From: Valuemetaphysics@aol.com
Date: Wed Mar 10 2004 - 03:19:27 GMT
In a message dated 3/9/04 8:03:22 PM GMT Standard Time,
us@divadeus.freeserve.co.uk writes:
> Mark
>
> What do you mean by coherence? -i.e. please expand.
> Would it be closely linked to organisation?
> Like the way hydrogen and oxygen is organised into water?
>
> David M
>
Hi David,
Have been giving some thought to your questions, and while i stand by what i
said in the last post i should make a few more points clear?
If you do take a peak at The edge of Chaos i feel you will get the flavour of
what coherence in my posts is driving at?
The example of phase transition illustrates it well i feel; when water
freezes there is a configuration of inorganic patterning which is at a 'sweet spot'
between chaos and order. On one side there is white noise and on the other
crystalline repetition - but at the sweet spot of phase transition all patterns
are in a coherent 'nowhere' state.
From TEOC:
To survive in a variable environment, [a system] must be stable, to be sure,
but not so stable that it remains forever static. Nor can it be so unstable
that the slightest internal chemical fluctuation causes the whole teetering
structure to collapse.
--Stuart Kauffman, At Home in the Universe, Ch. 6
The Edge of Chaos
"Phase transition" is a term used in physics to describe the threshold
between the gaseous and the fluid, the fluid and the solid, and so on. It is a point
of transition, where ice begins to melt, water begins to evaporate, and vapor
begins to condense. In phase transition, a system becomes dynamic and
unstable, anticipating the beginning of something new.
For complex system theorist Chris Langton, the idea of phase transition also
describes the sweet spot of evolution, where an emerging balance between the
solid and the gaseous obtains new behaviors. Systems out of this dynamic and
fluid balance, on the other hand, "tend to stall in two ways. They either repeat
patterns in a crystalline fashion, or else space out into white noise." But
within the sweet spot, one finds perpetual novelty in constant transition--a
transition Langton calls the "edge of chaos.”
To address your question regarding organisation, we can see here that
organisation emerges from SQ-SQ coherence.
All the best,
Mark
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