Chaos anyone?

[paigetheoracle]

I've just fallen in love again with a new idea - chaos! I watched a brilliant program about it on BBC Television by Professor Jim Al Khalili.

 

It fell in with some of my own observations on life, like that things basically start off simple and become more complex with time and that the opposite is decay (Think of thoroughbreds and inherent weaknesses magnified by in-breeding. Think also of physical and mental disability and how breeding can wipe these out over generations, by refining the material connections available as shown in 'Natural Motion' computer systems simulations and how over time problems were overcome through combinations from within the system itself). Think also of synaesthesia, where the senses are as in the primordial soup of chaos and confusion, that grows into the order we know of separate, single senses (No smelling green/ tasting B flat/ hearing rough surfaces etc).

 

It also echoed what I felt about time - that the future is of necessity unpredictable because it is unformed and that is its beauty! (The past is definite and known because it is 'passed' but the future isn't defined, isn't created, so naturally we cannot ever be one hundred percent sure what it will turn out to be). It's also why the belief in 'unfairness' is ludicrous because if we make choices, neither we nor anybody else can tell where they will lead, only hope (If one door of opportunity closes, another will open unless we bar the door and stop all chance of probabilities developing). It also led to the conclusion in me that if life is unpredictable, then order must be the death of possibility (change) i.e. certain/ predictable. To me Jung's idea of synchronicity falls into this because it is a question of a leap of faith because you cannot be sure of the result but if you follow it through, it links to all kinds of new ideas/ insights/ physical connections/ opportunities.

 

It showed through the work of Belusov and the reaction he noted (alternating colour changes that replicate the way the heart beats and shows a mechanism for it). It also mentioned Alan Turing's work on patterns, that would lead to fractals, through feedback loops, or forms shrinking into smaller and smaller versions of themselves: Rivers, trees, roads, blood vessels as in one of my coloured pencil drawings.

 

Another wonderful thing it showed me was that we have no control over life and that it should be that way. Those who criticize change and new discoveries are really just trying to hold onto the past and certainty as with those who dismissed Belusov's work and moralised about Turing's sexuality, destroying the progress that could have come from these two gentlemen being given free rein. All in all, this program showed that progress comes from freedom to experiment and that all attempts to suppress or interfere with it, leads to society's detriment (Better to mine something out or abandon it, should a better alternative appear). In other words positive emotion leads to change as negative emotion leads to defence of what was, rather than what could be - time and attitude therefore cannot be excluded from the equation (or the physical and mental are inextricably mixed - within and without are connected, through the medium of time).

 

A brilliant program that really stimulated an interest in the subject, in me as you can see!

[CraigD]

I've just fallen in love again with a new idea - chaos!

:( I’m delighted you’re in love with the idea of chaos, paige – though I’d qualify calling it a “new” idea.

 

As a scientific concept, Chaos in its modern sense is a concept, only a few very smart people (eg: mathematicians like Laplace and Poincaré) gave it much thought prior to 1900. By about 1970, most smart math/science people were familiar with it, and a few (eg: Edward Lorentz) By 1985, it was a “social filter” concept – serious math/science students, pros, and enthusiasts often used recognition of the concept and body of work to judge if one was “in” or “out” of “the know”. By 1990, its utility as a social filter was complicated, as a sizable fraction of the public were at least acquainted the term (Thanks more than a little to James Gleick’s excelent 1987 book Chaos) – though all that were acquainted with the term didn’t understand it well.

 

I’ve been acquainted with – and, as Paige puts it, more or less “in love with” – chaos theory since the early 1980s.

 

I’ve found a key question that can be used to determine a person’s relationship with chaos theory is

Do you consider the statement “the flapping of the wings of a butterfly in Brazil can cause a tornado in Texas a week later” to be

• Literally true
  
  
• Literally false, but a useful metaphor
  
  
• Literally and metaphorically false
  
  

?

This question involves the butterfly effect, a chaos theory concept usually attributed to a Lorentz in the early 1960s.

 

To the best of my understanding, the correct answer is “Literally true”.

 

:QuestionM What does everyone here at hypography think? I’m curious.