BS: Mudcat and 'The Edge of Chaos'

Subject: Mudcat and 'The Edge of Chaos'
From: Amos
Date: 14 Jul 01 - 03:20 PM

In a work published in 1992, Mitchell Waldrop ("Complexity", M. Waldrop, Touchstone Press, New York, 1992, Q175.W258.1992) discusses the amazing phenomenon of complex systems which  through extended interactions arrive at a self-organized state.  He says (pp 12-13):
 

"...(T)hese complex, self-organizing systems are adaptive in that they don't just passively respond to events the way a rock might roll around in a an earthquake.  They actively turn whatever happens to their advantage.  ...

Finally, every one of these complex, self-organizing adaptive systems possesses a kind of dynamism that makes them qualitatively different from static objects such as computer chips or snowflakes, which are merely complicated.  Complex systems are more spontaneous, more disorderly, more alive than that.  At the same time, however, their peculiar dynamism is also a far cry from the weirdly unpredictable gyrations known as chaos. ... (C)haos by itself doesn't explain the structure, the coherence, the self-organizing cohesiveness of complex systems.

Instead, ... these systems have somehow acquired the ability to bring order and chaos into a special kind of balance.  This balance point -- often called the edge of chaos -- is where the components of a system never quite lock into place, and yet never dissolve into turbulence, either. The edge of chaos is where life has enough stability to sustain itself and enough creativity to deserve the name of life. The edge of chaos is where new ideas and innovative genotypes are forever nibbling away at the edges of the status quo..."

I submit that this descriptions provides the basis for completely answering all the foofara about how the Mudcat "should" operate by describing the real way that it does operate. This concept also addresses what I was trying to say about the Malthusian panic in the "world population day" thread.

Regards,

Amos

Subject: RE: BS: Mudcat and 'The Edge of Chaos'
From: Little Hawk
Date: 14 Jul 01 - 03:31 PM

Order and chaos must ever be partners, for without the one...who could conceive of the other? That being the case, they are perhaps not opposites at all, but merely extremes of the same thing...like heat and cold (extremes of temperature). In other words they are a single unity, masqerading as a duality or a mulitiplicity. And that is a thumbnail description of all reality. Check out the Upanishads or the Bahgavad Gita for further discussions on this very theme.

We are always living on the edge of chaos, and always living in the embrace of a perfect order.

- LH

Subject: RE: BS: Mudcat and 'The Edge of Chaos'
From: Bill D
Date: 14 Jul 01 - 07:01 PM

*head buzzing*...Chaos theory is the most slippery thing I ever tried to look at, (and I almost wrote a masters thesis on Whitehead's metaphysics).... I went to this page and started thru the outline, but my brain just has not dealt with those kind of concepts in ages.

I do see the general idea of self-adjusting systems, and by extensive use of metaphor, I can relate it to Mudcat's wild personality swings, which always seem to avoid total destruction.

I can also see why you might expect those forces to 'adjust' the situation in the situations alluded to in the 'Malthusian Panic' (ohhh..that is low!) thread. ....but in both cases, I forsee the situation where no dynamic equilibrium that may occur, and no particular 'phase change' is likely to prove satisfactory to a majority of the sentient observers involved.

The system dynamics may fall well within predicted models of stability and thus be described as avoiding chaos AS A SYSTEM, but still highly unsatisfactory subjectively.

Subject: RE: BS: Mudcat and 'The Edge of Chaos'
From: Bill D
Date: 14 Jul 01 - 07:12 PM

but here is an attempt to get into the ideas without complex math...using music as examples! Kinda neat...I think I'll start here and see how far I can muddle

http://www.wfu.edu/~petrejh4/chaosind.htm

Subject: RE: BS: Mudcat and 'The Edge of Chaos'
From: Little Hawk
Date: 14 Jul 01 - 09:01 PM

The human mind is the biggest liar in all of creation, and in fact, may be the only liar in all of creation. Its chosen method is to tell only a part of the truth.

- LH

Subject: RE: BS: Mudcat and 'The Edge of Chaos'
From: Dicho (Frank Staplin)
Date: 14 Jul 01 - 09:12 PM

Heat to cold, order to chaos, A to Z (or Alpha to Omega) all involve a continuum from one extreme to the other (A-Z is more comprehensible). Unless there are limits, however, Mudcat will become like the expanding universe and there will be no need for any other site on the planet.

Subject: RE: BS: Mudcat and 'The Edge of Chaos'
From: Amos
Date: 14 Jul 01 - 09:21 PM

Dicho:

There are arbitrary symbolic continuua, and there are apparently real continuua that only look that way because that is how we frame our observations, and there are real ones, I think.

When you map your life from the first (arbitrary symbol systems) you of course become a complete pawn to whoever authors the symbols. To the second, you become a partially free agent constrained by habits of observation; to the third, and you become an explorer of the universe.

Max has always soughy. in my opinion, to stick to Category 3 continuua!

*bg*

A

Subject: RE: BS: Mudcat and 'The Edge of Chaos'
From: Little Hawk
Date: 14 Jul 01 - 09:31 PM

Dicho - your closing suggestion is a scary one, if ever I've heard one.

- LH

Subject: RE: BS: Mudcat and 'The Edge of Chaos'
From: GUEST,E. Lorenz
Date: 14 Jul 01 - 09:42 PM

I would say that guy "All" is a strange attractor.