ST Alpha - "Does the word chaos have a negative connotation?" (Reading a Post)

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Does the word chaos have a negative connotation?

Posted by JD (aka Jason Dean) Apr 26 '20, 20:01

I'm watching Ep3 of Quark Science: The Secret Life of Chaos and it made me wonder.

Chaos has a mathematical / scientific definition and it underpins uh, kind of everything? The fact that we can't predict things is directly related to the fact that we can understand the basics of why they work. The butterfly effect

Things self organize into things like well, us. From no overall plan beyond basic DNA, a single cell divides over and over and over and over and over and over and over with some cells specializing into brain, blood, skin, etc.

Or if one flips things around, things that seem random like river branches or the branches of the passages of our lung, can be mathematically represented rather simply as Mandelbrot proved.

I'm pretty sure I don't have a point here but perhaps it is only me that was taken by the disparity in "Chaos is great! Chaos is what killed the dinosaurs, darling." and that there is entire field of study of chaos.

.....and that doesn't even touch upon what happens down at the quantum level ;-)

I mean this is chaos at the double pendulum level which is governed by Newtonian physics (www.myphysicslab.com)

Responses:

I’m a Libra so... absolutely. -- nm - Qale Apr 26, 20:10
Would you believe ... yes. -- nm - Maxwell Smart Apr 26, 20:05
It's a neutral term in physics. It just is. - Reagen Apr 26, 20:05 1
- IM: heh -- nm - mud Apr 26, 20:06
Instinctively, yes. As humans, have tried to establish order over chaos since time began. Without luck, but we delude ourselves and keep trying. -- nm - VMan Apr 26, 20:03 4
- Which is why until relatively recently gambling was a huge industry -- (edited) - JD Apr 26, 20:08 2
  - This is a particularly nasty example, but Mother Nature has a way of always putting us back in our place. *double zero* -- nm - VMan Apr 26, 20:10 1
    - That's why one searches out the old places downtown with single zero wheels -- nm - JD Apr 26, 20:15
- I mean, without some illusion of control, we would probably just all end it now. -- nm - VMan Apr 26, 20:05

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Does the word chaos have a negative connotation?

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