Order and Chaos

I found the Chaos Theory to be the most interesting thing in Tuesday night’s class. The chaos theory says that order emerges out of chaos. I found this interesting because when I think of order, the first things that come to mind are stability and instruction, not chaos. However without chaos, order would never be needed, therefore order must emerge from chaos. I also find it fascinating that this new set of ideas puts information in the middle between order and entropy. Another thing that was different about this class was the discussion of memes. Memes are like genes, self-replicators that reproduce themselves. In all this idea says that ideas can be self-replicated. This also links to the saying “going viral”, or in other words, multiple views spreading. Furthermore, Fractal Mathematics was also interesting. It allows for computer graphics to make something life like. This was shown with the Mandelbrot Set, which was the same pattern small and big on each level being repeated. This is the perfect example of order emerging from chaos. Lastly, we also discussed the Butterfly Effect. The Butterfly Effect creates a feedback loop in the atmosphere, which is needed for order.

Class lecture 6/5 - Systems Theory, etc.

Tuesday's class lecture covered systems theory, the emergence of knowledge, chaos theory, and a few other topics. A system is generally defined as a whole composed of interdependent parts. The common phrase "the whole is greater than the sum of its parts" exists because in addition to the parts themselves, the whole contains structure, interactions, and relationships between the parts. We also discussed the idea of emergence with regards to knowledge. People's knowledge in the information age has emerged from teaching themselves, as opposed to being taught. The same can be applied to governing - we govern ourselves. Additionally, we create ourselves by creating a boundary to keep out the environment.

We also discussed the butterfly effect, which I thought was the most interesting aspect of chaos theory. It suggests that the smallest actions can have huge influence on other seemingly random occurrences in the world, such as a butterfly flapping its wings in China causing a hurricane in the Caribbean.