It strikes me that Mandelbrot’s maxim might just as easily apply in a moral sense. When we maintain discipline (in any discipline), wonderous flowers emerge: such flowers as the mothers and fathers who give endlessly of themselves for 20 years in order to raise a child. Such flowers as the pianist who practices for 10,000 hours to attain concert-level mastery. The theme here is a constancy of service to others. And isn’t that a rather spiritual engagement? You might say that the Golden rule is the simple equation that sparks it all. Insofar as "Do unto others" is akin to Mandelbrot’s "zn+1 = zn2 + c", the intricacies sparked by goodwill maintain a mathematical majesty.