Chaos and Complexity Theory

[Rick]

Anyone studied chaos/complexity theory?

I've just barely scratched the surface, and it's extremely fascinating.

One thing that stood out to me is that it says there is no such thing as luck, and chance isn't as we've been led to believe. For example, it discusses "gamblers ruin", where winning and losing streaks are actually real, not imaginary. So, gamblers are right when they say "know when to hold 'em and know when to fold 'em". Also, the theory that patterns are created and repeated on multiple levels. I saw pictures of coast lines from space that were enlarged multiple times, and the same patterns were there on levels down to the surface.

Also, discussions of the necessity of "living on the edge of chaos" and it's relation to success and failure are just as interesting.

This subject is very INTJish, and guaranteed to keep a thinker aware in ponderance.

Here are a few links as an introduction.

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One for the brainiacs out there...

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[Nearby]

I have done little research on chaos theory. But it composes the general idea that no matter how many constants an experiment has, there will always be different results.

It is unfortunate that patterns (though apparent in classical sence can be found) break down as you reach a quantum level and worse when you scale down to string theory

[DeadSpace]

Love it, studied it, and have regular arguements with my intp brother about it, he prefers a more ordered, rule driven world view.

[acyckowski]

One thing that stood out to me is that it says there is no such thing as luck, and chance isn't as we've been led to believe. For example, it discusses "gamblers ruin", where winning and losing streaks are actually real, not imaginary. So, gamblers are right when they say "know when to hold 'em and know when to fold 'em". Also, the theory that patterns are created and repeated on multiple levels. I saw pictures of coast lines from space that were enlarged multiple times, and the same patterns were there on levels down to the surface.[/url]

Don't get caught up in the hype. Chaos is useful and interesting, but it tends to become a religion of sorts for some folks. The use of cards to "prove" chaos is misleading. Card games are deterministic systems, but appear random because of the shuffling of the deck. Yeah, I know, every probability class in the world uses cards as an example of concept, but the underlying assumption is a truly random shuffle. This assumption is technically false, but for the average wanna-be card sharp is close enough. Since Chaos depends on a deterministic system (check) and is highly sensitive to initial conditions (check), card games ought to be Chaotic, not probablistic.

The jury is still out on whether randomness exists, and probably won't return a verdict until every last "random" event is discovered to have an underlying algorithm. Until then, be wary of those who claim Chaos explains everything: it doesn't.

[Dystopia]

I agree entirely. Chaos theory doesn't explain everything, It simply states, at its most fundamental level, that there are so many factors involved in any situation that nothing is predictable. That nothing makes sense.

I've briefly looked into the more technical, detailed side of chaos modelling as a (failed) mathematics student. I have to say that I found it very tedious. However, I think what we're talking about here is more of a philosophical debate than a scientific one. Which is probably why it can become somewhat like a "religion."

There are endless examples of how one event can be caused by an event at the other end of the universe, so I won't bore anyone with a long and tedious example. Any that involve humans inevitably come back to neurotransmitters in the brain. Any that involve nature come back to the butteryfly/tornado analogy. In both cases, they progress, ad absurdium, to sub-atomic particles. The debate then becomes a matter of whether such particles move randomly. They seem to move without any particular cause or reason, but then there could always be a force that we don't know about that causes them to move in a quasi-random way. If we ever discovered it, we would then have to find out what caused that force to behave in a certain way. Ad absurdium, ad infinitum.

If we accept that everything has a cause and an effect, then this raises the question, what was the first event? What was before the Big Bang? What was before "God"? And therefore, is time linear, circular, infinte, finite? As to whether time is the 4th dimension, and to how many dimensions there are, the only result of thinking about such things too much is insanity.

As to the "fractal" idea of enlarging a coastline several times, it still leads the debate nowhere. Sure, if you can zoom out of something an infinite number of times, by an infinite number of different zoom levels, you will find patterns, because there are an infinite number of chances of finding a pattern if you do so for long enough. But can you really zoom out infinitely, or does it have to come to an end?

String theory is also a dead-end. It was a way for scientists to try and abstract what the smallest particle would be, that would allow nature to be the way it seems to be. "If planets move in this way and sub-atomic particles move in this way, what would a particle be like that would allow such a nature to exist?" Nobody has ever seen a string under a microscope. And string theory would have to be refined an infinite number of times to get a true answer.

Such thoughts are infuriating for me as an INTJ, who likes resolutions and decisions. I could drive myself insane thinking about such things. Or maybe I already did.

I should introduce myself. I am James, and new to this forum. I probably chose the wrong thread to start on, one that's almost dead, and quite unpopular in the first place. However, we INTJs aren't supposed to care what people think. So if I'm just having a conversation with myself, it was a pretty good one. Pleased to meet you guys anyway.

[acyckowski]

Hello, James. Welcome.

I sort of expected to pick a fight with my comments, so thanks for the backup.