Physics Week 7: Chaos Theory

Unraveling an artichoke is an adventure, for with each leaf we peel away there is another slightly smaller, slightly softer version of itself underneath.  Ultimately revealing the heart, with its utmost flavor and tenderness.  No artichoke experience is the same.  We come to the table with varying moods, levels of light, different amounts of dust particles obstructing our olfactory receptors and so forth. Let us not forget the influence of the company we hold on the ability to enjoy this luscious treat. How have we prepared it today? blanched, steamed, roasted...and since no two items in nature are identical, we simply cannot predict the degree of variation as we move towards the center.  We can however, rely on the descending size and tenderness of the segments as we move inward.  Eventually, the leaves become so tiny and fragile that we can must alter the way we eat them, or stop eating entirely.

Unpredictability is part of the lives we know.  We attempt to trick ourselves into thinking we can control the uncontrollable but in the end, chaos prevails. Chaotic systems are by nature "aperiodic, influx, qualitative, deterministic, non-linear and dynamical." Our world is a continuous, developing compilation of interrelated parts in which every small shift has a significant influence on the whole. But chaos is not as scary a term as we often think i.e. hurricanes swirling destruction and disorder, trash building up on the highly populated urban streets, hair matted in a spunky swirl after a restless night of sleep, painful menstrual cramps that feel like they will never subside or the ache and overwhelm of grief and loss that we simply cannot will away.  Lack of control can be incredibly uncomfortable, particularly in western culture, so we build damns, pave and sweep our streets and spend entire paychecks on office supplies to give a sense of order and predicability.  

The beautiful irony is that if we release the fist of safety and control and allow the natural process of our "nonlinear" and "deterministic" world to flow, we start to see the emergence of beautiful patterns. Fractals, first brought to light by Benoit Mandelbrot, are the "iterative" patterns that we see in systems like hurricanes, capillaries and artichokes.  Though there are no straight lines or perfect circles in nature, there is proof of an order that systems in our world fall into in the presence of chaos.  Mandelbrot called fractals a "language to speak of clouds" and other such irregular figments of our natural world. He discussed how a head of cauliflower is made of of many mini versions of the whole, slightly different but recognizable as part of the 'self.' The Russian Matryoshka doll was modeled after this theme, each "mini me" doll getting incrementally smaller and but maintaining a significant resemblance to the original.

We may feel these patterns occurring within our psychological and emotional landscapes as well.  In the instance of grief, there is no way of predicting the experience of any great loss.  Each person is different, each loss is unique and each iteration of emotional overwhelm is its own animal.  It may feel like the grief is as overpowering as the most intense storm that ever existed.  Nothing makes sense and all order is lost.  Supporting a griever is also scary as there is no way of knowing how and when it is a good time to offer our support. The whole mess is filled with a series of educated guesses and intuition.  If we were somehow able to draw the waves and cycles of this painful, non-linear process, we may see

some ordered patterns reveal themselves.  As we cycle through and back around to memories and their attached emotions our process begins to take shape. With each iteration, the experience shifts and the pain, like a ninja, begins to slowly move away from center stage; taking a few dramatic cameos along the way. Though the hurt may never subside, if we can keep putting one foot in front of the other, a new version of the world we once knew will begin to unfold.  Likewise, through the process of healing, may emerge a newer versions of ourselves, with the same essence and physical recognizability.  Our "rebirthed" selves show subtle variations as they involve newfound perspectives, coping strategies, scars, associations, tolerance levels and wisdom.  In this sense, with every chaotic experience, we create new order to maintain our survival.

References:

http://www.duke.edu/~mjd/chaos/chaosp.html
http://theparty.netraver.org.za/chaos.html
Capra, Fritjof. The Web of Life. A New Synthesis of Mind and Matter.