CompuServe Messages

>> Now, Chaos theory suggests that the universe is a chain of mathematically unpredictable events that ultimatley lead to disorganization. The bottom. << The first part I can partially accept, because there is unpredictability, but there is a higher degree of predictability. So it does not follow that everything leads to disorganization. For instance if water gets below a certain temperature it freezes. That is quite predictable. But how water molecules in the air react depends on the circumstances, which vary, which accounts for changing weather patterns from day to day. Weather patterns are predictable to a certain degree for a certain time of year, but can also deviate considerably, ie snow in Paris once every 10 to 20 years. If you were god, and had to think of a scheme by which there would be order in the universe and at the same time allow for change, (not necessarily decay) you would have to build in a "chaos" factor, or a random uncertainty. Otherwise everything would be predictable. Chaos theory explains the uncertainty by accepting the non-linearity of predictability. Mostly in math we deal with linearity because it is neat and orderly, but there is a whole side to math which is not, and that is non-linear equations. But even within that non-linearity there are patterns, and these patterns while random are at the same time orderly. Clouds are one of many good examples. I recently learned that all of mankind that is alive today is related to the same original mother some 50 million years ago. Anthropologists have discovered a portion of the DNA strand which is unique to us, which we all have in common, that can be traced back that far. Peking man, for instance, is no longer thought to be a pre-chinese ancestor, but an extinct species of man. Several others have had to be reclassified as well. That one small twist (a random mutation) in the DNA strand, caused the dominance of our species of mankind. Of all the benign mutations, and some not so benign, none was a significant as this one. A butter fly that caused a typhoon. So while there is order and a certian degree of predictability, say in how a DNA gene is passed on, there is also room for a mutation, an element of unpredictability and that is what Chaos theory attempts to accounts for. John