Does patterns exist?

Our cognitive ability to recognise the phenomena of “patterns” is quite astonishing. It gave us the upper hand in the survival of the fittest game. It allowed us to maximise our chances of survival because we could recognise the pattern of seasonal changes, predatorial hunting times and migration patterns of animals.

Our ability to recognise complex and abstract patterns allowed us to create mathematics, economics and even social sciences. But we are not alone in the ability to recognise Patterns. Most animals flourish in recognising some of the most basic patterns. We can see birds migrating to warmer areas when the seasons starts to change. We can see bears Hibernate when winter comes. Our dogs and cats learn when it is feeding time and can learn to do tasks for treats!

However the question remains, does patterns actually exist or is it just an abstract idea that we (creatures on earth) notice. To determine this answer we need to define what it is for something to exist. We can define it as something that everyone (every species or any object) can see, touch, hear and or notice in general. We should also be able to measure consistently.

With the crude definition in mind we note immediately that not all animals can notice most patterns. Some animals can notice a pattern A which other animals cannot even notice. This may suggest that the idea of patterns is just abstract and does not exist since not all can measure it. However we may find a contradiction to this idea.

We as humans can not directly observe or feel radio waves, however it does not mean that it does not exist. We can measure it and even manipulate it by using technology. A Mantis shrimp can see colours that we can’t even comprehend, yet we know it exist because we can create machinery that can observe it and consistently measure it. We extended our ability to view the phenomena.

We know not all animals can recognise patterns however we can not disregard the pattern. Internally in our own species we noticed that some people can be taught to recognised patterns therefore we find a similarity in the case of suing the machines to measure it. However we are the only beings that can measure this patterns. Most of the times it is pretty consistent and we can predict the outcomes. We can also view this patterns with machines in a abstract way. We can create robot that stamps a piece of paper when it sees the sun disappear. These marks clearly shows a pattern thus the machine “measured” the pattern.

We can find through this discussion that it objectively to claim that a pattern is more than just some theoretical idea with some application. To truly answer this question we might actually need to revise on what makes a pattern a pattern!

Hope you all enjoyed this post. I will try to make post more post for this while again.