Fractal Flag

[Cramulus]

When the original Discordians wrote the PD, the Mandelbrot set had not yet been discovered. But I think that if they knew about it, they would have included it in their writings.

If I had to pick a flag for reality, I think the Mandelbrot would be the symbol I'd put on it. Here are some observations about reality which we can glean from fractals...

• Reality is very complex. The level of complexity is related to how close you're looking. There are entire universes hidden within even simple things.
• If you zoom in on different parts of a fractal, you'll keep seeing variations on the same shape. --- While every part of the universe is unique, there are a lot of structural similarities. You will see similar patterns at varying levels of magnification. For example, our transit system and our circulatory system both function in similar ways. Individuals, Corporations, Religions, and Governments all have the same system for changing their behavior. Each agent's behavior emerges from the actions of internal agents, and they're all cybernetically linked.

what else?

[LMNO]

- That complexity is generated by very simple rules.


I'd go so far as to say a fractal is on the highest level of ORDER.  It's regular, predictable, and is dictated by unflinching regularity.

It would also underscore the idea that Order =/= Bad.  It's just another thing floating through Chaos.

[Triple Zero]

Hey while we were on the subject I was at a party yesterday and got talking with this guy with interesting ideas, and we got talking and I tried to explain him that he shouldn't equate Chaos and disorder, but rather that order+disorder=Chaos.

now of course it's just a matter of definitions, but he also sort of said that we all were kinda wrong and that Chaos=disorder and Cosmos=order.

I never heard of Cosmos being used in a sense that it's opposite to Chaos ... I always thought the cosmos was sort of like the universe, like the same thing, "everything".

I haven't had time yet to look up all the connotations of "Cosmos", but I was planning on doing that anyway, later. But before I've done that, anyone care to shed some light on that?

[Telarus]

Sounds to me like he's taking a greek term that was once limited in scope and applying it as a model to the entire Universe, which makes it a model/fiction/abstraction.

Here's some web definitions:

# In its most general sense, a cosmos is an orderly or harmonious system. It originates from a Greek term κόσμος meaning "order, orderly arrangement, ornaments," and is the antithetical concept of chaos. ...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cosmos

# universe: everything that exists anywhere; "they study the evolution of the universe"; "the biggest tree in existence"
http://wordnetweb.princeton.edu/perl/webwn

The wikipedia definition has more meat to it, so lets start there.

In its most general sense, a cosmos is an orderly or harmonious system. It originates from a Greek term κόσμος meaning "ordered world" and is the antithetical concept of chaos.

Right there we have conflicts with the Fuller model of Universe as non-simultaneously apprehended, and System as a subset of Universe where we ignore for the moment those phenomena that are 'out-of-scope' for the system.

http://www.etymonline.com/index.php?term=cosmos

c.1200 (but not popular until 1848, as a translation of Humboldt's Kosmos), from Gk. kosmos "order, good order, orderly arrangement," a word with several main senses rooted in those notions: The verb kosmein  meant generally "to dispose, prepare," but especially "to order and arrange (troops for battle), to set (an army) in array;" also "to establish (a government or regime);" "to deck, adorn, equip, dress" (especially of women). Thus kosmos had an important secondary sense of "ornaments of a woman's dress, decoration" (cf. kosmokomes  "dressing the hair") as well as "the universe, the world." Pythagoras is said to have been the first to apply this word to "the universe," perhaps originally meaning "the starry firmament," but later it was extended to the whole physical world, including the earth. For specific reference to "the world of people," the classical phrase was he oikoumene (ge) "the inhabited (earth)." Septuagint uses both kosmos and oikoumene. Kosmos  also was used in Christian religious writing with a sense of "worldly life, this world (as opposed to the afterlife)," but the more frequent word for this was aion, lit. "lifetime, age."

http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/%CE%BA%CF%8C%CF%83%CE%BC%CE%BF%CF%82#Ancient_Greek

Greek
Noun

κόσμος m. (kósmos)   (plural κόσμοι (kósmoi))

   1. World, the planet we live on.
   2. People, the masses.
   3. Crowds of people.
   4. A historical period, a special set of countries.

          Ο ρωμαϊκός κόσμος. (The Roman world.)

Ancient Greek
Noun

κόσμος (genitive κόσμου) m, second declension; (kosmos)

   1. order
   2. lawful order, government
   3. mode, fashion
   4. ornament, decoration
   5. honour, credit
   6. ruler
   7. world, universe, the earth
   8. mankind

It seems all of the original meanings refer to the act of humans ordering OR ornamenting some things/phenomena. Pythagoras apparently used it to refer to the entire Universe, and this was later turned into "everything that exists because God the Creator ordered it so". But I think that the original meaning refers to the process or result of a consciousness which orders something. The opposite seems to be the roots "ataxo-, ataxia- +" (Greek: disorder, without order). So the concept Cosmos (an ordered whole) was then projected onto the Universe after the rejection of the original meaning of the term Chaos.

[Kai]

I've actually taken to Carl Sagan's definition, that Cosmos is "all that ever was, and is, and will be...the grand order of the universe". But what he meant by order was "apparent order" rather than the forced order that in high amounts is so repugnant to Discordians.

Which means I have become very confused as to what "chaos" should be used for at all.

[Cramulus]

I've always liked Edith Hamilton's translation of Chaos:

“First there was chaos, the vast immeasurable abyss, outrageous as a sea, dark, wasteful, and wild... From the formless confusion of Chaos, brooded over by unbroken darkness came three children; into this shapeless nothing they were thrown. Erebus, which is the unfathomable depth where death dwells and his two sisters, Nyx, or night, and Gaea, the earth. In the whole universe there was nothing else; all was black, empty, silent, endless."

Chaos is the initial state of things, how they exist pre-thought. What they look like when they're off-stage. Chaos is the state of the unknowable future.

[Kai]

I've always liked Edith Hamilton's translation of Chaos:

“First there was chaos, the vast immeasurable abyss, outrageous as a sea, dark, wasteful, and wild... From the formless confusion of Chaos, brooded over by unbroken darkness came three children; into this shapeless nothing they were thrown. Erebus, which is the unfathomable depth where death dwells and his two sisters, Nyx, or night, and Gaea, the earth. In the whole universe there was nothing else; all was black, empty, silent, endless."

Chaos is the initial state of things, how they exist pre-thought. What they look like when they're off-stage. Chaos is the state of the unknowable future.

Oh, the zero card. The Void.

[Xicked]

Just a few thoughts:

Cosmos could refer to the state of things as they are.  Chaos would be our individual perceptions, interpretations and actions within the Cosmos. 

Looking at a bigger picture, Cosmos would be Everything/The Universe.  Chaos is the motion of the Cosmos. 

[Phox]

Just a few thoughts:

Cosmos could refer to the state of things as they are.  Chaos would be our individual perceptions, interpretations and actions within the Cosmos. 

Looking at a bigger picture, Cosmos would be Everything/The Universe.  Chaos is the motion of the Cosmos. 

Not exactly true. If we refer back to the Greek concepts, Chaos is the void, the empty space, the nothingness. Cosmos is the apparent order that unifies what we know. Cosmos, in Greek, has very serious implications of order.

[Cramulus]

isn't it cool that we have two words that refer to the greater universe?

cosmos - which has connotations of Order
and chaos - which has connotations of Disorder

There's definitely something to riff on there