Chaos is the natural state of the universe, but like... in a good way
Order, disorder, and beauty within chaos
Some luscious waterfall sounds to accompany your read.
Back in high school, I used to go for runs on this trail that would loop by this surprisingly large waterfall. I’d stop there and just sit and observe. Listening to the wshhhh sound of the water cascading down against the rocks. Letting my eyes track one piece of water as it fell over the cliff’s edge through its journey down to the bottom. My focus would then broaden to take in the entirety of the falls. The waterfall was consistent, but contained a whole world of details that shifted by the second, leaving me forever fascinated. I wouldn’t have said this at the time, but this melodic waterfall is actually a beautiful form of chaos. As is most of the natural world.
It may sound anarchist to say that chaos is the natural state of the world, but it's far more pleasant than it initially appears. To be able to see the beauty and pervasiveness of chaos, let’s first look at the concepts of order and disorder:
We can define order as shaping something into a form of functional benefit for its creator.
And we can see disorder as the disruption of the ability for that order to serve its function.
It is easy to mix up chaos and disorder. Chaos is a naturally occurring state. Flowers in a field and clouds in the sky are both forms of chaos. Meanwhile, disorder can only come after the collapse of an ordered system.
Think of a forest. A forest is a form of chaos. It is not uniform, nor does it exist to serve a human purpose. If someone cuts down a few trees from this forest to build a log cabin, this is now a form of order. Order exists when the system is crafted to serve a functioning purpose for its creator. In this case, that purpose is a peaceful weekend getaway home. Suppose there is a terrible storm and a nearby tree falls and destroys the roof. As it can no longer fulfill its functioning purpose, it is now a disordered system.
One misconception about chaos is that it is patternless. Rather than random, chaos lacks uniformity or sameness and instead contains generative patterns. These patterns act like flexible lego blocks. They allow the thing to be true to what it is, while fitting in perfect unison with its environment.
Nature is a beautiful chaotic system created out of generative patterns. Consider the tree. It holds the patterns of roots, a trunk, branches, and leaves. Each serves a core purpose to make a tree what it is and allow it to survive. But, this system of patterns looks very different in the Swiss alps than it does in the Amazon rainforest. It provides the tree a building guide, but not a specific, rigid way it has to be implemented.
The architect and philosopher, Christopher Alexander describes this balance between similarity and variety in his book, The Timeless Way of Building:
"Nature is never modular. Nature is full of almost similar units (waves, raindrops, blades of grass)—but though the units of one kind are all alike in their broad structure, no two units are ever alike in detail.
1. The same broad features keep recurring over and over again.
2. In their detailed appearance these broad features are never twice the same.
And continues:
"The patterns out of which the wave is made are always the same... Yet at the same time, the actual concrete waves themselves are always different. This happens because patterns interact differently at every spot. They interact differently with one another. And they interact differently with the details of their surroundings. So every actual wave is different, at the same time that all its patterns are the same precisely as the patterns in the other waves."
Another thread in this discussion is the concept of entropy. Entropy, as defined by Vocabulary.com is, “The idea that everything in the universe eventually moves from order to disorder.” For example, after I clean up my bedroom, it only gets messier each day as I live in it. A jacket thrown in the corner. Dust accumulating on the desk. Only when I disrupt the system to clean it back up does it get cleaner. Never does it get cleaner on its own.
Or, imagine you visit the beach and build an epic sandcastle with a moat and a fully functioning drawbridge. The next day you go back to admire your work and… it’s a pile of mush. Maybe the wind got to it, or the tide, or some kid ran up and kicked it. But never would it be possible for you to go back the next day and find that the sandcastle looked even better and more pristine than the second you finished building it. The beach sandcastle’s natural motion is towards destruction.
Here’s how Stephen Hawking describes it:
“You may see a cup of tea fall off a table and break into pieces on the floor... But you will never see the cup gather itself back together and jump back on the table. The increase of disorder, or entropy, is what distinguishes the past from the future, giving a direction to time.”
Before discovering the differences between chaos and disorder, I took entropy to mean that *everything* is always trending toward disarray and destruction. But now, what feels more true is that order has a natural tendency to decay into disorder. Meanwhile, chaos doesn't decay. In fact, chaos's natural motion is to proliferate as its generative patterns continue to spread. The guiding instructions provide structure while leaving the flexibility to adjust to the environment.
Perhaps you can begin to imagine how we can create forms of order that mimic the admirable qualities of chaos. But, we can dive deeper into that discussion together another day. For now, I'll leave you with this quote from Alexander on the beauty of nature:
"In all this sameness, we never feel oppressed by sameness. In all this variety, we never feel lost"