Order versus Chaos

[sealchan]

Quote attribution swap!

 

[dfnj]

Without wanting to start up an old controversial topic in an unrelated thread...I would say that there is no god without satan because if you propose a god who is responsible for the Universe and all and is seen as a good creator, then the evil in the world must be due to another god who is the cause for that. There is a mystery that arises when we see the Universe as something fundamentally good whether it is good in its richness and beauty though "flawed" in its cruelty and destructiveness or whether we see a creator responsible for the created Universe. When we, as a culture of believers, can't fathom God as the creator of evil, we propose an evil underling who is truly responsible for the flaws. But we also should know that God is the only one who can be held ultimately responsible for His/Her/Its creation...when it comes to the level of His/Her/Its peers.

If the thread breaks down into a discussion why Satan must exist in order to have a God of "good" then it proves my point about the chaos in the Universe.

 

[sealchan]

Because the only way human's can understand anything in language is through the Unity of opposites:

Unity of opposites - Wikipedia

Yes and this unity of opposites has the "smell" of the brain's neurons which operate in an excitatory-inhibitory manner internally and with the human muscles operate in an efferent-afferent architecture. Our visual color processing seems to require complimentary colors (red-green, yellow-blue)...etc.

 

[dfnj]

You test compliance with the laws of physics every time you make an observation of the physical world or operate a piece of technology that relies on compliance with those laws.

Disorder exists*, no doubt of it, as I have said elsewhere on this thread. In fact to my mind one of the greatest triumphs of physics and chemistry is the way in which predictable, ordered, bulk properties of matter can be seen to arise from statistical randomness at the atomic or molecular level.

What I strongly disagree with is the notion that the patterns we detect through science - the so-called "laws of nature" - are pareidolia, that is to say imaginary. If that were true, we could not make aeroplanes fly.

Airplanes crash all the time. If it moves it breaks. Yes, airplanes take off and land. But you seem to be ignoring the chaos because it is like experimental error with your way of thinking.

I just don't live in your happy World of hard determinism.

 

[sealchan]

Airplanes crash all the time. If it moves it breaks. Yes, airplanes take off and land. But you seem to be ignoring the chaos because it is like experimental error with your way of thinking.

I just don't live in your happy World of hard determinism.

Chaos constantly nibbles at the edges of order looking for ways to unravel it...order processes chaos as a source of energy to fulfill and sustain itself. The hidden order in chaos can give rise to "order for nothing" without breaking any entropic principles.

Hidden within order are the seeds of its own destruction just like some Godelian principle ready to show the endless loopholes of comprehensive rational systems.

 

[dfnj]

Chaos constantly nibbles at the edges of order looking for ways to unravel it...order processes chaos as a source of energy to fulfill and sustain itself. The hidden order in chaos can give rise to "order for nothing" without breaking any entropic principles.

Hidden within order are the seeds of its own destruction just like some Godelian principle ready to show the endless loopholes of comprehensive rational systems.

Accuracy and completeness! Godelian principles may be the only absolute truth in the Universe!

 

[Unveiled Artist]

This is ridiculous. If pattern-seeking is a successful survival strategy, that must be because the patterns we find are real.

If they were imaginary they would not help us survive!

Finding order in a chaotic universe helps us survive.

It does not matter if its the imagination of the person who sees and needs pattern. Placebos can work just affectively on the psych as regular medications (case in point). Its the act and living the pattern that helps people.

Whether it is imagination or not is not the point. We find patterns in a chaotic universe all the time. People literally would go crazy if they entertain the thought there is no purpose and pattern to the universe (hence no god).

But people dont want to hear that. It is not wrong; but, Id use the word illusioned or maybe misguided rather than imaginary. People with hallucinations actually do hear voices; its not their imagination. But the reality is the voices they actually hear doesnt exist. They have hullucinations; thereby misguided.

Many people live in this way a lot. Its not wrong.

It just is.

 

[dfnj]

Finding order in a chaotic universe helps us survive.

It does not matter if its the imagination of the person who sees and needs pattern. Placebos can work just affectively on the psych as regular medications (case in point). Its the act and living the pattern that helps people.

Whether it is imagination or not is not the point. We find patterns in a chaotic universe all the time. People literally would go crazy if they entertain the thought there is no purpose and pattern to the universe (hence no god).

But people dont want to hear that. It is not wrong; but, Id use the word illusioned or maybe misguided rather than imaginary. People with hullusionates are actually hearing voices; its not their imagination. But the reality is the voices they actually hear doesnt exist. They have hullucinations; thereby misguided.

Many people live in this way a lot. Its not wrong.

It just is.

I agree with everything you say. I will also add people will ignore what they don't want to believe. Or, people will ignore something that would force them to rethink what they want to believe. People have a natural tendency towards prejudice, bigotry, and bias. It is the mind of the artist who sees past the Maya and experiences the true reality without differentiation (usually assisted by drugs. Better living through chemistry another thread topic!)

 

[QuestioningMind]

People who have the deepest faith in science often claim there is a natural order to the way nature behaves? I've been wondering if seeing this order in nature is some kind of pareidolia (seeing images in clouds). If we held the belief the Universe is nothing but chaos and nature's primary behavior is disorder would be we see or experience the evidence in equal measure? Are the laws of physics our primary experience or is there an equal amount of violations to the laws of physics?

I've heard many religious type people claim the natural order of nature, the way it can be represented with mathematics, and the idea of a clockwork Universe is evidence for the existence of God. Many people claim early scientists were all entrenched with religious beliefs as supporting evidence for their conjectures.

It seems to me what makes the Universe so great and interesting is the chaos. The idea of the Universe being ordered is like playing an Atari VCS video game. The digital is very boring because it repeats itself often. I have never experience reality ever repeating itself. In the movie the Matrix they have déjà vu moment.

I have never experience this in reality. Reality to me is analog, never repeats, just as disordered as it is ordered which is why reality is so interesting and fun to be in!

The part about what makes music "compelling" is interesting.

The ability to recognize patterns is an evolutionary survival trait in humans. Someone who recognizes that there is a pattern to the seasons learns to stock up on food during seasons of plenty in order to survive during seasons of scarcity. Someone who can't recognize such a pattern is continually taken by surprise when the temperatures drop and the snow comes. Unfortunately this ability to see patterns isn't always positive. At times it leads us to imagine we see patterns that aren't actually there.

 

[exchemist]

I was using Pareidolia as a metaphor. I said maybe the patterns found in science are like seeing images in clouds. I wasn't saying it is exactly like Pareidolia.

I don't think you can ignore the role of the observer when doing science. Scientists create a controlled context in which to take measurements and verify theories. But in reality, there is no context.

It's kind of like the idea parallel lines do not exist in reality. Mathematically it is sound. And it is useful in working with reality. But there are really imperfections.

I still think there may be measurably more exceptions or equal occurrences to the laws of physics as there is compliance. You already used words like "absurd". I never said I was asserting what I was saying was absolutely true. I conceded it would be difficult to measure the number of exceptions to the laws of physics. However, you claiming what I am suggesting is "absurd" seems to me to show you have an extreme prejudice and bias to one way of it being. I am no way near as confident in saying there are an equal number of exceptions than you are in asserting the laws of physics are the dominate experience. Many people, and based on my own experiences with reality, there seems to be a large number of exceptions and randomness to suggest that there may be a different view about reality.

The laws of physics simply to not take into account all the additional variables that may affect any measurement or result. As I said, under "controlled" conditions of a very well defined context nature behaves in certain patterns. And those patterns can be represented with the language of mathematics. And how nature behaves is dictated to scientists. But just because you have an equation of natures behavior in a set of control conditions doesn't mean reality is ordered. There's a lot more going on in reality than simple equations. Given the wave nature of reality, it may be everything we measure to be an object is just a contextual delusion seen through the language we created. In reality however, there are no objects. Everything is part of a wave of energy where everything is connected to everything else.

Claiming the Universe can be perfectly understood may be what is absurd.

Well if you now say, which you did not before, that you did not literally mean we were imagining the patterns and order we describe in science, that is a great relief! That is one absurdity less, at least.

But there is a reason why I say - and I mean it - that it is absurd to think the laws of physics are frequently broken. This is that we are constantly relying on these laws in so much of what we do. Every time a car brakes, or a sodium street lamp lights, or an electric motor operates, a whole series of laws of physics is relied on (mechanics, quantum theory, electromagnetism respectively) and therefore is implicitly tested anew, to see if they still work. If these laws were frequently being broken, I assure you we would know about it, because devices such as these would behave unpredictably. One day the car would stop in half the distance for the same braking effort, the street lamp would come on green instead of yellow and the motor would run the opposite way round for no reason, or something.

I honestly think you have simply no idea how well tested these laws are, by all of us, all the time, without us even thinking about it for an instant.

There are "laws" that are found not to be followed exactly: your wave nature of matter is a well-known example. Newton's system, famously, does not work at the atomic scale, which is why people like Bohr, Einstein, Dirac and Schrödinger developed quantum theory. But thanks to QM we have a theory that deals magnificently well with the wave nature of matter. e.g. why that sodium street lamp emits the yellow light that it does.

Mysteries remain. Thank goodness, or there would be no science left to do. But the models we have do for the most part work reliably, for most purposes. And that must mean that reality contains order, even if there is also disorder in it.

 

[dfnj]

Well if you now say, which you did not before, that you did not literally mean we were imagining the patterns and order we describe in science, that is a great relief! That is one absurdity less, at least.

But there is a reason why I say - and I mean it - that it is absurd to think the laws of physics are frequently broken. This is that we are constantly relying on these laws in so much of what we do. Every time a car brakes, or a sodium street lamp lights, or an electric motor operates, a whole series of laws of physics is relied on (mechanics, quantum theory, electromagnetism respectively) and therefore is implicitly tested anew, to see if they still work. If these laws were frequently being broken, I assure you we would know about it, because devices such as these would behave unpredictably. One day the car would stop in half the distance for the same braking effort, the street lamp would come on green instead of yellow and the motor would run the opposite way round for no reason, or something.

I honestly think you have simply no idea how well tested these laws are, by all of us, all the time, without us even thinking about it for an instant.

There are "laws" that are found not to be followed exactly: your wave nature of matter is a well-known example. Newton's system, famously, does not work at the atomic scale, which is why people like Bohr, Einstein, Dirac and Schrödinger developed quantum theory. But thanks to QM we have a theory that deals magnificently well with the wave nature of matter. e.g. why that sodium street lamp emits the yellow light that it does.

Mysteries remain. Thank goodness, or there would be no science left to do. But the models we have do for the most part work reliably, for most purposes. And that must mean that reality contains order, even if there is also disorder in it.

I don't think it's as straight forward as you claim it is. For example, if you believe what the following video is saying, experiments have shown QM actually bubbles up quite often:

But you are right that for the most part, at the macro level, nature behaves in surprisingly consistent manner. But I was not saying it appears NOT to behave consistently. I was wondering if upon closer examination, testing how many times weird stuff happens, if the weird stuff actual occurred at a higher frequency than most people are willing to accept. I never claimed anything in my OP was definite.

 

[Brickjectivity]

People who have the deepest faith in science often claim there is a natural order to the way nature behaves?

The scientific discipline eschews religious claims or at least should ignore them, so faith in science is a lay thing and bit of an oxymoron within the discipline.

I've been wondering if seeing this order in nature is some kind of pareidolia (seeing images in clouds).

Measuring order requires that there be some order to measure. Often within chaos symmetry appears and finding ways to measure symmetry and chaos are fair game for Science.

I've heard many religious type people claim the natural order of nature, the way it can be represented with mathematics, and the idea of a clockwork Universe is evidence for the existence of God.

That seems to me like they are trying to redefine God as a visible entity and probably want to add riders to their claim such that if they can show God to you than you should trust them or you should expect interaction with God as they describe it.

Many people claim early scientists were all entrenched with religious beliefs as supporting evidence for their conjectures.

Francis Bacon is the basis of the scientific discipline. The church's contribution is its view that nature and tech are good. Previous civilizations and many non christian civilizations feared or fear technological progress. Rome and Greece viewed tech with suspicion much like modern corporations might try to bury tech that could cause them to lose market share.

It seems to me what makes the Universe so great and interesting is the chaos.

...also entanglement.

 

[robocop (actually)]

People who have the deepest faith in science often claim there is a natural order to the way nature behaves? I've been wondering if seeing this order in nature is some kind of pareidolia (seeing images in clouds). If we held the belief the Universe is nothing but chaos and nature's primary behavior is disorder would be we see or experience the evidence in equal measure? Are the laws of physics our primary experience or is there an equal amount of violations to the laws of physics?

I've heard many religious type people claim the natural order of nature, the way it can be represented with mathematics, and the idea of a clockwork Universe is evidence for the existence of God. Many people claim early scientists were all entrenched with religious beliefs as supporting evidence for their conjectures.

It seems to me what makes the Universe so great and interesting is the chaos. The idea of the Universe being ordered is like playing an Atari VCS video game. The digital is very boring because it repeats itself often. I have never experience reality ever repeating itself. In the movie the Matrix they have déjà vu moment.

I have never experience this in reality. Reality to me is analog, never repeats, just as disordered as it is ordered which is why reality is so interesting and fun to be in!

The part about what makes music "compelling" is interesting.

It's in my books, but I believe the Universe completely out of chaos and completely ordered at the same time, as well as I could explain it.

 

[sandy whitelinger]

People who have the deepest faith in science often claim there is a natural order to the way nature behaves? I've been wondering if seeing this order in nature is some kind of pareidolia (seeing images in clouds). If we held the belief the Universe is nothing but chaos and nature's primary behavior is disorder would be we see or experience the evidence in equal measure? Are the laws of physics our primary experience or is there an equal amount of violations to the laws of physics?

I've heard many religious type people claim the natural order of nature, the way it can be represented with mathematics, and the idea of a clockwork Universe is evidence for the existence of God. Many people claim early scientists were all entrenched with religious beliefs as supporting evidence for their conjectures.

It seems to me what makes the Universe so great and interesting is the chaos. The idea of the Universe being ordered is like playing an Atari VCS video game. The digital is very boring because it repeats itself often. I have never experience reality ever repeating itself. In the movie the Matrix they have déjà vu moment.

I have never experience this in reality. Reality to me is analog, never repeats, just as disordered as it is ordered which is why reality is so interesting and fun to be in!

The part about what makes music "compelling" is interesting.

Ok, I'll give you the point that the ultimate end of this dimension is chaos. But in the mean time we exist because pockets of order exist. Now what our perceptions of our existence entail could just be imaginary but it's a common hallucination in the other sentient beings around me.

 

[Axe Elf]

Two thoughts:

1. Ultimate chaos is the basis of ultimate order. That is, the universe will be at its most stable (most ordered) state, once all of the energy in the universe has succumbed to entropy and is no longer usable (most chaotic).

2. I see God as much in the chaos of nature as I do in the "order" of nature. The idea of the Mandelbrot set was pivotal in this view; one small, tiny equation that, when graphed in the complex plane, yields what is essentially a mathematical model of a planet. Both the insides of the "planet" and its "atmosphere" are relatively monotonous and uninteresting; all the interesting stuff lies at the interface between the "planet" and its "atmosphere." In that interface is infinite complexity and variation upon themes, just like we see in the interface between the planet Earth and its atmosphere. Chaos theory is the foundation for fractals such as the Mandelbrot set, as well as other "strange attractors" that can model real life "order" like coastlines and mountain ranges.

 

[blü 2]

People who have the deepest faith in science often claim there is a natural order to the way nature behaves?

The claim would be that we observe certain regularities in the way natural phenomena occur ─ that objects fall to earth, that they accelerate as they do so, that the rate of fall doesn't vary with the mass of the object, but varies with eg air resistance; and that for non-relativistic measurements Newton's

F = G (m1m2/r^2)​

fits our observations.

The claim would further be that these conclusions are the result of scientific method, hence derived by empiricism and induction hence are tentative, subject to any counterexample we may discover tomorrow or never discover.

What do you say is going on instead? That our observations are wrong, the product of ... what?

Surely the observation, 'Yes, that works' as we land a rover on Mars, has some persuasive value?

To say that there are no such regularities, eg that there is no economy of energy in the interactions of chemistry and biochemistry, so that RNA produces DNA only by a series of extraordinary coincidences, would defy common sense as well as experience, would it not?

Are the laws of physics our primary experience or is there an equal amount of violations to the laws of physics?

No, they're more sophisticated than our primary experience, otherwise we, like the ancients, would still believe the earth was flat and the celestial bodies went round it.

the idea of a clockwork Universe

While we still have kinds of scientific determinism, they're no longer clockwork, since our present understanding of QM includes what in terms of classical physics are truly random events, unable in principle to be described in terms of cause&effect, and only describable statistically.

It seems to me what makes the Universe so great and interesting is the chaos.

Even the chaos is subject to observable regularities of behavior, which we can fashion into rules of physics.

 

[Cateau]

The natural world is ordely to us but in and of itself, its disordered. No god apart from us.

Take cancer. No one, no satan, no demon, no one from the outside popped cancer inside us. Its a natural reaction and result of in many cases intergesting (in many ways to keep it simple) of, say, whats contained in cigarettes. Some cancer cells form on their own. Its the bodys natural reaction and action to toxics it takes in.

Take seizures. Seizures are sparadic neuron impulses traveling through nerves making whereever the impulse and disruption lie, is what part of the brain thus body is affected. Seizures in and of themselves are natural. It goes out of place. Makes us twist and shake. Goes back on track like one of those white old fashion roller coasters.

But its all natural.

God is considered the "umph" behind natural events (but believers only attribute design to positive things not negative) and what drives things. Its a personification of energy. Many many other cultures outside abrahamic understand this cycle of nature and energy and how to use it for healing, prayer, and living; living IN god rather than for. Our body becomes embedded in the soul of order which is both order and disorder. What is both choas to nature and order to us.

The abrahmic view is but a small percentage of people who seperate the natural world from religion. I dont even think muslims do that. In the quran it says we came from water. I always believed that. So, it really depends on where you get your sources from and interpretation.

Order comes from humans. Miscarriages, accidental pregnancies dispite protection, cancer, and seizures are part of the natural world too. One and the same.

Rlly....monsanto and Dow have nooothiiiiing to do with it? Not even a teensy bit? Ever seen Burzyski the documentary about the doctor who found the cure to cancer? But had to go up against the fda and govt to keep curing it...very compelling stuff.

 

[dfnj]

The claim would be that we observe certain regularities in the way natural phenomena occur ─ that objects fall to earth, that they accelerate as they do so, that the rate of fall doesn't vary with the mass of the object, but varies with eg air resistance; and that for non-relativistic measurements Newton's

F = G (m1m2/r^2)​

fits our observations.

Unless there's a big wind and our object is a feather.

The claim would further be that these conclusions are the result of scientific method, hence derived by empiricism and induction hence are tentative, subject to any counterexample we may discover tomorrow or never discover.

What do you say is going on instead? That our observations are wrong, the product of ... what?

Unless science explains and predicts experimental error is it really representative. It is a good approximation and an accurate predictor under controlled conditions.

Surely the observation, 'Yes, that works' as we land a rover on Mars, has some persuasive value?

There are many cases where our observations do not include all the variables. Parallel lines are perfect in math but do not occur in reality. Why would you think all our math we use to represent nature's behaviors is perfectly accurate and complete. Reality is always so much more messy than anything we do in mathematics.

I do not deny we can land a rover on mars. Do you agree airplanes crash? The point of this thread is NOT is science real. The main topic is are there cases where it seems there is no compliance with the laws of physics (for whatever reason) how frequent does it occur. Is order more dominant, equal, or unequal to chaos. In the laboratory under controlled conditions the laws of physics are measured flawlessly. In reality, with so many variables to consider, is chaos more prevalent or at least equally present to order is the question. I was not really answering the question. I was just wondering if chaos rules.

It seems to me weird stuff is happening all the time. Take O-rings becoming brittle because of low temperature as another spaceship example. Do you deny chaos exists? Do you acknowledge it or ignore it?

If your point is if you have God-like powers to make every possible measurement in every possible way then you would have a perfect understanding of nature is an imaginary way of looking at reality. The problem is in reality, making every possible measurement isn't possible. There are always additional variables invading our context causing the scientific model to breaks down.

It seems to me what you are arguing for is hard determinism is absolute truth. Even your phrasing of QM is such that you believe in hard determinism. So what if the probabilities are within a range. It's the accumulating rogue waves of events bubbling up through the system that are causing problems.

 

[sayak83]

People who have the deepest faith in science often claim there is a natural order to the way nature behaves? I've been wondering if seeing this order in nature is some kind of pareidolia (seeing images in clouds). If we held the belief the Universe is nothing but chaos and nature's primary behavior is disorder would be we see or experience the evidence in equal measure? Are the laws of physics our primary experience or is there an equal amount of violations to the laws of physics?

I've heard many religious type people claim the natural order of nature, the way it can be represented with mathematics, and the idea of a clockwork Universe is evidence for the existence of God. Many people claim early scientists were all entrenched with religious beliefs as supporting evidence for their conjectures.

It seems to me what makes the Universe so great and interesting is the chaos. The idea of the Universe being ordered is like playing an Atari VCS video game. The digital is very boring because it repeats itself often. I have never experience reality ever repeating itself. In the movie the Matrix they have déjà vu moment.

I have never experience this in reality. Reality to me is analog, never repeats, just as disordered as it is ordered which is why reality is so interesting and fun to be in!

The part about what makes music "compelling" is interesting.

Most modern laws of physics are probabilistic. They tell the objective probability of various outcomes given a set of initial or boundary conditions. The predicted probability values associated with various outcomes have been tested through lots of observations. Thus given a certain situation, physics will tell you the likelihood of different future events objectively with great accuracy (including saying certain events will never happen as well). That's where we are at.

Given this fact, could you clarify your OP question a bit more?

 

[blü 2]

Do you deny chaos exists? Do you acknowledge it or ignore it?

Chaos: When the present determines the future, but the approximate present does not approximately determine the future (Edward Lorenz).

That's what maths uses in chaos theory, which studies dynamic systems where very tiny differences in the starting position have gross effects on the outcome.

Is it what you mean by chaos? If not, what do you mean?