At 16:37 1.2.2001 -0500, Harrison wrote: ((...))
For me, chaos and order are both abstractions and neither exist in a pure sense. They are actually "pointers" to a polar (dialectical) framework which might look something like the following: chaos< --- life --->order. The suggestion is that life in all its life forms comes into being, exists, and passes away some where along a continuum represented by chaos on the one side and order on the other. It is a dance, and when it stops, (finds equilibrium) life stops. Or as a colleague once said -- when you reach and equilibrium in Biology, you are dead.
Yes, yes, yes! I couldn't agree more! That's it. And that applies to organisations as well. (Any objections? Someone urge me to explain it? :-)
And by way of definition, chaos is the absence of meaning and lack of predictability -- in short it is absolutely nothing.
Well, yes and no. Actually there are two kinds of chaos: Predictable and non-predictable. The latter being pure noise, nothing. The mathematical branch of chaos theory deals with the former: With chaos that can be described, defined, predicted in some way. With "ordered chaos" so to say. You may observe those 'strange attractors', a set of states the system can be in or reach. You cannot predict which state leads to which next, the transitions are chaotic and non-predictable. The famous butterfly in China may be the trigger for a tornado in the Caribic - or the trigger for the absence of that tornado. But what you can predict is that the system's state will always be one out of this set of allowed states. You will never find the system in a state outside of this set. This is predictable. And you may very well be able to make statistical assumptions or observations leading to predictable probabilities. In the simple example of a system with two distinct attractors you may be able to predict that chances to reach each one of them are 50:50, or 20:80, or whatever (my values are arbitrary). - Having said that - In discussing this subject it may help to distinguish between those two kinds of chaos and say which one we are talking about. I start: Usually I am talking about the 'predictable' chaos, the subject of chaos theory. Hope this can improve mutual understaning. cu, Christoph * * ========================================================== osl...@listserv.boisestate.edu To subscribe, unsubscribe, change your options, view the archives of osl...@listserv.boisestate.edu Visit: http://listserv.boisestate.edu/archives/oslist.html =========================================================== osl...@egroups.com To subscribe, 1. Visit: http://www.egroups.com/group/oslist 2. Sign up -- provide an email address, and choose a login ID and password 3. Click on "Subscribe" and follow the instructions To unsubscribe, change your options, view the archives of osl...@egroups.com: 1. Visit: http://www.egroups.com/group/oslist 2. Sign in and Proceed
