Chaos

Some systems are too chaotic to be adequately predicted by mathematical models of such.  A simple example is a two-hinged pendulum; the path of the far point on the second pendulum cannot adequately be predicted beyond a very short amount of time once it is set in motion.  The system does not follow the predictable path of a single-hinged pendulum, which can very accurately be modeled with physics equations of motion.  (For a visual aid, google “double pendulum light” and look at the ‘images’).  Another, more familiar example, though the frame of reference of dynamic systems may be unfamiliar is weather forecasting.  Meteorologists can make mostly accurate predictions concerning weather for about one week to ten days ahead of time, but not much farther than this.  This is because weather is so dynamic.  So dynamic that this is where the “butterfly effect” was derived from; that is, the flap of a butterfly’s wing in one part of the earth could cause a cascade of reactions in the atmosphere that could produce a thunderstorm – or not – in another part of the earth.  This may be a stretch, and, yes, meteorologists and climatologists can use average patters for relatively close approximations of weather farther ahead of time, but these are, again, approximations, and not high percentage predictions, like the one-week weather forecast.  If this is true for pendulums and weather, how much more so is it true for humans and their behavior…extremely unpredictable, at least on a micro scale.  Now, some psychologists, mentalists, sociologists and other purveyors of human consciousness and behavior, say that the most predictable thing about us is that we think we are unpredictable, when, in fact, we are extraordinarily predictable.  For example, when asked to pick a number between one and ten randomly, upwards of 40% will choose the number seven, though it should only be around 10% if we were truly unpredictable.  There is still unpredictably amid the patterns of predictability built into reality…some of which is beautiful and some of which is not.  We would predict a giraffe’s tongue to be blue, but it is…in all fairness, we would not predict a giraffe, but it is.  We would not have predicted the American colonies to win the war against the British Empire, but they gained their independence…but again, who would have predicted a little bit of tea would have upset some colonists stomach so much that they felt compelled to use gun powder to express their indigestion.  That is just it:  human behavior is, in one sense is predictable, and in another sense, is totally unpredictable.  If it – if we – were totally unpredictable, then chaos would ensue, and some say it already has.  But I may suggest, in the spirit of Voltaire’s infamous Pangalos, that this is the best of all possible worlds, in the sense of it being a ‘cosmos’ (order) and not total ‘chaos’ (disorder) – not just physically but metaphysically.  Is it possible that God is restraining well over 99% of all possible evil (or metaphysical chaos) at this very moment?