RE: MD Chaos and its role in Evolution

From: mark maxwell (laughingpines@yahoo.co.uk)
Date: Tue Oct 25 2005 - 00:09:48 BST

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    [Ian]
    Mark, my view on this,

    ... is that "chaos" provides the feedstock and
    breeding ground for
    evolution, the opportunities for DQ to exploit -
    ranging from the
    mutations
    where these are the classic Darwinian randomly
    generated kind, or any
    of the
    neo-Darwinian, emergent pattern, inevitable
    engineering solution driven
    changes. (Of course that range is the same distinction
    as between
    classic
    and formal chaos.)

    Thinking at loud (and in a bit of a hurry as usual)
    your mental picture
    /
    graph - with order / unitary / static quality at one
    end, with classic
    chaos
    at the other infinite extreme, and with the "sweet
    spot" of DQ, (or
    harmony
    / resonance or formal chaotic / emergent pattern /
    strange attractors)
    at
    the interesting point in between - still holds a lot
    of attraction for
    me.

    Mark:
    Hi Ian, This last is driving my thoughts.
    Describing true random noise is rather tricky in MOQ
    terms i think. In fact, it can sort of begin to sound
    like an indescribable DQ. I don't like that.
    So, to get around that, i think MOQ chaos would have
    to be patterned noise - defined in that it is
    conditioned noise. Biological cancer and social frenzy
    may be examples of patterns which have gone wild?
    But see? In order to accommodate this, we may have to
    introduce secondary ontology? This all ties together
    quite well if you begin to grasp it: Primary
    ontological patterns may combine into chaotic, or
    coherent (sweet spot) or dead (so static it looks
    dead) relationships.
    I don't think this postulation is compatible with your
    view of chaos as a feedstock and breeding ground for
    evolution. In fact, it suggests the opposite: The more
    complex and sophisticated patterns become, the more
    able they are to chaos and death - they are migrating
    toward DQ, hence my thought that patterns may be
    fleeing chaos as well. See?

    Ian:
    Interestingly, you may have noticed, I have an
    opposite argument going
    on
    with a physicist on my "anthropic principle" thread,
    which suggests
    that
    even the evolution of higher life / intelligence is
    just the 2nd Law of
    Thermodynamics relentless (teleological) drive to
    increase
    (net) entropy / chaos. But don't let that put you off,
    yet :-)

    Mark:
    This doesn't work in MOQ terms Ian so you've won the
    argument: The key is discrete levels and
    anti-reductionism; Biological, Social and Intellectual
    patterns defy the 2nd law of T.

    [Case]
    I think the cleavage of reality into Chaos and Order
    is really what the
    MoQ
    is all about. As I have state previously I see it as
    the fundamental
    ontology of the MoQ. Quality is the preception of
    harmony. It is where
    things are right, when the motorcycle is tuned and
    purring, when people
    see
    that the putting together a barbeque grill is really
    sculpture, when
    the
    sophist lays down with the dialectisian. All this
    happens with opposing
    forces are in balance. We call it Quality.

    Mark:
    Hi Case, I'm postulating a quite specific role for
    chaos: The sweet spot or 'It' or DQ lies on a
    continuum of secondary ontological relationships, with
    chaos on one side and death on the other.
    In your terms, Quality is a balance between chaos and
    death.
    The only way i can get this to work in MOQ terms is to
    invent secondary ontology. You've criticised all this
    in previous threads, so i appreciate your position.
    However, all the great examples you provide -
    Motorcycle at the sweet spot of tinning, barbeque as
    art, sophist with dialectic in his back pocket can all
    be described as secondary ontological events balanced
    between chaotic noise and bland stasis:
    1.
    a. Motorcycle. It has a sweet spot, that is an
    empirical observation.
    b. A cycle driven to destruction is chaotic.
    c. A cycle neglected turns to rust.

    2.
    a. A barbeque may be assembled 'the best way' = sweet
    spot.
    b. A barbeque may be destroyed under bad assembly.
    c. A neglected structure such as this never fulfils
    its function.

    3.
    a. There is the best solution to a logically
    delineated system of organisation. "...the rules that
    must guide the choice are extremely fine and delicate
    (sweet spot?) It’s almost impossible to state them
    precisely; they must be felt rather than formulated."
    (Poincare in ZMM.)
    b. There is chaotic noise of information. "It doesn’t
    merely make the most combinations possible according
    to certain fixed laws. The combinations so obtained
    would he exceedingly numerous, useless and
    cumbersome."
    c. No enthusiasm, no insight, no progress.
    "Mathematics, he said, isn’t merely a question of
    applying rules, any more than science."

    Mark

            
            
                    
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