Fractals & urbanism: parallelisms nature vs human systems
Channel: Nicolás Boullosa
Date: 2021-05-18

Let's begin with a video on the phenomena that allow the emergence of order out of disintegration trends —What if fractals had more to do with human designs than we think or perceive?

The idea of ​​the self-organization of complex systems is of interest to different disciplines, including contemporary urban planning. As occurs within organisms and ecosystems, self-organization also takes place in social and cognitive systems.

— Hay una versión en español de este vídeo: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D_xgm991Al4

It is a phenomenon that evokes Schopenhauer's intuitions since it's observable in physical, chemical, and biological phenomena: crystallization, heat transfer (convection) in fluids, or the behavior of colonies of social animals, describe oscillations that are also observable in investment patterns in the economy, in the transmission of information in social networks, or in the learning patterns of a neural network.

As in the dependence of terrestrial life on its simpler parts, which start from complex molecules such as proteins and their more sophisticated organizational form (RNA, DNA), complex systems use more constructive "blocks" that can be replicated, repaired, modified, replaced, etc.

Could self-organization systems that arise from phenomena such as fractals help us create a world where:

— less than 1% in poverty by today's standard
— factory farming less than 10% of today's level
— flat or declining greenhouse gases
— no net deforestation
— population stabilizes
— and life expectancy more than 100 globally?

This video does not present solutions, but rather is intended to kindle a conversation. I invite you to read the related article if you have the opportunity.

Herodotus invites us to reflect with a comment on his "Histories of him":

“I will tell the story as I go along of small cities no less than of great. Most of those that were great once are small today; and those that in my own lifetime have grown to greatness, were small enough in the old days”.

Ron Eglash TED Talk: https://www.ted.com/talks/ron_eglash_the_fractals_at_the_heart_of_african_designs/transcript?language=en

Here's a related article I wrote on the same topic on *faircompanies: 
https://faircompanies.com/articles/autoorganizacion-de-sistemas-complejos-de-celulas-a-ciudades/