A thought on a few core ideas.

[LMNO]

One of the things some of us agree on is that the Universe is chaotic, and that order and disorder are illusions.

-One of things the illusion of order offers is the ability to predict things.

However,  another thing that some of us agree on is that human behavior on a large scale is essentially predictable; that humans are mostly running on old programs they mostly aren't aware of.

I haven't come up with a clever way to resolve these two things, so I'm offering it up to y'all.

[Cain]

Group dynamics may create conditions for predictability, whereas individual people show a greater breadth of potential and actual repsonses.

[That One Guy]

I'd say it's a part of the human neurostructure to impose patterns (and the lack of patterns) on the inherent chaos of the universe (whether we impose that structure via early conditioning or whether it's hardwired is certainly debatable).

Human behavior is predictable insofar as the way humans impose order (and disorder) on the universe is predictable, whether by structure or by practice, at least on the broad, communal scale as Cain said. Even on the personal level, I'd argue that while there is greater room for variation there is still the same general imposition of patterns on reality, regardless of whether or not those patterns are really there.

To apply the BIP metaphor, rather than pattern recognition/imposition being one of the bars, it's the floor - that which we build our personal bars upon and that in which they are anchored.

[Cramulus]

One of the things some of us agree on is that the Universe is chaotic, and that order and disorder are illusions.

-One of things the illusion of order offers is the ability to predict things.

However,  another thing that some of us agree on is that human behavior on a large scale is essentially predictable; that humans are mostly running on old programs they mostly aren't aware of.

I haven't come up with a clever way to resolve these two things, so I'm offering it up to y'all.

Are these two things in conflict? I'm not sure what specifically needs resolution.

[AFK]

The illusion of order is passed from generation to generation. 
How we learn to behave is passed from generation to generation.

Newer generations may explore new bits of terrirtory, (in terms of behavior) here and there. 
But there is this large chunk, or set, of human behaviors that have solidly been passed from the old to the young. 

So I think both are explained by how knowledge by in large is gained, from one set of humans to another. 
Long standing and enduring human traditions. 

[Adios]

yes, human programming is ingrained from birth to death. To predict human behavior one must look at the specifics of how/where/when the subject was raised.

[That One Guy]

yes, human programming is ingrained from birth to death. To predict human behavior one must look at the specifics of how/where/when the subject was raised.

In part that's true that environment and society will play a large part in the prediction of general behavior. However, there are some underlying constants inherent in the way the human brain evolved. For example, optical illusions will cross beyond cultural specifics since they play directly on the pattern-recognition wiring of the brain that exist at a more fundamental level than societal programming.

LMNO - is any of this helping? Are we on the wrong track? The right track?

[LMNO]

I suppose it's a similar thing in physics, one of scale v. usability - but it kind of flip flops around, in terms of Discord.

I mean, physicists will assert that the universe is built on probability waves*, and that chaos and entropy reign supreme, but they also can accurately calculate where a spaceship (and most objects in the galaxy) will be 20 years from now.  So it becomes a matter of which is more pragmatic; the theory that all is Chaos, or the formula F = m(dv/dt)?

Conversely/similarly, Some of us advocate Think for Yourself, while asserting that most of us are predicitable sheep, but that Black Swans happen.


I suppose the Eristic/Aneristic may be illusions, but they are very useful illusions, while the "All is Chaos" idea really doesn't help that much.  So why even bring it up?



















*I know, I know, I'm making huge generalizations.  Shut it.

[Bebek Sincap Ratatosk]

I think sometimes we get too excited by the word "illusion".

Eristic/Aneristic exist as types of models in which we can see things as ordered or disordered. The ILLUSION, comes when we forget that those are just models, just interesting ways of looking at the available data from the Universe. I don't think the Illusion of Order is passed down from generation to generation... I think the illusion that the model IS the thing being modeled, gets passed down from generation to generation.

All is Chaos or All is Order both seem to fail... at best I think we could say "All is." in some Zen-like fashion. All can be modeled as chaos, all can be modeled as order, but 'all' isn't either, those are just human ways of perceiving, translating and manipulating the data that's currently available. At best, the scientific method has been useful for 200 years or so. That means we have 200 years or so of documentable observation. Presuming that such a small chunk of time will allow us to accurately KNOW anything about a Universe that may be Billions and Billions of years old, seems to fall to the very same flaw in statistics that practically throws out chunks of bread for any passing Black Swans.

Both the Eristic and Aneristic, when understood expose each other for what they are...

Absurd, useful perhaps, but nonetheless Absurd.

[P3nT4gR4m]

Aneristic or Eristic it's YOU who imposes that experience over the underlying framework. The framework we'll never see or understand.

For me it becomes a choice - Order or chaos. For most people it isn't a choice, they see order or chaos and don't realise they're projecting. That's what makes me different from most people, imo, I decide whether I want to see a pattern and follow it, or if I want to see totally random shit and experience the rush of it.

"Make up your mind" - I love that expression

[Bebek Sincap Ratatosk]

Aneristic or Eristic it's YOU who imposes that experience over the underlying framework. The framework we'll never see or understand.

For me it becomes a choice - Order or chaos. For most people it isn't a choice, they see order or chaos and don't realise they're projecting. That's what makes me different from most people, imo, I decide whether I want to see a pattern and follow it, or if I want to see totally random shit and experience the rush of it.

"Make up your mind" - I love that expression

[That One Guy]

I wouldn't say that the Eristic/Aneristic paradigm is solely illusionary. Both exist in proportion within "Chaos" at all levels, in varying ratio depending on the level being observed. To correlate, the Yin-yang (or the sacred chao for that matter) illustrates this nicely, in that the two parts are both extant within the whole (although not necessarily in equal proportion). I've never considered the yin-yang or its derivatives to be a static thing, but rather an icon that demonstrates this concept, albeit while projecting a potential "ideal" balance between the two component aspects of the whole.

All things (at least as far as I've observed) contain elements of both order and disorder. Depending on the perspective of the observation of a given thing (for example, moving from a microcosm to a macrocosm, or examining the parts that make up the whole device/system/society/etc. then comparing it to the whole thing itself), those same elements will remain throughout, but the proportion between them can shift radically as the observational perspective changes and their relative influences assert themselves to a greater or lesser degree at each observational point.

However, the human mind has to isolate things to one level at a time (or at best a handful of levels at a time) in order to process information, and that limitation can lead to an extrapolation of that restrictiveness to all levels, rather than the specific levels being isolated to the observer and the specific level of interaction being observed at the time. That leads to, as Rata said, the illusion that the model IS the thing being modeled, since that's how the human brain has to reduce things in order to process them. It's possible to recognize and work around that limitation, but that requires not only conditioning (the scientific method is designed to encourage this work-around IMO) but recognition, neither of which generally are present in a given society, at least on the broader general/macrocosmic level.

Also, as Pent says, we're the ones that impose that ratio on the system being observed, not just on an individual level, but on the broader societal level. I think it's that history of imposition that allows the prediction of behavior, in that it is possible to predict how an individual/society/etc. will impose that ratio based on the extrapolation of prior imposition by the individual/society/etc.

[P3nT4gR4m]

Order and Chaos seem to operate on the same principle as that other old chestnut - good and evil.

Purely subjective but seductively objective to the untrained eye.

The human mind is, in essence, one of the most advanced pattern recognition algorithms on the face of the planet. It's so high-level it's even convinced itself it has a soul, just by processing random shit. You show it some clouds, it'll see faces and animals and all sorts of shit. You show it a universe and ... well ... this is what happens 

[PeregrineBF]

Mathematical chaos is there, just as surely as the idea of "number" is there. It is well defined, and can be studied. Like many other things in mathematics, this does not carry over to reality easily. It may also be different from your conventional definition of chaos.
I suggest reading "Chaos and Fractals, the Mathematics Behind the Computer Graphics, Proceedings of Symposia in applied Mathematics, Volume 39. ISBN 0-8218-0137-6 It should be accessible to anyone with a reasonable grasp of intermediate math (calculus, Riemann geometry, etc.) and provide an accurate introduction to the theory, unlike most volumes written for laymen.

[rong]

random order is still an order.

in terms of chaos and relation to scale.  could the situation be similar to "snow" on the TV screen?  from a distance, taking in the whole picture, it looks like a bunch of chaos, but when you zoom in really close, all you see is a dot that is sometimes black and sometimes white (quite orderly and fairly predictable).