SIMILAR AND ALSO DIFFERENT: Revisiting Fibonacci

this is a massive re-write of an essay that I first attempted about 2 years ago. enjoy. LEE

SIMILAR AND ALSO DIFFERENT: Revisiting Fibonacci

1. THE IRRATIONAL MATHEMATICAL CONSTANT

I have been thinking about Leonardo Fibonacci for over ten years now.

I have studied Fine Arts and Education, English Literature, Psychology and Biology, but I have stayed as far away from Math as possible. All those little numbers lined up in rows freak me out and, to whoever it was that told me in Grade 12, “Finite is an easier course to pass than Calculus”… I continue to harbor less than charitable feelings towards you.

With Fibonacci however, there is a visual, spiritual landscape to the technically math-like experience that I can walk my poet’s brain through. I remain skeptical of his politics and at the same time, I can appreciate his range of vision. All of the work which immortalized him as the greatest western mathematician of the Middle Ages is based on and yet rarely credited to the ancient Hindo-Arabic numeral system. Of his own accord, he saw how math was connected to nature was connected to art was connected to the human physiological response to “beauty” and it is this synthesis of equal parts logic and creativity that has me consistently smitten.

His theory of the Golden Mean – a mathematical equation that determines the point on a rectangular canvas to which the human eye naturally focuses - is the one thing that remains from that from all that I temporarily memorized but didn’t really ‘get’ about Renaissance art history. There is nothing about the Golden Mean that I aspire to personally or artistically, but some sources refer to it as “The Irrational Mathematical Constant” and the beauty-full, rhythmic opposition of those words alone has been enough to claim my allegiance.

Every time that I find myself returning to Fibonnaci, I know that there is also something different and deeper that I am needing to understand about sustainability… About how every thing and being and experience is connected across a space and depth significant enough that it will always be ‘there’ and yet at the same time really only exist in the moment of perception…

About how no-thing is sustainable without the freedom to change and learn and grow… 

About love.

In the Fibonacci sequence, each number is the sum of the previous two numbers, starting with 0 and 1. Thus, the sequence begins 0, 1, 1, 2, 3, 5, 8, 13, 21, 34, 55, 89, 144, 233, 377, 610 etc. The growth that continues is exponential, infinite and sustainable because of and despite its inherent irrationality.

I am addicted to the poetry of that truth.

I need also to believe in all of the abstract spaces between the facts because that is where my faith in the potential of people to remember that “truth” is never a simple or singular thing feels most safe.

2. A FOUR PART THEORY OF EXPONENTIAL GROWTH

a) BIOLOGICAL THEORY:

Any organism’s primary evolutionary goal is to survive… and then grow… and then thrive.

b) MATHEMATICAL THEORY:

According to the Fibonacci Sequence and the mathematics of exponential growth; Similarities in the formative structure of many seemingly diverse patterns in nature can be represented by a stable mathematical equation, where each successive number is the product of the two preceding, and is representative of the growth of each consecutive stage or layer:  

c) COMPOSITIONAL THEORY:

In relation to compositional theory within the western art canon, Fibonacci’s equations translate into the Golden Mean; a process for the conceptual division of a canvas prior to composing a picture in order to better determine the “natural” focal point of the eye. The belief behind this is that when this principle is applied to the composition of a 2D image, key aspects of the subject matter will be positioned in a way that looks ‘right’ to the human subconscious. 

d) SUSTAINABILITY THEORY:

Regarding the sustainability of the human spirit, in order to achieve survival and growth AND to thrive as biological organisms in the modern context of technology and the global village, we both desire and require the opportunity for exposure to new ideas and experiences. What looks “right” to us now at this point in human history is actually more of what feels right. This right-ness is perhaps better represented by an art of experience than it is by an object of composition. This being said,

The basic principles of biological and mathematical theory can and must still stand when it comes to considering the potential of experiential, community-based art practices. The basic medium for this art form then becomes dialogue, in all its numerous forms including but not limited to; writing, drawing, other forms of visual creation, verbal conversation, body language, movement and dance, exchange of personal energies, and any combinations there of.

“No raindrop falls in the storms of autumn that ever fell before, and the rain has fallen, and falls, and will fall throughout all the autumns of the years.” – Ursula K. Le Guin

3. THE SPACES BETWEEN US

Just as I cannot subscribe to any belief in which “identity” is considered finite – is either ‘this’ or ‘that’ – I do not believe that there are only four ways to engage in an infinite mathematical pattern. If the mathematical component of Fibonacci theory is based on a continuous, exponential growth; why not also the potential application of all thoughts and ideas that come of it? 

Of the spaces between these quadrants?

Of the also-infinite number of possibilities that result from equations involving   

  

   unique processing patterns

+ individual experiences

+ a numerical metaphor for growth?

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

(0+1)

we are each made of stardust,

the collective memory of the cosmos.

(0+1+1)

singular entities,

independent and drifting

come to occupy the same speck of universe and,

(0+1+1+2)

dialogue initiates through contact;

an inevitable exchange of energies

and 2 independent experiences will conspire,

co-creating

a third.

(0+1+1+2+3)

interaction persists

and persistence becomes the potential;

(0+1+1+2+3+5)

the collective,

(0+1+1+2+3+5+8)

the creative,

(0+1+1+2+3+5+8+13)

exploration.

(0+1+1+2+3+5+8+13+21)

it is compassionate

reflective process

becoming.

(0+1+1+2+3+5+8+13+21+34)

it is authentic,

(0+1+1+2+3+5+8+13+21+34+55)

sustainable,

(0+1+1+2+3+5+8+13+21+34+55+89)

  change.

This is a cumulative process that is only continuing;

the concepts of “forwards” or “backwards” are irrelevant to the actual process.

Individuals have an inherent capacity to contribute to an exponentially increasing quotient
of LOVE, kindness and understanding in the world, and this is the nature of our birthright.

Simultaneously, this is the nature of our responsibility… 

it is both/and.

  “A flower is made up entirely of non-flower parts.”

   - Thich Nhat Han