifest the sharper peaks. The peak manifested by a living thing can have any number of dimensions, each factor in the life of the being is one dimension of the peak. When there are more factors or dimensions pertinent to a living thing, it manifests a sharper peak. When there are fewer, we have a rounded or duller peak.
The way in which we usually express this peak which is manifested by and which defines our existence is in terms of quality. In the universe of inanimate matter, the idea of quality is meaningless. Quantity is all that matters. All that there is concerning inanimate matter can be expressed in terms of quantity.
But when we come to living things, it is quality that matters. In life, quality represents the optimum combination of quantities. Quality could be defined as "complex quantity". This vital concept of quality is most easily expressed as a peak, we are at the peak when the optimum combination of quantities exist for the living thing.
Many complex systems will manifest this peak pattern, even those involving inanimate matter. The simplest peak pattern is the shape known to statisticians as "the bell curve". This is the simple curve, shaped like a bell, which is manifested by such things as star and planet sizes, test scores and, life expectancy of living things or products. The bell curves involving people or other living things, such as test scores, are simple because the complexity of the people taking the tests cancels out.
The bell curve involving test scores, for example, means that most people taking the test will score somewhere around the average score while a relatively few people will score well above or well below the average. This means that if plotted on a sheet of graph paper, a shape like a bell will be formed by the number of people falling within a range of scores. Having more people take the test will not sharpen the peak formed by the bell.
In my "Theory Of Puddles" described in "Advanced Patterns", I explained how reality forms a "sloped landscape" in which "puddles" are most likely to form in the low areas and least likely to form on "high ground". These puddles represent anything that exists or happens.
Hydrogen atoms, which represent about 75% of all matter in the universe, are seen as a very large puddle which formed in a very low area on the landscape. Red giant stars, which are relatively rare, are a small puddle on the "high ground" of reality.
The slope of this reality landscape also forms a peak. Actually, it is an upside-down peak, or a valley. The things which came into existence most easily, such as hydrogen atoms, are at the bottom of the valley, while the more rare elements of reality are at the top.
This PEAK pattern is manifested by living things in many ways on many levels. The optimum factors for existence in terms of biological is only the most fundamental. In any task done by humans or other living things, the need for the task forms one side of the peak while the resources available to perform the task form the opposite side. When the task is completed, the two sides meet to form a peak.
A buyer and seller form a peak in a similar way. Human relations manifests a similar peak, we tend to treat others the way they treat us and the two sides meet to form either a high or low peak.
THE ONE AND THE MANY
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On this blog, I point out a pattern that is really profound to all that is done by living things. "The One And The Many" underlies all that we do. Imagine a square divided into many smaller squares, such as the tiles on a floor or wall. The one and the many could be represented by a grid that gives the location of anything in the larger scheme of things.
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The one and the many brings us back to the basic primes, the most fundamental level of reality or the First Tier patterns. DOMAIN is the first prime and every domain manifests LEVEL, the second prime. Everything is a domain and the only difference between any two domains is the levels manifested by each. The one in the one and the many is a domain and it's place among all other domains is expressed as levels.
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The one and the many is all about sub-domains. In the double domain plan which pervades our universe of space and matter which I described on the patterns blog, the inner domain is the one and the outer domain is the many.
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You may have noticed that the one and the many is actually the same thing as PIXEL. Except that while the one and the many is fixed, the pixel is variable. The one and the many is the true model of reality while the pixel is our view of or knowledge of that reality. The pixel pattern could be described as the overlay of living things on the one and the many.
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You may have also noticed by now that the peak pattern and the one and the many pattern are actually two ways of describing the same things. The peak is actually the one in the one and the many. The one and the many describes the location of the peak relative to it's sides. There is a one and the many for any manifested peak pattern.
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The next thing that becomes obvious is that a peak is manifested whenever there is a perfect match between the one and the many and the pixel patterns. Whenever a human, or other living thing, is seeking a solution or working towards a goal, that goal or solution is the one that we are seeking among the many.
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Any search also manifests the peak pattern, as well. Finding exactly what we are searching for represents arriving at the peak. The more specific the search, the sharper the peak. A broader search, such as a crop harvest, manifests a duller peak similar to a bell curve.
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An ideal example of the one and the many is news. Something that is newsworthy is simply the one among the many. This means that news is usually bad news. The ordinary is not news but something out of the ordinary is news. However, the peak pattern is also present in the combination of factors coming together to make the news or whatever is out of the ordinary.
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COMPLEXITY
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Finally, we come to complexity. This is a vital part of the description of patterns on this blog. Complexity fits neatly together with the peak. A complex system manifests a peak, the more complex the system the sharper or the finer is the peak.
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This means that the sharpness of the peak provides us with a way to measure complexity. Measurement of complexity is something that would bring tremendous advantages but we do not do very well at it at the present time.
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The one and the many is also closely related to complexity. The number of the many among which the one is to be found is essentially the same as the complexity of the system being described. Any one in a set of the one and the many must necessarily be as complex, meaning holding as much information, as the entire system because it is defined as part of the entire system. Just as, in an addressing system, any one address must be as complex as the entire system.
The PIXEL pattern means seeing some situation in it's optimum complexity, analogous to the fineness of the pixel setting on a computer screen. A fundamental cause of mistakes in judgement is that we mishandle complexity. In making errors, we are often misjudging complexity just as an athlete might misjudge distance. I do not intend this to seem like an element of game theory but we can improve our strategy and judgement in a wide variety of situations by effectively grasping the one and the many.
In misjudging complexity, we far more often underestimate complexity than overestimate it. One thing that we often understate is human diversity. It is simpler and easier to just fit everyone into a structure of pigeon holes, to expect conformity to certain concepts about the world that we may have when, in fact, it does not exist. We may overstate our difference from them in relation to their difference with each other.
Another way that we may oversimplify things is to expect our past experience to be a more reliable guide than it actually is to a different situation. In other words, understating the possibility that things have since changed or that this situation is more different than we think it is.
A dynamic system in which things change is more complex than a static one in which they stay the same. Originality, in other words coming up with fresh new ideas, is a situation that is more complex, and thus more difficult for us, than selecting from existing methods of handling a given situation. This is a form of understating complexity, "doing things the way they have always been done".
In a similar way, we often tend to take advice that is applicable at a certain time for a certain situation and harden it into permanent dogma that we imagine should be applied to every such situation in the future. On the other hand, we want to estimate the effective complexity of a situation that is just right. Since we have limited time and intellect, it is almost as much against our interests to overstate complexity as to understate it.
Remember the cardinal rule that in the one universe of inanimate matter, our goal is to break everything down into simple formulae when possible, but in the world of people, we are dealing with every person as a universe to some extent unto itself and this approach only lead to error. When dealing with physics, we don't want to waste effort painting a wide area with the fine brushes of artists when it can be done with the broad brush of a house painter but when dealing with people, we should not try to create a work of art with a broad brush when we should be doing it with the artist's fine brushes.
In sizing up the situation we are facing, first pick out what is the one and what is the many as I described in the first part of this series. Our most common cause of errors is to understate the scope of the many but can the many possibly be reduced down by considering repetition as lowering complexity?
For example the complexity of a group of human beings tends to be lower than would be their individual complexities added together. This is because opposing factors in people within the group tend to cancel out when we consider the group as one.
The most obvious example is that a military force is much less complex than the individuals would be as civilians. Are we dealing with only one system of the one and the many? Possibly it is more like several overlapping systems so that we have the few and the many instead of the one and the many.
Remember that in dealing with complexity, it is necessary at times to be more creative in measuring or estimating than we would be with ordinary counting. By thinking in these terms and by beginning a strategy by first grasping the one and the many in a situation, we will inevitably make much better decisions.
JUDGING AND MISJUDGING COMPLEXITY IN SEARCH OF OPTIMUM PIXEL SETTING
The PIXEL pattern means seeing some situation in it's optimum complexity, analogous to the fineness of the pixel setting on a computer screen. A fundamental cause of mistakes in judgement is that we mishandle complexity. In making errors, we are often misjudging complexity just as an athlete might misjudge distance. I do not intend this to seem like an element of game theory but we can improve our strategy and judgement in a wide variety of situations by effectively grasping the one and the many.
In misjudging complexity, we far more often underestimate complexity than overestimate it. One thing that we often understate is human diversity. It is simpler and easier to just fit everyone into a structure of pigeon holes, to expect conformity to certain concepts about the world that we may have when, in fact, it does not exist. We may overstate our difference from them in relation to their difference with each other.
Another way that we may oversimplify things is to expect our past experience to be a more reliable guide than it actually is to a different situation. In other words, understating the possibility that things have since changed or that this situation is more different than we think it is.
A dynamic system in which things change is more complex than a static one in which they stay the same. Originality, in other words coming up with fresh new ideas, is a situation that is more complex, and thus more difficult for us, than selecting from existing methods of handling a given situation. This is a form of understating complexity, "doing things the way they have always been done".
In a similar way, we often tend to take advice that is applicable at a certain time for a certain situation and harden it into permanent dogma that we imagine should be applied to every such situation in the future. On the other hand, we want to estimate the effective complexity of a situation that is just right. Since we have limited time and intellect, it is almost as much against our interests to overstate complexity as to understate it.
Remember the cardinal rule that in the one universe of inanimate matter, our goal is to break everything down into simple formulae when possible, but in the world of people, we are dealing with every person as a universe to some extent unto itself and this approach only lead to error. When dealing with physics, we don't want to waste effort painting a wide area with the fine brushes of artists when it can be done with the broad brush of a house painter but when dealing with people, we should not try to create a work of art with a broad brush when we should be doing it with the artist's fine brushes.
In sizing up the situation we are facing, first pick out what is the one and what is the many as I described in the first part of this series. Our most common cause of errors is to understate the scope of the many but can the many possibly be reduced down by considering repetition as lowering complexity?
For example the complexity of a group of human beings tends to be lower than would be their individual complexities added together. This is because opposing factors in people within the group tend to cancel out when we consider the group as one.
The most obvious example is that a military force is much less complex than the individuals would be as civilians. Are we dealing with only one system of the one and the many? Possibly it is more like several overlapping systems so that we have the few and the many instead of the one and the many.
Remember that in dealing with complexity, it is necessary at times to be more creative in measuring or estimating than we would be with ordinary counting. By thinking in these terms and by beginning a strategy by first grasping the one and the many in a situation, we will inevitably make much better decisions.
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Now, doesn't everything seem much simpler? Just remember that these patterns of life are combinations and manifestations of the more fundamental patterns described in "The Most Basic Formula" and "Advanced Patterns".
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