# Perception of Difficulty: Change Colors

Disclaimer: this post is opinion based.

A few years ago, I have tried to write a JS code to draw some fractals. However, I was not able to come up with an original and beautiful result. So, I have modified the code a little and made it draw a bunch of lines with random colors (and repeat that every second.) You can view it here.

Back then, I did not see anything particularly nice about it but after a couple of years, when I look at it again, it makes me think about our perception of difficulty. Let me emphasize that it draws exactly the same lines at every run, it is just the colors that are random (unless, of course, I have made an error.) So, in theory, no matter which set of colors you start with, if you diligently trace the lines, you can understand the pattern of the lines. Here is a sample picture:

I do not know about you but the above picture does not give me a lot of hints about its pattern other than a possible point of symmetry. So, I would say that it is hard to recognize a pattern, if it exists at all.

However, if you change the colors a little bit, a spiral in the middle becomes clearly visible. (Click on the image to see a bigger version.)

Tweaking a little bit more, we also getwhich makes it more clear that these lines are polygonal chains approximating some circle-like path. Well, it is an approximation of a spiral.

As you saw, it became a lot easier to notice a pattern when you change the way you look at the lines. A quite similar situation happens often in my daily life; when I spend a lot of hours working on a seemingly hard mathematical problem, only to realize that I have been using wrong “colors”. Of course, in general, you do not know which “colors” to start with but if you find something challenging, it is often rewarding to change “colors”.

# I measure, therefore I am.

Disclaimer: this post is opinion based.

How do we tell if a human is alive (or dead)? We check if the vital organs of the body is alive. How do we tell if an organ is alive well we check if it is parts are ok and so on.

– but just because my skin consists of dead cells, should not mean that it is dead itself. If it is doing what it is supposed to do (holding you together, providing a little support and defense for the rest of the body), then I think it should mean that it is alive.

I think the essence of life should be to function. We should call something is alive or dead depending if it is functioning or not. Of course, then, this depends on the purpose you assign to the thing. If you say a stone’s purpose is to occupy volume then it is alive but then everything else is also alive. So, this whole thing depends on how you measure things (and how you measure begin alive/dead).

If I can measure whether I am alive or not, then I am functioning and I should be alive. But if i cannot measure, then I am dead (and worse than that I don’t exist) and agreeing to this view also has a dull answer to “why are we here” or “why are we alive”. Because otherwise, we would not be able to measure and would not ask the question in the first place.

This is actually quite close to what Descartes said. He says I think, so first I must exist to be able to think. Therefore, I exist. But I think this is a slight generalization of I think therefore i am.

# Hello world!

$e^{i\pi} - 1 = 0$

A beautiful way to say hello. (Also to test wp-latex plugin)