[MD] Crystallising Chaos.

[Squonkonguitar at aol.com]

Mark: Hello Case.
The quantitative values mathematicians hold in their  experience are
patterns of static intellectual quality which form  relationships that are
aesthetic.
The pattern 6 does not stand alone for  the mathematician; 6 is a series of  
aesthetic relationships: 2 x 3,  12/2, a geometric shape with internal angles
of 360/6 degrees, the square  root of 36, 2/3 of 9, one tenth of 60, the
number of  equilateral  triangles in a hexagon, a component in any variety of 
geometric   progressions, etc...
Numbers are moral only in their relationships, and no  wonder a 90 degree
triangle is called a, 'right' triangle because a wall  built at that angle to
the ground is a good wall; one could think of a wall  like that having
attained a, 'sweet spot?'

[Case]
Van Gogh's  "Irises" sold for $49m. 
B-52H Stratofortress bomber cost $42.9 million  each
George Soros gave $50M to an Anti-Poverty Project
Judge Tosses $50M  Award in Vioxx Case.
These are all statements about esthetic and moral  values. Isn't economics
where value is quantified? And come to think of it,  what could be more
chaotic than economics? ...would love to find a sweet spot  there.
 
Mark: Maths is pure abstraction and aesthetic.
The examples you provide have nothing to do with this.
The examples you provide here seem 100% social, 'My willy is bigger than  
your willy' stuff.

Mark: Fair enough.
As you say, the term value is,  'Ambiguous' so if we say, 'values which do  
not value structure' we've  said enough?
This may even be a formal definition of chaos  itself?

[Case]
Actually what is cool about chaos is that includes the  order and the
disorder at the same time. Order is simply one form disorder  can take. 
The Great Pyramid just dissipates more slowly than a whirlpool in  a toilet
bowl.
 
Mark: Pyramids and whirlpools are structures. Chaos isn't. Or is  it?

[Mark]
Non-linear dynamics, as far as i understand it, suggest  there are as  yet 
unacknowledged structures at  work.

[Case]
Nonlinear dynamics looks at how order emerges from  disorder and how it
returns to disorder. It is a bit like primes which are  infinite in number.
Or the irrational numbers which are infinite  qualitatively and
quantitatively. Simple relationships produce complex  results and higher
order relationships.

"Research in the Center for  Nonlinear Dynamics concerns complex dynamics,
instabilities, chaos, and  pattern formation in systems driven far from
thermodynamic equilibrium."
-  From the homepage of The Center for Nonlinear Dynamics
University of  Texas
_http://chaos.ph.utexas.edu/_ (http://chaos.ph.utexas.edu/) 
 
Mark: I thought we, actually you, had drawn a distinction bewteen GOFC of  
the, 'first there was GOFC and then...' and chaos/butterflys/strange  
atractors..ect?

Mark: You know how it is Case?
In promoting a new  paradigm it can be useful to highjack previous metaphors 
and use them for one's  own ends?
The arrow of moral evolution is stolen straight from the arrow of  time or
thermodynamics.
I agree that the path of least resistance is  important. The way i look at it
is this: It's a question of balancing things  up such that control becomes as 
light as a feather.
DQ seems to get in on the  act when massive forces are balanced in such a way
as to cancel each other,  and then the slightest touch cannot only move them
both, but do so with  elegance and grace as if they were not there at all.
In this way huge forces  are used to paint delicate images.
Make any sense?

[Case}
Very  nicely said. This is in the spirit of Pirsig's observations on the
carbon  atom that you mentioned early on. But what do you call it when the
dice fall  the other way and Godzilla stomps on Bambi.
 
Mark: The waste product of evolution.
Love,
Mark