Order vs. Randomness

[Rayaan]

One of the very fascinating things (well, to me at least) is the apparent order, coherence, and beauty in the things we perceive around us and in the cosmos at large. Although this is not necessarily a proof of God (nor any specific deity), I think this is at least consistent with the hypothesis that, at bottom, all the weird subquantum processes were initially set off by something which itself behaves in an orderly, creative, and almost purposeful manner - in ways relatively similar to the functioning of a "mind," so to speak - as opposed to behaving randomly.

If the underlying process behind everything was truly random, then it wouldn't have been possible for the universe to exist as a self-organizing system, let alone have spawned intelligent beings - aspects of itself - which can, self-referentially, learn about themselves and ponder their own existence and their origin. The countless dust particles floating in space would have been just floating there, and would have never been able to organize themselves into eyes, ears, brains, and the myriads of living things as evolution has made them to be.

Some people like to counter this argument with the infinite monkey theorem. The way this idea goes is that a monkey (or monkeys) hitting keys on a keyboard at random for an infinite amount of time would "eventually" produce the complete works of William Shakespeare. When the same reasoning is applied to the universe, the typing monkeys would be analogous to random quantum fluctuations, which can eventually produce the amount of complexity we see around us given an infinite amount of time, out of pure randomness. However, again, even this theorem doesn't make sense at the most fundamental level of reality.

If there was pure randomness at the very beginning, then it would have always stayed that way. Purely random processes can't give rise to lesser and lesser random processes or a partially random process (such as natural selection, for example). Random processes can't produce anything but randomness unless they have an order or an organizing system lurking behind them.

That being said, what is your take on this?

Do you think that, at bottom, life and everything in this universe was generated by something that can be described as being random in the true meaning of the word, or do you think that there is a subtle order lurking behind all the randomness?

[Minimalist]

One of the very fascinating things (well, to me at least) is the apparent order, coherence, and beauty in the things we perceive around us and in the cosmos at large.

Perhaps that "apparent" order, etc. is more imagined than real?

[Odysseus]

I feel like apparent order is appealing because to a certain degree correlating patterns is necessary for survival it may be a sort of anthropomorphic tendency within us. You may be interested in de broglie's pilot wave.

[Minimalist]

Let me give a concrete example of "apparent" order. ( I like the concrete... I regard philosophy as a crock.)

We have, on occasion, had theists show up touting how beautiful the universe is and how everything operates like clockwork. So why, then,

does the moon...



look like this? Earth itself is hypothesized to have suffered through the Late Heavy Bombardment which far predates life on the planet. It would seem that what we see as "order" today actually began with chaos. The universe has had billions of years to settle down.

[Zen Badger]

But according to chaos theory, it is the natural tendency for order to arise from disorder.

[Assimilate]

I think the universe is beautiful, and things develop in a step by step process over the lengths of time, such as the big bang, to the formation of stars, and the development of planets. At the same time there's that chaos whether it's black holes, super novas, and all that other potential madness. Some could say that's part of an order, but the way certain things decide which is to be picked for chaos I see as randomness. Sure gravitational pull, and projectory course help dictate that, but even to get to that point you need to weather the storm. I see it as a game of survival of the fittest. It's hard to say, but there's definitely randomness every where, and order for needed sustainability. As of right now it's hard to say exactly what it is. It's a puzzle with a a lot of the pieces still missing.

[Rayaan]

Perhaps that "apparent" order, etc. is more imagined than real?

Could be, although it depends on various things such as what you're looking at and from what angle/distance, your subjective interpretation, and so on.

The focus of my OP was more about whether or not randomness is a description of nature at the smallest scales. My vote would be, no.

I feel like apparent order is appealing because to a certain degree correlating patterns is necessary for survival it may be a sort of anthropomorphic tendency within us. You may be interested in de broglie's pilot wave.

It's an appealing thing to me also. As for de Broglie's pilot wave, I have no knowledge regarding that, but I'll look it up. Thanks.

We have, on occasion, had theists show up touting how beautiful the universe is and how everything operates like clockwork.

Theists, eh? ... Well guess what, Min? There are also atheists who think that the universe is beautiful, to the same degree as theists or perhaps even more.

Refer to orogenicman's threads where he posted many photos of stars, galaxies, and astronomical sights:

http://atheistforums.org/search.php?acti...order=desc

^ And in those threads he received many kudoses and awe-filled comments from atheist members after posting them. Even you gave him kudoses after seeing them, several times in fact. So, you're sort of creating a double standard if you single out the theists just for touting how beautiful the universe is, considering the fact that atheist members have done the same thing by posting photos of the universe and giving a thumbs up to them (including yourself) and saying how beautiful they are. But maybe you just forgot that too easily.

But according to chaos theory, it is the natural tendency for order to arise from disorder.

Yes, many processes in nature do show order arising from disorder. Nevertheless, the "disorder" is not actually proven to be truly random. Likewise, the "chaos" in chaos theory is not actually chaotic in the sense of having no underlying order behind it. It only appears to be random, but is mathematically a deterministic evolution, thus not truly random.

Chaos appears to be random because they are nonlinear and unpredictable. Chaos theory deals with things that are effectively impossible to predict and/or control, things such as turbulence, weather, the stock market, snowflake formation, and so on. But being nonlinear and unpredictable doesn't necessarily mean that those things are inherently random. It's just that we haven't recognized any patterns in them, i.e. because we lack information.

One definition of chaos that I read states, "Chaotic systems are distinguished by sensitive dependence on initial conditions and by having evolution through phase space that appears to be quite random." So again, they just appear to be random. And studies have shown that there is still an underlying order behind systems known as "chaotic."

Read the following:

We can thus understand that the name "chaos theory" did not stem from the fact that the existents it studied were truly chaotic, in the sense of not having any underlying order or structure. In fact, despite the seeming disorganization upon first impression, there is indeed a vast amount of order in systems known as "chaotic" in the technical sense of the word. Indeed, the phenomena were first named as being chaotic, and then discovered, through closer examination, to be orderly on a fundamental level. The name for the systems and the theory describing them was not born of factual observation, but of hasty beforehand assumptions which were later refuted by deeper study.

http://voices.yahoo.com/chaos-theory-not...28812.html

So a simple, if slightly imprecise, way of describing chaos is "chaotic systems are distinguished by sensitive dependence on initial conditions and by having evolution through phase space that appears to be quite random."

[...]

However, it should be noted that despite its "random" appearance, chaos is a deterministic evolution. In addition, there are chaotic systems that do not have periodic orbits (periodic orbits only survive in the boundaries of KAM tori, and for sufficiently strong perturbations from the integrable case, islands do not necessarily survive). Furthermore, in so-called quantum chaos, trajectories do not diverge exponentially because they are constrained by the fact that the entire evolution must be unitary.

http://mathworld.wolfram.com/Chaos.html

As of right now it's hard to say exactly what it is. It's a puzzle with a a lot of the pieces still missing.

I agree with you. I agree that the concept of randomness is quite a difficult one to grasp. My opinion is that we can never be able to prove that anything in nature is truly random, simply because we lack information. Pattern recognition is something retroactive. Therefore, until a pattern reveals itself, the perception is of randomness. That doesn't necessarily mean that it is truly random.

One thing that I do strongly believe, however, is that if pure randomness existed at the most fundamental level of reality, then it would've been simply impossible that this universe that we live in would ever be created out of that primordial randomness, even in an infinite amount of time.

[Rayaan]

So why, then, does the moon...



look like this?

Oh and as to this, I think that the craters on the moon actually makes it look even more beautiful, not less beautiful ...

It would've looked more dreary if it was completely round and plain on the surface, IMO.

[Odysseus]

But according to chaos theory, it is the natural tendency for order to arise from disorder.

If the system you're looking at is isolated and finite. There is no indication that the universe is either.

[BrianSoddingBoru4]

The way this idea goes is that a monkey (or monkeys) hitting keys on a keyboard at random for an infinite amount of time would "eventually" produce the complete works of William Shakespeare.

Thanks to the internet, we now know this is untrue.

Boru