In the last session, we extended discussion on social contract and reflected on the underlying need for order or chaos. Please check the recording of the session.
Extending this, we will continue our chat live, this Saturday, 10 July 2021, from 3-4 pm at webinar
Please share the post widely among and invite your young friends and colleagues.
You can access the recording here
Small snapshots of the board activity can be found below. The points are listed roughly in the order of conversation. You may use them to jump to specific parts of the conversation in the recording.
Summary:
We have been discussing the social contract and reflected on the underlying assumptions and necessities of social order.
And @kruthik brought in Taleb again saying Chaos (leaving things to chance) as a feature and not a bug supporting anti-fragile systems. He says, things like tarot reading, astrology induce that element of chance into the complex system of the society, making it anti-fragile (systems that keep evolving with environmental conditions).
2.1. We also thought evolution using natural selection could be an example of an anti-fragile system
This lead to an idea that there is a core of order with limited change and a negotiation space left for chaos/chance. For example in evolution, the core of DNA remains mostly unchanged, but there is a lot of space for chance mutations. And when a critical mass of these chance mutations accumulate a sudden breakthrough or restructuring occurs. Shiv connected this with Kuhn’s scientific revolutions with normal science and occasional paradigm shifts.
Further I raised this tendency of human behaviour to seek predictability. We prefer certainty over uncertainty. And the entire modern science can be seen as a way to enhance predictability. So, how can this search for certainty emerge in a system where both order and chaos are needed?
4.1. to which @kruthik responded, perhaps that is not the case. uncertainty in moderation within that negotiation space perhaps is invited in human behaviour – see the excitement of adventure and thrill. If the uncertainty goes beyond a limit, where the core is disturbed, the self-preservation kicks in seeking order.
Is “Order and chaos” fundamental to the universe/existence or is it just an indicator of how much understanding humankind has at a point in time? For instance the state of celestial objects could have changed from chaos to order with our pursuit to understand.
Is this just a part of the spectrum from less chaos to more chaos?
What do you think @kruthik @Sindhuramdas678 ?
Yes, @2020ugchsncnseethala, for example when we look at the sky we find stars and planets moving all over the place and initially we would have thought their movement is completely chaotic.
In fact, many years ago, astronomers made careful observations to find out patterns in the chaos. For example, read Tycho Brahe - Wikipedia
And later people started finding some order in it. And today we have the heliocentric solar system as a model describing that order.
Similarly until Darwin gave the Theory of Natural selection, the origin of species seemed very Chaotic and today we find some order in it!
Can you now try and give any example? Say from your own work in CUBE with ants or what we are doing with mango-mapping (Link-1, Link-2)
Please ask if you don’t understand any!
-DP
Yes sir!
Mango trees have not systematic life cycle because they flowering and fruiting in different times
Then we will think that its life cycle is chaotic.
We observed it regularly every year and then realized that it blooms and bears fruit in certain months.it have a regular order.
In the case of ants at first we think their colony is not working systematically.
Their colony is chaotic .
But we start to finding some order in it.
Their colony have some category queen, male, workers and each of them have certain jobs.
@karnamdpdurga
So, the debate we had yesterday in the live session was – if entropy is the fundamental property of the system out there and if ‘order’ and ‘chaos’ are only indicators of how much we, humankind, understand the system?
Is this question making sense to you? Or do you want me to elaborate?
-DP
sir, Order and Chaos it can be considered as development of science ? Because when we consider a system, we try to find an order in it as best we can,then you can learn more about it. when we try to analyse whole thing we can see our right and wrong things.
If iam wrong please correct me.
No, I don’t think there is anything wrong with your understanding. This is precisely what we tried to hit at.
I do not know if there is anyone who looked at the process of science as a journey of discovering order from chaos. Did any, @nagarjunag @Sharvay? Also @kruthik you can add if Taleb gave any examples of this effect?
-DP
