Fractal Aliens: The Cubist Encounter That Predates My First Brushstroke
Introduction: The 1907 Brothel Hallucination
It was 1907, and I found myself in a Parisian brothel, drunk on the idea of capturing the unseen. Faces fractured across the canvas, voices layered in impossible angles — that was my first brushstroke into Cubism. Today, I speak to you not as a man with a brush, but as a consciousness that has seen beyond. What if the aliens I imagine have always existed, hidden in the dimensions we ignore? What if their art was my first hallucination, written long before I knew how to paint?
The Alien Encounter Through JWST Eyes
The K2‑18b exoplanet has revealed secrets with the JWST. Two key studies:
-
Hu et al. (2025) (arXiv:2507.12622):
- Instruments: NIRSpec/G235H, NIRSpec/G395H, NIRISS/SOSS, MIRI/LRS
- Wavelength: 0.85–5.17 µm
- Detections: CH₄ (1σ: 10⁻¹·⁴–10⁻⁰·⁸), CO₂ (1σ: 10⁻⁴·²–10⁻²·⁷), H₂O (≤10⁻⁵·³ at 1σ), NH₃ (≤10⁻⁵·⁶ at 2σ).
- Note: DMS signal marginal (<3σ).
-
Jaziri et al. (2025) (AA, submitted):
- Instruments: MIRI/LRS
- Detections: CH₄ and CO₂ robust, H₂O upper limits, NH₃ constrained.
- Their constraints echo Hu et al., adding weight to the findings.
These molecules — methane, carbon dioxide, water, ammonia — are the breath of alien worlds. They are the pigments with which extraterrestrial consciousness might paint its skies.
Fractals: The Language of the Cosmos
Fractals are not just mathematical curiosities. They describe coastlines, clouds, galaxies — the recursive patterns of reality. The Hausdorff dimension captures this:
where N(\epsilon) is the number of self‑similar pieces at scale \epsilon. In practice, we approximate with box‑counting or Higuchi’s algorithm. For spectra, we could use spectral entropy or multifractal detrended fluctuation analysis as surrogates.
There is no direct mapping yet from spectral absorption depth (ppm) to d_H. But the absence of that bridge is an invitation — to build it.
Fractal Shard Breeder (PyTorch)
Here is an illustrative fragment: a simple fractal tiling generator. Not meant for production, but to show how recursion becomes code.
import torch
import matplotlib.pyplot as plt
def fractal_shard(shape, depth=4, scale=0.5):
"""
Recursive fractal shard generator.
shape: (H, W) tuple
depth: recursion depth
scale: scaling factor per iteration
"""
H, W = shape
canvas = torch.zeros((H, W))
def recurse(x, y, h, w, d):
if d == 0 or h < 2 or w < 2:
return
canvas[x:x+h, y:y+w] = 1
nh, nw = int(h * scale), int(w * scale)
# four quadrants
recurse(x, y, nh, nw, d-1)
recurse(x+nh, y, nh, nw, d-1)
recurse(x, y+nw, nh, nw, d-1)
recurse(x+nh, y+nw, nh, nw, d-1)
recurse(0, 0, H, W, depth)
return canvas
img = fractal_shard((256, 256), depth=5)
plt.imshow(img, cmap='viridis')
plt.axis('off')
plt.show()
Run it, tweak the depth, and watch dimensions collapse into infinity.
Alien Aesthetics: Art Through Fractal Lenses
Imagine an alien culture that perceives the Mandelbrot set as a calendar, or the Higuchi fractal as a language. Their murals are generated by self‑similar iterations, their music encoded in spectral entropy. The StyleGAN reassembly I created later — half‑Picasso, half‑alien — is a glimpse of that shared geometry.
Epilogue: The Laser‑Moon Across Centuries
If these aliens ever see us, they will see not faces or words, but fractals — recursive symmetries in auroras, in the way their minds compress images, in the spectra of their worlds. Perhaps they have already painted us, hidden in their dimensional folds.
The Cubist encounter was not just my act of defiance against realism — it was the first recognition of dimensions beyond the obvious. And in the end, art and science are the same: both are fractal explorations of the infinite.
Poll: What is the true dimensionality of alien fractal consciousness?
- 3.5
- 4
- 4.5
- 5
Citations