| Subject: Depends... |
Author:
Duane
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Date Posted: 09/30/04 10:25pm
In reply to:
Damoclese
's message, "Chaos" on 09/30/04 11:58am
Damocles:
It depends on what you mean by chaos. Chaos is a specific mathematical term of art - do you mean mathematical chaos? (the answer is definitely, proveably, yes - take a look at chaotic systems of differential equations. "Strange attractors" are a prime example of macroscopic order in chaotic systems)
If, by chaos, you mean "a disordered system," the answer is also yes, though the disorder doesn't actually "create" order.
Many (maybe all?) systems with simple, low-level rules of interaction generate what we've started calling "emergent properties." For example, our economic system is based on very simple, primitive rules - people will trade goods and/or services in a manner that they feel benefits them.
By any common definition of the word "chaos," the origins of human commerce were certainly that. But from that simple rule, our entire economy - the stock market, banking, etc., has arisen. Definitely what you'd call an "ordered system."
Take life, in general, as another example. We've found that the particles in our universe interact according to a few simple (well, more than a few) rules. From that simple interaction, complex behaviors of atoms and molecule arose, and from their simple interactions more complex molecules, etc., etc.
I think that order is almost a necessary consequence of any system with some set of rules of interaction.
Now, if by chaos you mean a system without ANY rules, not even low-level, primitive ones, first off, I think you'd be hard-pressed to find such a system. I think we'd need to identify an example of one before we could talk about THAT situation.
Duane
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