Bio-Hardware: Patterns

Fractals are generated by repeating a pattern--over and over and over and...

From the smallest toddler to the oldest senior, we all love patterns. Even if you think you don't like patterns, your brain does. Patterns are not just the spice but the life itself. Associations, fractals, habits, cycles, noun-verb syntax, symmetry--they are all just examples of patterns: things that repeat in a predictable manner.

One of my flower fountains: symmetry in action!

We are evolutionarily hardwired to find patterns. If you eat a certain berry and get sick, you had better learn to associate that berry with sickness. If you walk into a cave and it turned out to be a snake retirement home, you had better not walk back in there again. 

"A for apple"?

In essence, learning itself is biochemical pattern-finding. A parent shows a baby girl a picture of an apple 10 times and says the word "apple," and she learns to associate the two. "Clearly," her brain thinks, "there's a pattern there." A rat presses a lever and receives a tasty morsel. "Aha! Lever --> NOM!" 

"Neurons that fire together, wire together."

On a molecular scale, synapses between neurons that fire together are strengthened by NMDA receptors, which are aptly called "coincidence detectors." Not a "lucky coincidence" kind of coincidence, but a "two-things-happened-together" kind. Co...incidence.

Hint: What do preschoolers learn about?

Personally, I really really really love patterns. They are everywhere, they are mentally and even almost emotionally satisfying, and the act of finding a pattern is often inherent in all kinds of puzzles and problems that I enjoy. Besides which, I like learning, and learning is patterns, after all. :D