Physics Week Six (June 11): Chaos Theory

"Ordered chaos" is quite an ironic term, and is again another example of how yin and yang exist within each other. Just like entropy, things in the universe tend towards disarray and disorder, yet we like things to be in order. Chaos theory is similar in the sense that the world is nonlinear. The way I look at it is like my bedroom. We as humans tend to like symmetry and order, and so I clean my room as often as I can, but the natural way of things is towards randomness and chaos and I find myself cleaning my room again and again despite my desire for tidiness. Sometimes it's all about perspective as well. When we look closely enough into snowflakes, vegetables (i.e. romanesco broccoli), fruits--all natural-occurring substances--we see that it's all ordered chaos in the sense of how the molecules are arranged.

Fractals as we see in things like romanesco broccoli I've mentioned above are part of extremely complex systems which are usually found in nature as geometric figures. The first thing that comes to mind for me when I think of fractals is an association with sacred geometry. This extremely complicated system of naturally occurring objects and patterns show the connection of the micro to the macro and how we are all connected. There are patterns all around us that we are often just simply not aware of until we look more closely and teach us the idea interconnectedness. The energy we give out through our actions, words, and feelings are all interwoven into a web of complexities that we are still exploring and as acupuncturists, the relation between us and nature is so integral in our medicine. 

Consciousness out of chaos? In our readings for this week, a quote by David Chalmers stood out to me, "The problem of consciousness is perhaps the largest outstanding obstacle in our quest to scientifically understand reality." As humans, we spend a lot of time and money looking outwards into space to try to expand and understand the universe out there, but much of what we don't understand is within us, our consciousness. It is so complex and still has so many unexplained nuances. Western medicine has an idea on how the physical brain works, but where is our consciousness in our bodies? In TCM, the Heart holds our Shen and every other major yin organ holds another important part of our consciousness. I believe consciousness is made up of a complex system of parts of us that we don't quite understand in modern terms which is why scientifically it is so difficult to "dissect" and explain.