Phi - losophical question

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I was at a course on esthetic design and the instructor showed how most everything in nature is based on the 1.618 dimension and the Fibonacci sequence, from sea shells to the dimension of our solar system. The Greeks and Egyptians knew about it and based their architecture on it (probably continues today, although I’m no architect). Da Vinci studied it and based his art on it.

There are websites devoted to it. Does anyone think this could be the signature of God in creation?
 
I was at a course on esthetic design and the instructor showed how most everything in nature is based on the 1.618 dimension and the Fibonacci sequence, from sea shells to the dimension of our solar system. The Greeks and Egyptians knew about it and based their architecture on it (probably continues today, although I’m no architect). Da Vinci studied it and based his art on it.

There are websites devoted to it. Does anyone think this could be the signature of God in creation?
It may be, although there is no way to know.

The ratio of Phi (which is an irrational, but comes out approximately 1.618) is called the golden ratio and appears all over, including the dimensions of our bodies. 1.618 to 1 is the ideal proportion for doorframes and the like, possibly because of this relation to the shape of the body.

Even product packaging seems to yield better sales when boxes are dimensioned as Phi to 1.

ICXC NIKA.
 
I was at a course on esthetic design and the instructor showed how most everything in nature is based on the 1.618 dimension and the Fibonacci sequence, from sea shells to the dimension of our solar system. The Greeks and Egyptians knew about it and based their architecture on it (probably continues today, although I’m no architect). Da Vinci studied it and based his art on it.

There are websites devoted to it. Does anyone think this could be the signature of God in creation?
It is certainly overwhelming evidence for Design. It is absurd to attribute the power and beauty of nature to fortuitous combinations of molecules and random mutations. No reasonable person would leave important decisions to a throw of the dice.
 
I was at a course on esthetic design and the instructor showed how most everything in nature is based on the 1.618 dimension and the Fibonacci sequence, from sea shells to the dimension of our solar system. The Greeks and Egyptians knew about it and based their architecture on it (probably continues today, although I’m no architect). Da Vinci studied it and based his art on it.

There are websites devoted to it. Does anyone think this could be the signature of God in creation?
No, the belief that numbers have mystic qualities is called numerology.

Like Pi, Phi is derived simply as a ratio. Just as Pi, the ratio of a circumference to a diameter, could not take any other value, neither could Phi. Phi occurs in healthy cell replication, and presumably we find it beautiful because it is a simple expression of healthy growth - youtube.com/watch?v=SD-ZiqDvnKo

Be careful of numerologists, they use an extreme form of sampling bias - they get all excited when they find their favorite mystic number in one place (like a dimension in the solar system), while ignoring all the zillions of places they don’t. Whereas imho Christianity should be rational.
 
I was at a course on esthetic design and the instructor showed how most everything in nature is based on the 1.618 dimension and the Fibonacci sequence, from sea shells to the dimension of our solar system. The Greeks and Egyptians knew about it and based their architecture on it (probably continues today, although I’m no architect). Da Vinci studied it and based his art on it.

There are websites devoted to it. Does anyone think this could be the signature of God in creation?
It shows that creation is essentially ordered, certainly, and this is a vestigium (footprint) of God’s creative power. The Golden Ratio appears in all kinds of interesting places (like then number of rows of corn on the cob, the arrangement of leaves or branches on many plants, and so on). I think it is really neat.
 
No, the belief that numbers have mystic qualities is called numerology.

Like Pi, Phi is derived simply as a ratio. Just as Pi, the ratio of a circumference to a diameter, could not take any other value, neither could Phi. Phi occurs in healthy cell replication, and presumably we find it beautiful because it is a simple expression of healthy growth - youtube.com/watch?v=SD-ZiqDvnKo

Be careful of numerologists, they use an extreme form of sampling bias - they get all excited when they find their favorite mystic number in one place (like a dimension in the solar system), while ignoring all the zillions of places they don’t. Whereas imho Christianity should be rational.
It is far more than a simple expression of healthy growth:
The famous Fibonacci sequence has captivated mathematicians, artists, designers, and scientists for centuries. Also known as the Golden Ratio, its ubiquity and astounding functionality in nature suggests its importance as a fundamental characteristic of the Universe.
io9.com/5985588/15-uncanny-examples-of-the-golden-ratio-in-nature
 
It is far more than a simple expression of healthy growth:

io9.com/5985588/15-uncanny-examples-of-the-golden-ratio-in-nature
I said presumably it’s because it indicates health that we find it beautiful. Otherwise we’d find unhealthy specimens, those which didn’t grow according to the ratio, as beautiful as healthy specimens. You can argue that God gave us that ability to discriminate, or that nature did. As Msgr. Georges Lemaître said of his Big Bang theory, it neither proves nor disproves God.

btw I trained as an artist so I’m very familiar with phi, and agree it’s remarkable that an indicator of beauty can be found in a simple arithmetic series, with a value which could not be any other than what it is. I looked up the blogger you quoted, and he describes himself as a secular Buddhist, two words which indicate he probably doesn’t believe in God so he doesn’t believe it’s God’s signature. As he says it’s a ratio with “astounding functionality in nature”. But, yes, poetic also.
 
As Msgr. Georges Lemaître said of his Big Bang theory, it neither proves nor disproves God.
Genesis, Circa 1400 B.C. “Let there be light.”

Carl Sagan in Cosmos, 1980 A.D.

“Ten or twenty billion years ago, something happened – the Big Bang, the event that began our universe…. In that titanic cosmic explosion, the universe began an expansion which has never ceased…. As space stretched, the matter and energy in the universe expanded with it and rapidly cooled. The radiation of the cosmic fireball, which, then as now, filled the universe, moved through the spectrum – from gamma rays to X-rays to ultraviolet light; through the rainbow colors of the visible spectrum; into the infrared and radio regions. The remnants of that fireball, the cosmic background radiation, emanating from all parts of the sky can be detected by radio telescopes today. In the early universe, space was brilliantly illuminated.”
 
I said presumably it’s because it indicates health that we find it beautiful. Otherwise we’d find unhealthy specimens, those which didn’t grow according to the ratio, as beautiful as healthy specimens. You can argue that God gave us that ability to discriminate, or that nature did. As Msgr. Georges Lemaître said of his Big Bang theory, it neither proves nor disproves God.

btw I trained as an artist so I’m very familiar with phi, and agree it’s remarkable that an indicator of beauty can be found in a simple arithmetic series, with a value which could not be any other than what it is. I looked up the blogger you quoted, and he describes himself as a secular Buddhist, two words which indicate he probably doesn’t believe in God so he doesn’t believe it’s God’s signature. As he says it’s a ratio with “astounding functionality in nature”. But, yes, poetic also.
What is the most adequate explanation of astounding functionality ? Purposeless molecules? 😉
 
inocente;12850189:
As Msgr. Georges Lemaître said of his Big Bang theory, it neither proves nor disproves God.
Genesis, Circa 1400 B.C. “Let there be light.”

Carl Sagan in Cosmos, 1980 A.D.

“Ten or twenty billion years ago, something happened – the Big Bang, the event that began our universe…. In that titanic cosmic explosion, the universe began an expansion which has never ceased…. As space stretched, the matter and energy in the universe expanded with it and rapidly cooled. The radiation of the cosmic fireball, which, then as now, filled the universe, moved through the spectrum – from gamma rays to X-rays to ultraviolet light; through the rainbow colors of the visible spectrum; into the infrared and radio regions. The remnants of that fireball, the cosmic background radiation, emanating from all parts of the sky can be detected by radio telescopes today. In the early universe, space was brilliantly illuminated.”
If you’re intending to claim that Lemaître was wrong, then you’re also claiming that his Pope was wrong to take his advice and not say the big bang theory proves Genesis, and you’re also claiming that every Pope since then was also wrong for the same reason.

I don’t agree that scripture is a lightweight science book which has waited for millennia to be validated by the script of a TV show. Here is something closer to a Baptist understanding, the non-conformist Matthew Henry commenting on “Let there be light”:

*We have here a further account of the first day’s work, in which observe, 1. That the first of all visible beings which God created was light; not that by it he himself might see to work (for the darkness and light are both alike to him), but that by it we might see his works and his glory in them, and might work our works while it is day. The works of Satan and his servants are works of darkness; but he that doeth truth, and doeth good, cometh to the light, and coveteth it, that his deeds may be made manifest, John 3:21. Light is the great beauty and blessing of the universe. Like the first-born, it does, of all visible beings, most resemble its great Parent in purity and power, brightness and beneficence; it is of great affinity with a spirit, and is next to it; though by it we see other things, and are sure that it is, yet we know not its nature, nor can describe what it is, or by what way the light is parted, Job 38:19, 24. By the sight of it let us be led to, and assisted in, the believing contemplation of him who is light, infinite and eternal light (1 John 1:5), and the Father of lights (Jas. 1:17), and who dwells in inaccessible light, 1 Tim. 6:16. In the new creation, the first thing wrought in the soul is light: the blessed Spirit captives the will and affections by enlightening the understanding, so coming into the heart by the door, like the good shepherd whose own the sheep are, while sin and Satan, like thieves and robbers, climb up some other way. Those that by sin were darkness by grace become light in the world. 2. That the light was made by the word of God’s power. He said, Let there be light; he willed and appointed it, and it was done immediately: there was light, such a copy as exactly answered the original idea in the Eternal Mind. O the power of the word of God! He spoke, and it was done, done really, effectually, and for perpetuity, not in show only, and to serve a present turn, for he commanded, and it stood fast: with him it was dictum, factum—a word, and a world. The world of God (that is, his will and the good pleasure of it) is quick and powerful. Christ is the Word, the essential eternal Word, and by him the light was produced, for in him was light, and he is the true light, the light of the world, John 1:9; 9:5. The divine light which shines in sanctified souls is wrought by the power of God, the power of his word and of the Spirit of wisdom and revelation, opening the understanding, scattering the mists of ignorance and mistake, and giving the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Christ, as at first, God commanded the light to shine out of darkness, 2 Cor. 4:6. Darkness would have been perpetually upon the face of fallen man if the Son of God had not come, and given us an understanding, 1 John 5:20. 3. *

Apologies if that needs a longer attention span than a sound-bite from a TV show. 😉
 
What is the most adequate explanation of astounding functionality ? Purposeless molecules? 😉
It’s a simple arithmetic series abstracting a simple pattern of growth.

But “astounding functionality” was part of a quote you made from the blog of the secular Buddhist. What did you think his explanation was when you quoted him?
 
It’s a simple arithmetic series abstracting a simple pattern of growth.

But “astounding functionality” was part of a quote you made from the blog of the secular Buddhist. What did you think his explanation was when you quoted him?
He probably hasn’t even thought about it but even if he rejects Design it is implicit in the Buddhist belief in spiritual development. Do you attribute “simple” patterns of growth to fortuitous combinations of molecules and random genetic mutations? 😉
 
If you’re intending to claim that Lemaître was wrong, then you’re also claiming that his Pope was wrong to take his advice and not say the big bang theory proves Genesis, and you’re also claiming that every Pope since then was also wrong for the same reason.

Apologies if that needs a longer attention span than a sound-bite from a TV show. 😉
Lemaître was not wrong to say what he said when he said it to Pius XII. What you persist in is the notion that Lemaître was admonishing the pope as if he was wrong, when he was only admonishing the pope because Pius was premature in citing Lemaitre’s discovery as consistent with Genesis. It was not until after the death of Pius in 1958 and just before the death of Lemaître that evidence confirming the Big Bang began to pour in. Lemaître was gratified on his deathbed to learn that the echo of the Big Bang could still be heard throughout the universe. Again, you never tire of trying to use Catholics to refute the views of other Catholics. It’s a failed strategy, but one I doubt you will ever stop trying to use as it seems to be programmed into many of your attacks on the posters as CA.

What T.V. Show are you talking about? My quote was from Cosmos the book, not a T.V. show.

Genesis, Circa 1400 B.C. “Let there be light.”

Carl Sagan in Cosmos, 1980 A.D.

“Ten or twenty billion years ago, something happened – the Big Bang, the event that began our universe…. In that titanic cosmic explosion, the universe began an expansion which has never ceased…. As space stretched, the matter and energy in the universe expanded with it and rapidly cooled. The radiation of the cosmic fireball, which, then as now, filled the universe, moved through the spectrum – from gamma rays to X-rays to ultraviolet light; through the rainbow colors of the visible spectrum; into the infrared and radio regions. The remnants of that fireball, the cosmic background radiation, emanating from all parts of the sky can be detected by radio telescopes today. In the early universe, space was brilliantly illuminated.”
 
I was at a course on esthetic design and the instructor showed how most everything in nature is based on the 1.618 dimension and the Fibonacci sequence, from sea shells to the dimension of our solar system. The Greeks and Egyptians knew about it and based their architecture on it (probably continues today, although I’m no architect). Da Vinci studied it and based his art on it.

There are websites devoted to it. Does anyone think this could be the signature of God in creation?
I’ve never given much thought to this matter of “Phi” (to be honest, I wasn’t really aware of it until this post, although my old pastor had mentioned Fibonacci numbers, saying they were found in nature and music). Now that it’s been mentioned, I’ve put a couple of links below -

In nature - io9.com/5985588/15-uncanny-examples-of-the-golden-ratio-in-nature

In music - goldennumber.net/music/

In architecture - goldennumber.net/architecture/

In art - goldennumber.net/art-composition-design/

Well, since it’s so prevalent both in the natural world which is God’s work (including astronomy it seems), and in music, architecture and art, which are our work (although I think there’s music in heaven), then there would appear to be some truth to the claim that God has used it for some reason.

Since we are made in God’s image, then it would stand to reason that we’d also find it appealing and useful.

So I wondered why.

If we consider that God had to imagine the universe and everything in it before He made it(!), as part of His plan, then perhaps He chose a certain base number to work with. It would be difficult enough to build a universe from nothing if you had to keep changing your base calculations all the time. Considering the shell building process used by marine creatures as one example, it would be a lot easier if the DNA sequence could be geared to the same basic structure in every case, just as it would be with flowers.

LIkewise for physical things like galaxy structure and moving right on down to snowflakes.

After all, scientists have a saying about “Simplicity in the Philosophy of Science”. Since God authored nature, then He’s going to do so by being as simple as possible.

iep.utm.edu/simplici/

So my guess is that He decided to stick to one number, and design everything based around that number. In our art, music, architecture and engineering, we’ve followed in His footsteps.

Which to me indicates intelligence, trying to develop a design based on simplicity.
 
So my guess is that He decided to stick to one number, and design everything based around that number. In our art, music, architecture and engineering, we’ve followed in His footsteps.

Which to me indicates intelligence, trying to develop a design based on simplicity.
Though Dawkins would have you believe that number was designed by a blind numerologist. 😉
 
Dont many people also think there is something similar with the number 23? I remember hearing something about this awhile back, something about how this number was somehow related to everything in some way or another…not sure if it means anything or not though?
 
Dont many people also think there is something similar with the number 23? I remember hearing something about this awhile back, something about how this number was somehow related to everything in some way or another…not sure if it means anything or not though?
I couldn’t find anything on the net at short notice to give 23 any special status. although there are 23 chromosomes in human sex cells.

I think it’s one of those things where you can go looking for “coincidences”, like 666 in Revelation for example. Nash, the mathematical economist who was the subject of the film “A Beautiful Mind” starring Russell Crowe, was obsessed with the number 23.

So, no, I don’t think there’s any special significance to 23.
 
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