The Cosmos: Macro versus Micro
☼ The images on the left are night views of brightly lit metropolitan cities taken from the International Space Station. On the right, are fluorescent images of neurons. Like a neuron, the city seems to have a cell body, branching dendrites and a main axon like highway extending out.
☼ The ancient Greeks of the Neo-Platonic school of philosophy saw the same patterns reproduced in all levels of the cosmos, from the largest scale (macrocosm or universe-level) all the way down to the smallest scale (microcosm or sub-sub-atomic or even metaphysical-level). In their philosophy, Man is in the middle.
☼ Did you know that the word cosmos (Greek, κόσμος) means “order” and is the conceptual opposite of “chaos”? In Mandarin Chinese, cosmos and universe are both translated as 宇宙 yǔzhòu, which means “space-time”.
“To see a World in a Grain of Sand
And a Heaven in a Wild Flower,
Hold Infinity in the palm of your hand
And Eternity in an hour.”
-William Blake
Source: http://infinity-imagined.tumblr.com/page/6
#ScienceSunday
madame scientist's not-so-mad musings 
Patterns everywhere, repeating at every level of perspective. Fractalism.
Yes, I ♡ fractals!
There was an article making the rounds last month about the structure of the galactic superclusters – the overall structure of the visible universe – bearing a striking resemblance to neural networks.
Thanks, Ali Adelstein !
Thomas Jones , ASCB ran a contest called Cellular or Celestial some time back. Some of them were really hard to tell apart. Here’s one pair I posted: https://plus.google.com/u/0/114601143134471609087/posts/gFmDvw6HRdn
Carlos Viñas , a beautiful quote! One of many reasons we love Carl.
I really miss Carl Sagan!
The photos and text make this one a wonderful analogy Rajini Rao
Anne Beuttenmüller Check this post out. Do these images remind you of anything? #ingress #portals
As usual, the images captured my attention first Cheryl Ann MacDonald and then I looked for some text to go with it 🙂
Ok, that looks really cool!
For your title, did you read my post about the proposed Swiss banknotes? Otherwise, jinx!
Víktor Bautista i Roca , really? Let me look for it!
That’s a beautiful comparison.
As above, so below. The macro and the micro reflect one another. Beautiful post as always, Rajini Rao!
Chadwick Jones , someone has to explain the connection to quantum entanglement since I’m not a physicist!
Of course, use abundant artistic license to compare cities to neurons 🙂
so awesome!
This reminds me of “e^(i * pi) = -1”. Things that seemingly have nothing to do with each other really are much more closely related that we think.
Now I wish I was working with neurons !!!
Awesome comparison, thank you 🙂
I cannot breakdown the quantum entanglement part, but your post does provide an exceptional comparison between neural and utility networks. So then my question(s) are, which concept has more influence in the design of each (or both)…scalable fractal concepts? or six degrees of separation? Or are the networks merely ‘appendages’?
Reminds me of slime mold. http://goo.gl/TXJP2
Aha, Arizona Bob , the answer to your question may be found in Chad Haney ‘s recollection of how slime mold maps out a route towards a chemoattractant, in his link above: “they placed the mold in a laboratory culture that also contained a scale model of the region around Tokyo, with food sources representing population centers. The slime mold’s tendrils, they found, produced interconnections strikingly similar to the layout of the Tokyo railway system”.
Which reminds me of the story that William Carter and Gnotic Pasta both posted on simple chemical reactions driving seemingly complex behavior: http://www.wired.com/wiredscience/2013/01/living-crystal/
Chadwick Jones , that was an interesting read, thanks! This is cool, but also ripe fodder for Deepak Chopra’s new age consciousness 😉
Chadwick Jones , my friend Feisal Kamil loves this site: http://www.wisdomofchopra.com/
It’s a random word generator that is hilarious. Sooner or later, quantum does come up 😀
Love the picture. Interesting comparison. I remember seeing a short presentation a few years ago on how patterns in living and non-living things repeat from the sub-atomic scale up to the universal scale. It’s an intriguing, thought-provoking idea.
when i was doing rotations in grad school, i worked with a transgenic c. elegans strain much like this one:
https://lh6.googleusercontent.com/-OOxioqT41i8/UQ2kJ4XTVII/AAAAAAAAk_Q/OlBr7lg7Hvc/s1542/13+-+1
it had GFP expressed in all 302 of it’s neurons. it was amazing watching them move around, it was like you could see an entire galaxy inside it’s rostral and caudal nerve centers
Fantastic image, todd pressler ! C. elegans is a terrific model for following neural development. Do you mean that they moved around in time lapse captures of development?
Mark Bruce Someone on G+ was generating connectivity networks for G+. Do you remember who? Max Huijgen posted his connections, I think. It had hubs and connections…
Rajini Rao not exactly. I was trying to do whole cell recordings from their neurons at the time. I was imaging them in a dish, and watching them wiggle around. Each nerve cluster is like a little galaxy.
We work with primary astrocytes- as their name suggests, they look like stars spread out in culture.
‘He reached a middle height, and at the stars,
Which are the brain of heaven, he looked, and sank.
Around the ancient track marched, rank on rank,
The army of unalterable law.’
–from Lucifer in Starlight by George Meredith (1828-1909).
Rajini Rao one of the animation guys here is working on a video that goes from macro to sub-micro. It starts out with a neural network, zooms into one neuron, shows the propagation of an action potential, ending with a calcium channel opening and closing. When it’s done I’ll find out if I can post it.
Rajini Rao To answer your question: I used images generated by NOD3x to represent my social graph.
Thanks, Max Huijgen , that’s the one I was thinking about.
Given a long enough time, hydrogen starts to wonder what it came from, and where it is going.
I love these images. It reminds me of this one from the NYT many years back between the neurons of a mouse’s brain and simulated images of the universe: http://goo.gl/GUOSF
Thomas Kang , thanks for the link. Stunning comparison of celestial versus cellular.
This is a great example, nice find. You can see the same fractal effect in maps of the universe also or as the alchemists would say, as above so below 🙂
You are here wow is it really you?
David Washington , I was curious as to the origin of the phrase “as above so below”. The origins of this date back to a mythical person Hermes Trismegistus, as explained in this interesting blog post: http://radiantwoman.wordpress.com/2006/12/25/origin-of-as-above-so-below/
I think we will find that all systems of any complexity that are not human made have this pattern embedded in them. I’ve been of the firm opinion for a long time that this pattern is universal, and we can learn some profound things about large systems in general by studying it.
Eric Hopper , there are similarities in the branching of trees and blood veins..likely due to simple mathematical formulae that govern branching. Some of the patterns are based in the golden ratio for example.
^ Whenever I’m in discussion with someone about whether human beings are even capable of understanding the universe, I mention fractal effects like these are what gives me the greatest hope that we are. We may have evolved at the bottom of a gravity well in a narrow temperature range around an average star, but the patterns we see have recognizable echoes in every direction of scale. An intelligence refined to function at our scale should thus be capable of interpreting others.
That’s a heartwarming thought, Robert Moser .
Rajini Rao This is a very interesting topic actually, trying to unpack the Emerald Tablet for example, on this page you will see a translation of it by Issac Newton of all people: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emerald_Tablet
To me it shows that the mind is the first tool of science and we sometimes mistake symbolic language for ignorance.
Rajini Rao – nod I think there is another principle at work as well. In graphs of large natural systems nodes with a lot of connections tend to attract more connections. And this leads to graphs having power-law characteristics and being scale-free.
In trees this happens sort of in reverse since branches (considered as nodes) grow from existing nodes. When a tree splits, you can consider one of the ‘branches’ to actually be a continuation of the trunk.
Which, of course, could be considered simple math. But I suspect that within the math there are profound insights waiting to be discovered related to understanding the interactions involved and developing useful holistic interpretations of the activity of the system.
Aswsk
Awsome
Interesting comparisons Rajini Rao
great look…
Now if only the highways had myelin sheath…there would be no rush hour traffic.
Nature can be constant through so many variables. Beautiful.
hi
Great post, love the Blake quote. A Romantic with a bit of a scientist in him?
David Crowley , exactly! Don’t you love The Tiger ?
http://www.eecs.harvard.edu/~keith/poems/tyger.html
Omar Saleem , haha, myelin sheaths for highways! Think how fast we could travel..like the vertebrate neuron 🙂
Thanks for the link Rajini Rao. Not sure if I’ve read the full text, more likely the portion you cited.
IS IT HIGS BOSSON?
David Crowley , the link was to Blake’s famous Tiger poem, unrelated to the quote I used in the post, but an example of his “metaphysical” interests.
ไม่อยากกลับไทยเลยเราต้องคิดถึงคนที่นี้
Kai Jamrat I only know a few Thai words and none of the alphabet. It’s better if you post in English.
great post
You just blew my mind Rajini Rao ! Bravo! Encore!
Its funny how your reality changes every time you experience something new.
Or perhaps the Higgs-Boston?
As long as it’s not Higg’s Bosom. This is a family channel.
me not good E
Every time this turns up in my notifications, I keep thinking that the image on the left looks like Shiva’s headpiece.
Awesome. thought-provoking post. Rajini Rao
“Thought-recalling” is probably a better word here, as I had very similar thoughts a few years ago, flying over the Bay area at night…
Actually… truth be told, looking at it from closer quarters than a satellite, the thought of “parasitic organism” popped to my mind… oops 😐
“Fluorescent neurons” makes me feel much better. Thanks 🙂
so much similarity
Thomas Kang , pyramidal neurons do look like a coronet when lit up with multiple fluorescent tags! What an interesting comparison, as is John Christopher ‘s comparison with a parasite spawning over the earth’s bosom – now look what you made me say, Thomas Kang 😉
so: Patterns via KOYAANISQATSI (a Hopi Indian word and title for this visually stunning, philosophical film that has NO actors/NO plot/NO text).. just music + cinematography. i think u will all find this film to be in synergy / context with the things many of us have commented or evoked re: Rajini’s original post: http://www.disclose.tv/action/viewvideo/6433 /Koyaanisqatsi__Life_out_of_Balance_Full_Length/ this film is among the best films ever made, faaaaarrrrr ahead-of-it’s-time in 1982.
Nearly every cinematographer & every visual film or program has been influenced by it; btw, PHILIP GLASS did the soundtrack:
NOTE: uTube has it but the only full versions play at the wrong speed (the film is approx. 1 hr, 25 min.) –>
BLAKE would have loved it
Nice
Thanks for the link, rob M. . Checking it out…
there are many links to clips of Koyaanisqatsi on uTube, however, most are short bits or fast-tweaked-speed which ruins it. Luckily, i did not find any malware on that “disclose.tv” site…tho i’d say their other films//videos do look a bit corny 0_o
Thanks for that clarification of the disclose.tv site 🙂
wow
cool
Wow;)
Instead of man being in the “middle”, there is an unsupported hypothesis in Cosmology called The Bootstrap Hypothesis that basically states that the macrocosm and microcosm actually connect, forming a “loop”. In essence, we are living inside a microscopic universe inside ourselves right now. Wild.
http://newsjunkiepost.com/2010/02/19/weird-science-the-bootstrap-hypothesis/
Lol cool
Nice, thanks.
This is actually pretty fascinating and thought provoking. Cool.
RAJNI JI AAP KE PASS KOI KAM NAHI H MADAR CHODAN KI MA KA CHODAN
wow amazing this picture 🙂
Very interesting!
Nice shot
Fascinating
nice
isn’t the Bootstrap model similar /same as the paradigm put-forward by Physicist Dr. Fritjof Capra in his brilliant work, The TAO of Physics ? Was far ahead of most writers in the realm of GROKKING the pattern-ing he found in sub-atomic-structures to life’s ecology [macro & human scale] showing physics as just part of the larger meta-pattern of the interactive-ecosystem of the universe.
http://www-personal.umich.edu/~mejn/networks-an-introduction/
or
The structure and function of complex networks
www-personal.umich.edu/~mejn/courses/2004/cscs535/review.pdf · PDF file
The structure and function of complex networks M. E. J. Newman Department of Physics, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, MI 48109, U.S.A. and Santa Fe Ins
I’m not sure rob M.. I don’t recall reading that in my studies, although admittedly I bailed on astrophysics at a pretty early stage and turned to archaeology
lightening stroke
wew!
Very beautiful pose
Hi Rajini….
Gud morning
Oh my god
Rajini Rao You are correct in pointing this out.
The same principle can be applied to events, as well.
Nothing ever happens at only one level.
Yeah yeah and I guess next you’re going to tell me the earth is round.
Am I the only one who finds it just a little creepy?
Tim Leonard Not so loud, Timothy.
Non-believers in the flat earth theory are sentenced to be set afloat and allowed to drop over the edge.
Ole Olson yeah in fact, i steered even farther away from hard sciences, tho i ended up in CG career for 3d modeling/rendering. I try to keep up w/ all the arts/sciences, and yet it’s amazing as well as info overload now that so many websites of top labs & R&D tend to post fascinating things so often. ((i still recall CERN’s announcement, last year, of ‘breaking the light-speed-barrier’ that, although a bust, was just an example of the way we can all keep up versus the old days of having perhaps 1 or 2 magazine sub’s to keep us going;-) )).
R. Harlan Smith And fall into the unknown? Nooooo….
Cool….
sick
you are doooooom’d
Hi
😦
Hello 😉
Hello…..
=-O
Thanks
stephane seedeeal That’s four non-sensical posts.
Do you have something to say about the parallels Rajini is drawing with these patterns?
😉 nice. http://www.iLivingApp.com/neilhskn
As above, so below.
Gaythia Weis I don’t think I’ll be reading that book anytime soon, but the explanation on the page and the table of contents are impressive.
When I mention the hat of a deity and you extrapolate that to a parasite on the bosom of the Earth, don’t blame me. As you know, it’s always Feisal’s fault.
That’s a great read as always Rajini, thanks, i will be back again to this post when I’m full awake 🙂
It’s always good
Awesome.
Nice
What’s good baby
Beautiful!
Every being is Created by ALLAH swt , The One Designer and Planner so there is Discipline and Balance in All The Heavens . and we are all related , humans and non ( some how) If there were many gods , there would be chaos all the times .
nice
Beyond Beautiful .
good
fractals
Bruno Gonçalves posts on the topology of complex networks here on Google +. In addition to the M. E. J. Newman links I give in my comment above, another I know of is: http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v410/n6825/full/410268a0.html
Good
cool beans
True love that statement…davod imdad
Geoffrey West must have something interesting to say about all this. He studied cities and living networks for a bit.
WOW
Nice
nice
Hello friends how you doing all
wasalam
vow!
Were. Are. You rajini
I was thinking about it today… strange… to create an app for facebook where people can see a micro and macro cosm pic and then they have to guess which is which… strange.. but thank you anyway 🙂
very nice…………………wow
Hi
Hello
HI HOW R U
Rajjankumar Gupta fine
Rajjankumar Gupta
So Amazon just 2 look at
Im fine to how abo you all
i don’t understand what is this?
hope u explain me…
city lights
Beautiful post, love the photos and the poem, Rajini Rao ~
i can’t belief this
i never seen this
Nice
seems dfferent
Wow its beyond this world
slime mold 🙂 http://youtu.be/n4jRr7YAzfI
human
Very interesting information. thanks for the post.
I am learning, and the word “intelligence” is overlapping the word “chance” as i ponder about this.
I am pretty sure If someone could write an algorithm to plot the comments on a Rajini Rao post with thickness or size of dot proportional to relevance and direction of plot driven by angle of irrelevance that it would also look like the network images in the original post
Here is a somewhat relevant artsy video; http://vimeo.com/34182381
Oh my god it’s an infinite rainbow universe!? What does it mean? :p
Wonderful post, Rajini Rao. Correspondences and interrelationships abound.
Wonderful post Rajini Rao 🙂
I remmember myself and my first enlightenment experience, when in the early 80-ties I have seen the image of neuron, thanks to NMR tomograph (magneting resonance). Gee ! the image of a part of human neurons looked vely similarly to the regular tree in the real (not – a micro-cosmos). So the impression was, that we live in the cosmos, but that the cosmos is also at the same time within US.
Your post reminded me this experience, and I am really thankful for this 🙂
It’s like comic dance. Just beyond our faintest imagination
Delighted that you enjoyed it, Robert Lach . Neurons do look like trees with their arboreal branches of dendrites 🙂
Rajini Rao Thank you for this explanation., Rajini. It is really fascinating, to see the images, while we zoom up inside of us, say several million of times. From purely photogrammetric point ov view, this would be also very interesting to me, to comment these images. First image, taken from the hight of…kilometers/miles, above the Earth surface, second image… with ZOOM factor of …? DO you know what magnification factor this image has ?
It is a geat pleasure to discover these things,,,this gives me lot of joy…:-)
That’s really cool
wow amazin
Neo-Platonic = Neuro Pattern !
Very nice post … 🙂
As usual … ;-D
Thanks Rajini Rao !!
Take care and have fun … 🙂
Magnus Fahlén Thank you, Viking 🙂
Awesome as usual Rajini Rao
This makes the internet worth paying for 🙂
Excellent Rajini Rao I study Neoplatonism for years and I am happy that it is still a live school of thought
Superb
Thats nice
ASWESOME. Patterns everywhere. See one of my old ones in my travels down to S. India near Rameswaram and Ram Sethu http://livingmatter.blogspot.in/
Nice one, Rajini! I did a similar piece on Paris at night – https://plus.google.com/u/0/100641053530204604051/posts/bvUbWS92p63
Thanks for the link, Joachim Stroh . I’m looking forward to reading more about it.
toommmmmmmy
hi, this is my first comment, your page is fascinating. I have been channelling universal energies all my life and i know that we are everything that is in the what we know as external world. love and peace janine e lever
quantum hugs from deep cosmos
conserving water
Art Gallery http://irfanbava.blogspot.com/2017/03/art-gallery.html
https://youtu.be/YF5wLpk0k3U
http://viutube.lk/mobile-video-editing-සිංහලෙන්kinemaster-sinhala-review_v13619
viutube.lk – Mobile video editing සිංහලෙන්.Kinemaster sinhala review.
Nerves
https://www.fivestuniversal.com/p/top-5-living.html
fivestuniversal.com – LIVING
Hay
Makkah