Essay Contest Submissions
okay, the time has come. I actually am going to extend the deadline until Sunday for all you procrastinators. You have 2 ways you can enter your essay:
1) Simply reply to this thread (will show up immediately)
2) Send your essay to aks @ amit-singh . com (will show up at the end)
just as a recap:
Topic: Which do you prefer? Ordered Chaos or Chaotic Order. You can define what those mean to you.
Prize: 25 new scratch-off Virginia lottery tickets mailed to you (value $0 – $??,???)
Judge: me of course!
Length: less than 500 words
Due Date: December 21
this is not an acceptable submission: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ynhGiZNCyeo
Category: Catch-All
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First, I am going to try and keep this short and sweet. Second, I am sure I am going to expose my own ignorance.
I do not think I like either of the choices I am given. Ordered Chaos or Chaotic Order. To one with my limited education, both seem to rely on acceptance of the Chaos Theory.
I do not accept the Chaos Theory. To my mind, the Chaos Theory is just used as a crutch by the learned to explain that which is not yet explainable. However just because something is not understood today does not mean it will not be explained tomorrow.
To help explain my opinion on this further, let me point to Galileo, Sir Isaac Newton and Einstein’s discoveries. Before each of these men provided us with huge leaps in our specie’s understanding, the most learned men of their ages might have relied on something like the Chaos Theory (if it had existed at the time) to explain that which each of the three proved could be quite logically explained and proven.
I have nothing against someone using the chaos theory in their computations to come up with the best solution, for now, to a problem. However I think that over time, with increases in human understanding, things that were thought to be chaotic will be explained to have laws that govern the results we observe. Perhaps this will happen with small advances like a sculptor chiseling at stone and the occasional great leap forward provided by geniuses of the caliber of the three gentlemen I mentioned earlier.
Chaos theory? Use it for now, just realize that one day (if you live long enough – and mankind survives long enough) someone is going to provide an explanation that causes you to take the heel of your hand and strike your forehead and say “Of course”.
I hope this submission gives at least some amusement to those of you more learned then I !
Ordered Chaos: My daughters.
Chaotic Order: My sons.
Preference? Jack Daniels.
Replace “Chaos Theory” with “God”, LittleDavid, and you’ve got a good essay.
Ordered Chaos vs. Chaotic Order
There is unexpected beauty in chaos. A walk in the woods often paints an unexpected aura of irregularity and a dynamic explosion of life and death. The traveler might see a snake employing its predatory instincts or a flower blooming earlier in season. At an accident scene, a witness might watch a paramedic breathing life and order into a situation unexpected by the witness, but likely anticipated by the paramedic. Though both propositions appear to offer a self-contradictory paradox, in some instances are they both acceptable? The Czech novelist Milan Kundera once wrote: “Those who consider the Devil to be a partisan of Evil and angels to be warriors for Good accept the demagogy of the angels. Things are clearly more complicated.”
One might propose that if there is no resolution to chaos, then we are in danger of being engulfed by it. Order can be interjected naturally or as a result of planned regulation, law, protocol or rule. Regardless if the answer is right or wrong, deliberate or unintended, resolution is found. Although a facilitated brainstorming session is considered ordered chaos, order can often be discovered amidst the chaos. Change management is ordered chaos, because it does not just happen, but is facilitated and driven. The change propagated could either have positive or negative effects.
Although it could be implied that there is no order in chaos when there has been no attempt to intercede or untangle it, one should question, “What if the understood is really not understood?” Ordered chaos can be comforting, because like heavy traffic, we anticipate, look for, and attempt to define it. As a driver, you only have so many options to drive from destination A to destination B. You are regulated in that respect, and though you might opt for more options, the choices are considered reasonable. To this degree a paradigm shift is offered: If given an omniscient, global view of auto, air, network and pedestrian traffic, could chaos be found in the logical paths traveled? In addition, and depending on varying perception, could creative or enlightened order be found?
In ordered chaos, there can beauty, innovation, enlightenment, comfort, dictatorship and tyranny, but there can also be a lack of true freedom that is often overlooked; an unknown half-truth. In chaotic order, there can be many quantum discoveries to the same problem, because you may not even know a possibility exist until you are truly free from simple or complex order, but any new discovery could lead to ordered chaos. In a world of inevitable outcomes, balance cannot be underestimated.
Ordered Chaos versus Chaotic Order, a clever question? How can one actually make a choice without defining the terms and letting the debate take its proper course? The first matter that must be examined are the words and what they really mean. Order came from Chaos, or so the story goes. Order provokes feelings of safety, of predictability, fear seems less prevalent. Chaos has been designated as scary, unpredictable, fear is said to be more prevalent, but for who? Now we are straying, the goal is not to define Order and Chaos, but to define and choose between Ordered Chaos and Chaotic Order.
Let us look at Chaotic Order for example. What kind of phrase is this? The phrase Chaotic Order is oxymoronic, contradictory, both cannot exist if they cancel each other out and they are opposites so they would cancel out. We must define the relationship between the noun and the adjective. For both to exist it seems that one cannot really exist. If Order exists as a noun then it seems that Chaos cannot, yet both are described in the phrase. The noun is held in higher esteem than the adjective, Order must be the essence of the phrase. With the case of Chaotic Order, Order would only exist. Yet while the noun is held in higher esteem the adjective would have to describe merely the impression given, even though it really is not the case, since the noun must exist. To follow this case, Chaotic Order gives the impression of Chaos when Order truly exists. Many would not even know that Order exists. That is how the oxymoron aspect must be satisfied.
So now we are given the choice of either the impression of Chaos when Order exists or the impression of Order when Chaos exists. This basically amounts to a choice between a sadistic conspiracy and a fantasy land. Well, I really should not say that. For religion could be said to be one application of a Chaotic Order. We are told that God exists, though he does not make himself seen. This explanation would suggest that God is giving the impression that he doesn’t exist but God really does exist, he’s really just testing the limits of our faith. That said I still cannot choose “Chaotic Order in its religious application” because “Chaotic Order in its religious application” is not an option, yet it serves to show how nuanced the argument could be. Besides, this is an essay for a political blog and will be judged by someone who was and should still be an aspiring politician, if there is any application that should be illustrated it would be how Chaotic Order applies to the State. This is unfortunate because it makes the answer too clear. Instead of hitting the question out of the park it appears I am forced to bunt. For Chaotic Order applied to the State would be a conspiracy, and to choose a conspiracy when talking about politics would be truly unjust. My final choice is Ordered Chaos by default since a lack of Order cannot conspire. Ordered Chaos as it is defined is impossible, Chaos cannot exist uniformly throughout the people. It was one point in time that could be called Genesis, before the first thought penetrated their heads, before the first coupling, since then we have lived in a degree of Order.
Shaun Kenney wins! Perfect answer!
Ordered chaos and chaotic order are opposite sides of the experiment which is democracy. Take what you will from the idea of one man, one vote and consider the myriad tricks and techniques politicians use to arrive at the their ends. Given only what is said to him by candidates and mainstream media, one will certainly come to logical conclusions on the issues placed before him. This, however, is of little use as any learned in the corporate structures of the world will be apt to inform that one percent of the population owns forty percent of the wealth and that the effects of this on the mass dissemination of knowledge are hardly negligible. The electorate does not take what they are fed and compare it to what knowledge is available outside the bias mainstream. War, poverty, starvation, bankruptcies, and depressions all stem from decisions made by the small minority who manipulate the world through its financial systems. No doubt the five crises above accurately depict a world which is chaotic, but yet they stem from plans set forth by the ruling class to main relative order. This is ordered chaos, a world based on crisis and fear, thriving on disorder in order to maintain the reign of a select few. This system is not preferable.
It is undeniable that nearly every event has at or near its root an economic motivation or a monetary motivation. The paradoxical scheme by which money is created out of debt in a fractional reserve banking system is without a doubt the prime source of chaos used by this chaotic order. To order this form of chaos we must retool our currency system to a more fair and fiscally sound framework. The supply of money should rise in direct relation to the total value of goods and services and great care should be taken to avoid borrowing money into existence. We have the technological and material means to feed and cloth the entire word, yet we have people starving amid plenty while farmers are being paid not to grow crops. It is only this bedeviled financial ticket system that stands in the way of the needy and that which they need. Again, it is unquestionable that not enough real purchasing power exists to purchase all goods currently on the market. This gap must be filled by credit whose issue is controlled completely by a cadre of international central banks and their affiliates. Spread out the needed credit equally among the legitimate citizens of a country and you will have the ordered chaos of extreme creativity and technological advancement as opposed to the chaotic order of scarcity and war.
In America today, the thought that true freedom is either chaotic order or an ordered chaos is in no way freedom at all. What chaos,in both forms, truly comes from is simply the pursuit by a minority of one or a group’s own ends.An ordered chaos may in fact be needed in societies where true freedom has not been achieved, but is invariably circumvented by those with a hidden agenda,to secure their own order.This is the myth of the so-called ‘peoples revolution.’In a society like America, man-made chaos is not ‘progressive,’ but regressive in nature.Our laws are not designed to repress but to protect and enhance freedom.Those seeking chaos will seek confrontation with duly elected/appointed authority to simply create chaos to serve their own goals/order.They will then demand an end to all chaos once their goals are achieved.Laws and rules? Yes, but neither chaos nor repression.
The genesis of chaos in American society today, is based on the theory that a minority dissatisfied with any situation(war,economy,election results) may through chaos,ordered or not,bring about change to their liking.This became even more relevant during the Katrina fiasco.The central government was blamed for the chaos for not providing an ‘ordered chaos.’In reality, order itself was what was necessary, but avoided because ‘we have progressed as a society beyond that.’ Thus, only chaos reigned until the troops showed up and ‘restored order.’Not chaotic order but simply order.
Invariably, societies that fall into self-thinking chaos will at some point lose freedoms based on a majority demanding simple order.In all societies the breakdown of order is based usually on two things only;(1)Corruption allows chaotic order to become common because one must only pay the corner cop to maintain it and(2)society deems it appropriate to have ordered chaos to be truly free.In the end, the cries against corruption and the ordered chaos will bring demands for order and order alone.In this lies the true danger to American freedoms.
The pendulum never hangs in the middle.A fringe orders chaos in many varieties until the ‘silent majority’ demands not chaotic order, but simply order.In the end, the question asked will become a moot point. Americans,outside of the power structure in Washington and the media crave order that they may go about their lives in safety.Does this strike at the freedoms of others? On rare occasions it does, when police et al cross the line into repression.But even in these rare instances, it invariably occurs when most citizens demand simple order.
From our founding fathers to today, the desire of Americans has always been order once freedom had been achieved, unless they or a group of them decide that some type of chaos serves them better. Thus, when true freedom has not been achieved, ordered chaos and chaotic order can be used as an agenda driven means to secure someones goals for a new national order or even a ‘new world order.’
Chaos is the basic manner of the universe. As much as we hope to bring order to our lives and the world around us because of our feelings of helplessness and need for control, our greatest power lies in our ability to navigate through the chaos with the recognition that we are a part of it. Therefore, the terms “ordered chaos” and “chaotic order” are both false ideas that imply some ability to control the natural chaos that surrounds us. Any difference between the terms (if one can effectively argue there is one) is irrelevant because the idea is irrelevant.
Chaos is feared because its essence is unpredictability and even strength or power. Who can truly predict how the weather patterns will play out? We may have educated guesses based on science, magic or religious beliefs, but no one can claim absolute understanding of how the current weather pattern may change or move over any amount of time, and indeed we are often wrong. Who can truly control the course of their lives – the incidents, the accidents, the choices made and not made? We may try our best to make the “best” decisions for a specific outcome, we never know if the outcome was in fact the result of our actions at all. In the end, the only power and control we truly have is our perception of and response to the results of the chaotic events that surround us. The more order we attempt to exert onto our lives and situations, the more chaotic the results seem. The more we “go with the flow” and accept chaos the less anxiety we feel about it, and indeed, the less we perceive “chaos”.
Similar to the ideas of many of the martial arts disciplines, we may find greater strength in our ability to move with and divert the energy of the chaos that surrounds us than trying to block or overpower it. When an opponent strikes, the choices are to run away (an attempt to hide from the chaos), make a hard stand using brute strength to overpower the opponent (attempting to bring order to the chaos), or to move with the opponent and use his own momentum and force to throw him off balance (responding to and moving with the chaos). There is no order brought to the altercation in any of the three situations.
I believe that chaos simply exists, whereas order is an idea humans attempt to impose in response to our fear and vulnerability. Therefore, the idea behind “ordered chaos” and “chaotic order” is a fantasy that is best left behind so that we can move effortlessly through the beautiful truth of chaos.
thanks everyone who entered. I was a little worried I was being too ambitious but I got more entries than I thought I would. anyway, I’m running late for work so I will read them and decide tonight. In the meantime if anyone else wants to drop in a last minute essay go for it otherwise all those that entered please email me your names and addresses. Thanks!
“Our laws are not designed to repress but to protect and enhance freedom”
Totally wrong, go read civil disobedience, government is mean to divide, society meant to bring together. Government tells us what not to do, what we should repress, society is meant to show us what we are free to do. What is this bullshit they teach you kids in school and on TV? Does anyone read the classics anymore?
Now that the time limit for submission of entries has expired I feel free to comment. I did not want to clog up the thread with comments while entries were still being submitted.
MB,
You stated:
“Replace “Chaos Theory” with “God”, LittleDavid, and you’ve got a good essay.”
I do not like that you think what I wrote could be used as either for, or against, the existence of God. In fact I am not quite sure which side of the fence your own comment would put you.
Without arguing either for or against the existence of God, let me point out that Albert Einstein once stated that “God does not play dice.”
This comment is often used by both sides to prove their own opinion. I think it proves neither. It only discards and exposes the arguments from the extremists from either viewpoint. However it is acceptable to most of us who might be described as being moderates.
Albert Einstein was a genius, no?
You are taking Einstein’s comment out of context. In order to truly understand it you must be familiar with quantum chromodynamics, the Heisenberg uncertainly principle, relativity, geometric force unification, and extra spatial dimensions.
Quantum mechanics is the science of the extremely small subatomic particles and the laws governing them. These laws are not exact, rather they represent minute quantum corrections to yangs-mill and maxwell field theories. There is a phenomenon called quantum tunneling whereby previously impossible actions re reduced to finite probabilistic quantities. Tests whereby huge tanks of water are stored underground, shielded from cosmic rays, demonstrate that atoms inside the tank can tunnel to the outside of the tank even though conventional wisdom deems this impossible. This results from that we cannot know the position and velocity of a sub-atomic particle at one in the same moment, hence there is a probability wave where the particle could exist at any time. This wave takes up an area that is often split between to sections separated by a seemingly impassable physical barrier.
Relativity describes the motions of the planets and does not work well to describe sub-atomic interactions. Einstein compared the universe and its inhabitants to 2D creatures living on a piece of paper. Crumble the paper and when they try to move in a straight they cannot because their world in crumbled in an extra spatial dimension. This is how Einstein thought of our 4 dimensional space time. He sought to create a theory whereby spatial geometry defined all the interactions of particles. A mathematical universe made out of marble, not wood.
This is where the dice comment came from. Quantum Theory is a probabilistic framework, Einstein’s equations were finite,simple, and beautiful. It would make no sense for a theory of galaxies to not describe sub-atomic particles because galaxies are made of subatomic particles. He said god does not play dice because he believes everything can be reduced to math and that the universe was no designed by chance and is not beholden to the laws of chance.
Having studied Einstein’s work I can assure you he viewed god and time as one and the same. Time is the extra variable that allows our universe to move forward based on the results of the effects of all forces on the matter in our universe. God being time can know the conditions at any moment in time, but yet cannot change it.
Max Shapiro,
You stated:
“Having studied Einstein’s work I can assure you he viewed god and time as one and the same.”
That statement comes close to my own viewpoint. However I would extract “time” and insert “science”.
God conforms to science. When this appears to not be true it is only because we have yet to discover how God goes about doing it.
True, but you would have to make clear you mean science as a whole and not science thus far as humanity understands it. However, I think God is not necessarily science in that he did not decide the laws of nature, he merely allowed them to form in accordance with universal logic which he was the source off. We all know the universe needs to be balanced so before the big bang when there was ultimately nothing god was created to create balance and hence the big bang was created to order all the energy in the universe in accordance with gods laws. From nothing came everything because without everything there would be nothing.
This goes back to the Tao-Te-Ching which states
“Short and long define each other, evil and good contrast each other, easy and difficult depend on each other”
You cannot have one end of the spectrum without out the other, no chaos with no god and no lack of a belief in god without a belief in god. This ties in with relativity and perturbation theory in modern physics.
Last minute brief submission.
Chaotic order. Since Max was so good as to channel Michio Kaku and introduce the physicist’s conflict of wood vs marble, I plant myself with Einstein on the marble side. I believe in the concept of the Supreme Architect, the watchmaker who created the universe and the laws by which it operates. This is the Order at the base of all existence. Our reflection of God’s divinity is our free will, our divine endowment to introduce Chaos in an otherwise ordered universe. We are the pebbles in the lake – we create the ripples, and existence rearranges itself around our choices following the natural laws in place sense it’s inception. However, I don’t have the audacity to claim we are unique in that regard, it’s a big universe for us to be the only source of Chaos.
Mind before matter? Matter before mind? Which is it?
This discussion is getting too chaotic.
I believe God created mankind. I think he did so because He was lonely.
What kind of existence would it be if you are alone in the universe?
I think god (in many ways) is the ability to reason. We are created in gods image but because we are not god we cannot take every minute detail into account when making a decision and so our decisions are inherently flawed, hence free will. God can take everything into account, hence his decisions are final and infallible. Hence god is time and we as humans, though slaves to time, can still fathom it to the extent that our brains are able to process huge amounts of information. Has no one noticed the harder you think the more slowly time passes? This is because the number of operations done per second in your mind is greater than when you are not thinking. Say in one second one person can do 1000 operations, to a person who can only do 100 per second their seconds will last 1/10th as long as the person who can do 1000 per second, in comparison.
[...] to everyone who entered. I was somewhat concerned no one would enter because the topic was so vague but I was very [...]
[...] Singh asks your preference between the two in the form of an essay [...]
U really do a faboulous job. Hope to see a new post like that soon