Chaos game

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: I love chaos theory, and gaia theory. Gaia theory is the idea that a living system spontaneously responds to stress in its own best interest. For example, if there were only black flowers in a field and the field was getting too hot for the plants because of the absorbtion of heat, white flowers would just appear in the field. This is the over simple version, but you get the idea. The theory is named after the mythological Gaia, or Earth goddess. But it's very easy for me to think of it as the God theory. And it is also interesting in that it accounts for the immense complexity of the living systems on the earth. Some ecologists have taken it further to note that the probability of such complexities to be able to sustain themselves is virtually nil wihtout some intention to do so. The chemical and physical parameters are actually quite slim that allow life to exist as it does here. Just to give you an example...if temperature varied around 4 degrees, chemical mixture of the air, nitrogen cycle, hydrogen cycle, carbon cycle, hydrologic cycle, percentage of fresh water, amount of UV radiation, speed at which the earth rotates, tilt of the earth, magnetic polarization, etc, life would not be possible. And then since all life is interconnected, these factors had to fall in line long enough for all the connections to be established and all their variants...that takes generations of life, and at random! Even the geologic record isn't long enough to account for it. It just boggles the mind, zillions of specific single interconnections. We live in the midst of something so amazing but we take it for granted. It's like catching a ball, to make a robot do it, it has to solve thousands of trigonoetric functions in less than a second, but we just reach up and grab it. : Oh, anyway, I got carried away...I intended to post the Chaos game. Take a sheet of paper and put 6 points around it at any interval. You can try 3 points to speed the game up. Then if you have 6 points, label each 1-6. If three points, label one "1,2" the next "3,4" etc. Then make a single random point anywhere inside the perimeter of the others. Next take a die and roll it. Whatever number comes up place a point halfway between the point you drew at random and the corresponding numbered point. (For example: I roll 3. I put a point halfway between the random point and the one labeled 3) Then roll again and put a new point between the last point drawn and the one corresponding to the die. Keep doing it until the points begin to merge into lines. You'll be amazed at what comes out of it. You'll see exactly how chaos theory works. It's really cool! : : Let's face it: when an earthquake off the coast of Indonesia sent a tsumani racing across the Indian Ocean last year, wiping out hundreds of thousands of Asian and African peasants (along with a few Westerners), the determining factor as to who survived and who didn't appears to have been random chance; those who happened to be away from the beach when it hit survived, while many of those who were in the wrong place at the right time did not. : : : : _________________ : : : : I used to struggle hard with the line between chance and sovereignty, free will and predestination, etc. I read a book, (oddly enough about math) that put my problem to rest. It was called Chaos : The making of a new science by James Gleik. In it he talks about a new definition of chaos, order within disorder. There would be a picture of some random thing, like a leaf or something, and under the microscope, he'd zoom in and it would look like a bunch or random stuff, but he'd zoom again and it would be all these crazy shapes and shades of colors. He went into fractal geometry and completely blew my mind. I never did fully absorb the mathematical aspect to the book, but I certainly took a lot from it. It seems that some things can appear random from one angle or distance, and from another, some beautiful image. : : Anyway, I still believe chance occurs to some degree anyway, at least from our perspective, but also that God knew everything that would occur before he set the world in motion. : : : : Ecc. 9:9-11 : : 9 Live joyfully with the wife whom you love all the days of your vain life which He has given you under the sun, all your days are vainity; for that is your portion in life, and in the labor which you perform under the sun. : : 10 Whatever your hand finds to do, do it with your might; for there is no work or device or knowlege or wisdom in the grave where you are going. : : 11 I returned and saw under the sun that- : : The race is not to the swift, : : Nor the battle to the strong, : : Nor bread to the wise, : : Nor riches to men of understanding, : : Nor favor to men of skill; : : But time and chance happen to them all.

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