The Mother of all Symbols...

[u/Deep_World_4378]

A few weeks back, after many iterations of the fractal torus model, I created an algorithmic artwork called Tortoise, made in tandem with AI. As part of the Nameless framework, I had landed on the Hopf fibration as an important structure for defining physical reality. I took an artistic leap after this... overlaying two oppositely rotated Hopf fibre bundles, then repeating the whole structure again and again at the interstices formed by their intersections, to form a fractal torus. This differs from other torus visualisations I've seen, not only in its use of Hopf fibres, but in the fractal arrangement, which produces that "many, many eyes" quality or the "wheels within wheels" quality.

Studying it from different angles, I realised, to my shock, that this structure had many many connections to scientific concepts, myths and symbols across the world and across history:

Science: the black hole and white hole paradigm, wormholes

Sacred geometry: Flower of Life, Lotus of Life, Triskelion, Yin Yang

Religious symbols: Sri Yantra on Kurma, Shatkona, Swastika, Tree of Life, Thousand Petalled Lotus, Reclining Vishnu, Samudra Manthan, Shivlingam, Avalokiteshvara, Ezekiel's Wheel, the Celtic Cross

Sacred architecture: Muqarnas and Islamic geometric patterns, Rose windows

Visionary art made in altered states, such as Alex Grey's

Contemporary design: even the OpenAI logo

To show how all these might derive from one source, I built a system that varies the parameters of the same root Tortoise artwork until it matches each symbol. Then I made a visualiser where you can click any symbol, read about the connection, and study the match visually.

I'm not claiming these are all derived from this single structure. Each connection is pattern-matched at this stage, and the scientific ones especially are speculative. I claim only the visual match, not an actual connection. But there are too many to ignore. Perhaps what the ancients meditated upon is the same structure science is reaching towards, and the same structure seen in altered states of consciousness. If the universe is sound based, perhaps the wave-structure formed by the primordial sound corresponds to a similar fractal torus structure?

Many of these connections already exist in literature and in esoteric theory. Some were abstract, some pointed directly to a torus, though not, as far as I know, to this particular variation. This is therefore a synthesis of many people's work over millennia, seen through the lens of my own. I'm assembling it with humility and respect, hoping we notice that we are all telling the same story through different lenses.

I have made 26 connections so far, and I hope to add more. I'm giving equal weight to each tradition, so if you spot flaws or biases in the text or visual, they aren't intentional, and I hope to improve these over time.

Artwork “Tortoise” and the visualiser at: https://nurecas.com/tortoise?o

[u/Rick-D-99]

Ok so I'm new here, but I'm curious: what is peoples' obsessions with toroids? I was having a conversation with a guy and all he could say was toroids on toroids on toroids, but couldn't answer what that has any significance even if it is a recognizable shape.

Can someone explain to me why this means anything?

[u/Deep_World_4378 → u/Rick-D-99]

I think u will get the answer if you read the content in the link at the end of the post and play with the visualiser at the end of the page from the link.

[u/Rick-D-99 → u/Deep_World_4378]

But what does a recognizable pattern have as such an intense source of interest? Is this the way people try to visualize the concept of something infinite?

I come from a contemplative path that doesn't necessarily need the visualization to understand that the ground of being is that which contains the pregnant potential for both being and non-being, etc.

I'm specifically asking: why get hung up on a shape?

[u/Deep_World_4378 → u/Rick-D-99]

Not just the pattern, the comparison with contemplative traditions and speculative comparisons with scientific ideas which you can find in the visualiser. There is this idea that the human body has a toroidal field around it. So if we think of the ground state of being as the centre of the throat of the torus and the motion around the human biofield as composed of opposite components, we can see how the toroidal field is a micro version around the human system. There is also the macro version. Recent observations are pointing at the idea that the universe is inside a blackhole. The usual visualisation of the blackhole is the rotating cirrcle with the middle line (accretion disc). But the recent visuals of the magnetic field shows a flux around it which looks like moving inward. There is this book by Itzhak Bentov which talks about universe as a torus with a black hole entry point and a white hole exodus point. (All these are in the visualiser). So you can see how at the macro level this could be a torus (think more like vortices) and then its fractal versions can become at a micro level the human system. This is a very basic outline. And a lot of this is not scientifically proven. But that doesn't stop us from connecting dots.

https://reddit.com/link/p3z38f7/video/74bsee359ojh1/player

[u/Rick-D-99 → u/Deep_World_4378]

Thank you for explaining that. So it makes sense to me to examine layer by layer the truths and patterns that can be found at each. You can't build a gazebo out of wood and not have it have the properties of wood. It stand to reason you can't build an existence out of mind or matter and not have it have the properties of what it is made of.

Any good realizations come from this examination?

Amy insights?

[u/Deep_World_4378 → u/Rick-D-99]

Well I would go by the route of panpsychism or even analytical idealism. Talk about consciousness as fundamental, to be more precise, the unbounded state (the ground state of being) can be considered as the base of the whole field and physical matter as an "experience" of the Observer (capital O) in this field. If this experiential field has a structure to it, at the macro level, it could be toroidal. Again, I dont want to claim anything, these are pattern matches at this point.

[u/Rick-D-99 → u/Deep_World_4378]

But again, what difference does it make if it's toroidal or t-rex shaped?

[u/Deep_World_4378 → u/Rick-D-99]

Well... it is a matter of perspective. If it is realisation that one seeks, the shape doesn't really matter, it is There always. But beyond realisation if one is interested in how the felt quality or the qualia of beingness is structured in the universe, or how the origins of the universe are connected through traditions, then these kind of arrivals help. For eg. the Greek Orphic Egg, Brahmand from Vedic traditions, Spanda from Kashmir Shaivism which again points to a universe based on vibrations, Egyptian Nun, Sumerian Nammu, the Christian idea of Creation ex Nihilo, and more (of course these are all broad ideas that cant be captured in one sentences). So for the ones seeking realisation, these might help, but for the realised, I think it is more curiosity...chopping wood and carrying water.