"Ordered chaos"--does this sound familiar?
It does, indeed. Interestingly, I actually did a report on fractals in high school. I think that must have been around the time of the whole Jurassic Park thing because I remember the wave of excitement around it at the time. Nature finds a way, man! Of course, my son could have told you that things don't always turn out the way you planned but sometimes do. I think it's pretty commonsense that chaos is ordered. Obviously there are natural laws out there that determine things (which we as humans aren't able to actually describe accurately due to our natural limitations though people love trying!) yet the future is unknowable. Fractals are pretty, though!
Fractals as patterns of complex systems
I do wonder how this is applied in the world. This is a question I have of many of the things we learned--like for the E=MC squared thing I know it was used in many ways such as atom bombs and such, but there are many other theories we've discussed which I'm curious what the application has been. I know the example was mapping, but that's not really how it's applied. It sounds like it can be used in understanding systems, but what societal changes has that resulted in?
Consciousness out of chaos?
I think the idea here is that we as humans play a role in the certain chaos that arises in the world. Since we can effect things, we know there is some level of order, yet what the effect will be is never known, and being able to trace the cause is a practice in infinity. And our actions have results that are endless. The same as the actions of other things/people/etc. has endless effects on us. It's very interesting in the world of politics, actually, because in my field, we try to make it a science of how to win an election, and then those that have high win rates, it's like all about trying to get some of their mojo to make it happen for you.
Experiments:
I did the one where you get the two pieces of tape and stick them to the end of your finger, see if they attract or repel and then do that next to the computer monitor. Interestingly, they didn't seem to attract or repel away from the monitor but close to it they definitely repeled. Apparently if my monitor had a different charge, they may have attracted. Supposedly when you take them off the dispenser they have the same charge, meaning they'd repel, but they didn't so I think I did something wrong!
Respond to each other's blogs
I commented on http://acchs-physics.blogspot.com/'s blog spot
Maybe you did it right but it was more of a variable deal. Possibly an exception. Was this experiment supposed to work on computers with glass monitors only? I did the drop of water experiment. It was very interesting to see all the little colors that came about. When looking at the computer screen I do see little rainbows of colors collectively. However to see the individual colors that make red and so on was very interesting.
ReplyDeleteOrdered chaos doesn't seem chaotic in the big picture; when something zigs, some other thing often seems to zag. There does often appear to be a balance, even when things seem chaotic. Many of us have been ingrained with linear thinking, which often examines only small sections of things, and doesn't take into consideration the big picture. In those instances, one may only see the entropy and not the autopoiesis, and vice versa.
ReplyDeleteI did a cpl of the experiments that didn't work, too. But the Cartesian Diver did.
Fractals in high school, wow. I agree with you about chaos theory--it does seem like it is ordered. Our effects on people or interactions are sort of untraceable since we are so emotionally complex. It would be interesting to see how we have a butterfly effect on other people.
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