Patterns are the landmarks we need to find our way in the field, in science, in life. If we don’t recognize them, we might get lost. Recognition relates observations to concepts. Concepts are the elements by which understanding is built. Understanding is needed to survive in a complex world.
There are several ways to acquire the ability to recognize patterns. It can arise spontaneously, from experience, learned from a teacher or even with the help of an automatic device. Of scientific interest is how patterns arise. Are they determined by someone, are they artificially created or do they emerge as a result of a natural law?
These are universal issues, not focused on a specific field of science. In general, science tries to find the causes of observations. It goes back and forth between the manifestations and their origins. This path can be thought of as a series of transformations in which, usually through a series of steps, the origin can gradually reveal itself. Describing this path in general terms can expose a pattern of creation. Since we all create something on a regular basis, for example when we speak, write, cook, construct, etc., discussions about patterns of creation will affect different areas, such as consciousness, philosophy, language, mathematics, design, (meta-)physics and statistics.
This website contains some reflections on these issues and comments that pop up after studying material on related topics. The posts are not organized in a systematic way, but are just added when time and energy permit. All topics between the creation of concepts in the mind and technologies needed for an automatic, machine based classification of observations may be touched. They are primarily intended as a personal exercise to make viewpoints and understanding as clear as possible. They might be of interest for an accidental reader as well.
Bob Duin, March 2023
