Luck, Destiny and Environment in Life: A Comparison With Algorithmic Trees Generated With LindenMayer Systems
Ten Types of Common Trees In Singapore from Singapore Postage Stamp * all images generated with Fractal Grower software by Joel Castellanos of University of New Mexico: See http://www.cs.unm.edu/~joel/PaperFoldingFractal/paper.html 1. Leaves on a stem 2. Fern 3. Weed 4. Simple tree. This post is on what we often ponder: that what shapes our life as we grow is a combination of our genes, our environment, the decisions we make along the way, and random unforeseeable events which had an impact on the path we were traveling on. I choose to compare our lives with the shape of trees. An Oak is as different from a Coconut Tree as a Fern is different from a bush of Roses. An Oak cannot turn into a Coconut Tree and yet each Oak is different. The analogy with Life is that to a certain extent there is a boundary beyond which your Life cannot cross, yet within this boundary, there is considerable freedom for you to choose the the eventual 'shape' you will become. Let us illustrate this wi...