Tuesday 25 September 2007

Chaotic explained

You are talking about emergence. Why chaos then. Chaos because when, even if a simple system unfold its mechanisms (game of chess), the states created are numerous, unable for a brain to comprehend, fathom, include at once. And becomes an even more formidable task when try to comprehend systems that are build out of mechanisms which by themselves are complex mechanisms, comprised of simpler mechanisms, and these in succession are by themselves complex and comprised by other simpler mechanisms and so on ... the combinations seem endless.
Our poor brain is helpless, can not cope. And to cap it up the world, our very own immediate environment for that part makes up the state spaces of many many systems, all with their own mechanisms unleashed to wreak havoc upon our poor senses and intellect, trying us hard, overwhelm our limited mental processing powers, bringing chaos in. All around us appear chaotic, unconnected, a ramble of states all competing hard to attract our attention.
But there is more to chaos than meets the eye as amidst it there is order underlying and once we accept that, we can see that chaos is not chaos at all, and what appears as chaos is the jumbling up of states, the constant re-arrangements, the cross-linking and breaking up of a system's mechanisms that has to take place so apparent order can finally emerge.
So what appears as chaotic is the transition from one ordered state to another, potentially emergent states, as the interactions between a system's multiple copies of the few allowed mechanisms, continue unabated, constantly re-arranging the geometry of the system, but always under the direction of the same simple rules, even at their most chaotic stages, that define the ordered emergent states.
How can it be chaotic if its development follows a path that is completely defined by the set of the few simple rules? There is order inherent in the rules, so chaos develops in an ordered fashion.

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