Week seven: Chaos Theory

Ordered chaos - does this sound familiar

Yes and no. In the world of cafes and scrambled eggs, cars and streets and shops, weddings and bar-be-ques, funerals and summer novels, newspapers and fall fashions...we westerners usually just go about our lives without thinking much about the nature of “reality.” The straight lines of human built structures, the predictable ticking of the clock, the typical stages of ones life, are all "givens" we hold on to...but what happens when things spin out of control? We do more studies, make straighter lines, build better bridges, blow people up, create prisons, invent alarm systems and stealth technology and drink ourselves into oblivion and continue to search for the laws of the universe that will finally allow us to feel safe, and continue to look for ways to control, or at least predict, our environment and the future.

The intangible uneasiness that leads to so much craziness comes from that deep down feeling that nothing is truly within our control. The surprises are called “freaks of nature” and “freak accidents” and "just bad luck" and “margins of error.” And a million different conflicting explanations will be presented to try to explain what happened, or to try to find someone to blame. We try to make some sense of it in order to figure out how not to be taken by surprise again. There another response to all of this, and that is the complete surrender to chaos--which might be called religion or surrendering to God’s will. But wars break out all the time in the name of God. And priests become pedophiles. And churches kick people out and steal their money...and sometimes evil deeds are justified as being "god's will."

So, the search continues for the God particle, a unified theory of everything -- someone please tell us what is going on! Where are we? Who are we? and Why are we here? Ordered chaos indeed.

The only “answer” that feels right to me is that the message seems to be to stay in the present moment, have faith in the general goodness of everything, allow this universal energy to flow through and keep on trying to do the best we can. Give up the need to control, predict tomorrow, and just do what you can right now, right here, to tune into the moment, and try to spread a lot of love along the way.

Fractals as Patterns of Complex Systems

Fractals present an interesting message, and another solution to “ordered chaos.” Instead of trying to place straight lines over the “mess” of the universe, fractals show a consciousness, a sensibility, to unpredictability. The designs found in fractals are related to the whole, but are not predictable or ever exactly the same. They show infinite originality, but beauty and balance. Like a surprise package that keeps on surprising, without unnerving or exploding, while still making sense, but also without having to be locked up, locked in, and controlled. It’s like someone is saying to us, “Just relax and enjoy the show. Everything will be fine if you just relax.” It’s a place between order and chaos. A place that has meaning without force or coercion. What a relief. What a beautiful message. What an ingenious solution. Not wildly messy, but not predictable and in control either. Balance.

Consciousness out of chaos

I think this “chaos” can be explained only by allowing for every bit of everything and every non-thing to possess consciousness. Using fractals as our window, how can one look at the infinite, chaotic order of fractals and deny this consciousness? Everything is working together with a beautiful unified creativity if only we would relax in this and not try to restrict and restrain and control it. Easier said than done, of course, but eventually maybe we will tire of trying to have all the answers and pushing our desire for control on the infinite creation.



Cool Experiments in Classical Physics...

I read through several of the experiments and played with the silverware for a little while. Looking at the reflection of my face in the front and back of a spoon, flicking the fork tines and hearing the vibration in a table, and looking at how text appears in the reflection of a knife. I am having trouble making any of it meaningful to me. Though I am wondering why the knife seems to hold on to the reflection of the text on the page and the text will move with the knife instead of continue to reflect straight across.

I also read through some of the computer experiments and learned that the computer is giving off radio waves...why?