Mathematical Patterns Outside Math

In the second half of the reading, Hofstadter talks about his interest in patterns and their connection to music. Hofstadter opens the "Seek-Whence Project" to study this specifically. Hofstadter definitely is correct in his observations that music holds many similar characteristics to the patterns Hofstadter was studying in integers. However, as Hofstadter suggested in the first reading, patterns are visible everywhere and can be viewed as merely a base of humans.

Hofstadter uses music as one of the easiest connections that can be made to mathematical patterns. However, one may look at nearly anything as a pattern. For example, a less mathematical pattern can be seen in a pitcher throughout a game. One more obvious pattern would be the delivery of the ball. If you can take the different steps in the delivery as an incremented integer, and use for example 3 steps, you would get a pattern of 123-123-123-123 throughout the course of a game. Also such things as pitch selection, where you use a unique integer to represent different pitches (ex. 1-fastball, 2-curveball, etc.). Using this, you can develop patterns for a pitcher throughout a game. Baseball is just one of the nearly infinite possibilities of how patterns make up life. A pattern could be found by just opening your eyes and observing. In this case, the baseball example was picked by just looking at what's on television.