I've been thinking about Chaos and Order lately. I found this picture on the web that perfectly illustrated the fact that we need chaos in the world. Scientifically, chaos is not a "bad or evil" thing. Chaos creates galaxies and stars and star systems and planets and, in the case of Earth, life.
Without chaos there would be no language or salads; the night sky would be pretty uninteresting. Without chaos kids would not play and plants would not provide us with oxygen and food. Chaos is necessary, extremely necessary!
Order is necessary too. They are coupled together like yin and yang; inseparable, balanced, and vital. We talk about them as if they are separate entities and usually only on the far sides of the continuum. Systems are far more complex than pure order or pure chaos and exist somewhere in between in a state of ordered chaos or chaotic order.
Talking about chaos and order one has to be specific of the context. Many people believe that the 2nd Law of Thermodynamics (Law of Entropy) says that "every thing will progress from a state of order to disorder". While in some cases that is somewhat correct, that doesn't really adequately describe the scientific meaning.
Entropy = Energy spontaneously disperses from being localized to becoming spread out if it is not hindered from doing so. Entropy measures the spontaneous dispersal of energy: how much energy is spread out in a process, or how widely spread out it becomes — at a specific temperature.
*Thank you Frank Lambert. (http://entropysite.oxy.edu/students_approach.html)
It's tempting for us to extrapolate scientific principles to social, cultural, and artistic applications. Chaos and entropy become a metaphor for disarray, disorder, and disorganization. I think that is okay, as long as the metaphor stays true to the original premise. For instance, maintaining a neat house; at a high temperature my house becomes more cluttered, at a lower temperature it maintains some organization. ;-) At a specific temperature, my energy for activity disperses from being localize to becoming spread out! Referring back to the pictures, think about the energy that was required to carefully arrange each picture to illustrate order? The natural state of each of those frames is one of ordered chaos (or chaotic order, take your pick). We recognize the salad, the conifer branch, the stars in the night sky, the language, all of them as something familiar, a complex pattern yes, but one we know, suspended somewhere on the continuum between order and chaos, not absolute order or absolute chaos. The other temptation is for humans to assign a VALUE to order and chaos as good and/or bad/evil. Here is where the human intellect must kick in and prevail with reason and rationality. It is neither good or bad, it simply is. Sometimes beneficial things come from order and sometimes from chaos; sometimes detrimental things come from order and sometimes from chaos.
Bottom line, they are inseparable like heads and tails on a coin, but unlike the coin it's not just one or the other. It's both, in varying degrees; just doing what it does, not for an ulterior motive of good or evil. It simply is.
I think I'll good have a bit of soup and salad, under a pine tree.
Order is necessary too. They are coupled together like yin and yang; inseparable, balanced, and vital. We talk about them as if they are separate entities and usually only on the far sides of the continuum. Systems are far more complex than pure order or pure chaos and exist somewhere in between in a state of ordered chaos or chaotic order.
Talking about chaos and order one has to be specific of the context. Many people believe that the 2nd Law of Thermodynamics (Law of Entropy) says that "every thing will progress from a state of order to disorder". While in some cases that is somewhat correct, that doesn't really adequately describe the scientific meaning.
Entropy = Energy spontaneously disperses from being localized to becoming spread out if it is not hindered from doing so. Entropy measures the spontaneous dispersal of energy: how much energy is spread out in a process, or how widely spread out it becomes — at a specific temperature.
*Thank you Frank Lambert. (http://entropysite.oxy.edu/students_approach.html)
It's tempting for us to extrapolate scientific principles to social, cultural, and artistic applications. Chaos and entropy become a metaphor for disarray, disorder, and disorganization. I think that is okay, as long as the metaphor stays true to the original premise. For instance, maintaining a neat house; at a high temperature my house becomes more cluttered, at a lower temperature it maintains some organization. ;-) At a specific temperature, my energy for activity disperses from being localize to becoming spread out! Referring back to the pictures, think about the energy that was required to carefully arrange each picture to illustrate order? The natural state of each of those frames is one of ordered chaos (or chaotic order, take your pick). We recognize the salad, the conifer branch, the stars in the night sky, the language, all of them as something familiar, a complex pattern yes, but one we know, suspended somewhere on the continuum between order and chaos, not absolute order or absolute chaos. The other temptation is for humans to assign a VALUE to order and chaos as good and/or bad/evil. Here is where the human intellect must kick in and prevail with reason and rationality. It is neither good or bad, it simply is. Sometimes beneficial things come from order and sometimes from chaos; sometimes detrimental things come from order and sometimes from chaos.
Bottom line, they are inseparable like heads and tails on a coin, but unlike the coin it's not just one or the other. It's both, in varying degrees; just doing what it does, not for an ulterior motive of good or evil. It simply is.
I think I'll good have a bit of soup and salad, under a pine tree.
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