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Goodbye Jesus

Order VS Chaos


MrSpooky

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I was watching a Woody Allen film last night, 'September'. I bought a copy yesterday from a car boot sale. In it Sam Waterston's character is speaking with Jack Warden's and Jack talks about the universe and he described it as "haphazard, morally neutral, and unimaginably violent" and although I'm not sure that's true for me, it made me realise that although I have attempted to apply logic and reason to things, there are far more things that don't fit into an ordered world, there's plenty of chaos out there as well.

 

I think there's a bit of a misunderstanding here about "Order."

 

Many, many ancient myths and legends assert that the world was born out of some primordial form of "Chaos." That is, "Order" arose from "Chaos," often at the hand of a sentient being (i.e. God). When people try to distinguish the two, they point to creative, positive forces as examples of Order (such as plants growing and creatures being "designed" by evolution) and destructive, negative forces as examples of Chaos. As creatures who usually prefer the former and shun the latter, this makes sense to a degree, but it falls apart under closer analysis.

 

Everything has limited, finite, and determinate properties. We know that an agent produces particular and determinate effects in accordance with those properties. A ball, tossed at a wall, will generally bounce back because it is bouncy. Crystals will generally form in salt water as the water evaporates because of its specific chemical properties. And given the right coalescence of water and wind currents, a hurricane will form.

 

We see then that "chance," "randomness," and "Chaos" aren't exactly inherent in reality as we understand it classically. Things that we attribute to "Chaos" (such as storms, supernovae, etc) are in themselves perfectly ordered structures and events that arise from known, natural physical causes. Even fully "random" effects such as atomic decay follows pretty determinate probability curves. We only appeal to "Chaos" when we do not know HOW something is caused. The dichotomy between "Order" and "Chaos" is an epistemic matter, NOT a metaphysical one. We appeal to "Chaos" only due to the limitations of the human intellect, it has no bearing in reality.

 

Order is an inherent property of reality, pure and simple, naturally prescribed transcendentally. There's nothing particularly special or rare about it, because the struggle between "Order" and "Chaos" is an illusion.

 

The question then reduces to a scientific matter... CAN such seemingly miraculously ordered things as life come about without the intelligent guidance of a God? I would point you towards the success of evolutionary biology.

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Not sure why there should be a strugle between order and chaos. Aren't ordered states a subset of chaotic states?

 

They are (it makes sense if one thinks about it a bit, if one defines a chaos as randomness).

 

This also provides, from at least a chemical standpoint, a convenient place to begin for systems going from a highly entropic state to one of lower entropy (more ordered). Given that often these ordered states are favored by either thermodynamics (a high enthalpy) or by kinetics, or even better, by both, once a system gets in them, they'll tend to stick for a bit (mostly due to being in an energetic trough). Of course whether this sort of process would violate the second law of thermodynamics (not sure here, kind of operating on the fly)...that could be a problem, or a possible cheat around it.

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What exactly do you mean by "randomness?" Unpredictability?

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I'm more using the scientific standpoint, a highly random state would mean that its entropy is high.

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I think there's a bit of a misunderstanding here about "Order."

 

Everything has limited, finite, and determinate properties.  We know that an agent produces particular and determinate effects in accordance with those properties.  A ball, tossed at a wall, will generally bounce back because it is bouncy.  Crystals will generally form in salt water as the water evaporates because of its specific chemical properties.  And given the right coalescence of water and wind currents, a hurricane will form.

 

Order is an inherent property of reality, pure and simple, naturally prescribed transcendentally.  There's nothing particularly special or rare about it, because the struggle between "Order" and "Chaos" is an illusion.

 

 

 

Spooky,

 

You have a way of taking something that is cloudy, at least in my mind, and making it so accessibly simple that it is embarrassing that I didn't see it all along.

 

Now if you could just articulate the reasons for the presence of natural law in similar form I think I could finally accurately say I am finally coming to an understanding of a big picture view of our present existence. :grin:

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You have a way of taking something that is cloudy, at least in my mind, and making it so accessibly simple that it is embarrassing that I didn't see it all along. 

 

That's why he's so spooky.

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*snicker* Thanks, but I'm only doing what George H. Smith did, probably with less proficiency though.

 

^________^

 

 

 

Now if you could just articulate the reasons for the presence of natural law in similar form I think I could finally accurately say I am finally coming to an understanding of a big picture view of our present existence.

 

Hmm... whaddya mean by this, exactly?

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There is no Intelligent Design.

The world is in chaos; still it is in balance and harmony.

Perfection is only in the eyes of the beholder.

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*snicker*  Thanks, but I'm only doing what George H. Smith did, probably with less proficiency though.

 

^________^

Hmm... whaddya mean by this, exactly?

 

 

I don't exactly know. I guess I was hoping you would fill in the blank and hazy spots in my thinking here the way you did with the order/chaos issue.

 

Ok, now this is really degenerating. I'll try again.

 

To summarize my understanding of your essay, it is uninformed to suggest that order came from chaos because phenomena arises in response to natural law, e.g., Na and Cl find each other through an ionic bond. It is through these and other types of response to physical law that life and the world and the universe as we know them today came to thier present form. My God of the gaps regarding chaos is now dying a slow death as my mind works out the details. Your essay clarified for me something that I previously was not able to even frame an intelligible question about.

 

God of the gaps regarding the presence of natural law still haunts me though. I guess I just have to accept that it, like matter, has just always existed. In my response yesterday I was actually just kidding with you. Since I am obviously still not able to formulate an intelligible question about the existence of natural law I was jokingly asking that you shed light on this issue as well providing me with yet another "ah ha" moment.

 

I hope this makes more sense.

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I thought that was what you meant.

 

There is, at some point in any inquiry, where you have to just settle with the ideas you have not out of pure dogmatism (after all, that'd make us as bad as Evangelists!) rather, because the VERY PROCESS of asking the question is nonsensical and self-contradictory.

 

In Modern Philosophy, for example, there were three great Skeptics... Descartes, Berkeley, and Hume.

 

Descartes, as you probably know, came up with a very powerful argument that "Reason is inherently flawed/unsupported." Descartes effectively denied the efficacy of rational thinking as well as phenomenal experience to acquire knowledge: he pretty much said that knowledge is impossible (his "solution" with the proof of God was less than satisfactory).

 

Berkeley created a very very impressive proof showing that "matter does not exist." He pretty much showed that any proofs that attempt to prove matter PRESUPPOSE the existence of matter... and in doing so used Occam's Razor to cut out matter as the middleman.

 

Hume is famous for postulating what is now called the "Problem of Induction," in which he demonstrated that causality itself was an idea that was entirely unsupported. Many many scientists objected to this, because it utterly undermines empirical research if one cannot conclusively link a cause to an effect! Some shades of it still float around.

 

Kant, however, came along and solved the problems. Kant argued that Matter DOES exist in a way, because even though we don't have proof of matter, we still have to ORDER thoughts and sensations of the world IN TERMS OF MATTER. He also argued that Causality does not exist in a way, because we still have to ORDER events IN TERMS OF CAUSALITY.

 

For Kant, if Matter and Causality did not exist, thought about the world would be impossible. IS thought of the world possible? Well, yes. You're reading this right now, aren't you?

 

The problem of the levels of speculative skepticism that Hume, Berkeley, and Descartes had is that their methods questioned human ideas without taking into account how human knowledge works. It is for this reason that their claims are internally self-contradictory.

 

The Cartesian impasse can also be solved in a similar fashion... and this is where we get to the relevant point. Did you notice that Descartes uses the process of Reason itself to undermine Reason? He uses a RATIONAL PROOF to say RATIONAL PROOF DOES NOT EXIST. He commits himself to the method of Reason, then in the same breath denies its efficacy. Cartesian Skepticism is inherently flawed due to this direct internal self-contradiction. In questioning Reason, one affirms Reason. Ergo, Reason is self-supporting because skepticism of Reason is impossible.

 

So before we can ask "WHY does Order exist?" We have to make sure that asking the question makes sense. We have to see whether or not it is possible that Order CAN not-exist.

 

There is a law in Logic, the Law of Identity... "A = A," or "A is defined by the properties and attributes that make it A." A is itself... it is NOT anything else. Being defined means HAVING LIMITS.

 

Suppose we rid ourselves of the Law of Identity, “A is A,” which, again, extends metaphysically to describing that the subject A is defined by the properties that constitute A. What happens if we deny the Law of Identity?

 

Knowledge utterly collapses. If an element does not have specific, determinate properties, nothing can be said about it, and nothing can be determined about it. Any order in the Reality that we want to perceive and work with takes a backseat because we have denied that order exists. Thought cannot occur because thought needs a subject that is being thought about, and in order to have a such a subject one must be able to ascribe a property and nature to it. Language, the method of conveying and establishing objectivity itself, cannot occur because words, by their very nature, have DEFINITIONS, and a definition requires an understanding of what IS and what IS NOT.

 

Imagine a conversation with someone who has denied the Law of Identity.

 

“So what do you think we should do?”

 

“JKDFJHNFMEJKHWEDWEUFHDKHJSDHJSHJWEYHHAGGGGG.”

 

Of course, it would seem that this stream of gibberish is far too generous to grant someone who denies the Law of Identity, because it does at least have the property of being nonsense. A more accurate conversation would be:

 

“So what do you think we should do?”

 

“…”

 

One who denies that Identity exists denies objectivity, he denies language, and he denies Reality. This is because he denies the ability to make distinctions, he denies the ability to understand nature (which is what is needed by man in the first place!), he even denies himself the ability to make a denial. He can’t even collapse into a solipsistic coma as a result, because to do so would demonstrate that there is an identifiable consequence of his denial.

 

So DOES Order exist? Yes, and it is a NECESSARY property, because the alternative is utterly unintelligible and intellectually impossible. Therefore, asking "Why does Order exist?" is an empty question, like asking "What does blue taste like?"

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That's two in a row. I hope you are a teacher/professor because you truly have a great ability to take complex material and make it perfectly understandable to the layman. This takes a strong grasp of the material I think. I want you to know that I very much appreciate the time and effort you have spent here explaining these issues.

 

“JKDFJHNFMEJKHWEDWEUFHDKHJSDHJSHJWEYHHAGGGGG.”

 

 

 

Actually, I think that is the Finish word for for "welcome," as in “JKDFJHNFMEJKHWEDWEUFHDKHJSDHJSHJWEYHHAGGGGG na Fiinlandskiiaa!” :HaHa:

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Thankee kindly. I'm afraid I'm just an undergraduate student, though... philosophy isn't even my major.

 

I WILL be teaching a philosophy course here in Berkeley, however. We have a pretty good student-taught system.

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Whoops, error that I forgot to correct...

 

Kant, however, came along and solved the problems. Kant argued that Matter DOES exist in a way, because even though we don't have proof of matter, we still have to ORDER thoughts and sensations of the world IN TERMS OF MATTER. He also argued that Causality DOES exist in a way, because we still have to ORDER events IN TERMS OF CAUSALITY.
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There is no Intelligent Design.

The world is in chaos; still it is in balance and harmony.

Perfection is only in the eyes of the beholder.

 

Yeah, I just changed my signature. I thought it was fitting.

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  • 2 weeks later...
Guest Joseph

Can't believe you guys discussed this topic for this far and didn't bring up Newtonian (enough data = predict everything that will happen) vs Heisenburg (Uncertainty Principle).

 

Quantum Mechanics deals in probabilities (something Einstein hated by the way) and thus everything is "Chaos" and every particle is "all" positions at any given time until observed. Also something about..."The more precisely

the POSITION is determined, the less precisely the MOMENTUM is known."

 

Personally, (heh) (and I'm no mathematician), I think that were we to find a way to "see" the quantum level without interference, there would be little to no uncertainty, then again that is a big "if" on that because any way we are to observe affects it.

 

Oh, and Chaos is a fancy term for "Order that we have not the knowledge or ability to grasp yet." In fact, the ideas (dare I say "laws") we have formed about our universe have not always been constant (if you accept singularity/Big Bang) so the idea that there even need be a "cause" is from our own perceptional bias.

 

Besides, if time-space is formed at the "big bang" then there was no such thing as "BEFORE" this event.

 

Man, did I tangent within a tangent on that one. Fun stuff however. Mutilpe worlds/universe ideas come to mind as well as the guy that thinks the speed of light has not always been a constant. Arguments about "Bane worlds" and how the nature of reality may be circular (the end of the universe generating another one when two branes collid.) Man, this really takes me back to hundreds of Discover articles and stuff....as a layman, really cool stuff.

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Can't believe you guys discussed this topic for this far and didn't bring up Newtonian (enough data = predict everything that will happen) vs Heisenburg (Uncertainty Principle).

That’s because we were waiting for you to do it! :grin:

 

Quantum Mechanics deals in probabilities (something Einstein hated by the way) and thus everything is "Chaos" and every particle is "all" positions at any given time until observed.  Also something about..."The more precisely

the POSITION is determined, the less precisely the MOMENTUM is known."

 

Personally, (heh) (and I'm no mathematician), I think that were we to find a way to "see" the quantum level without interference, there would be little to no uncertainty, then again that is a big "if" on that because any way we are to observe affects it.

You pretty much support my opinion, if I understood you right…

 

To add to what you’re saying (not contradicting you):

Quantum Mechanics and the Uncertainty Principle are unexplained because we can’t see the pattern and correlations today. But that doesn’t exclude the possibility that we one day will know.

 

Oh, and Chaos is a fancy term for "Order that we have not the knowledge or ability to grasp yet."  In fact, the ideas (dare I say "laws") we have formed about our universe have not always been constant (if you accept singularity/Big Bang) so the idea that there even need be a "cause" is from our own perceptional bias. 

You should make some inputs to one of the other threads, the one that I think Invictus started.

 

But to modify you statement above, just a tiny bit. The laws have been pretty much the same since the Planck time of Big Bang. The Laws are in relationship to each other, so when the higher gravity applies, then the speed of light and time also changes accordingly. But the relationship stays the same.

 

What’s unknown is what the “universe” was like before Planck’s time. Currently the accepted idea is that it was a singularity, but the Ekpyrotic Universe model could modify that idea.

 

Besides, if time-space is formed at the "big bang" then there was no such thing as "BEFORE" this event.

Not in the context where “Before” is defined as space-time in out universe. If there is a super-universe with its own space-time, then the super-time could be infinitely regressive too.

 

Man, did I tangent within a tangent on that one.  Fun stuff however.  Mutilpe worlds/universe ideas come to mind as well as the guy that thinks the speed of light has not always been a constant.  Arguments about "Bane worlds" and how the nature of reality may be circular (the end of the universe generating another one when two branes collid.)  Man, this really takes me back to hundreds of Discover articles and stuff....as a layman, really cool stuff.

Bane Theory and Ekpyrotic Universe is the same area, just told you if you didn’t know. :)

 

 

I love that idea too, it’s really appealing to me personally, because it could mean infinite energy and warp drive, i.e. space travel.

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  • 2 weeks later...
Kant, however, came along and solved the problems. Kant argued that Matter DOES exist in a way, because even though we don't have proof of matter, we still have to ORDER thoughts and sensations of the world IN TERMS OF MATTER. He also argued that Causality DOES exist in a way, because we still have to ORDER events IN TERMS OF CAUSALITY.
I don't understand what you mean by this exactly. Do we order thoughts in terms of matter? Do we order events in terms of causality? An event is a location in space time isn't it? Does it "exist" because we are able to map it on a space time plane? What does exist, "time" as we experience it, or "tau" as explained on this page: Foundations of physical reality?
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