About Chaos, and the illusions of Order and Disorder

[Reginald Ret]

Have I mentioned how much I hate all of you?

Egads, I thought it was TGRR for a second.

But anyway, It makes perfect sense that Discordians would be the opposite of whatever the norm was.  not because we are contrary, though we are it isn't the only reason, but because like was said we seek balance in this world and the only way to do that is by opposing the status quo.  Still, what happens if we ever achieved a balance?  Not that I really think that such a thing is possible, but what if we, the monkeys i mean, actually managed to pull it off?

Then we paradigm shift.
the balance becomes the new order and we start challenging that.

[Richter]

I'm not going to say anything about chaos, but this has gotten me thinking about order.  Order, as an illusion, sounds about right, but I think it should be considered more a mass illusion, dependent on the observer(s).  Order, in some way or another, is a conveyance of information (in formation), things structured in a pattern that an observer can recognize.

This depends a lot on the observer, though.  For example; an observer, looking at writing on a stone in their native language will see writing, read and understand it.  Another observer, not capable in that language, will likely recognize the carefully spaced arrangement and repeating characters, and figure it's writing, but may not know it's exact meaning.  Another observer completely removed from the culture and writing conventions might think the same.  They might miss it completely, and wonder how all the funny scratches got on the rock too, depending how alien it is to the information they are used to seeing.  Without knowing that information is attempting to be conveyed, it's up to the pattern recognition of the observer.  Patterns and information in DNA and RNA are similar, but without a life form utilizing or acting on them, they also fundamentally inert.  A form of information becomes more relevant the larger the number of observers recognizing or utilizing it.  (Ranging from the modern artist whose scrawling no one else understands, up through widely used and heeded signals like stop lights.  (Which convey information that, if ignored, may bring you to swift misfortune on the bumper of humans who were trusting said information.))

Anything in an unobserved / unutilized formation or order has no fundamental difference from whatever else is around it until it is observed.  (Aside from different wavelengths or larger than average number of chemical bonds to break down.)

Feels like I'm missing something though, any suggestions?

[Bebek Sincap Ratatosk]

I'm not going to say anything about chaos, but this has gotten me thinking about order.  Order, as an illusion, sounds about right, but I think it should be considered more a mass illusion, dependent on the observer(s).  Order, in some way or another, is a conveyance of information (in formation), things structured in a pattern that an observer can recognize.

This depends a lot on the observer, though.  For example; an observer, looking at writing on a stone in their native language will see writing, read and understand it.  Another observer, not capable in that language, will likely recognize the carefully spaced arrangement and repeating characters, and figure it's writing, but may not know it's exact meaning.  Another observer completely removed from the culture and writing conventions might think the same.  They might miss it completely, and wonder how all the funny scratches got on the rock too, depending how alien it is to the information they are used to seeing.  Without knowing that information is attempting to be conveyed, it's up to the pattern recognition of the observer.  Patterns and information in DNA and RNA are similar, but without a life form utilizing or acting on them, they also fundamentally inert.  A form of information becomes more relevant the larger the number of observers recognizing or utilizing it.  (Ranging from the modern artist whose scrawling no one else understands, up through widely used and heeded signals like stop lights.  (Which convey information that, if ignored, may bring you to swift misfortune on the bumper of humans who were trusting said information.))

Anything in an unobserved / unutilized formation or order has no fundamental difference from whatever else is around it until it is observed.  (Aside from different wavelengths or larger than average number of chemical bonds to break down.)

Feels like I'm missing something though, any suggestions?

I think you nailed it.

Order and Disorder are the grids we use to judge the data points around us, without the Grids or any useful semantic connection to the symbols (writing or culture) its just "existent things".

[NotPublished]

@Ricther - I like what you say it got me thinking

Anything in an unobserved / unutilized formation or order has no fundamental difference from whatever else is around it until it is observed.

I would dare equat Chaos to being just pure randomness and once a pattern is observed then it is no longer chaotic but now percieved as our own order.

The way I see it -
All there is, is chaos and everything else is percieved. The order and disorder in our lives are only created based off of our own perception (Learned through the culture we grow up in), a million years ago - we would view the workings of the Cavemen as disorder since it would not fit into our own orderly/disorderly lives; our two worlds would never coperate. Maybe in time it is possible to learn to live like a Caveman but thats beyond the point. The patterns in our live, may not necessarily match anothers patterns, that is when we percieve it as disorder - because the patterns do not fit into our own little jigsaw.

[Richter]

I think you nailed it.

Order and Disorder are the grids we use to judge the data points around us, without the Grids or any useful semantic connection to the symbols (writing or culture) its just "existent things".

Yeah, as you say they are both simplifications we use to practically direct and truncate to our observational and computational limitations.  (Mathematical / phsyics based definitions MIGHT explain everything, but the compelxity and level of observation require to do so makes it impractical, for example.)

That leaves me with anything not observable as Order / Information being observed as Disorder / Chaos, (I wrote a memebomb or two on this tone.)
Again, only as such when observed as such.  

@ NotPublished

I'm still mulling where this leaves us switching things betweem ordered / disordered states leaves us.  Trying to enforce order on a disordered state, or confusing disorder for infromation.  (The Cynic remarks that these situations give us Afganistan, cancer, every kid's box of LEGOs, and the organization of my bedroom.)

[LMNO]

I think that, once you're aware of the balance, you start noticing more.

That is, if you're given a disordered system, you can find coherent patterns, and if given an ordered system, you find the disarray. 

And when you notice more things, you have more information, and can make better choices.

[Mesozoic Mister Nigel]

I completely don't understand how we can all be reading the same words, yet deriving completely different meanings from them.

[LMNO]

LOL of fives?

[Mesozoic Mister Nigel]

Yes, I think so.

[LMNO]

To be honest, I think it stems from the fact that we have neither established a solid framework, nor a clear definition of our terms.  So we use the same words, but have different meanings and points of view attached to them.


For example, if we choose to use the Mathematical definition of Chaos Theory to define what we mean by "Chaos", then we have defined it as a highly complex and unpredictable system that may look disordered, but has hard and fast underlying rules... Which would imply that while Disorder is an illusion, Order is not.  Hence the reason I said that the Discordian definition didn't seem to jibe.

[hooplala]

I completely don't understand how we can all be reading the same words, yet deriving completely different meanings from them.

To be perfectly honest, I'm surprised anyone ever understands anyone else at all.  And I'm being dead serious.

[Richter]

I think that, once you're aware of the balance, you start noticing more.

That is, if you're given a disordered system, you can find coherent patterns, and if given an ordered system, you find the disarray. 

And when you notice more things, you have more information, and can make better choices.

Like how bureaucracies never seem to work totally effectively?  The Good Reverend Roger mentioned this to me once.

For example, if we choose to use the Mathematical definition of Chaos Theory to define what we mean by "Chaos", then we have defined it as a highly complex and unpredictable system that may look disordered, but has hard and fast underlying rules... Which would imply that while Disorder is an illusion, Order is not.  Hence the reason I said that the Discordian definition didn't seem to jibe.

I may be missaplying the scientific thinking here, but without being able to adequately observe a "chaotic" system, it seems like a mistake to assume underlying rules are present.

In chewing it over, I've started thinking about it almost dualistically (Which is my first cue I've done something wrong.).  Are we dealing with a universe goverened by "hard and fast" principles that by compelxity mimics disorder, or a univsere goverend by disordered principles which can become ordered and follow certain predictable (hard + fast) principles under certain conditions?  Going back to your comments about the balance, it could very well be some combination of the two, systems with both unpredicatable actions and hard and fast principles.     

If things are, in fact, entirely ordered in every possible way, then "chaos" has been overlooked as one of humanity's greatest inventions stemming from inability to observe, rivaling Religion.

I completely don't understand how we can all be reading the same words, yet deriving completely different meanings from them.

To be perfectly honest, I'm surprised anyone ever understands anyone else at all.  And I'm being dead serious.

I think I see.  I'm shocked that things ever work out right at all sometimes, with all the forces to the contrary.

[LMNO]

I think that, once you're aware of the balance, you start noticing more.

That is, if you're given a disordered system, you can find coherent patterns, and if given an ordered system, you find the disarray.  

And when you notice more things, you have more information, and can make better choices.

Like how bureaucracies never seem to work totally effectively?  The Good Reverend Roger mentioned this to me once.

Or, like your "crazy prepared" attitude.  You understand that no matter how much you plan, you gotta be ready for things to go wrong; and you can wade into a problem, and find out how to fix it.

For example, if we choose to use the Mathematical definition of Chaos Theory to define what we mean by "Chaos", then we have defined it as a highly complex and unpredictable system that may look disordered, but has hard and fast underlying rules... Which would imply that while Disorder is an illusion, Order is not.  Hence the reason I said that the Discordian definition didn't seem to jibe.

I may be missaplying the scientific thinking here, but without being able to adequately observe a "chaotic" system, it seems like a mistake to assume underlying rules are present.

See, that demonstrates one of my points.  The mathematic definition of "Chaos" is a dynamic system that is sensitive to initial conditions.  That is, it is a set of mathematic rules where the outcome appears unpredictable due to the amount of variables introduced; but those variables are all adhering to the initial rules of the system.

So, as far as I see it, if someone says that their definition of "Chaos" is the mathematical one, they are saying that Order is the underlying basis.  My personal Discordian definition of Chaos is different than the math definition; I'm working it through in my head right now.  I have a feeling it's psychology based, but I can't be sure, yet.

In chewing it over, I've started thinking about it almost dualistically (Which is my first cue I've done something wrong.).  Are we dealing with a universe goverened by "hard and fast" principles that by compelxity mimics disorder, or a univsere goverend by disordered principles which can become ordered and follow certain predictable (hard + fast) principles under certain conditions?  Going back to your comments about the balance, it could very well be some combination of the two, systems with both unpredicatable actions and hard and fast principles.    

If things are, in fact, entirely ordered in every possible way, then "chaos" has been overlooked as one of humanity's greatest inventions stemming from inability to observe, rivaling Religion.

This is one of the things I'm trying to come to terms with.

[Golden Applesauce]

I wrote the "In The Beginning" piece as a reply to this thread, then decided it needed its own thread (it's selfish that way.)  But I realized that I forgot to actually reply here...

Here's how I read the statement "Everything Is Chaos":
An awful lot of creation narratives start with some kind of "unformed substance," from which the world as we know it is created.  The formless substance is uninhabitable, and the act of creation involves changing it in such a way that it becomes inhabitable, and is a Good Thing because it lets us live.  The creation myths that start with something (as opposed to the ones where the world is literally brought about from nothing) generally share the feature that the world that we know was created by re-arranging - that is, Ordering - parts of this primordial Chaos.  One myth (I forget the origin) had mud being dredged up from the bottom of the ocean (I think by a bird) to create an island that plants, animals, and people could stand on.  Even creation narratives of government follow this trope - "In the beginning, there was anarchy (formless society), and life was nasty, brutish and short; then people organized themselves into structured societies and things started to improve."

Anyway, the act of Ordering the primordial Chaos is equated with creation, which is Good.  Disorder, then, is either (like the case of the Egyptians) the part of the primordial Chaos that the gods didn't get around to sanitizing, or something created by a nemesis figure to intentionally subvert the Order on which life depends.  Either way, it is fundamentally opposed to Order, which is the same as Creation, which supports you; by extension, Disorder is trying to kill you, personally.

The statement "Everything Is Chaos" is unique because everybody else is running around saying "It used to be the case that everything was Chaos" or "Be careful, don't let the remaining Chaos get you."  We reject this - if everything is Chaos, there's no point trying to avoid it: you can't.  Similarly, the act of creation (which in this context is identical with the re-ordering of parts) does not eliminate the underlying Chaos - the Chaos is still there, it just looks different.  I don't want to take "Order is an illusion" to mean that it isn't "real"; I'd rather say that Order is ephemeral (it only lasts until someone comes along and re-orders it - there's no "I made it, it's finished" - Order is by nature Chaos, which is by nature mutable) and subjective (different people will find different Order [or none at all] in the same arrangement of Chaos.)

[Bebek Sincap Ratatosk]

Maybe this is one of those things like 'quantum'... that is on the tiny scale shit looks weird, but on the macro scale, shit appears normal.

So 'Chaos Theory' is unpredictable in the little picture (if you don't have the variables at hand) but predictable if you have all the data. From a human perspective, there's no way we could possibly know all of the variables that fed the system originally, nor all of the variables that may still be feeding into the system, so from a barstool perspective, its unpredictable Chaos for humans... but maybe not for someone outside of the system (in the Universe next door or something).

Then again, maybe we're speaking philosophically rather than mathematically. Philosophically, we make the maps of order based on what we perceive. There's no way we can perceive everything, so our maps are always incomplete. There is always room for the unexpected (and Jello). So while we order things and disorder things to the best of our ability, in the end its chaotic, because we don't ever have all the data necessary to ensure that we've ordered and disordered properly.

That seems to kind of jive with the Absurdist position of "Oh sure, there MIGHT be a purpose to existence, but how the fuck are we ever gonna find it, I think someone wrote it on a sticky note and put it inside Russel's teapot". 

"Oh sure, there might be an underlying Order somewhere, but how the fuck are we ever gonna see it? "

Thus, it is left to the individual to create as much meaning, or order/disorder as they choose to. Since individual experiences are all different, then the result would be chaotic (just look at our forums!! ).