Adaptive System Principles: Mind set

1. Mind set

The bits and pieces of our ongoing existence, which our subconscious store for quick reference according to some still uncovered scheme, much define how we perceive our reality and the world around us.
One such defining fragment of my past was recorded for future use when I was eleven or twelve. My father had made the decision to spend a small fortune on a home computer, the Commdore 64.

One afternoon he brought with him from work a new tape, which me and my brother of course thought was filled with new 8 bit magic in the form of ground breaking graphics, music and game-play. After the usual eternity of loading my father announced that, after another eternity of waiting, the real magic, that of modern science, would reveal it self in this humble room in the back of our house.

What my father had brought with him from work was chaos. The computer was, with seemingly painstaking labour, building a wonderful and enigmatic weave of swirling colors; the algorithm of the Mandelbrot set was being unveiled pixel by pixel.

What I remember more than the complex patterns on the screen was the message from my father, or maybe creation itself, that the comprehension of something so intricate and mystic was within grasp even for my tiny little brain. What seemed vastly complicated from a distance could actually be built from parts that I might already be familiar with!
I am sure I never ran this program more than twice, but I remember being puzzled by the evidence of the ever repeating patterns; each new level of detail a true test in the virtue of patience, rewarding us with more and more conclusive proof of real magic.

I don't know if my brother remembers this, and I would be surprised if my father does. Moments in life are perceived and processed, indexed or discarded without much intervention from our consciousness. For some reason my brain did me (itself of course...) the favor to implant a resident childish sense, that I only need to look close enough at a problem to find it's solution. And, as always, find comfort in the fact that the solution was already at hand, just at another level of magnification.