Chaos theory explained
john baez
explanations of chaos theory. I thought the following, which I found
over on alt.magick, might be amusing along these lines.
From: Ty...@cup.portal.com (Tyagi Mordred Nagasiva)
Newsgroups: alt.magick,alt.satanism,talk.religion.misc
Subject: Kaos Magick! (Inculunabula: Ong's Hat) (LONG)
Message-ID: <103...@cup.portal.com>
Date: Fri, 11 Feb 94 18:24:07 PST
Organization: The Portal System (TM)
Distribution: world
Lines: 553
Xref: galaxy.ucr.edu alt.magick:1743 alt.satanism:305 talk.religion.misc:4285
This has got to be one of the strangest files I've ever found.
______________________________________________________________
ONG'S HAT:
GATEWAY TO THE DIMENSIONS!
A full color brochure for the Institute of Chaos Studies
and the Moorish Science Ashram in Ong's Hat,New Jersey.
Introductions
------------
You would not be reading this brochure if you had not
already penetrated half-way to the ICS.You have been
searching for us without knowing it, following oblique
references in crudely xeroxed marginal 'samsidat"
publications,crackpot mystical pamphlets,mailorder
courses in "Kaos Magick"-a paper trail and a coded series
of rumors spread at street level through circles involved
in the illicit distribution of certain controlled
substances and the propagation of certain acts of
insurrection against the Planetary Work Machine and the
Consensus Reality-or perhaps through various obscure
mimeographed technical papers on the edges of "chaos
science"-through pirate computer networks-or even
through pure syncronicity and the pursuit of dreams.
In any case we know something about you,your
interests,deeds and desires,works and days-and we know
your address.
Otherwise...you would not be reading this brochure.
Background
----------
During the 1970s and '80s, "chaos" began to emerge as a
new scientific paradigm,on a level of importance with
Relativity and Quantum Mechanics.It was born out of the
mixing of many different sciences-weather
prediction,Catastrophe Theory,fractal geometry, and the
rapid development of computer graphics capable of
plunging into the depths of fractals and "strange
attractors;"hydraulics and fluid turbulence,evolutionary
biology,mind/brain studies and psychopharmacology also
played major roles in forming the new paradigm.
The slogan "order out of chaos" summed up the gist of
this science,whether it studied the weird fractional-
dimensional shapes underlying sworls of cigarette smoke
or the distribution of colors in marbled paper-or else
dealt with "harder" matters such as heart
fibrillation,particle beams or population vectors.
However,by the late '80s it began to appear as if this
"chaos movement" had split apart into two opposite and
hostile world-views,one placing emphasis on chaos
itself,the other on *order*.
According to the latter sect-the Determinists-chaos was
the enemy,randomness a force to be overcome or
denied.They experienced the new science as a final
vindication of Classical Newtonian physics,and as a
weapon to be used *against* chaos,a tool to map and
predict reality itself.For them, chaos was death and
disorder, entropy and waste.
The opposing faction however experienced chaos as
something benevolent, the necessary matrix out of which
arises spontaneously an infinity of variegated forms-a
pleroma rather than an abyss-a principle of continual
creation, unstructured, fecund, beautiful, spirit of
wildness.These scientists saw chaos theory as
vindication of Quantum indeterminacy and Godel's Proof,
promise of an open-ended universe, Cantorian infinities
of potential...chaos as *health*.
Easy to predict which of these two schools of thought
would recieve vast funding and support from goverments,
multi-nationals and intelligence agencies.By the end of
the decade, "Quantum/Chaos" had been forced
underground, virtually censored by prestigious scientific
journals-which published only papers by Determinists.
The dissidents were reduced to the level of the *margin*-
and there they found themselves part of yet another
branch of the paradigm,the underground of cultural chaos-
the "magicians"-and of political chaos-extremist anti-
authoritarian "mutants".
Unlike Relativity, which deals with the Macrocosm of
outer space,and Quantum, which deals with the Microcosm
of particle physics, chaos science takes place largely
within the Mesosphere-the world as we experience it in
"everyday life".,from dripping faucets to banners flapping
in the autumn breezes.Precisely for this reason useful
experimental work in chaos can be carried on without the
hideous expense of cyclotrons and orbital observatories.
So even when the leading theoreticians of Quantum/Chaos
began to be fired from university and corporate
positions,they were still able to pursue certain
goals.Even when they began to suffer political pressures
as well, and sought refuge and space among the mutants
and marginals, still they perservered.By a paradox of
history, their poverty and obscurity forced them to
narrow the scope of their research to precisely those
areas which would ultimately produce concrete results-
pure math, and the mind-simply because these areas were
relatively inexpensive.
Up until the crash of '87, the "alternative network"
amounted to little more than a nebulous weave of pen-
pals and computer enthusiasts,Whole Earth nostalgists,
futurologists, anarchists, food cranks, neo-pagans and
cultists, self-publishing punk poets, armchair
schizophrenics, survivalists and mail artists.The Crash
however opened vast but hard-to-see cracks in the social
and economic control structures of America.Gradually the
marginals and mutants began to fill up those fissures
with the wegs of their own networking.Bit by bit they
created a genuine black economy, as well as a shifting
insubstantial"autonomous zone", impossible to map but
real enough in its various manifestations.
The orphaned scientists of Q/C theory fell into this
invisible anti-empire like a catalyst-or perhaps it was
the other way around.In either case, something
crystallized.To explain the precipitation of this jewel,
we must move on to the specific cases, people and
stories.
etc.