Recursion: the remix to cognition

Recursion transcends academic disciplines, unites art and nature, and may be the fundamental linguistic and even cognitive function that differentiates human from animal existence

The power of recursion, almost by definition, boggles the mind. Its reach transcends academic disciplines, unites art and nature, and may be the fundamental linguistic and even cognitive function that differentiates human from animal existence. Its propensity toward complexity and infinity quickly defies comprehension, with the highest-IQ humans able to process only 6-7 embedded layers. A single infinite loop can crash the most powerful supercomputers, and there's certainly no escape from infinite self-referential nerd jokes.

Broadly, I define recursion as "self-similar embedded repetition." I'm not going to try to rewrite Wikipedia on recursion's many discipline-specific applications and examples, but this list includes:

• The Droste Effect and Matryoshka dolls in art

• Mis en abyme in art and literature

• Frame stories and stories within stories in literature

• Fractals in natural phenomenal and mathematics

• Fibonacci numbers, factorials, and the golden ratio in mathematics

• Infinite loops and circu…